Hot Ice by Cherry Adair Page B

to scale the balcony—she'd be gone like the wind. Everything next door was ready for a lightning-fast getaway. A minute and a half—tops—and she'd be a memory.
    "I can understand your annoyance," Taylor assured him with utmost sincerity. "Nobody likes to be put in a compromising position. But quite frankly, your request is unreasonable. And might I point out—it's downright lazy of you to think you can simply ask , and I'll hand over my take just because I did something you couldn't do, and it's easier for you."
    "Has it occurred to you," he asked dangerously, "that I might be a good guy?"
    The look he was giving her right now, from very close range, was that of a man contemplating dismemberment, and the stuffing of a body— her body —into a convenient viaduct. "Not really. No."
    Taylor turned to look at the door as a loud knock sounded. "Who—" In trooped four men in dark suits. Hunt didn't seem surprised to see them. Well, she was. And not in a good way.
    "This is how you interrogate the prisoner?" the man from the elevator asked dryly. He waited until the others were inside, then closed the door and leaned against it, hands in his pockets. So much for thinking he looked like a nice guy earlier, Taylor thought as her heart picked up speed and her brain riffled through escape possibilities.
    Jesus, she was a piece of work. Hunt could practically hear the cogs turning in that quick brain of hers. "Kept her from running," he told his men. "Draw your weapons before I release her."
    Her fake green eyes widened, and a little color leached out of her cheeks as all four men reached beneath their jackets for their guns. Her eyes came back to Hunt's. "Isn't this overkill?" she said.
    "I didn't tell them to shoot you," he told her flatly, as if that order was an option at any time. Still holding her wrists, he levered himself off her, pulling her to her feet with him as he stood.
    "Anything?" Aries asked, bending to pick up the wig and silicone pads from the floor. He shot Hunt an amused glance as he tossed them onto the rumpled bed. "You have an interesting interrogation technique."
    "Expediency is my middle name." Hunt nudged Taylor Lindsay Kincaid toward a straight-backed chair and reluctantly let go of her wrists. She rubbed her skin with her fingertips, and he winced inwardly as he saw the red marks he'd left on her fair skin. He got over that little ping of guilt in a hurry by reminding himself exactly how slippery she was.
    "Sit," he told her firmly. She was like a coiled spring. He didn't see how she could even imagine she was going to make a break for it with five armed men in the room. But he was damned sure she was trying to come up with a way. This time he wasn't taking any chances.
    Bishop, Aries, Hallowell, and Tate spread themselves about the room. Hunt took the chair across the small table from her.
    She gave him a stony glare. "What's next?" she asked tightly. "Rubber hoses? Water torture?"
    "You do have an overactive imagination, don't you?"
    "I'm not imagining this ." She looked around. Her gaze resting briefly on each gun before coming back to Hunt. "Who are your friends? Feds?"
    "We work for a counterterrorist organization called T-FLAC."
    "Never heard of it."
    "If you were a terrorist, you would have."
    "Really?" She glanced at each man in turn, up and down, tie to shoes, and back again. "Geez, the government must be paying really well these days. Three-thousand-dollar suits and six-hundred-dollar shoes?" She shook her head. "I don't think so." She wiggled her fingers. "Let's see some ID, guys."
    "Not government. No ID. Terrorist Force Logistical Command is a privately funded, freelance antiterrorist organization."
    She shot him a skeptical look. "And I'm supposed to believe this on faith? Exactly who do you 'freelance' for ?"
    "Anyone with a terrorist problem."
    She raised a dark brow. "America?"
    "Frequently."
    "In other words you work for the highest bidder. You guys are mercenaries."
    "You could say