Free Melting the Ice by Loreth Anne White

interest in biological weapons and urban terrorism and that she had a file of information devoted exclusively to the topic, along with Website addresses.
    “I said, where are we going?”
    “My hotel. I told you I need a shower.”
    “Well, I don’t.” She pulled free. “I’m going home. If you need me you can call me there.”
    “No.” He grabbed her arm. “I need you to make a phone call to the Vancouver library, find out about those books—when Amy took them out, what else she may have borrowed. You can do that from my room.”
    “You expect me to jump at your command? You’ve got the social grace of a military despot, you know. Didn’t your parents teach you anything?”
    She was lashing out at him. Good. It was better that way. “You’re right, they left my education to the military. Everything I learned about life, I learned in the army.”
    She seemed to halt at his words, her eyes flared briefly in question. But she said nothing.
    “Come.” He ushered her up the wide stone stairs of the White River Presidential Hotel.
    The doorman snapped to attention as they approached, and held open the door. Rex gave his thanks with a curt nod and escorted Hannah into the cavernous hotel lobby.
    She said nothing as he ushered her into the elevator and pressed the button for the sixth floor.
    The doors closed them in. Just the two of them, alone, as the elevator started to hum. It threw their predicament into stark relief.
    After six years of nothing, no contact, they were now trapped together. But the feelings between them were no different. Only deeper, darker, more convoluted. He had to try to stay clear of that abyss. He had to keep his head and keep her safe. He had to clear this case and get the hell out of here. Leave before they destroyed each other.
    But she was sucking him in, even now as she watched the numbers of the floors flash by. He could feel her feminine presence touching him in this confined space. He could feel the energy coming from her, waves of it. Passion and anger and hate and pain. He yearned to reach out and quell it, stroke it away.
    He thrust his hands into the pockets of his loose sweatpants. Deal with it, Logan. A few more days and you’ll be out of her life.
    Hannah just about leaped through the elevator doors as they opened onto the lush carpet of the sixth floor. She started quickly along the corridor to the left. He reached out and caught the fabric of her dress in the small of her back. “No, this way.”
    He turned and made his way down the corridor to the right. She stormed after him, the carpet swallowing the angry impact of her feet.
    Hannah stood in the hotel room. There was one large double bed. Soft white diaphanous curtains were tied back from French doors that opened onto a small balcony.
    A bathroom led off to the right. The only sign that anyone occupied the suite was a laptop on the black-lacquered desk under a small window that was graced with the same white bridal curtains.
    Rex pulled his T-shirt over his head and tossed it onto the bed. He yanked open the drawer of the bedside table, pulled out a telephone directory and tossed it onto the desk. “There. You’ll find the Vancouver Public Library number in there. And here.” He tossed a bag onto the chair. “Amy’s library material is in that bag.”
    Hannah could see the scar that sliced across the left side of his chest from underarm to nipple. She saw the dark hair that ran in a slim dense whorl from below his navel into the track pants slung low on his narrow hips. The suggestive swirl of hair lured her eyes down his flat belly. It whispered of what lay beyond. She’d been there. Her hands had once traced that line…her mind swam back.
    He was watching her again. She grabbed the phone book and started flicking through the pages, looking for the library number.
    Rex marched into the bathroom. The door closed behind him with a click. Hannah could hear the shower. She picked up the phone and punched in the