Two Alone

by Sandra Brown

  “I’m not lying.”

  He swallowed. “I searched the house before you came home, Miss Aislinn Andrews. There’s no man living here.”

  Now it was her turn to swallow, and she did so with great difficulty. She willed her heart to settle down and stop drumming against her ribs with mounting anxiety. Her palms were perspiring. She pressed them together beneath the table. “How did you know my name?”

  “Your mail.”

  “You went through my mail?”

  “You sound alarmed. Do you have something to hide, Miss Andrews?” She refused to be baited and kept her lips firmly closed over the vituperative rejoinder that pressed against them from the inside. “You got a telephone bill today.”

  His sly grin set off her temper again. “They’ll catch you and send you back.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  His calm response rendered her mute and made the threatening, argumentative speech she was about to voice unnecessary. Instead she watched him raise the carton of milk to his mouth, tilt his head back and drink thirstily.

  His neck was deeply tanned. The sliding action of his Adam’s apple intrigued her as a hypnotist’s pendulum would. He drank until there was no more, then set the empty carton down and wiped his mouth with the back of the hand that still held the knife.

  “If you know they’ll catch you, why make it harder on yourself?” She asked out of a sincere curiosity to know. “Why not just turn yourself in?”

  “Because there is something I have to do first,” he said grimly. “Before it’s too late.”

  She didn’t pursue her question further, because she thought it might jeopardize her well-being to know what criminal acts he was contemplating. However, if she could get him to talk, maybe he would relax his guard and she could make a dash for the back door. Then once in the garage, she would hit the button that raised the automatic door and...

  “How did you get in?” she asked abruptly, realizing for the first time that there had been no visible signs of forced entry.

  “Through a bedroom window.”

  “And how did you escape from the prison camp?”

  “I deceived someone who trusted me.” His hard mouth curled derisively. “Of course he was a fool to trust an Indian. Everybody knows Indians are untrustworthy. Right, Miss Andrews?”

  “I don’t know any Indians,” she answered softly, not wanting to provoke him. She disliked the way his taut body seemed about to snap with tension.

  But by trying not to aggravate him, she only seemed to have aroused his temper. His eyes pored over her slowly, spilling heat on everything they touched. She was made painfully aware of her blondness, her blue eyes and fair skin. His sneer deepened into a scowl. “No, I don’t suppose you do.” Faster than her eyes could monitor the motion, he crammed the knife into his waistband and reached for her. “Get up.”

  “Why?” She gasped with fright as he roughly pulled her to her feet. Holding her back against his chest, with his hands on her shoulders, he propelled her out of the kitchen. On their way through the door, he switched off the light. The hallway was dark. She stumbled ahead of him. He was going toward the bedroom and her mouth went dry with fear. “You got what you came for.”

  “Not all of it.”

  “You said you wanted food,” she countered frantically, digging her heels into the carpet. “If you leave now, I promise not to call the police.”

  “Now why don’t I believe you, Miss Andrews?” he asked in a voice as smooth as melting ice cream.

  “I swear it!” she cried, despising her weakness and the panicked sound of her voice.

  “Promises have been made to me before by white men...and white women. I’ve learned to be skeptical.”

  “But I had nothing to do with that. I—oh, God, what are you going to do?”

  He shoved her into the bedroom. As soon as he had cleared the door, he closed it behind them. “Take a wild guess, Miss Andrews.” He spun her around and pinned her between the door and his unyielding body. He closed his hand around her throat just under her chin and bent his head down low over hers. “What do you think I’m going to do?”

  “I...I...don’t know.”

  “You’re not one of these sexually repressed ladies who entertain rape fantasies, are you? Hmm?”

  “No!” she gasped.

  “You’ve never fantasized about being taken by a savage?”

  “Let me go, please.”

  She turned her head away and he let her, but he didn’t release her. If anything, he moved nearer, lewdly pressing himself against her, holding her against the door with his hardness and strength.

  Aislinn squeezed her eyes shut and bit her lower lip in fear and humiliation. His long, tapering fingers strummed her throat, moving up and down in an evocative rhythm.

  “Well I have been in prison for a long, long time.” His fingers slid down her chest. He hooked his index finger on the top button of her blouse, then fiddled with it until it popped open. She whimpered. His face was so close to hers that she could feel his breath falling warmly on her skin. It struck her cheeks, her nose, her mouth. She inhaled it by necessity, hating the forced intimacy of breathing the air he expelled.

  “So if you’re real smart,” he warned silkily, “you won’t give me any ideas.”

  When she realized what he was telling her, her eyes sprang up to meet his. They clashed, a meeting of wills and a battle of tempers. For a long moment they seemed suspended, taking each other’s measure, analyzing the strengths and weaknesses.

  Then gradually he pulled back. When his body was no longer making contact with hers, she almost sank to the floor with relief.

  “I told you I needed food and rest.” There was a strange new quality to his voice now. A gruffness.

  “You’ve rested.”

  “Sleep, Miss Andrews. I need sleep.”

  “You mean...you intend to stay? Here?” she asked, aghast. “For how long?”

  “Until I decide to leave,” he answered obliquely. He crossed the room and turned on the lamp beside her bed.

  “You can’t!”

  He returned to where she still stood by the door and took her hand. This time he pulled her along behind him. “You’re hardly in a position to argue. Just because I haven’t harmed you yet doesn’t mean that I won’t if I’m desperate enough.”

  “I’m not afraid of you.”

  “Yes you are.” He dragged her into the adjoining bathroom with him and slammed the door. “Or you should be. Look, get this straight,” he said through clenched teeth, “I have something to do, and nothing, especially not an Anglo princess like you, is going to stop me from doing it. I knocked a guard unconscious to escape prison and I made it this far on foot; I have nothing to lose but my life, and it ain’t worth a damn where I’ve been. So don’t press your luck, lady. You’ve got me as a houseguest for as long as I want to stay.” To punctuate his threat, he yanked the knife out of his waistband.

  She sucked in a sharp breath as though he had pricked her belly button with the tip of the blade. “That’s more like it,” he said, gauging her fear. “Now sit down.” He hitched his chin toward the commode. Aislinn, keeping her eyes trained on the knife, backed up until she bumped into the bathroom fixture and then collapsed onto its lid.

  Greywolf laid the knife on the edge of the bathtub, well out of her reach. He pulled off his boots and socks, then began tugging the tail of his tattered shirt from the waistband of his jeans. Aislinn, sitting as motionless as a statue, said nothing as he peeled it off his shoulders and shrugged out of it.

  The center of his chest was smattered with dark hair. The brown skin was stretched tightly over curved muscles that looked incredibly hard. His nipples were small and dark. The skin of his belly was stretched as taut as a trampoline, and the shallow part of it around his navel was dusted with black hair. The crinkly fan narrowed into a sleek stripe that disappeared into his jeans.

  He began unbuckling the silver belt at his waist. “What are you doin
g?” Aislinn asked in alarm.

  “I’m going to take a shower.” He undid the belt, letting it hang open as he bent toward the taps in the bathtub. He turned them until water was gushing from the faucet full blast. Even over that roaring sound, Aislinn heard the rasp of his jeans’ zipper as he lowered it.

  “Where I can see you?” she cried.

  “Where I can see you.” He calmly pushed the jeans down past his hips and buttocks and stepped out of them.

  Aislinn’s eyes closed. She was overcome by a wave of vertigo and gripped the lid of the commode beneath her to keep from swaying. Never in her life had she been so outraged, so insulted, so assaulted.

  Because to look at his nakedness was to be assaulted by masculinity incarnate. He was perfectly proportioned. His shoulders were broad, his chest deep. His limbs were long and leanly muscled, testimonies to agility and strength. Where his skin was smooth, it looked like polished bronze, yet alive and supple. Where it was hair-dusted, it looked warm and touch-inviting.

  He raised the lever of the shower and stepped beneath its powerful spray. He didn’t draw the curtain. Keeping her head averted, Aislinn drew in several restorative breaths.

  “What’s wrong, Miss Andrews? Haven’t you ever seen a naked man before? Or is it seeing a naked Indian that has you so visibly upset?”

  She whipped her head around, stung by his mocking tone. She wouldn’t have him thinking she was either a prudish old maid or a racial bigot. But her verbal barb died unspoken on her tongue. She was unable to utter a sound, paralyzed by the sight of his lathered hands as they slid over his sleek nakedness. The water must have been hot, for the mirrors were fogging up and the atmosphere was as steamy as an Erskine Caldwell novel. The mist settled on her own skin. She could barely draw the heavy, sultry air into her lungs.

  “As you can see,” he taunted as his soapy hands slid to the lower part of his body, “we’re equipped just like any other man.”

  Well, not quite, Aislinn thought with a secret part of her mind, as her eyes took one forbidden glance down his torso to where that beautiful body hair provided a dense, lush base for his impressive manhood.

  “You’re crude,” she said scathingly, “as well as being criminal.”

  He smiled cynically and whipped off the makeshift headband, tossing it out of the tub and down on top of his other clothes. He ducked his head under the shower’s spray just long enough to moisten it, then picked up a bottle of shampoo. He sniffed the top of it before pouring a dollop of the creamy stuff into his hand, slapping it to the top of his head and lathering it into a white foam that soon coated the ebony strands of his hair. He scrubbed mercilessly.

  “This smells better than prison shampoo,” he remarked as he ran his fingers through the luxuriant lather.

  Aislinn said nothing because a plan was formulating in her mind. If he had put his head under the shower nozzle to wet his hair, he’d have to put it under there longer to rinse all the shampoo off, wouldn’t he? She didn’t have long to think her plan through. Already he was squeezing the suds out of his hair and slinging them off his fingers into the water that swirled around his feet.

  There was a telephone on the nightstand beside her bed. If she could dash through the bathroom door and manage to dial “9-1-1” before—

  He plunged his head beneath the shower’s nozzle. There was no more time to ruminate.

  Aislinn hurled herself toward the door, pulled it open, almost wrenching her arm from its socket in the process, and flew into the bedroom. She reached the nightstand in less than a second, grabbed up the telephone receiver and frantically dialed “9-1-1.”

  She pressed the receiver against her ear and waited for the ring. Nothing happened. Damn!

  In her haste, had she punched a wrong number?

  She clicked the disconnect button and tried again, her hands shaking so badly she could barely hold the receiver. Risking one frenzied glance over her shoulder, she was dismayed to see Lucas Greywolf framed in the doorway between the bedroom and bathroom, his shoulder propped against it in a stance of lazy indifference.

  A towel was draped around his neck. Other than that, he was naked. Water dripped from his wet hair and funnelled down his coppery body. Beads of it clung to places she wished she didn’t notice. He held the wicked knife in his right hand, idly tapping the flat side of the blade against his bare thigh.

  Aislinn realized that the second telephone call hadn’t gone through either and that no other calls were going to go through. “You did something to my phone.” It wasn’t a question.

  “As soon as I entered the house.”

  Rapidly, her hands moving end over end, she reeled the telephone cord up from behind the nightstand. The connector that normally fit into the wall outlet had been ruined, ground by a boot heel as best as she could tell.

  Frustration overcame her then. And fury. It enraged her that he could appear so composed when she felt ineffectual and idiotic. She cursed and threw the telephone toward him, then launched herself toward the door, seeking escape at all costs. It was hopeless, of course, but she had to do something.

  She managed to reach the door; she even managed to get it open a crack before his wide hand splayed over it directly in front of her face and shoved it closed again. She turned, her fingers curled into claws, bent on attacking him.

  “Stop it!” he commanded and grabbed for her flailing arms. The knife nicked her on the forearm. She screamed softly in pain. “You little fool.”

  He grunted with surprise when she drove her knee up toward his crotch. She missed her mark, but succeeded in unbalancing him as he made a dodging movement. They fell to the floor, struggling. His skin was still wet, slippery, and he easily deflected the blows and slaps she frantically delivered. In seconds, he had her pinned beneath him, her wrists stapled to the floor by his widespread fingers.

  “What the hell was that for? You could have gotten hurt,” he barked. His face was a scant few inches above hers. His chest was heaving in and out from exertion. The anger in his eyes struck terror in Aislinn, but she didn’t let it show. Instead, she glared up at him.

  “If you’re going to kill me, get it over with,” she ground out.

  She had no time to prepare herself before he jerked her to her feet. Her teeth clicked together. She was still trying to regain her equilibrium when she saw the knife arcing down toward the side of her face. She felt a rush of wind as it passed. She tried to scream, but the sound became a faint little whimper when she saw the lock of her hair dangling from his hand. The wavy blond strand of hair being squeezed between those hard brown fingers symbolized her frailty and emphasized how easily his strength could overpower it.

  “I meant what I said, lady,” he said, still breathing heavily. “I have nothing else to lose. You pull one more stunt like that and it’ll be more than your hair I’ll use this knife on. Understand?”

  Eyes round and gaping at the strand of curling blond hair still clasped between his fingers, Aislinn nodded dumbly. He opened his fingers and let the light-catching strands of hair filter to the floor.

  Accepting her acquiescence, he stepped away from her and retrieved the towel. He dried the remaining moisture from his skin and made a pass over his chin-length hair. He tossed the towel to her. “Your arm is bleeding.” She hadn’t noticed. Looking down, she was surprised to see a thin trickle of blood oozing from the nick just above her wrist. “Are you hurt anywhere else?” She shook her head no. “Get over there by the bed.”

  Fear tamped her resentment at being ordered around in her own house by a fugitive from justice. Without a murmur of protest, she obeyed him. The bleeding on her arm had stopped. She laid the towel aside and turned to face her captor.

  “Take off your clothes.”

  She had thought he couldn’t frighten her any more than he already had. She was gravely mistaken. “What?” she wheezed.

  “You heard me.”

  “No.”

  “Unless you do as I say, that cut on your arm is on
ly a beginning.” The naked steel blade of the knife glinted in the lamplight as he waved it back and forth in front of her face.

  “I don’t think you’d hurt me.”

  “Don’t bet on it.”

  Cold, unfeeling eyes glittered back at her defiant stare, and she admitted that the odds for her to remain untouched and unscathed through this night didn’t look good.

  “Why...why do I have to take off my...my...?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  No, she didn’t think she wanted it spelled out for her because she had a pretty good idea why, and somehow hearing his intent from his own lips only made the prospect more frightening.

  “But if you were going to rape me,” she said, speaking aloud the question her musings raised, “why didn’t you—”

  “Take off your clothes.”

  He pronounced each word carefully. They fell from his stern lips like chips of ice.

  She considered her options and decided that she had none. At least if she went along with him, she was granting herself time. Perhaps someone would try to call and find that her phone was out of order. The telephone company would send someone to check, wouldn’t they? Someone might come to her door. The paperboy for instance. Anything was possible if she could just keep stalling him. For all she knew the police could have the house surrounded right now, having tracked Greywolf there.

  Slowly she raised her hands to the second button of her blouse, the first already having been opened by him. She cast one last, pleading glance toward him. His face could have been carved from stone, his eyes formed from hardest crystal for all the humanity they conveyed. Pride kept her from begging, though she didn’t think any amount of pleading would budge this emotionless man.

  She pushed the button through its hole and reluctantly lowered her hand to the next.

  “Hurry up.”

  She looked up at him where he stood naked and sinister only a few feet from her. He remained impassive under her seething gaze. She took her time with every single button, testing the perimeters of his patience, until all were undone.