by M. S. Parker
“You should get back inside. It’s freezing out.”
But she shook her head, almost wildly. The spikes of her hair tremored with the movement and what little color that had returned to her cheeks washed away. “No!”
“Okay, okay…” Holding up a hand, I looked around, then gestured to the hotel just across the way. “Come over here then. I know the manager. We can grab a cup of coffee and…” I almost said, wait for whoever to leave, but I wasn’t going to clue her into the fact that I’d figured out that much. “Think that will work? Can you take a few minutes?”
She hesitated and said, “I shouldn’t.” Then she glanced back over her shoulder to the door, almost like she expected her boogie man to come rushing out. “But, yes. A few minutes.”
Tony saw me striding back inside and frowned, but the expression melted away as he caught sight of Raye. Immediately, a warm smile appeared on his round face, and he came from behind the counter where he’d been talking to one of his employees.
“Raye works across the street,” I said before he could ask. “Is there any way we could trouble you for a cup of coffee?”
I didn’t exactly fit in with the clientele, not with my rough clothes and tattoos, but I knew one thing about Tony – he couldn’t resist a damsel in distress. It wasn’t so much that he was a flirt. He was happily married and had been for twenty years. I couldn’t come into this place without him telling me something about his wife and his two daughters.
He just loved women.
I could appreciate that about him.
I loved them myself.
And he saw the same thing about Raye that I had seen – she’d probably hate being thought of a damsel, but she was sure as hell in distress.
He smiled at her warmly, as though they were best friends who were meeting up for the first time in weeks. “Of course. Come with me.”
Tony led us to a small, semi-private area just off the bar, and after he’d left to get coffee, Raye asked, “Can I use your phone please?”
Her voice sounded a little steadier, which I was glad to hear. But she was still so pale.
As I turned over my phone, I wondered who in the hell had scared her so bad.
She sent a quick text off, then returned the phone. “I just wanted the boss to know I’d be right back,” she said, and now, as she looked around, her face flushing with embarrassment, she wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I feel so stupid.”
“Why?”
Now she did look at me, for a fleeting moment. “A guy like you wouldn’t understand.”
“I’ve been afraid before,” I said mildly. I was afraid just the other day when I had to go track down my brother. What if I didn’t make it in time? What if he got in the same kind of trouble I did?
My words must have surprised her, because she finally looked right at me and after a moment, she asked, “What makes you think I’m afraid?”
I wasn’t going to tell her that it was written all over her face. Thankfully, I was given a few seconds to think because Tony appeared, carrying a tray of coffee, cream, and sugar. After putting the tray down, he disappeared. My phone buzzed, and after a quick glance revealed a number I didn’t recognize, I turned the phone over to Raye. “Is this your boss?” I asked.
She took the phone and glanced at it, then nodded. “She just wants to make sure I’m okay. I think I scared her.” She tapped back a response, a faint groan escaping her throat. “I’m going to have to think of something to tell her.”
“Take a drink of the coffee and take a deep breath. Whoever you saw is probably gone by now,” I told her.
“What makes you think–”
“Cut the act, Raye,” I said, keeping my voice as gentle as I could. “It’s not hard to recognize when somebody is afraid of something – and you looked terrified. Unless you suddenly developed a fear of lingerie, it only stands to reason that somebody upset you.”
She frowned at me. “Lingerie?”
“I’m in this part of the city a lot. I know what store is on the corner.” I grinned at her, feeling a little sheepish. With a shrug, I added, “I’m a red-blooded male. We tend to notice pretty women in lingerie.”
Her face went red once more, and she looked away. “Okay. Yeah, I…there was somebody I knew, but I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Like I said, understood.” I thought about the way she’d panicked on the street when I had my hands on her arms, slapping at me as she fought to break away. “You ever taken any sort of self-defense class or anything?”
She paused, the cup of coffee at her pretty pink mouth. I really did like that mouth. And I really shouldn’t be staring at it. She lowered the cup back to the table. “What?”
“Self-defense,” I said again. “Ever taken any classes?”
“Like karate?” She scoffed and picked her coffee back up, taking a sip. “No.”
“It doesn’t have to be karate. Just some basic techniques to use in case you were ever cornered.”
I already knew the answer to the question, though, and I was determined to change that.
With what looked to be great reluctance, she shook her head. “No.”
“You should.” Leaning back in the chair, I studied her slight frame, then met her eyes again. “If you know how to get out of a tight spot, you’re less likely to panic if you ever get trapped in one. The first step is to not panic. But it’s hard not to panic if you don’t know how to get out of such a spot.”
“I’m five foot nothing,” she retorted. “What am I supposed to do if I get cornered by a guy your size?”
“Punch me in the throat,” I offered. “Or the balls. But the throat would be better because a lot of guys are expecting a knee to the ‘nads. Have your keys out when you’re walking and keep one between your fingers. Punch somebody in the eye with that thing and they ain’t going to be coming after you any time soon – they’ll be looking for the remains of their eyeball. It’s all about getting in the crucial shot to give you time to get away. But it takes practice.”
Speculation entered her eyes. A few seconds passed before she nodded. “I’ll look into it.”
“Do better.” Grabbing one of the napkins, I pulled a pen from the pocket of my flannel. “Here’s my address. You can come by anytime after six, and I can work with you. I’m free, too.”
She took the napkin, crumbling it up in her fist. “I’ll think about it,” she said again, shrugging out of the coat I’d given her. “I need to get back to work.”
She left me sitting there, but I got up and followed her, watching from the windowed lobby of the hotel to make sure she made it to the door of her work without being disturbed.
I sure as hell hoped she came by and took me up on my offer. Not just because I wanted to see her. As cute as she was, as attracted as I was, the two of us just wouldn’t ever work. I probably scared the hell out of her.
But I didn’t like seeing that fear in her eyes.
It pissed me off.
“Is she okay?” Tony asked, joining me at the window.
“For now.” I hitched up a shoulder in a shrug as the door swung shut behind her. “Thanks for letting us have a minute. She needed it.”
“Do you have any idea what scared her so badly?” Tony asked as I shrugged back into my coat.
I drew in a breath, acutely aware of the new scent that now faintly clung to it. “Only that it was a guy,” I replied. “She didn’t want to talk about it.”
The two of us eyed each other, and I suspected he was thinking the same thing I was. Judging by the look in his eyes, he felt as much disgust as I did. I turned away because I didn’t want him to pick up on what else I was feeling.
An all-consuming rage.
Somebody, at some point, had hurt Raye.
14
Raye
“You are not actually considering going over there,” I muttered to myself as I picked up a bucket of ribs.
Of course, the comment was moot, because the restaurant I’d decided to g
rab some food at was several blocks out of the way when compared to my place. But it was just down the street from the address Kane had given me.
As I checked the bag to make sure plastic ware and the sides hadn’t been forgotten, I tried once more to have a rational conversation – with myself – about what I was doing.
I was going over to a total stranger’s place because he’d offered to show me some self-defense moves.
The self-defense moves weren’t a bad idea, and in retrospect, maybe it was something I should have done a long time ago.
But going over to a total stranger’s place to learn them?
Was that a good idea?
He’s Jake’s friend, one half of me argued. That automatically gives him points.
The logical part of me pointed out, you barely know Jake. So why does that count for anything?
Okay, so I didn’t really know my brother. I barely knew Michelle. But I was a decent judge of character, and I sensed both were good people, the kind of people you could trust. And they weren’t the kind of people who’d be friends with sleazebags.
That automatically made Kane okay, by that rule.
But what if they didn’t really know Kane?
I’d been going back and forth this way for nearly twenty minutes, ever since I’d left my apartment to get some food. It was almost six-thirty when I started down the block – away from the subway entrance.
Right toward the address Kane had given me.
“I really am doing this,” I muttered.
Yes. Yes, I was.
I finally reached the address and had to draw the napkin from my pocket to double check – yep, this was the right place.
It was a garage. The open sign was off, and the hours of the place showed that it had closed at five-thirty.
“Okay,” I mumbled, stepping back and wondering how I was supposed to get inside. That was when I noticed the bell by the door. Shrugging, I reached out to punch it.
It didn’t even take a minute before I heard noise coming from the back of the garage. A tall form, lined in light, appeared in a doorway somewhere inside and my heart fluttered a little as I recognized Kane.
Tightening my grip on the bag of food, I held my breath as he drew closer.
He eyed me through the glass and a slow smile curled up the corners of his mouth. The smile softened everything about him. I couldn’t help but notice that. He looked less…aggressive. Even the scar bisecting his left eyebrow seemed less intimidating. My heart kicked up a few more beats as he unlocked the door.
I thought about how he’d kissed me.
Then I remembered slapping him, and I blushed.
“You came,” he said, pushing the door open and stepping aside so I could enter.
“Yes.” I moved in past him, feeling the heat of his skin reaching out to mine as I brushed by him. I shivered a little, wondering a bit at the enticing sensation. “I…um…I brought food. I figured we could…eat. I don’t know if you’ve had dinner.”
“I haven’t,” he told me. “But even if I had, I’m always hungry.” He smiled as he said it, taking the bag from me. He gestured to a row of hooks on the far wall. “You can hang your coat up there if you want. We’ll do this in the bay area.”
I had no idea what that meant, but I figured I’d find out. Hanging up my coat, I turned just as he relocked the doors. He shot me a grin. “If I don’t lock up, people will try to come in, no matter if the sign’s off and the hours are posted.”
Nodding, I stood there, feeling awkward and out of place. I was glad when he gestured for me to follow him.
The bay, it turned out, was the area used for repairing the cars.
“Is this your garage?” I asked, eying the space that looked to have been cleared out just for us.
“Yes.”
A heavy mat was spread on the floor, and I glanced at him. “You do this sort of thing a lot?”
“I’ve got sisters,” he replied.
Did some small part of me deflate a little at that answer? Was that why he was doing this?
Why did you want him to be doing it? That logical part of me wouldn’t shut up.
Biting my lip, I decided to just ignore it.
“So…” I folded my arms over my chest. “How do we start?”
My arms hurt.
My upper body hurt.
My legs hurt.
“You should start doing push-ups,” Kane said, dropping down next to me where I sprawled on the mat, trying to decide if I was ever going to move again.
I heard plastic rustle and lifted my head.
Okay, crap. Even my neck hurt.
It wasn’t like a strain or anything, just a deep sort of muscle ache that let me know I’d been working parts of me that weren’t used to being worked.
But none of that stopped me from dragging myself into an upright position as he peeled the top of the ribs off and the smell wafted out. My belly rumbled demandingly.
“I hate push-ups,” I told Kane, taking one of the plates he offered me. They were plain, simple, and white. I wondered where they’d come from.
“They’ll build your upper body strength,” he said with a shrug. He had a healthy serving of ribs on his own plate and watched me as he selected one. “The stronger you are, the better you’ll be able to hurt somebody if you ever need to use any of this stuff I’m teaching you.”
He couldn’t have said anything more likely to convince me.
I was back over at the garage for the third time in as many days. School started back up the following week, and I wouldn’t be able to come over as much – I’d already told Kane that, and he said we’d work around my schedule as needed. I was nowhere confident enough that I could use any of the moves he’d shown me yet.
Of course, sometimes I had trouble concentrating on what he was showing me. It wasn’t that he was hard to follow, but…well…sometimes he did make it hard. Hard to pay attention. Hard to think. Hard to do anything but wish I could be normal, wish I knew how to do something about the heat he caused inside me.
I wished I knew what to do when our hands accidentally touched, and sparks erupted between us.
I wished I knew how to close the distance between us and kiss him, or how to handle the lulls in the conversation when we were eating.
If they bothered him, he didn’t let on, but for me, those lulls were emotionally charged, and I wanted, more than anything, to be the kind of girl who could take the bull by the horns and lean over toward him during one of those silences, press my lips to his mouth and just…see what happened.
Last night, he’d ordered pizza for us, and those silences had happened several times.
Tonight, I had Chinese, and I had no doubt those silences would happen a couple more times.
If I wasn’t so awkward, so bad at the man/woman shit, I could handle this.
But even the few dates I’d been on had been disasters, and the attempts at sex had been nothing but a study in awkwardness and pain, at least from my point of view.
“Stop worrying about it, or you’ll make it worse,” I told myself as I rang the doorbell, my arms laden with Chinese food.
Since I didn’t know what he liked, I’d ordered three different entrees and had a mess of egg rolls and crab Rangoon. One thing I’d noticed – the man could put food away like nothing I’d ever seen.
My arms ached a little as I went to ring the doorbell. I’d taken him at his word and started doing push-ups.
I could manage maybe ten. When I told him that last night, I’d expected him to laugh, but Kane just nodded. “Next week, do fifteen. Then go for twenty. You’ll get up there.”
I couldn’t imagine doing twenty push-ups. The pitiful ten I was doing now took all the strength I possessed.
The door opened, and Kane stepped aside to let me in. I smiled a little easier today, not as nervous as I’d been the first night.
“That smells good,” he said, locking the door behind me. He took the bags as I hung up my coat.
“I didn’t know what you liked so I got a couple of things.” When I turned to face him, I tensed, finding him standing closer than I’d expected. “Ah…” I licked my lips.
His gaze dropped to my mouth, then moved back to meet my eyes.
A rush of heat exploded through my chest. What was that?
A grin crooked his lips. “I’m easy, Raye. I like a little bit of everything. I’m sure whatever you have is fine.”
I nodded, feeling like an idiot.
I also felt more than a little hopeless, because another one of those moments had just slid through my fingertips, and I didn’t know how to do jack about it.
“Relax,” Kane said, his voice rough in my ear.
It was almost impossible to relax, considering the position we were in.
He held in what could almost be called a lover’s embrace, with my back tucked up against his front, both of his arms around me. He didn’t hold me too tight, but his arms weren’t loose enough for me to escape either. I was supposed to be using some of the techniques he’d shown me to break free.
A crazed mix of fear and want slithered through me, though, which was making it almost impossible to think. And he wanted me to relax?
“Remember what I told you,” he said, speaking in a tone that was almost soothing despite the rough, raw grittiness of his tone. “A man’s gotta be able to see and breathe to do much of anything, so what are you going to do?”
His words jarred loose the proper action, and I jerked back with my head.
He moved his just in time, but he’d told me he knew to move because he was expecting it. Anybody who came up and grabbed me out of the blue wasn’t likely to be prepared for a fight – most predators weren’t.
“Good. Now…next?”
I was supposed to stun him enough that he let me go.
I brought up my tennis-clad foot and slammed it down on his instep. He was wearing work boots and had told me not to pull the hit – you’re little, and you need to prepare for this. Give it all you got.
He grunted, a sound of pain in his voice. “Good one. Next?”
