Until a band of steel curled under her knees and lifted her carefully off the cold ground. Until the monster who’d come to her aid, cradled her ever so gently against his fiercely beating heart. It, err, he whispered into the top of her shivering, sweaty head, “Hey, there. I’m sorry I scared you, but I’ve got you now, and he can’t hurt you anymore. You’re safe now, ma’am. Please don’t cry.”
“I’m not! B-b-but…” She was. Ashley blubbered, not sure of anything other than she was on the verge of wetting her pants and screaming hysterically for him to put her down. At least he’d removed his bloody gloves and tossed them aside. That was thoughtful. But his big hands still had a firm hold on her. She was still caught.
“Shush,” he murmured softly, unzipping his leather jacket and tucking her inside like a little girl. Not that she wasn’t already wearing her own jacket, but hers was lightweight, and his was so warm and big. And man, the scent pouring out of his jacket smelled decadently of wind, leather, and testosterone, precisely the scents she seemed to need in her nose right then. They calmed her. Helped her to think and process logical, sensible thoughts. Her nostrils flared, and she was surprised her nose still worked while gushing blood. That inhaling could still feel semi-pleasurable. The unique fragrance wafting off this guy would forevermore remind her of what true masculine strength was. Even as hot tears rolled over her cheeks.
“I promise, ma’am. That guy won’t bother you again,” her monster guardian angel said as a big, rough hand curved around her head and cupped her jaw.
Like a hapless idiot, Ashley leaned into that palm, her heart still pounding out of control even as she considered the fact that this guy had saved her life. That he was so much larger, thicker, and heavier than she was. He was made of steel and coiled bands of titanium muscle. And she was bleeding all over him.
“Is he… is he still alive?” she whimpered, desperate for a tissue—or ten.
“Do you care?” Incredulity colored that terse question. “After what he did to you?”
“Well, err…” Kind of. “Yes, I mean…” How could she not care about an obviously drug-addicted young man? And how could anyone survive the beating this guy had dished out? The kid hadn’t hit back. Not once. He hadn’t had the chance. He wasn’t big enough to take on this man, and he surely hadn’t the skills. Yet he’d certainly had no trouble slapping her around, punching her, and—
“Yes, he’s alive, but he can’t hurt you now. Focus on that. Breathe in. Breathe out. You’re safe, and I’m going to take care of you.” His voice was a seductive rumble, a masculine purr she wanted to snuggle into. Whoever this man was, he was a safe place. A big, warm safe place that seemed able to read her mind.
Trying desperately to regain a professional sense of decorum, Ashley swiped the back of her hand under her bloody, snotty nose and again wished for a tissue.
Instantly, a travel-sized package of them appeared, courtesy of this man’s deep pockets. He punched his thumbnail into the top perforation and tugged several tissues out. “Here,” he said quietly, her less important wish granted and perched at the end of his fingertips. “Use all you need. I’ve got more.”
“Th-thank you,” she whispered. Taking the offering, Ashley blew her poor, tender nose like a lady, then tucked the disgusting, crumpled tissues into her pocket.
“No problem. I’m here for you. Promise.”
Risking a covert glance through her spikey, wet eyelashes, she prepared to be brave and look her rescuer in the eye. D-d-darn. That was a long way up. But so worth the effort.
This was no boy come to her rescue. Uh-uh. This guy was all male. Thick-boned and heavily muscled, like a workhorse. Camouflage tones painted a square jaw. The black and green stripes on his cheeks made his nose appear as sharp as a blade. Thick brows shadowed his blackened eyes. She’d never recognize him without the greasepaint. He was hiding, too.
But nothing could conceal the sparkle hidden deep in those eyes. There was no regret in them for what he’d done; no worry or fear of reprisal or of being caught, either. Only brash, in-your-face confidence. It oozed out of him, scenting the air around her with overwhelming, deep, dark, male pheromones. How would that feel, to be so free of worry? So unafraid of one’s shadow? He worried his bottom lip, scraping his top teeth over it while he tended to her. It was such a boyish thing to do. He couldn’t hide the dimple in his left cheek, either. His lips were so, so close.
“You’re like a guardian angel,” she breathed in wonder.
He grunted. “I’m no damned angel.”
But he was. The sheer size of him, the width of his shoulders and the breadth of his chest stole her breath. She couldn’t decide what color his eyes were, but she knew enough about tragedy to translate the fury she saw banked there. He was a cross between a terrifying devil and an avenging angel, a heady combination of dark and light, of sin and grace. There was more of cinder and ash to his furled wings—if he indeed had any—than flowers, sunshine, and holy water. Besides, wings made perfect if not surreal sense to this crazy, scary night. Surely, he couldn’t have shown up as quickly as he had without them, could he? Else why was he here precisely when and where she’d needed him? He was a sight to behold, so much larger than life, and she was so much smaller. So not worth his attention nor his time. And younger. He had to be ten years older.
“Where’s your car?”
“I usually take the train home,” With everyone else. “But…” Ashley swallowed hard, her voice trailing off to no-darned-where. The creep who’d assaulted her, still lay panting frosty breaths up into the chilly night sky. He was just like her deadbeat father, a user and a deadbeat, nothing like the mysterious dark angel holding her tightly. Keeping her safe. A stifled sob choked out of her at the stinging pain all over her scalp. “He pulled my hair!” she cried.
“I know. I saw. He’s paid for what he did to you. Trust me, he’s paid.” Folding her into his arms, the man in black sat down on the grass with her on his lap. His much thicker thighs were warm and solid. His longer, muscled arms and shoulders wrapped around her like castle walls. Strong, high, impenetrable, warm walls.
Somehow, Ashley was surprisingly calm and able to breathe through her fear. In and out. It really worked, just like he’d said.
He tucked a thick chunk of her hair out of her face and shifted it over her shoulder, then smoothed his other hand over her forehead, brushing more tangled strands out of her eyes. “How else did he hurt you?”
She glanced over her shoulder at the silent man bleeding on the ground. “M-m-mostly, he just pulled my hair and p-p-punched me.” She still couldn’t believe people could be so cruel. “He kept banging my face into the grass, and h-h-he had a knife, and—” Ashley’s hand flew to her neck. Her fingers came away sticky and dark. That jerk! “He cut me!”
With two gentle fingers, her angel tilted her chin. His dark eyes turned into shards of black obsidian. His nostrils flared, and she was pretty sure steam snorted out of his nose. “Fuckin’ moron!” he hissed. Reaching into the other side of his jacket, her foul-mouthed angel pulled out a small bag of…
Oh, wow. He carried a personal first-aid kit with him? That was different.
“Lean back. Relax,” he ordered, opening a small, sealed pack of antiseptic wipes. “It’s not very deep, but let’s get you taken care of.”
Ashley hesitated. She looked like something an alley cat had dragged in or yakked up. Her nose was still running, possibly bleeding, and her cheeks were no doubt bright red. With her fair complexion, a simple blush looked like a fatal case of hives. Tears still dripped off her chin.
When he cleared his throat and nodded his chin at her, oh yeah. Ashley swiped another tissue under her nose, gathered her hair out of his way and leaned into his arm. Somehow, she’d lost her elastic. Wayward strands drifted in the breeze off the Potomac. Some teased over his nose and brows. Some got caught in the scruffy shadow on his chin. He didn’t seem to mind. She tipped farther back to allow him
to better see what he was doing.
“It’s not a deep cut, thank fuck.” Her potty-mouthed angel peered closely at her neck.
She found it odd that his continual f-bombs didn’t distress her. Despite the sharp scent of antiseptic alcohol drifting between them, his breath was deliciously warm in her face. He smoothed a wipe—that stung!—up the quivering column of her throat. His fingers were spread wide, and his gentle touch was so disconcerting, that Ashley couldn’t catch her breath for an entirely different reason now.
With the dark night’s breeze swirling her black hair around them like a mysterious, translucent fog…
With this guy’s hand so gentle on her throat…
With her rescue so recently, so fearlessly acquired…
Ashley froze, afraid to look at the brash man who held her now. She was caught again, this time in a vortex where time seemed to stand still. The warm scents coming from inside his leather jacket whirled in the same spiral her hair was caught up in. A piece of her battered, frightened heart felt determined to go with it.
Silently, the same way he’d come to her rescue, her fierce savior cradled her jaw in one of his big, rugged palms. Very gently, he tipped her chin up with his thumb. Stark savagery stared down at her. His eyes were so dark, so full of pent-up passion, that her heart stuttered to a whimper. He could kill her. He was that kind of John Cena large and John Wick lethal.
Ashley swallowed hard, her throat incapable of the normally involuntary action. Something was happening. Something good and right and…magical?
Whatever happened next, she wasn’t afraid. He was looking down at her, as if he’d just felt that same hint of something rare and wonderful. She refused to extrapolate what that might be. If it was even real. Dreams didn’t come true, not for her.
Until his head tilted the barest degree.
She matched the angle of his chin, slanting with her own head and licking her bottom lip. Wishing magic did exist and dreams did come true. For a moment, one brief, star-struck, crazy, meteoric moment, she left herself open to the possibility of a kiss. Her first real kiss.
The purest silence swelled around them. It was happening. Heaven had opened. They were in an invisible cathedral. The rarest celestial blessing was pouring down on them and—
HONK! Darn. Someone had finally spotted her. Why now?
With a jolt, her mysterious hero blinked. He dropped his hands. The magic—Pffft!—vanished. Straight back up to heaven, where it belonged. Ashley exhaled a frosty breath. Love wasn’t real anyway. Why waste time wishing it were?
As if nothing happened—because nothing had—the monster-turned-angel fastened some kind of sticky gauze around the front of her neck. He maintained a professional, indifferent hold this time, pressing the gauze until he was sure it held.
“This will keep for now,” he said a little too briskly. “Does it still hurt?”
In more ways than I’ll ever tell. “Umm, no,” she replied with her steadiest, most unemotional voice. “I’ll be okay.” Because single women who live alone have no choice but to be okay. “Thanks.”
The temptation to melt under this fierce man’s chin, to breathe deeply of his breath, and imprint his scent into her olfactory receptors for the rest of her life, was hard to resist. But Ashley offered tit-for-tat, nothing more. If he refused to acknowledge what she’d felt between them, so would she. He needed to back off and let her get on with her orderly, predictably boring life.
“Do you have a cell phone?”
She nodded, the top of her head bumping his chin. “Sorry. I didn’t know you were still that close, I mean…” She could smell the mint on his breath. “Y-y-yes. It’s over there.” She pointed at the gutter, where her messenger bag leaned against the curb, as if she’d simply set it there while she’d been busy being assaulted.
“Call the police. Tell them what happened. They’ll send an ambulance.”
“He wanted drugs, oxy. He… he thought we kept opioids in our building, and that I had a key.”
“You work at the free clinic?”
She shook her head. “Just the Health Department.”
“I’m glad I was here.”
Ashley froze at the quiet declaration of that unexpected something else. He didn’t expound further, and that was good. This was not a night for mutual admiration, certainly not for whatever that momentary lapse in judgment between them had been. Like that other disastrous time, this was just another night to forget.
He cleared his throat. “Call 9-1-1, ma’am. Do it now. Tell them what happened. Tell them some guy showed up and interrupted that rat bastard before he could seriously hurt you. Tell them I beat the fuck out of him, then ran off like a chicken shit. Can you do that for me?”
“Probably not quite like that,” she admitted meekly. Her harshest expletive was fudge.
He had the grace to smile. “Sorry ma’am. I tend to forget my manners when I’m at war.”
“Why can’t I just tell them the truth? That you saved me?”
“Because I’d rather no one knows who I am. I work better this way. Keep my secret, okay?”
“What’s your name?” she asked like a dolt. Why would he tell her? It was a secret. Duh.
He did something a little bit magical then. He leaned into her face and pressed those warm, luscious lips of his to the middle of her sweaty forehead. “I’m just some guy,” he whispered against her skin, his masculine voice devastatingly deep and sexy. “Call the police, kiddo. Stay off dark streets from now on. Forget you ever saw me. Promise?”
Who could resist? “You’ll always be a hero to me,” she promised with all of her banged up heart. “My name’s Ashley, by the way. Ashley Cox. Please stay safe.”
“Do yourself a favor and don’t worry about me, Ashley Cox,” he murmured before he moved her off his lap, walked to the gutter, and retrieved her bag. Handing it to her, he asked, “Is this your can of mace? It was beside your purse.”
“Oh, my, umm, yes,” she replied, embarrassed that even with her secret weapon, she’d still been a helpless damsel in distress.
He crouched down beside her, his hands loose between his knees, his alpha male presence overpowering the last of her resolve. “Go ahead,” he said, fluttering his fingers to hurry her along. “Call the police. I’ll stay until they show.”
“Okay.” Taking her bag with trembling fingers, she stuffed the mace back where it belonged, then pulled her phone out of an interior pocket. But when she lifted her head to tell him goodbye, that she hoped she’d run into him again someday, her handsome shadow was gone. Just like that. Of course. What had she expected? He was just a man. He’d said he’d stay, but he hadn’t. He’d disappeared. Only her attacker remained, and he wasn’t breathing too well.
Shaking like the last leaf of autumn about to fall off its lonely branch, Ashley called 9-1-1 and gave the dispatcher her location. In minutes, the Alexandria police arrived, along with a fire engine, an ambulance, and two other squad cars. The officer out of the first cruiser was a woman, thank God. Her partner was male, but both were kind and professional. So were the paramedics who assessed her minor injuries, removed her from the scene of the attack, and stowed her inside the ambulance.
While they double-checked the bandages on her neck, Ashley couldn’t keep her eyes from searching the shadows beyond the emergency vehicles. Was he still out there? Was he watching? Did he have any idea how much his being here tonight would mean to her for the rest of her life? Did he even care? Probably not.
But she’d promised. She’d never tell.
Chapter Three
From between the strip mall and Alexandria’s Health Department, behind the Dumpsters and recycle bins, deep within the shadows, Tripp waited. He’d told Ashley he’d stay, and he’d meant what he’d said. But not in plain sight. He watched while the first two police officers on the scene questioned her. The female officer hadn’t left her side, not until the EMTs arrived and took over. Which was goo
d. Women often needed another woman’s touch at times like this. Even the EMTs were extra-gentle with Ashley. One said something that made her smile. They covered her with a blanket and checked her vitals.
They’d better be gentle, because Tripp knew this woman. She was his neighbor. Until tonight, he hadn’t known her name, only that she lived next door to him in Olde Town Alexandria. What a coincidence.
He’d noticed her eyeing him the few occasions they’d crossed paths in the hall, coming or going. Who could miss the light in her bright, intelligent, deep-blue eyes, or the long, silky black hair that shimmered down her back like an ebony waterfall when she’d walked by? She was his idea of the quintessential girl-next-door, a delightful vision in rich blue-blacks, with a bright strawberry-pink smile most days.
Ashley was petite, but well-endowed. Yet the few times he’d seen her, she’d disguised her feminine assets behind a dowdy uniform of plain gray pants and too-large, matching gray shirts. Men’s shirts that she didn’t tuck in, but let hang loose, like heavier women did. Her hair had been pulled back in a stifling bun or ponytail. But tonight, it glistened on her shoulders, like a living adornment he wanted to sink his nose into and run his fingers through. Tripp fought the zing that still rippled between Ashley and him. At the end of the day, he was no one’s angel. If anything, he was just another devil she needed to stay clear of.
Because of his late-night activities, he faced most Mondays and getting up at the butt-crack of dawn, like a half-dead zombie. But Ashley had always been bright-eyed and full of energy when he’d seen her. Which, until now, had been damned seldom.
Silently, Tripp watched the other officers attend to the asshat who’d hurt her. They worked just as efficiently with him as they had with Ashley. Just as kind. Tripp tracked them as they searched the scene for evidence. He stayed clear of their flashlights’ beams, then waited until the EMTs loaded the alleged woman-beater into the second ambulance that had arrived.
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