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And why had he kidnapped her at all? Why was she still alive?
Her senses took quick inventory as she shifted slightly. He was holding her, spoon style, his thickly muscled arm heavy across her waist. But she couldn’t feel any bindings to indicate he’d tied her either to the bed or to himself.
She was still wearing the blouse she’d worn to work, the fabric soft but with little give. Her bra was tight against her rib cage. On her legs, if she wasn’t mistaken, were the sweatpants she’d been planning to put on, the ones that had been lying across the foot of her bed.
The thought of his dressing her, of him sliding the pants up her bare legs and her hips, sent a cold chill rippling over her skin. Had he touched her? Had he raped her?
Her pulse pounded in her ears, but she forced herself to breathe. To think. She didn’t feel sore down there. And she almost certainly would if he’d taken her when she was unconscious.
Besides, why would he bother raping her when she’d begged him to take her? When she’d been so hot for him, she’d come.
Her cheeks heated at the memory even as a familiar ache started up again between her legs. The man’s scent brushed her senses, the scent of sleep-warmed male combined with the hint of wildness that had stirred her so thoroughly last night. And stirred her still.
God, what was the matter with her? Just lying beside him like this had her libido leaping all over again.
She gave a silent groan, forcing herself to tear her thoughts away from the man at her back and focus outward. If there were others in the place, the sooner she knew it, the better. But she heard nothing except the even breathing of her captor.
Apparently her plan to make him think she wanted him had worked well enough since she was still alive. Too bad it hadn’t been an act.
He was a killer.
Or the twin of one. Could he possibly have been telling the truth when he told her he wasn’t the man who’d attacked her? It was certainly a possibility. After all, she was still alive.
Then again, how did he know she’d been attacked if he wasn’t the one who’d attacked her? How did he know who she was? Her involvement had never hit the news.
Whether or not he was the killer, he was clearly involved up to his sunglasses-covered eyeballs. And there was no denying he’d committed criminal acts. He’d broken into the apartment of a federal agent, overpowered her, and kidnapped her. For that alone, he was looking at jail time.
Either way, he had information they needed. Either way, he was going down.
She remembered how fast he’d moved last night and the lightning speed with which she’d been attacked in the laundry room. If she wanted to get him, she was going to have to move fast, without mercy. Because once he woke, her chance to take him down would be over.
Her gaze caught the gleam of the bedside lamp. Brass. Perfect. All she had to do was crack him over the skull with it and run for the nearest phone. Piece of cake. Assuming she managed to get out from under his arm without waking him. His warm breath stirred her hair on a soft rumble of a snore. He was definitely asleep. But would he stay that way?
Her pulse rose another notch as she prepared to find out.
Sending a quick prayer heavenward for luck, and keeping her body loose, as if she were still asleep, she rolled onto her stomach on the soft, cool cotton sheets, away from the man.
His arm slid away from her without protest.
Swallowing a surge of triumph, Delaney lay still as death, willing her heart’s pounding to settle down as she waited for her captor’s breathing to even out again. When she’d waited as long as she could stand, she eased the blanket off her, inch by inch, and swung her legs over the side, her bare toes settling on a soft, worn rug.
In a light, careful move, she rose from the bed and knelt by the bedside table to follow the lamp’s cord to the outlet. When she found it, she gave a quick, silent tug and rose to her feet.
Her heart began to pound. This was it. If she hit him too hard, she’d kill him. At one point, before he’d planted the doubt in her mind that he was the man she sought, all she’d wanted was to kill him. Now she wasn’t so sure.
Legally, she needed to not kill him. But if she didn’t hit him hard enough, she was as good as dead. And she had a feeling it would take a direct hit by a cruise missile to incapacitate the guy.
She grabbed the lamp at its neck, her fingers closing around the cool metal as she took a deep breath. Here goes nothing. In a single move, she flipped the heavy lamp upside down and swung the base of it at the sleeping man’s head as hard as she could.
The lamp collided not with skull, but with moving flesh as her captor’s hand shot out, stopping the deadly arc cold. He wrenched the lamp from her hands and flung it across the room to crash against the wall.
Delaney’s mouth dropped open. Her heart went to her throat, and she leaped back from the bed, her pulse pounding as she readied for hand-to-hand combat.
He was little more than a blur in the shadows as he grabbed her. The room spun as he flung her facedown on the bed. She dug her face out of the sheets, trying to flip over, but he pinned her with a jeans-clad knee in the small of her back. Her pulse thudded in her throat as she watched him over her shoulder, tensing for his retribution.
“You tried to kill me. ” His voice was flat as he loomed over her, staring down at her through those dark sunglasses she was beginning to suspect were permanently attached to his face. Who in their right mind slept in sunglasses?
She hated him for making her feel so blasted helpless. Fear slithered down her spine. With his strength, he could kill her with his bare hands without ever breaking a sweat.
Her breath caught, her body tensing, as she waited for him to do just that. But to her surprise, he climbed on top of her, straddling her hips.
She tried to push him off, tried to get to her knees, but she might as well have tried to lift a bus. He was playing with her. Toying with her.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said softly, brushing the hair back from her ear. In her peripheral vision, she saw his face lower, felt his lips on her ear, his tongue tracing the cartilage, then delving into the cavern, drawing a shiver from her.
Her heart thudded as his hand slid beneath her until his fingers found her nipple through her shirt and squeezed just hard enough to send fire shooting straight to her loins.
His tongue stroked her ear, his lips grazed her cheek. Gently, so gently. Toying with her before he struck.
His fingers moved under her, tugging at her shirt, pulling at her bra until his fingers were against her bare flesh, his palm warm against her breast. Her breathing turned ragged.
She felt his hand move again, releasing her breast. As the press of his thighs moved lower, to frame her own, he sat up and slipped his hand inside the waist of her sweatpants, his fingers sliding inside her panties to cup her butt cheek as he had her breast moments before. Then he leaned over her, his fingers kneading the flesh, his breath in her ear becoming as ragged as her own.
“You set me on fire. ” His voice was low, pained, as his fingers dug into her, letting her feel his need, sending hers into an upward spiral.
He was half over her, half beside her when his palm flattened, his finger sliding into the crease of her buttocks and down, to stroke her swelling lips. His teeth grazed her earlobe, sending a shaft of wet heat straight to her core. His finger slid inside her, meeting that rush of heat.
Delaney gasped, trying to arch into his touch, but with him still half-straddling her, she had nowhere to move, nowhere to go. He stroked her, playing with her until she was soft and hot and wild with need. Then he released her and rose, only to straddle her calves.
She tried to rise, her arms shaking, but he dug his fingers into her waistband and yanked downward, pulling her pants and panties down to her thighs in a single jerk of a move, baring her to the cool air. To his gaze. Stealing her last scrap of
protection.
Heat turned to fear on the certainty that he meant to take his revenge upon her body. Panic flared, and she tried to roll away, but his palm fanned across the small of her back, slamming her to the mattress.
Her heart thudded. Her mouth went dry.
His free hand dug into her butt cheek. “I’m not going to hurt you. ” But the thread of anger in his voice did nothing to reassure her.
Tears burned the backs of her eyes. Fear knotted in her gut. If she was ready for him, it shouldn’t hurt, but if he wanted to hurt her, there were other ways. She knew too well the cruelty men could visit on women before they killed them. While they killed them. She had the crime photos hanging all over the walls of her living room to prove it.
She already knew this guy had a sick mind. God knew what he might…
“Don’t be afraid of me!”
She froze. “I’m not. ” Her words sounded calm, soothing, despite the tears closing her throat. Long ago, she’d learned to keep her emotions out of her voice and expression, and she desperately called on that trick now.
His hand squeezed her rear to the point of pain as the tension in the air thickened. Slowly, his hand relaxed, and she began to breathe again.
“I’m not going to hurt you. ”
But she didn’t believe him for a minute. As she struggled against his impossible hold, his hand released her aching flesh to slide between her legs. She tried to clamp her thighs together, desperate to escape his touch, fear spiraling out of her control.
He was going to hurt her. He wanted to hurt her, to punish her for attacking him.
“Dammit!” In a sudden move, he released her and flung himself off the bed.
Delaney shot to her knees, yanking her pants up and straightening her shirt and bra, then turned to find him pacing the room like a caged animal, his tight, coiled tension filling the room.
Definitely bipolar. With violent tendencies.
Her heart raced in her chest as she edged toward the side of the bed closest to the door. But as she sat and swung her legs over the side, he whirled on her, his finger pointing directly at her face.
“Stay!”
Delaney froze, her mind scrabbling, fighting down the instinct to flee. He was too fast. She’d never get away.
Deep breaths. He hadn’t attacked her. Other than squeezing her butt too hard, he hadn’t hurt her at all.
She watched him pace, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides like a man struggling to contain his temper. He was trying to get control. The realization slammed into her. The last thing she needed to do was make things worse by running again.
She forced herself to wait as she watched him warily. The streetlight filtering in through the sheer curtains played over his broad, bare chest, tripping in and out of the shadows created by the muscular definition. Scars, like claw marks, tore across his right nipple while a gold armband snaked around one thick upper arm. Even in the dim light, the man was a walking wet dream.
If she weren’t so wary of him, she might have enjoyed watching him. With his long legs, trim waist, and sculpted upper body, he was truly a feast for the eyes.
Minutes passed as he paced, the tension slowly leaching from the air.
“Do you follow football?” he asked, at last.
Delaney blinked. “No. ”
“What’s your favorite television show?”
Her brows puckered with disbelief. “Why?”
An animalistic growl rumbled deep in his throat. “Your fear sets me off, and I want your mind off it. ”
Delaney scowled. “I’m not afraid. ” She didn’t show it. She knew she didn’t show it.
Like a cat about to spring, he swung to face her, his body rigid. “Don’t lie to me! I can taste it. No one else would know, but I know. You can’t hide it from me. ”
He couldn’t possibly taste her fear. That was ridiculous. But it was hardly a leap for him to guess that she was afraid. Any sane woman would be under the circumstances.
He returned to his pacing. “What’s your favorite television show?”
Were they really going to play this game? “The news. ”
He scowled at her. “Lame. ”
His response inexplicably pricked her pride. “I don’t have time to waste on mindless shows. ”
He stopped pacing and turned to her. “Your work is your life to the exclusion of everything else, isn’t it? You don’t even own a reading chair. ”
“Excuse me,” she huffed. “What I do is important. I perform a valuable service to society by getting the monsters off the streets. ”
The man snorted. “You’ll never get the monsters. You don’t even know what they look like, little girl. ”
Delaney ground her teeth together, clamping her mouth shut before she said something she shouldn’t. Something that would make him even madder, turning a bad situation so much worse.
The man stopped his pacing and started toward her. “You’re pathetic, you know that? You got your life back, but you don’t even know how to live it, do you?” There was an ugly taunting quality to his voice that infuriated her. “You’re so hung up on your mother’s death you aren’t even living. Do you think this is what she’d want? You spending your entire life searching for her killer?”
She stared at him, shock vibrating through her body. It wasn’t true. It wasn’t true. Oh God, of course it was true. “How…?”
“I heard you talking to the cat. It wasn’t much of a leap. You’re living an excuse for a life. You don’t even own a sofa or a picture that isn’t a crime-scene photo! Your life’s a joke. ”
She felt as if her chest were caving in and at the same time exploding from the force of her fury. Damn him. Damn him.
She lunged to her feet and rounded on him. “You son of a bitch. How dare you judge me. How dare you?” She struck at his knee, a move that should have knocked even a man his size off his feet.