She knew that Fox would come if she told him it was necessary…but Fox had a baby on the way, and she didn’t relish the idea of explaining his untimely demise to Eden should things go south.
Fox could send Tenny in his place, which would mean Reese came along. But then she’d have Tenny to put up with, and though she thought they’d come to something of an understanding before he left New York, she wasn’t sure he could be managed without a proper handler.
Then there was the matter of her pride. As of yet, she could pretend that the club was taking this too seriously, and that she was merely tolerating them. But if she called her brother, then she’d admitted to her fear.
Her plight had gotten Reese kidnapped and nearly killed a few months before. To be that kind of bother again, so soon…unconscionable.
“This isn’t forever,” she told Cassandra, and it felt like a lie. “Things will get better eventually.”
Would they? She doubted all the way through dinner, which consisted of her mediocre attempt at chicken to go along with a salad. Both men were disappointed: Bennet quietly, Shep with assertions that the meal was “rabbit food.” She told him to wash up as punishment, saw that Cassandra did her homework, and had showered, and was settled, and then took a long, hot soak in her tub, grateful to have two doors between her and the night’s Lean Dog escort.
Melissa didn’t return her call. She talked herself out of leaving another useless voicemail.
The apartment was quiet, her bedside clock told her it was nearly eleven, and she was debating the wisdom of trying to Skype with Michelle – to check on the children, she reasoned, and not because Michelle had this way of making everything feel manageable – when she heard a light tapping sound.
She turned a circle on the rug at the end of her bed, clutching her robe more tightly around her throat on instinct. The sound repeated. Tap-tap-tap. Bennet coming to see if she was awake? Cass? Or…
Two sliding glass doors let out onto the balcony off her bedroom, and on her next turn, she saw a face peering in at her, ghostly pale in the dark.
She didn’t scream. She wasn’t a screamer by nature. A curse, a shout of anger, a too-loud, pretend exclamation of delight in certain situations…sure. But Raven Blake did not scream.
She did clap a hand over her mouth, though, and her heart tried to take flight like a startled bird. Here she stood, barefoot, in nothing but a silk scrap of a nightgown and her robe, without a weapon, a hallway away from help, and there was a face on her balcony. There was a person on her balcony. There was…
In the paralyzed moment of shock before she could leap into any sort of action, two pale hands lifted to cup around the face’s eyes, and the person leaned in close enough for the glow of her lamp to light their – no,hisfeatures. His dark eyes, and black, slanted brows; the dark hoop of a ring in a full lower lip. The hair was covered by a dark hood, but the nose, and chin, and cheeks, and quiet, burning intensity of his gaze were recognizable.
Toly.
Her pulse skidded, and jerked, and dropped down to a steady, nervy canter, palpable in the ends of her fingers, and the tips of her breasts, and between her legs, a shocked sort of thrill dosed with anger.
With a strangled growl, she picked up the hem of her robe, marched across the room, slammed open the locks, and slid the door back so hard that the glass rattled warningly in its frame. She dropped all dignity. “What in the fuck are you doing?” she demanded, and fear turned her voice shrill, though she tried to keep it quiet. The last thing she needed was Cass running in, asking questions, screaming, because Cassdidscream. “Are you mad? What are you – why –how did you get up here? Are you bloody Spiderman?”
His hands had dropped to his sides when the door opened, and he stared at her, broody and quiet, until she fell silent, heaving in a much-needed deep breath.
“Done?” he asked.
She would have been within her rights to slap him. Or maybe push him backward over the rail.
Instead, she whirled, and stormed back across the room, going for her phone where it lay on the dresser. Beneath the rush of her breath, and the beating of her pulse, she heard him step into the room, boot soles light on the hardwood; heard the slider close with a soft snick.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
She turned, and brandished the phone like a knife, thumb poised over the call button. “I’m calling Maverick,” she seethed, “and telling him to put afuckingleash on you. This is inexcusable. It’s–”
He advanced toward her, long, quick strides across the rug.
“Don’t.” She hit call.
And in the same second, he snatched the phone from her hand, disconnected, and tossed it aside. It landed on top of her bed, and his hands came up to catch her wrists before she could strike him.
Damn, but he was fast. And strong. And awful.
Her panic flared a moment, a dizzying spike of animal fright so acute she thought she might pass out. Black crowded the edges of her vision, the way his black hood framed his face, and she knew only the desperation of having been snared, and held fast. Trapped.
But deep down, she knew he wouldn’t hurt her, and under the fear, just as upsetting, was a pulse of desire so hot it sizzled along her nerve endings.
“Let. Go. Of. Me,” she ground out through clenched teeth.
He did not. In a low, calm voice, he said, “You’re in the penthouse apartment: I took the stairs all the way up and dropped onto your balcony off the roof.”
