blame himself and feel like shit. He had to make sure she was safe.
And find out if her face and body matched that soft, sexy voice.
He laughed at himself as he headed for his van. Maybe this was all about his poor neglected libido. His self-imposed celibacy was biting his ass particularly hard lately.
No point in analyzing it, though. A guy had to do what a guy had to do.
Chapter
2
Abby’s shove knocked Edgar almost off his feet.
He caught himself against the porch railing and glared at her. “So that’s the way you’re going to be.”
“You forced me to be rude to you, Edgar. I tried to avoid it.”
“Try harder,” Edgar said. “And give me back my goddamn pen.”
His eyes had turned to glittering slits in his flushed face. Abby wedged herself into the corner of the porch and held out his pen. He jerked it out of her hand. Her phone, which had dropped to the floor in the scuffle, started to ring. She made a move to pick it up.
Edgar kicked it out of reach. “Go ahead,” he jeered. “Bend over, sweet cheeks. It’s my favorite position.”
Her insides went icy cold. The phone kept ringing, but she barely heard it, with his crude words and ugly tone ringing in her ears.
Oh dear. She’d taken Edgar for a harmless jerk. He’d just mutated into something nastier. Her belly cramped. Elaine had said, what, twenty minutes before she called the cops?
A lot could happen in twenty minutes.
One last shot at pseudo-politeness while she psyched herself up to scratch and gouge. “The locksmith is on his way, Edgar. There’s no reason to wait. Bye-bye.”
He sensed her nervousness, and liked it. He oozed closer, until her back was pressed against the wall. “Scared, Abby?”
She forced herself to smile. “Nothing to be scared of, is there? Look, we’re going to wake up my landlord if we keep yakking. He’s a cop, and he works weird hours, so he won’t appreciate being bothered.”
“You’re scared,” Edgar repeated, delighted by the discovery. “Of me.” He grabbed her wrists and pinned her to the wall.
She struggled, panic squirming in her belly. His face was slick with sweat. Oh, gross. It became unpleasantly evident that he was excited. She tried to remember tricks from the self-defense course she’d taken at the gym, but the only thing that came to mind were house keys. Good for eye jabbing, face raking and the like. Hah.
Edgar licked her neck. Her stomach lurched. She dragged in a deep breath and drove her spike heel into his foot, with all her weight.
Edgar howled. Whap, the back of her head smacked painfully into the shingled wall. “You bitch!”
“Let go of her,” said a deep voice.
Edgar swiveled his head. “Who the fuck are you?”
Abby wrenched out of his grip, catching herself against the wall.
It was hard to follow what happened. It was dark, the stranger wore black, her eyes were watering, her head spun from the blow.
Edgar whipped around like a rag doll and flailed, facedown on the floor. The stranger sank down on top of him, twisting Edgar’s hand behind his back, pinning his shoulder to the floor with his knee.
She blinked tears from her eyes, squeezed them shut. Tried again.
Yes, the man was still there, crouching on top of Edgar. He was real. Dark hair hung long and loose over a battered black leather jacket. Keen eyes studied her, thoughtful and curious.
He grabbed Edgar’s hair, jerked his head up. “Apologize to her.”
“Fuck you,” Edgar wheezed. “I’ll have you arrested, you scumbag piece of shit. I’ll ruin your goddamn life!”
The guy let go of Edgar’s hair and chopped the edge of his hand down onto the bridge of Edgar’s nose. He shrieked. Blood bubbled.
“Wrong answer,” the stranger said mildly.
Edgar made wet choking sounds. The man shot her a questioning glance. “Want to call the cops? I’ll verify that he was assaulting you.”
She shook her head.
“You want me to hit him some more?” the man prompted.
She forced sound past the lump in her throat. “If you could, ah, just make him go away, that would be great, thanks.”
“OK.” He yanked up on Edgar’s hair. “This is your lucky day, pusbag. The nice lady doesn’t feel like watching you get stomped. Which is better luck than you deserve. You should thank her.”
Edgar made gurgling noises.
“Too bad,” the man murmured. “Another lost opportunity.”
Edgar shrieked as the stranger jerked him to his feet, hand still twisted up behind him. He doubled over, moaning as the guy hustled him down the stairs. Abby clutched the banister, white-knuckled.
The men were soon lost to sight around the corner of the house. The stranger said something in a low, intense tone. Edgar coughed and gasped in reply. A car door slammed. Lights came on, a motor hummed to life. The Porsche revved up and crushed Mrs. Eisley’s pansy beds as it cut a corner out of the driveway and sped away. Silence.
She wondered if the guy was just a wishful hallucination.
The shadows in the bushes at the base of the stairs resolved into a tall, dark form. He climbed until Mrs. Eisley’s porch light shone full on his face, paused, and waited. She got the sense that he was trying not to scare her. Letting her get a good, long look at him.
She couldn’t have stopped looking if she tried. The guy was straight out of a naughty dream, the kind she woke up from hot and damp and achingly lonesome. Tall and solid-looking, sharp cheekbones, an angular jaw. His eyebrows were a slashing black line. His dark mane had the look of a long-ago haircut that he hadn’t bothered to refresh. There was a tattoo on his neck. He looked hard, seasoned. Dangerous.
The kind of guy she’d sworn off for all time.
“Are you all right?” he asked her, his voice hesitant.
She clamped down on the hysterical laughter. “Yes, thank you.”
His eyes flicked over her body. In the porch light, she could finally decipher the bright color. Not blue or gray. Topaz gold.
She looked down to check what she was wearing. The Diego Della Valle. Low-cut, slinky, short. She’d been regretting her outfit all night, the way Edgar had drooled over her cleavage all evening.
This was different. The stranger’s brief, discreet once-over made her feel stark naked. She shivered, and let
