door slammed, cutting off her best chance to alert a neighbor. Instead, she plunged into her dark front hallway.
His voice, roughened but soft, came from behind her. “Mackenzie, please…”
He knew her name! Somehow, that was worse. The attack was personal now.
She bolted.
The living room was on the right, but she ran past it, not wanting to be cornered in a room without an exit. The bed and bathroom were at the end of the hall. The bath was closer but she veered at the last instant into her bedroom, where there was a phone. And a window and door onto the enclosed courtyard.
She tried to slam the bedroom door behind her, but he was already standing in the jamb, holding it open. She had a fleeting glimpse of a battered face before she whirled away. Her eyes went first to the back door—locked. Was she desperate enough to throw herself through the window? It was too dark to see much, but suddenly she was confused. As if…
“Mackenzie. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Sorry? The familiarity in his voice was eerie, but she wasn’t about to confront him. Shuddering, she rushed to the window. He must be insane. A stalker.
The window stuck, the wooden sashes swollen by the damp weather. She was gasping, pushing futilely at the double-hung window, when the intruder’s hand closed over her shoulder.
In a last-ditch effort, she dove onto the bed, stretching for the phone on the nightstand. He crawled on top of her, dragging her hands away. “No,” she sobbed. “Don’t—”
“Mackenzie, it’s me.”
The calmness of his hushed voice reached her. She stopped struggling. “Wh-who?”
He let up a little, and she was able to turn her head. Lightning flashed, illuminating the room for an instant. She saw his face for the first time. It was dreadfully familiar.
“D-Devlin?” She sucked in a shuddery gasp, unable to catch her breath. Her mind spun with disbelief. “Devlin Brandt?”
He eased his hold on her, but didn’t let go entirely. They lay flat on the bed, him on top of her twisted body, with his hands cuffing her wrists on either side of her head. Face-to-face.
The moment was surreal. No more than fifteen minutes ago, she had been staring at his senior-class photo in the reunion booklet. Longing for him. That Devlin was a brash kid with a wise-ass grin and long-lashed green eyes, whose silky brown hair had a chestnut sheen.
This man was not the same, even if she discounted the scrapes and swelling of his beat-up face. His eyes were hardened, maybe mean. His hair was dark and stringy. There were hollows in his cheeks, stubble on his jaw, a thin scar above his lip. But he was Devlin. Her vision blurred. One image superimposed over the other. She shut her eyes. Opened them again.
Devlin Brandt. Unbelievable! “What the—”
“I’m sorry,” he said at the same time.
“You’re sorry?” She grappled with him, yanking her wrists from his grasp, but he wouldn’t release her even when she boxed his ear. “Let…me…go!”
“Promise you won’t call 9-1-1.”
“Why shouldn’t I?” Her voice escalated. “You grab me at my door, force me inside—”
“I was in a hurry. There wasn’t time to stand around and chitchat.”
“You scared me!”
“There was no other choice. I had to make a fast move.”
She was remembering how she’d been warned away from him. He’s dangerous to know, her classmates had said. Involved in criminal activity. By the looks of him, he wasn’t even successful at it. There was a scrape on his jaw and a lump on his forehead. One eye was swelling shut.
She panted, growing aware of the dampness of their clothing and the compromising position in which he had her. Devlin was heavy on top of her. The smell of his soaked leather jacket was strong, and his hair was dripping wet. He’d been out in the rain for a while. Lurking? Then why had he overtaken her? Why didn’t he let her go? None of this made sense.
Various observations that had been pushed aside in her fear came floating to the forefront. He’d known who she was when he grabbed her. He’d even known which apartment was hers. His motive was obviously crooked….
“What’s going on?” she demanded. “How did you find me?”
“The reunion.”
“What does that mean?”
“I saw your name and address in the list they sent out with the invitations.”
Right. “But there wasn’t any contact information for you,” she pointed out, “so how did you receive the list in the first place?” Part of her recognized that it was absurd to debate details when her teenage crush turned ex-con was holding her tight in the missionary position of her schoolgirl dreams. How many times had she wished to have Devlin Brandt look at her as closely as he was right now?
A self-conscious warmth crept over her. She was no more a pretty sight than he. Her makeup was smeared, her shorn hair was plastered to her head, her carefully chosen outfit was a total mess—
And she was wearing a stretchy pink Lycra panty girdle.
Oh, hell.
“I have my ways,” Devlin said.
She narrowed her eyes. “Criminal ways.”
His face hovered over hers in the dark. Close enough for her to see that despite his condition, his grin was as impudent as ever. “You’ve followed my career.”
“Hardly. But I got an earful at the reunion.”
“Was that tonight?” He angled his head, looking down at her cleavage, which the underwire bra had pushed into the unbuttoned vee of her blouse and halfway toward her chin. The pearl necklace was tossed to one side, following the curve of her breast. “Is that why you’re all dressed up?”
Exasperating. She rolled her eyes upward and stared at the ceiling through wet, clumpy lashes. “Are you ever going to let me up?”
The timbre of his voice dropped an octave. A helluva sexy octave. “I’m considering it.”
“Decide fast,” she said through her teeth. “Before I start screaming again.” Now that her terror was gone—most of it, anyway—the sheer bulk of him was starting to affect her. He was heavy, hard and thoroughly muscled. She still couldn’t draw an even breath. Every time she tried, her breasts swelled, the tips rubbing against the open zipper of his leather jacket. If he didn’t let go soon, any screaming she did was going to be in ecstasy.
Thunder rumbled. “You’ve done enough of that,” he said, and she hoped he wasn’t able to read her thoughts. “I’ll be lucky if you didn’t alert the entire block.”
“What did you expect? Have you never heard of walking up to a person and saying hello?”
