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He moves closer, and she backs away. He is an unknown quantity, and everything about this situation screams wrong.
“You’re beautiful,” he remarks, his eyes admiring. “My brother always had good taste in women. Notwithstanding what he did to her.”
There’s an undercurrent here. Something is certainly not right. She retreats as he keeps on coming closer, until she bumps into the kitchen counter. She has nowhere to go.
“Please,” she says.
“Please what?”
“Please don’t . . . ”
He is two feet away from her now. She wonders if she is in any danger. The way he appraises her – like she is something to eat – is deeply unsettling. Out of the corner of her eyes, she spies the knife rack. She wonders if she should reach for it.
His nostrils flare as his pupils dilate. “I should take you right here on the table. Take you as he has taken her.”
Her heart skips several beats.
Her instincts are right. She is in danger.
Just then, the robot takes it in mind to nudge his ankle.
“What the – ?”
He looks down, startled. She takes the opportunity to fling herself across the counter to grab a kitchen knife.
Rough hands seize her waist. The rack tips over, scattering the knives out of her reach.
“No!” she screams, and tries to twist her body away.
But he is very strong. His arms hold her in a vise grip. One hand reaches for her struggling head and grasps her hair.
Oh my God, she thinks weakly, I’m about to be raped. She now wishes she has taken self-defense classes instead of spending her evenings at the office.
“Please, no,” she whimpers. This is not make-believe, she realizes. This is horrifically real.
“Let her go!” says a voice at the doorway.
They both look up to see Channing Crawford. He is staring at his brother as though he has seen a ghost.
He blanches. “You. But you’re dead.”
Her assailant releases her, and she clambers away from him to run to Channing.
Turning to her, he says tersely, “Go upstairs.”
“Surprised, brother?” she hears the other man say. “How long has it been since you left me there for dead? Ten years?”
“That’s not how it happened and you know it.”
She flees, her heart galloping like wild horses. Part of her desperately wants to listen in on their conversation, but fear lends her feet wings. She half-climbs, half-stumbles up the grand staircase and bolts down a passageway. There’s a room with its door open, and she scuttles in. It’s a bedroom – whose, she doesn’t know – but she locks the door behind her and dives into the attached bathroom.
She cocks her ears very hard for sounds.
Channing might be in trouble. Perhaps he needs her help. She should go to him. Assist him in any way she can.
She needs more clothes than what she is wearing now. But her blue dress is in the closet downstairs, next to where the iron door of the dungeon beckons.
The dungeon.
What has she gotten herself into? Channing is no better than his brother. They are both sick, sick, sick. And one of them is supposed to be dead.
So many questions.
What the hell is happening?
She thinks she hears thuds downstairs, but she can’t be certain. The house is too big. Perhaps there is some sort of fight going on. Perhaps they are talking it out like two rational adults. All sorts of grisly scenarios play in her head. She imagines a bloody scuffle with the knives from the rack. Channing . . . dead.
Always Channing. Her thoughts keep returning to Channing.
She can’t bear it if something happened to him. Oh yes, she knows that she hasn’t known him for that long, and he has been nothing but dominant and commanding in his treatment of her. But there’s something about him, aside from his obvious good looks, that draws her to him like a moth to a flame, and she must be burned despite knowing the danger.
Oh Channing.
She realizes her cheeks are wet from crying.
She doesn’t know how long she stays there, locked in her little cocoon. But she finally hears muffled sounds of someone knocking on the door.
“Susan? Susan?”
She can’t be sure who it is, but he called her Susan – so it has to be Channing.
She thinks.
Relief floods her as she finds the strength to get to her feet and unlock the bathroom door. She opens the bedroom door an inch. As soon as she sees the shorn head, she wrenches open the door and falls into his arms.
“Has he hurt you?” he says urgently. His face is flushed with concern.
“No.”
It occurs to her that they are embracing each other. He has never held her like this – so fiercely and possessively. The warmth of his body melts through her skin, filling her with emotions too complicated to decipher. His smell permeates her nostrils – that manly musk of security and comfort and anticipation and excitement and everything she has come to expect . . . or not expect – from him.
“Where is he?” she whispers against his neck.
“Gone for the moment.” He withdraws from her to gaze into her eyes. “Susan, I want you to stay the weekend with me here. I’ve armed the alarms and sent for additional security.”
“Are we in danger?” Her throat feels parched. It has been forever since she last drank.
He waits for a beat before replying, “Yes.”
“But why? Is he your twin? And why is he here if he’s supposed to be dead?”
“I can’t answer all that right now.” His face sort of closes up again in a way that suggests he does not wish to answer her questions. Ever. “I need to go settle a few things urgently. You’re safe now. Put on some clothes and wait for me until I come back.”
The moment between them has dissipated. She suddenly feels all the strength draining from her body again.
What has she gotten herself into?
