No, she thought frantically, no! She’d never want someone like him to put his hands on her. His mouth on her. To take her, hard and fast, again and again until she collapsed in his arms….
He started toward her, heedless of the people in his way, everything about him focused, with hot intensity, on her.
And she turned and ran.
She went through the crowd blindly, banging into people, ignoring their indignant protests. Her heart was racing.
God, oh God, oh God!
He was the hunter. She was his prey. A sob rose in her throat and, just in time, she spotted the flashing neon sign that marked one of the club’s unisex bathrooms.
Jen had dragged her into it earlier.
“Doesn’t look like a bathroom at all,” Jen had bubbled.
Right now, it looked like a sanctuary.
Aimee pulled open the door. Slammed it after her. Started to turn the lock…
Bang!
The door flew open and the man burst into the room. She shrieked and fell back, reached behind her to the vanity. Wrapped her hand around a heavy bottle of something. Hand lotion. Body oil. Who gave a damn what it was? It was a weapon.
That was what counted.
“Don’t,” she said.
Her voice shook. Was that the reason for the little smile that began at the corner of his mouth?
“Get out of here! Do you hear me? Go away or I’ll scream.”
He laughed. She couldn’t blame him. There wasn’t a chance in the world anyone would hear her. You wouldn’t hear a siren above the music. It was muted here, but it still filled the room like the beat of a giant heart.
She raised the bottle over her head. “One step,” she panted, “just one, and I’ll smash you with this!”
He laughed. “You already tried that, remember?”
“I’m not kidding! You—you unlock that door and get the hell out of here or so help me—”
He started toward her. She let fly with the bottle but he dodged and it shattered against the wall.
“Listen to me.” Her voice trembled; she hated herself for it but she knew damned well there was nothing she could do to prevent it. “This is a terrible mistake. You won’t—you won’t get away with—”
“At first,” he said, his tone almost conversational, “I thought, ‘Well, that is just the way she deals with men.’”
She’d noticed his accent this afternoon. You couldn’t miss that husky, sexy quality to his voice. It seemed more obvious now, his pronunciation more careful.
“I told myself it was not important.”
Aimee swallowed. “Look, what happened this afternoon—”
“Still,” he said, in that same easy way, as if he were explaining the day’s news to a friend, “still, I admit, it bothered me. That a woman should be so impolite. So downright rude. But I put it out of my head.”
“I didn’t do anything! It was—it was just something that happened.”
“Just something that happened.” He nodded. “Yes, that’s an excellent way to put it. In fact, that is exactly the conclusion I reached.”
He was inches away from her now, so close that she had to tilt her head up to see his eyes. Even in her heels, he was much taller than she. And, God, much bigger.