“Goddammit, woman—”
The light swept past him.
“One,” she said. “Two.”
It came to a stop, inches from his head.
“Wait. Listen to me. All I want is—”
“I know exactly what you want.”
He blinked.
There was no mistaking what she meant. The only response he could think of was “uh-oh,” but he had the feeling that wasn’t going to do it.
“You’re wrong,” he said quickly. “I don’t—”
“Three,” she said, no hesitancy in her voice at all.
Jake took a breath, shot to his feet, focused his sight to the left of the light in hopes it wouldn’t blind him and ran to where he figured she was standing.
He hit her, hard, just as he’d planned, his shoulder driving into her with enough force to take them both to the ground.
The flashlight flew from her hand.
Then she was under him, legs spread, arms raised, fingers clawing for his face. He grunted, grabbed for her wrists and struggled to immobilize her.
Her knee came up. She didn’t have a lot of leverage but she jammed it into his groin anyway, hard enough to make him gasp.
He flung himself against her, pinned her with his body, his hands clasping hers, holding them out to the sides.
“Listen to me,” he said roughly. “I’m not here to hurt—”
She struck like a snake, head coming up, teeth sharp as tiny knives sinking into his throat.
He jerked back.
“For God’s sake, woman, will you listen?”
“I’ll kill you,” she gasped. “So help me, I’ll—”
“I came to apologize.”
“You do this to me, I swear—”
“I came here to apologize, dammit!”
She grunted. Wriggled. It was like wrestling with a wildcat….
Except, this was a woman.
Warm.
Lithe.
Silken.
They were two people in deadly combat—and yet, despite that, despite everything, Jake felt his duplicitous body coming alive.