Who was it? In God's name, who was it? And what…what did he plan to do to her?
Fear paralysed her; she trembled, cold sweat on her skin, her throat thick with dread.
CHAPTER SIX
From the garden a cold wind blew in through the open door, chilling her even more, but in a different way, kick-starting her brain again. She had once filmed a women's self-defence course—they had dealt with just such a situation as this. What had the tutor advised them to do?
Deliberately she removed her mind from the panic and terror of what he was doing to her body. She didn't always remember what was said, but she rarely forgot anything she saw. Her mind flashed her an image of a hall full of women. Yes, that was it!
Pulling her head as far back as she could, she went for his eyes, pushing her thumbs into both at the same time, while in the same instant she pulled a knee up as hard as she could into his groin.
He gave a grunt of pain and let go of her breasts, his hands reaching up to push her thumbs out of his eyes.
'You bitch, that hurt!'
'Get off me!' she yelled, her hands now screwed into fists, and began hitting him in the face. She kicked him, too, in the shins, on the ankles, with a force that made one of her shoes fly off.
He was sweating viciously, trying to hold her down, control her again, and suddenly Zoe recognised his voice.
'Larry!'
He stopped swearing, lay still for a few seconds, then gave a hoarse, strangled groan.
'You…you bastard!' she breathed hoarsely. 'Get off me!' She had never been afraid of Larry, only disturbed by that obsessive nature of his. Angrily she shoved him away.
'Zoe…listen…I wouldn't have hurt you…I just wanted to…needed to…hold you, touch you. I love you. You know I do.'
'If this is your idea of love, God help you,' she bit out 'Now, will you get up?'
Silently, he scrambled off her and stood up. Zoe got up too, and reached for the light switch, blinking as the darkness was flooded with bright light.
Larry winced from the illumination, head held down, not meeting her eyes. There were swelling bruises on his face, a smear of blood from his nose.
Zoe stared at him. 'How could you do a thing like this? What did you intend to do to me? Rape me? Kill me?'
Just saying it made her blood run cold. Until her mind started working he had been winning; she had been so scared she might not have stopped him, out of sheer terror. Now she knew just how a woman felt when a man jumped her out of the dark. Fear was the enemy as much as any rapist.
'No,' Larry muttered. 'No, I wouldn't have… Zoe, I love you. I wouldn't have hurt you.'
Her cat-like green eyes spat rage and contempt 'Love me? Oh, that's why you knocked me to the floor and tried to scare the living daylights out of me? You have a funny idea of love!'
'I kept ringing; you wouldn't talk to me! You wouldn't see me. I was desperate.'
'So you attacked me! Did you really think you could get away with it? After all those threatening phone calls the police would have been on to you in two seconds flat; you would have been the obvious suspect, and no matter how much you lied a simple DNA test would soon have proved it was you! You might have gone to prison for years.'
'You made me love you and then you dumped me!' he said in that familiar, petulant, childish voice, and she looked at him with contempt.
'I didn't make you do anything of the kind! Nobody can make anybody love them, and if you cared twopence for me you wouldn't be here now; you wouldn't feel justified in hurting me!'
'You hurt me!'
'I may have damaged your ego; I don't believe I hurt you. It's not me you're obsessed with; it's yourself.'
He looked as if she'd hit him again. 'How can you be so cruel? If I did attack you, you deserved it You know I love you, but you treat me like a stray dog.' He was dark red now and breathing thickly. Suddenly he went for her again, his hands reaching for her throat, taking her off guard again.
Choking, her ears buzzing, Zoe tried to fight free, but Larry was in a frenzied state. His hands were stronger than she had realised; she couldn't pull them down from her throat. Her eyes clouded, she felt herself losing consciousness, and then abruptly he let go of her. Zoe reeled back and fell against the wall, coughing and retching, breathing painfully.
Her eyes were still clouded, but dimly she saw someone who hadn't been there before. Another man. He must have pulled Larry off her. Who was it? she thought stupidly. And where on earth had he come from just in the nick of time?