Authors: Elizabeth Lowe
Reading the Morse
code message stirring brain waves in Dan's skull, Cassidy wondered if she would
have the strength to fight him.
Amazingly, an unnecessary effort, for his retreat left her standing as
lifeless as a picture on the wall.
Cringing from the thoughts of lying beneath him she glanced at the bed
that seemed to consume the room.
God
what she wouldn’t give to slug the bastard?
Upbraiding
herself, for goodness sake Dan was the least of her worries.
All she needed was a long hot shower, an ice
cold drink, Tylenol and sleep.
Just in
case, Cassidy placed the gun beneath her pillow and the pager on the
nightstand.
CHAPTER 7
Invading the
cramped space echoing therapeutic streams of hot liquid battering cold tile
walls claimed a new personification as swirling vapors.
On the toilet, tank a warm, half-consumed
beverage alongside an opened bottle of pain reliever.
Barely visible through the shower curtain
Cassidy’s silhouette was leaning against the wall lost in the sensation of the
soothing spray.
No energy
remained until a queer sensation signaling that something was, dreadfully wrong
straightened her spine and alerted defense mechanisms.
A quick twist of fingers ceased the water.
Deadly
quiet reigned.
Body stiff, mind
reeling, with hearing mechanisms on full alert she listened intently.
“Don't forget to lock and chain the door,”
Dan commanded before leaving, his characteristics fanatical.
Dammit, did she
forget?
He did leave, didn't he?
No one would be crazy enough to break into a
sixth floor window facing the street.
However reassuring the reflections should have been, Cassidy began
trembling.
The bathroom door
creaked, she was positive.
A door she
was certain she closed the one and only exit offering escape, and the chance to
reach the pager neglectfully left on the nightstand.
Fraught eyes flicked wildly as unsettling
premonitions brought reality squealing to the forefront.
Trapped, naked, lacking a weapon, the odds of
survival was substantially against her.
Means of defense
screaming to the forefront somewhat relieved the tension when she recalled
placing the razor on the nearby sink after shaving her legs, if fingers
slipping past the curtain could reach the blade, at least there was a slight
possibility of protection, she reasoned.
All at once, her body began melting into the crevice of the corner.
The dimly lit room, as well as the thick veil
of steam hindering visibility through the shower curtain was tipping the scale
against her.
If anyone
witnessed her behavior they'd never believe the impossible situations she'd
overcome during her career.
What
happened to her bravery?
Was the
combination of an unfamiliar apartment, strange city and serial killer
destroying her confidence?
The size of
an assailant didn’t matter, her instructor drilled.
Surprise was the best weapon.
All she needed was to find the strength to
rip back the curtain and lash out at the intruder.
Strength hell, there was none left.
Enough screamed
inner adrenaline sufficiently fortifying to rip aside the curtain.
A huge sigh of exasperation filled with
relief followed.
Held captive within the
Closter phobic confines her overly stimulated imagination had gone rampant.
Incidents that made
her admit it wasn’t the massaging spray to blame for carrying her into the land
of wild imaginings.
Scrubbing the arm
crimson that Sullivan touched with a strong demanding grip did nothing to
eradicate the heat tattooed there.
Worse
yet, without warning, in Technicolor, bigger than life, he stood in front of
her, naked, crowding her in the three by three quarters.
Even with eyelids closed, she felt his
penetrating brilliant blue eyes; her keen sense of smell identified her soaps'
fragrance as the same brand he used.
In just a short
time, like a fever, Sullivan had entered and drained her, creating shivers of
alarm that forced her mind to careen from one glorious terrain of his
magnificent body to another.
She never
allowed a man to catapult her on such an erotic journey, one so realistic, she
dewed with want merely from remembering every microscopic inch of a complete
stranger.
A blatant lie, a photograph
carried the virus.
Shawn Patrick
Sullivan came from the same mold as her father and brothers, his bone
structure, muscle tone, and demeanor.
Handsome, he had more than his rightful share.
Lord Almighty,
why Sullivan?
Great timing, Cassidy
sputtered inwardly.
The next thing she
knew, he'd be in her bed.
God help her,
she'd been brain washed by Satan himself.
Quickly plucking
and tugging a towel around her, she hoped the thick terry cloth would absorb
the chilling effect of the asinine imaginings ice-skating over her skin.
Facing the mist-filmed mirror briskly
brushing her hair, she cursed each lick of the bristles for doing nothing to
erase memories of Sullivan.
Wallowing in
anger, a sudden draft reaching her core stopped her cold.
Gazing into the mirror, her eyelids batting
wildly struggled to penetrate the fog preventing identification of a
suffocating presence.
There was an
unmistakable breath floating across her shoulders, bringing with it tremendous
warmth threatening to melt the ice burg within into liquid desire.
Someone was behind her.
Bravery subdued
fear beginning to rise to the occasion.
The quaking taking place, far beyond fear, had no definition for it
sprang from the fragrance engulfing her senses burning to ashes the questions
struggling to the surface.
How did he
find her?
How did he get in?
What did he want?
Though Ben's
presence down the hall screeched across Cassidy’s mind, she knew, reaching the
pager was futile, and screaming useless.
By now, Ben’s metamorphoses would have consumed him. Right this minute
with odds of survival monumentally stacked against her there was only one
person she could depend upon, herself.
Even when a patch
cleared unveiling the predatory gaze, features made more magnificent by steely
determination, panic did not surface.
Unbelievably all she noticed was that his hat was missing and she became
lost in the depths of her subconscious wondering how running her fingers
through the thick waves might feel.
A disturbing
breath awakening the nerve endings of her ear lobe shuffled the brief
reflection aside.
Though but a whisper
the voice piercing the silence, riding it, finding its way beneath her feet
levitated them off the floor if only for a second.
“Amazing, quite amazing, you don't
frighten easily, do you?”
On the wave of
each word, a trace of awe Cassidy found exhilarating.
Aware murderers thrived on the game of cat
and mouse using fear as the primary rule, she imagined how Sullivan would gloat
if allowed success.
Now she wondered,
did he rape then kill or vice versa?
If
she was his prey, and he killed first, surely the scarf would already be around
her neck.
Well, Sullivan knew nothing
about a Brady.
It would be a cold day in
hell that she’d go down without a fight,
Beginning at the
nap of her neck, the tips of Sullivan’s index fingers traced her spine up and
down under and around shoulder blades before his hands gently began kneading
tension knotted muscles.
The whisper
soft voice puffing against her skin spine tingling, “Your skin reminds me of
silk, soft, shiny, expensive.”
Hands
slipping beneath each armpit compressed her threateningly.
A nose burrowed into her hair as he continued
to goad her, “Your hair like the finest perfumes.”
Scaring her
wasn't about to happen, Cassidy reassured her scurrying emotions.
Yet, when his body leaned into hers invisible
fright entering her toes, crept eerily up her legs making its way to the center
of her, damn the vanity for halting her, for allowing the small of her back to
identify the hard shaft pressing against her buttocks.
For long agonizing moments slowly with
purpose, his body gently ground her hips while his fingers inched toward her
breasts.
Rarely granting
anyone the privilege, least of all someone like Sullivan, turning torpidly her
steel like gaze collided with a badge.
Minus her heels, Sullivan was a giant requiring tilting her head to
address his face.
Thank God, her
reaction instantly removed his hands, her inbred tenacity providing the
strength and perseverance or he would have known how forcefully her heart was
clanging, how close to the edge of sheer panic she really was.
Cassidy never
backed down.
Neither did Sullivan.
Bristling with antagonism, smoldering
charcoal eyes glared at him.
“Pray tell,
did the mighty warrior decide he required my services after all?”
Words that struck his face for Sullivan
flinched and the muscles of his cheek danced to grinding teeth.
Amazingly, he
said nothing, merely stared at the swells of her breasts struggling not to
heave, the tightness of the towel making them more prominent.
An unnerving inspection intensified by the
backs of his fingers lightly gliding over them.
Trying to thwart
the goose bumps his touch evoked, Cassidy whined inwardly, keep cool, calm and
collected, right, how when he was churning her insides into bubbling lava?
Nevertheless, pro that she deemed herself to
be managed somehow to pluck the necessary commodities from the volcano before
erupting.
Raising both
hands, fingers creeping seductively up the blue material of his shirt already
damp from desires perspiration began smoothing over the material before easing
two buttons open.
Eyes glittering with
devilment confronted his glaring down with steely contempt.
“What do you prefer,” Cassidy whispered as
her hands slithering downward seized his belt buckle.
Although receiving no verbal reply, her eyes
studying the v where his heartbeat registered saw the lump in his throat
lodge.
Brave as his outward appearance
appeared, evident beneath her palms were firm, well-disciplined muscles
twitching, the thuds of a heart pulsating so wildly it matched the notes of his
raspy breathing.
Still, he never spoke
or moved.
Desire glazed the
eyes lost in the pools of hers.
Other
than seeming to require true grit to withstand her loosening his belt, Sullivan
never responded to her actions making Cassidy wonder how far he'd allow her to
go.
Considering sex was not part of the
plan, she questioned if she could.
Yes,
she supposed, if it meant saving her life.
That is if she didn't faint first.
Sex was not what
he was after Patrick struggled to remind himself, scaring her was more to his
liking.
He wanted her out of L.A.
Sure, what were his chances when DeMarco
would never release her?
Who would be
crazy enough to allow such a temptress to get away? An ass, that's what he was
for allowing the situation to get out of hand, his intentions, had backfired,
now how would he back down.
The way his
vital organs were reacting right this second scared the hell out of him
instead.
It didn’t help
that the angle of the dresser mirror had offered him a view of her luscious
body when she stepped from the shower.
Brain dead that's what Cassidy was, so damn naive, so trusting, so
fearless she invited trouble by leaving the apartment door unlocked, and
unchained.
Inwardly, feeling
as if all his latent hostilities were waiting to turn on her, like a wild
stallion, male anatomy overruled his head, “How much,” he barked.
Unexpected words stealing through the iron
bars of his will that shocked even him.