She struggled, panic squirming in her belly. His face was slick with sweat. Oh, gross. It became unpleasantly evident that he was excited. She tried to remember tricks from the self-defense course she’d taken at the gym, but the only thing that came to mind were house keys. Good for eye jabbing, face raking and the like. Hah.
Edgar licked her neck. Her stomach lurched. She dragged in a deep breath and drove her spike heel into his foot, with all her weight.
Edgar howled. Whap, the back of her head smacked painfully into the shingled wall. “You bitch!”
“Let go of her,” said a deep voice.
Edgar swiveled his head. “Who the fuck are you?”
Abby wrenched out of his grip, catching herself against the wall.
It was hard to follow what happened. It was dark, the stranger wore black, her eyes were watering, her head spun from the blow.
Edgar whipped around like a rag doll and flailed, facedown on the floor. The stranger sank down on top of him, twisting Edgar’s hand behind his back, pinning his shoulder to the floor with his knee.
She blinked tears from her eyes, squeezed them shut. Tried again.
Yes, the man was still there, crouching on top of Edgar. He was real. Dark hair hung long and loose over a battered black leather jacket. Keen eyes studied her, thoughtful and curious.
He grabbed Edgar’s hair, jerked his head up. “Apologize to her.”
“Fuck you,” Edgar wheezed. “I’ll have you arrested, you scumbag piece of shit. I’ll ruin your goddamn life!”
The guy let go of Edgar’s hair and chopped the edge of his hand down onto the bridge of Edgar’s nose. He shrieked. Blood bubbled.
“Wrong answer,” the stranger said mildly.
Edgar made wet choking sounds. The man shot her a questioning glance. “Want to call the cops? I’ll verify that he was assaulting you.”
She shook her head.
“You want me to hit him some more?” the man prompted.
She forced sound past the lump in her throat. “If you could, ah, just make him go away, that would be great, thanks.”
“OK.” He yanked up on Edgar’s hair. “This is your lucky day, pusbag. The nice lady doesn’t feel like watching you get stomped. Which is better luck than you deserve. You should thank her.”
Edgar made gurgling noises.
“Too bad,” the man murmured. “Another lost opportunity.”
Edgar shrieked as the stranger jerked him to his feet, hand still twisted up behind him. He doubled over, moaning as the guy hustled him down the stairs. Abby clutched the banister, white-knuckled.
The men were soon lost to sight around the corner of the house. The stranger said something in a low, intense tone. Edgar coughed and gasped in reply. A car door slammed. Lights came on, a motor hummed to life. The Porsche revved up and crushed Mrs. Eisley’s pansy beds as it cut a corner out of the driveway and sped away. Silence.
She wondered if the guy was just a wishful hallucination.
The shadows in the bushes at the base of the stairs resolved into a tall, dark form. He climbed until Mrs. Eisley’s porch light shone full on his face, paused, and waited. She got the sense that he was trying not to scare her. Letting her get a good, long look at him.
She couldn’t have stopped looking if she tried. The guy was straight out of a naughty dream, the kind she woke up from hot and damp and achingly lonesome. Tall and solid-looking, sharp cheekbones, an angular jaw. His eyebrows were a slashing black line. His dark mane had the look of a long-ago haircut that he hadn’t bothered to refresh. There was a tattoo on his neck. He looked hard, seasoned. Dangerous.
The kind of guy she’d sworn off for all time.
“Are you all right?” he asked her, his voice hesitant.
She clamped down on the hysterical laughter. “Yes, thank you.”
His eyes flicked over her body. In the porch light, she could finally decipher the bright color. Not blue or gray. Topaz gold.
She looked down to check what she was wearing. The Diego Della Valle. Low-cut, slinky, short. She’d been regretting her outfit all night, the way Edgar had drooled over her cleavage all evening.
This was different. The stranger’s brief, discreet once-over made her feel stark naked. She shivered, and let go of the railing to cross her arms across her breasts. She swayed, groping for the banister.
He leaped up the remaining stairs with pantherlike swiftness, grabbing her around the waist. “Whoa! Steady there.”
“Sorry.” Her hands fluttered. She had no idea where to put them. He was all around her. The only place to rest them was his shoulders, tangled in his hair, wrapped around his waist. Gripping his butt. Whoa.
He wore black cargo pants, covered with utilitarian pockets, all of which appeared to be in use. A gray T-shirt was stretched out across a broad, muscular chest. He smelled good, too. Like herbs. Rain on the earth, with faint accents of metal and woodsmoke and sea air.
“Here. Sit.” He pulled her until she stumbled down two steps, and coaxed her into sitting down on the top step. “Put your head down.”
She pressed her face against her knees as much to hide from those intense golden eyes as to recover from the head rush.
“How about you let me run you over to the emergency room?” he offered. “Your lips look kind of bluish.”
Lovely. So she looked like death, too. “No, thanks,” she mumbled.
“But he bashed your head against the wall.” He reached around and touched her head. The contact gave her a tingling shock.
She leaned away. His hand dropped. “I’m fine, thanks.”
She sneaked a quick peek at his tattoos as she struggled to her feet. On his neck was the swirling knotwork of a black Celtic cross. The one on his hand was a pair of crossed cutlasses. Pirate swords.
“OK, whatever,” he said. “Just go slow, OK?”
They stood there looking at each other until his brows knitted in a puzzled frown. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I, uh…” She floundered. “I guess I was just sort of surprised to find you still here, after Edgar left.”
His eyes narrowed. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
She shook her head, embarrassed. “It seemed so improbable. A mysterious guy pops up at the eleventh hour, like Batman. He does his thing, saves the day, and whoosh, he disappears.”
A faint smile touched his lips. “But I haven’t done my thing yet.”
What was that supposed to mean? Mrs. Eisley was deaf, and the night was dark, and she was shaking so hard, she could barely stand.
He backed down two steps, hands lifted. “I don’t mean anything sinister. I just meant that I haven’t done the job you called me for yet.”
“Called you for…for what?” She was utterly lost.
“The locksmith. Remember? Your lockout?”
Her jaw dropped. “You’re the locksmith?”
“Yeah.” His sidelong glance was delicately cautious. “And, uh, exactly why is this so hard to believe?”
She looked over six feet and some odd inches of lethally gorgeous male. “I’ve never called a locksmith,” she babbled. “I expected someone with a potbelly and a bald spot. In a blue coverall. Named Irv. Or Mel.”
Smile lines crinkled