He had the most sensual mouth. His lips were generous and seemed to be perpetually tipped up in some semblance of a grin.
Too aware that she was staring again, she lifted her gaze to quite possibly the most expressive eyes she’d ever seen. In that moment, she read his pity through them and was ashamed.
“Oh. Oh, no. It’s…it’s not what you’re thinking. I’m not one of those poor women caught up in an abuse cycle.” Though he was a total stranger, she didn’t want him thinking that about her. “I ended our relationship months ago. He’s just not— Well, he’s not getting the picture.”
“And he’s not likely to anytime soon unless he has a reason to consider the consequences.”
Consequences. So far, she, not Jason, had been the one suffering the consequences of his unwarranted obsession.
It all caught up with her then. The fear of the past few moments. The utter sense of vulnerability and violation. The embarrassment of a public scene. And her dependence on this stranger to come to her rescue.
Jason had blindsided her. She hated him for that. She hated violence more. She’d felt as helpless against it tonight as she had as a child. And like a child, she’d frozen in the face of it.
She knew what that made her. Leslie Griffin, her sixty-years-young friend and co-worker, could argue all she wanted that Phoebe was heroic for overcoming her abusive childhood, for putting herself through school, for enduring and establishing herself as a solid, independent citizen. The truth, however, was that at heart she was a coward. For that failure alone, she hated herself almost as much as she hated Jason for putting her in this position.
“Well.” She squared her shoulders and rallied what pride she had left. “It’s my problem. I’ll figure out how to deal with it.”
“Think in terms of a two-by-four. Right between his eyes,” he said darkly.
“Do you all run on pure testosterone?” She blurted out the words before she could marshal them. Again.
She closed her eyes, pressed her fingertips to her temple. Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
She didn’t know how to act around this man. If she wasn’t gaping in stupefied silence over his glaring good looks, she was bumbling out the most inappropriate things.
“I’m sorry. You saved me from a really bad ending here and I’m coming down on you for wanting to…” She paused, lifted a hand in the air.
“To add more violence to an already violent situation?” he suggested, an apology in his voice. “Unfortunately, sometimes that’s the only option.”
For the first time, something other than gentle amusement hardened his mouth. She saw and heard his anger but understood that it was directed at Jason. She also understood that he hadn’t judged her as harshly as she’d judged herself.
When she realized he was watching her with an absorbed intensity that relayed both concern and the same gentleness as his smiles, she drew in a deep breath and let it out.
“Well,” she said, feeling compelled to assure him, “I’ll be okay. He’ll give up sooner or later. In the meantime, I really don’t know how to thank you. Most people wouldn’t have stopped, and, you know, gotten in the middle of someone else’s mess.”
“I’m not most people.”
That much she’d already figured out. He certainly wasn’t like most of the people she knew at any rate. And he wasn’t anything like her. She was strictly struggling to be middle-class mundane. And he— Well, he wasn’t.
“So, what happens now?”
She let out a breath through puffed cheeks. “What does happen now?” she mused aloud before her brain synapses clicked into place. “Well, now I guess I walk back to my car and drive home.”
It seemed simple enough, except that on the heels of her statement, she realized it wasn’t going to be simple at all. She would have laughed if she could have mustered the strength.
“Well, normally I’d walk back to my car and drive home.”
“Normally?”
She worried her lower lip between her teeth then lifted a shoulder. “He got away with my car keys.”
He quirked a beautifully arched eyebrow—the one with the nick in it. “Oops. That’s a problem.”
Phoebe tugged on the tips of her hair where it tickled her nape and tried not to fidget as he continued to watch her with that half-amused, half-interested, all-male grin.
“So it would appear that you’re stranded.”
Yep. She was in a tight spot. So why was she suddenly grinning back at him?
It was ludicrous. Someone who had once meant something to her, someone she had trusted and had actually considered building a life with, had just tried to physically assault her. In addition, he’d made off with her car keys. Yet the pain of the first and the anger over the second just sort of drifted off in the comfort of this man’s dazzling smile.
“I’ll, um, just hail a cab,” she said, sobering resolutely. “I’ve got an extra set of keys at home. I can come back for my car tomorrow.”
“Or,” he said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his shorts, “I could take you.”
Yes, yes, yes.
She pulled back from that idea with a steadying breath. “No, oh no. I couldn’t ask you to do that. You’ve done enough. And you don’t even know me. For that matter, I don’t know you.”
“That is an issue,” he agreed with another one of those knee-melting smiles that didn’t make fun but teased just the same. “Here’s a thought. You could tell me your name, and I could tell you mine.” He paused, his grin playful and expectant. “You see where this is leading, right?”
Infectious. His smile was positively infectious.
“And then we can say we know each other,” he finished, looking very pleased with himself and his silliness. “Works out pretty well to my way of thinking.”
She liked his way of thinking. She was baffled that a man who looked like him would even bother with a woman who looked like her, but she liked it. In fact, she was quickly discovering that she liked everything about him.
Like his lips. Supple, sensual.
“So, what do you say?” he prompted. “How about you go first?”
“Phoebe,” she murmured, dragging her gaze away from his mouth. “Phoebe Richards.”
“Phoebe,” he repeated, mulling it over then looking immeasurably pleased. “I like it. It suits you much better than Mouse.” His expression was as sober as it was sincere.
She blinked, speechless again.
“I’m Daniel.” He extended his hand. “Daniel Barone.”
This time when he smiled it was full out, no-holes-barred and devastating.
She drew a deep breath and tried to shore herself up as every bone in her body sort of liquefied to the consistency of pudding.
And then she smiled like a goon again because he just made it so darn easy.
Slowly, she took the hand he offered. It was a strong hand. Her own hand felt small and protected tucked inside his. Before she could stop the image from forming, she imagined the coarse, warm strength of it caressing…well, something much more intimate than her hand.
She was thankful it was shadowy and dark on the street. Maybe he couldn’t see the flush spreading across her cheeks. With luck, he wouldn’t notice the slight tremble of her hand either when she finally managed to extricate it from his and lift it to her nape to tug self-consciously