A burst of laughter from behind galvanized her into motion again.
The sandals she’d thrown on only because they matched her sundress clicked loudly against the concrete path. So loudly that it took her a minute to pick up the sound of the second pair of footsteps following behind her. They were quiet and, if her own overprotective father hadn’t trained her, she probably never would have picked up on them. But, living in Atlanta, her daddy had made sure she was always aware of her surroundings and could defend herself.
Her sluggish brain reacted a little slower than she would have liked, but it took her only a few moments to assess the situation. She was alone on a dark path, surrounded by thick landscaping and plenty of nooks and crannies that could be used to pull her into the shadows.
The parade of men she’d grown increasingly harsher with as the night had gone on marched through her brain. Crap, she should have been nicer.
3
ZANE TAILED ELLE. FOLLOWING her had nothing to do with suspicions and everything to do with the fact that she’d looked less than steady on her feet back at the bar. She might have regained her balance fairly quickly, but he wasn’t in the habit of letting drunk women walk home alone.
That was just asking for trouble. He’d worked enough cases with female victims who had been in the wrong place at the right time and ended up dead. And while the likelihood of that happening in this tropical paradise was fairly low—thanks to the security measures he’d implemented—he still wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight if he’d let her walk out of that bar on her own.
The path back to the main building was long, and he suddenly felt responsible for Elle. God only knew why.
He rounded a corner on the path, realizing too late that the click of her footsteps ahead of him had gone silent.
The attack came out of nowhere. If he hadn’t been preoccupied with worrying about Elle, it never would have happened. Two years ago, his brain would have noticed the lack of sound, calculated the most-likely position where she’d gone off the path and prepared for any number of things—including the possibility that she might attack him.
Tonight, he was caught off guard as she came hurdling toward him out of the bushes. Her lithe body became a projectile headed straight for his chest. He had no desire to fall over backward from the force of her attack.
Defensive moves that had long ago become instinctive kicked in. He sidestepped the motion of her body, reaching out to try to stop her forward momentum. He might have no desire to hit concrete, but then he really didn’t want her to, either. Too much paperwork involved.
His fingers slid across her dress, fighting for purchase. He could feel the angle of her body shift beneath the slippery fabric as she countered his attempt to save her. The sound of cotton rending ripped through the air, mixing with the loud expulsion of her breath close to his ear. Her shoulder glanced off of his arm, the strength of her tiny body surprising him.
Elle went off balance. He knew the second that her center of gravity overcorrected itself and couldn’t recover. He knew because he watched as her eyes, more cognizant than he’d expected, widened in panic.
He lunged for her, but it was too late. If she’d still been standing on the path, he might have been able to grasp her and roll them both so she landed on top of him, shielding her from most of the impact. But the little minx had laid her trap right next to the pool.
“Elle!” He cried out a warning she obviously didn’t need.
He probably could have saved himself the dunking if he’d pushed against her momentum, but he didn’t. Instead, he tried to pull her in close to his body so that he could find her once they disappeared beneath the surface.
Neither of them was in danger of drowning. They might have landed in the deep end of the pool, but it was only six feet. Elle was tiny, but surely she could find her way to the surface with little effort, even if she had been drunk and disoriented. And considering the dexterity she’d needed for her botched attack, he was seriously reconsidering his assessment of her ability to hold liquor.
Warm water closed over his head. Chlorine stung his eyes as he kept them open, not willing to take his gaze off of Elle until he knew she was okay.
Her feet touched down against the tiled bottom of the pool, pushing off in a way that had her dress floating precariously high up the smooth expanse of her thighs. Another reason to keep his eyes open. She shot past him like a seal.
He broke the surface in time to hear the gasp of her breath as her head cleared the waterline. She sputtered, her arms churning to keep from sinking again.
“What the hell!”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
Elle spun around in the water to face him, the yellow material of her dress pooling around her body like a puddle of sunshine. Zane fought the urge to dunk his head back under.
“What did you think you were doing?” Zane demanded.
Anger began to mingle with the adrenaline in his blood. What had she been thinking? Had she known it was him on the path and intended to make him pay for locking her up earlier today? Or had she thought he was someone else, some other guy who was following her back to her room?
Either way, he was going to shake some sense into her.
“Defending myself,” Elle said.
Zane reached for her, but before he could touch her, she kicked out with her legs and swam away.
She might be fast, but he was faster. Halfway across the pool, he caught her. Wrapping his arm around her waist, he yanked her to a halt. His feet found the bottom, standing them both up in waist-high water, although he didn’t let her go.
“Defending yourself? Are you insane? You’re, what, a hundred pounds soaking wet? You couldn’t defend yourself against a fly, let alone a man who’s probably close to double your weight.”
Her eyes narrowed. The gray irises glittered in the darkness. They reminded him of the moon above their head, not as it was now, a sliver, but when it was full and bright.
“Hasn’t anyone ever told you size doesn’t matter?”
She wanted to squirm in his grasp. He could see the desire to fight for freedom lurking in her eyes. The fact that she fought against it, knowing it wouldn’t do her any good, impressed him. Most people would have let instinct overrule intelligence and struggle anyway.
He pulled her closer, both because the need to feel her body against his was overwhelming and because he wanted to see her reaction.
“Honey, size always matters. We both know I could hold you under this water, drown you, with little effort.”
He let his words sink in. Hoped they would sink in, before adding, “If I wanted to.”
The smirk that touched her lips for a brief second told him his threat hadn’t done a damn bit of good. Not only was she a firecracker, she was hardheaded, as well. He was about to give her a physical demonstration—nothing dangerous, just a quick dunking to prove he was right, but something else happened instead. She wasn’t the one with her head dipping beneath the water.
In one quick burst of movement, she had his feet knocked out from under him and her hands covering the crown of his skull under the surface.
He didn’t stay down long. She might have surprised him, but she couldn’t keep him there—not that she’d tried. Instead, she stood her ground, her face bland and expectant as he bobbed back up.
“You were saying.”
Okay, so maybe he’d underestimated her. The breaking and entering should have been his first clue, but skill with a lock didn’t necessarily parlay into the ability to defend herself.
“Where’d you learn that?”
“I