strong biceps stretching his rolled-up sleeves, to the powerful thighs.
My eyes snapped back up, focused on that piercing gaze set in a face I’d have described as achingly, sensually beautiful if I’d seen him under different circumstances. You know, as a model in an ad for the latest extravagant Italian luxury line, perhaps, or as the new Hollywood heartthrob.
As opposed to the psycho who’d just broken into my apartment.
Never mind the fact he looked like a fallen angel with whom any hot-blooded woman—and many a man—would want to explore the very meaning of sin. His standing here in my living room, uninvited, unannounced, a stranger with an unknown and likely menacing agenda, pushed him straight into creep territory.
I stumbled back a step, putting more space between us. My heart pounded so loud, my ears were ringing. Sensible questions to ask when confronting a home intruder might be “Who are you?” or “What are you doing here?”
My brain couldn’t decide between the two, so—naturally—what I ended up blurting out was, “Who are you doing here?”
Hi, I’m Zoe, and I’m verbally challenged.
While fires of embarrassment ate up my insides and probably painted my face an unsightly shade of red, Gorgeous Creep’s mouth twitched with the ghost of a smile.
“It’s time, Zoe.”
I froze. He knows my name. Well, duh. Any guy sociopathic enough to calmly break and sneak into a woman’s home would have done his research, right?
He pushed off the wall, and I could have sworn shadows whispered behind him in the shape of wings.
I was losing it. Clearly. This whole situation must have fried something in my brain.
“Let’s get this over with.” He waved a hand in the air, his voice a little too bored for a psycho preparing to act out his twisted fantasy.
We all like to believe we’d be brave in the face of danger, or at least…dignified and trying. So did I. Like most women, I’d mentally worked through various scenarios of being assaulted by a man, and how to best get out of it. Or to avoid it in the first place. I’d thought I had a good handle on what I’d do, a strategy, something.
In reality, as this huge guy approached me, what I did was squeak.
Like a fucking mouse stalked by a tiger.
Scrambling back until I hit the table, I managed to snap, “Stay away from me!” I reached out blindly behind me, my fingers touching my phone. Thank God. I grabbed it, my hand shaking, and unlocked it via Touch ID without taking my eyes off him. “Get out of here or I’m calling 911.”
He chuckled. “And what good would that do?”
“Umm, they’ll send an officer over to arrest you?” If the intruder is still here by that time, that is… My pulse thundered in my head, my breathing way too fast. It occurred to me that in the minutes it would take a cop to get here, this creep could do any number of things to me. Help from law enforcement would do me a fat lot of good if I were dead on the floor.
He narrowed his eyes, which were an unfairly brilliant shade of blue-gray, far too stunning for an asshole like him. “Who do you think I am?”
Was that a trick question?
My confusion must have shown on my face, because before I could venture a guess, his features hardened, making him impossibly more menacing. “You don’t remember.”
“Remember what?”
Darkness pulsed around him. Or maybe the lights flickered. It couldn’t have been real black smoke that misted about his form for a heartbeat, because that would have made me batshit insane.
And I refused to believe that.
I didn’t, however, imagine the growl coming from him, raising the hairs on my arms and neck.
“Twelve years ago,” he said through gritted teeth, his expression finally matching that of a psycho intent on inflicting pain, “you trapped me in a deal.”
My brain short-circuited. I choked on my next breath. No. Stomach dropping, I spaced out for a moment as slivers of a memory flashed up, the pieces too scattered to form a picture, yet strong enough in their implication to cause an ominous shiver to skitter down my spine.
“You summoned me,” he continued, advancing on me again while more darkness pooled around him, “and you tricked me into a contract.” A muscle feathered in his jaw. He looked murderous. “I am here to fulfill that contract.”
A memory wanted to shake itself loose, but my consciousness fought it hard, reason and logic trying desperately to prevail. This