cars. A stray cat howled and received no reply for its throaty efforts. A cop car sped by, in pursuit of a felon or perhaps, in a rush to save somebody from one.
The woman walked with no destination, although an empty berth of sorts found her when she sensed someone following her. Looking over her shoulder, she thought she might have been mistaken. But then . . . yes. There it was. A figure with long legs and broad shoulders, the man emerging from the shadows into the disinterested peach glow of the city’s illumination halo.
The woman didn’t vary her pace, but not because she wanted to be caught.
The capture soon occurred, however, the man closing the distance to come beside her, the erection in his pants and the testosterone surging in his veins making some kind of intersection between their bodies a foregone conclusion in his mind.
She stopped and looked up to the storm again. The rain tiptoed on her cheeks and forehead, a thoughtful guest that did not want to overly disturb its host.
“Where you at, girl,” the man said.
Righting her head, she cranked a stare in his direction.
He had an almost-attractive face, something about the slightly-too-short distance between those dark eyes and the pinch of his too-thin lips robbing him of true handsomeness. And maybe the latter was why he’d gotten that tattoo on his neck, and why he greased his black hair back. He wanted to refute the priggish tint to his features. Probably also explained the way he stuck that blunt straight-out from between his uneven teeth, like it was an extension of his arousal.
“Now why you gotta be like that.” He took the blunt away. Spit on the wet ground. Put the thing back. “What’s your problem.”
Neither were a question, so she did not answer that which he was not actually asking. She just stared into his greedy, gleaming black eyes, sensing his heartbeats even if they were something he did not notice.
Taking an inhale on the weed, he blew the smoke right in her face. And as she coughed a little, he looked down her body like she was an object to be taken off a shelf. As if he had a right to her, but hoped she fought him. As if he intended to hurt her and was looking forward to the pain he was going to cause.
“I’m giving you one chance,” she said in a low voice. “Go. Now.”
“Nah, don’t think so.” He flicked the blunt away, the lit tip flashing orange as it end-over-end’d into a run-off stream flowing to God only knew where. “I’m a nice guy. You gonna like me—”
She knew exactly when he was going to move and in what direction. He went for her long brunette hair, grabbing ahold of it like a rope and yanking her off balance, something that was easily done given the height of her heels. As her back twisted, and one of her ankles bent wrong, she resented the inelegant manner in which she fell.
And that was all on him.
Given the easy way he caught her, with a strong arm around her breasts, and a knife to her throat, she had the sense that he had perfected this over many attempts and successes, his best practices and training leading him to drag her out of what little light there was to the dense darkness of the alley’s flanks.
Yanking her back against his body, he said, “You scream, I cut you. You give me what I want, I let you go. Nod, bitch.”
She shook her head. “You really want to release me—”
The knife bit into the side of her throat, cutting her. “Nod, bitch—”
Devina took control of the situation by freezing the human where he stood, with that arm of his around her, that knife up to her jugular, that weight tilted back on his tailbone. Then she disappeared from his grip, and re-formed in front of him. Without her body where it had been, he looked like he was dancing with himself. Or about to slit his own throat.
Gathering her hair, which had been dislodged by his rough handling, the woman smoothed the gorgeous brunette lengths as if she were calming a skittish horse, and then she pulled the waves over one shoulder, where they were promptly content to rest in a profusion of beauty. With a steady hand, she put her fingers up to the wound he had made and collected the blood that welled from where the blade had