Elizabeth Bevarly - You've Got Male

She had thought he would shy away from her scrutiny, if for no other reason than to prevent her from getting a good look at him. But his gaze met hers unflinchingly, his cold green eyes holding her in place almost as much as his big body did. Again he held both of her wrists firmly in one hand as his other went wandering, down both arms and over her ribs and then briefly but thoroughly over her breasts. Avery closed her eyes again when he touched her, swallowing hard, and she gritted her teeth as he reached behind himself to run his hand down the fronts of her legs this time. This time, though, he didn’t venture between them, something that both relieved and puzzled her.

Still straddling her, still holding her wrists firmly above her head, he said ironically, “I won’t hurt you.”

She snapped her eyes open and glared at him. Too angry to think about her own safety now, she spat out her response. “You already have, you bastard.”

Instead of provoking him, however, her charge seemed to deflate him some. His expression, which had been so intense a moment before, suddenly went soft, almost sad. And the hand that gripped her wrists so fiercely loosened a bit. Avery immediately took advantage to jerk one of her hands free, then doubled her fist and punched him in the nose as hard as she could. Taken aback—and hopefully wounded—he released her other hand to bring both of his up to his nose, a gesture that also slackened the legs still encircling her waist.

For one scant, exhilarating second Avery thought she would evade him. She had pulled herself out from beneath him enough to turn her body and claw at the floor, and she was eyeing her escape route—straight for the front door, which, although pushed closed, would still be unlocked—when he recovered himself and jerked her back up onto the couch again. This time when he restrained her, he did it thoroughly, covering her entire front with his own, so that his body pinned hers from shoulder to toe.

“Maybe I should clarify that,” he whispered roughly, his voice edged with steel. “I won’t hurt you unless you try to hurt me.”

She hurt him? Oh, that was rich. In spite of her having gotten off a decent pop to his nose, he could snap her in two like a matchstick. She knew better than to struggle now. Not only would it be pointless, but it would probably only make him angry. Best-case scenario, he was one of those attackers who got off on a woman’s fear, and if she lay quietly and did her best not to show her own, he’d lose interest and be unwilling or unable to perform. Or maybe when he realized why she’d needed those tampons, he’d be too grossed out to perform. Hey, it could happen. Worst-case scenario…

Well. She decided not to think about that.

The best weapon she claimed was her brain, so she would use that. Let him think she was compliant, and when an opportunity presented itself, she would outwit and outmaneuver him and make her escape. She would not, however, succumb to him. She hadn’t endured two years in prison without learning a thing or two about survival. Not because she’d needed the skills to survive herself—prison had been surprisingly danger-free for her—but because so many of the other women had needed them before being incarcerated, and they’d shared their expertise with Avery in exchange for computer instruction and other such barterable things.

“What do you want?” she asked quietly, even though she knew perfectly well what he wanted.

“Not what you think,” he replied.

She kept her expression bland, determined to show no fear. “If it’s not what I think, then let me get up.”

He shook his head. “Not yet, Peaches.”

She gritted her teeth at the endearment—such as it was. “When?”

He smiled, but there was something strangely un-menacing about it. “When I’m comfortable,” he told her.

She didn’t want to know how he intended to achieve that.

He said nothing more for a moment, only gazed at her face as if he were the one now who wanted to catalogue features and note any distinguishing characteristics. Fat chance, Avery thought. She didn’t have any distinguishing characteristics, and her features were in no way memorable. Unlike his own. Even had the situation not been so terrifying, she would remember him.

Now she found herself noticing things other than his looks. Like how he smelled faintly of coffee and exhaust fumes. And how his heart buffeted against her own in a totally calm, completely dispassionate way. She would have thought his pulse would be racing at the prospect of overpowering her and doing his dirty little deed. But he was completely cool and calm and collected. Somehow that only made him scarier.

“You know, you’re quite the mystery woman, Avery Nesbitt,” he finally said, his voice a soft, velvety purr, his breath warm and damp as it stirred the hair at her temple.

“Not really,” she countered shallowly, a little breathlessly. “With me, what you see is what you get.”

And, oh, dammit, she wished she hadn’t said that. If her brain was her fiercest weapon, she might as well concede defeat right now.

His smile told her he was thinking pretty much the same thing. “Maybe,” he said. “But I didn’t see you before last night. Even though I’ve been watching you for a while now.”

Okay, that really creeped her out. Avery knew about stalkers, of course. But she’d never considered the possibility that she’d be the target of one. How could she be? She never left home. It had been weeks, months even, since she’d left the building, and her destination had been only four blocks away, to Skittles’s veterinarian. They’d been gone less than an hour. And Avery hadn’t noticed anyone noticing her. Of course, she’d consumed a half-dozen shots of Johnnie Walker before heading out, so she was lucky to have even found the vet’s office, not to mention her way home. But Avery could tell when she was being watched. If this guy had been stalking her, she would have known.

“How could you be watching me when I never go anywhere?” she asked. Maybe if she got him talking, kept him talking, she could figure some way out of this.

Instead of answering her question, he posed one of his own. “And why is that? That you never go anywhere?”

She wasn’t about to tell him it was because she was afraid to leave her home. Show no fear, she commanded herself. Do not let him know your weaknesses. “I don’t have any reason to go anywhere,” she said. “I work at home and I work long hours. This is an especially busy time for me, and anything I need, I can have delivered. So I do.”

“What about socializing?” he asked.

And she hated to think why. Because if he was thinking she might want to socialize with him, he had another think coming. And then he had a poke in the eye coming. And then a knee to the groin.

“I don’t socialize much,” she said.

“Peaches, you don’t socialize at all,” he rejoined. “Unless you count all that bouncing around the Internet you do as socializing. And trust me, there are better ways to socialize than that.”

She told herself he couldn’t be stalking her on the Net. Not just because she’d done nothing to attract a stalker, but because she had security measures in place on every system she owned that made it impossible for anyone to do that. He was bluffing. Or something. She just wished she knew what the hell was going on.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“What? You don’t remember me?” he said. “From the Eastern Star Earth-Friendly Market? After all those steamy looks you threw my way?”

She squeezed her eyes shut tight at the reminder. Oh, God, how could she have ogled him the way she had? Naturally a psycho like him would misinterpret her simple appreciation of his physique as a blatant invitation to come back later and enjoy a slice of what she was clearly desperate to give him. It was almost funny. She’d been cloistered away from the world for a decade—first through mandatory incarceration, then through voluntary seclusion—having scarcely spoken a word to a member of the opposite sex. Now she was about to be violated in the most heinous way, thanks to some chance encounter with a delivery boy.