To Trust a Stranger (23 page)

“Here.” He turned her around with his hands on her hipbones and wiped her face dry with the hem of his shirt. “Now your shirt's wet.” She steadied herself by grabbing onto his waist. It was narrow and hard beneath his T-shirt. His muscles flexed beneath her fingers as he moved.

“I'll survive.”

He reached out and tugged at the scrunchie that held her hair up.

Her hair was falling out of its high ponytail anyway, with tendrils straggling around her ears and down the back of her neck and tickling her cheeks. The bulk of it tumbled around her face as he pulled the scrunchie free. Julie instinctively shook her head to restore what order she could to her errant locks, then winced at the resultant stab of pain. He handed her the scrunchie and she slid it onto her arm.

“Better,” he said, looking her over. “Not that you didn't look good with that mud stuff all over your face and your hair done up like a mop of course.”

Julie smiled. “Lying's going to get you in big trouble one of these days.”

For a moment he simply looked down at her without saying anything. His hands rested on her upper arms. Their heat burned her skin. He was standing very close. Her breasts were just inches from his chest, her pelvis just inches from the zippered front of his jeans. A sudden, sensual hunger sprang to life inside her. She shivered a little, remembering the way he had kissed her earlier, welcoming the memory because it crowded out all the horrible memories that had come later. He made a slight, restive movement and she glanced up. Her gaze collided with his. He was frowning down at her, and the air between them was suddenly charged. Her lips parted. Her breathing quickened. His fingers tightened on her arms.

She felt positively light-headed-and she didn't think it was because of the blow to her head.

“We need to get going. You up to walking, do you think?” His abrupt words belied the heat in his eyes.

She smiled dreamily up at him. The alternative, of course, was for him to sweep her up in his arms again and carry her away into the night. Every atom of her being practically drooled at the prospect. In some small part of her mind, Julie recognized that weakness and fear had rendered her vulnerable, and mentally girded her loins. She wanted to be in his arms, but, she reminded herself sternly, a little wanting of that nature could be a dangerous thing.

“I can walk.” Her voice sounded far more robust than she felt.

He let go of her arms, and she was both glad and sorry to be taken at her word. Instead of sweeping her up, he slid a hand around her elbow with all the decorousness he might have shown a maiden aunt, and urged her forward. Setting her jaw determinedly, Julie started walking, breathing deep of the heavy night air that was, she discovered, the opposite of revivifying. She made it about half a dozen paces. Then her knees dissolved from rubbery straight to pure liquid, and she folded like an accordion. Mac grabbed her around the waist in the nick of time, barely saving her from ending up flat on her face in the grass.

“To hell with it,” he said, sounding angry, and scooped her up again. Try though she might, Julie couldn't summon up so much as a smidgen of regret. Her head swam and her limbs felt as limp as cooked noodles-but not limp enough to prevent her from wrapping her arms around his neck. It was then that she faced the awful truth:

Dangerous or not, Mac's arms felt like home to her now.

For the length of a couple of strides neither of them said anything.

Julie breathed in the slightly beery, slightly musky scent of him and snuggled as close as she could get. He basically walked and breathed.

Then Mac gave a disgusted grunt. His hands-one on her bare thigh just above her knee, one just below her right breast-tightened.

“Just for the record, are you wearing anything at all under that nightgown?”

Julie looked up at him, admiring the clean, classical lines of his jaw and chin and noting with some interest that blond men were perfectly capable of sprouting a considerable amount of five-o'clock shadow given the right circumstances.

“No. Not a thing.”

“That's what I thought.”

He was sweating, she noticed, observing small beads of moisture on his forehead with interest, although she didn't think it was from effort. After all, he had carried her from the car to the drinking fountain without any trouble.

And, hippy or no, she didn't weigh all that much.

“So what's your point?” she prodded when he didn't say anything else.

“No point.”

They reached the car. Keeping a steadying arm around her waist, Mac set her on her feet to open the front passenger door. Tugging the hem of her nightgown down-it had ridden up to the point of indecency as she slid down his body-she leaned contentedly against him, her bare shoulder butting into his chest, her silk-clad hipbone nudging his abdomen.

She shifted position a little and her hip brushed the front of his jeans. There was a palpable hardness there. Julie registered it, and her lips curved into a small, purely feminine smile.

“Don't you like my nightgown?” There, she was flirting with him, openly, unmistakably flirting, pounding head, bruised throat and all. Julie realized that she hadn't flirted in years; flirting, she rediscovered, was fun.

Mac looked down at her with a considering expression. The now open door waited beside her like an eager mouth, but she wasn't ready to be swallowed up by it just yet.

“That depends.” He sounded cautious as he studied her face. Then he seemed to make up his mind about something. His jaw tightened, his lips compressed, and he added in a firmer tone, “Now be a good girl and get in.”

When she didn't move but just stood there smiling beatifically at him, he grimaced and bundled her inside with ruthless efficiency, lifting her legs in when she was slow to do so, pulling her seat belt down and leaning across her to fasten it.

“Depends on what?” Voice sultry, she slid her hand up inside his T-shirt as he leaned across her, enjoying the feel of his warm, satiny skin, the hard smoothness of his stomach, the brawny width of his chest. He froze at her touch, and as her fingers traveled upward, burrowing into the soft mat of hair she discovered, his gaze met hers. Their faces were so close she could feel the warmth of his breath on her skin.

His eyes were hot; his mouth was-sexy as hell. She couldn't stop looking at it. Her hand stilled on his chest, palm flattening, fingers spreading luxuriantly in the silky hair. She could feel the steady beat of his heart against her palm.

“On whether you meant what you said earlier about not sleeping with me.”

There was a huskiness to his voice that made her breathing quicken. Her lips parted. Instinctively she lifted them toward his.

His eyes narrowed; his lips compressed; his head pulled back. Then his hand caught hers and pulled it out from under his shirt despite her sound of protest.

“Mac!”

He hesitated, his hand tightening on hers, and their eyes met again.

Electricity leaped between them, so strong it practically ignited the air. Then he muttered something that sounded like damn under his breath, leaned forward and kissed her, his mouth slanting across hers with a hungry urgency that made her dizzier than she already was. Julie's eyes closed. Her lips parted. His kiss was hot, and fierce, and tasted faintly of beer, and she responded to it with mindless pleasure. Her loins tightened and began to throb. Her breasts swelled greedily toward his chest. Her fingers curled around his, claiming his hand for her own. Head reeling, she licked into his mouth and pressed the hand that was joined to hers palm-down over her breast. It rested there, radiating heat through the thin layer of silk, hard and heavy and crazy making on the soft fullness of her. His hand on her breast felt so wonderfully, unbelievably good ....

For a moment, as she held his hand to her breast and 'her nipple pebbled against his palm, she thought he wasn't going to respond. Then he made a sound deep in his throat, the kiss seemed to burst into flame, and his hand got with the program, tightening and squeezing with an almost compulsive need. Her heart pounded; her loins throbbed; her toes curled. His kiss drove her wild. His hand caressed her breast, cupped it; his thumb ran knowingly back and forth across her nipple. She moved enticingly, straining upward against the constraint of her seat belt, her hand sliding behind his neck to pull him closer yet; a delicious tightening sensation began deep inside her body. She moaned, arching her back-and then he was pulling away, lifting his mouth from hers, removing his hand from her breast, putting inches of space between them when all she wanted to do was get closer to him than his own underwear.

She opened her eyes and gave him a look that said do me right now or die as clearly as if she'd shouted it. Although, of course, verbally she would never be that crude. Instead she fluttered her lashes and gave him a sexy little murmur of encouragement.

“Mac ... “

His eyes narrowed at her.

“Don't mess with me, Julie, or I'm liable to forget you're operating with a bad case of scrambled brains here.”

And with that he pulled his hand from hers and withdrew, just like that, shutting her door and walking around the hood to get in himself.

“I do not,” she said with what dignity she could muster, crossing her arms over her still tingly chest and scowling at him as he put the key in the ignition, “have scrambled brains.”

“Tell me that after a doctor's looked at you.” He started the car.

“Maybe I'm just rethinking my position.” She uncrossed her arms, and trailed a teasing finger down the sinewy arm closest to her. “After all, why shouldn't I sleep with you?”

“Because it's a bad idea.” He dodged to escape her touch. Julie let her hand drop.

They were moving now. The car slid through the night with a whisper of tires, leaving the playground behind. In seconds they were once again cruising past dark houses with sleeping families tucked cozily inside.

“Why is it a bad idea? Don't you want to sleep with me?” She hunched her shoulders petulantly, casting him a sidelong look.

He laughed. They were moving into the commercial district now, and by the light of-Elevens and Dunkin' Donuts and streetlamps she was able to see him quite clearly. He looked-better than a chocolate glazed. And also faintly rueful.

“Does that mean yes or no?” There was an edge to her voice. “I'd say definitely yes.” She rested her head on the seat back and glared at him, exasperated. “So what's your problem?”

His eyes cut to her. “My problem is that we need to have this conversation when you're not a couple of french fries short of a Happy Meal.” He sounded way too patient for her liking. “That's ridiculous.” He shrugged.

“Maybe.” She made a face at him. “Chicken.”

“Damn right,” he said, and made clucking sounds. “And here we are.”

To her annoyance, he sounded relieved.

He parked in the lot to the left of the emergency-room entrance and turned off the car. Then he sat for a moment with his hands resting on the steering wheel, staring out through the windshield at the nearly full lot with a gathering frown on his face. The yellowish glow of the tall lamps that illuminated the area allowed her to see him clearly. His mouth and jaw were taut; his eyes were hard.

“What?” Julie asked when he didn't say anything.

“Okay.” The word was abrupt. His gaze slashed toward her. “I need to know. Were you raped?” His fingers curled around the steering wheel as he spoke, then tightened so that his knuckles showed white. .

“No. No. “Julie swallowed as the brutality of the attack came back to her in a sudden sickening wave. “He-I think that's what he had in mind, but it didn't happen.”

“Why not?” He looked fully at her then, and his tone was milder.

The tension in his body eased. Even his grip on the steering wheel relaxed to a degree.

“I bit his nose. Then I ran.”

A beat passed. “You bit his nose?” Julie nodded.

“Hard,” she said with relish, remembering. “It was bleeding. I heard it crunch. Then he screamed and rolled off me, and I jumped up and ran downstairs.”

He stared at her for a moment as if he couldn't believe his ears.

Then his face relaxed and a hint of a smile turned up one corner of his mouth. “That would work.” The smile widened into a grin. “You're something, you know that? Really something.”

“So sleep with me.” Julie's tone was deliberately, flirtatiously seductive. Her gaze locked with his.

“Later,” he said “Maybe.“

He pulled the keys from the ignition and got out of the car. Julie watched as he came around to open her door. She was starting to feel really bad again, she realized, light-headed and sick at her stomach, and it occurred to her that maybe Mac was right-maybe she was short a few vital french fries. Or maybe she felt so ill because talking about it so graphically had brought the reality of the attack back to her with a vengeance. Before, when she'd been flirting with Mac, the whole nightmarish sequence of events had seemed far away, long ago, and almost as if had happened to someone else.

That kind of distancing was, she realized, probably some sort of
defense
mechanism kicking in. Whatever, its protective effect was gone now, and she felt bad.

Mac opened her door and reached across her to unfasten her belt.