by Cindy Dees
She might have put up a valiant fight, but he was bigger, meaner, and at the end of they day, a better fighter than she. Sobs of despair were beginning to break through her pants of exertion as he tore her dress partially off her and forced her down to the ground. He wedged a knee between her thighs and tried to force her legs apart. He yanked—hard—on a fistful of her hair, and the pain was so sharp her eyes watered freely.
An urge to give up washed through her. He would inevitably get exactly what he wanted from her. Why fight it? Maybe he’d quit hitting her if she just gave in and let him do whatever he wanted to her.
No, dammit. She would not let this man break her spirit. He might dominate her body, but he didn’t own her. She was going to lose, but she was going to go down swinging, by golly. She fought on with renewed determination.
All of a sudden, Curly lifted away from her. It was as if a giant hand had reached down and picked up his body. Or more accurately, two hands, attached to a big, enraged Navy commander.
“Looks to me like the lady’s not having fun, buddy.”
She literally sobbed at the beautiful sound of Brady’s voice.
“Get out of here. This is between me and the slu—” Curly broke off and then blurted, “It’s none of your business. Scram.” He settled into a boxer’s pugnacious stance facing Brady. Eve rose to her knees and gathered the tatters of her dress across her breasts. She tried to stand up but was shocked to realize her legs wouldn’t support her. She sank back down to the sand as violent trembling overtook her.
“Seeing as how the lady is with me, tonight, I believe it is my business,” Brady replied coolly.
“She’s a cheap whore who’ll spread her legs for any man. You can have her when I’m done with her,” Curly replied.
“Yes, but you’re a filthy pig,” Brady explained patiently. “I wouldn’t take your leavings if you paid me to.”
It took a moment for the depth of the insult to sink into Curly’s rage-fogged brain. But then he lowered his head with a wordless howl of fury and charged like a bull. Brady sidestepped as gracefully as any matador and threw three fast, brutally efficient punches at the side and back of Curly’s head as the man charged past. Brady wasn’t messing around. He was fighting like he intended to take out Curly with all possible speed. And she’d seen enough violence on the mean streets of her childhood home to know she was witnessing a highly trained fighter at work. Brady delivered a vicious chop to the base of Curly’s skull, and the beefy man went down heavily in the sand.
“Did you kill him?” she asked blankly.
Brady glanced down at the man in the sand and then back up at her. “Do you want me to?”
A piece of her shouted yes to that. But another, larger piece of her just wanted this nightmare to be over. She wanted to curl up in a little ball and hide somewhere dark and private for a long time. “I want to get out of here,” she mumbled.
“Are you all right?” Brady asked urgently. “Did he hurt you?”
And that was when she fell apart. She stumbled to her feet and fell into Brady’s arms as he swept forward to catch her. She cried hard, venting her fear and fury at being physically overpowered, releasing her humiliation at what had just happened.
He hugged her tightly through it all, saying nothing, just holding her. Curly started to come around, and Brady released her long enough to pull out some sort of short, telescoping metal rod. He rapped Curly on the back of the skull with it, and the terrorist thudded back to the ground. He didn’t move again.
Brady asked her gently, “How bad did he hurt you?”
“He slapped me around and wrecked my clothes, but mostly he scared me to death.”
“I got here in time to stop him from sexually assaulting you, then?” Brady asked tightly. He was crushing her so hard against him she could hardly breathe, but she didn’t mind it one bit.
“You got here in time,” she mumbled.
Eventually, he said quietly, “We need to get moving. Annika will get around to sending out reinforcements soon to find you and Curly and see what you’re up to.”
She responded bitterly, “Oh, she knows exactly what we’d be up to if you hadn’t come to save me. She warned me a few days ago that Curly likes to rough up women. She knew darned good and well that he’d take the opportunity to attack me if she sent him out here alone to fetch me.”
Brady went rigid against her. A frigid chill suddenly rolled off of him. Were he not holding her so close, she’d have cringed away from the icy rage of it. “We’ll take her down,” he said so gently it was terrifying. “You have my word of honor on that.”
This was not a man to be crossed lightly. But Annika would learn that soon enough. Eve started when Brady abruptly turned her loose and moved away from her.
He spoke grimly. “You might want to turn away for a moment.”
“Why?”
“I need to teach Curly a lesson and, incidentally, make sure he doesn’t mess with you for some time to come.”
Curious, she watched as Brady stepped into kicking range of Curly and delivered three short, hard kicks to the man’s ribcage. She winced at the crunching sound of ribs breaking. Then Brady glanced up at her before delivering one more kick, harder than the others, to Curly’s groin.
“That should have him living with an ice pack in his lap and absolutely no thoughts of rape for several days to come,” Brady commented. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
Eve almost felt sorry for Curly. But not quite. The guy really was a pig.
Then the implications of the injuries Curly had just received sunk in. Brady expected her to continue the mission. Denial screamed in her head. She couldn’t do this anymore; she didn’t want to do it. She was scared and bruised and just wanted to go home and lick her wounds. That wasn’t too much to ask, was it? Some brute had just tried to rape her and Brady had barely shown up in time. A girl was allowed to freak out and quit the job after that, right?
Brady tucked her close to his side and plunged back into the undergrowth. He led her back to a path, but if the sound of the ocean growing louder was any indication, he wasn’t heading for the resort proper.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“I have a villa. I thought you might like to pull yourself together a little bit before I take you back to the hotel.”
She grimaced. She must look like hell after going a few rounds with Curly. “I didn’t know this place had villas.”
“The high-end guests value their privacy, and the Three Palms has special accommodations for them tucked away down by the beach. You can’t believe the strings I had to pull to get one at the last minute like this.”
The sound of his voice was soothing to her jangled nerves. “Talk to me about something,” she mumbled. “Anything.”
He seemed to understand why she asked and kept up a steady stream of conversation about the weather forecast for the next few days, when high tide would be, and commenting on the vegetation around them. He turned down a narrow path with a discreet sign announcing it to be private property with no trespassing allowed. In a few moments, a beautiful cottage came into view. It shone white in the faint moonlight, its teak shutters dark against the freshly painted stucco. The interior was equally casual-chic.
“Like it?” he asked.
“It’s beautiful,” she breathed.
“And you haven’t even seen the best part. There’s a hot tub on the veranda you can practically do laps in. Would you like to take a nice, long soak in it?”
A hot bath to steam away the feel of Curly’s hands upon her skin sounded like sheer heaven. “Lead me to it.”
“Why don’t you go see if you can find anything in the closet to wear and I’ll crank up the water jets.”
Frowning, she headed for the master bedroom. The white mosquito netting artfully draped around the headboard was a perfect contrast to the rustic wood walls and log beams overhead. The palm frond ceiling fan turned lazily, and the entire space was nearly zen in its
calm. She tried to let it wash over her. But it didn’t sink in. She was too rattled.
And then she caught sight of herself in the full-length mirror. She looked like hell. Her hair was wild around her face, with leaves crushed into it. Her left cheek was bright red and puffy, and her right jaw was swollen enough that her face looked lopsided. Her mascara streaked down her cheeks and her red lipstick was smeared, clownlike and macabre, across her unnaturally pale skin. Her dress was destroyed, and the torn fabric barely clung to her breasts. Both knees were skinned, and her fingernails were broken and bloody. She hoped that meant she’d scratched the crap out of Curly before Brady showed up.
She went into the bathroom and washed her face. She wanted to scrub it hard, to erase the feel of Curly, but she was too tender to do more than dab it clean. She trimmed her nails and examined her knees—the scrapes were shallow and would heal quickly. She stripped naked and threw all her clothes in the trash. She’d have burned them if there were matches in the bathroom.
She pulled on a fluffy bathrobe from a hook by the shower and belted it tightly around her waist. Next, she attacked her hair, borrowing a comb from a drawer to get out the leaves and debris. She jerked and pulled at it until her eyes watered. At least that was where she decided the tears came from.
Finally, she looked in the mirror and saw nothing but herself. All traces of Curly were removed with the exception of her red and swollen face, which looked terrible. It occurred to her she had a choice: she could be embarrassed by her bruises, or she could embrace them as trophies. She hadn’t given up. She’d fought valiantly, and although she’d been on the verge of defeat when Brady rescued her, she’d stayed the course. Nodding firmly at herself in the mirror, she turned out the light and went to join him. Funny, but she was sure he would see her bruises exactly the same way. He was just that kind of man.
She peeked into the closet Brady had mentioned and was startled to see a variety of casual clothes for men and women in various sizes. Apparently, the Three Palms thought of everything when it came to their guests’ comfort and convenience.
She spotted exactly what she wanted and, with a smile, went into the bathroom to don it. Brady never had been able to resist her in a skimpy bikini. And for some reason, she felt compelled to reassert her identity as an attractive, sexy woman to a man she completely trusted. Her self-confidence had been shaken badly by Curly, and she needed to prove to herself she still had it.
She stepped out onto the back porch, which faced a tiny cove and white sand beach that looked as if it were lifted straight out of paradise. “Wow,” she breathed.
Brady turned to face her and his gaze took her in from head to foot. A smile broke across his face. “Yeah. Wow,” he replied reverently. “I swear, you get more beautiful every time I see you.”
“So you like your women all puffy and bruised?”
He stepped close and barely brushed his fingertips across her jaw and cheek, but did not touch her in any other way. Panic surged in her stomach. Didn’t he find her attractive anymore? Had Curly ruined her for him?
He murmured, “The moonlight has a wonderful way of making everything look flawless and fresh. You’re as lovely as ever.”
“You’re lying, but thank you anyway.”
“I’m not lying. You’re perfect.”
“Your delusions will wear off soon enough. Believe me, I have numerous flaws,” she replied, trying to cover up how abashed she was by his compliment.
“Why don’t you climb into the hot tub and tell me about these flaws of yours,” he suggested. He shucked off his shirt, and she noticed he’d changed into swimming trunks. He sat on the edge of a truly enormous hot tub and swung his legs into the water.
“Be careful. I turned up the temperature earlier,” he warned. “I like it hot.”
“Me, too,” she purred. His gaze snapped to hers, cautious and maybe a little hopeful. What was up with him? He was acting really strange. “Is your headquarters watching us?”
He shook his head. “I thought you might want a little privacy tonight. I left all the electronics inside.” He glanced up at the layer of clouds obscuring the moon with only a faint glow penetrating them. “And Mother Nature has kindly provided us cover from prying eyes from above.”
He slid-chest deep into the water and lounged like a gorgeous lion at rest in the tub, his muscular arms stretched out along the side of it. She felt the first stirrings of desire deep within her and nearly cried in her relief that Curly hadn’t harmed that part of her. Goodness, she’d turned into a faucet tonight.
To cover her teary reaction she mumbled, “We’re actually alone, then?”
“We are.”
Okay, if she didn’t do something to distract herself soon, she was going to blubber again, this time at how considerate he was being.
“Would you like to join me?” he asked cautiously.
Why was he treating her like she might bolt at any moment—
—Oh. He wasn’t sure how she’d react to him after the earlier attack.
Uncomfortable, but knowing a moment of bald honesty was called for, she said, “Look. Curly scared the heck out of me, but he didn’t rape me. I’m not irreparably scarred emotionally. Yes, I’m shook up, and yes, I’m going to be sore tomorrow. But I’ll heal, and I’ll get over it. You got there in time.”
She stepped forward, sat down on the edge of the tub, and swung her legs over the edge, vividly aware of his eagle eyes upon her, measuring the truth of her words for himself. The steaming water was almost too hot to stand at first. Her body adjusted quickly, though, and she slid farther into the water. In a minute, she was submerged to her neck in delicious, bubbling heat.
Brady just watched her, waiting.
“Don’t you believe me?” she asked.
“If you say you’re okay, then you’re okay. But that doesn’t mean I’m about to fall on you like that bastard tried to.”
She snorted. “I couldn’t, in my wildest dreams, equate you with Curly. You are as different as it’s possible for two human beings to be. And,” she added, “you’d come out on top in every way I can think of to measure a man.”
He nodded once in acknowledgement of the compliment, but a frown darkened his eyes.
“What?” she demanded.
“Now you’re the one not seeing my many flaws.”
She laughed. “Oh, I see your flaws, Mr. Stubborn, I don’t mix business with pleasure, girls are icky.”
“I don’t think girls are icky!” he exclaimed.
“You could’ve fooled me.”
He sighed. “I’ll admit, my past history with women has been…less than stellar. And I may have had a tendency in the past to avoid them in general.”
“A tendency?” She laughed. “You treat me like I have leprosy.”
“I would never kiss a leper,” he replied indignantly.
“I don’t see you kissing me now,” she retorted.
“And I’m not going to, either. You’ve had a lousy night, and the last thing you need is to have me crawling over you like I’m no better than that—”
She moved forward through the water toward him, interrupting him. “May I?” she murmured.
He went still. The air between them went thick with anticipation. The lion was fully in command of the man at the moment. One corner of his mouth quirked up in a wry smile. “Since when do you ask?”
She closed the remaining distance between them. Gratitude flooded her that she could trust him like this. That, no matter how dangerous he was, she knew he’d never turn his strength or violence against her. She straddled his hips, resting her knees on the submerged bench he sat on. He held himself completely still beneath her, but tension thrummed through him. Caution and tight self-control glinted in his gaze. Darn it. He was back to being all stand-offish and refusing to respond to her.
She sighed. “Are you still trying to hold out against this thing between us?”
“Not at all. I don’t know how scared you are after tha
t ass—” He broke off, then started again. “After Curly attacked you. I don’t want to scare you any further.”
“I already told you. He scared me to death. But he’s not you. You don’t scare me at all. On the contrary, you make me feel protected and safe.”
“But I’m not safe at all.”
“Why not?”
His answer was slow in coming. She got the feeling that under any other circumstances but tonight’s he wouldn’t have answered the question at all. As it was, he sounded reluctant when he admitted, “What I’d like to do with you isn’t so very different than what Curly had in mind. I’m afraid you inspire urges in me to throw you over my shoulder, haul you off to my bed and have my wicked way with you.”
The idea of him doing that sent entirely gratifying desire shooting through her. Oh, no. Curly hadn’t ruined her for Brady at all.
“Do you know what really scared me when Curly was coming after me? That you wouldn’t get there in time to keep him from wrecking me for you. I didn’t want to be so physically or emotionally broken that I couldn’t enjoy you or you enjoy me.” She placed her hands on either side of his face and gazed deep into his eyes. “I’m not scared of you. Frankly, being tossed over your shoulder sounds pretty good.”
That preternatural stillness overcame him again. “You’re sure? You’re not just saying that to convince me or convince yourself?”
“What am I going to have to do to prove it to you? Throw you over my shoulder and haul you off to my bed to have my wicked way with you?”
He laughed. “You could try. But I’m bigger and stronger than you—”