Hot Property

by Jenna Bennett

  He didn’t answer, just stood there for a second, staring at me, catching his breath. I didn’t realize it until later, when I replayed the whole scene in my head, but he probably hadn’t been sure what he’d find behind the door, and he needed a moment to process the fact that I was alive, awake, and seemingly unharmed. Oh, yes, and practically naked. Once he had, his face settled into smooth expressionlessness again, and his voice was bland and courteous. Or as courteous as Rafe ever is.

  “Evening, darlin’.” He came into the room, his feet making no noise on the fluffy shag rug.

  “Hi,” I said, a little unsure how I felt about the flash of heat in his eyes.

  “Got yourself in a fix, ain’t you?”

  He stopped at the side of the bed and reached out to touch me. Gently, with just the tip of a finger, running it lightly up the inside of my arm from shoulder to wrist. I broke out in goosebumps, and if I didn’t gasp, it was a near thing. Gritting my teeth, I fought to keep my voice steady.

  “Please, Rafe, not now. Just untie me, OK? Before he comes back.”

  He didn’t move. “Oh, he ain’t gonna be back anytime soon. I left him downstairs.”

  Curiosity reared its head long enough for me to ask, “What did you do to him?”

  “Knocked him out on my way past. We’ve got some time.”

  “I don’t want any time,” I said, squirming. “I just want to get untied.”

  “But surely you don’t expect me not to take advantage of the situation, darlin’? Not when I’ve got you just where I want you?”

  If he was feeling any urgency at all, I couldn’t tell by looking at him.

  “Tell you what,” I said desperately, “if you untie me, I’ll let you take advantage of me some other time instead.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I promise. Just get me out of here in one piece and without letting Perry touch me, and I’ll do whatever you want.”

  “Now, there’s an offer that’s hard to refuse. Anything I want?”

  I hesitated. This was Rafe; he might want something I wasn’t prepared to give. “Within reason.”

  He smiled. “That ain’t what you said a second ago.”

  “Fine. Anything you want. Anything at all. Just please untie me!”

  “You gonna give that to me in writing, darlin’?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, my patience as well as my fear quotient stretched very thin, “I’m a little tied up here.”

  “How about we seal it with a kiss, then?” He winked.

  “As long as it’s after you’ve untied me.”

  “Sure thing, darlin’.” He moved to the head of the bed to go to work on the knotted ropes, but before he got that far, Perry burst through the door. I’d been so focused on Rafe that I hadn’t even heard Perry come thundering up the stairs. And I must say he looked a little the worse for wear. He had a puffy lip, a swollen eye, and a burgeoning bruise on the side of his jaw. He also had murder in his eyes. Up until this moment, I had thought that to be a figure of speech. Now I realized I’d been wrong.

  “You!” He pointed a shaking finger at Rafe.

  “I thought you said you knocked him out!” I squeaked.

  Rafe shrugged. “Thought I did. Guess I was in a hurry. I’ll do better next time.”

  “There won’t be a next time!” Perry snarled, pulling a gun out of his pocket.

  The world stopped for a moment, while I processed the fact that this was the second time in a month I’d come face to face with a killer waving a gun.

  Unlike last time, this gun wasn’t aimed at me. Perry had it pointed straight at Rafe’s stomach, with a hand that didn’t shake at all anymore. I suppose the fact that he wasn’t threatening to shoot me ought to have made me feel better, but there was nothing to keep him from turning the gun on me once he’d shot Rafe, and if it came down to it, I didn’t particularly want to watch Rafe die, either. And at least when Walker had pointed his gun at me, I’d had the option of running away. Not so this time. I was stuck here, like a tethered goat. My demise seemed inevitable.

  Of course, I’d probably rather take a quick bullet to the head than have the life slowly squeezed out of me like Lila and Connie, but when the rubber met the road, I’d prefer not to die at all.

  Rafe probably didn’t want to die either, but he didn’t show it.

  “Shit,” he said, his voice even and unemotional, and his face expressionless. One would think he’d looked down the barrels of so many guns that they’d become old hat. It wasn’t an entirely comfortable thought, and I didn’t think I’d ever want to get to that point myself. Then again, if I ever did, at least I’d still be alive, and that was something.

  “What are you going to do to us?” I asked. And unlike Rafe’s voice, mine shook nervously. Perry turned to me, and it was a toss-up whether my semi-nudity or my fear excited him more. Either way, he was clearly flying high. His eyes shone and his nostrils flared.

  “First,” he said gaily, gesturing with the gun, “I figure I’ll shoot your boyfriend. It’ll be easier that way; I won’t have to worry about him butting in. Or maybe I should make him watch. That might prove interesting…”

  He eyed Rafe speculatively. Rafe stared back, his face a hard mask.

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” I said. Perry nodded, but solicitously, like he didn’t really believe me. “No,” I insisted, “he’s really not. My mother would disown me if I had anything to do with him.”

  Rafe looked at me, but didn’t speak.

  “Is that so?” Perry assessed him for a moment before turning back to me. “Why?”

  “Why, what?”

  “Why would your mother disown you if you had anything to do with him?”

  I lowered my voice apologetically, as if I could somehow prevent Rafe from hearing me. “Well… he’s not a gentleman.”

  “Not a gentleman?” Perry repeated blankly. One would think he had never heard the term before.

  I shook my head. “He’s really not. I mean, he grew up in a trailer. On the wrong side of town. With a single mother. One who got herself in the family way at fourteen. By a colored boy. He went to jail before he could vote. On top of that, he drives a motorcycle. And most importantly, he’s not a lawyer.”

  “A lawyer?” Perry said, blinking under the onslaught of mostly irrelevant information. I nodded, determined to distract him for as long as possible. Maybe if I could keep him talking, Rafe could come up with a way to overpower him. Unless I was seriously annoying Rafe, of course, and he decided not to bother trying to save me.

  “Everyone in my family is a lawyer. My father was a lawyer. My grandfather was a lawyer. My brother’s a lawyer. My brother-in-law is a lawyer. My ex-husband’s a lawyer. Even my ex-boyfriend…”

  “I get the point,” Perry said.

  “Well, I’m supposed to marry a lawyer. Or if not a lawyer, at least someone who’ll be an asset to the family. Not a common criminal. And of course it has to be someone my mother will approve of. He has to be successful, from a good family, and have a nice house and a nice car and enough money to provide for me. And the proper background and the right manners.”

  “Of course,” Perry said.

  “So you can see why I couldn’t possibly have anything to do with…” I lowered my voice apologetically and shot a glance in Rafe’s direction, “…him.”

  Perry contemplated him in silence for a moment before he nodded. The gun was still fixed on Rafe’s stomach, but Perry was clearly distracted. Rafe looked angry. There was heightened color in his cheeks, and the look he sent me could have pinned me to the wall, had I not already been pinned to the bed. I won’t repeat the words he used to describe what he’d like to do to me and my social attitudes, but they were blunt, coarse, and very rude. I blushed. Perry giggled, and Rafe turned to him. His eyes were dark and dangerous.

  “How about I make you a deal? With the mirrors and cameras and all…”

  Cameras? There were cameras?

  I twisted around franticall
y, trying to discover where they were, while Rafe continued smoothly, “…I figure you probably enjoy watching. If you’re gonna shoot her anyway, how about you let me take a turn with her first?”

  “How do I know you won’t do anything stupid?” Perry asked reasonably.

  Rafe shrugged. “You can always do her yourself, after. She ain’t a virgin, so it ain’t like I’m cheating you out of anything.”

  Perry hesitated. I could tell he was torn. On the one hand, he probably wanted first dibs on me, and was loath to give them up to someone else. On the other, I couldn’t blame him for preferring to work with Rafe rather than against him. Rafe looked like a formidable foe, and his explanation for why he wanted to ‘do’ me sounded reasonable. And Perry was just disgusting enough to find the prospect of watching Rafe rape me exciting.

  “Please,” I blurted, “don’t let him touch me!”

  Both men looked at me. “You afraid of me, darlin’?” Rafe asked. His voice was low and husky, and along with the anger, there was heat simmering in his eyes. He both looked and sounded frighteningly convincing.

  I nodded. Hell, yes. For the most part I had managed to get over my fear of him, but it wasn’t buried so deep that something like this couldn’t bring it back to the surface. At the moment, I found it only too easy to be afraid.

  Perry giggled. “You know what they say, Savannah. If it’s unavoidable, just lie back and enjoy it.”

  “Is that what you said to Lila?” I asked, as Rafe’s lips curved in what looked like appreciation. “Before you raped and strangled her?”

  Perry’s face darkened. “Lila Vaughn was a tramp,” he said. “Always coming on to men. Always making eyes and showing her body. And then always saying no.”

  “Sounds like you, darlin’,” Rafe commented. I stared at him, shocked. “Always making promises and never delivering.”

  “I’ve never…!” I began, indignantly.

  His voice changed, and his mimicry of my tone and inflection was devastatingly accurate. “Please, Rafe. I’ll do anything you want. Just please help me.”

  It was only a couple of minutes since I’d used those words. Perry said, “Why don’t you take her up on that promise now?”

  “My pleasure.” Rafe turned to me. One of his hands – the one closest to Perry – went to the zipper in his jeans. I gulped. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him slip the other hand into his pocket, but I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to it. All of my senses were focused on his face, on the smile that pulled the corners of his mouth up, and the desire licking at his pupils.

  “No,” I breathed, shaking my head and trying to scoot away. Perry giggled, and moved closer for a better view.

  The next thing that happened, happened so quickly that I didn’t see it. I saw the movement and the result, but not the act itself. Rafe’s hand whipped out of his jeans pocket in a flashing arc, and the next second, Perry’s gun went off. The bullet hit the bed a few inches from my thigh, and I screamed and twisted away. And then I screamed again when I saw Perry drop the gun and clutch at his stomach with both hands. Blood trickled between his fingers, and he looked down and up at Rafe again with shock on his face. Then his knees buckled, and he folded up on the shaggy carpet.

  Rafe didn’t move. He just stood there for a moment, making sure that Perry wouldn’t get up again, and then he kicked the gun under the bed, where Perry couldn’t reach it. When he turned to me, I caught my breath quickly at the sight of the knife in his hand. He must have had it in his pocket this whole time, and just waited for his chance when Perry’s concentration faltered.

  “You OK, darlin’?”

  Whatever huskiness and heat had been in his eyes and voice were gone. His eyes were flat and his voice even. I, on the other hand, was a basket-case. Trembling with fear and pain and exhaustion, I had tears running down my cheeks. “I think so,” I managed, through chattering teeth. “Is he dead?”

  Rafe glanced negligently at the huddled mess on the floor. Perry was curled into himself, clutching his stomach and breathing in short, shallow gasps. “Not yet.”

  “Shouldn’t we call an ambulance or something?”

  “Considering that he’s looking at two counts of murder and two more of attempted murder, not to mention the rapes and the theft, it’d be kinder just to let him bleed out. But it’s up to you.”

  He lifted the knife. A drop of blood – Perry’s blood – fell on my arm, and I shuddered in revulsion. Rafe wiped it off with his hand, unemotionally, and then dried the blade of the knife on the black satin sheet, where the wet blood disappeared against the fabric. My hands were shaking so much it was a miracle he didn’t cut an artery as he released me, but I guess it was because his own hands were rock steady. As I sat up, wincing at the pins and needles in my arms, I worried for a moment that I’d lost control of my bladder in the heat of the moment. But then I realized that the bullet had penetrated the cover of the waterbed, which had sprung a slow leak, and I was sitting in a widening puddle of water.

  “Let’s get you out of here,” Rafe said, and without any more ado, he scooped me up and stood. For once, the fact that I was practically naked in the arms of a man who wasn’t my husband, failed to worry me. I threw my arms around his neck and held on for dear life while he moved past Perry, out the door and down the stairs, into the living room. However, it wasn’t until he put me down on the edge of the sofa and straightened up, and I reluctantly let go, that I noticed the glistening crimson stain on his T-shirt.

  “Oh, my God!” I choked out, staring, “is that your blood?”

  “What?” He followed the direction of my eyes. “Oh, this? The bullet nicked me on the way past. No big deal.”

  “You’re bleeding!”

  “It’s just a scratch.” He sounded like the larger-than-life hero of the bodice ripper currently nestled in my bag, but I couldn’t summon enough air to say so. He must have seen my eyes turn glassy, because he added, quickly, “Look, I’ll show you. It’s nothing. No worse than a skinned knee. I’ve been hurt much worse than this before. See?”

  While he continued to talk soothingly, apparently intent on keeping me from fainting, he peeled the white T-shirt up and over his head. I’ll never know if the ploy might have worked had the circumstances been different, but overwrought and over-stimulated as I was, the sight of him – silky smooth skin, hard muscles, bloody furrow and all – stole the remaining breath out of my lungs, and I slid to the floor in a dead faint.

  When I woke up, I was on the sofa, and Rafe was slapping my face with a wet washcloth. He had taken the time to put a couple of Band-Aids over his injury, but not to put his shirt back on, and all of that masculinity leaning over me made me feel faint all over again. I pushed his hand away weakly and sat up, folding my arms across my breasts. “Sorry.”

  “For what?” He straightened up, too.

  I shrugged, making sure I didn’t look below his chin. “Everything. Almost getting you killed. Acting like a girl. Fainting.”

  “You’re entitled. Some scary stuff happened to you.”

  “Have you called the police yet?”

  “Figured I’d leave that to you.” He got up and snagged the cordless phone from the table. “Here.”

  He headed into the bathroom with the wash-rag. I dialed Tamara Grimaldi’s number and this time caught her. “Detective? Savannah Martin.”

  “What are you doing, calling from the Fortunatos’ house?”

  No flies on the detective. Of course, it wasn’t omniscience, just caller ID.

  “I was hosting another open house,” I explained. “Perry called and asked me to. While I was here, I stumbled over his collection of pornography, and also over a black ski mask and coveralls. He found me going through his stuff and tried to kill me.”

  “Holy Mother of God!” the detective said. “Are you all right? What happened?”

  “How about you come down here, and I’ll tell you?”

  “Are you hurt? Do you need an ambulance?”


  “I don’t, but Perry might. He’s in pretty bad shape. Or he might be dead by now.”

  “Good,” the detective said callously. “Stay where you are. I’m sending an ambulance, and I’ll be there in 30 minutes myself. Don’t go anywhere, and don’t open the door to anyone else.”

  I promised I wouldn’t, and hung up. “They’re on their way.”

  “Seems a shame to cover you up,” Rafe remarked, with another glance at my scantily clad charms, “but you should prob’ly get dressed.”

  “I would if I could find my clothes,” I said, “but I didn’t see them upstairs. And my cell phone is somewhere in the closet. Perry snatched it out of my hand and threw it.” My voice began shaking again.

  “At least you managed to call first,” Rafe answered.

  I nodded. “Good thing Perry didn’t know that Wendell always says you’re not there. If he had realized I’d actually gotten through, he might have killed me right away.”

  “Today I really wasn’t there,” Rafe said. “But Wendell called me as soon as your phone went dead, and told me to get the hell over here.”

  “Thank you.”

  He shrugged. “I’ll go upstairs and see if I can find your clothes. If I can’t, I’ll find something of Mrs. Fortunato’s. You two were about the same size.”

  Connie had been as thin as a rake and at least an inch shorter than me, but I didn’t point it out. “Maybe Perry has a shirt that’ll fit you. You should get dressed again, too.”

  Rafe didn’t answer, but he turned to grin at me before he headed up the stairs, as if he knew that the main reason I wanted him to cover up, was so that I wouldn’t be tempted to sneak peeks at him.

  He came back a few minutes later, wearing a dark green T-shirt and carrying my cell phone and a pair of Connie’s jeans and a stretchy top. “I couldn’t find yours, but I figure these’ll do.”

  I had my doubts, but I took them anyway, and started putting them on. “How’s Perry?”

  Rafe was watching me, but I don’t think it was because he was enjoying the show. Or not solely because he was enjoying the show. Probably, it was just as much to gauge my reactions. “Dead.”