Worlds of Obsession (Celtic Otherworlds) (4 page)

             
She was going to die.  Her last thought was of Jess and whether her best friend would ever know what happened to her.  Gran might not ever realize she was missing. 

The man
had lifted her up and backed her into the brick wall on one side of the alley.  He kept her pinned with his much larger body and used one hand to grab her chin and tilt her head to one side. His eyes did not meet hers, but instead seemed to be focused on the exposed length of her neck.  As she watched in horror, his lips drew back, exposing long black… fangs? 

Oh shit!
  Was he some sort of goth vampire wanna be?

Something shimmered in the back of her mind, like a long-lost memory trying to resurface.  There was something she should know… or something she should do?  But e
ven though she was still struggling for all she was worth, her captor seemed to have the strength of ten men.  She finally found her voice then, only it came out as a strained whisper.  “No… please don’t kill me… please.  I want to live.”

             
The man only gave a low laugh, and she watched in horrified fascination as he lowered those lethal fangs down to her vulnerable throat.  Liv could only sob softly as she waited for the end to take her.  She would never get married, never have children…
No, fight!
  With one last desperate surge of adrenaline, she twisted and squirmed in his grip, trying to angle her knee, her foot, anything… anything to live!

S
uddenly the man who was holding her let out a piercing shriek, his iron grip loosening as he crumpled to the ground in front of her and… disappeared? 
Really
, he was there one second, and then he simply misted away like a fog. 
Gone
. 

             
Liv stared dumbly at the cobbles near her feet.  She could still feel her parts of her body throbbing from his bruising grip, so she couldn’t have imagined it… but where did the man go?  She looked up, afraid that he might have reappeared nearby, but instead her gaze locked onto another man now standing only a few feet away.  It wasn’t the same man, or
thing
, that attacked her, and this time the hairs on her neck did not rise in warning. Instead she got goose bumps.

Safe
, her mind seemed to whisper, but her body hadn’t gotten the message yet.

Still riding the hard edge of
panic and a shitload of adrenaline, Liv found herself speaking to him, rambling, probably incoherently. 

             
“What… what
was
that?  Did he really just disappear?  I didn’t see him leave… Oh god, are you here with him?”  Her sense of self-preservation finally kicked back in and she started backing away, silently measuring her chances of making it to the end of the alley before this other man did.  By the looks of his long legs and powerful body, her chances were slim to none if he decided to chase her.

             
He took a step closer to her, holding up his hands in a gesture of harmlessness.  “No… not like him.  I won’t hurt you.  I promise.  I’m here to help.”

             
His soft Scottish brogue echoed slightly in the empty alley, and she felt inexplicably calmer.  She looked up at him, searching for a clue to his intentions.  He watched her with dark eyes and a face that she was fairly certain would make even the angels swoon with the raw, masculine beauty of it.  She had the sudden urge to run her fingers over the hard angles of his cheek bones and jaw, and the squared-off chin that had a perfect, sexy divot right in the center.  Maybe he had been the one to scare off… er… dissolve her attacker.  No, people didn’t just
dissolve
into the pavement.  She must have been in such a panic that she was hallucinating, that was the only reasonable explanation.  But she still had to get out of here.  Fast, because maybe there were more of those black-fanged things.  Or had she imagined the fangs, too?  Her eyes flicked from where the thug had disappeared, back to the man who was watching her with a strange intensity that she could almost feel on her skin.  Her body shuddered.  “I need to get back to… to where I’m staying.  My um… friends are waiting. Th…thank you for helping me.”

You need to leave,
Liv… now.  Stop with the small talk and go!
 

She
formulated a quick plan in her head.  She would get to a restaurant or a store and call the police.  She could certainly manage that.  She glanced once more at the street lights gleaming through the narrow opening between the buildings.  Surely she would find a phone or a cab…

             
Suddenly, as if he had sensed what she was thinking, he was right in front of her, tall and broad and all male, in skin tight black leather, no less.  Damn, but it suited him.  He was every woman’s dangerous bad-boy fantasy come to life, and then some.  She had to tip her chin up to see his face.  He was overwhelming.  Tall and powerful, his presence seemed to draw her in… and give her butterflies.

“Wait
”, he said.  The single word was spoken low, more of a compulsion than a request.  Liv tensed every muscle in her body, preparing to slip past him and make a run for it.  Could she reach the end of the alley before he caught her?  Should she scream?  Would anyone hear her?  Strange, but she didn’t feel like he was going to hurt her in any way.  She didn’t
want
to scream.  His gaze was still steady, but he made no move to touch her.  She glanced up and met his eyes, and felt a calm wash over her yet again.  They were deep, dark pools, glowing with life in the dim light of the alley.  There was something about his eyes, his voice, that felt familiar… safe.  For a moment she was mesmerized by all that she saw there, drawn to it, wanting to move closer and take in more of the intoxicating scent of him that floated to her with the warmth of his body… until she felt a push, no a hard shove… inside her head.  Without even thinking about it, she instinctively shoved back, and the obvious surprise on his face proved that she hadn’t imagined it.  Had he been inside her head?
Whoa…

             
She took a series of rapid steps back, until her back met the crumbling brick and mortar of one of the buildings.  “What the hell did you just do?”  Her voice was a harsh whisper.

             
She thought she heard him swear under his breath before he strode forward again.  Liv realized too late that she was trapped against the wall.  He cupped her face in his big hands and tilted her head up to look at him.  She could feel the incredible strength he wielded just in his hands… As soon as their eyes met, she once more felt the strange mental shove.  Her own hands rose instinctively to cup the sides of her head.  “Stop that!  Just… just let me go…”  She had to get away… emotions were shooting through her rapid-fire.  Fear, curiosity, anger, and something else altogether that she couldn’t quite put a name to.  She just knew that
none
of this was normal or sane.  Though she struggled for all she was worth, the man did not budge.  And what was that strange tingling sensation running through her body?  Was he doing that too?  Rationally, she should be beyond panicked by now.  A strange man was holding her captive in an alley.  She should be calling for help… at the very least she should keep struggling against him, but instead as she looked at him the strange sense of calm came over her once more, and she felt… alive.  Just like that, the fear was gone and her whole body hummed with awareness of him, and how close he was, how warm.  She met his eyes once more, prepared for him to try that mind thing again, but he didn’t.  He was looking down at her in what was plainly confusion, as if there were something very wrong with her and he was trying to figure out what, exactly. 

And he was
so very, very handsome. 

God, he was beautiful!
Those dark eyes rimmed with long lashes, a wide, sensuous mouth that she wanted to kiss.  The darkness of the alley wouldn’t let her see more, so she raised her hand to touch his cheek.  He gasped and pulled back, wrapping his fingers around her wrist and holding on.  His whole body had tensed.

             
“Damn.”  He said under his breath.  “Fuck… you’re going to have to come with me.”

             
He sounded like she was a problem he needed to solve so that he could get on with his real plans for the evening, which from the looks of him probably involved stirring up trouble. 

“Go with you where?  What are you going to do with me?  Who
are
you?”  The questions tumbled from her lips and she noted absently that her heart was still beating at a frantic rate, but she didn’t think it was beating in fear… not any longer.  She was suddenly aware of the heat and sex and dark sensuality rolling off him in waves, and the undeniable effect it was having on her body.  As if time stood still for a moment, she focused on his chest, rising and falling ever more quickly as his breathing sped up.  Did he feel it too, then?  All she knew in that one moment was that she wanted him. 

His eyes locked on hers, and emotions flitted across his face too fast for her to recognize
.  Except for the last one, which could only be described as shock, as his lips parted and he drew in a sharp gasp of surprise.  Had he remembered something important?  Or maybe he thought he recognized her from somewhere?  She was about to ask, but he had gotten himself back under control, schooling his features back into their former hard lines.  Hard and dangerous and undeniably sexual, but somehow still not frightening. 

H
e was a stranger… but a stranger she was definitely attracted to.  What if she went with him?  What would happen?  She almost wanted to find out.  No that was a lie.  She
did
want to find out.

“Come on.  My car is this way.
  Don’t scream.”

             
It’s never good if they have to tell you not to scream
.  His grip tightened on her wrist, and as if she had just woken from a dream, Liv sprang into action, digging her heels in and trying to peel his iron grip from her arm.  Talk about being confused… what had she just been considering?  It was like she was coming in and out of a spell or something where she repeatedly lost her mind and then found it again.

“What
?  No… I don’t even know you.  Look, you can walk me to the main street, but that’s all…  Hey!  Let go!”  He didn’t let go, he pulled her along beside him as he strode out of the alley the same way she had come in, but she was angry now at his audacity, no longer alarmed. 
I should be frightened...
her rational mind insisted.
  I should be scared shitless right about now, because I think I’m probably being kidnapped by a total stranger.
  And what he had done to the guy who attacked her in that alley?  She wasn’t even ready to think about that yet.  But try as she might, and in the interest of self-preservation, she did try, she could only muster an intriguing feeling of rising excitement.  And something else that she couldn’t quite put her finger on, almost like… déjà vu? 

As soon as they stepped out into the glow of the street li
ghts, she got a good look at her captor in the full glow of the street lights for the first time, sweeping her gaze over him from head to toe.  He was tall, probably around six-four, and wore black leather pants and a black leather jacket.  His straight, dark hair was quite long, and was tied back in a rough ponytail that ended a few inches below his shoulders.  It was glossy and thick, and she found herself wanting to see it wild and loose.  A single black metallic hoop glinted in his left ear, and he looked like he probably hadn’t shaved in a day or two, the dark stubble lending an air of dark roughness to his appearance.  His hand still gripped her wrist, and she could feel the restrained power of layer upon layer of lean muscle flowing through him.  That and the way he filled out his clothes made her think he spent lots of time at the gym.  The whole effect was…
really hot
, and her hormones were responding as if someone had just pulled a lever and opened a floodgate.  Which was a
ridiculous
situation to be in considering she had just nearly been killed. 

They came to a sudden stop, and
Liv snapped out of her daze, realizing they had already reached the car he had illegally double-parked around the corner.  Some kind of expensive sports car, by the looks of it.  She didn’t know much about cars, but even she could tell this one must have cost a small fortune.  It was jet black and a low, sleek shape that screamed money.  Aston Martin, it said.  She’d heard of that name, but had never seen one in person before.  He opened the passenger door and gestured to her with his chin.  “Get in.”

             
Liv suddenly realized that this was one of those moments in life that stands still for all of time.  No matter how long she lived, she was always going to remember being here, right now.  She had two choices… either she could scream for help and try to run, and she may or may not get away, or she could get into the car with a handsome, dangerous looking man that she knew absolutely nothing about, but was the physical embodiment of her darkest fantasy, and was already making her body go absolutely haywire in a way no man ever had before.  He had stepped closer to block her into the open door, and when she breathed in his warm scent, heat and moisture pooled between her legs as if he had touched her physically.  Good lord. 
She wanted him.  Now.