You've Got Male

Though this one was very intriguing….

Still, it wasn’t as if she could send this thing out anyway. Just building another virus would get her in big trouble. If she actually sent it to Andrew, they’d toss her keister back in the slammer and throw away the key for good. Which was why Avery was building it on this particular laptop—it had no communication function whatsoever. It was the laptop she used for off-line gaming. Which was what building this virus was to her—a game. It was physically impossible for her to send it anywhere beyond her hard drive. Unless, you know, she moved it to another computer. Which, of course, she would never do.

But she’d needed to do something to exorcise Andrew from her system—to serve him his just desserts, if only in her own mental bakery. And building him a virus, even one that would never go anywhere, made her feel vindicated. She was a woman scorned and all that, and you should never underestimate the power of one of those. Even the ones who had been effectively spayed in the ol’ revenge department.

She studied the lines of code again, backtracking to see where she might have gone wrong. She didn’t want to abandon the project completely, because it really was a brilliant bit of work, if she did say so herself. But it wasn’t going to function properly the way she had it set up, theoretically or realistically.

Let’s see…. If she dropped this command and added a different one instead…Or if she clarified that command a little better…Hmm…

What had she done wrong?

She squinted at the numbers and letters and symbols again, then removed her glasses to rub her eyes. She’d been up for thirty-six hours straight now, her mind completely engaged during the majority of them. She hadn’t even stopped working long enough to eat anything since that last bowl of Cajun popcorn. Maybe she needed to take a break for a little while. Clear her head with a nice Starbucks double shot.

Yeah, that’s the ticket.

She tossed her glasses onto the table and stood, reaching as high as she could above her head, arching her back to relieve the kinks that had set in. Oh, man, that felt good. The sudden activity stirred her cat, Skittles, who had curled herself into a meatloaf shape on one of the other dining room chairs. After mimicking Avery’s stretch with one of her own, she leaped down, curling her lithe silver-and-black-striped body around and between Avery’s calves. Avery smiled and bent to pick up the cat, cuddling her under her chin and calming immediately at the soft hum of the animal’s contented purr.

It was always good to have someone in your life you could count on, no matter what. Skittles was that for Avery. She’d shown up as a stray kitten outside the gates of the Rupert Halloran Women’s Correctional Facility during the final month of Avery’s term, and after much urging and cajoling from the inmates, one of the guards had brought the scrawny little thing inside for the women to fuss over. They’d decided whoever was the next released would take the kitten with her. Avery had been the winner. In more ways than one. Skittles had been with her ever since.

She strode, cradling Skittles, into the kitchen. It was still a mess, unfortunately. No friendly little house-cleaning brownies had come by while she’d been working to clean the place up. Dang. Although, speaking of brownies, hadn’t she put some Sara Lee brownies on her grocery list? she recalled now. She put down Skittles and padded in sock feet over to the counter, where she had at least cleared a place for the two sacks of groceries, even if she hadn’t quite gotten around to unpacking them all yet. Well, she’d needed the space on the dining room table to work and then she’d been too preoccupied by that work to worry about putting away anything but the stuff that needed to be refrigerated.

She had dug out the brownie tin and peeled back the paper lid from the foil—oh, boy, just the sight of all that icing was enough to send her into spasms of orgasmic chocolaty euphoria—when there was a knock at her front door. She jerked up her head upon hearing it. Two visitors within a matter of hours was extraordinary. It was also very suspicious.

As quietly as she could, she made her way to the front door and leaned forward to peer through the peephole. When she saw who stood on the other side, her heart kicked up a ragged rhythm and heat flooded her belly. Because it was the delivery guy from Eastern Star Earth-friendly Market again, only this time he wasn’t carrying groceries.

She told herself to ask him what he wanted but feared she already knew. Hey, a scrawny, ill-favored woman living all alone? Avery knew what an easy mark she was to creeps. Look at what had happened with Andrew. Even if this guy was here for a legitimate reason, Avery didn’t feel like answering the door. She had everything she needed, thanks, and preferred to be left alone. She didn’t like talking to strangers. She didn’t like talking to anybody. She liked keeping to herself and hoping the world—and the grocery delivery guy it rode in on—stayed away.

She started to move away from the peephole, pretending she wasn’t home so he’d leave. But he called out through the door, his words stopping her cold.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Ms. Nesbitt.”

It didn’t surprise her that he knew her name. Mohammed would have told him who the delivery was for. But the very nature of her in-home business was to create online security systems for other people and businesses. She’d learned her trade by making her own system—her own life—secure. She’d done everything she knew to do to keep herself safe. It always creeped her out whenever she was identified, regardless of how innocently that identification came. And the fact that the identifier now was standing on the other side of her front door, which was the only way in—or out—of her apartment, made her feel more than a little nauseous.

Pressing her eye to the peephole again, she asked, “What do you want?”

“I want you to open the door, Ms. Nesbitt.”

Yeah, she’d just bet he did. “Why?”

“Just open the door, please.”

Oh, right. She’d just invite a sexual predator right into her home.

“Not without a good reason,” she told him, wondering why she was even bothering. She should be heading for the phone right now to call the cops. Still, she was safe enough behind the four dead bolts and chain. And there might be a chance the guy had come here for a perfectly legitimate reason. Maybe. Possibly. In an alternate universe someplace where women didn’t have to be on guard about their personal safety twenty-four hours a day.

“Because you and I need to have a little chat,” he said.

Okay, so much for the Clever Banter portion of their program, Avery thought. Now it was time to move along to the ever-popular Alert the Authorities segment.

“That’s not going to happen,” she said. “And if you don’t leave right now, I’ll call the police.”

“Peaches, I am the police,” he said.

Oh. Well. That made a difference. Or rather, it would have made a difference. If he hadn’t been lying through his teeth. And if he hadn’t just called her Peaches, something that made her want to open the door just so she could smack him upside the head.

Just to be sure, though, she pressed her eye to the peephole again to see if maybe he was displaying a badge. He wasn’t. He was just standing out there wearing the same clothes he’d had on the last time she’d seen him…how many hours ago? She performed some quick mental math…six minus four…drop the three, make it a two…carry the one…and that would be—oh, bugger it, she was too tired for this—last night. His driving cap was still turned backward, his leather bomber jacket was still hanging open over a heavy sweater and blue jeans, and his hands were still stuffed into pockets that could hold anything from chloroform to an automatic weapon.

“Policemen identify themselves right away,” she said, still gazing through the peephole. “And they carry badges. And ID. Now go away. Or I’ll call the cops. The real cops.”

His shoulders rose and fell then, as if he were sighing deeply, and he pulled one hand out of one pocket to flip something open. Whatever kind of identification he was trying to show her, it was in a folding case, with some kind of photo and writing on the left side and some kind of badgish-looking thing on the right. She’d have to open the door to get a better look at it. But she wasn’t going to do that. Because even through the fish-eye she could tell it was phony as hell. She’d seen police ID before. Hell, she’d seen federal ID before. Up close and personal, too, as a matter of fact. And whatever this guy was holding, it wasn’t an ID for New York’s finest or the feds.

Obviously thinking she’d fall for it, however, he repeated crisply, “Ms. Nesbitt, open the door.”

How had he even gotten into the building? she wondered. Billy the doorman must be sleeping on the job. She made a mental note to ask him about it the next time she saw him, then, as quietly as she could, she pushed herself away from the door and took a giant step backward.

Only to hear the man on the other side of her door say, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

For a single moment Avery hesitated, numerous thoughts circling through her mind. Thought number one: how did he know she was doing anything at all when even she hadn’t heard herself make a sound? Thought number two: how did he know she wasn’t cooperating with his instruction, reaching for the dead bolts to open them, if he had heard her make a sound? Thought number three: had he threatened her?

Just as thought number three was forming, she heard the sound of something metallic click against something else metallic and instinctively, she took another quick step back from the door. Then, before she even had time to register what the sound might be, she saw one, two, three, four dead bolts twist open, so quickly that he might as well have had a key to each on the other side. So stunned was she by the sight that she didn’t immediately move. Thankfully, though, the chain held the door closed when he pushed it open. Until a small pair of bolt cutters—the perfect size to hide in a jacket pocket—appeared and cut through it as if it was paper. And then the front door was thrown open wide, and the man who hours before had brought her sustenance necessary for life stood framed by the doorway, doubtless with the intention of making that life unlivable for a while.

Her heart pounding, her brain hurtling, Avery turned and ran toward her bedroom, assuring herself she had time to reach it and lock the door behind herself, knowing there was a phone in there she could use to dial 911. That was the only hope she had at the moment—staving off this psycho scumbag long enough for the police to arrive. She didn’t expend any more energy to think further than that, channeled all her strength into running as fast as she could in the opposite direction.

It was the couch that did her in. Later she would realize that she should have run around it instead of trying to scramble over it. Because the minute her foot hit the too-soft cushion, her leg buckled beneath her and her body crumpled. When her assailant landed on top of her, he turned her and pinned her effortlessly beneath him, her belly and face pressed into the sofa as he straddled her waist with powerful thighs. Almost casually he gripped both of her wrists in one big hand and shoved them firmly against the small of her back. Then he leaned forward and began to…touch her.

Never in her life had Avery felt so surrounded. He seemed to be everywhere, his free hand moving briskly over her body, sometimes in places that were too intimate to think about. He began at the crown of her head and proceeded downward, over her neck, her shoulders, her back, even her bottom, then lower still when he reached behind himself to run his hand along first one leg, then the other, stretching back far enough to rove over both sock-covered feet. When he moved his hand back up again, over her thighs, he dipped between them, pressing his fingers for only a second against the feminine heart of her. Avery squeezed her eyes shut tight but couldn’t quite stifle her gasp.

“Gotta do it, Peaches,” he said. “Sorry about that.”

And before she had a chance to comment, before she could even open her eyes, he was moving off her. But only long enough to flip her onto her back and straddle her again, this time jerking her hands up over her head. She opened her eyes wide then, ordering herself to catalogue his features, to note any distinguishing characteristics, to take a mental picture so that when this was over, she’d be able to identify him and put his ass in jail. Because eventually this would be over, she told herself. And she would survive it. And then she would do everything she had to do to make him pay.

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.

“I thought you’d be glad to see me again,” he murmured. “I thought maybe you’d enjoy…” he grinned lasciviously “…socializing with a living, breathing, flesh-and-blood man for a change, instead of a cold, impersonal piece of machinery. And now you’re saying you don’t even know me? Avery, honey, you’re breaking my heart.”

“And you’re breaking my spine,” she muttered, ignoring the first part of his remark. “Please. I can’t breathe,” she added.

Something in her voice must have convinced him of her discomfort—though why a man like him would care about her comfort, she couldn’t begin to imagine—because although he didn’t remove himself from atop her, he shifted his big body to the side some, alleviating the pressure of his weight a bit. In doing so, though, he wedged her body between his and the back of the sofa more firmly, keeping one of his legs draped over hers and one of his hands planted firmly on her hip, so that she was even more effectively pinned than before. Still, at least she could breathe now.

“What do you want?” she asked again.

He hesitated a moment, then told her, “I want to keep you from making a terrible mistake.”

Avery narrowed her eyes at him. “What are you talking about?”

“That virus on your laptop,” he said.

Her stomach pitched. “What virus?”

“The one you’re building,” he said. “The one I saw when I was here before. It could send you right back to the slammer, Peaches. Not to mention it’s powerful enough to take out half the galaxy.”

Avery didn’t know whether to feel relieved or more terrified. Maybe he wasn’t here to physically assault her. But how did he know about her time in prison? And how did he know what she’d been doing on her laptop unless he had some familiarity with computer viruses himself? And if he had that much familiarity with computer viruses, why was he working as a delivery guy for the Eastern Star Market?

Unless, gee, maybe he wasn’t a delivery guy for the Eastern Star Earth-friendly Market at all. And if that was the case, then who the hell was he? Could his ID have actually been legit? Before Avery had a chance to ask him anything more, he began to speak again, saying things that made her even more confused.

“And that bastard, Andrew Paddington?” he added, sending more fire spilling through her belly. “He’s not worth it, Avery. Trust me. That guy is a class-A prick who preys on people like you. Don’t get involved in his schemes. Because you’ll end up right back in the Rupert Halloran Women’s Correctional Facility. And next time not only will you do the full time, you’ll earn yourself a bonus stay. And Lana and Petrovsky and Mouse and all those other friends you had inside? They’re not there anymore. You’ll have to start from square one again, building your posse. And with your lack of people skills, Peaches, I don’t think you want to have to do that.”

With every new word he spoke Avery felt her panic rise, and it was through no small effort that she managed to tamp it back down again. The last thing she needed right now was to have a panic attack. God, she hadn’t had one for months—not since that last time she took Skittles to the vet. She’d begun to think maybe she was coming out of all that. Even in this situation tonight, where panic would have been a perfectly logical and understandable response, she’d managed to hang on and not succumb to an attack. And she wouldn’t succumb now, she told herself. She wouldn’t. She closed her eyes and inhaled a deep breath, holding it until the fear began to ease.