Midnight Fantasy

He nodded. Her lips parted coquettishly. But when the biker skidded out onto the road after her, her heart jumped into her throat.

The thunder of his big bike racing to catch up to her was a fuse that lit a primal heat in every nerve in her body.

The biker left asphalt, caught up with her pursuers, spewing gravel on them before braking and then falling in behind them.

She knew he was bad.

Bad to the bone.

Why did she suddenly feel she was on a collision course with destiny? She turned her three-carat engagement ring backwards.

North was in Corpus, but the chase was on.

Three

“You’re driving too fast!” Claire’s voice sounded panicky as she raced past the entrance to her parents’ condo. Not that she had any intention of leading the pack straight to her door.

She didn’t know what to do, how to get away from the hoods or the biker. Why weren’t there any other cars on the road? Fulton was deserted, the restaurants shut down, the warehouses locked up.

Suddenly a black cat dashed out from under a pile of construction rubbish right in front of her.

“Oh, my God!”

She honked, slammed on the brakes, swerving off the pavement, careening toward two shadowy buildings surrounded by scaffolding.

“Stupid!”

Then she bounced over a pile of discarded roof shingles. Her front left tire blew on a nail and she bumped to a stop.

The jerks rolled right up behind her and nudged her back bumper.

“Oh, no!”

They gunned their engine, then killed it.

She was caught in the dark tunnel between two buildings with a fence at one end and them behind her. Scaffolding cast eerie bars of light and shadow.

“Oh, dear.” Claire’s shaking hands fumbled in her overstuffed purse. A package of tissues, her change purse, and her keys fell out.

Behind her, car doors banged open. Glowing cigarette butts were pitched onto the shell drive and ground into pulp beneath bootheels. Like a pair of raptors, they eyed her edgily, their hostile faces framed for a second or two in her rearview mirror.

One glance had her heart beating like a jungle drum, her fingers shaking so hard their tips went numb.

Where was it?

Headlights rushed by.

“Help me! Somebody help me!”

The sedan’s red taillights vanished into the dark.

Her trembling fingertips closed over her cell phone. Peering over her door, she got a glimpse of a dirty T-shirt and black tank top, slashed jeans before she began backing down the alley.

“Well, looky, looky, Rusty.” The dark, skinny guy with the mean, narrow face lit a cigarette, took a drag.

Rusty, a greasy blonde built like a tank, snatched the cigarette, inhaling deeply.

Gripping her phone, she got out of her car, stumbling down the dark alley between the two whitewashed buildings. Rusty followed, laughing, his heavy heels crunching shell, his long shadow curling around her like a black snake.

No! No!

Before she could punch in in the numbers 9-1-1, they had her cornered against a springy, cyclone fence topped with razorwire. She clawed. Chain-link chimed.

The greasy blonde’s thick fist snatched the phone and threw it on the ground. His face loomed. His blue irises blazed scarily brighter. “We wuz looking for somebody.”

Throaty male laughter.

“Looks like you’re our consolation prize.”

She broke into an icy sweat. She made little low sounds deep in her throat.

The large freckled hand reached for her diamond necklace. Paralyzed, she endured his touch. He stroked her lip, brushed her cheek, his dirty fingers obscenely gentle, his leering smile horrible. She squeezed her eyes shut as that unbearable hand explored, but she couldn’t stop the tears that slowly beaded her long black lashes and leaked silently down her cheeks.

Rusty’s hand traced the shape of her mouth.

She opened her eyes. With a deceptive smile, she bravely met his feral blue stare. His tongue lolled as he unzipped his jeans and moved in for the kill. Quick as a turtle, she bit his filthy, thick finger.

On a yelp of pain, he jumped back.

She screamed and ran.

The skinny one jumped her and knocked her to the ground. Her head struck a brick. Stars spun in a white sky above the palm trees. They fell on top of her, grabbed her wrists, pinning her body with knees that dug hard into her belly. The last thing she saw was those overbright white eyes. The last thing she felt was the pain in her head, in her neck, in her shoulders. The last thing she heard was their voices, telling her how much she wanted them.

Dimly she heard her silk sheath ripping, then their belt buckles unsnapping, leather sliding through denim loops. But when they knelt over her again, there was a monstrous roar from the other end of the alley. Fantails of white shell and powdery dust spewed above her.

“Rusty! Hank! She’s mine!” thundered a deep male voice from the end of the alley.

Loverboy? she wondered woozily.

“Holy damn! It’s him!”

“Frenchy’s murderer!” Hank spat. A switchblade snapped, flashing silver.

“Get, before I send you to hell along with Frenchy!” A black barrel flashed. She saw a dark hand. Then the black hole at the end of an automatic. “Get—out of my town—permanently.”

She saw flame, heard a pop.

“You heard me. Get off her. She’s mine.”

Pop. Pop. Pop. Loose shells pinged when the bullets hit dirt. Miraculously, she wasn’t hurt. The cruel hands on her body loosened.

She opened her eyes and saw two figures furtively scuffling past her on bloody hands and knees, their lank hair falling forward. Car doors slammed as the other man’s shadow fell over her.

“This ain’t a free peep show. Get!”

The pair cursed, started their engine, and roared away, leaving her alone—with him.

Maybe she should’ve felt afraid. But she was too numb.

All was silent save for the palm trees rustling above her. She swallowed. Vaguely she tasted shell dust and that awful tobacco-stained finger.

Shell crunched under a man’s heavy boots. Then his low, hard voice cracked. “You gonna get up? Or are you really out for a good time?”

Her eyes snapped open and shot fire.

Wide-spread black boots were planted mere inches from her face. Her gaze climbed a virile, masculine body packed into denim so tight the cloth looked painted on.

He had a lean waist, a shapely torso, and a line-backer’s squared-off, wide shoulders. A bright halo backlighted a well-shaped ebony head. His untamed hair was longish, and like a pirate, he sported a silver earring. They must’ve hurt him because he was pressing a white handkerchief against his cheek, sopping blood.

She couldn’t see the fierce face that went with this diabolical individual, but his bold, stripping gaze made her shiver.

Was this over-sexed caveman with the massive biceps a figment of her maddeningly-fertile imagination? She shut her eyes, willing him to disappear. When she opened them, the scuffed black boots were an inch closer.

The biker jammed the black automatic into his waistband, his bloody handkerchief into his pocket and kneeled down.

“They…they called you a murderer.”

“You gonna believe scum…or the man who just saved you?”

She didn’t know how to answer this beast.

“Do you know how to say thank you, pretty lady?”

His hard gaze knocked the breath out of her.

“Because you owe me—big time,” he murmured, “and I can think of any number of ways for a woman like you to thank a man like me. The night is young—”

A woman like you? “You have some nerve.”

“So do you…running around at this hour…in that car. In that body. Where were you going? What were you looking for?” He laughed derisively. “I know your type.”

“I don’t want to know yours!”

His blazing eyes settled on her face, moved lower with an overabundance of feral sensuality. “You wanna bet?”

“Just go!”

“You’re too weak to get up, too rude to say thank you, too much of a liar to admit what you are…. You have a flat tire which you probably don’t know how to change. You’re half-naked and lying flat on your good-looking tush in a most seductive pose—” There was no mistaking the sexually-charged innuendo in his low tone. “I don’t blame you for wanting something wild. I was on the prowl for the same thing myself.”

“Half-naked?” Her brain stalled. Alarm bells jangled. “What—?”

She shut up when the biker wrapped his arms around her in the darkness. When he touched her, she got the sexual charge she’d been waiting for her whole life.

From him.

She was too shocked to resist as he began to check for bruises and other injuries. His fingers on her skin just got hotter and hotter.

Instantaneous man-woman combustion.

Waves of erotic heat lapped her like a turbulent wake.

He tensed.

She froze.

“See! I was right about you,” he said.

“Take your hands off me!”

He laughed and then jerked her unceremoniously from the ground. Strands of her torn white silk skirt tickled her bare thighs as he pulled her to her feet. When she collapsed against him, his large, sure hands caught her.

More dizzying heat.

Blood from the cut on his cheek smeared the right half of his face. There was a dark stain on his white T-shirt, too. He had gotten hurt because of her. Her expression softened as she studied his rich black hair, his mouth, and then the cut.

“It’s a scratch,” he muttered.

“Maybe you should put something on it.”

His eyes went dark with dislike. “Don’t act like you give a damn.”

“Are you always this rude? Or are you just showing off for me?”

His brows slanted. He studied her and then suddenly he laughed again.

She smiled. That broke the ice a bit. Then the air between them began to thicken again a little like sauce left to simmer over a fire. He was gorgeous, if a girl went for all male…and lethal. Which she certainly didn’t.

Nonetheless, she couldn’t stop looking at him. And that made her blush.

“Who are you?” she whispered, trying to push him away even though some part of her wanted to be locked in those warm muscular arms forever.

“You don’t care who I am.”

“Were you friends…with them?”

“No.” He didn’t explain.

“I hit my head when I fell,” she said. “I’m a little woozy. Not…not myself. This feels like a bad dream.”

His hands combed tangled, golden hair and found the blood-crusted bump on the back of her head.

She jerked away. “Ouch!”

“You have a lump the size of a hen’s egg there. You need a doctor—”

“No doctor!”

Black eyebrows arched. “You’re in no position to give me orders, princess.”

“Nobody can know about this.”

“About me, you mean.” His gaze slid over her hips, down her legs.

Her legs! She experienced a full-body blush. Their entire length was exposed to his view. Her silk skirt was shredded. Strips of the gauzy stuff were curling high above her thighs. Why, he could probably see her panties!

Panties!

Melody and her little jokes!

Claire wasn’t wearing pant—

Frantic fingers tugged modestly at the remnants of white silk to cover panties that simply didn’t exist.

“Don’t bother.” His eyes had narrowed, the intimacy in his gaze and raw whisper shaming her. “Black lace. Thong. And your voluptuous body to pull it off.”

She recoiled, her blush reheating.

“Very becoming,” he said.

Melody had given her the thong panties as a joke tonight. When she’d tried them on in the ladies’ room, Melody had dared her to wear them.

“Thong-bikini,” he jeered softly. “A deliberate turn-on.”

“For a man like you maybe.”

“Careful! You’re the one in the naughty underwear—Like I said—you were asking for it.”

“Your jeans are two sizes too tight!”

His handsome mouth quirked. “A nice girl wouldn’t notice.”

That was the sort of teasing boast Loverboy was always making…when she got undressed…when she was scrubbing herself between her legs in intimate places with a washcloth beneath foaming bubbles in her bathtub.

“Shut up, Loverboy!”

His avid grin was white against his sun-darkened skin. “What did you call me?”

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