Page 16 of Gluttony
Tony’s stalker, that’s who. Damn, she hated being right. She’dknownit was a real threat. She just didn’t think the stalker would come after her first. Whoever it was must have seen her take Tony to his place and then followed Bailey home. This could be a misplaced preemptive strike.
She opened the door wider, but as she did, the open doorway on the other side of her room filled with a shadow. On instinct, she moved. Forget the gun. Rush him. Get him down.
She took two light-footed strides across her carpeted floor, but the shadow kept moving. She’d barely caught a glimpse of a purple covered shoulder, and then he was gone. He hadn’t seen her. Slowing her trajectory, she eased and flattened herself against the bedroom wall two feet from the door that led to the living room. Her chest lifted and fell with each schooled breath.
Bailey craned her neck to see out and glimpsed a masculine hand rifling through her crossword puzzles. There was a crunching sound. It took her a moment to realize what it was. The damned bastard was eating something he’d taken from her fridge. From the crisp, clear intonation, it was probably the cucumber she’d been saving to use in her salad tomorrow.
Darting a glance back to where her gun was on her bedside table, she considered going for it, but that would mean leaving the safety of her spot. She’d have to cross the open doorway zone, and that meant he’d see her. If he had a gun, he’d get to her first.
From the casual way the hand rifled through her things, and his eating, it didn’t seem like he’d noticed her finishing her shower after all. She had the element of surprise.
She used it.
She rushed toward the stranger with his back to her. She slipped one hand under his arm, and the other around his neck to take him in a chokehold. She dragged him back to throw him off balance. It was supposed to give her more time to apply pressure to his throat, but his big hand came up to cover hers, and he rolled to the side.
In a blink, she found herself on the ground beneath him.
The wind knocked out of her lungs. Her eyes watered from the thud. When her vision cleared, she saw Tony Lazarus’s perfect face looming over her... still holding her hand. His hair was messy and a touch damp from his shower.
Tony Lazarus.
In her apartment.
And he’d outmaneuvered her.
“What the fuck?” she burst. That move hadalwaysworked on someone bigger than her.
He frowned, eyes on their joined hands as if she’d burned him. “It’s you,” he murmured.
“Of course, it’s me. This is my condo. What areyoudoing here?”
Her response shocked him out of his daze, and he tugged to pull her up. Screw that. As he lifted, she hooked her heel around his ankle and used the changing momentum to push him backward. This time, it was he who landed with a jarring thud, and she who landed on top of him, trapping his arms to his sides with her thighs.
The cucumber knocked from his hand and rolled across the carpet until it hit the base of her kitchen bench.
Throwing her forearm onto his windpipe, she applied pressure with all her weight. “What the hell are you doing in my home, Lazarus?”
His remarkable blue eyes watered, and he tried to move his arms. They pushed against the inner walls of her thighs and she clenched. Strangely, she had the sense that he could break from her hold but didn’t. He relaxed and his cheeks colored.
For the second time since she’d met him, she saw a crack in the veneer of his movie-star composure. Sweat beaded across his brow, but he wasn’t afraid of her. It was something else. Was he ill? She eased off his neck, but kept her forearm gently there, ready to push at a moment’s notice. Her face was inches from his when she lifted a brow. “I’m waiting.”
“I-uh... I...” He swallowed, and then he groaned in an almost sexually, pained way.
His eyes darkened. The scent of hot-blooded male filled her senses, hitting every nerve and instinct, and when his mouth parted on a hissed breath, she was overcome with how divine those lips looked. Soft. Wide. Moist.
“It’s you,” he murmured again, as if that explained everything.
The baritone of his voice worked with his drugging scent to loosen every muscle in her body and warm her blood. She melted against him until her aching breasts touched his hard chest. The physical connection snapped something inside her—a slap in her mind’s eye. She shook her head to dispel the amorous feelings. What was wrong with her?
He was an intruder in her home! Not some sex toy.
She fisted his shirt on either side of his neck, lifted and shoved. “What. Are. You. Doing. Here?”
“I got tired of waiting. So sue me.” The words came out of his mouth, but his eyes drank in her features as though he were a thirsty man and she was an oasis.
Tired of waiting? For heaven’s sake. “How did you know where I live? Did Max tell you?”
He shrugged. The action moved his arms still pinned beneath her thighs and, damn if it didn’t bring an infuriating awareness there again.
