the second.
“Good.” He stepped back toward the door, holding her tight against him while he opened it a crack and checked the hall. “Go.”
They moved toward the bank of elevators, his body propelling her forward, pushing her from behind, overriding her faltering gait. The gun wasn’t at her temple. She didn’t know where it was, but she didn’t doubt its presence or his willingness to use it, yet she still wanted to scream and fight him. A greater fear kept her from doing either.
Dylan stayed behind her on the long walk down the hall, her body clasped to his. He kept behind her in the elevator, applying just enough pressure on her arm to let her know he wouldn’t tolerate a struggle, not even the hint of one. He wasn’t into terrorizing women, but he was committed to worse if she gave him any trouble. He knew Austin Bridgeman, and he knew he didn’t have time to be nice.
The elevator doors whooshed open in the lobby. For a moment freedom was fifteen steps away. In the next instant it was gone. A group of men stepped into the pool of light illuminating the portico of the apartment building—with Austin Bridgeman leading the pack.
Dylan lunged for the “Close Door” button on the operating panel, shoving the woman away from him and into a corner of the elevator. He single-handedly pumped a shell into the chamber of the twelve-gauge, keeping the gun leveled at her and giving her a grim look.
Johanna pushed herself deeper into the corner of the elevator, instinctively widening the distance between herself and the man called Dylan Jones. The urge to scream receded to a dull, throbbing ache in the back of her throat. His eyes were brown, dark and bright with an overload of adrenaline. Beard stubble darkened his jaw. His light-colored hair was longer in back than in front, and in front it was standing on end, raked through and furrowed—wild, like the gleam in his eyes.
The mercury had pushed ninety-two that day, but he was wearing an overcoat, a lined overcoat stained with dirt . . . or blood. A torn black T-shirt molded his torso, soft black jeans clung to his hips and legs.
He was bruised on one side of his face and cut on the other. He was muscular and lean, hard, stripped down to the basics of strength. He was feral.
Dylan waited, listening and watching her size him up and grow more afraid. There was nothing but silence outside. Nothing but the noise of their ragged breathing inside. Then the mechanical sound of the other elevator moving intruded. Dylan steadied himself with a breath and removed his finger from the “Close Door” button. The doors slid open. He stepped out, ready.
Johanna heard a movement, a scuffle, and a muffled thud. Now was the time to scream, she told herself. Dylan Jones hadn’t been sent by Austin. Austin had come in person to talk with her.
The thoughts had no sooner formed than she was jerked out of the elevator. The violence of the movement knocked the breath from her lungs. The speed with which he dragged her across the lobby, his hand tightly wound in a fistful of her shirt, the gun jammed against her ribs, kept her breathless. She stumbled, and he hauled her to her feet, always shoving her forward, keeping her fighting for her balance.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw the crumpled figure of a man lying next to the elevators. She tried once more to scream, but as if he’d known what her reaction would be, he moved his hand from her shirt to her neck and applied a warning pressure. She sobbed instead, and his hand immediately loosened, but only the barest of degrees.
He pushed the building doors open with his shoulder. Heat, sultry and intense, engulfed them. She stumbled again on the steps, and once again he kept her upright, on the thinnest edge of her balance.
Johanna knew now was the time to fight and kick, to scream and cry, but Dylan Jones never gave her the chance. He was a master at keeping her half off her feet and moving too fast to think. She did
Carolyn McCray, Ben Hopkin