Page 7 of Brutal Ice

“I kept dancing,” she heard herself whisper. “My brothers gave up baseball. Stopped taekwondo. They moved on to football. A thousand other things. But I kept dancing.”

“Why?”

“Because I had learned that you could escape any pain when you went onto a stage. When you dance, you become someone else.” And I’ll get on the stage again, and I’ll escape this, too. I’ll be someone else again.

She could pretend that she hadn’t been taken. That she hadn’t been a victim. That this nightmare wasn’t real. Act as if it had all happened to someone else. Just a role. Not me.

“I’m good at pretending,” she heard herself say. “I’ll blend in, and I’ll become someone new, and this won’t hurt me anymore. I’ll wake up, and this will all feel like a bad dream. Everything…” Her gaze flickered over him once more. “Except you.”

“Oh, Violet, don’t fool yourself.” Rough. Low. “I’m the baddest dream there is.”

He braked the Lexus near the police station. Not right in front of it, but in the lot about fifty feet from the entrance. Close enough, Violet supposed. She stared at the bright lights of the station. A beacon in the night.

Beyond the glass doors and windows, she could spy uniformed cops milling around.

“You’re safe.”

His warm, deep voice washed over her.

“Just put one foot in front of the other and go inside.”

He wasn’t the bad guy. He hadn’t been, uh, mind-fucking her, as she’d feared. He really had saved her life.

“You’re not getting out of the car,” he noted.

Her head swung away from the police station and those bright lights, and she looked back at him. “Thank you.” How did you repay a man who had just saved you from hell?

“You don’t need to thank me.”

Yes, she did.

She unhooked her seat belt. And lunged toward him. Her hands curled around him, and she held him tightly in a fierce hug. “You saved me.”

His fingers pressed lightly to her back. “Not like I could leave you in the trunk.”

A shiver chased down her spine.

“You have to go inside, Violet. Tell the cops what happened. Just leave out as much about me as possible.”

Her head tilted back. “Why?”

“Because not everyone will think I’m a hero.” His eyes were on her mouth. “And because they won’t be wrong. I’m not a hero.”

Was his head lowering toward hers? Did he…wait, did he want to kiss her?

Did she want to kiss him?

Her heart shoved hard in her chest, and she knew a million reasons why she should not do this…

Kidnapped. Nearly killed. Concussion. Wrong place. Wrong time.

But Violet didn’t care. Maybe because she was beyond control and rational thought. Maybe because she just was reacting based on pure animal instinct. Her hands lifted to curl around the back of his head, and she dragged him toward her. Their mouths met in a too-hard crash. No finesse. No care. She crashed her lips into his and squeezed her eyes closed.

He laughed lightly against her lips.

She jerked back.

“You are unexpected,” he murmured. “But let’s try it this way…” His thumb slid over her lower lip. Her mouth parted for him.

---