Sinfully Sweet. Carrie Alexander

on his jaw, a thin scar above his lip. But he was Devlin. Her vision blurred. One image superimposed over the other. She shut her eyes. Opened them again.

      Devlin Brandt. Unbelievable! “What the—”

      “I’m sorry,” he said at the same time.

      “You’re sorry?” She grappled with him, yanking her wrists from his grasp, but he wouldn’t release her even when she boxed his ear. “Let…me…go!”

      “Promise you won’t call 9-1-1.”

      “Why shouldn’t I?” Her voice escalated. “You grab me at my door, force me inside—”

      “I was in a hurry. There wasn’t time to stand around and chitchat.”

      “You scared me!”

      “There was no other choice. I had to make a fast move.”

      She was remembering how she’d been warned away from him. He’s dangerous to know, her classmates had said. Involved in criminal activity. By the looks of him, he wasn’t even successful at it. There was a scrape on his jaw and a lump on his forehead. One eye was swelling shut.

      She panted, growing aware of the dampness of their clothing and the compromising position in which he had her. Devlin was heavy on top of her. The smell of his soaked leather jacket was strong, and his hair was dripping wet. He’d been out in the rain for a while. Lurking? Then why had he overtaken her? Why didn’t he let her go? None of this made sense.

      Various observations that had been pushed aside in her fear came floating to the forefront. He’d known who she was when he grabbed her. He’d even known which apartment was hers. His motive was obviously crooked….

      “What’s going on?” she demanded. “How did you find me?”

      “The reunion.”

      “What does that mean?”

      “I saw your name and address in the list they sent out with the invitations.”

      Right. “But there wasn’t any contact information for you,” she pointed out, “so how did you receive the list in the first place?” Part of her recognized that it was absurd to debate details when her teenage crush turned ex-con was holding her tight in the missionary position of her schoolgirl dreams. How many times had she wished to have Devlin Brandt look at her as closely as he was right now?

      A self-conscious warmth crept over her. She was no more a pretty sight than he. Her makeup was smeared, her shorn hair was plastered to her head, her carefully chosen outfit was a total mess—

      And she was wearing a stretchy pink Lycra panty girdle.

      Oh, hell.

      “I have my ways,” Devlin said.

      She narrowed her eyes. “Criminal ways.”

      His face hovered over hers in the dark. Close enough for her to see that despite his condition, his grin was as impudent as ever. “You’ve followed my career.”

      “Hardly. But I got an earful at the reunion.”

      “Was that tonight?” He angled his head, looking down at her cleavage, which the underwire bra had pushed into the unbuttoned vee of her blouse and halfway toward her chin. The pearl necklace was tossed to one side, following the curve of her breast. “Is that why you’re all dressed up?”

      Exasperating. She rolled her eyes upward and stared at the ceiling through wet, clumpy lashes. “Are you ever going to let me up?”

      The timbre of his voice dropped an octave. A helluva sexy octave. “I’m considering it.”

      “Decide fast,” she said through her teeth. “Before I start screaming again.” Now that her terror was gone—most of it, anyway—the sheer bulk of him was starting to affect her. He was heavy, hard and thoroughly muscled. She still couldn’t draw an even breath. Every time she tried, her breasts swelled, the tips rubbing against the open zipper of his leather jacket. If he didn’t let go soon, any screaming she did was going to be in ecstasy.

      Thunder rumbled. “You’ve done enough of that,” he said, and she hoped he wasn’t able to read her thoughts. “I’ll be lucky if you didn’t alert the entire block.”

      “What did you expect? Have you never heard of walking up to a person and saying hello?”

      His eyes glowed an otherworldly green in the sudden flash of lightning. “I told you—there wasn’t time.”

      She turned her head aside, unable to reason under his blatant scrutiny. “I don’t understand.”

      “Mackenzie…” He sounded regretful. “I wouldn’t be here if I’d had any other choice.” He lifted his head, listening. Soft, surreptitious sounds came from outside.

      He released her arms and stealthily levered himself off her, pausing to stroke two fingertips over her mouth. “Shh.”

      There was a metallic clatter. Sounded like a garbage can lid to Mackenzie. Cats, she thought. Or rats.

      Devlin was holding himself very still above her. She compressed her tingling lips, waiting. Rain pelted the windowpane. A truck drove by on the street out front, its engine grinding. Her heartbeat hammered. Distant honking and gleeful shouts from the neighborhood’s night people brought the outside world into their tense little cocoon.

      She rose to her elbows. “Don’t move,” Devlin whispered. He stood and crossed to the window, as silent and skulking as a cat. The shade was up, the drapes open. He slithered to one side and peered outside, then slowly drew the curtains shut.

      “See anything?” she asked when he remained by the window, watching from the side. Finally he reached past the curtains and closed the blind with a snap.

      “No.” But his face was drawn into a worried frown.

      She sat up on the edge of the bed and rearranged her rumpled clothing. One of her shoes had come off in the chase. Two buttons had popped off her silk blouse and the sleeves of the short fitted jacket that matched her skirt had been torn at the seams. Her blouse hung loose, concealing her bulging waist, so she pulled off the jacket and folded it meticulously before she set it aside.

      She looked up and saw Devlin watching her, his head cocked. “I’m nervous,” she said, feeling defensive. Anxiety tended to turn her into a fuss-budget. After the divorce, her teenage bedrooms had always been surgically neat.

      He shrugged. “Listen, I know this seems crazy, but you have to trust me—”

      A loud bzzzz silenced him. The intercom buzzer at her front door had gone off.

      Devlin cursed a single epithet.

      She winced at the harsh word. Not that she didn’t hear it every day out on the street a thousand times over—just never in her bedroom. And how telling was that? she wondered. Her sex life was drab and unexciting, exactly like her last relationship. But now was not the time to worry over it!

      “Don’t answer that,” Devlin said when the buzzer rang again in a loud, annoying blat.

      After a couple of seconds, she heard the faint buzz at her neighbor’s door. Her bedroom shared a wall with Blair Boback’s living room. “They’re trying all the apartments.”

      “Damn.” Devlin grabbed Mackenzie’s arm and towed her to the front door, heedless that she’d lost a shoe and was staggering crookedly. He stepped over her upended purse and listened at the door, then looked through the peephole. Abruptly, he drew back. Though he didn’t change expression or tense up, she sensed the freeze in him.

      The lobby door clanged open and shut. “One of the other tenants buzzed them through,” she guessed. A large part of her was frightened more by Devlin than the interlopers who’d just gained access to the building. They could be harmless. Devlin was…not.

      He squinted at her, his left eye practically swollen shut. A