(no subject)
Even So
Someone was following her. Hitching her overnight bag higher on her shoulder, Contessa was sure of it. Six years ago a strange man had followed her from a restaurant after an aborted dinner with Bruce and Richard. She'd ignored the feeling of fingertips dancing across her shoulders then and only a timely rescue had saved her. She still had the scars on her neck and under her right breast to remind her how closely she'd come to losing things that couldn't be replaced.
The fingers were tightening line of her shoulders and dancing up the bumps of her spine. It was a fight not to hunch in on herself in spite of the self-defense classes she'd taken.
She should have never gotten out of the cab. There was a traffic snarl not six blocks from her house. Tired from her whirlwind trip to New Orleans and back--the whole day there in business meetings, the evening with Robert, the red-eye back home--all she had wanted, all she still wanted, was her own apartment and her own bed. So she'd paid the cabby what he would have charged her if he'd taken her all the way home, and got out. And now someone was following her.
She heard again the midnight deep voice of her rescuer: It's too late to walk home by yourself, Miss. Even now it was almost as scary as her attacker rasping in her ear.
Contessa straightened her shoulders. She gave herself two choices--walk faster and hope to beat the guy to her town house, or turn around and walk straight towards him. If it was just somebody, then nothing would happen and she would be reassured. If it was a bad guy he'd probably be shocked stupid that he'd just lost the element of surprise. And if that didn't work, she'd beat him to death with her stilettos.
Yeah. That could work.
Someone was following her. Hitching her overnight bag higher on her shoulder, Contessa was sure of it. Six years ago a strange man had followed her from a restaurant after an aborted dinner with Bruce and Richard. She'd ignored the feeling of fingertips dancing across her shoulders then and only a timely rescue had saved her. She still had the scars on her neck and under her right breast to remind her how closely she'd come to losing things that couldn't be replaced.
The fingers were tightening line of her shoulders and dancing up the bumps of her spine. It was a fight not to hunch in on herself in spite of the self-defense classes she'd taken.
She should have never gotten out of the cab. There was a traffic snarl not six blocks from her house. Tired from her whirlwind trip to New Orleans and back--the whole day there in business meetings, the evening with Robert, the red-eye back home--all she had wanted, all she still wanted, was her own apartment and her own bed. So she'd paid the cabby what he would have charged her if he'd taken her all the way home, and got out. And now someone was following her.
She heard again the midnight deep voice of her rescuer: It's too late to walk home by yourself, Miss. Even now it was almost as scary as her attacker rasping in her ear.
Contessa straightened her shoulders. She gave herself two choices--walk faster and hope to beat the guy to her town house, or turn around and walk straight towards him. If it was just somebody, then nothing would happen and she would be reassured. If it was a bad guy he'd probably be shocked stupid that he'd just lost the element of surprise. And if that didn't work, she'd beat him to death with her stilettos.
Yeah. That could work.