Still Lake - Anne Stuart [93]
“So what is it, Sophie? Run like hell through the woods, or go to bed with me? Who do you trust?”
“Whom.”
“Fuck you,” he said genially. “Get in the house.”
“Make me,” she shot back.
He shook his head. “Those kinds of games can be fun, but we need to save them for later. Right now you have to choose. And it better be soon. I’m getting tired of waiting for you.”
“Ten minutes, you said?” She glanced down at her wristwatch. It was a delicate, old-fashioned, marcasite one that had cost too much and didn’t keep time very well. It had stopped.
He glanced toward the sky. “Better run now, Sophie. Darkness is coming. So’s the bogeyman.”
“It sounds as if you’d rather I ran,” she said in an even voice. “Why? Why are you trying to scare me?”
For once she’d managed to surprise him. “Maybe because that’s the smartest thing you could do. I’m a dangerous man, Sophie. For some reason I think I want you safe.”
“I thought you just wanted me, period. And maybe I’m tired of being safe.” She didn’t even know where those words came from. She only knew they were true.
He pushed up from the chair and took a step toward her, but her momentary bravado failed. She took off, disappearing down the lake path as fast as she could run.
It wasn’t the first mistake she’d made that night, nor the last. Just one in a long line of idiotic moves that were dumb enough to die for. She got lost.
It wasn’t really her fault. She hadn’t spent much time wandering in the woods in daylight, much less after dark. She’d been too busy with the neverending projects at the old house.
And she’d had a horrendously unsettling couple of days, capped by Gracey’s meltdown and John Smith’s outing himself as Thomas Ingram Griffin. She wasn’t quite sure if she believed him or not. All she knew was that she was scared shitless, and the one thing she wanted to do was get back home safely and lock the doors behind her.
At least Doc was there. The lying, treacherous snake who’d rented the Whitten house wouldn’t dare try to break in with him there. Not that Doc was that magnificent a specimen as a bodyguard, but he was enough. Griffin wouldn’t come anywhere near her.
She stopped her useless wanderings, heat flushing her face and roiling in her stomach. She had slept with him. Made love with him. Had sex with him. Fucked him. It was crazy, stupid, self-destructive, unbelievable. And she couldn’t stop thinking about it, couldn’t stop remembering the way his hands felt on her skin, the way he felt inside her.
She let out a useless little whimper. She’d somehow gotten off the main path and was now smack-dab in a thicket that unfortunately seemed to consist of thorny berry bushes. They caught at her hair, her clothes, scratched her hands as she tried to shield her face, but the more she floundered around, the deeper she got in the tangle.
She knew he was there seconds before he spoke, though she wasn’t quite sure where he was standing. “If you hold still I’ll get you out of there,” Griffin said.
“I’m fine.” She couldn’t tell if he was behind her or ahead of her—but she knew it was no use trying to escape from him.
“I thought you were a bear caught in the bushes,” he drawled. “You make enough noise for one.”
“Go away or I’ll scream.”
“And what’s that supposed to accomplish? No one will hear you out here—the trees muffle any noise, and the wind’s heading toward the lake. They might hear something down at the village beach, but by the time it reaches there any kind of cry will be too faint. Someone will probably just think it’s a loon.”
She could hear him moving closer, though she still couldn’t see him. She tried to free herself, but her skirt was caught in the tangle of thorns, and the branches were pulling at her hair when she reached down to try to release herself.
“Hold still,” he said, closer. “You’ll hurt yourself.”
She could see him now in the moonlight, hear a snicking kind of sound as he approached her, and the tangled thicket fell away as if by magic as he loomed up in the dark. And then