Rock Chick Reckoning (Rock Chick #6)(96)

In my sleeping moments, I was dreaming of flying truffles, exploding confetti, Dixon Jones laughing maniacal y, Preston Mason showing me a picture book with gruesome caricatures of murders in it and Mace’s face fil ed with pain.

I came ful y awake when I heard the scrape of a key in the door.

Juno’s body jerked, confirming I wasn’t hearing things. I felt her come up to her bel y. As she was at the foot of the bed, I couldn’t see her but I figured her head was up, facing the door, ears perked.

I assessed my situation which was pretty much effed. I’d fal en in bed then into a fitful sleep without the phone close by. I had no weapons and I wouldn’t know how to use one anyway. The house was on a huge plot, no other houses close by and Swen and Ulrika were on vacation.

No one would hear me scream.

The alarm beeped when the door was opened. Juno moved again, the bed shaking with her bulk and she jumped down.

My body was rigid with fear as I listened in terrified confusion to buttons being pressed and the beeping stopped.

I was so panicked, I didn’t realize after the beeping stopped that I didn’t hear anything else except soft movement and Juno’s tags jangling on her col ar.

In other words, my dog didn’t bark.

This should have told me something.

Instead, I was visualizing myself lying in bed, one of the Nightingale Men, maybe Mace, finding me there, looking like I was sleeping but instead the back of my head would be blown away.

On that thought, I heard rustling like someone was taking off their clothes. I knew this to be true when I heard the clank of a heavy belt buckle hit the floorboards.

Lordy be.

They were going to rape me before shooting me.

Okay, so I’d die. My luck was shitty enough that was a possibility.

But I was not going to be violated first.

Unh-unh.

No way.

Ef that.

I felt the presence approach the bed; I laid stil , waiting for my moment. The covers moved, drifting slowly off my shoulder. I felt the bed depress as weight hit it and then I twisted and whirled.

I got to my back, perpendicular to the bed, lifted my knees and aimed at the huge shadow that looked like it had a knee to the bed. I kicked out with both legs, hitting him right in the gut.

I heard his pained grunt, his body went back and I rol ed the other way, off the bed and started to run toward the alarm panel with its panic button.

“Help! Help! Somebody, help!” I screamed even though I knew no one would hear.

But maybe my luck would change.

Maybe an ex-Marine sergeant with super good hearing who had an extensive col ection of medals was taking a middle of the night run to chase away the battle nightmares.

He’d hear me, charge in and save the day.

On this thought, I leaped off the platform toward the door, my body in mid-air when an arm sliced around my middle. I emitted a loud, “Oof!” and I went flying the other way.

I landed on the bed with a bounce but before I could twist, a heavy body landed on me.

“Get off!” I screamed in the shadowed face of my attacker as I twisted, bucked and pushed.

“Jesus, Stel a, cool it,” Mace growled back, his voice sounding weirdly guttural.

My body went stil and I stared at his shadowy head.

“You cool?” Mace asked.

I didn’t answer. I was too surprised.

Instead, I nodded.

He must have seen it or heard it because he rol ed off me and lifted his knees so the soles of his feet were on the bed.

“Fuck, but you’ve got lower body strength,” he grunted and I turned to my side, got up on an elbow, my eyes becoming accustomed to the dim light, I saw he had both hands to his bel y.

“I thought you were going to rape me,” I told him.

His head twisted to the side and the air in the room went funny and not in a good way. I felt his eyes on me in the dark.

“Why the f**k would you think that?” he clipped, voice stil low with residual pain.

“I thought you were a bad guy coming to kil me. Rape me then kil me.”

The air in the room went back to normal.

“The bad guys don’t have your alarm code, babe.” Hmm. He was right about that (I hoped).

He continued, “You got cameras everywhere. We’d know he was here before he got the outside door open. You’d have had a cal to warn you.”

Hmm again.

In my freak out, I forgot about the cameras.

“And he wouldn’t have a f**kin’ key,” Mace went on.

“You don’t have a key either,” I reminded him.

“Kitten,” his voice was back to normal, now soft and gentle, but normal, “you think I’d give you back your key?” My breath went on a road trip down Route 66.

What was he saying?

“You handed them to me today in Fortnum’s,” I told him.

“I handed you a set. I had another set cut.” My breath checked into a motel with a pool.

So when I asked, “Why’d you do that?” it came out al wispy.

“So I could get in when it was time to come home at the end of the day.”

I lay there on my elbow, on my side, looking down at his big shadow.

My mind was awhirl, multiple thoughts twirling through it al at once.

Then it settled on just one.

Mace was back.