‘How dare you?’ She gasped as he dropped her to her feet again.
He didn’t bother to answer, instead he turned and strode back into the hallway, leaving her standing there shaking in her shoes and burning like fire down the front of her body where it had been crushed against his. She heard the front door click into its housing, heard his footsteps bringing him back this way. He stepped into the room, then closed this door also.
One look at his face here in the better light of the living room had her mentally backing away. Whatever all the hovering outside had been about, it hadn’t communicated the anger she was being faced with now. He was in a rage, and a six-foot-four-inch male with a body to match his height was not what you wanted running loose in your house.
‘I think y-you need to calm down a bit,’ she stammered as he came towards her. ‘You’re in sh-shock, and you might not know w-what you’re—’
‘Shock,’ he repeated so softly that she shivered. ‘You think this is shock?’
‘Angry, then,’ she amended with a wary shrug and a gasp when the backs of her knees made contact with the arm of a chair. ‘I can understand why you might feel you have the right to be. But—’
‘Let us get one thing straight.’ He cut across her. His mouth was thin and his eyes even narrower. ‘I have the right to throttle the life from you for what you have done to me. But all I want from you are some acceptable answers!’
‘Then back off—’
Back off? Rafiq stared down into her beautiful frightened face and blinked in complete astonishment. There was little more than an inch separating them. In fact he was standing so close she was arching her back in an effort to maintain the distance.
He was stunned. The red-hot rage had surged up out of nowhere, catching hold of him the moment he’d seen her standing at her door looking like the old Melanie, in jeans and worn-out old trainers. The years had fallen away and h
e’d found himself swapping new grievances for old grievances.
On a deep-throated curse he spun away from her, put a hand to the back of his neck and gripped. Behind him he could hear the uneven tug of her breathing, could feel her wariness, her fear. He closed his eyes and tried to get a hold on what was threatening to overwhelm him. He was a mess inside and the feeling was so alien that he didn’t know how to deal with it.
‘I apologise,’ he muttered.
‘It’s all right,’ she answered, but it was still the voice of fear.
He heard her movements as she edged warily sideways, heard the scrape of metal on metal and turned, a sense of pained horror filling him with dismay. She was standing by the fireplace and clenched in one hand was a brass poker. His eyes turned black and his stillness was suddenly electric. She believed him to be so dangerous that she armed herself against him.
‘You don’t need that, Melanie,’ he said huskily.
He wasn’t standing in her shoes, Melanie thought anxiously. He hadn’t seen the look in his eyes just before he’d turned away. ‘W-when you calm down I’ll put it down,’ she promised.
But she was shaking. Inside and out she was shaking. The way he ran those eyes over her she had a horrible feeling it would take him less than a second to disarm her if he decided to. He was big, he was strong, and he was also an expert in unarmed combat. She’d watched him in action once, in the Maitlands’ all-purpose gym, when she’d gone in with a fresh stack of towels, only to find herself pulled to a complete standstill by the sight of him stripped to the waist and sparring with his brother. Sheikh Hassan had been stripped to the waist too, but she couldn’t recall what he looked like. Only this man, moving with a speed and dexterous grace that belied his size and weight. He’d seen her standing there and had stopped to stare; within seconds he’d been flat on his back with his brother pinning him there. ‘Such distraction is very unfair,’ he’d sighed out complainingly and, as Sheikh Hassan had glanced up to see what he was talking about their positions had been smoothly reversed.
Man pitched against man, power against power, slick and smooth and so inherently masculine, with rippling muscles and the gleam of their bronzed flesh and the scent of the efforts permeating the air. She’d turned and run.
As Rafiq began walking towards her now maybe she should do the same thing, she told herself. But she couldn’t run this time. This was her home. Her son lay sleeping upstairs. So she tightened her grip on the poker until her knuckles showed white, then made ready to defend herself.
His eyes were dark, his eyelashes lying thick against his cheekbones, his mouth a grim straight line. She sucked in a gulp of air as he reached out and closed a hand round the poker. With a gentle twist it was taken from her fingers.
‘Never brandish point-on,’ he said gravelly. ‘The first thrust will tear your arm from its socket. Use it like this.’ While she stood too dazed to stop him, he took hold of her hand, placed the poker back into it, angled it across her breasts, then, with a speed that set her gasping, he jerked the poker in a slashing arc towards his body. It came to stop with the point a breath away from his neck. ‘This way you have a chance of doing me some damage.’
It was mad, really stupid, but her mouth began to wobble and tears suddenly filmed her eyes. ‘I don’t want to damage you,’ she breathed shakily.
‘I know.’ He released his grip on the poker. ‘It was my fault. I frightened you.’ With that he turned and walked towards the door.
‘Wh-where are you going?’
‘You were right. I should not have come here tonight,’ he answered grimly. ‘I will go and leave you with your…safety.’
‘N-no!’ she cried, and wondered why. She wished she could stop trembling and tried to calm herself. ‘Y-you’re here now and…’
He stopped halfway across the room. Silence arrived. It pulled and it prodded. Melanie gripped the poker and tried to think of something to say that would not cause another eruption.
‘Would you like a drink?’ was her only inspiration. ‘I can soon…’
‘No—thank you,’ he refused.