Dances with Monsters(28)

He snorted quietly. "I'll be sure to keep that in mind. Where am I going?"

Drew guided him through the neighborhood to her apartment, which was about a mile from the café. She reached for the door handle and turned to him, intending to thank him for the ride, and saw that he was taking his seat belt off and opening his own door.

"I'll walk you to your door," he said in a tone that offered no option for refusing him.

She glanced over her shoulder at Connor, who had been silent the entire ride and whose head was lying against the seat, eyes closed.

"Good night," she said softly. "It was nice to meet you." She wasn't expecting a reply, assuming he was knocked out, and she jumped a little when she heard his voice reply back to her, completely awake and almost sober-sounding.

"Good night, and nice to meet you, too," he offered back. "Hope to see you again soon."

She wasn't sure how to reply so she merely nodded and hopped out of the car, Heath holding her door open. He pushed it closed and followed behind her as she led the way into the building and up to her apartment on the third floor. Her stomach clenched with stress. Now he knows where you live, she thought. She wasn't sure how she felt about that. She never wanted anyone but Bunz to know where she lived. Her family obviously knew, being that her parents owned the building, but outside of them, she was extremely cautious about anyone else knowing. What if Heath was some sort of psycho, and he was going to follow her inside and do unspeakably horrible things to her? Like in New York, she thought, and her heart tightened with stress again.

But when she reached her door, and turned around, she noticed that he was at least three paces behind her and studying the carpeted floor. When he'd realized that she had come to a stop, he looked up, meeting her eyes that she knew were wide with a mixture of fear, expectation and uncertainty. He took a few ambling steps toward her, his hands in his pockets, and as she studied him, she noticed for the first time how good he looked. She was used to seeing him in sweats, athletic clothing, with either a skullcap or a hat on his head, or his hair damp and matted from sweat. But tonight, he was wearing a long-sleeved black sweater that looked light and soft and clung to his body just right, a nice pair of jeans and dark shoes. He even had a little product in his normally messy hair, and now he was close enough for her to smell his spicy cologne. She sucked in a breath, louder than she meant to as his gaze locked onto hers. They studied each other's faces for what felt like an eternity, and her heart kicked into another level of irregularity when his eyes dropped to her lips, his tongue flicking out between his own to moisten them.

Oh, shit, she thought, panicked. Oh, fuck. Kiss me don't kiss me. Kiss me don't kiss me. Kiss me don't…..

Her arms involuntarily rose and she hugged her bag to her chest, pressing her back against her door. The action was completely independent of her conscious thought, and he didn't miss it, his eyes going over her quickly.

"Better go on in," he finally said, dropping his eyes. His hands never left his pockets and he subtly retreated a step. She gulped, feeling relief flooding through her, mixed with a strange twinge of disappointment.

"Thanks for the ride," she squeaked, turning to grab for the handle.

"Sure," he replied. "Good night."

"Good night," she responded without looking at him, and rushed inside. She shut and triple-locked her door, then collapsed against it. She felt anxiety flooding through her again, but this time, it wasn't due to paralyzing fear; the reason for it was completely different altogether and in fact, the reason was walking down the hall out of her building.





Chapter Eight


Heath leaned back in his desk chair on Monday evening, yawning deeply and rubbing his hands over his face. It had been a long day. Between endless paperwork, the computers crashing and a fight breaking out, he was already drained. Despite his physical tiredness, he knew he still had work to do. He'd managed to fit some training in today, but now the long-promised women's self-defense course was coming to the forefront. He'd put out a survey among the gym members and their families simply to gauge interest, and the response had been overwhelming. There were a few more female members at the gym now, and most of them had indicated that the course was something they'd like to participate in. He also had decided to make the course available to the wives/sisters/mothers/girlfriends of the male clientele, and by his count so far, he could plan on having at least fifty participants.

He began creating the agenda for the course as it started to take shape in his mind. He knew if he didn't write it down now, he'd likely forget it later. As he mulled over his paper, tapping his pencil against the desktop, he decided it would need to be a two-day weekend event. The first part of the first day would be spent "in the classroom"—teaching women about situational awareness, going over local case studies of violence against women, statistics, and things like that. The rest of the day would be spent learning basic self-defense moves with a little sparring. The first half of the second day would be spent learning more advanced techniques with sparring, and the "final test" would be each woman facing off with him or any of the male volunteers he was putting feelers out for and spar. The object was for the woman to successfully get away from the attacker using the techniques they had learned. With the amount of participants, he knew he'd need at least five, preferably ten, male volunteers to help. He quickly jotted down several names that immediately came to him, including his brother's and his brother's trainer's, and returned his attention to the actual techniques, writing down several different moves that struck him. He knew that he'd need to go back over this list with someone and actually try out the moves, adjusting them to make sure they fit within the scheme of a women's self-defense course and could be easily picked up, perfected and applied. But for now, his list was coming along nicely.