Animal Attraction Read online

  “Things change.”

  Dell shook his head and left his office. Jade was standing at her desk pulling on a long, fuzzy angora sweater that Dell happened to know would cling to her every curve.

  “Adam and I are getting dinner,” he said. “Come with us.”

  She slapped a couple of disks into his hand.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “Your backups.”

  “I like my clean office,” Dell said.

  “You mean you like having furniture that’s furniture instead of crap collectors?”

  “It wasn’t that bad.”

  “No, it was worse.”

  Adam was grinning as he joined them. “Aw. Your first fight as an engaged couple.”

  Jade ignored this. “I’ve laid out the payables that need attention and brought up all the outstanding receivables that I could find, though it’d be more accurate if you finished entering your accounting for this month.”

  They’d all been running like crazy for most of the day. How had she managed to do all this as well?

  “And with another few hours I could probably get your checking account reconciled.” She gave him a look of reproach. “You’re three months behind.”

  “I’m getting to it.”

  “If you do it in the first week of the new month, you can close that month out and your accounting system takes you all the way to the financial statements. Assuming you finish entering your receivables.”

  Dell blinked. “For eighteen months you’ve been answering my phones and setting up my schedule and bringing my patients back to me like you were born to be a receptionist. You never once mentioned all these other talents.”

  She grabbed Beans’s carrier and her purse and headed for the door. “My talents are on a need-to-know basis.”

  Adam raised a brow.

  Yeah. She was definitely feeling better. But then he saw it, her slight hesitation at the door.

  She didn’t want to go to the parking lot.

  “Adam,” Dell said. “I’ll meet you at Risolli’s.”

  Adam never took his eyes off Jade, frozen in clear agonizing indecision. Nodding, he shifted around her, gently squeezing her arm before slipping out the door.

  Jade mentally put on her big-girl panties and strode out the door the same way Adam had. Of course it was much easier to face her demons with one hundred and eighty pounds of solid muscle at her back, and Dell was at her back. He followed her to her car, waiting silently while she set Beans in the back and buckled her in. A breeze blew across the lot, and a branch cracked. She stiffened, but Dell’s hand slid to her lower back, warm and sure. Steadying. She closed her eyes. “I’m just thinking about where I want to go for dinner,” she whispered.

  “Risolli’s. Risolli’s is where you want to go for dinner.”

  “Risolli’s is a heart attack in the making,” she said automatically.

  “They have salads. Just think about it. And while you’re thinking . . .” He wrapped his arms around her, all the way around her from behind. “Think about this,” he said.

  The hold was almost an exact replication of how she’d been grabbed that night and she froze.

  “Where are your keys to the meds lockup, bitch?”

  “I don’t have keys,” she said.

  “Wrong answer.”

  She heard the pathetic little ragtag whimper drag up from her throat. “Dell.”

  “I know,” Dell murmured very softly. “It’s an aggressive move, and your heart’s pounding and you’re probably hardly able to hear me over the roar of the blood in your ears but listen to me, Jade. It’s just me, and you have nothing to be afraid of with me. Break free.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Goddess Jade doesn’t know the meaning of the word. Fight, Jade. Do whatever you have to do to get loose. You don’t have to be a victim.”

  A moment ago she’d been happy to have him at her back but now that he was using it on her it was a different story entirely. She could feel the strength in his arms, the heat of him behind her and could hardly breathe.

  He didn’t rush her, just gave her that same, steady patience he gave his animals. But she wasn’t an animal, and she couldn’t turn off her brain. This wasn’t going to work. “Dell,” she said hoarsely, the panic choking her. “Please—”

  “First rule of self-defense. Stay calm and think as the situation develops.”

  Calm was out of the question. Not with flashbacks making her vision blurry. Or maybe that was the lack of air since she was holding her breath.

  “Second rule, show no fear or hesitation.”

  Right. She’d get right on that.

  “Breathe, Jade.” He brushed his jaw to hers. “Come on, tough girl,” he murmured softly, in direct opposition to the tight, unforgiving hold he had on her. “You can do this. There are many ways, but we’ll take it one at a time. I’m a bad guy. How do you get away from me?”

  “I don’t know!” she cried, her hands coming up to grip his arm around her waist. But all that did was remind her of just how strong he was.

  “The human skull is a powerful weapon all on its own,” he said. “Don’t waste your time trying to step on my toes or elbowing me in the ribs. None of those moves will do anything but piss someone off. Bash my face with the back of your head.”

  “What?”

  “Connect once, maybe twice with your attacker’s face or collarbone and you’ll deliver some serious damage, trust me. Do it.”

  “Do it, give me your keys. Now.”

  She shook her head, and another guy in a mask moved into her line of sight, roughly pushing someone.

  Karen, a floor nurse.

  Jade gasped when the second masked guy casually set the muzzle of his gun to Karen’s temple. “Bet you can find the keys now,” he said.

  He was right. Jade pulled the keys out and threw them at him. He snagged them out of midair and, with a smile that still haunted her dreams, dragged her along with him to the drug storage.

  “Jade.” Dell was saying her name, quietly but firmly, in a voice that demanded she pay attention. “Jade, you can do this. As soon as the adrenaline kicks in, everything will seem to happen in slow motion. If you stay calm, your mind will process thoughts so rapidly that it will even seem like you’ve got hours to make a decision on how to react.”

  She closed her eyes and tried to fall into her adrenaline instead of fighting it. She didn’t manage until he tightened his grip. Then she drew in a breath and snapped her head back.

  Dell dodged to the side, but she still managed to hit him on the cheekbone, and he immediately dropped his hold on her.

  Spinning around, she stared at him, horrified.

  But when he straightened, he was smiling. “Nice.” He lifted his hand to touch his cheekbone, already reddened.

  “Oh my God. I hurt you.”

  “That’s the point,” he reassured her, looking proud. “It works, Jade. Every time. I was only able to dodge it because I knew you were going to do it. With the element of surprise, you’ll break anyone’s hold on you.”

  “Anyone’s?”

  “You have to be confident. You have to picture it. You have to believe it. But yeah. Anyone’s. Now can we get some pizza? Adam’s a fucking diva when he’s hungry.”

  She let out a breath, marveling over what she’d just done, more than a little desperate to believe. It’d been a long time since she hadn’t worried about the shadows and the boogeyman. She thought she was good at hiding it but apparently not. She’d seen the look Adam and Dell had exchanged. It wasn’t a new look, she saw it every time they dealt with a hurt or abused animal. It was their protect-theinnocent-animal look.

  She hated that she was the hurt animal. Hated.

  At least they hadn’t pressed her to talk about it, hadn’t called her out on her undeniably odd and peculiar behavior—at least not really—and for that, she’d been eternally grateful.

  But she was pretty sure her pass was over.

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