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.

That’s when I pounced.

At first, he wasn’t recovered or he was surprised that one second I was lying there, the next second I was al over him, so he didn’t move much.

This had the benefit of me getting my hands, lips and tongue on him. This had the added benefit that, when I discovered he was stil wearing boxers, I could rip them off him.

Then he recovered and it got heated. It became the tangling of arms and legs, the sliding of lips, the tasting of tongues, the gliding of fingertips and the dragging of nails.

He tore my panties down my legs and whipped my tank over my head.

I got my mouth between his legs then he got his between mine.

Then I rol ed him over, got on top, wrapped my fingers around him and guided him inside.

I was in control for three glorious strokes before he rol ed me and pounded deep.

I wrapped my calves around his thighs and begged him to do it harder.

Mace complied.

He was kissing me when I came, moaning into his mouth.

It took him longer and my eyes were on the shadowy column of his throat when his head reared back, he drove into me one last time and let out a deep, long sigh.

His weight settled into me after he finished and I liked it, the heaviness of him, even though I couldn’t breathe.

I took it as long as possible. When I made an audible gulp for air, Mace heard it and immediately rol ed to his back, taking me with him so I was on top.

We were both stil breathing hard (me alternately purring). I tucked my face into the space between his shoulder and neck and cradled the back of his head in my hand.

As my breathing slowed, the purring breaths stopping, I realized something was happening to me. Something thril ing and frightening. Something like being on the front page of the paper and referred to as a “celebrity”.

But bigger.

And better.

Something that made me think, for the first time in my life, that my luck was about to change.

I didn’t want to test it but I had to.

“Mace?”

“Yeah?”

I didn’t know what to say.

Then I did. “You walked away.”

His arms had been loose around me but they got tighter.

“I was pissed, Kitten,” he said softly.

H e was pissed. And Mace pissed was like a natural phenomenon, a tornado or a hurricane or a volcano exploding or something.

“I was a bitch,” I whispered.

One of his hands came up and tangled in my hair.

“You got reason. Lots of shit happening to you. You can’t keep it inside, it’l f**k you up. So you gotta be able to take it out on someone. That someone is me.” He twisted his head and kissed my shoulder then finished quietly, “I gotta learn to handle you with more care.”