Still the assassin waited, as silent as a tomb. He had made his request, and the only thing yet to be determined was if Rafael would grant it, or deny him. Without saying a word he made it plain that he wouldn’t take the money that had been offered; instead he would walk away, and at best Rafael would no longer be able to call on the assassin’s services when needed. At worst-Drea didn’t want to think about what the worst could be, would be. With a man like this, anything was possible.

Rafael suddenly looked at Drea, his dark gaze cool and assessing. She sucked in a breath, alarmed by that abrupt coolness, by the assessment. Was he actually considering the idea, weighing the cost if he continued to say no?

“On the other hand,” he mused, “perhaps I have convinced myself. Sex is cheap, and I, too, can do a lot with a hundred thousand dollars.” He removed his arm from around Drea’s shoulders and stood, straightening his pants with a practiced movement that made the hem break across his foot at precisely the right spot. “One time, you said. I have business across town that will keep me tied up for five hours, which is more than sufficient.” He paused, then added lightly, “Don’t damage her.” Without even glancing at her again, he walked across the living room toward the door.

What? Drea bolted upright, unable to think straight. What was he saying? What was he doing? This was a joke, right? Right?

Drea pinned her desperate, disbelieving gaze on Rafael’s back as he walked to the door. He didn’t mean it. He couldn’t mean it. Any moment now he would turn around and laugh, enjoying his joke at the assassin’s expense, never mind that he’d almost sent her into cardiac arrest. She didn’t care that he’d scared her half to death, she wouldn’t say a word to him about it, if he’d just stop, if he’d say, “Did you really think I was serious?”

There was no way he’d give her to the assassin, no way-

Rafael reached the door, opened it…and left.

Barely able to breathe, her lungs constricted by the tide of rising panic that threatened to strangle her, Drea stared blindly at that door. He’d open it now, and laugh. Any minute now, Rafael would come back in.

She didn’t look at the assassin, didn’t move, didn’t blink, so thoroughly was she frozen. Her own pulse roared in her ears, her heartbeat like thunder. The hugeness of what Rafael had just done was so overwhelming she couldn’t process it. Her body and most of her brain had gone numb, but a part of her mind still functioned, still grasped that Rafael had thrown her to the lion and then walked away without either a moment’s hesitation or a single backward look.

The assassin moved into her line of vision, silently approaching the door and locking it-all the locks, the dead bolts, even sliding the safety chain into its slot. No one would be able to enter, even with a key, without alerting him.

Life flooded back into her body and she fled, clattering in her four-inch heels across the marble tiles. Her body acted of its own volition, driven by desperation, without thought or plan. She dashed toward the hallway, then realization brought her to an abrupt halt as her brain caught up with her body. Down the hall were the bedrooms, and that was the last place she wanted to be.

Desperately she looked around. The kitchen…there were knives, a meat mallet-maybe she could defend herself-

Against him? Any effort she made would be laughable to him-or, worse, make him angry, perhaps even angry enough to kill her. Within minutes her goal had changed from avoidance to simple survival. She didn’t want to die. However brutally he treated her, no matter what he did, she didn’t want to die.

There was no safe place, no haven where she could hide. Even knowing that, admitting it, she couldn’t just stand there; with nowhere else to go, no way to stop him, she ran out onto the balcony, high over the city. She reached the wall and could go no farther, unless she tried to fly, and her sense of self-preservation was too strong to allow that. As long as she was alive, she would try to remain that way.

Blindly she reached out and gripped the iron rail set atop the wall, her fingers locking around the metal as she stared at nothing. Central Park spread out beneath her, a cool green oasis in the middle of the vast thicket of steel and concrete that was Manhattan. Birds soared below, and overhead fat white clouds drifted lazily across the pure blue of the sky. The hot sunlight touched her face, her bare arms and shoulders, while a breeze flirted with her curls. She felt disconnected from all of that, as if none of it was real, not even the heat of the sun on her cheeks.

She felt him approach, felt him halt when he was close behind her. She hadn’t heard him, wasn’t aware of a single sound other than the rustle of the breeze and the faint noise of the city far below; nevertheless she knew he was there. Every nerve in her skin was shrieking an alarm, telling her that Death was about to reach out and touch her.

His hand settled on the bare curve of her shoulder.

Panic exploded in her skull, mental fireworks that obliterated both thought and action. She didn’t react; she couldn’t. She stood there, violently trembling, because she was incapable of doing more, or even less.

Slowly, as if he savored the texture of her skin, he stroked down the length of her arm. His hand was hard and warm, his fingertips and palm rough with callus, but his touch was controlled, even…gentle? She had expected brutality, been prepared for it, had so focused on simply surviving that she couldn’t process the reality of the caress. Her senses reeled just as if he’d punched her.

His sliding hand reached her fingers, which were still tightly knotted around the railing, and lightly stroked over them before reversing direction and moving up her arm as slowly as it had descended. When he reached her shoulder he didn’t stop, but continued on to her neck, where he moved the mass of her curls aside and slid his fingertips over her throat, the curve of her jaw, following the slender threads of muscle and tendon and sending chills chasing over her entire body. After a moment he moved his attention to the wide shoulder strap of her silk tank top, playing with it, sliding his fingers under it, tracing the line of fabric downward. If he hadn’t realized before that she wasn’t wearing a bra, he had to know it now.

“Breathe,” he said, the first word he’d ever spoken to her. His low, slightly rough voice made the word a command.

She did, gasping in air and only then realizing, by the acute relief in her lungs, that she’d been holding her breath for so long that she’d been in danger of passing out.

Slowly, still so slowly, he moved his hand down her side, the heat of his touch searing through the thin silk. He reached the bottom of the garment and his fingers dipped under it, exploring the elastic waistband of her flimsy, billowy pants, slipping beneath and around. Now he also knew that she wasn’t wearing panties, either. Drea swallowed the lump in her throat and squeezed her eyes shut.

Closing her eyes was an instinctive move to shut him out, to distance herself from the here and now, but instead her action seemed to make all her other senses even more acute. Leisurely he moved his hand up her stomach and, with nothing else to distract her, her focus latched on to the touch with almost painful intensity. Her muscles contracted, her entire body tightening as he moved up, up, while she waited, once again holding her breath.

His hand closed fully over her left breast, and the air rushed from her lungs. He held her breast, stroked it, cupped it in his palm as if weighing it. He swept his thumb over her tender nipple, the rough pad rasping, until her nipple engorged and stood out firm and plump; then he moved on to her other breast and repeated the process.