A steel-strong arm snaked around her waist, pulling her back flush against a hard wall of muscled chest. Terror clawed at her. She opened her mouth to scream, but a large, rough hand covered it before she released any sound.

Her pulse raced and a whoosh of air left her nose as she struggled with the man.

She was a woman, alone, and on an island far from home. Easy target. And screaming was exactly what she would do, if she could get out of this man's grip. Why the hell hadn't she taken that self-defense class her mom had told her to take?

Struggling, she tried to jab him in the abdomen with her elbow. But he maneuvered away from the blow. Deidre was easily five-foot-nine, but this guy towered over her. Fear spreading with each passing second, she jabbed her heel into the top of his sneaker-clad foot, but flip-flops don't make very good weapons.

Realizing how isolated she was back here, she opened her mouth as much as possible and clamped her teeth down on one of his fingers. The man jerked and let out a sharp curse, but didn't let her go.  

“Listen to me, I'm not here to hurt you. Calm down.”

Deidre heard his words as if from somewhere in the distance, her blood pounding so hard in her ears. Survival instinct was still in high gear. Calm down, my ass.

Instead she rammed her backside into his private area hoping to make an impression.

He cursed again. “Deidre, stop. I'll let you go, but you have to listen to me. Don't try to scream,” the man threatened into her ear. “Don't try to run away. I'll track you down.” She could feel his hot breath on her skin.  

But his voice. She knew that voice. And did he say…Deidre?

She nodded, moving his hand that was still on her mouth up and down with her head motions. Deidre was ready to take off, foot poised on the concrete shower slab. But she wasn't sure if she could outrun this guy—or if he had any weapons on him.

“Deidre, trust me,” he said gently before he slowly dropped his hand from her mouth and waist. Trust me. Those words. Then she knew. Alec.

She whipped around and her breath left her in a rush. He was standing there just as gorgeous as always, with his dark hair and chiseled jaw, staring at her.

“You son of a bitch!” She slammed her left hand on his chest. “What were you trying to do? Scare the hell out of me?”

“Actually, yes.” He stood in a black t-shirt, with a black untucked denim shirt over it, his dark hair shorter than the last time she'd seen him. It was tousled and sexy as ever.

“Why did you assault me like that?” She paced around in a semi-circle in front of her ex-lover, and as she tried to move farther away, she realized he still held onto her right wrist. “You could've been some psycho murderer. Maybe you still are.”

She stopped. Maybe, she thought, it would be better if you were. The pain of his short, clipped farewell note flashed through her now.

Deidre, I have to leave. Don't want to put you in any danger. Sorry.

Alec's eyes didn't leave her face, nor did they betray any emotion. Hard. They were hard and unfeeling. She tugged her hand to pull out of his grasp, but he held on tight.

“I needed you to listen to me.” His voice ran as cold as his eyes. “This is serious. Deadly serious. And I didn't know if you'd run away if I simply walked up to you.” He took a quick glance around. It registered to her that he'd been doing that the whole time. He was like a caged wolf. Anxious. Predatory. Dangerous.

“And I needed to catch you alone. The less I'm seen here, the better,” he said.

Alec wasn't a man to play games. Despite the heat of the Bahama sun, a chill slithered down her back.

“What are you talking about? Why are you here, Alec?”

“I tracked you down.”

She let out a low, humorless laugh. “Come on, you act like you've been spying on me.”

He didn't respond but his eyebrow raised just a hair.

“You haven't been spying on me, have you?” she asked, incredulous. This was all starting to weird her out.

His fingers tightened around her wrist, and fear tingled in her bones once again. But come on, this was Alec. The man who'd made her come more times than she could count. The man who'd told her about his mother's battle with dementia and the pain at being so helpless in the face of it.

Only this wasn't the Alec she knew. This was a different man. A hard, callous man.

“Let me go.” She heard the uncertainty in her own voice and cleared her throat. “You're scaring me.”

What did she really know about him? He'd always held part of himself back. He'd always been a mystery to her. Maybe he was a criminal. Maybe that was why he'd originally run from New York to Utah .

A tropical breeze blew by, the crisp smell of the sand and the ocean belying the panic racing through her.

He brought his face down toward her. So close she could see the day's worth of dark growth on his chin and the depths of his brown irises. His eyes swept over her and they darkened even more. She had unconsciously licked her lips, and as his gaze drifted there, she quickly pulled her tongue in. He looked up at her again. Awareness flashed between them, and her nipples peaked against her bikini.

Suddenly she was aware that she was standing in nothing more than a couple of scraps of shiny material, while he was dressed as if it was a cold day in Salt Lake City . Her bareness made her vulnerable. Even more vulnerable than she'd felt when he'd first come up behind her.

But then his eyes turned to ice once again. “You should be scared, Deidre. I hope you are.” His words were raspy and rough. “This is life or death.”

Coming soon!

Coming soon from Freya's Bower!