She might have found those shoulders thigh-clenching sexy if she weren’t so scared of the raw power emanating from every millimeter of cordedsinew.
He sat on the edge of her bed, hunched over so that his elbows rested on his thighs. His eyes were closed. His face was drawn. He looked so…tired.
“I’m glad you’re awake,” Colesaid.
Tomi jerked as if he’d struck her and scrambled backward to the headboard, drawing her knees up to her chest. The contact of her cold thighs against her nearly naked breasts shocked her senses, tossing a fresh wave of horror through her. “Y-you werethere.”
Cole turned then, his intense black eyes locking on hers without a hint of remorse. “Iwas.”
What could she expect after what she’d done to him? Sympathy? No. Cole. She’d hurt him—on purpose—but she’d never imagined they’d end up in this situation. How couldshe?
Tomi licked her dry lips, fumbling for words. “Why?”
His steady gaze unnerved her almost as much as her near nudity. “I could ask you the samething.”
Her brain—already on the fritz—blanked. “Seriously?”
Cole turned then, a massive movement of muscles with as much subtlety as a cobra ready to sink his fangs into her neck. Tomi shoved her heels into the mattress and bounced off the bed, her feet barely registering the floor. She flew to the door, numb and cold, and grabbed the handle. The door opened without hesitation and she stumbled back, surprised. Her half-second pause gave Cole just the amount of time heneeded.
His arm wrapped around her waist, and before she knew it, she was back on the bed with Cole looming over her. Panic pushed her heart to near exploding and Tomi shoved his chest with all her might. “Get offme!”
In a move as surprising as the unlocked door, Cole did as she requested, moving off the bed entirely. He stalked to the door, slammed it shut, and then leaned against it. “I’ve never been more serious about anything in mylife.”
A huge knot formed in her throat. Was this his way of punishing her for their past? Because she’d left him? Surely, he wasn’t still hung up on her. He was too sexy. Too devastating. And damn her for noticing. “Did you do this to get back atme?”
He threw his head back and laughed. “I haven’t thought about you in years. I was just as shocked to see you tonight as you were to seeme.”
“What do you want from me?” This cold, callous side of Cole was something she’d never witnessed before. Not directed at heranyway.
“What do you think Iwant?”
The urge to scream nearly overwhelmed her. “I have no idea.” She tried to be sarcastic, but her voice trembled. Exhausted, terrified tears pricked her eyes. Tomi slapped the bed, rising onto her knees. “I have no idea why you were at an illegal sex slave auction! None of this makessense.”
For the first time that night, Cole’s gaze dragged down to her chest, reminding her the diaphanous white baby doll Luis had suited her up in for the auction was still just as sheer as it had been earlier. And her treacherous body responded, her nipples tightening more, her stomach clenching despite her nerves. Her reaction to Cole was just as terrifyingly intense as it had alwaysbeen.
She stumbled off the bed for the second time, dragging the quilt with her. Cole’s lips thinned. “Why were you theretonight?”
She backed up a step. “Oh, I don’t know,” she threw out recklessly, “I thought it would be fun. The idea of slavery intrigued me. So did having a room full of men stare at my nakedbody.”
A wave of bile rushed up her throat and she swallowed furiously. Cole’s hard expression didn’t break, didn’t show an ounce of sympathy. But at least he didn’t jump across the bed and attack her—not that she’d thought he would. Cole had never been wild or out of control. Every single thing he did was measured—as if he’d thought it over for weeks before acting. She could see the cogs turning in his mind right now, only she couldn’t fathom what he wasthinking.
“Some people get a kick out of that kind of thing,” he saidquietly.
A bitter, ragged cry that should have been a laugh broke from her lips. “And you think Ido?”
“You’ve done a lot of things I never thought you woulddo.”
Her knees nearly gave out right there. He hated her…of course he did. The Cole she’d known before wasn’t there any longer; this man was a stranger, someone she couldn’t trust no matter how much she wanted to. Tomi glanced to her right and her left, looking for any means of escape. The solid, windowless walls offered little by way ofinspiration.
Cole pushed away from the door, prowling around the bed like a lethalpanther.
Tomi backed up one step and then another and then another until her back hit the wall and she could go no farther. As if she could ward him off, she held out her arm, palm up. When his steely grip encircled her wrist, a fresh shock of awareness zapped up her arm. Tomi braced herself, completely unsure of what he hadplanned.
“Were youraped?”
Of all the things she’d expected him to say, that hadn’t ranked in the top hundred. It was so shocking, in fact, that she answered him honestly and without forethought. “No.”
“Were you physicallyinjured?”
