Rough and Ready (More Than A Cowboy #2) - Vanessa Vale Page 0,2
by the door, sat down on the wood floor, tugged one on, worked the laces with extra vigor.
I was safe. I knew it. Cameron was still in jail. The men who'd attacked me would have come after me again way before now if they'd still wanted me. The way I figured it, and the police assumed as well, was that they wanted Cam. If that were true, they could have him. I could only imagine how much he'd liked to be assaulted by them.
My apartment was safe. Gray had reassured me personally. Key cards were required for the elevator and emergency stairs, and only the four residents had them. Gray liked things secure. While he knew how to fight, and fight well, he only liked using his fists in the ring. Those were his words when he'd handed me my key card, which had been reassuring. Besides, he wouldn't have risked Emory's safety for anything. I’d lived down the street from her, where we’d been neighbors for the three years while I was teaching classes and finishing my dissertation for my PhD. After the incident, I hadn’t ever really felt safe. Emory had thought of me for the vacant unit, and she’d assured me it was secure.
I was safe.
That didn't mean I wasn't riled, wouldn't have nightmares about what happened on the elevator. Again. Cameron's few calls always brought them back. The anxiety always returned. Like now, when I wanted to run until my legs gave out, until, hopefully, I was too exhausted to even dream.
Finished with my shoes, I stood, grabbed my car keys, the building key pass and went to one of the piles of boxes. A few had to go to my office for my next semester Medieval Art class, so I'd use my angst to lug them to my car for tomorrow. I stacked three identical ones, heavy with books, on the moving dolly. Pulling the cart behind me, I went out into the hall, locked my apartment. Looked longingly at the stairwell door. I hated elevators. After what happened, it had taken six months just to ride in one again. Now, I'd take them, but only with others, those I trusted. Or in safe places. Like one I shared with only three other people.
There was no way I'd get down the stairs with the boxes, and I wasn't making three trips. Pulling the dolly in behind me, I took a deep breath, pressed the button for the ground floor.
Still, I dreaded stepping inside when the door slid open. I thought of the two men who’d been on either side of me, one turning to press me into the wall, his hands groping. The other had watched, laughed.
I pushed the memories away, stepped inside, pushed the button for the ground floor. Willed the sick feeling down. I needed to chill. To unwind. To forget about Cam. What he’d done. What he wanted now. I'd burn off my anger on the treadmill in Gray’s gym since it got dark so early. I wasn't running by myself outside at night. Not this time of year.
Exercise always worked. I could do this, I could get over Cam's call, the greasy thoughts of those men, how one had held me as the other ripped my shirt. How I'd kicked and fought, broke a nose. The blood. The panic. The debilitating need to have the doors open to escape. The stumble onto the marble floor in front of the bank of elevators. The cry for security.
I remembered the feel of their rough hands. Heard their voices telling me what they were going to do to me. Smelled their cloying cologne, the cheap cigarettes.
The elevator doors slid open. I took one step, and my breath caught in my lungs when I saw him.
Him.
Big. Broad. Tattooed. Thickly muscled. Chiseled jaw. Angry eyes. A palpable energy radiated from him. He looked mean. Bad. Ruthless. His hands were clenched in fists, and he stepped toward me, then froze when he saw me. His look changed then, the fury slipping away.
Still, he scared the shit out of me. For a split second, I thought he was going to hurt me.
No. This guy wasn't planning on dragging me to a hotel room and raping me. He was… trying to go upstairs. I knew this. My brain processed that he lived in the building or at least had a key card to call the elevator. But no. That didn't matter. Run! Run! were my only thoughts.