Barely Breathing(3)

“What’ve we got here?” he said, holding it up and out of my reach.

“Give me my phone.”

He backed up several steps and I followed. I’d been very wrong about this guy. As he reached the corner of the Six building, Eric gave me a look that was supposed to be playful and disappeared into the alley.

I took a breath, reminding myself to keep cool. I couldn’t afford an involvement in an altercation that could jeopardize my job. But that was my phone and he was an *, and I wasn’t about to get trampled this way.

“Eric,” I said, my voice icy as I entered the alley, “give me my phone or I’m calling the cops.”

My breath whooshed from my lungs and my back hit the brick wall.

“You’re a cocktease.” Eric’s breath was hot on my face. He clamped a hand over my mouth and shoved a knee up between my legs.

My blood ran cold at the unwelcome contact. The phone suddenly seemed like a very stupid reason to follow an unknown man into a dark alley.

“Who’s an * now?” Eric’s expression was amused and angry at the same time.

I screamed, even though his hand muffled the sound. As I flailed, I realized my feet weren’t even on the ground anymore. He held me against the wall with his knee between my legs and his weight in front of me.

This was a nightmare. The front door of Six was maybe a hundred and fifty feet away, but it might as well have been a hundred and fifty miles. I was helpless and alone in a dark alley with a man who looked like he was just beginning to amuse himself with me.

He pulled roughly on the fabric of my shirt and I felt buttons strain and then pop off. In an instant, his hand left my mouth and wrapped around my throat.

“If you scream, I’ll choke you,” he said in a low tone.

“You’re a f*cking psycho.” My voice wavered, betraying my panic.

Eric pressed on my throat and I felt my airway constricting.

“Say it,” he ground out. “Say ‘f*ck me, Eric’.”

“No.” My refusal came out as a whimper and I felt the pressure on my throat increasing.

Terror washed over me like a tidal wave. I was going to get raped and possibly murdered in this alley. In a split second, I realized I didn’t appreciate what I had. My parents loved me, I had good friends and I was kicking ass at an amazing job. I’d wasted it by worrying about whether I’d be the next of my friends to get married or not.

Eric was working his hand under my skirt when suddenly, mercifully, the pressure on my throat subsided. I dropped to the ground and gasped in air. Had he changed his mind?

“The f*ck’s your problem, douchebag?” a deep male voice growled. Eric’s body hit the ground like a sack of bricks and I heard a loud thudding sound.

Eric cried out in pain and curled into a ball. A large man’s burly, built frame bent and leaned over him.

“I’ll f*ck you,” he spat out. “How ‘bout a baseball bat in your ass, motherf*cker?”

I panted and wrapped my arms around myself. I was saved. This man had saved me from a nightmare. He pressed a large, dark boot to Eric’s throat and raised his face to look at me.

“You okay?”

I nodded, the lump in my throat preventing me from finding my voice.

“You want me to spend some more time with him, or you wanna press charges?”

His gravelly tone made my stomach somersault nervously. I bunched my hands into fists and steeled myself. “Press . . .” I stopped to cough. “Press charges.”

He nodded and pulled Eric up by his hair, knocking his head against a metal fire escape stairway. Eric groaned and crumpled.

“Sorry, my hand slipped,” the man said unapologetically, dragging Eric up and out of the alley.

As soon as we got back inside Six, he shoved Eric into the arms of another burly man and told him to call the police and babysit until they arrived.

He turned to me then and I took him in, holding my torn shirt closed. He was tall and broad, with a bald head and tattoos snaking out from beneath his white t-shirt and up under the collar. His short facial hair was dark.

As I studied him, he did the same to me, his hazel eyes steely. Everything about this man was intimidating. At least, it should have been. What I saw was my savior. The man who’d saved me from a horror that would’ve changed me forever, if I’d survived it.

“You’re . . .” I cleared my throat and tried to ignore the staring onlookers. “Thank you. What’s your name?”

“Kane.”

“Thank you, Kane.”

Tears welled in my eyes and I looked at the floor.

“Come on,” he said, waving a hand and turning. I clutched the two sides of my shirt and followed him through the darkened club. Lights flashed on the people around me raising glasses in drunken celebrations.

Kane went down a long, dimly lit hallway and walked through a door. I hesitated for a second, but followed.

We were in a room with rich, wood paneled walls and a large desk with a single stack of papers on it. It looked like a vacant office.

After he opened a door, Kane pulled out a big flannel shirt and walked my way. He held it out and I just stared at him.

“Take it,” he said gruffly.

I reached out and grabbed it, my other hand still holding my shirt closed.

“Bathroom’s over there,” he said, pointing at another door on the other side of the room.