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Lily stumbled out into the cold dark alleyway, her tears practically blinding her as she tried to escape the apartment building. She grasped her stomach tightly and bent over, dry heaving and screwing her eyes shut as the weight of her muddled emotions tore her up inside. Rain poured down her neck, soaking her thin clothes through in an instant and serving as another painful reminder of just how naïve she was; thinking that the weather in New York in January would be similar to that of her native California.

“Stupid Lily,” she groused and straightened up, smoothing down her clothes in an attempt to smooth out her emotions and suppressing her desire to be sick.

Taking in her surroundings, she shuddered at the sight of the murky wet side street. The orange lights high up on the walls barely illuminated it as the rain poured down on her. Terrifying images from movies flickered into her head and she shook it in an attempt to shift them, not wanting to think about how dangerous it was to be standing in an alley in the middle of the night. She had more pressing matters to attend to.

It was no use thinking about how foolish she’d been to run away to New York for a man, because it was done now and there was no turning back the clock in the real world. She had to face what she’d done and learn to live with it. Her life was inexorably changed. All she could do now was look forward and hope for a solution to this mess she’d got herself into.

Last week she’d hopped a Greyhound out of Los Angeles and had made her way across the country to be with her lover—or so she had thought. Andrew had left her two weeks ago when he’d moved to New York to work in his company’s new head office as the chief executive, effectively ending the somewhat taboo and secret relationship they had been involved in. Lily remembered how deaf he’d been to her protestations when she’d discovered his intention of leaving her to travel to the other side of the country. He’d simply told her that he loved her and he’d see her around.

She’d really thought he’d meant something by that, by those three simple but beautiful words: ‘I love you’.

Tonight, she had surprised him with a visit, wanting to tell him that she felt the same way about him as he felt about her, but when she’d knocked on his door she’d found him with another woman—one a lot nearer to his age.

Turning her face skywards, she closed her eyes and let the large, heavy drops of rain wash away her tears. She wished they could wash her feelings away with them. How could she have been so naïve?

It was easy when you were only seventeen.

The cold water ran down her face, numbing it.

Heaving a sigh, she went to move out of the alley but realised that she didn’t know where to go. The only certainty was that she couldn’t go home. Her father would just throw her straight out again her for what she’d done. They never had been on the best of terms since her mother had died.

Deciding that there had to be a safer place for her than the side street she was standing in, she looked around and finally settled on walking out into the main street and seeing if there were any cafés open in this neighbourhood at this time in the morning. She fished around in her pocket and pulled out the few remaining coins she had left. The money she’d taken from home hadn’t stretched far. It had barely got her across the country to New York. She sighed. There was barely enough for a coffee. Closing her eyes, she felt sick with the realisation that she didn’t have enough money for a place to sleep. She’d just have to slum it tonight. Hopefully tomorrow would bring her a brighter outlook, and less rain.

She placed one foot down on the fractured and flooded asphalt.

A loud crack like thunder rang out and echoed around the walls.

Lily’s heartbeat accelerated as she froze to the spot.

It wasn’t thunder.

It was a gunshot.

Adrenaline raced through her veins.

Her first instinct was to run, but her feet wouldn’t cooperate. Instead, she stood stock-still and tried to get a fix on the direction the shot had come from. Its echo confused her and the last thing she wanted to do was run towards it. Staring blankly at the long alley ahead of her, she could see a sharp bend in it and she thought it was possible the sound had come from around the corner.

From up above her, the silence was penetrated by the sound of feet pounding metal and then a splash. Lily continued to stare blankly ahead of her, her whole body numb with cold and shock.

“Bollocks.”

The British accented tones roused her, and she turned to see a man straightening up nearby. In the low light, she could just about make out that he was dressed head to toe in black and had dishevelled dark hair that looked as soaked through as she felt.

Cain stared at the girl and slipped his right hand behind his back. He noted just how cold she looked standing in the rain and wearing nothing but a halter-top and jeans. It was early January, what the hell was she thinking?

Their eyes locked and their rapid breathing subconsciously fell into synchronisation as they searched each other’s eyes. Cain was the first to look away. He could feel the girl watching him as he bit his lip and squinted into the alley ahead of them. He frowned as he assessed the situation and realised that he couldn’t leave her here. It was too risky.

Grabbing her arm, he pulled her in the opposite direction to the one they had been looking in.

“Come on, love, you don’t want to be found anywhere near here.” Picking up the pace until he was forcing her to run alongside him, he tried to figure out if she’d seen what had happened. This night was not turning out well.

At least the girl was running with him. He was surprised she wasn’t putting up a fight. Most girls from this neighbourhood would’ve maced him by now. Most girls from this neighbourhood wouldn’t be out in an alley at this ungodly hour though. Whoever she was, she wasn’t local.

He ground to a halt by his car where it was parked at the end of the alley, his grip on her arm jerking her backwards. Her eyes widened and she looked at him, and then at his car. He looked at it too. It wasn’t much, but it ran and it was relatively inconspicuous.

“Get in.” Cain opened the door and watched her, waiting to see what she was going to do.

For a moment, he thought she was going to say something, but instead she just slipped in and he closed the door.

He had seen in her eyes when she’d looked at him that she was sparking back into life. He’d at least expected some kind of protest from her, some kind of argument, but she had just taken it all in her stride—or at least that was the way it appeared. He wondered just what had happened to her to make her care so little about all the possible dangers of her situation. He couldn’t imagine anyone in their right mind getting into someone’s car without even stopping to question them first. 

He rounded the car and stopped by the trunk. On opening it up, he paused for a moment to give his heart rate a chance to level out and then dumped his Dragunov rifle into the trunk and covered it with the long leather coat he’d been wearing. If she’d seen the gun, he was royally fucked.

He opened the driver’s side door and slid into the seat next to her. Turning the key in the ignition, he revved the engine into life and then tilted his head as he looked at her.

Cain drew his eyes away from her and focused them on the rear view mirror; he could see the blue lights of the squad cars bouncing off the damp walls of the alley.

“Response time is on the up,” he muttered as he drove out of the alley and onto the main road.

* * * *

Lily stared blankly ahead of them as he drove, watching the rain in the headlights and listening to the steady squeaking of the windscreen wipers. She was slowly coming around to the reality of the evening, and it was making her feel sick again as she thought about how Andrew had lied to her and used her for the past year, and how she was trapped in a city with no friends, no clothes and no money. Holding herself tightly around the waist, she tried to make sense of what had happened both at the apartment and in the alley.

She hadn’t noticed anything after she’d heard the shot. She’d been too stunned by the events of the evening and when she’d come to her senses, she’d found herself sitting patiently in a dirty old black sports car that looked at least twice her age and staring blankly at the dashboard. A tiny voice inside her had said that she was in a strange man’s car in a strange city in the early hours of the morning, but she’d reasoned with it that she was at least out of the rain, and it wasn’t like she had any other option. Lily swallowed the aching lump of muddled emotions in her throat and took a deep breath.

Her mind felt like a void again as she remembered his tight grip on her arm when they’d been running. It had been the only thing she’d been able to concentrate on. It had felt pleasantly warm. Looking across at him, she caught glimpses of his well-sculptured features as passing lights flashed on it. He looked to be in his late twenties and, from his grip, she could tell he was strong.

“You’re terribly quiet. You always like this?” He looked over at her as they sped down Manhattan. It was like a ghost town. The pavements were empty and she’d seen no more than three cars since he’d started driving.

She didn’t answer him. His voice roused her a little more and caused her stomach to tighten up as she looked at her surroundings. She was in a strange city with a strange man, going somewhere, she didn’t know where, and she knew it should scare her.

Only it didn’t.

She felt so numb to everything, so uncaring about anything other than her immediate predicament of nowhere to sleep. All she wanted to do was sleep. Maybe then this would all turn out to be a horrible nightmare.

Cain reached over and touched her shoulder. Her skin was freezing underneath his fingers and some spark of sympathy inside him made him turn the heating on in an attempt to make her a little more comfortable.

“Somewhere I can drop you?” He kept his eyes on the road. They were practically on the Brooklyn Bridge and he hoped she’d answer him this time or he was going to have to just dump her. Either that or take her home with him.

He arched a brow at that thought and tried to dismiss it but it refused to go.

“Anywhere,” she answered quietly. “I don’t have a place to go to.”

She curled up on the seat and hugged her knees to her chest.

Cain gave her a sideward glance and could see how upset she looked. There were tears shining in her eyes as she held herself, curled into a defensive ball on the seat. He couldn’t help feeling for her. He’d been right when he’d thought she wasn’t local. Now he knew that she was a long way from home, with nowhere to go and had obviously had one hell of an upsetting evening.

“What happened back there?” Her voice was small as she fixed her eyes on him.

“Don’t know. What did you hear?” Cain couldn’t resist using the opportunity to find out if she knew anything. As far as he could tell, she hadn’t realised that he had something to do with it. He glanced at her again.

“Sounded like a gunshot and then the police.” She rested her chin on her knees and stared intently at him.

“Sounded like that to me, too.”

“I’ve heard about killings in New York. Who’d do such a thing?” Her face was a mask of innocence as she looked at him, and he felt as though she’d just stuck a knife in his heart and twisted it.

“Some sick son of a bitch, that’s for sure.” His frown intensified as he pulled the car over to the side of the road and stopped.

Her stomach rumbled and Cain looked at her, taking in the pretty curve of her cheeks and her sweet, embarrassed smile.

“Hungry?” He smiled right back at her.

“Starved.” She grinned and her whole face lit up.

“This isn’t a come on, you’re sweet and all, but nowhere is open for food...if you want a place to crash, just for a couple of days...” He tried to keep a straight face as he asked himself why he was offering her a place to stay. It was either a desire to give her a moment of respite in what he knew firsthand was a horrible situation, or he solely wanted to find out if she had seen anything in the alley.

“But you don’t even know me.” There was more than a little surprise in her voice.

“Just trying to help. I figure from the lost look you’ve been wearing that firstly, you’re a runaway and secondly, you’ve never been to New York.”

“Point one...yes...point two...no, I haven’t been here before.”

“So, you want to take me up on my offer or do I drop you at a hotel?” He let go of the steering wheel and held his hands up by his side. “Promise I won’t try anything.”

She paused, her eyes dark in the low light and boring into his. They narrowed slightly, scrutinising him, and he knew that she was weighing up her options.

He smiled again, trying to reassure her.

“Sure,” she said, a hint of hesitation in her voice.

Cain smiled at her and pulled the car back onto the road again, heading towards his apartment. It was no skin off his nose to give the girl a place to stay for the night. At least he’d get the chance to find out more about his little enigma and if she knew more than she was letting on.

* * * *

Lily followed him in silence as he walked up the stairs in the building. Her cold and aching legs protested at the sudden demand of their use and she stared blankly at his back as he steadily climbed up the steps. About twenty minutes ago, her mind had finished computing all the information she’d thrown at it and it had become painfully clear—she was about to spend the night in an apartment with a man she didn’t know.

What if he was lying? He could get her into his apartment and not let her leave. He could make her do things. He could kill her. She kept her eyes fixed on his back, watching him closely as she tried to discern whether he really was just being nice to her.

Panic rose up in her stomach as she realised that he was taller than her, and stronger. The tight grip he’d had on her arm in the alley wasn’t the only thing that told her that. Now they were in the light, she could see how well toned his arms were, his tight t-shirt emphasising them to her. She stopped dead when she reached the top of the stairs, her breathing becoming erratic as her fears pounded down on her. In her eyes, he seemed to move in slow motion. He carried on walking for a few metres and then turned to look at her, his brows meeting in a frown, causing the lines of his face to become hard. His eyes moved over her slowly and came to settle on her face. When she met them with her own, she was fascinated by the rapid change of his expression. The lines of his face softened, his brows rose questioningly and his eyes seemed to draw her in. They twinkled at her, clearly expressing what he was thinking.

“You alright?” he said.

She wondered why he’d bothered putting words behind his thoughts. She felt as though she could just stay there, locked in his eyes, and read everything he wanted to say to her.

She didn’t answer; she just absorbed the sight of him now that she could see him properly for the first time.

In the harsh sodium light of the hallway, her eyes wandered over him. They delighted in roaming down his biceps and strong forearms to the large hands that he’d placed on her, twice. Raking her gaze back up to his face, she felt something flutter inside her as he tilted his head to one side as though he was trying to figure her out.

The overhead lights caused shadows to play in the hollows of his cheeks, and her eyes came to rest on them before they moved down to his mouth, taking in the tempting fullness of his lower lip. Feeling conscious of his eyes on her, she raised hers up to meet his again. In an instant, she was lost in them. They were deep whirlpools of purest blue that had a power over her she’d never experienced before. Her breathing fell into synchronisation with the rise and fall of his chest, and her emotions hitched in her throat.

Cain cocked his head to one side as he looked at her. It wasn’t like it was the first time a girl had openly checked him out, he just hadn’t expected it from someone so young and innocent looking as her. His eyes wandered their course over her face. Now that she was standing in the light, he couldn’t believe how pretty she was. Her bright green eyes sparkled into his and his whole body warmed under her gaze. Moving his eyes away from hers in an effort to avoid the feelings that she was stirring in him, they took to roaming over the soft, peachy roundness of her cheek down to the delicious curve of her mouth.

Eyes unblinking, he ran them down her shoulder length blonde hair and over her small, plump breasts to her slim, curvaceous waist. From there, they roamed over the full swell of her hips and down her long legs to her feet. He noticed for the first time that she was wearing heels, her toes exposed to the elements. The sight of her cold feet caused him to snap out of his reverie and his eyes darted back up to her face. He was trapped in her eyes again as she smiled awkwardly, making him wonder if she could feel the tension between them as clearly as he could. He took in the whole of her face one more time, watching as her cheeks flushed pink under his scrutiny.

“I’m fine.” Lily finally responded and took a step towards him. Her knees felt as though they had turned to jelly under the intensity of his gaze and suddenly she didn’t want to leave. Suddenly, staying near this man seemed perfectly reasonable.

He pursed his lips as he stared at her a moment longer and then moved towards his apartment door. Turning the key in the lock, he pushed the door open and walked in. Lily followed him and watched as he walked over to another door, seemingly checked it was locked and then promptly dropped every blind in the room. He disappeared into another room, and when he returned, he had a cigarette balanced on his lower lip.

Her eyes followed the movement of his hand as it slipped into his jeans pocket, and when it reappeared he was holding a small steel Zippo in between his index and middle finger. Her eyes stayed fixed on it as he raised it up and flicked it open, sparking it into life and bringing it to the tip of his cigarette. The long flame seemed to die for a moment as he sucked on the cigarette, tugging the flame to it and causing the end to glow red. As he moved the lighter away, the flame danced back into life, and he stared at it with a look of fascination in his eyes before he flipped the Zippo shut, effectively killing the flame. He released a long stream of blue grey smoke with a sigh, and her eyes fell to his mouth, her knees weakening as she felt his gaze on her again.

“Bugger!” He rolled his eyes and his jaw clenched.

Lily jumped slightly at his sudden outburst. It had torn straight through her daydream about his mouth.

“Sorry. God, I’m a complete wanker.”

She watched in confusion as he disappeared into the room again. A few minutes later, he returned with a whole heap of clothes and a bathrobe. Seeing the dry clothes in his arms, she realised that in her constant daydream she’d forgotten that hers were soaked. She looked down at her body and her eyes widened when she saw her hard nipples were evident through the thin material of her halter-top. Swallowing hard, she wrapped her arms around her chest in an attempt to hide them from him.

“If you wanted to...get out of those...” Cain cursed himself for suddenly feeling like a pathetic schoolboy, but she was looking up at him with such large trusting eyes that it was making it hard for him to concentrate. “Look. Clothes. Dry. Your clothes. Wet...comprende?”

She nodded.

He pointed to the room he kept disappearing into. “Please, be my guest.”

Lily gathered up the bundle of clothes that he offered to her and slowly walked over to the room. She was thankful that he didn’t appear to be following her, and when she flicked the light on and the room was revealed to her, she was doubly thankful. It was a bedroom. An expansive bed was laid out in front of her, but other than it and a few scraps of furniture, the room was empty. She couldn’t take her eyes off the bed. What kind of guy had black silk sheets?

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