Triple Dare

“Thanks, but I’m fine.” For now. “As for the scare, I’ll get over it.” What she wouldn’t do was return the favor. Bad enough the man knew where she lived. Even if he was on a first-name basis with the Tristan Court doorman, she wasn’t about to give him a name to go with her address. Especially since he’d yet to explain himself. “So…are you going to tell me what you were doing outside my window?”

“Climbing.”

She waited for more.

She waited in vain. Chatty, the man was evidently not. But even if he was on something, he didn’t seem so out of it that he’d forgotten he’d offered his ID. She doubted he’d harm her now that she could identify him…unless he had no intention of letting her see morning. Curiosity edged out fear—but not by much. “Do you do this often?”

Again, she waited. Just when she thought he wouldn’t answer, she caught his faint, almost embarrassed shrug.

“It’s a…hobby of sorts.”

A hobby? “As in, once or twice a week you don a tux, pick out a building and just…climb it?” Okay, so no drugs. The man was simply stark, raving nuts. With her luck, Mr. Darian Sabura hadn’t picked the building at random. He probably lived here. She was about to ask when he cleared his throat.

“I should be leaving. I appreciate the shortcut, but I’ve taken up enough of your time—” The rest ended up muffled as he bent to retrieve something from the floor. It wasn’t his shoes.

Humiliation seared through her as he held out the skimpy teddy and skimpier robe she’d tossed earlier. With everything that’d happened, she’d forgotten about them. She snatched the lingerie from his grasp with more force than she’d intended, causing the teddy to slip from her fingers. She managed to hook a finger into a slender strap before the teddy floated to the floor…but not before the crotch snagged on the man’s cuff link. She’d never know how she managed to keep from diving under the bed as he calmly worked the scarlet lace free.

“Thanks.”

He cleared his throat. “Yes, well, good night.”

Relief rushed in as he turned toward her bedroom door, until she remembered— His shoes.

“Wait!”

The man might not know her name, but he knew where she lived. She had no intention of letting him leave behind a ready excuse for a future nighttime visit. She whirled around as he stopped, hooked his shoes off the floor. She caught up with him at the door—and promptly gasped. With the light streaming in from the living room, she could finally make out his features. He was older than she’d expected, thirty at least—and she knew him.

Okay, she didn’t exactly know him.

Truth was, they hadn’t even met.

But she had seen him, less than two weeks before. She’d just finished a late-afternoon meeting with her contractor and ridden the elevator back down to the ground floor. There, she’d spotted this man—this face—through the lobby’s massive glass doors. In her own defense, he’d been impossible to miss. Not only had Darian roared up onto the sidewalk on a sleek, silver-and-maroon racing motorcycle, he’d taken the time to cuff a matching helmet from his head, revealing a clipped rugged jaw and a glorious tangle of black hair as he unstrapped a canvas backpack from his bike.

He wasn’t lying. He did know the doorman.

Well enough for Jerry to store the bag behind the security desk for him as he roared off to wherever he was headed. It didn’t matter. Darian Sabura was still a thief. Because he’d also managed to rob her twice now.

Of her breath.

And she hadn’t gotten this close the first time.

He might have exchanged his sweat-stained T-shirt, worn leather boots and faded jeans for the sleek trappings suited to pungent cigars and the lofty private rooms of the Union Club, but this was still the face of a man who thrived in the great outdoors—the more rugged the better. His features bore the scars and weathering to prove it. From the fine lines around his eyes, the faint scar running the length of his entire right cheek and jaw, the nose that appeared once broken, not to mention the ghost of a serious tear that had once split the center of his bottom lip, she no longer doubted he’d been telling the truth about his unusual “hobby.” Still, it wasn’t the man’s scars that had knocked the air from her lungs. Or even the memory of the fiercely honed muscles below.

It was his eyes. They were almost…haunted.

Dark green and framed with thick black lashes, his gaze held her entire body hostage. She couldn’t move. All she could do was feel. Him. If the eyes were truly the mirrors of the soul, then somehow this man was holding back the weight of the entire world. And the strain was killing him.

He blinked.

The spell broke. A split second later, chagrin seared in. Darian Sabura might not be a criminal, and he might find sport in scaling the high-rises of the city, perhaps even the sheer cliffs and jagged mountain peaks of the world, but he was no Atlas. He was just a man. A man who was—

Bleeding? Abby dropped the shoes and touched his head.

He flinched.

She jerked her hand back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

He shook his head. “You didn’t. I can’t even feel it.”

Surely he’d exaggerated?

No, she couldn’t locate the exact source of the blood, but she was able to follow the thin rivulet down the left side of his face. “Your shirt collar is nearly soaked with blood.”

He shook his head. “It’s okay.”

“Nonsense. You may need stitches. Just let me—”

He jerked his head away before she could touch him again. “I said it’s fine. I’m fine.”

The heck he was. In a way his reaction reminded her of her brother’s usual response to a stranger’s touch. But with Brian the reaction stemmed from his innate shyness. Once her brother got to know a person, he loved to touch—better yet, hug. Often. It was one of the many blessings that came with her brother’s Down’s syndrome. She had the distinct impression this man rarely hugged, however, if ever.

She shook her head, exasperated by Darian’s stubbornness. “Look, it’s no trouble. I’ve already unpacked my first-aid kit in the kitchen. At least let me tape a bandage over that.” The exchange she’d witnessed the other day with the doorman had done more than allay her lingering fears regarding possible criminal intent—it lent credence and meaning to Darian’s statement of a minute ago: I appreciate the shortcut.

Had Spider Man simply been headed home?

She forced a shrug. “Leave if you want to, but don’t blame me if the blood seeps into your tux on the way upstairs and stains it permanently.”

He didn’t reply. Instead, his stare captured hers. Probed. She had the distinct feeling he was searching for something. Whatever it was, she didn’t think he’d been able to find it.

She was sure of it when he clipped a silent, almost resigned nod before spinning around and heading down the hall.

Bemused, she stepped out after him.

Two things struck her as Darian turned into the kitchen area instead of heading to the front door. One, he’d agreed to let her help, and two, he knew the layout of her apartment. Abby forced her racing pulse to slow. Yes, the man was gorgeous and, yes, she’d now lay odds he either lived in an identical apartment upstairs or knew someone who did. But even if that friend wasn’t a woman, it didn’t mean he was dating material. Not for her. She’d sworn off men after her fiasco of a breakup with Stuart. The only reason she’d returned to New York was to strengthen her bond with Brian. She certainly wasn’t here to get involved again, especially with a man as strange as this one, with even stranger hobbies.

Her resolve restored, Abby hooked her arm into one of the padded barstools at the breakfast counter and followed Darian into the kitchen proper. She dumped the brass stool beside the sink. The lingerie she’d inadvertently brought along went straight into the trash compactor. She threw the switch for good measure before retrieving her first-aid kit from the nest of kitchen utensils still cradling it at the top of the closest box. By the time she turned, her reluctant patient was leaning against the opposite counter, his dark, disconcerting gaze tracking her every move.

He shifted his stare to the still-chumming compactor for a brief, pointed moment, then drew it back to her.

No way. She’d let the man into her kitchen. He was not getting into her head, let alone her foolish heart. She glanced at the stool and shrugged. “You’re a giant. I’m not. I can’t reach.” He was six-two at least. At five-seven she was at a serious disadvantage if that cut was near his temple.

Her earlier suspicions regarding the man’s aversion to chit-chat were cemented as he crossed the modest galley kitchen and lowered his frame onto the stool, all without speaking. Or perhaps he’d been small-talked to death at whatever function he’d donned that tux for. She stuck out her hand, hoping to determine which. He simply stared. She redoubled her efforts, extending a genuine smile along with her hand. “Abigail Pembroke. My friends call me Abby. Given your hobby, I’m guessing yours call you Dare.”

He didn’t return her smile.

She must have shamed him into observing one of the tenets of etiquette, however, because his hand finally rose, slowly enveloping hers. His grip was warm and solid. His stare enveloped her as well.

“Dare will do…Abby.”