Trust Me

She knew she should say no. She could just imagine her grandmother’s reaction to her dating someone from the lawn service. Then again, Gran was gone for the rest of the summer on her honeymoon cruise. And except for the staff, Lilah was alone, as usual, the weeks until her sophomore years at Stanford started stretching interminably before her.

Still, except on rare occasions, such as last winter’s charity cotillion and her senior high school prom, she didn’t really care to date. She’d always found the opposite sex to be either crass or boring, or both.

Dominic Steele was neither. In the past five minutes, he’d managed to turn her ordered world upside down—surprising, annoying, intriguing and charming her all at the same time. Which was no doubt why what was left of her common sense was shrilly insisting that nothing good could come from the pull she felt merely standing close to him.

The prudent thing to do was say no.

Oh, come on, whispered an unfamiliar little voice in her head. Aren’t you just a little tired of always doing the right thing? Of forever being the straight-A student, the dutiful granddaughter? After all, you’re not a child any longer. And no matter what Gran says, you’re nothing like your mother—

“You’re not afraid of me, are you?”

Her spine stiffened automatically. “Please,” she said with a faint sniff.

“So prove it.” He looked at her expectantly.

“Oh, very well.” She did her best to sound blasé, but it was hard to do with her heart thundering like a drum solo. “I suppose I could rearrange my schedule.”

Satisfaction flashed across his face. “Great. I’ll pick you up at eight.” He turned to walk away, then twisted back around. “Oh, and Lilah?”

“What?”

“Wear pants.”

“Why?”

His expression turned enigmatic. “You’ll find out tonight.” As assured as a prince, he strode away, leaving her to stare after him, already questioning the wisdom of what she’d done.

She got her first inkling of what she was in for when he’d roared up the drive that night on a gleaming black motorcycle.

Grateful again that Gran was away, Lilah had reluctantly allowed Dominic to coax her onto the back of the bike. Once there, she’d found she had no choice but to wrap her arms around his lean hard middle, press her cheek against the warm hollow between his shoulder blades and trust him to keep her safe.

Looking back later, she’d been able to see that their ride that night had been the perfect metaphor for the relationship that followed. It had been wild, scary, exciting and exhilarating, with Dominic taking her places she’d never been before.

Within hours, she’d begun to fall in love with him. Within days they’d become lovers. And after that….

“Li? You awake?”

With a start, she opened her eyes. She blinked, surprised to find that while she’d been strolling down memory lane, night had fallen. The cell block was cloaked in darkness except for a single weak arrow of light streaming in the small barred window. It was just enough illumination to reveal Dominic standing over her. Startled, disoriented, suddenly not sure she wasn’t dreaming, she gazed up at him. “But…how did you get in here?”

“Lock pick. In my boot.” He held out his hand. “Come on. It’s time to get the hell out of Dodge.” Hard and calloused, his fingers closed around hers.

She drew in a sharp breath at the contact. Climbing unsteadily to her feet, she struggled to come to grips with the shift from weeks of waiting to sudden action. By the time her head had cleared, he’d led her out of her cell and into his.

She continued to follow him, her gaze locked on the solid outline of his back, when, without warning, he stepped to one side.

She rocked to a halt, a stiff salt breeze slapping her in the face, and stared at the man-sized opening that now gaped in the previously solid, seemingly impregnable wall. Beyond it stretched nothing but a vast black sky littered with glittering silver stars.

“Dear God.” With a start, she remembered he’d said something about a drop, but she’d never, ever, imagined this.

She took a cautious step forward, craned her neck and looked down. There, so far below it looked to be miles away, the ocean rolled in with an impressive crash as it met the perpendicular cliff face. “You can’t be serious. This is your escape route?”

“That’s right.” Unlike the water, Dominic was suddenly far too close. His breath washed over her temple and every sensitive inch of skin on her body had goose bumps.

She tried to ignore her rapidly disintegrating nerves. “It’s got to be at least a hundred-foot drop.”

“More like fifty.”

“But how are we going to get down?”

“Easy.” All of a sudden, the lazy humor was back in his voice. “We’re going to jump.”

For a second, Lilah was sure she hadn’t heard correctly; then she was afraid she had. “You’re kidding, right?

“Nope.”

“But that’s crazy! If the fall doesn’t kill us, getting dashed by the tide against the cliff will do the job. That is, if we haven’t already hit a submerged rock!”

“No rocks,” he said calmly. “The tide’s on its way out. And the waves sound a lot worse than they really are. It’s a clean shot down, with more than enough depth to be safe. I checked.”

He’d checked. The knowledge brought reassurance, which was crazy in itself. If ever there was a man not to trust, he was the one.

Yet it wasn’t as if she really had a choice, she realized. Not anymore. She didn’t want to think what would happen if they were still here when the guards showed up in the morning and saw Dominic’s handiwork.

“Look,” he said quietly, his face in shadow, which only served to make his voice even more compelling, “I know you’ve always had a thing about heights—”

“No. It’s all right. If you—if this—” she stopped, swallowed, reached down deep to steady herself “—if this is what we have to do, this is what we have to do.”

He moved out of the darkness and into the moonlight, an odd expression on his face that she couldn’t identify. “You mean I’m not going to have to tie you up and gag you to get you to jump?”

She shivered at the picture his words conjured. “No,” she said quickly.

“Too bad.” That crooked, cocky grin that had always made her stomach flip-flop flashed across his handsome face. “Then let’s do it.”

“Now?” She took an involuntary step back.

“Yeah. Now.” Before she could retreat farther, he reached out and wrapped his arms around her.

For a moment, the shock of his embrace was so overwhelming she forgot to be afraid.

And then she forgot to be anything else as he lifted her off her feet, took two powerful steps through the crude doorway he’d created and vaulted them out into the wind-whipped void.

Four

The night breeze danced through the palm trees that fringed the small cove, while the moon played hide-and-seek with a flotilla of clouds. Still, the silvery orb provided sufficient light to guide Dominic and Lilah as they waded through the surf toward the shallows and the tiny sliver of beach beyond.