Death is Forever

wouldn’t be smart. If she wanted him, she would have to hand out a clear invitation.
    She hadn’t even come close to that yet.
    “I could use some fresh air myself,” Cole said.
    “Three minutes,” Erin said instantly.
    She headed back into her room, moving fast.
    A bit less than three minutes later, she reappeared just as Cole was grabbing a black windbreaker from the closet. Without waiting for him, she headed toward the hallway door.
    “Erin, wait!”
    She didn’t even pause.
    Cole crossed the room in a silent rush. Just as she opened the door a few inches, his hands shot over her shoulders and pinned the door. She made a choked sound. His powerful arms were braced on either side of her. He was all around her, surrounding her.
    Trapping her.
    Erin froze, remembering another time, another door, another big man trapping her. Memories welled up in a choking black tide, threatening her control.
    “What the hell are you thinking of?” Cole demanded. “You don’t just open a door and walk through like a—”
    With an incoherent cry Erin turned and attacked, the side of her palm slashing toward his throat. He barely blocked the blow in time. He deflected her knee with his thigh even as her head slammed into his jaw. Off balance, reluctant to hurt her, he went in low, scissoring her feet out from under her, pulling her down until she was flat on the rug beneath him.
    Silently, savagely, Erin struggled, using everything she’d learned in the past seven years.
    Nothing worked.
    Cole countered the blows with his greater strength and skill, keeping her from hurting either one of them. She was wasting her strength. She went completely still and waited for him to mistake her submission for defeat.
    He looked at the green eyes so close to his and felt ice move beneath his skin.
    “Erin, listen to me, I’m not going to hurt you, but I can’t let you walk blithely into a hallway until I check it out. I’m not going to hurt you, honey. I’m on your side.”
    He repeated the words again and again while Erin watched him with feral eyes. Gradually what he was saying sank through fear to the intelligence beneath.
    “I understand,” she whispered. “You can let go of me now.”
    “Not a chance,” Cole said instantly, his voice no longer soothing. “Not until you tell me why you were doing your best to kill me a minute ago.”
    “I’m sorry. I…panicked.”
    “I noticed. Why?”
    Erin’s voice died as she realized that Cole was holding her helpless, his body heavy over hers. She should be terrified, but she wasn’t. More than his soothing words, more than anything he could have said, his restraint calmed her.
    She’d attacked him. He’d done nothing more than defend himself. Even now, despite the blood oozing from a cut on his lip and the bruise on his chin where she had butted him, he was being careful of her.
    “You didn’t hurt me,” she whispered. “You aren’t hurting me now.”
    The wonder in her voice startled him, but before he could ask what she meant, she was trying to explain.
    “When you slammed the door it was like Hans all over again, going to the door and he caught me and then he let go and I ran and he caught me and it happened over and over….”
    “Hans?” Cole asked softly, but there was nothing soft about his eyes.
    She shook her head slowly.
    “Talk to me, Erin. We’re going to be living in each other’s pockets. I don’t want to step on a land mine again.”
    She closed her eyes. He was right.
    “Hans was my fiancé seven years ago. He was as big as you. As strong. Oh, God, he was so strong.” She shuddered, then went on in an odd, flat voice. “I found him going through my father’s wall safe, photographing every bit of paper. I turned around to run, but it was too late. He was so quick. Like you.”
    Cole waited, his pupils dilated almost as much as hers.
    “When I tried to scream, Hans hit me in the throat,” she whispered. “Then he hit my shoulders. I couldn’t scream, I could barely breathe, my arms were numb, my fingers wouldn’t work. Then he let me run to the door again but I couldn’t open it, couldn’t move my arms, couldn’t make my fingers close. When he got tired of my kicking he dislocated my knees.
    “Then I couldn’t move, I could only feel and see, and whenever I closed my eyes he hurt me.” Erin’s voice dried up and then resumed again, terrible in its lack of emotion.
    Cole listened despite the overwhelming need to make her stop