Free Out of the Fire (Perilous Connections) by Delka Beazer

Chapter One
     
     
    Daphne
     
    “ Oh my-!”
    I stop before the incredulous words can leave my mouth. His face is inches away from my own, my eyes widen as I stare into his. I have never seen eyes so … so beautiful before. They are a rolling, turbulent grey with a startling ring of white silver around them. It takes me a few seconds to catch up to the anger simmering in their frightening depths.
    I suck in a dry breath. My frozen senses suddenly kick into overdrive, I gulp and snap upright, but my gaze remains pinned on the solid wall of man crammed inside the narrow rectangle of my maid’s trolley.
    He doesn’t blink, his gaze bores into mine, and grows harder than the steel my granddad use to bend, that had put my father through school. I stop the thought half formed, a tightness that has nothing to do with my sudden fear zaps through me.
    I dart a terrified glance behind me towards the door, it’s about ten feet away. Maybe I can reach it before he is fully free.
    He is still halfway stuck inside my trolley, behind him I spot the crumpled ruin of the snowy towels that I had stacked fresh and spotless from the laundry at the crack of dawn, irrational ire rises inside me at the sacrilege but I quickly shove it aside in favor of the much more pertinent fact that a male, most likely a guest at my hotel whose room I have never serviced is slowly unfolding giant portions of his body from my trolley.
    His reasons are irrelevant.
    I take off, the breath harsh, grating in my lungs. The door grows before me, but the sound of his pounding footsteps shoves my adrenaline to new heights, I gasp, a strangled cry tears itself from my throat, I fling out a hand towards the door as if I could snatch it closer to me, throw myself through the safety it represents. I lunge for it, balancing precariously on the tips of my worn out white sneakers, cruel, powerful hands snatch me backwards, I cry out, but at the same time anger pounds into my veins, I fling out a fist, strike the air, fears fills my throat, I pirouette, clench my fist into a tight wad, ready to smash it into his face. He catches my blow in mid-air, making me wild, I open my mouth wider than I’d ever had not even on that day-
    His hand slams over my lips, slapping back the scream, the sting on the sensitive flesh brings tears to my eyes, I brutally blink them away, as I confront the horrendous fact that I am caught.
    F ear, hard, and impenetrable crashes around inside me, my heart thumps so loud I literally feel it twist itself into a painful knot in my chest.
    Grey eyes glare dangerously down into mine. “Shut up!” The words are harsh; but the voice is husky … beckoning.
    Despite myself , against the emotional laws of the universe my breath already cruelly blocked by his overly large hand, hitches.
    I ruthlessly ground out my asinine response.
    He thrusts his strong square face downwards mere inches from mine. “Now listen little miss, I’m not going to do you any harm but you’ve got to be quiet, understand?” He peels my eyes with that stormy gaze which has turned to flint.
    Chill s run down my spine, I swallow painfully and though there’s nothing in my throat but fear and disbelief, I know I must do something.
    I nod to the crazy, and most likely high guest, then I take a surreptitious sniff at the roughened skin of his fingers plastered against my mouth, no weed, just the scent of jasmine soap, my hotel’s staple, but my senses linger and underneath the jasmine I seek and catch an elusive whiff of something elemental and expressive, I cannot place the scent, its raw but not in the conventional sense, rather its almost organic, and I don’t know how I know this but whatever it is, it is coming from his skin, then it hits me. It’s his scent, raw, clean, almost animal in its simplicity. It seeps into my veins and I close my eyes for a few seconds against the staggering effect, it’s totally disconcerting. Moments pass before I blink them open and find