He was beautiful, Marie-Terese thought.

The man who'd protected her was absolutely beautiful. Thick dark hair. Warm brown-toned skin. Face that even with its bruises was stunningly attractive.

Flustered by so much, Marie-Terese pulled out one of the stools in front of the makeup counter and got ahold of herself. "If you sit here, I'll get a washcloth."

The man who'd thrown down for her looked around, and she tried to ignore what he was seeing: the kicked-off, scratched-up stilettos, the torn miniskirt hanging from the bench, the towels strewn here and there, the pair of thigh-highs draped on the edge of the lighted mirror, the bags on the floor.

Given how amazing his black pin-striped suit was, this kind of cheap chaos was clearly not what he was used to.

"Please sit," she said.

The man's gray eyes came to rest on her. He was about eight inches taller than she was, and the width of his shoulders was easily two of her. But she wasn't uncomfortable around him. And she wasn't scared.

Man, his cologne was delicious. "Are you okay," he said again.

Not a question, but a quiet demand. As if he wasn't going to let her do anything about the shape his face was in until he was certain she wasn't hurt. Marie-Terese blinked. "I'm...fine."

"What about your arm? He locked on pretty damn hard."

Marie-Terese tugged up the sleeve of the fleece she'd put on. "See...?" He leaned in and his palm was warm as it wrapped around her wrist. Warm and gentle. Not grabbing. Not demanding. Not...owning. Kind.

Abruptly, she heard that college kid's voice in her head: You are not a woman.

The nasty crack had been said to be cruel and to wound, and it had...but mostly because it had become what she felt about herself. Not a woman. Not...anything. Just empty.

Marie-Terese pulled her arm away from the man's touch and tugged the sleeve back in place. She couldn't handle his compassion. In some weird way, it was harder to bear than the insult.

"You're going to have a bruise," he said softly. What was she doing? Oh...right. Washcloth. Clean him up. "Sit down here. I'll be right back."

Going into the shower room, she took a white towel from a stack by the sinks, grabbed a small bowl, and got some hot water running. As she waited for the stream to warm up, she looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were wide and a little crazy, but not because of the pair who'd been so grossly inappropriate and disrespectful. It was the ass kicker with the gentle hands sitting on the stool outside...the one who looked like an attorney, but fought like Oscar De La Hoya.

When she came back to the makeup counter, she was a little calmer. At least until she met his eyes. He was staring at her as if absorbing what she looked like into his body, and what made her uncomfortable was not how he regarded her, but how she felt as he did.

Not quite so empty.

"Have you seen yourself?" she asked, just to say something.

He shook his head and didn't seem to care enough to turn away from her to the mirror behind him. She put the bowl down and snapped on latex gloves before stepping up to him and dipping the washcloth. "You have a gash on your cheek."

"Do I."

"Brace yourself."

He didn't, and he didn't flinch as she touched the open wound.

Dab...dab...dab...Then back to the bowl, a little tinkling sound as she rinsed the cloth out. Dab...dab...

He closed his eyes and parted his lips, his chest rising and falling evenly. Up this close, she saw the five-o'clock shadow over his straight jaw and each of his long, black eyelashes and all of his trimmed, thick hair. He'd had his ear pierced at one point, but only on the right side, and it had obviously been years since he'd worn anything in the hole.

"What's your name?" he asked, his voice guttural.

She never gave Johns her real fake name, but he wasn't just a John, was he. If he hadn't come along when he had, things could have gotten ugly for her: Trez had been away from the club, the bouncers had been breaking up a skirmish out by the bar, and the hall led directly into the parking lot. Work of a moment and those two beefy college types could have had her in a car and...

"You have blood on your shirt," she said, going back to the bowl.

Great conversationalist, she thought.

His lids lifted, but he didn't look down at himself. He looked at her. "I have other shirts."

"I'll bet."

He frowned a little. "Does that kind of thing happen to you often?"

With anyone else, she would have shut the question down with a quick of course not, but she felt as though, given what he'd done in the hall for her, he deserved something more truthful.

"Any chance you're undercover?" she murmured. "Not that you'd necessarily tell me, but I have to ask."

He reached into the breast pocket of his coat and took out a card. "There's no way I'm a cop. I'm not as illegal as I used to be, but I wouldn't be eligible for a badge even if I wanted one. So ironically, you can trust me."

She looked over what he gave her. The diPietro Group. Address here in downtown Caldwell. Very expensive card stock, very flashy professional logo, and a lot of numbers and e-mail addresses to reach him at. As she put the thing down on the counter, her instincts told her the part about his not being with the Caldwell PD was right. But the trust thing? She didn't trust men anymore.

Especially ones she was attracted to.

"So does that happen a lot?" he said.

Marie-Terese went back to work, wiping off his face, working her way down his cheek to his mouth. "Most people are okay. And management looks out for us. I've never been hurt."

"Are you...a dancer?"

For a moment, she entertained a fantasy where she told him that all she did was hang out in one of those cages, showing off some moves, being nothing but eye candy. She could guess what he would do. He'd take a deep breath of relief and start relating to her as if she were just any other woman who'd caught his eye. No complications, no implications, nothing but some flirting between two people that might lead to bed.

Her silence made him take a breath, and it wasn't the oh-good kind. As he exhaled, the muscles that ran up his neck tightened into stark cords, like he had to fight back a wince.

This was the thing: She was never again going to have a normal get-to-know-you with a man. She had a dark secret, the kind that you had to gauge how many dates could pass before you had to reveal it  -  otherwise you were a liar by omission.

"How bad are your hands?" she said to fill the void.

When he held them out, she inspected his knuckles. The right ones were bruised and bleeding, and as she put the washcloth to use on them, she asked, "Do you come to the rescue of women a lot?"

"No, I really don't. You're missing an earring, by the way."

She touched her lobe. "Yeah, I know. I meant to put another pair on today. But..."

"I'm Vin, by the way." He put his palm out and waited. "Nice to meet you."

Under other circumstances, she would have smiled at him. Ten years and a lifetime ago, she would have had to smile as she put her palm in his and they shook. Now, she just felt sadness.

"Nice to meet you, too. Vin."

"Your name?"

She took her hand from his and ducked her head to concentrate on his knuckles. "Marie-Terese. My name...is Marie-Terese."

She had such lovely eyes.

Marie-Terese of the lovely French name had absolutely lovely eyes. And she was gentle with her hands, carefully cleaning him up with that warm washcloth as if his nicks and scratches were something important.

Shit, he wanted to get into another fight just so she could nurse him again. "You should probably go to the doctor," she said, patting the little towel across his cracked knuckles.

Absently, he noted that the terry cloth had started off white but now was pink from his blood, and he was glad that she'd put on the latex - not because he was HIV positive, but because he hoped the gesture generalized and meant she protected herself in what she did for a living.

He'd hoped all she did was dance. He really had.

She rinsed out the washcloth. "I said, you should see your doctor."

"I'll be fine." But would she? What would have happened if he and Jim hadn't come along?

God, there were so many questions he had all of a sudden. He wanted to know why someone like her was in this line of work. He wanted to know what harshness had brought her to the place she was at. He wanted to know...what he could do to help, not just tonight, but tomorrow and the day after that.

Except none of that was any of his business. More to the point, he had a feeling that if he pressed her for details, she would close up on him.

"Can I ask you something?" he said, because he couldn't help it.

She paused with the cloth. "Okay."

He knew he shouldn't do what he was about to, but he could not fight the overwhelming draw of her. It had nothing to do with his mind and everything to do with his...okay, heart was too stinkin' melodramatic. But whatever was driving him came from the center of his chest.

So fine, maybe his sternum was really into her.

"Will you have dinner with me?"

The door to the locker room swung wide, and the flame-haired prostitute who'd triggered Devina's exit strode in.

"Oh! Excuse me...I didn't know anyone was in here." As she stared at Vin, her bright red lips widened into a false smile that suggested she'd known exactly who was in the locker room.

Marie-Terese moved away from him, taking her warm cloth and her bowl of water and her soft hands with her. "We were just leaving, Gina."

Vin took the cue and stood up. As he cursed the redhead's interruption, he caught an eyeball full of all the makeup on the counter and reminded himself that she had more of a right to be here than he did.

Marie-Terese went into the bathroom, and he imagined her cleaning out the bowl and rinsing the washcloth off, then snapping free the gloves. She was going to come out of there and he was going to say good-bye and...she was going to take off that fleece and go back into the crowd.

Staring at the door she'd gone through, while the prostitute next to him chattered away, the strangest feeling came over Vin. It was like a fog had gathered on the floor and sent tendrils up his legs and over his chest and all the way to his brain. He was suddenly hot on the outside and cold on the inside...

Shit, he knew what this was. He knew exactly what was happening. It had been years, but he knew where this constellation of sensation went.

Vin grabbed onto the stool and let his ass fall back upon it. Breathe. Just breathe, you big dumb bastard. Breathe...

"So I saw your girlfriend left," the redhead was saying as she sidled up to him. "You want some company?"

Hands with blood-colored nails as long as talons reached out and drifted up his stained lapel. He brushed her off him with a sloppy palm. "Stop it..."

"You sure?"

Oh, God, he was even hotter on the outside, even colder on the inside. He had to stop this...because he didn't want to know the message that was coming to him. He didn't want the vision, the communication, the look-see into the future, but he was the telegraph who was powerless to deny receipt of the letters sent to him.

First the man in the elevator, then the two outside...now this.

He'd exorcised the dark side from himself years ago. Why was it back now?

The redhead rubbed herself against his arm and leaned into his ear. "Let me take care of you - "

"Gina, give it a rest, would you?"

Vin's eyes moved toward Marie-Terese's voice and he opened his mouth to try and speak. Nothing came out. Worse, as he stared at her, she became a vortex into which his sight was sucked, everything but her going blurry. He braced himself for what was coming next - and sure enough, the trembling started at his feet, just as the fog had, and moved up his body, taking over his knees and his stomach and his shoulders...

"Whatever, I don't need to beg," Gina said as she headed for the door. "Have fun with him - he looks too strung out to party anyway."

"Vin?" Marie-Terese came over. "Vin, can you hear me? Are you all right - "

The words bubbled up out of him, the voice not his own, the possession overcoming everything such that he knew not what he spoke because the message was not for him, but for the one he was addressing.

His ears heard only nonsense: "Theio th lskow...Theio th lskow..." She blanched and stepped back, hand lifting up to her throat.

"Who."

"Theio...th...lskow..."

Vin's voice was deep and dark and senseless to him, even as he tried to hear the syllables correctly, tried to unscramble in his head what he was telling her: This was the very worst part of his curse - he could do nothing to affect the future, because he didn't know what he foretold.

Marie-Terese backed away from him until she smacked against the door, her face pale and her eyes popping wide. With shaking hands, she fumbled to open the thing and then burst out of the locker room, desperate to get away from him.

Her absence was what brought Vin back to reality, snapping the hold that had been clamped onto him, breaking the strings that had turned him into the puppet of...he didn't know what. He'd never known what. From the very first time he'd been taken over, he'd been clueless as to what it was or what he spoke of or why, of all the people on the planet, it had to be him who chose to bear this terrible burden.

Good God, what was he going to do? He couldn't function in his business or his life with intrusions like this. And he didn't want to go back to his years as a young kid when people thought he was crazy.

Besides, this shouldn't be happening. He'd taken care of this.

Planting his palms onto his knees, his let his head sag on his shoulders, his breathing shallow, his locked elbows all that held him upright. That was how Jim found him.

"Vin? What's doing, big man? You got a concussion?"

If only that were the case. He'd so choose a brain hemorrhage over the speaking-in-tongues thing. Vin forced his eyes over to the other man. And because his mouth evidently wasn't through with its independent streak, he heard himself say, "Do you believe in demons, Jim?" The guy frowned. "Excuse me?"

"Demons..."

There was a long pause; then Jim said, "How 'bout we get you home? You don't look right."

Jim's pointed pass on the question was a reminder of the polite way people dealt with the freaky in life. There were a lot of other reactions, though, from Marie-Terese's taking off at a dead run to outright cruelty - which was what he'd gotten as a kid.

And Jim was right. Home was exactly where he needed to go, but damned if he didn't want to find Marie-Terese and tell her...what? That between the ages of eleven and seventeen he'd had these "spells" happen to him regularly? That they'd made him lose friends and gotten him labeled a freak and forced him to learn how to fight? That he was sorry she'd gotten scared twice tonight?

More to the point, that she needed to take whatever he'd spoken as the gospel truth and protect herself? Because he was never wrong. Fuck him to hell and back...but whatever he said always happened.

Which was how he knew it was never good news. Later, someone on the periphery, or maybe the person him- or herself, would tell him what he'd said and what it meant. God, how the aftermath of the truth had horrified him. When he'd been young and had scared easier, he would go to his bedroom and shut the door and huddle under the covers, a shaky mess.

Just like he saw dead people, he foretold the future. The bad, bloody, destructive kind.

So what kind of trouble was Marie-Terese in?

"Come on, Vin. Let's go."

Vin looked toward the locker room door. Probably the kindest thing he could do for the woman was leave quietly - all that explaining was only going to draw her in deeper and frighten her more. But that wasn't what was going to help her avoid whatever trouble was coming her way.

"Vin...let me take you out of here."

"She's in danger."

"Vin, look at me." The guy pointed to both of his own eyes. "Look at me. You are going home now. You got your head knocked around in that hall, and apparently you just gave passing out some serious consideration. I get the no-doctor bit, fine. But you're talking out your ass if you think I'm going to let this shit go on any longer. Come with me - now."

Damn it, this fuzzy aftermath, with the disorientation and confusion, with his fear about what he'd said and his feeling out of control - shit, even the WTF expression on Jim's face...he remembered all of this. So many times...Vin had been through this so many times, and he hated it.

"You're right," he said, trying to let it all go. "You're absolutely right."

He could always come back and talk to her later, when things weren't so fresh. Like tomorrow. He'd come back tomorrow as soon as the club opened. It was the best he could do.

Getting off the stool carefully, he went over to where she'd left his business card on the makeup counter. Taking his pen out, he wrote two words on the back and then looked at all the bags. He knew exactly which duffel was hers. Out of the pink-and-purple Ed Hardys and the Gucci and the two identical Harajuku Lovers...there was a plain black one with not so much as a Nike logo on it.

After tucking the card inside that one, he strode for the door, his shoulders aching, his right hand starting to pound, his ribs sending him a sharp shooter every time he took a breath. The real shitkicker, though, was the headache between his temples that had nothing to do with the fight. He always had one after...whatever the hell that was.

Out in the hall, he looked both ways and saw no sign of Marie-Terese.

For a moment, the compulsion to find her struck strong and hot, but when Jim took his arm, he put his faith in the other man's rationality and allowed himself to be led over to the rear exit of the club. "Wait here."

Jim knocked on the manager's door, and when the guy came out, there was another round of thank-yous and then Vin found himself breathing cold, clear air. Christ...what a night.

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