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She was tired of being Annie the doormat, of meekly accepting her rotten luck, her lousy lot, of sucking it up and putting her best foot forward day after day after day. She was sick of blaming herself for everything that went wrong, for taking the responsibility for things that were truly beyond her control. That was ending, right now. That Annie was dead, never to raise her meek, curly, black-haired head again.

“Screw you,” she whispered, swiping the back of her trembling hand across her mouth and coming to stand on wobbly legs. She slammed the car door shut behind her, suddenly not at all concerned about the dark. From now on, Annie Theophilus was going to be tougher, scarier than anything loose in the night.

Screw them, screw them all. Screw that clown car for taking her parents, screw her great-aunt for treating her like a dirty inconvenience, screw Roger for not loving her enough, and screw herself for being enough of a wimp to take it. And most importantly, screw her luck, her damned fucking bad luck she most certainly had never deserved. She didn’t believe in reincarnation and she had done nothing in her sad little life to deserve such a blighted, cursed, loveless existence. So if that’s all that God/The Great Spirit/The Universe thought she was worth, than he/she/it could screw off too. Forever.

“Screw you!” Annie screamed, her hysterical sob bouncing off the walls of the garage and echoing out into the condo complex, triggering a round of barking from the dog three doors down.

But who cared? She didn’t. Dogs were against HOA regulations, but screams of outrage, as far as she knew, weren’t expressly addressed in the Copper Head Condominiums Charter.

“Screw me?” A deep, resonant voice suddenly sounded from one of the darkened corners of the garage. Annie gasped with surprise and something else she couldn’t quite identify.

“Were you speaking to me?” it asked again. The velvety voice reached out into the night, caressing things deep inside of her no mere voice should be able to touch.

In spite of the fear rising within her, her body responded in ways that could never be attributed to anxiety.

“Who’s there?” Annie turned toward the stranger in her garage with an odd peacefulness. Whether it was the deep-seated, private rage she had just recognized inside of herself, or something entirely different, she was shocked to find fear subsiding as she confronted the incredibly large and imposing shadow.

“I’ve had many names,” the man said, his voice soft and comforting, as if he were talking to a frightened child.

Annie felt a burst of hysterical laughter threaten as she wondered if even the man who had broken into her garage thought she was out of her mind. Maybe she was, maybe Roger was right and she did deserve to be committed, but dammit if she’d go quietly. The fighting spirit she had suppressed for so long had surged to the surface, and it wasn’t about to meekly submit to anyone else’s idea of what was good, or right, or sane.

“Stop right there,” Annie ordered, holding up one small hand, realizing as she did how utterly useless any kind of physical protest would be against the man slowly approaching through the shadows of the darkened garage.

He was enormous, at least a foot taller than her own five three, with shoulders wider than any she had ever seen. If someone had told her shoulders like that on a real man were possible she would have called them a liar. Surely such rampant masculinity, such undeniable physical strength was nearly extinct in this age of desk jobs and rush hours. What kind of job must this man have, what kind of person must he be that his raw physical power would dwarf even the buffest body builders down at Venice beach?

“I won’t hurt you,” he said, once again in that soothing voice that slid silkily down her spine and pooled between her legs, knotting things low in her body.

“Why don’t I believe you?” Annie’s voice sounded breathy, aroused, even to her own ears.

What was wrong with her? Even at the beginning of her relationship with Roger, when she’d been filled with sexual curiosity, dying to know what it would feel like to satisfy the yearning that rose inside her every time they kissed, she hadn’t felt like this. She’d never felt like this, never been consumed with such instant, powerful attraction. Especially for a complete stranger whose face she couldn’t see clearly, who had broken into her home, and whose intentions were no doubt less than honorable.

“You don’t have to be afraid.”

“Don’t come any closer,” Annie said, fear once again trumping lust as he continued to advance and she backed away, flattening her body against the car behind her.

“You’re a beautiful woman.” He stopped only a few inches from where she stood, close enough for her to feel the heat of his body, to smell the faint odor of sandalwood and spice, an exotic scent that reminded her of incense.

“You can’t even see my face.” Fear and arousal warred within her as she looked up, up, up into his eyes. They reflected some unseen light, leaving the rest of his features in shadow, but hinting his face was just as stunning as the rest of him.

“I can see every part of you. I’m accustomed to the darkness.” For the first time she heard the strange lilt in his voice, the trace of an accent she couldn’t quite place.

Whoever this man was, he wasn’t a California native. But then again, who was? And didn’t she have more important things to worry about than her attacker’s country of origin? Attacker. He was her attacker, right? He didn’t seem violent, but he was most assuredly attacking her senses and wreaking havoc on her unsuspecting sex drive.

“I can see your raven curls,” he continued, his large hand reaching out to catch a lock of her hair.

Annie’s breath rushed from her body as she watched him twine her hair around his thick fingers in a caress as reverent as it was blatantly sensual.

“I can see your strong jaw.” The hand not busy in her hair moved to caress her face, sliding over the sensitive skin behind her ear and down the curve of her jaw to the tip of her chin.

“Strong jaw?” Annie shivered under his touch. She’d never considered her jaw particularly cute, let alone an erogenous zone. But she couldn’t deny his calloused fingers tracing along her skin made her ache with longing.

“You have the face of a royal and the lips of a courtesan.” His voice was husky as he moved the pad of his thumb to play along her full bottom lip.

Her breath wooshed from her chest and she had to struggle to hold back a moan as his caress grew increasingly demanding. His thumb slipped past her lips and Annie surprised the hell out of herself by sucking, pulling it along her tongue in a way that mimicked how she’d take something much thicker and more intimate into her mouth. He groaned softly in response and pulled free of her with a shudder.

Surely this man couldn’t be serious. He couldn’t be as consumed with instant desire as she was, especially if he could really see as well in the dark as he claimed. There was nothing royal or carnal about her. She was plain Annie, the woman no man looked at twice, the woman who couldn’t even keep her fiancé satisfied, who had about as much raw sex appeal as a baby anteater.

“Who the hell are you?” she asked, her voice harder, tainted with anger and lust. The anger she knew sprung from a variety of sources, but the lust was all for this man, this man who was quickly becoming someone she didn’t want to resist.

“I’m your destiny, I think,” he said. “And you, are mine.”

Before Annie could figure out what to say to that, her “destiny” lowered his lips to hers and she was lost, completely lost, and not at all inclined to be found.