“Do you need help?” asked Marcus.
The offer surprised Saks. One minute this guy was beating the crap out of him and the next he wanted to help him with his car? “If you can turn the key when I say when?”
“Sure.” Marcus moved to the driver’s side. “Hey, don’t take what happened personal. It’s my job to protect those girls.”
“Really? I thought it was your job to whale on me whenever it was convenient.”
“No, just to protect the girls. You got in the way. A lot.”
“So you worked for the Serafinis long?”
Marcus shrugged and Saks opened the car door for him. “A while.” The man of few words slid behind the wheel of Saks’ beater car. He batted the large fuzzy dice Saks hung off the rearview mirror. “Real classy car you got here,” rumbled Marcus with amusement.
“You’ll find my humor is very nuanced.”
“What?” said Marcus. He scrunched his face in confusion.
“Never mind.” Saks rotated his shoulder, which had taken the brunt of the fall. Soreness radiated from the joint. It would be stiff tomorrow.
During the ridiculous altercation, the hood of the car had fallen. He shook his head. It was his own fault. He’d put off putting in a new hinge. He yanked the hood open again and tapped the starter with the hammer.
“Try it,” Saks called out.
Marcus turned the key; the car whined but refused to turn over.
“Okay, okay, cut it,” said Saks. They’d lose battery power if they let the starter go too long without catching. Saks gave another couple taps to the starter. “Put a little gas to it and try again.”
The engine sputtered briefly, providing a brief thrill of victory, but ultimately died.
“Fuck,” spat Saks. “Okay, one more time. After this I’ll call a tow.”
Marcus did his best to help the engine catch and finally it rumbled to life. Saks kept his head under the hood listening to the sounds, deciding that along with a new starter he needed to check the ignition coils. In a car this old it was easy enough for a coil to go bad, or maybe the ignition wires had gotten corroded.
Satisfied with his diagnosis and happy the son-of-a-bitch was running, he pulled away from under the hood.
But not soon enough. The hood banged the top of his head. Sickening pain jolted him as he pulled free of the massive jaws of the car. He stumbled, unable to maintain his balance. In a flash Marcus was at his side with a steadying arm under Saks’ armpit.
“Shit, man, I heard that! You okay?”
“I... no,” Saks mumbled. That’s when he blacked out.
CHAPTER FOUR
“What the hell did you do to him?”
Marcus lowered an unconscious Saks to Chrissy’s bed. “I didn’t do nothing to him. His own car attacked him.”
“His car?” said Chrissy incredulously.
“The hood fell on him.”
“Oh, shit! We need to get him to the hospital.”
“For what? A crack on the head? I got worse playing football in high school.”
Chrissy held back the snide remark brewing in her head. “Let me look.” Marcus moved out of her way and she sat on the edge of the bed. She did her best to ignore the fluttering of her stomach for the sexy man lying there. She felt instantly ashamed of herself. Saks is hurt, damn it! This was not the time to think of what it would be like to have him between the sheets. Yet the sight of the hard-muscled biker lying on her ruffled white comforter sent her insides into overdrive.
Tentatively, she ran her fingers through his dark hair. She pursed her lips when she found a growing goose egg at the top backside of the poor man’s skull.