I looked up at him and saw that the hardness of his expression had evaporated, and desire burned instead in the depths of his eyes.
Hawks nose-dived in my belly. I couldn’t breathe. My body and mind were in complete chaos as they fought each another.
I was about to sway into him when, thankfully, the door swung open. The sounds from the bar leaked into the hallway, and then seconds later they were snuffed out when the door closed again.
I glanced over. Shit. Sam. He must have seen Vic pull me back here.
Sam’s eyes shifted from me to Vic and back again. “You okay, Mac?”
Was I? Not really. Yes. Maybe. My brain was mushy oatmeal, and I couldn’t think straight while my body was a fireball of heated tingles.
“She’s good,” Vic replied without even glancing at him.
Sam’s runners squeaked on the hardwood as he approached. His gaze shifted briefly to Vic, then slingshot back to me. “I’d like to hear it from her.”
Tension radiated off Vic, and as controlled as he was, there was always a breaking point. And I had a feeling Vic wouldn’t appreciate a guy getting in his space or his business. I put my hand on his forearm. “Don’t.”
His eyes snapped to mine and then to my hand on his arm. I thought he’d say something mean or shrug my hand off, but he didn’t.
I lowered my hand and peered at Sam, smiling. “Sam, really. I’m fine.”
He stopped his approach, but his eyes were narrowed as if he was deciding whether to believe me or not. And I got it. He was being thoughtful and concerned for my safety because some guy he’d probably never seen in the bar before had dragged me into the back room. It didn’t look good.
“Is he your boyfriend or something?”
Or something.
“You heard her, kid. She’s good. Leave.”
Kid? Sam was older than me, and there was nothing kidlike about him. But no matter how lean and muscled Sam was, I was pretty sure he was no match for Vic.
“Sam, thanks for checking on me. But I’m fine.”
He hesitated, and then he nodded before turning and walking out. But from his hurried steps and rigid back, there was no question he wasn’t letting this go. “He doesn’t believe me,” I said.
“I know.”
“He’ll get the bouncers.”
“Yes.”
“They’ll throw you out.”
“They can try.”
“Callum will hear about it.”
There was the smallest upward twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Concerned for my welfare, Rainbird?”
I decided to be honest because I really didn’t want to see what would happen if Callum heard that the man who tried to kill him was in his bar. “Yeah.”
“He already knows.” He nodded up and to the right. At first I couldn’t see anything, and then I noticed the tiny glass reflection in the ceiling. It was the size of a dime, and nearly impossible to see unless you knew about it.
My mouth gaped. A camera. I’d been working here for three months and never knew there were cameras, and Brin hadn’t said anything. “Aren’t you worried?”
A glimmer of amusement lit his eyes for a second. “Do I look worried?”
No, he definitely didn’t. Despite the tension in his tatted, flexed arms, he looked relaxed, as if there was nothing unusual about him leaning over me in the back hallway of a bar. A bar owned by a man who’d likely kill him if given the chance. Okay, I was way overexaggerating, but my head was spinning with Vic standing so close.