I ignore the compliment and the purr of my body, a reaction that I attribute, not to his degree of hotness, which is scorching, but to my lack of male companionship in far too long. “I can’t get into my car. You parked on top of me.”
“You parked over the line and I didn’t want to get my pretty little head all wet.”
“I didn’t park over the line.”
“You did,” he assures me. “Go look.” He motions toward my car. “I’ll wait here.”
“I’m not going to look. You have to move. I can’t open my door.”
He crosses his arms over his impressively broad chest and peers at me from under dark, intense brows. “What are you going to give me if I do?”
“How about I save your manhood from my knee?”
He laughs, a masculine rough laugh that may as well be bedroom talk for the way my nipples respond. Good Lord, what is wrong with me? I don’t know this man. I do not want to know this man. My nipples do not get to know this man. “How about,” his gaze lowers to my mouth, lingers there and lifts, “you have coffee,” he pauses for effect, “with me.”
My stomach does a little flutter that I shove away, replacing it with a far more appropriate response: disbelief. “Are you seriously bribing me for entry into my own vehicle?”
Thunder roars above us and the rain begins to plummet down again. To my shock, he catches my hand and suddenly I’m pressed to his hard body, his hands on my waist. My senses blaze in a wildfire of reactions, and just that quickly, he’s lifted me into his vehicle, out of the rain. Instinct has me scooting to the passenger door, which is of course, right on top of my car door. I couldn’t escape if I wanted to, and suddenly, he’s inside the cabin with me, shutting the door.
CHAPTER THREE
Candace
“What are you doing?” I demand indignantly, my heart beating like a hammer in my chest. “You can’t grab me and throw me in your vehicle.”
He turns to face me, the small cabin made smaller by the massive size of this man. He’s just so big and close, so very close and I can smell his cologne, something woodsy with a hint of amber. My senses are on fire. Wild fire. I can’t think straight. “I was saving you, woman,” he replies. “It’s a mad downpour out there. But if you want me to let you out, I will.”
Thunder crashes again and I jump, eyes squeezing shut a moment, then lifting to find him staring at me. “Well?” he challenges softly.
Well indeed, I think. How did I end up in a vehicle, in a storm with the hottest man I’ve ever seen?
“You’re still an asshole.”
“Does that mean the fair maiden wishes to remain in the shelter of my fine vehicle?”
“I should be afraid of you right now.”
He arches one of those dark brows again. Why do I think his brows are sexy? Brows are not sexy. “Are you?” he challenges.
I blink. “Am I what?”
“Afraid of me,” he supplies.
Oh, that. His brows distracted me. “I should be,” I repeat.
“Why are you out at this time of night alone?”
“Why are you?” I clap back.
“Why not? Who do you think a bad guy would attack? You or me?”
“Depends on which one of us has the biggest gun.”
He laughs that hell of a sexy laugh again that my nipples still find a bit too sexy. “Do you carry?” he asks.
“Yes. And I know how to use it,” I add, because I do. Of course, my gun is not present on my person, but I don’t point that out.
“You’re a fierce one,” he comments.
“You’re an arrogant one,” I say in rebuttal.
“I’m not arrogant,” he says, his energy darkening, his mood a swift, stormy shift. “A smart-ass, yes. Arrogant, no.”
“Parking too close to me wasn’t you being arrogant? Just a smart-ass?”
“Yep.” He grins in my direction, his mood drastically altered. “How’d I do?”
“Perfectly.”
“Glad to hear it,” he says. “I’m Rick Savage, by the way, but most people call me Savage.”
“They call you Savage? Are you supposed to be making me feel better?”
“Savage can have many meanings, sweetheart,” he murmurs, his voice low, suggestive, and the obvious insinuation that he’s a savage in bed has my cheeks heating.
He chuckles. “Shy, are you?”
“I’m—not actually. Not really.”
“You did come at me like a freight train, I’ll give you that. Call me Rick.” He offers me his hand, a strong hand that I’m now imagining on my body again, but this time in the most savage of ways. God. I don’t know this man and I’m fantasizing about him.
I steel myself for the impact of touching him and press my palm to his. Heat rushes up my arm and my gaze shoots to his. “Candace Marks,” I say softly, but when I try to pull back, he holds onto my hand.