Dark eyes flashed fury. “You’re right. It doesn’t. I should follow him out of here . . . show him the cost of touching what isn’t his. Say it, and it’s done.”
Anger radiated from him. Fierce and ferocious. As if he were my protector and standing guard over me was his job. A wraith that would lay waste to any threat. I wasn’t sure what to make of that, why I suddenly felt safer than I had in forever. At the same time, I was one-hundred-percent certain I was standing at the shore of a stormy, churning sea.
Wrought with danger.
The man written in peril.
And there I was, wanting to wade deeper, reach out and dip in my fingers, pull a little of it into my mouth to wet the thirst growing by the second.
God, what was goin’ on with me?
I didn’t do this.
Fumble all over a stranger. Wonder what it might be like to have his massive hands takin’ possession of my body. Those were the last kind of thoughts I should have been entertaining.
“I appreciate you steppin’ in, but I would have been okay.” I didn’t even know why I was trying to front that assertion. Because I was shaking. Shivering all over the place. Runaway nerves that didn’t know where to go.
The fact that I wasn’t okay abundantly clear.
But I was pretty sure if I sent this man on that kind of mission, he would end up in jail.
“Would you really?” he challenged, still so close that I was breathing all his breaths. He smelled like whiskey and cedar and the faintest vestiges of cigarettes.
I should have been repulsed.
I wasn’t even close.
Intrigue and attraction had me parting my lips, wanting to inhale him, suck him down.
Experience something profound.
To get zapped by the current I could feel running a circuit between us.
“You think I didn’t see you come running in here, looking for a place to hide?” His mouth brushed my jaw, his words just loud enough to be heard over the roaring din of the bar. “Right out in the open. Is that what you wanted, to be found?”
A wicked sort of seduction was falling from his tongue.
Entrancing.
Mesmerizing.
My gaze flickered up to meet his, wavering and returning, wanting him to see me and terrified that he might discover who I was at the same time. “I think that might depend on who it was that found me.”
Onyx eyes flitted over my face, as if he were tracing the lines, as if he were peeling me open and getting a good look at what was hidden inside.
“Is that so?”
I chewed at the inside of my cheek, feeling so out of sorts that I no longer understood up from down.
“And who was it you were hoping would find you?” he pressed, his tattooed throat bobbing as he swallowed, his lips moving slow.
Hypnotizing.
I gathered up all the courage I had, and the words came rolling out like a plea. “Maybe I came here hoping for you.”
A rough chuckle rumbled up that thick throat, and my eyes got stuck on the action, my mouth going dry.
“I’m pretty sure I am exactly the opposite of what you’re looking for, beautiful.”
He said it to repel, a clear-cut warning, but the only thing I could really process was the fact that he’d called me beautiful.
“I think maybe you are exactly what I need right now.” I didn’t even know how I’d managed to get it out, but it was true.
I needed him.
For a moment.
For a night.
Even if he used me up, I knew it would feel right.
“You don’t have the first clue what you’re asking.”
There it was again.
Another threat. A risk I wanted to accept. This was one time where I was happy to sign on the dotted line.
“Maybe I want whatever it is you can give me.” God, I sounded like I was beggin’.
A smirk ticked up at the corner of his delicious mouth, and he angled in closer and lifted a tattooed knuckle to trace along my bottom lip.
Shivers raced.
“Do you want to know what I think?”
Did I?
“Yes,” I whispered, my gaze jumping around, not sure where to rest my eyes, wanting to take in every inch of this compelling man.
He let a fingertip traipse down the side of my jaw. “I think you’re feeling reckless. I think you’re looking for someone to take away the pain you’re drowning in. I think you’re itching to experience something different . . . to dip your pure, cute little toes into something dirty. Is that what you want . . . to get dirty?”
A shockwave of need slammed over me, and my belly twisted into a thousand knots.
I swallowed around the lump he had wedged in the base of my throat, going for brave when my knees were knocking so hard I wasn’t sure how I remained sitting on the stool. “You say that like it’d be a bad thing.”