I’d had enough. I wasn’t going to just stand there and listen to this kind of talk. It was gross, and I knew instinctively that Shane wouldn’t like it.
“I’ll come back when you are ready to order.”
The guy reached for me, but I skittered away fast, just out of reach. Their vulgar laughter followed me. I moved fast, running blindly into an immovable force.
For a minute, I literally thought, who put a wall here?
And then I looked up and saw what it was. I saw who it was.
Shane was staring down at me with blazing heat in his eyes.
“What did they say to you?”
“I . . . what? I didn’t see you there.”
His hands came down on my shoulders, holding me in place. He leaned down, his face hard and intense.
“What did they say to you, Parker?”
Chapter Twenty
Shane
The guy tried to touch her. I’d heard part of what he said too, even though I was asking her. She just shook her head, sending that pretty hair of hers flying.
“Nothing. It’s fine.”
“It’s definitely not fucking fine,” I growled, staring down at her with a combination of hot lust and even hotter fury.
I am a Goddamn idiot.
Parker was getting hit on. She was a woman. Not a kid. And definitely not a boy. The realization came crashing down on me, sending my thoughts flying.
Nobody else thought of her as a kid. Other guys were going to try and date her. They were going try and fuck her. Someone eventually probably would fuck her.
Why shouldn’t it be you? a persuasive voice inside me whispered.
“Are you all right?” I asked, my voice rough and raw. She might be freaking out, after everything that happened to her. That piece of shit and his buddies might be giving her flashbacks.
She nodded shakily as I rubbed my hands up and down her arms. She did look okay.
“Yeah, it’s okay. He’s just a cretin.”
I almost smiled. Cretin was such a funny word to use. It showed she was well-read. She’d been proving to me all along how smart she was. Parker was my pretty little brainiac.
No, Shane. She is not yours. You don’t deserve her, killer.
But maybe… you could find a way to deserve her, that sneaky voice spoke up again.
“I’ll deal with them. They won’t bother you again.”
She glanced back at the table.
“Please, don’t. I need this job. Beating up the customers is going to get me fired.”
I stared down at her, wanting nothing more than to toss her over my shoulder and take her far away. Far away where no one could hurt her. Far away to some place with a giant fucking bed.
I took a seat at the bar, deliberately staring at the soon-to-be-dead man’s table until he noticed me. His buddies spotted me first. He blanched pure white when his friend pointed me out. They were real polite to Parker after that.
I made sure I got the ‘cretin’s name from Jaken. I’d pay him a visit at a future date. No need for Parker to find out. I smiled grimly. I had lots of visits to pay.
Lots of pain to inflict on her behalf.
Watching her run around and do her job made me feel all kinds of things I didn’t want to feel. She wasn’t trying to attract attention with her clothing or her actions, but she was too beautiful not to. And her body . . . I’d tried to ignore it the night before. But when she moved around like that, even her casual, not super-tight-fitting clothes tended to reveal what was underneath them. It was impossible not to notice what an incredible figure she had. Curvy and feminine, but slim and strong. She was a flawless young beauty from head to toe. And somehow, I knew she’d be just as beautiful to me in twenty years. Forty years. Maybe even longer.
Hell, I had a feeling I’d think she was still hot at eighty.
But I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
I knew I should stop watching her like I was a dog eyeing a juicy steak. I wasn’t being subtle. I was staking my claim for everyone to see. But I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
Something had shifted for me. I couldn’t deny my feelings for her anymore. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to fight it much longer either, but I had to try.
I sipped a glass of water and waited for her shift to end.
“Can’t sleep?”
I startled, closing the manila file on my lap quickly and sliding it into a magazine. It was dark in here. There was a chance she hadn’t noticed what I was looking at for the hundredth time since I’d gotten it earlier that afternoon.
I fucking hoped she hadn’t.
Because the file on my lap held Parker’s whole tragic, beautiful life inside it.
“I don’t sleep much.”
“Oh.”
She had an empty glass in her hand. I stood up and took it from her, carrying it to the fridge where I kept a pitcher of filtered water. That was new. I’d never given a shit about stuff like water quality before. A lot of things were new since Parker came into my life, like seeing a gorgeous girl I couldn’t touch half-dressed and half-asleep at all hours of the day and night.