Micaela's Big Bad

I lifted my head, and the whole room started spinning around.

I laid back down and took a second.

There’d be no escape action happening if I couldn’t even stand.

Okay.

I waited, eyes open, and slowly the room stopped around me.

Scooting my legs over the edge, I sat up and waited. Holding my breath.

The room stayed put. Thankfully.

A low chuckle came from the dark corner of the room. “For an energist, you bounce back remarkably fast.”

My eyes almost popped out. Again.

All the shivers and warnings from earlier slammed back into my body as if they’d been there and had been trapped, the lid just now being lifted up. They filled every inch of my body, and I had a hard time staying upright.

I couldn’t see him—holy shitballs, I couldn’t see him!

His energy wasn’t in the room.

Who could do that?

I mean, other than a Big Bad?

Okay. Could I get an energy concussion? Maybe that was it, I was now wondering. This was new territory for me. I ran when guys like him showed up, not that I’d come across anyone as powerful as him before, but still, I ran.

I was rambling.

I had to stop.

“Who are you?”

He stood from a chair. He was still in the shadows, but he was tall. Over six feet. And he was coming toward me.

My internal alarm was rising, rising. I felt it starting to choke me.

“You’re unschooled for your power. That’s a very stupid thing to do.”

Oh. Fuck him. Lecturing me?

He stepped out of the shadows and all my words and snarky replies dried up.

Thought left me.

I—I was stunned speechless at the same time as an inferno was lit instead. It engulfed everything else. A full bonfire was raging in me. Flames and smoke must’ve been coming out of my head because this guy was like no one I’d ever seen. In movies or real life.

He was beautiful.

Almost too beautiful.

A five o’clock shadow peppered his face, and that jaw was the definition of a square jaw. His eyes were dark and smoldering. He had a dimpled chin. His mouth—I licked my lips, my gaze going there and lingering and I was already daydreaming about nipping at his lips. They were perfect. He had a rectangular-shaped face, where there was a faint line from his cheeks dipping all the way to his jawline.

His hair was black, and it was short on the sides and there was enough on the top to have a good wave through it. A small lock fell down over his forehead, and I couldn’t decide if it was either the hottest thing I’d seen or the most adorable.

With how he looked, though, I was leaning more toward dead sexy.

That phrase took on a whole different meaning for me, and I wasn’t human. That said a lot.

He had broad shoulders, and a tapered waist. He was lean except for his chest and shoulders. There was something animal-like about how he moved toward me.

He was a shifter.

Not all shifters had the innate vibe he was giving out. It was exuding off him.

All authority and danger.

Power.

This guy, whoever he was, could snap his fingers and I’d be dust. I knew that without a doubt.

I also knew that this was the Big Bad.

“Who are you?”

Those eyes never wavered from mine, only narrowed, and he gave a small chuckle. The sound reverberated inside of me, warming and rubbing up against all of my organs at once.

“You come to my club. You accost my customers. And you try to get one of my employees fired. I believe you’re in the wrong position here.” He paused, his eyes becoming even more fierce. “You don’t get to interrogate me.”

That blaze in me sparked again, this time from irritation.

I liked to drink, spend time with my best friend, mostly avoid my family, and every now and then show up at my own job. What I didn’t like was being told what not to do from someone I didn’t know, and especially someone who was wreaking havoc with all of my senses.

I narrowed my eyes right back at him. “You don’t feel like a demon.”

It felt like I had to pull my gaze from cement as I took in the rest of him. He wore a business suit, tie off, top two buttons undone. The ends were pulled out of his pants, and he looked as if he’d raked his hand through his hair a couple times. It was messed up on top. As I was studying him, he took off the suit jacket and tossed it aside.

I watched in slow motion the whole muscle ripple effect that happened across his shoulders and chest.

That freaking frog was back in my throat.

He looked back at me.

I felt his disapproval in the air, almost singeing me, and I stomped down a growl.

I was getting tired of the ping-pong match of emotions and everything happening with this guy. He was too much for me. His power was coming off him in waves, even though he had checked his energy so it wasn’t in the room with him. And how he did that, I had no clue. I’d never met anyone who could control their energy.