I swear I’d peed a little. Okay, maybe a lot, because scary was too tame of a word to describe the towering, six-foot-four vandalized cement wall standing in front of me. The vandalized aspect being the tats covering both arms, and the cement being his rock-hard body clad in a snug navy T-shirt and black cargo pants.
And he was scowling at me as if I’d just killed his dog, then laughed in his face.
I was not laughing.
I wasn’t even smiling.
I had no idea what my facial expression was like at the moment because I couldn’t feel anything except my heart thumping madly in my chest like a musical score to a horror movie.
If he owned the cabin, that meant… this was Vic Gate.
The Vic Gate.
Ex-underground fighter. Ex-military. Ex-Special Forces.
And according to my brother, Ethan, he now worked for a company that hunted the “worst motherfuckers in the world.”
It also explained why I hadn’t heard him approach before he had me literally kissing bark. I still tasted bitter maple on my lips.
Not that I would’ve heard him, anyway, because I had Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” blaring in one ear. When he’d grabbed me, the earbud fell out and was now likely buried in the mud beneath his black combat boots.
“You’re squatting in my fuckin’ cabin?” Scary Cement-Wall Vic Gate grated out.
He had a distinct rumble to his voice, like gravel rolling over marble, and my belly quivered at the sound. And it wasn’t with beautiful soaring butterflies—more like butterflies plummeting into the pit of my stomach after having their wings ripped off.
Vic Gate was intimidating. Ominous. And he quite possibly had dead bodies buried all over the ten-acre property, which was why he had no trespassing signs plastered everywhere. At least that was one of the rumors I’d overheard at Zero Crow, the bar where I’d worked for the last three months.
What wasn’t a rumor—and was what every girl, woman, and person with a libido who had met Vic Gate said—is that he was striking. Not in a pretty boy way, or even a handsome way, but in a rough, hard, untouchable way. The kind of way that makes you stop and hold your breath, uncertain whether you should run for your life, or stand there to stare and take him all in.
I was currently doing the latter as my gaze trailed from his shaved head down to the distinct hard lines of his face and carved jaw. The morning sun peeking through the treetops illuminated his deep bronzed skin, softening it.
Muscled arms were littered with tattoos and scars, the most prominent being a jagged, six-inch scar that ran the length of his left forearm.
“You done?” His voice cut through the air and my gaze flew to his.
I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing emerged.
Okay, pull your shit together, Macayla. He’s just a man.
And a highly trained killer who, from his line of work, had seen things made of nightmares. Nightmares that were crammed into his lethal, dark gray eyes, each fighting to break free from the depths.
But he’d holstered his gun, so he wasn’t going to kill me.
At least not yet.
I cleared my throat and raised my chin, meeting his glare. “I’m not squatting. Jaeg and Addie said I could stay here,” I said, my words coming out stilted. God, I sounded constipated. What the hell was wrong with me?
I swallowed, or tried to swallow, but there was a fist lodged in my throat preventing me.
He didn’t nod or even acknowledge I’d spoken.
No, the cement wall glowered. Okay, cement couldn’t glower, but if it could, this guy was what it would look like.
Since he didn’t respond, I continued, “My brother is—”
“Don’t care,” he barked. His graveled voice was no longer rolling over marble. No, it crushed it.
Vic’s dark eyes narrowed, making him look scarier, and goose bumps didn’t just pop across my skin. They popped and took off running for their lives.