A shiver of fear danced down my spine.
Fear, and something else.
I turned to leave.
“Wait,” he called.
I glanced over my shoulder and Colt’s eyes held mine for a moment before he stared down at the guy on the ground in front of him. The prep was unconscious, breathing heavily after being knocked out cold. His head lobbed to the side and a trickle of blood and drool began to form a puddle next to his face. I wondered if I should call an ambulance and tried to look more closely at him in the light.
Yeah, definitely calling an ambulance.
I thought Colt would leave, but instead he began to stalk toward me, causing my heart to beat in terror. I scrambled back, tripping over the garbage bag behind me.
I was about to fall, but Colt was suddenly there, and his hands reached out to steady me. Hands that were surprisingly gentle as they held me, when moments ago, they’d been used to inflict violence.
It was too late to escape, so I forced myself to have a tiny shred of courage. I tilted my head back so I could gaze up at him. “What happened?” I whispered.
His expression was dark.
Murderous.
But for some reason—some stupid, asinine, hormonal reason—I didn’t truly believe that Colt would hurt me.
“Are you gonna call the cops?” he asked. His voice was heady, potent, unlike anything I’d ever heard before.
“That depends.” I wet my dry lips, briefly realizing his gaze tracked the movement of my tongue.
He paused again, clearly weighing whether or not to let me in, wondering if it would cause more trouble than it was worth to explain it to me.
“He drugged a woman.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“He might be clean cut and built, but he’s a rapist. He drugged a woman in your bar,” he repeated. “He bought her a cocktail and she accepted. She got up to use the bathroom and that’s when he laced her drink. That shit doesn’t fly with me or my club. You don’t hurt innocent people and get away with it.”
“Oh my God,” I said in horror.
“Zip noticed what was going on and we watched it unfold in plain sight. He stopped the woman from drinking whatever this fuck put in her glass and sent her home with her friends.” His gaze wandered to the guy still passed out on the pavement. “Dickhead didn’t like being accused of what he’d done and made the same mistake they all do.”
“What mistake is that?”
“Choosing a fight with me out back over the cops.”
I swallowed, but couldn’t find the words I wanted to say. It didn’t matter because Colt wasn’t done speaking.
“He’s damn lucky you showed up out here…”
“Were you going to—” I blurted out the words and then cut myself off before I said something that might put me in danger.
What was this man capable of?
Colt’s lips pulled back into a smile, but it wasn’t beautiful. It was demonic and vengeful. And the shaft of moonlight bathed half his face in shadow.
“He’ll live,” Colt assured me.
I felt him loosen his hold on me and relax. I was suddenly bereft and cold. I couldn’t understand why I wanted a savage vigilante to touch me again.
But I did.