Emma was way beyond confused by what was happening. He didn’t look familiar to her, so he likely wasn’t family. Perhaps, he was an incredibly attractive man just hitting on her. One part of her was frightened because his energy was so forceful and assertive. The other part of her was titillated by his presence.
“What do you want?” she breathed.
The man lifted his hand from his pocket and placed it on her cheek. It was warm as he rubbed his thumb against it. His head lowered so that their foreheads almost touched.
“Just you, honey,” he murmured. “I want you to take me back to your apartment, and you’re going to explain to me what those two fuckers were doing there earlier today.”
Her breath hitched in her throat. He did have something to do with what happened. But he was so sexy, her fear mixed with her attraction like blood and oil.
“What are you going to do to me?” she asked. Her chest heaved up and down rapidly.
The man smiled. She felt faint at the sight.
“Oh, baby,” he quipped. “Nothing you don’t want me to. My name is Ace, and I don’t hurt anybody who doesn’t deserve it.”
His voice lowered as he spoke, velvety soft and weirdly comforting. His hand was still on her cheek, stroking it in a way that he probably thought was threatening. But Emma was turned on. She had a flash of a thought, imagining him flipping her around and fucking her from behind until she saw God.
Ace leaned in closer as if he detected the sensual thoughts moving through her mind. He raised his brows and then gestured toward the opening of the alleyway.
“Let’s get going, honey,” he said firmly.
Should she run? Should she scream? The part of town she was in was quiet, with few people nearby who would give a shit. She would be a sound stuck in a mix of sounds of the night, like a wolf howling to the moon.
Emma walked slowly as Ace placed a hand on her lower back.
Chapter4
Emma
Emma wished she had just stayed in her sleepy midwestern town. It wasn’t exciting, and every day was predictable. She had never longed to leave that comfort in exchange for living the way all of her schoolmates had. They all wanted the fun, fast life of the movie stars.
But she wanted to read her romance novels while curled up in bed and be left alone.
She would fall into a book as a kid and be attached to it for weeks on end. She hadn’t needed reality because reality wasn’t interesting, nor did it reward her with anything her books couldn’t offer. She read about muscular heroes and swashbuckling outcasts, men who believed their lives were easier without a woman to hold them down.
And, alas, popping out of nowhere, a woman always showed up, showing them how deeply wrong they were.
The women ofJane EyreandWuthering Heightspresented Emma with the possibilities of strong and tenacious women who didn’t need a man to save them. She preferred the theme over the ones where women were always the damsels in distress waiting for someone to save them when they were perfectly capable of saving themselves.
Sometimes Emma would lie awake in her old bed, thinking about whether or not she could be as strong as those women. When she had her accident when she was eighteen years old, reality smacked her in the nose and whooshed her into a real-life family drama.
She wanted to feel as strong as those women when Ace leaned against the wall in front of her. He certainly appeared like one of the men on the cover of those romance novels, handsome and mischievous looking, an animal that needed taming. But this was way more confusing than anything she had ever read.
He guided her with his hand lightly on her lower back, making her shiver again. She wondered what he would do to her or if he would remain true to his word.
“Let’s go,” Ace said again.
Just as Emma began to drag her feet, a sharp sound at the end of the alleyway caught the mysterious Ace’s attention. His spotlight eyes turned down the dark end, then he took her by the wrist with a warning.
“Wait here,” he said strictly. “Don’t run away on me, you hear me?”
Emma nodded, and he pointed a long finger at her. He smirked, so there was a possibility that he didn’t completely mean his threats.
He snarled at her as if to make sure she didn’t get too comfortable with him.
“I’ll be back,” he said.
Behind the nightclub sat a deli that Emma would frequent on the weekends during shopping trips. Because it was in an old building, it wasn’t particularly well maintained. They probably hadn’t had a health inspector inside the place in centuries.