Because I was learning that I didn’t do cute.
Or crushes.
Or I’d begun to learn that last night.
It hit me then, physically, once we’d pulled into the compound and I’d jumped out of the car before Troy could try and stop me.
I saw my car first.
My fists clenched.
Then I saw him.
And my knees wobbled.
His crystal eyes met mine.
My body went aflame.
Just by meeting his fricking gaze.
In daylight, at a distance, it was jarring. Beautiful but ugly at the same time. Because he had to go through something ugly to become that harshly beautiful, so menacing that it floated across the parking lot and speared into my soul.
I ignored it because I had to. Because if I didn’t I wouldn’t stay standing. I would’ve been stomped on again. And that only happened once, or you could only get back up once. I had a feeling the people this man stomped on didn’t get up.
I decided to hold on to the anger I’d been nurturing on the ride over, since I’d heard my car was there. I planned to do the stomping.
And I did.
Right across the parking lot, the thump of police issue boots behind me. I ignored it, just like I ignored my body’s protests at my stomping. After a car crash, I guessed I was meant to be delicate with myself. My body. But as I got closer to the garage and the stare that was yanking me in, I became certain that delicate would never be a reality for me again.
“You!” I hissed, pointing at the man who had wiped his hand on a dirty rag and moved to clear the car completely.
My step stuttered only slightly when I saw him in his entirety. And he was an entirety. A presence that radiated even more than the two men watching me with rapt attention who I’d barely even blinked at.
And that was saying something, since the men in this club were a heck of a lot to blink at. Living in Amber all my life meant I’d seen them around, seen the effect the had on everyone around them. The very air around them. So making two attractive, tattooed, and menacing men obsolete was a feat.
And he—I realized I didn’t even know his name—managed to do so.
Luckily my anger willed me forward instead of me sinking to my knees and offering to sacrifice a goat to him for his eternal favor or something equally crazy—like snatching his beautifully savage face and kissing him.
“Oh shit, it’s happening,” a deep voice whisper-yelled from the direction of the caramel-skinned, bald-headed, and tattooed biker to my left.
I barely heard it through the ringing in my ears that had nothing to do with my head injury and everything to do with him.
The him I had advanced on and whose chest I found myself jabbing a finger into. Yes, literally making contact. It was like pressing against iron. Warm, electric, beautiful, and tattooed iron, but iron nonetheless. I was surprised my finger didn’t shatter.
“You!” I repeated, yanking myself away from thoughts of running my hands along his bare chest. “You have no right to just drag my car, my property, away in your little truck or whatever and put it in a garage without my consent,” I hissed. “Especially considering you abandoned me outside a hospital in the middle of the night.”
There was somewhat of a commotion behind me as the bald man moved in my path to, I guessed, block Troy from approaching.
Troy didn’t like it from the handful of curses and a reminder to the man that he was an officer of the law.
“I don’t care if you’re an officer of Thor himself. You can’t interrupt such a thing as a courtship between my brother and this little spitfire,” Lucky—I remembered that was his name—said, smile in his voice. “Have you seen Thor? Great movie. But I’m thinking what’s going on in front of us is better entertainment value than a big man with a big hammer. Just let it happen.”
My finger was still pressed to the chest of the bearded man in front of me. His eyes were on mine, yanking all of my attention, every facet of my being to him.
It didn’t make sense.
But it didn’t have to.
We were close. Close enough for me to smell the tobacco and purely male scent that radiated off him and instantly awakened my desire.
Everything about him screamed man.
“Didn’t abandon you considering I took you to the fuckin’ hospital,” he clipped, his voice almost a growl. His eyes were daring me to lower my gaze in a way that I guessed was always successful for him.
He hadn’t encountered someone like me.
My stubbornness kept me holding his glare even when everything else inside me—common sense included—urged me to run before it was too late.
“You’re not a fuckin’ child. A fuckin’ damsel,” he continued, voice still harsh. “By the looks of it, you were quite capable to walk the twelve feet to the door. Sure as shit didn’t need me to be doin’ it for you.”