by Alyssa Day
She couldn’t stop staring at him. She couldn’t breathe. What the hell was the matter with her? She didn’t have reactions like this to men.
But this man—oh, this man. He walked across the floor toward her with a confident stride like he owned the place. He wore jeans and a white, long-sleeved shirt beneath a brown leather jacket, and he was coming toward her.
Eva took a shaky breath and wiped her hands on the bar towel, waiting. Frozen in place. Up close, she could see the color of his eyes. Dark, ocean blue. Their eyes locked, and suddenly time stopped running. This has never, ever happened to her before, and the world turned sideways--vertigo rocked her back on her heels.
She could see only him.
There was no bar, no Noel, no Dark Angels. No Scott, no troubles, no worries.
There was only a searing flash of heat from the raw, primal desire she saw in this man’s eyes when he looked at her.
It was too much—too intense. Suddenly, she felt fragile, as if her bones had been hollowed out and replaced with air and light. As if she might float away if this man didn’t stop looking at her.
As if she might collapse in despair if he did.
It was too much, and she didn’t understand. Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t swallow, couldn’t speak.
Across from her, the stranger seemed to be having the same problem. He said nothing, simply stood there and stared back at her. His jaw clenched, and she could see his throat move when he swallowed, and she didn’t understand why the sight of his throat was so fascinating to her.
She didn’t understand any of it, but she knew one thing. She knew he was trouble. And she was absolutely done with anything that looked like trouble.
“What can I get for you?” She asked, so grateful that her voice didn’t tremble. Much.
He just stared at her.
“Sir?”
“I don’t know,” he finally said, in a deep, husky voice that sounded strained. “I don’t know what’s happening to me. I came over here for drinks, but now all I can think about is how much I want to get you in my bed.”
She gasped. She’d been hit on hundreds of times by men in bars, but never like this. Never in such a raw, blunt manner than rang with so much truth.
She wanted—fiercely, urgently wanted--to take his hand, pull him out the back door, and beg him to take her up against the wall in the alley.
She moaned at the thought, just the tiniest sound, but his gaze arrowed in on her lips. Her body clenched, deep in her belly, and she squeezed her thighs together against a sudden rush of heat.
What in the name of all things holy was happening to her?
She forced herself to tear her gaze from his sensual lips and meet his gaze again.
Mistake. She fell, drowning, right back down into those ocean-blue eyes.
“I can’t—I have no excuse for that,” he said roughly. “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. I know you must have enough to deal with without clumsy lines from idiot customers. Let’s start over. I’m Flynn, and you’re?”
Lines? What? Her brain had quit making sense of the English language, and her body was only interested in the language of desire. Of hot, sweaty sex--with this man.
Now.
Damn, girl, pull it together.
“I’m Eva. I don’t . . . it’s fine,” she said automatically, her lips turning up in a fake professional smile. Not at all like she’d just been imagining him, hard and powerful, thrusting into her. Her entire body convulsively shuddered at the thought, and omigod what was happening to her?
Flynn’s eyes flared hot again, and he groaned, low and deep, his hands tightening into fists on the bar. “I’m sorry, Eva, but you need to stop looking at me like that, unless you want me to drag you out of here and beg you to fuck me.”
“I might be the one doing the begging,” she whispered before she could stop herself, and an expression of purely masculine satisfaction crossed his face before being replaced with hot, primal, naked need.
“When?” he demanded. “When are you done working?”
Now, she wanted to say. She wanted to say it so much that she didn’t trust it at all. She had to turn him down. Turn this into something light and funny. Make him—
The door to the bar banged open, and she looked up automatically to see who was coming in.
And then she ran.
4
Flynn watched, stunned, as the woman who’d turned his world upside down fled through a door behind the bar. He started to go after her, but stopped himself. If she’d been trying to get away from him, he had to respect that, even though every nerve cell in his body was screaming at him to find her, take her, possess her.
But he stayed right where he was. If she wanted to see him again, she’d come back out. If not, he’d wait until his cock wasn’t so hard he wasn’t sure he could walk and go back to the table and figure out how to infiltrate the Dark Angels.
The mission.
Yes. He had to focus on the mission. Those girls were in danger, and whatever in the nine hells had just happened to him needed to go away.
One of the Dark Angels started walking toward the bar pass-through nearest where Eva had disappeared, and Flynn’s interest sharpened as a realization sparked in the tiny bit of space in his brain that wasn’t focused on the woman with the haunted hazel eyes and the beautiful red hair.
This one—the guy headed for the bar—he was new. He hadn’t been in the bar when Flynn and Jake had entered. Eva had glanced at something—or someone—over Flynn’s shoulder just before she fled. Was it this guy?
He casually – ever-so-casually – scanned the room. Jake was sprawled back in his chair, the picture of ease, half looking at his phone and half watching the action at the pool table. The guy was an idiot. He had the depth of a teaspoon, and Flynn would never trust him to have his back in a fight. It didn't bode well for any of these missions that this was the kind of talent Denal was putting together.
On the other hand, one of the Dark Angels could have carved Jake up like a trussed fowl while Flynn had been ensnared by the heat in Eva’s eyes, and Flynn never would have noticed. So he added himself to the roster of “untrustworthy in a fight.”
The new guy had stopped advancing on the bar and now just stood, mouth hanging open, in the middle of the floor. Maybe waiting for something? The man didn’t appear to be a threat, but Flynn knew that people of any size or appearance could wield magic or have guns hidden on them. So, the guy was incredibly nondescript, true. If it hadn’t been for the Dark Angel leathers, Flynn never would have given him a second glance. But, especially wearing leathers, he could be suspected of almost certainly carrying at least one gun.
Flynn looked back over his shoulder quickly, trying not to draw any attention to himself, but more worried than he ought to be about what had happened to Eva.
The new guy, Eva’s stalker, was still standing in the middle of the floor, and he was avidly staring at the bar, his gaze flitting from one to the other of the two doors behind it. He was watching for the bartender. Flynn didn't know how he knew it, but he was sure. Whatever the gang member wanted, it was something that had scared her to death.
The guys at the pool table were getting loud and rowdy. They were puffing up in the way bullies do, looking around for trouble they could start. Most of the people with any sense were packing it up and pulling out wallets and purses to pay the overworked waitress so they could leave.
Still no bartender. He looked at Jake, who caught his glance and raised an eyebrow. Flynn tilted his head toward the door that the redhead had run through and then nodded. He had no idea if Mermaid Man would figure it out, but Jake was a big boy. He could take care of himself.
Flynn told himself he was only watching out for Eva, not stalking her himself, and then he turned around and took a step in the direction of the bar pass-through that was nearest the door through which the bartender had gone. He made it all of two steps before the beer bottle hit him in the back of the head.
Not again.
He'd almost gone to jail maybe half a dozen times over bar fights. He had the typical Stupid Guy problem: he wasn't able to back down. Dumb as hell, but there you were. He turned around slowly, shook his head to lessen the ringing sensation in his ears, and looked around. The incipient violence that had been hanging in the air since he and Jake had walked in had exploded into a full-fledged brawl. Jake, looking happy as a kid playing in mud, was punching it out one-on-three with Dark Angels.
Another one of them, a big one with a yellow shirt, started lumbering toward Flynn, head moving back and forth like he was a surly bear just out of hibernation.
"What exactly did I ever do to you, friend?" Flynn tried, even knowing it was useless.
"You were talking to my woman," the bleary-eyed mountain of a man said.
Flynn doubted it. Severely. "Your woman?"
"As soon as she meets me," the idiot declared, raising a fist the size of a side of beef. "Here we go."
Here we go?
Flynn sighed. Sadly, they made idiots in all shapes and sizes. Human, shifter, vampire, Atlantean. He couldn't think of any species in which there weren't a subgroup of morons who liked to pick fights in bars.
Lesson? Yeah. He probably needed to stay out of bars.
Brilliance in action, there, Flynn.
He ducked under Yellow Shirt’s clumsy swing, stepped inside and delivered an uppercut to the man’s massive jaw, putting all the power of his built-up frustration over the way his life was going into it.
Mountain man or not, the guy wasn't much for actually getting hit, evidently. Maybe he normally scared people off with his Yeti-like size. Too bad for him that Flynn didn’t scare easy. Instead, Flynn stepped past the man and kicked him in the back of the knees, toppling him to the floor.
"What? What?" The guy sputtered for a few seconds, but after his head bounced off the floor a couple of times, his eyes rolled up in his head and he passed out.
Flynn looked down at the man, shaking his head. He wasn't quite arrogant enough to think that one punch had knocked him out. More likely Mountain Man had drunk a pitcher or seven of beer before the fight started.
He heard a whistling noise and ducked to the left, just in time to avoid another flying bottle. He scanned the room again, but nobody was looking at him. Jake was holding his own, and the little weaselly looking guy was threading his way through the various groups of fighters and heading straight toward the bar.
"Right." Flynn stepped so abruptly in front of Eva’s stalker that the man almost ran into Flynn's back.
Perfect.
Flynn promptly smashed an elbow into the guy’s face. This time, the unconscious man on the floor was entirely Flynn's doing, and he felt no little satisfaction about it. He turned and ducked a barstool swung by a six-foot tall woman who looked to be about seventy years old, and he bowed to her, surprising the fight right out of her. She dropped the stool and stared at him, stupefied.
"Your pardon, Madam.," he said, in his best palace-etiquette voice. Then he gently turned her toward a group of three guys hitting each over their respective heads with pool sticks and made for the bar pass-through. With no further obstruction or delay, he made it to the door, determined to find the bartender, if she wasn't already halfway to Alaska.
At this point, who would blame her?
The man she’d wanted to jump, just before Monkey walked in and destroyed any emotion but pure, screaming, panic, strode into the room and scanned it, immediately homing in on where she huddled in the corner on the floor, back to the wall. She was shaking so hard her teeth were clattering like the bones of a skeleton dancing in a dark wind.
Eva winced at the imagery but didn’t wonder why her brain had envisioned it. She’d be dead before she ever saw another summer. Hell, it was only January.
She’d be dead before she saw spring.
Flynn crossed the room, and she flinched when he reached her. In spite of—or perhaps because of—her incredible, mind-blowing attraction to this man, she was terrified. What if he was part of it? A Dark Angel without the leathers? She’d heard the head guy, who called himself a Marquis of Hell, wore suits and ties most of the time. Still, she was sick to death of being afraid. Sick of being hurt, being found, being caught.
Now, here she was again, huddling on the floor of a crowded kitchen supplies storeroom, breathing in the scents of overripe produce and despair. The cook, no fool, had headed out the back door when he heard the fight start, so she was alone, contemplating how and where to run.
When would it ever end?
Flynn stopped a couple of feet away and stood there silently looking down at her.
“I need another man looming over me like I need a hole in the head,” she snapped, and then was amazed at her own defiance.
He knelt down, keeping a careful distance between them, but distances could be crossed and his dark eyes were black with rage. This close, his beauty was almost lethal and made her feel like the snake to his charmer, swaying helplessly in his thrall.
Monkey was out there.
The thought threw an icy sheet of terror over any charm Flynn was projecting.
He was out there. She’d seen him. Worse, she thought he’d seen her. Her gaze went helplessly to the door.
“I’m sorry,” she managed, her voice only shaking a little. “I’m sorry I ran away from you like that. I had to get out of there.”
“Was it me?” His voice was so gentle that it might have helped her calm down if she could afford to be calm.
“No! Of course not. It was . . . it was someone I didn’t want to see.”
“Why are you so afraid?” Flynn’s voice was smoky sensuality with a hint of a growl beneath it. Eva had learned—oh, how she’d learned—to beware of growls.
“It’s nothing. I just . . . nothing,” she muttered, clutching her knees more tightly to her chest.
Flynn’s eyes narrowed. “It is not nothing, and it’s not no one. Who it is? I’d be happy to kill him for you. I have some time to spare.”
“Just like that? You don’t even know me, but you’d be happy to kill someone for me.” She shook her head. “You’re just like them.”
His voice was soft and deadly when he answered. “I’m nothing like them.”
She put her head down on her knees. “Just go away.”
"It's the man. The ugly man with the caved-in-looking head," he ventured, startling a laugh out of her. It was only a small laugh, though, and quickly banished.
"You could probably take him,” he said gravely.
Eva sighed and hunched herself into an even smaller ball, pulling her knees into her body. Of course he didn't understand. He was tall, dark, and dangerous – every inch of him screamed Badass. Men like him never had to be afraid of anything.
"You wouldn't understand, and it's none of your business, anyway," she whispered.
A trace of impatience crossed his face, but then he looked at her again – really looked at her – and concern replaced the impatience. He held out a hand.
"Let's start again. My name is Flynn. I'm sorry I made a bad impression at the bar, but I'd like to get to know you."
She didn't take his hand. She knew it was rude, but she didn't want to touch him. Even the most innocent touch could be taken the wrong way. Taken advantage of. Instead, she pushed her back further into the corner between the wall and the shelving unit filled with canned goods. Trying to make herself as small as possible.
Which was a metaphor, wasn't it? Making herself as small as possible? Her entire life was small.
And she had no one to blame but herself.
A particularly loud crash sounded from the bar, and she flinched. The door to the storeroom slammed open, and Noel stormed in.
"There you are, you worthless bitch. What the hell are you doing hiding in here, when you should be out there protecting my property?"
Great. Just what she needed. There came a point when no job was worth this kind of abuse. But before she could answer,
or tell him just where he could shove his job, Flynn stood up in one smooth, graceful motion. He was at least eight or ten inches taller than Noel, and he was pure muscle, unlike her slime-ball boss, who was part beer belly and part forty years of sitting on his ass telling other people to do his job for him.
"Who the hell are you? If you're in here bothering my bartender, buddy, you better back off, because my cousin is the sheriff –"
Flint took a step toward Noel, whose torrents of abuse came stuttering to a halt.
"Don't think you can threaten me either," Noel blustered, backing up toward the door. "I'll make sure they toss you in jail and throw away the key."
Flynn glanced at Eva, and she was surprised to see amusement dancing in his gorgeous blue eyes. "Have you ever noticed how the truly vile people in life always speak in clichés? ‘Throw away the key’--really?" He turned his gaze back to Noel, but it no longer held any amusement. "I suggest you apologize to the lady."
Noel’s mouth fell open. "The lady? Are you out of your mind? That's no lady, that's a –"
She’d probably never know what he'd been planning to call her, though, because Flynn's arm moved faster than she could see, and he punched Noel in the face. Her boss’s expression was almost comically surprised for a single heartbeat, and then he collapsed to the floor.
"Is that how you solve all your problems?" she asked wearily, but then couldn't believe her daring. The man had just knocked Noel out in one punch. Who was to say he wasn't going to start on her next?
But even as she thought it, she knew – somehow, she knew – that it wasn't true. He held no sense of danger for her, except to her equilibrium, judging by the astonishing way she’d reacted to him in the bar.
She’d honed her instincts to be very sharp over the past few years. Maybe she was kidding herself. Maybe she was a fool, yet again. But she felt no threat from this man. In fact, she felt oddly appreciative of the way he’d taken care of Noel. She just didn't think she could deal with her manager and his bullying on top of her terror over the fact Monkey had shown up.
