I take her outside, her hand soft in mine, and I can’t help but think she’s nothing like the other women in this town. Those jaded bitches, women like Sondra, looking for an angle in every conversation. This woman, she wasn’t looking for anything, yet trouble found her.

“Do you know who those guys were?” she asks. Outside, the lights of the city pollute the night sky, and I try to remember the last time I looked at the stars. I’m always here, at the club when the lights are out. I don’t want to go back in there tonight. I want to take this woman somewhere safe. I want to keep her warm.

“I have a few ideas,” I tell her as she leans against the brick wall of the warehouse. Her eyes close as she inhales deeply, and her dark lashes brush her cheeks. She’s tall, curvy, and has a pair of tits women would pay twenty grand for. But you can tell she hasn’t paid to be this beautiful.

Everything about her screams all natural.

But I have a few other ways I’d like to hear her scream.

Scream my name.

But hell, we haven’t even introduced ourselves.

“What’s your name?” I ask. I stand in front of her, my arms on either side of her narrow frame, palms pressed against the brick wall. It’s as if I want to create a shelter for her, somewhere safe. I don’t want those assholes coming out here and seeing her.

“Jules. I mean Juliana. I mean, that’s what Danny wants people to call me, but no one’s called me that in my entire life.” She smiles, that dazzling white smile it’s probably what got her signed to Danny’s agency in the first place. “What’s your name? You sure seemed determined not to give it to those guys.”

“Those guys don’t deserve to know anything about me. Who do they think they are, showing up at a club fucking demanding answers from people like that? It’s bullshit.”

“So... is it bullshit to tell me your name?” she asks with a flicker of a smile. “I swear I won’t tell those guys.”

Her voice is sweeter out here in the alley than it was inside the club. It’s as if outside she is freer, less restrained. I want to hear her voice again. I want to hear her call my name.

“I’m Callahan,” I tell her. “But my friends call me Cal.”

She nods, pressing her lips together and running a hand through her long dark hair. She’s fucking gorgeous, leaning against this wall in a tiny little dress, her long legs teasing me, and those heels. They are the kind of stilettos you wear to get fucked in.

“Nice to meet you, Callahan.”

At this I laugh, “Oh so we’re not gonna be friends?”

“We can be friends, it’s just...” she starts but then shrugs her shoulders, shaking her head. “I didn’t want to presume anything.”

“Well, you were right to think that. I don’t want to be friends either. At least, not just friends.” I lean closer to her, see the hungry look in her eyes.

Good, because I’m fucking starving.

I growl softly, causing her to laugh. And for a moment we stare at one another, and I swear to fucking God she opens up her heart to me then and there. Or maybe she’s one of those women who always wears her heart on her sleeve. God, I hope not, otherwise, she’s gonna get eaten up in this town.

And right now, I want to be the only one eating. Her. Sprawled out on my mattress, her tits bouncing, her body mine.

“It was really scary in there,” she admits. “If fights like that are common, then I’m way out of my league in this town.”

I smirk. “Do you not get in many bars fights back home?”

“Naw, I’m a lover, not a fighter,” she says a slight smile tugging at the side of her mouth.

“Then I’ll do the fighting for us, you can do the nursing back to health.”

She turns her head, looking at my fist, taking it in her hand and examining it. “Does it hurt?”

I give her my most debonair smile, realizing I haven’t felt so invigorated in the presence of a woman for a long ass time. “Not when you’re holding it, Jules.”

She cocks a brow at me. “And are you always that cheesy?”

I frown. “Are you always this hard to impress?”

She shakes her head, laughing. “This was an effort to impress me?”

“I suppose it would be hard to impress a supermodel like you.”

She blinks slowly, her heavy lashes taunting me. “I’m not a supermodel. A model, maybe, but not for any effort on my part.”

“So, you were in the right place at the right time?” I ask.

“Something like that.” She shrugs, looking up at me with a wistfulness about her that causes my alpha-sensibilities to go into overdrive. “I don’t think I was in the right place tonight.”

I run my hand over her jawline, hooking her chin with my finger. “Maybe you were. Maybe we were supposed to meet tonight.”

“Like fate?” she asks, but her pursed lip tells me she doubts such fantasies.

I’m close enough to her I could lean in for a kiss, but something tells me she isn’t ready for that. Even though her full lips tell me otherwise.

“You don’t believe in destiny?” I ask.

At this, she sighs. “I may be from the cornfields of Indiana, but I’m not naive. Bad things happen to good people... and I don’t believe it was their fate to experience them.”

I nod, appreciating her depth, knowing she certainly isn’t like the other women in the club tonight. No. Jules is from a different place, and this isn’t where she belongs. And clearly, she has been through some shit.

“Goods things happen to people too,” I tell her. “Like us being here, right now.”

She smiles, and I see that her disbelief hasn’t made her jaded. No, she may have been through some rough spots, but she isn’t bitter.

She still knows how to laugh. How to light up a room with her smile.

I lick my lips, wanting to kiss her so fucking badly. Leaning close to her ear, I ask, “So, you know I can throw a punch, make cheesy one-liners, and am a sappy romantic... what else do you need to know before I can take you home with me?”

“Home?” she asks, surprise in her voice. “You don’t want to take me to one of those rooms upstairs in the Fuck Club?”

“You said you wouldn’t use those rooms unless it was the right moment, the right guy.”

She licks her lips, my cock twitching as she does. “Maybe you are the right everything.”

I tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear, shake my head. “I don’t want to go back in there tonight.”

“Another time?” Her breasts heave as she asks the question, wanting me as badly as I want her.

“It’s a goddamn guarantee,” I smirk. “But not tonight. Tonight, let’s forget about the A-List, and instead, make our own little fuck club.”

She lifts a finger, pointing to the door we exited, her face wild with anticipation. “You aren’t like the people in there, are you?”

I narrow my eyes, trying to get her meaning. “I like to think so,” I tell her honestly.

She leans closer, her lips nearly on mine. “Then take me anywhere you like.”