NO SOONER HAD THE words left Walt’s mouth and it was on.
Shouts erupted and the place broke into chaos. Walt and his crew swarmed Noah and his hapless friends. Annie’s screams rocked my ears. Glass shattered and chairs and tables flew. I staggered, getting jostled in the sudden press of bodies. An elbow caught me in the eye. I cried out at the sharp jab and went down, dark spots dancing in my vision as feet stomped all around me. I clenched my teeth against the pain and curved into a small ball, clutching my face.
A hand clamped around my arm and yanked me up. Suddenly I was off my feet and being carried. Blinking, I focused on the guy who was carrying me. Hot Biker Boy.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
“Getting you out of there before you get trampled.” I shivered at the first sound of his voice. It was deep and throaty and matched him perfectly. Goose bumps broke out over my skin.
I twisted my head around to assess the chaos. What about Annie? And the others? “My friends!”
He shook his head, his mouth pressed in a grim line.
The image of Annie getting crushed beneath biker boots flashed through my panicked mind. Desperate, I hit his impossibly hard chest. “You have to help—”
“You’re lucky I got you out of there. I can’t carry all of you.”
I squirmed in his arms, determined to go back for Annie and the others. I couldn’t leave them! “Let me down.”
An air horn blared long and hard across the air. The kind that made your ears bleed. Everything fell silent in the buzzing echo of that noise. Everyone froze—even Biker Boy.
“Enough!”
My gaze flew to the owner of that gravelly voice. A man stood on top of the bar, a shotgun in one hand and the air horn in the other. “I’m not having my bar trashed tonight! Next person to throw a punch in my bar is gonna eat a bullet!” For emphasis, the owner swung the barrel of his shotgun around the room. “Understood?”
It was like I’d walked into some old Dirty Harry movie. This couldn’t be real.
“Oh, it’s real, sweetheart.” The deep voice rippled through me, leaving gooseflesh in its wake.
Apparently I’d spoken out loud. My gaze snapped back to Biker Boy. His heart thudded strong and steady beneath my palm where it rested on his chest. I jerked my hand away and crossed my arms. “You can put me down. I think everything is under control now.” A quick glance confirmed that Walt and his friends were reclaiming their seats, grumbling and looking like chastised children. The rest of the bar followed suit, righting tables and chairs.
“Sure.” He lowered me to the ground, my body sliding along his in the most disconcerting way.
I quickly put space between us, stepping back and pressing a hand to my neck where my pulse hammered like it wanted to burst from my skin. I inhaled his clean soapy smell. It was nice. Especially in this place where the odors mostly consisted of sweat and smoke.
He clucked his tongue and peered closely at my face. “Oh, you’re gonna have a shiner there.”
With a grimace, I touched my tender eye. “I’ll just get my friends and go.”
“Yeah. That would be a good idea.”
Scowling, I dropped my hand and whirled around. Leaving him behind, I found Annie with an arm wrapped around Noah’s waist. He didn’t look good. The right side of his face was swollen, his eye puffy and sealed shut. His band members didn’t look much better as they clumsily gathered up their instruments.
“Let me help.” I moved to wrap another arm around Noah, but Annie yanked away.
“You’ve done enough.”
“Me?” I pressed a hand to my chest.
“Thanks to you Noah got jumped.”
“Me?” I repeated dumbly.
“Yeah.” Annie’s face scrunched up, looking almost unattractive. “Get your own ride home.”
“Are you serious?” I looked around me. “You can’t leave me alone—”
“It’s not my problem.” She shouldered past me. I gaped at her, watching as she headed for the door. Granted, I knew that Annie wasn’t the nicest girl. I hadn’t liked the way she treated Pepper last fall when Pepper and Reece were first hooking up. I’m sure jealousy had been a factor in her catty remarks, but that was months ago. She’d been decent since. I never would have imagined she’d leave me stranded like this.
So much for a fun night out.
Noah’s band members followed, lugging their instruments and amps. They didn’t even move toward the bar to get paid. Although a guy who drove a Lexus probably wasn’t in this for the money anyway.
I reached a hand out for the drummer—he was my only hope—but he just glared at me with one eye that looked like it was warming up to a nice shade of blue. Clearly they all blamed me. And they were leaving me here. Unbelievable.
I hurried after them, weaving between tables on unsteady legs. Someone bumped into me and I had to grab the surface of a table to keep from falling. The sudden action made my world spin and I squeezed my eyes in one long blink in an attempt to quell the dizziness.
“Hey, watch it,” a woman’s scratchy voice warned.
My gaze lifted toward the door, panicked that they had already left and I’d lost my chance to change their minds. I caught sight of their retreating backs an instant before the doors slammed shut behind them.
With a curse, I pushed after them. By the time I stepped outside, they were already getting into their cars. Sudden cold that had nothing to do with the wintry air swam through my veins. My boots crunched over the snow-packed parking lot.
“Annie!” I shouted just as my foot hit an icy patch and I went down hard. My ass took the brunt of the fall and for once I was glad that it was well padded. I might be petite, but I’d been cursed with a backside that could serve as a flotation device.
Annie heard me. I watched helplessly as she looked back at me before ducking inside the car behind the wheel. Struggling less than gracefully to my feet, I gawked as she started the car and reversed it out of the parking spot. Noah’s Lexus followed, his drummer driving.
I stared after the taillights, my teeth chattering. My jeans were wet from my fall. Looking down, I swatted at my thighs, trying to dust off the white powder.
Snow started to fall softly then. Blinking against the wet flurries, I turned and moved back toward the bar, taking shuffling steps to keep from falling again.
My legs felt heavy, every step a chore, but I forced myself to cross the threshold. It was warmer inside at least—even if it smelled like one giant ashtray.
I stayed near the door, scooting along the wall, trying to be inconspicuous. No easy feat when I’d started a brawl not ten minutes ago. I’m guessing I was on people’s radar.
Teeth still chattering, I fished my phone out of my pocket and punched in Pepper’s name. It rang four times and then went to voice mail. Yanking the phone from my ear, I glared at the lit screen. “C’mon, Pepper.” Damn rabbits. I could guess what they were doing. Instead of leaving a message, I poked at the phone several times with my finger, missing the end button before successfully landing on it.
Pink Floyd piped out of the speakers near the stage and everyone looked livelier than they had half an hour ago. No more of Noah’s best of the ’80s to mellow the mood. It was a miracle they hadn’t been booted out of here before I even spilled beer in some biker’s lap.
I was on the verge of dialing Georgia—if I could hit the right button. She’d been with her boyfriend since she was sixteen, so they probably weren’t having sex. At least certain comments from Georgia led me to believe that they didn’t exactly have a rocking sex life. Harris was such a tool. Sad really. Georgia deserved better. She deserved fun and a guy who worshipped her and that just wasn’t Harris, but somehow I was the only one who saw this.
“Friends leave you?”
My head snapped up at the sound of the deep voice. The motion threw off my balance. I staggered sideways.
Hot Biker Boy reached out as though to steady me, but I slid farther away, determined that he not touch me. He held up his hand, palm face out, as though to proclaim himself unarmed.
My stare moved from his palm to his face. A face too pretty to be in this bar where it looked like you needed an injection of penicillin if you just brushed up against one of its patrons.
Except he was one of them. A pretty-boy biker just seemed like an oxymoron. A giggle started to slip past my lips, but I quickly pressed my fingers to my mouth to kill the sound.
I gave my head a small shake, trying to clear it from the effects of alcohol.
He leaned against the wall just a few inches beside me. “You okay?” he asked.
“Y-yes. Fine. You? How are you? Oh, wait. Me?” I frowned. “Why? Why do you ask? Don’t I look okay?”
One corner of his mouth lifted in a sexy half grin. I could have kicked myself for babbling so much. A simple yes would have sufficed.
He angled his head, his deeply set eyes focusing on me with an intensity that I wasn’t accustomed to. Like he was really looking past the clothes and makeup and hair to the girl beneath. I squinted. Were those his lashes? Ridiculous. They were longer than lashes ought to be on a guy.
“You look drunk,” he replied.
I winced. Was it that obvious? “Not really. I’ve had a few.”
He gave me a skeptical look. In turn, I gave him what I hoped was my most sober look.
Shaking his head, he looked out at the bar that was growing just as rowdy as the women in the bathroom had predicted. It seemed like our fight had kicked things off for the night and now things were really hopping.
“You stranded here?”
I looked back at him and lied again. “No.” Stranded made me sound so . . . helpless. Even if it was true, that wasn’t me. I wasn’t helpless.
“Where’d your friends go?”
“They had to go somewhere,” I answered, not caring if that wasn’t really an answer at all.
“Without you?”
I exhaled. It was a difficult lie to maintain when I stood here alone. Cold. Wet. And more inebriated than I should be considering my designated driver had flaked out on me. I dragged a hand down one side of my face.
He buried one hand in his jacket pocket but didn’t add anything else. We leaned against the wall in silence, staring straight ahead, several inches separating us. The heat from his body radiated toward me. I rotated my phone in my hand nervously, waiting for him to go away, unwilling to call Georgia in front of him and reveal just how desperate and alone I was.
One of the women from the bathroom was dancing on top of a table now, waving her arms above her head as she gyrated her hips to the shouts and cheers of men below her.
He spoke up beside me, his voice a rich, deep rumble over the din. “I know you’re not stranded or anything.” Was that mockery in his voice? “But I could give you a ride home. If you want.”
If you want.
I turned to survey him, propping a shoulder against the wall. I looked him up and down, considering every Hot Biker Boy inch of him. He really was beautiful. Dark haired, with eyes not quite as dark, a chocolaty brown. Deep and mesmerizing. Too bad he was everything I could never have. “I’m not going to fuck you.”
He swung around to fully face me, his shoulder leaning against the wall. His brown eyes glinted as he looked me up and down, deliberately thorough. In the same manner I had evaluated him. “I don’t remember asking,” he answered.
I felt my face go hot. His words were as dismissive as I’m sure he meant them to be and my temper flared. “So what? You’re offering to drive me home because you’re just a Good Samaritan? Right. I believe that.”
My gaze skimmed the long length of him in his leather jacket and biker boots. He was a walking fantasy. If I was into the idea of losing control and having hot sex with a bad boy, he would be an ideal candidate.
One of his eyebrows winged high. “It’s just a ride.”
Nothing about him screamed safe and yet what he was offering meant I needed to trust him.
“It’s never just a ride.” I tucked a damp strand of short hair behind my ear. No, when I went home with a guy, a hell of a lot more happened than a simple drive from point A to point B.
“Look, princess,” he began, all mockery gone, his tone indicating that he had finished playing.
Princess? Affronted, I squared back my shoulders.
“You’re alone and drunk in a place you have no business being,” he went on to say. “Right now there’s a dozen guys watching you, trying to figure out the easiest way to get you on your back.”
I blinked, my stomach rebelling. I looked out at the room again, seeing the faces, the eyes. He was right. Several were looking our way. Assessing me.
He added, “You’re like a lamb in a pack of wolves in this place.”
Yeah. That pretty much summed up how I felt. Not an alien feeling. I’d felt that way before. And I’d vowed never to feel that vulnerable again.
And yet here I was.
“And you’re not a wolf, right?”
“Don’t worry. I’m not into princesses. Drunk or sober.”
I bit back denying that I was a princess. It would be like pleading for him to like me. And I didn’t beg for any guy to like me.
“You really want to stay here?” his expression reflected his doubt.
I looked back out at the room. Walt chose that moment to blow me a kiss . . . followed up by an obscene gesture. I quickly tore my gaze away. How did I end up in a place like this all by myself?
Clearly I had gotten too comfortable, too cocky, too accustomed to always being in control. One phone call with Mom and I flew off the handle and let myself get into a situation where I was no longer in control.
All this thinking, and too much beer, did not make for a good combination. My stomach couldn’t take it anymore. “I’m going to be sick.” Whirling around, I pushed out the door. I moved several steps and settled my hands on my hips, throwing my head back and breathing in the frigid air, letting it brace me. The nausea subsided.
I heard him behind me, his solid steps thudding over the slush of snow and ice.
“I’m okay.” For some reason the words felt more like an assurance to myself. I glanced back at him. His forehead creased as he watched me, clearly unconvinced.
Sighing, I glanced out at the parking lot again. Snow was starting to pile up on the bikes and cars. Bleakness swallowed me. I just needed to get home. The compulsion to seal myself in my dorm room until I felt like me again rose up inside me like a desperate, living thing. I could forget the recklessness of this night but I had to get it behind me first.
“I live in town,” I heard myself saying. “In a dorm. At Dartford.”
He chuckled lightly and the sound rubbed like velvet on my skin. “Could have guessed that.” His gaze skimmed over me. “C’mon, college girl. Let’s get you home.”
I hesitated, still thumbing at my phone in my pocket. I could call Georgia. Or just take a ride from this guy and be home in thirty minutes. Georgia and Pepper wouldn’t have to know how stupid I was for going out with Annie in the first place and drinking too much. I could forget all about tonight and go back to being the carefree party girl in charge of her fate. And the next time Mom called I’d let it go straight to voice mail. I could feasibly go another six months without talking to her. All these less than coherent thoughts chugged through my brain.
He stepped ahead into the parking lot and stopped, turning halfway, waiting for me. My eyes scanned him. He was tall and built. Any girl would want to climb all over him. And he could handle it, too. He wouldn’t break a sweat. I squeezed my eyes in a tight blink at the sudden image of my legs wrapped around his lean hips, his big palms holding me up by the ass as I dragged my mouth down his neck. My breathing quickened.
“C’mon. You don’t have to be scared. I promise I’m not a sociopath.”
Wouldn’t a sociopath say that very thing? But it was his: You don’t have to be scared that got to me. Taunted me. I wasn’t scared. Ever. I wouldn’t allow myself to be. Not again. Lifting my chin, I stepped forward and followed him. He stopped at an old beat-up truck, actually leading me to the passenger-side door.
I gave the truck and him a long look. “What? No bike?”
“It’s like ten degrees out.”
So he did have a bike. That image of him wasn’t totally dashed then. He pulled the door open for me. It was rather gentlemanly, and, I admit, unexpected. Most of the guys I hooked up with didn’t get the door for me.
I shoved the comparison aside and climbed inside. He shut the door, the sound jarring. I fumbled for the seat belt, my fingers clumsy and slipping several times before getting a good grip. God. I really was drunk.
I exhaled a deep breath and stared straight ahead, willing myself into sobriety.
It wasn’t the first time I’d drunk a little too much, but this was seriously the worst scenario considering I was at the mercy of a strange guy. How many crazy abduction stories began this way?
I shivered a little where I sat and not just from cold. I wrapped my fingers around my knees. Come on, Em. Pull it together.
Then he was in the truck cab with me, turning the engine over. It purred to life. He adjusted the heat. The air puffed out cold from the vents.
“Give it a minute,” he said. Leaning down, he grabbed an ice scraper from under his seat. Slamming the door shut, he hopped out and scraped the windows free of ice and snow with strong, sure movements.
I watched his face through the glass, and his look of concentration did something to my chest, made it squeeze a little tighter. Stupid. I knew that achy little squeeze for what it was, and I couldn’t let myself succumb to attraction for him. Square jaw; straight nose; and sensual, well-carved lips aside—he wasn’t my type. As if to confirm that fact, I turned on him as soon as he got back inside the truck. “You’re taking me straight home.”
He gave me a look that told me he was beginning to think I was a freak. “I got that, yeah.” Chafing his hands, he blew air into them, not looking at me again as he waited for the truck to warm up. Like I wasn’t worth the time, and that made me feel a little foolish.
“Are you a student?” I asked, relieved that the question sounded normal.
He glanced at me. “As in do I go to college?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
He lowered his hands from his mouth. “Do I look like a college boy to you?”
No. Not any of the boys I went to college with at least. “Did you finish high school?”
He made a soft snorting sound. “Yeah. I finished high school.”
A beat of silence followed before I asked another question. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-three.”
He was three years older than me. And he never went to college. “What do you do?”
The skin along his jaw tensed, a muscle feathering the skin, a hint that I had hit a nerve. “Who said I did anything?” His tone was hard, almost mocking again.
I’m sure that he did something—how else did he survive?—but now I’d annoyed him and he wasn’t about to share anything with me. I shrugged like I didn’t care.
“How about we start with names?” I asked, my voice conciliatory. “I’m Emerson.”
“Shaw,” he returned.
Shaw. He looked like a Shaw. Whatever that meant. It just fit him. I exhaled through my nose. The air escaping the vents was feeling decidedly warmer now.
“Emerson.” He shifted the truck into drive and backed out. “Well. Hope you don’t mind me saying so, but you’ve got some suck-ass friends.”
A breath shuddered from my lips. “Yeah. Well. They’re not really my friends.”
“Guess that’s good, but then why were you out with them tonight?”
Because an ugly conversation with my mother sent me over the edge and made me act stupid.
Instead of saying that, I admitted, “ ’Cause my real friends all have boyfriends.”
The words slipped freely from my lips and I realized I might have been better off if I’d just admitted to a fight with my mother. I almost sounded like I envied my friends their girlfriend status.
“And you don’t?” Was he trying to find out if I was available? But he’d already made it clear he wasn’t interested in fooling around with me. My gaze traveled over the hands holding the steering wheel. They were big, masculine hands. Sexy, with strong lines and blunt-nailed fingertips. The kind of hands that screamed capable, strong. Hands that would know how to touch a girl.
Blinking, I forced my gaze to the road, my grip on my knees tightening. “No. I don’t have a boyfriend. What about you?”
He rolled up to a stoplight and eased on the brakes. “No. No boyfriend either.”
I giggled. I couldn’t help it. My body relaxed and slipped to the side, sagging against the door. With a hiccup, I turned and watched him from beneath heavy lids. “You’re funny.” And panty-dropping hot. The insane impulse to crawl across the seat and press my mouth to his neck seized me. Alcohol motivated, I’m sure. That and the fact that it was a Saturday night and I would typically be tangled up with a boy by now.
He considered me with his brown eyes, making me feel all soft and fuzzy inside. The cab of the truck felt warm and cozy. I could doze off right here. “So how come you don’t have a boyfriend like your friends do, Emerson?”
“Too much trouble.” I sighed sleepily. “A boyfriend would just keep me from doing whatever I wanted to do.” Was that my voice all throaty?
His gaze, bottomless and deep, gleamed in the shadows of his truck. He eyed my legs, encased in snug denim. I felt stripped bare under his regard and the sensation wasn’t entirely bad. “And what kinds of things do you want to do?” His voice dragged over my skin like a physical caress.
Smiling, my head rolled against the back of the seat. I was buzzing, floating in a feel-good state. I felt a little dangerous, untouchable, which was a heady thing. Deceptive maybe, but I felt empowered . . . in control again. “Oh, all kinds of bad things.”
And then, because I couldn’t stop myself, I stretched toward him as far as my seat belt would allow. Until the tip of my nose brushed his neck. My lips moved against his skin as I spoke, “Things like this.”
A small hiss escaped him. I pulled back and looked up at him.
His voice rumbled up from his chest, deep and tight sounding. “Go on then. Show me.”
My smile widened at the challenge. I never could pass up a dare and that sounded an awful lot like a dare to me. I brought my face back to his neck and breathed him in. He smelled good. Like soap and winter and fresh-cut wood. No overpowering cologne on him. I nuzzled his neck like I was some kind of purring cat desperate to get closer. And then I licked him. Tasted his warm, slightly salty skin with a small, satisfied growl. I followed up with a moist, open-mouthed kiss on the side of his throat.
His breath caught just above my ear, fluttering my hair. I felt him swallow, his throat working against my lips.
Everything in me felt all melty and liquid-hot. Like my muscles had dissolved into heated butter. I wanted to crawl inside him. Press my body to his until I experienced every part of him. Every line and dip and hollow. All his hardness. My belly tightened, the ache there throbbing deep.
A sudden surge of need shook me to my core. It wasn’t like anything I’d felt before and that rattled me. I’d made out with enough guys that I should have felt this way before, but something about this, about him, was different.
I leaned closer, ready to crawl into his lap, but my seat belt locked hard and caught me, keeping me from going farther. It was enough. Enough to bring me back.
Enough for me to remember that I did not fling myself at guys like him. I settled back on my side of the truck, my gaze turning wary as I watched him, his jaw locked and tense, eyes glittering with a predatory light. He looked like he wanted to say something . . . or do something. Like maybe haul me into his lap.
I tensed. I knew better than to tease guys who couldn’t be managed. It was a line I never crossed except I just had.
A horn honked behind us. He blinked and turned his attention to the road.
I willed him to hurry, to get us across town so that I could dive into my dorm and forget tonight. Forget him.
He stared straight ahead, one hand draped casually over the top of the steering wheel. “I don’t think you’re the bad girl you pretend to be. Not even close.”
I compressed my lips and watched the blur of lights flash past as we entered the city. No point in arguing. Not unless I wanted to prove to him that I was a bad girl, and I didn’t dare do that.
“You’re drunk,” he announced. “Tomorrow you’ll wake up in your warm bed and not even remember my name.”
I sank deeper into the seat, bringing my legs up to curl on the bench. The fog of euphoria shrouding me began to fade away. My head was starting to throb, pulse right at the temples. My heavy lids slid shut, instantly easing some of the pressure that was building between my ears. I’d rest them for just a moment. Until he got to campus and then I’d tell him which dorm.
Shaw. His name flitted across my fading consciousness. I’d remember. I’d remember his name.