“Wait, I know who you are!” the man with the missing teeth sputtered as he pointed at the taller of the two men in the alley. “Ruby, you come here, girl!” he grabbed at my arm like he had some kind of claim to me. I yanked my arm away from him in disgust.

The gorgeous guy still hadn’t said a word, his eyes still fixed on me. When he looked away, to give my pursuer an assessing glance, I felt an almost physical loss. It was as if just being the center of his attention was enough to buoy me up, despite the circumstances. Like I was safe as long as he was watching me.

It didn’t matter that my butt still hurt from getting grabbed at, it didn’t matter that this booze hound had followed me into the alley. None of it meant anything, none of that bothered me, not when this man was looking at me in that hypnotizing way. I was enthralled, and he hadn’t even spoken a word to me yet.

He strode over toward me, and, winding up as he walked, he landed one heavy punch to the jaw of the man behind me.

I squealed! His fist passed through the air next to me, close enough that I could feel a rush of air. My face was inches away from the large, powerfully muscled shoulder of the stranger.

The man with the missing teeth didn’t let out a peep! He just seemed to absorb the blow and then, like a puppet whose strings had been cut, he fell to the ground, unconscious. He’d been knocked out cold. Lucky for him, I snickered to myself, he didn’t have any more teeth to knock out!

I thought I’d known strong men in my previous life. My first boyfriend in high school had been on the wrestling team. I used to go to his meets to cheer him on. I had a boss in New York who everyone said had played some sort of professional football.

But I had never actually seen anyone do anything like that. Not in real life. It was like something out of a movie.

I just stared, my mouth hanging open. On some deep, primal level, I was drawn to his easy and casual display of immense strength.

This man had nearly knocked the head off another man, and he had done it to protect me.

I had never seen anyone do anything like that for me before either.

I gazed up at him, taking in his height. Now that he was so close to me, I had to crane my neck to look up at him. Once again I was caught in the heady beam of his piercing gaze.

No-one spoke, no-one broke the spell as I looked into his eyes and he stared right back at me. The way that he was looking at me made me shiver. It was a hungry expression and I welcomed it, feeling once again that sense of warm security under his focus.

“Your -” the smaller guy started talking, stopping mid-sentence when the man next to me looked back at him with a glare.

It broke the spell of silence. The smaller stranger came over and bent down to check on the unconscious guy on the floor. “He’ll be fine, but we should get out of here.”

“Go!” My savior barked out, his voice low and sensuous, oozing masculinity. It was obvious to me that he was giving a command. His was the voice of somebody who expects to be obeyed. Who was this powerful and dominant man?

The smaller man was already walking away, following orders, getting into the lone car that was parked in the alley. “And the girl?”

“Leave her to me!” he said in a snarl of frustration, the laser focus of his vivid eyes back on me.

The longer sentence let me hear that there was a trace of an accent in his voice. It was too subtle, and his words barked too quickly, for me to pinpoint where exactly it was from. I thought it was a Russian accent, or an Eastern European one at least. I’d never been good with accents.

What I did recognise was his demeanor.

Oh, yes, I recognised that attitude of expectation of being obeyed, of easy dominance. Of power.

I had come across it often in my old life in New York. It was the same demeanor that high powered businessmen all seemed to share. But my gorgeous savior was not high powered businessmen. Men like that didn’t have meetings in back alleys. They weren’t built like professional athletes. They certainly didn’t punch out strangers for treating a woman badly. Who was this guy? Clearly the other man, the smaller man, worked for him...or was afraid of him.

Were they criminals?

Was the smaller man some sort of henchman?

And how had the toothless man recognized him? Were they all part of some criminal underworld? Beauville had always seemed like such a peaceful, law abiding place! This was the last thing I expected to see here!

Had I stumbled onto some sort of criminal deal? I’d heard stories about the Russian mob in this area, but always assumed it was just small town gossip. Maybe this man was linked to them. In the movies Russian mobster were always dangerous, amoral men who wouldn’t hesitate to kill innocent bystanders just because they’d witnessed a shady deal!

I took a faltering step backwards. Maybe this man wasn’t my savior afterall. The words he’d spoken to his henchman suddenly taking on a more ominous meaning.

Leave her to me? What did that mean? Was he going to kill me? That’s what the mafia did, wasn’t it?

My mind was going a mile a minute. Maybe I shouldn’t have watched all those true crime documentaries on Netflix. Not every man with an accent was a member of the mob! No, I was overreacting! Still...I didn’t understand who these men could be and what they were doing hanging out in the alley.

And then, even though I knew I should be scared for my life, I felt excited. It was the thrill of danger, making my heart race, my blood pumping fast.

It felt a lot like I was beginning to get turned on. But surely I wasn’t getting turned on! Not in some dirty alley, just from looking at some stranger!

He was so close to me now, handsome and dangerous, I just couldn’t control the way my body reacted to him!

“What...” I started to say. My voice came out in a breathless pant. It had to be obvious to him how he affected me! I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my body. I’d been chased down a hallway, seen a guy knocked out and now the most gorgeous man I’d ever met was threatening to kill me.

I took a deep breath, trying to sound calmer than I felt. “What are you going to do to me?”

Maybe if I was further away from him, I wouldn’t be as affected by the sense of raw power that radiated from him. I took another step backwards, stopping when my back hit against something, blocking my retreat. The bar’s backdoor had swung shut again.

I reached behind my back, not even sure if I wanted to leave his presence as my hand groped blindly for the door handle.

He followed me, leaning over me. His massive frame surrounded me as he put one hand on the door next to my head, stopping the door from opening and blocking me in. He was so close to me that I could feel the heat of his body as he pressed close, not quite touching me, just enclosing me in a solid wall of male muscle.

“You, sweetheart, are coming with me.”

“I am not! I’ve got to get back to the bar.”

Even though I was sure he was some sort of mobster, I wasn’t about to let him tell me what to do!

There had been enough men telling me what to do in my life, I thought indignantly.

He smirked down at me, like I’d just said something funny. It would have been annoying, but that smug smile just did something to me. I couldn’t help it, I just wanted him to kiss me with those smug, commanding lips. I wanted to feel that smirk against my skin.

No, I tried to clear my head. I had to be rational. This man was possibly dangerous. I should be doing everything I could to get away from him. If he knew I wasn’t alone, that Buddy was waiting for me to go back into the bar, then he’d let me go. And that...that was what I should want.

“My boss knows I’m back here. If I dont get back soon, then he’ll come looking for me.”

He shook his head at me.

“It’s too dangerous out here for you now, we have to leave. That man saw you with me and when he comes around, he’s going to start talking. You don’t want to be here when that happens,” he growled at me.

I looked around, making sure that there was no-one else in the alley. Besides the two of us, there was only the unconscious booze hound lying next to the trash. The henchman that had been ordered to leave was already in his car, pulling out of the alleyway.

The only potential danger I could see was this handsome stranger. Because I was sure now that he was dangerous. There was a menace to his presence, he had the dangerous power of a tiger stalking its prey, calm confidence of a man who was in control. And yet, in the loose cage of his arms I somehow felt safe.

“Who are you?” I whispered, I could feel my heart beating between my legs, my body throbbing in response to him being so close to me. I had never felt like this before and I was almost ashamed now, to be so aroused by some stranger.

I tried to take a calming breath. This wasn’t the time to feel like this! If he really was a member of the mob, then my life could be in danger!

I hadn’t even seen anything! All I saw was two men holding a small parcel wrapped in brown paper. I had no idea what was in the parcel! I couldn’t even describe what the other man had looked like. My whole focus had been the face of the man in front of me. Everything else had faded away into the background as I looked at him.

The smirk faded from his face, as if he was unhappy that I didn’t know who he was.

“There’s no time for this. Let’s go,” he said, grabbing my arm, pulling me forward. His large hand was like a clamp on my arm, so much bigger than my own hand.

I had a split second to decide, should I try and twist out of his grip, and open the bar door. Or should I go with him and let me take away from whatever danger he thought we were in? It was tempting to just get swept up in the excitement of the moment and let him take me wherever he was going. Despite all my concerns, I felt on some deep, innate and intuitive level that I could trust him.

I began to get excited. Where were we going? What was going to happen to me!? What was Buddy going to think if I just disappeared half-way through my shift?

The thought brought me crashing back to reality. I couldn’t run away from my responsibilities, just because some dangerous, gorgeous stranger told me to!

“But, my job! I’ve got to get back to work!” I said, protesting weakly. I didn’t want him to let me go. His grip on my arm loosened, but I somehow felt that we were even closer now. We weren’t quite touching, but I was very aware that the space between us was only fractions of an inch. I could feel the heat from his powerful body.

“Listen, beautiful. The longer we stay out here, the more danger we’re in. There are people looking for me who will kill you. They’ll kill you just because you were seen with me. Now, it’s your choice. Come with me now, or go back into the bar and pray that you survive the night.”

There was a look of honesty in his eyes. He really believed that I was in danger! I didn’t know what I had stumbled into when I’d run out into the alley but I could recognise trouble when I saw it.

I was touched by being called beautiful. Oh, I’d got used to leers and catcalls as I tended bar, working at the Corral meant dealing with that kind of talk from the barflies. This was an actual handsome man calling me beautiful as if he truly meant it.

“Alright, I’ll just let Buddy, my boss, know I’m leaving.”

His hand was still on my arm, warm through my thin t-shirt in the cool evening air. The heat of his hand made me very aware that this was the only point where we were touching. I was aware of his every movement, my stomach fluttering. Maybe it was because I’d never had a man this attractive look at me like that, or maybe it was because I knew he was trouble.

He frowned at me. The flutter in my stomach turned to ice. I wanted him to go back to smirking at me. It felt like I’d disappointed him and I hated it.

“You want to put him in danger too?”

I was trapped by that sharp and penetrating gaze of his. No, I’d never endanger Buddy. Not when I already owed him so much for everything he’d done for me. I shook my head quickly.

“Good, now let’s get out of here.”

He let go of me, his hand falling away. I instantly wished that he hadn’t released me, my arm was cold where he’d been holding on to me. I wanted him to warm me up again. It didn’t matter to me that this man seemed to be nothing but trouble. I felt alive just being in his presence.

In less than five minutes, he’d turned my world upside down. I wanted to go with him, because for the first time in months he’d made me feel something again. He was making me feel alive and attractive and turned on. I didn’t want to go back into Buddy’s bar.

Sure, I was happy that I’d been able to make a life for myself out of basically nothing. But it was an aimless life of selling beer and getting groped at by bar patrons. That life felt grey and boring now that I’d met this man. He was interesting and exciting and he knew how to treat a woman.

Hell, he’d punched a man in the face just to protect me!