It was going to be one of those nights.

The moment Jac spotted Buck in the doorway of the bar, she knew there would be trouble. He had that look about him. The one that said half a pint and he’d be looking for a fight and didn’t care where he found it. The one that had led to him coming home at two in the morning once and trying to use her as a punching bag.

Only years of working in a bar and a healthy dose of oh hell no had saved her from a beating. It had cost her a four-year relationship, but she wasn’t anyone’s punching bag. Not anymore. She’d done enough of that when she’d been a kid.

Keeping a careful eye on Buck, she waited until he sat down in the corner near to another man. Chaz was a good friend of Buck’s. They’d known each other since childhood. She breathed a small sigh of relief. If anyone could keep her ex in line, it would be Chaz. He was good people, even if he did try and convince her every time he saw her that she should get back together with Buck.

Not a cat in hell’s chance, she thought, viciously wiping down the bar after serving a customer. Even though it was packed in here tonight, there wasn’t a lot for her to do. Huckby’s laying off had added a depressed tone to the evening, so everyone was just sitting quietly at their tables, staring into their drinks.

There was no anger, just a sense of finality and misery. They’d all known it was coming, but they’d all hoped and prayed. Huckby’s was one of the last big holdouts. A local firm run by local people for local workers. Even its size and history hadn’t been able to stem the tide. Large corporations driving down prices meant local employers just couldn’t compete.

Jac sighed and emerged from behind the bar to collect empties. With so few jobs around town now, it meant it wouldn’t be long until people were forced to look elsewhere for work. They would move away, forced to so they could feed their families, and Stanton would become a ghost town.

Crap.

She needed a second job. Like yesterday. Perhaps as a billionaire’s secretary or something. She wouldn’t even mind the sex—because they all seemed to be kinky, at least in the books she read—if he was good looking.

Speaking of good looking… her gaze slid sideways to the Viking wannabe at the back of the bar. Tall, blond and ripped, he had the attention of all the women in the room. Even Candy, ex-prom queen and the most popular girl when they’d been in school, had pulled her low-cut top down so far the girls were in imminent danger of doing an impression of a baby bird and falling out of the nest. But he wasn’t paying attention to the gorgeous blonde.

Instead, his gaze was firmly pinned on Jac. When he spotted her looking his way, he smiled. And not just an ordinary sort of smile either. It spread slowly over his perfectly formed lips, revealing straight white teeth and turning his already handsome face into something breathtaking. He wasn’t a man, she decided, but a god instead, sent down to Earth to tempt her into sin. There was no way a mere mortal like her could resist. Lifting his glass, he saluted her and downed what remained.

Unused to being the object of such direct scrutiny, she almost squeaked and dropped the glasses she was carrying. Holy crap… why would he be looking at her? Some vestige of female survival instinct, aka the one that stopped her making an utter fool of herself, made her pause. She managed a small nod and smile, like he was any other customer, and scuttled off behind the bar to unload her empties.

As she did, she caught sight of herself in the mirror behind the bar, and lost all of the warm and fuzzy feelings she’d had at a guy like that paying her attention. Her hair was a frizzy mess. She kept it short into the nape of her neck for convenience, tucking the loose curls away behind her ears most of the time. Even if she wore Alice bands or clips, it managed to fight its way loose, and a bandana was too hot to work in, so she coped.

But the hair wasn’t the worst of it. With running from the Kallsons to here, she hadn’t bothered with a lick of makeup and her clothes… well, work chic wasn’t exactly the most attractive. Great. She sighed to herself as she dumped her glasses down and started to load them into the ancient washer crammed into the corner under the window. She’d long ago worked out how to load it just right to make the most of each cycle, so her hands moved on autopilot as she wondered if she could slip into the staff room and throw at least some lippy on. Then she remembered she’d run out of the stuff last month.

Fuck my life, she sighed, closing her eyes for a moment as the sounds of an escalating argument rose above the subdued chatter.

“And I’m telling you—”

Great. That was Buck’s voice.

All thoughts of the hot guy in the corner gone, she started the washer and grabbed a cloth to wipe her hands as she emerged from behind the bar. Larry had gone into the basement to hook up another barrel, so it was just her. Her lips set into a thin line. That was no problem. She could more than deal with Buck.

“Com’on, Buck, I didn’t mean that and you know it,” Chaz argued, already on his feet, his chair tipped over behind him. His hands were out in the universal gesture for peace, but it seemed Buck wasn’t having any of it. Weaving on his feet, he pointed at Chaz, his features twisted with anger.

“You’re a fucking asshole. ‘Z your fault the plant shut down. If you’d just kept your mouth shut about the skimming on the side, they wouldnt’a looked into the figures.”

Oh hell. Buck was on a roll. Jac kicked herself in the ass. She really should have kept more of an eye on him and thrown him out before this, but he’d seemed as quiet and depressed as the rest tonight.

“Buck,” she said as she approached, her voice firm. “I’m not having any trouble with you tonight, understand?”

“You!”

Far from making matters better, the sound of her voice had Buck spinning around. He wavered on the spot for a second before he got his bearings and focused on her. Damn. How much had he had? She caught sight of a glass on the table behind him. Not nearly enough to have caused this level of drunken argumentativeness. He must have been drinking before he arrived.

“Yeah. Me,” she shot back, snapping her towel and draping it over her shoulder with a flick—a subtle reminder that she worked here and had the power to throw his ass out if she had to. “Now calm down, or get out.”

“Don’t you tell me to calm down, woman,” he hissed, advancing on her menacingly. With a start, she realized she’d read the situation all wrong. Buck was gunning for a fight, and it didn’t seem like he cared where he got it from. “Not gonna have no little woman, tell me what to do. No sirree,” he sneered. “Why don’t you run along back to the kitchen where you belong… cause you sure as fuck weren’t no good in bed.”

She sucked in a hard breath at the insult, ignoring the sudden silence in the bar. Tension arced through the air as the men around them waited for Buck to explode. Jac knew them. Not one of them would lift a hand to help her against Buck, not in this state. Sure, Chaz would try, but he fought about as well as a warm marshmallow.

A throat cleared behind her. She blinked in surprise as a big hand on her arm moved her to the side.

“Now, that wasn’t a pleasant thing to say to the lady,” the hot Viking from the back of the bar said, stepping in front of Jac. As pleasant as he’d been earlier, now his face was hard and threatening. “I suggest you apologize and leave.”

“Yeah? Who’s gonna make me? Sure ain’t gonna be a pretty boy like you.” Buck obviously didn’t have the sense he was born with, squaring up to the newcomer with a cockiness that bordered on suicidal. Even Jac could see the new guy moved like a predator, with hard muscle packed onto that big frame. “Hell, looks like that, I dunno if I should fight ya… or fuck ya.”

Almost before he’d finished his sentence, Buck swung sloppily. The big guy moved quicker than anyone Jac had ever seen, and Buck’s fist slammed into his open palm. Closing his hand around Buck’s, he twisted and pulled, turning the smaller man until his arm was locked up his own back.

“Neither you would enjoy,” the Viking snarled, yanking Buck around until he could see Jac. “Now apologize to the lady or I’ll break your shoulder into so many pieces your healers will be able to use it for a fucking puzzle. Understand me?”

Buck looked like he was going to argue until his arm was shoved higher up his back. With a squeal of pain, he nodded and looked at Jac.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

“Sorry for what?” the man behind him demanded, shoving again. Sweat broke out over Buck’s brow, and he finally managed to focus on Jac.

“I’m sorry for saying you weren’t no good in bed,” he managed, a little sulkily. He didn’t like being held accountable for his actions and hot-blond-Viking-dude was making him, in front of a buttload of people. That had to sting. He yelped again and added hastily. “An’ for being mean to you.”

“Thank you.” She nodded and then looked at the guy behind him. “You can let him go now. I think he’s learned his lesson.”

Big and blond nodded and released Buck with a little shove forward. Which was when the shit hit the fan. With a snarl, Buck, who had obviously not learned his lesson, rebounded off the table in front of him and came up swinging.

Unfortunately for Buck, the new guy seemed to be expecting the move. Moving in, he easily avoided Buck’s wild punches and threw one of his own. Right into Buck’s nose.

“Well… shit…” Jac hissed as her ex hit the floor, out for the count. She sighed and looked up at her newest problem. “Right, handsome. You knocked him out. You get to help me take him home.”

Human females made absolutely no sense.

Rynn stood for at least a couple of kilasecs looking at her blankly, completely confused by the human’s reaction to his rescue. He’d thought she would fall, pliant and grateful, into his arms after he’d saved her from the aggressive male and what would undoubtedly have turned into a violent situation. He’d seen males who couldn’t hold their drink before, and usually it led to violence. Normally he wouldn’t have intervened, but there was a female involved. He couldn’t in all conscience allow a woman to be harmed.

But, instead of being grateful, she was looking at him like he’d crawled out from under a rock. How had it become his responsibility to get the draanthing idiot back to his dwelling place? It didn’t make sense. Not at all.

Glancing around, he tried to enlist help from the males around him. Surely they would see that he was in the right and the best course of action was to throw the unconscious male into the vehicle storage area outside and let him sleep it off? But none of them would meet his eyes, turning their backs or shifting uncomfortably in their seats. The message was clear. He was on his own with the sharp-tongued female.

“I thought you would be pleased to be freed from his unwanted attentions, fair one.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he winced internally. Way too formal and other. It was like he forgot everything he knew about infiltrating another planetary culture as soon as she looked at him and pure Latharian warrior came out. At least he’d spoken in English rather than his native tongue.

Her brows creased, forming a cute little line between them. “Unwanted attentions?”

Disappointment rolled through him at her words. She was mated… to the idiotic male currently face down on the floor at his feet. No wonder she’d been so flustered by his smile earlier. Mated males were highly possessive. She had no doubt wished to avoid trouble. And he’d gone and caused it anyway. But to speak to your woman like that? He couldn’t… no male of his species lucky enough to have a woman would ever speak to her in such a disrespectful manner. And he knew that if he ever did, or gave her cause to doubt him in any way, there would be a queue of other warriors ready and willing to take his place at her side.

“My deepest apologies,” he inclined his head to her in a semi-bow. Dammit… Court protocol now? What was wrong with him? “I had assumed, given the tone of your conversation, that his attentions were unwanted. I see now I was incorrect in my assumptions.”

The little line between her brow deepened, her beautiful pale gaze flicking down to the male on the floor and then immediately back up. The speed she returned her attention to him fed his male ego, and he couldn’t help straightening a little and tensing his arms to show off the musculature there.

“No,” she said. “You were right. He’s a jerk and his attentions are definitely unwanted.”

Hope sparked in the center of his chest.

“He’s not your male?”

She snorted a laugh. “God no, splitting up with him was the best thing I ever did.”

Elation filled him. She wasn’t mated, which meant there was hope for him. Immediately, though, white hot jealousy followed at its heels. She’d let the worm of a male on the floor touch her. He’d known her… Sure, it had been before Rynn had even known about Earth’s existence. But it didn’t stop him wanting to pound the male into the dirt. He fought the feeling back, belatedly realizing that she was looking at him with expectation.

“What?” he asked, suddenly worried. Was there some sort of bizarre human ritual or expected response he’d neglected to give? He’d done his best to research Earth on the trip over here, using the information culled from the computers on the base Lady Jessica and her friends had been taken from.

Unfortunately, though, the records, while giving him an excellent background in Terran history and military capabilities, had given him very little on their arts and literature… and even less on social norms. For all he knew, there could be a ditty or dance to perform when a male was interested in a female or the reverse. He hadn’t thought so. In fact, human society appeared somewhat similar to that of his own species in some respects, but the way she was looking at him made him think he’d missed something important.

“What?” His voice came out sharper than he’d intended but she simply stuck her hands on her hips and flicked a pointed glance down at the unconscious male on the floor.

“Well… he’s not going to carry himself out to the car, now is he?”

Oh. She really did expect him to help her get the… what was the word Lady Jessica and Lady Kenna used in place of draanthic? Ahhh, yes… asshole. She apparently really did expect him to help her get the asshole out to his vehicle.

“Fine.” Bending at the waist, he easily scooped up the smaller male and threw him over one broad shoulder. Human males were a lot smaller and less muscled than the average Latharian warrior. Pudgier too. This one could definitely do with some battle conditioning.

“Lead the way, my lady.”

She gave him a look he couldn’t decipher but didn’t argue. “Take him outside,” she ordered, turning away from him. “I’ll be right out.”

With a one-shouldered shrug, he resisted the temptation to watch her ass in the tight black pants she wore and turned toward the door. The slight chill of the night air hit him as he walked outside, making the man over his shoulder moan slightly. Rynn paused, alert for any kind of impending wakefulness from the male. Sure, he could take the guy in a fight, but he didn’t fancy him coming out of sleep fighting, particularly not where he was balanced at the moment. But he needn’t have worried. The male made a few nonsense sounds and then settled right back down again.

“Come on then, this way.”

The sharp-tongued female had emerged from the shadows to the right of the building’s main entrance. It answered a few questions. He hadn’t seen anyone there when he’d arrived earlier, but he’d definitely felt like he was being watched. For some reason, he knew without asking it had been this little female. She’d concealed herself in the shadows well, but she had watched him. For some reason, rather than triggering alarm bells, her concealed scrutiny pleased him instead. If it helped her consider him as a potential mate, she could watch him all she wanted.

“He’s over here,” she announced, walking ahead of Rynn to a battered looking vehicle. Opening the back door, she motioned to the seats within. “Just shove him in there.”

“Happily, my lady.”

None too gently, Rynn hefted the smaller man off his shoulder and dropped him on the cluttered seats. A foul stench of rotting food billowed up, and he cursed under his breath.

“Yeah,” the female muttered, her hand over her nose and mouth. “Buck tends to eat a lot in his truck. Keys are in his back pocket.”

Obviously he was in charge of retrieving whatever “keys” were. Trying not to breathe as he bent back into the vehicle, Rynn half-flipped the human over and retrieved a bunch of metal from the back pocket of his pants. He held them out to the female, who gave him another odd look.

“You’ll have to do it. I can’t drive,” she told him, a flush on her cheeks as she refused to meet his eyes. He frowned as he figured it out. She couldn’t pilot the vehicle… but why would that be a source of embarrassment for her?

“No problem.” He threw the keys up in the air lightly as he strode around to the side of the vehicle. He’d flown everything from single seater Krynassis clutch fighters right through to a war commander’s flagship. And this was smaller than any of them. It couldn’t be that hard to pilot, surely?

He paused before he opened the door. She was looking at him oddly again. “What?”

“Driver’s side is this side.”

Draanth. He ducked down quickly and glanced inside. There was some kind of wheel contraption on the other side. Those must be the pilot’s controls. Perhaps the seats reclined and the displays folded out from the surface above?

“My mistake. Not from around here,” he said, quickly moving around to the other side of the vehicle. Rookie mistake. That was twice now. He’d have to be careful around her. She obviously ruined his concentration more than he was used to.

But if he thought it was bad before, he wasn’t prepared for the effect when they almost collided switching places. The male had left his vehicle resting close to another, the small alley between them barely big enough for him, never mind the both of them. He tried to move past the little female, only to realize they wouldn’t both fit.

“Apologies, my lady,” he murmured, flattening himself against the side of the other vehicle. He was a big male, but there was just enough room for her to squeeze through. His breathing hitched as she got closer, a flush on her cheeks as she lowered her eyes and turned sideways to slide past him.

The tips of her breasts brushed against his chest and that was it, every system in his body went into meltdown. Heat slammed through his veins, pumped by a heart that had gone into overtime. His cock sprang to attention, a savage ache so painful it stole his breath all over again. Worried that she’d feel the evidence of his arousal brushing against her and think he was as bad as the draanthic currently passed out on the back seats of the vehicle, he rammed his hips back against the metal behind him. All he wanted to do was surge forward and pin her between him and the vehicle behind her, bend his head and claim those luscious lips with his ow—

Something slammed hard into the glass his shoulders rested on, a vicious snarl making him jump. His warrior’s instincts kicked in and he surged forward, pinning the female under the safety of his bigger body as he located the threat. His hand snaked up between his shoulder blades, fingertips brushing the grip of the energy-whip he’d concealed there. There was a vicious animal in the vehicle behind them. Its sharp fangs snapped and slashed against the glass as it tried to get to them, blood curling snarls of warning penetrating the barrier. It wouldn’t take it long to get through. He’d have to be ready.

“Oh shut up, Cupcake, you big freaking softy!”

At the female’s barked order, the creature stopped with a confused whine. The fangs disappeared, and a face formed in the window, big dark eyes topped by what looked like floppy ears, looking at them with confusion.

“Just move aside a moment, chick… yeah, like that.”

Rynn altered his position slightly at the small hand on his bicep, still not ready to give up his protective stance. At the sight of the female’s face, the creature’s expression changed. The mouth split again and Rynn tensed himself for another attack, but instead, the thing grinned, it’s tongue lolling out. It looked… happy to see them.

“It’s called cupcake?” he asked, incredulously. “Isn’t that a terra… uhm, that’s a cake?” he finished lamely, aware that he’d messed up again. The line between her brows and the look in her eyes warned him that she was starting to question things, so he did the only thing he could.

Distracted her.

Leaning down, he brushed his lips over hers. “Whatever,” he murmured. “As long as it gets me closer to you.”

“Really?” she murmured back. “You do realize that the other window is open? All I have to do is yell ‘passenger door’ and she’ll be out here like a shot.”

He froze, his lips a mere millisec away from hers. The urge to just go ahead and kiss her almost overwhelmed him but he managed to control himself. “Riiight. Of course. I knew that.”

Slowly, he put space between them, frustration eating away at him as he looked down at her. She watched him with amusement in her eyes. She’d wanted him to kiss her. He’d felt the softening of her body against his. So why had she stopped him?