Despite what the colossal asshole had said beer did to him, Nick ordered a longneck and guzzled it while staring at me. Crowded around a small, stand-up table in the packed bar, I couldn’t avoid the occasional sniff of his light pear scent. Being hip-to-hip with Karen hadn’t helped. There wasn’t enough room to avoid him. Fortunately, the dubstep remixes of Taylor Swift made conversation difficult.
I stuck my nose over the rim of my Shirley Temple and people-watched. The hole-in-the-wall had a decent amount of thirty-somethings dressed in business casual. Strange considering it was a Saturday.
Karen giggled and flipped her hair, having a grand time as she spoke in Dean’s ear. I darted glances at them in between my people watching. Dean found any excuse to touch her. It was cute, really. I wanted to shout that they needed to just go home together and get it over with already.
Bad idea, Shelby . If they went home together, I’d be stuck with Nick as my ride home.
And so when they started kissing, I did my best to disrupt them. Throat clearings, nearly spilling my drink, and kicking the table didn’t work. Only when they’d moved on to necking and a seat had opened up at the bar did I give up.
I shuffled through the bar flies and climbed onto the stool, waving down the cute bartender in a black tank top and bulging biceps for a refill of my drink. Unfortunately, the glass he handed me back had a kick to it. He’d made me a Shirley Temple Black. I pinched the swizzle stick between my thumb and forefinger, considering shiving him with it.
An arm stretched around my back. I went rigid until I smelled the smoky scent of Marlboro. Not Nick. Except…if that wasn’t Nick, then who the hell was it?
I turned my head, finding a set of chemically whitened teeth smiling at me. The owner of the teeth had hair styled to within an inch of its life and an outfit my boss’s yuppie son would have approved of. Maybe he’d have been considered handsome in most circles, especially with the thick scar over his right eye, but I didn’t like how he’d gotten up close and personal with me.
He winked his scarred eye and waved a finger at the bartender, speaking over the din. “Get ‘er another one of those.”
“I’m fine,” I said.
“Yes, you arrrre,” he said, trying to purr the words as he scanned me up and down.
I popped off the stool and took hold of my drink, looking up at him expectantly. “I meant I don’t want another drink. Excuse me.”
He stretched out both arms. “What’s your hurry, darlin’?”
Apparently a subtle request wouldn’t work on this one. “I’m not interested. Please move.”
“Aww, don’t be like that. Stay and chat.”
An Internet video I’d seen last week came to mind. What I wouldn’t do for a blow-up boyfriend to chase away guys right now.
“I’m not interested,” I said. “Move. Now.”
His smile faded. Lips curling, he got the look of someone about to insult.
“Move,” I lifted my glass between us, “or I swear to God I’m throwing my drink in your face.”
“Bitch,” he said as I shoved by him in the tiny space he’d allowed.
Drink in hand, I stalked toward Karen’s table, skidding to a halt at the tall guy in black and gray stomping through the crowd. Nick’s dark gaze pierced past me, stabbing toward whatever had gotten his dander up. He grabbed my shoulders and set me aside, continuing his trip. I whirled to watch his progress, wincing at each drink that sloshed as he shoved by six different patrons.
Nick stopped behind the yuppie who hadn’t wanted to take no for an answer. He tapped the guy on the shoulder. The yuppie faced him, smile vanishing when he spotted the furious Asian dude behind him. Nick hauled the yuppie a foot off the ground by his collar.
Heart jumping into my throat, I charged after him, losing the contents of my drink on the way. People shouted. I ignored them so I could grab Nick’s fist, but it didn’t budge. I tugged, jerked, and yanked to no effect. The yuppie’s features wrinkled in bemusement as I jumped up, using my weight as leverage. The arm remained where it was. Nick turned his head, letting that dark glare wash over me.
“What are you doing?” he asked, calm as you like when his arm muscles should have at least quivered beneath the extra hundred and thirty pounds of resistance.
I hung there like an idiot. “Keeping you from killing someone—” I swallowed back the word else.
Nick’s nostrils flared. He brought his fist down, and me with it as the yuppie scrambled upright. I released Nick’s wrist and awkwardly got to my feet, smoothing my pencil skirt over my rear. The yuppie tore out of Nick’s grip and stalked off with a colorful string of curses.
Nick glanced at my glass, grabbed it, and then waved at the bartender. I stared at his profile while he ordered me another drink. He ignored my presence during the interval between the order and when the Shirley Temple arrived. He set it between my hands, scanning my face as he did. I shuffled back because I didn’t like how close we were.
His pupils contracted. Nick’s hand shot out, latching onto my shoulder. One good tug had me stumbling away from Karen and the bar. Nick applied pressure to maintain my pace as he weaved me through the clumps of patrons. I held onto my Shirley Temple like a lifeline, using the cool glass to ground myself.
We came to the back wall. Nick maneuvered me toward the opening labeled Restrooms. A small, dark corridor led to an emergency exit sign glowing red on one side and restrooms on the other. He nudged me toward the exit. I went, but only because I thought opening the door might alert everyone in the place.
He used his grip to turn me to face him, backing me against the emergency door, and then got into my personal space. His fruity aroma brushed me before his hop-scented breath did. “What did you see?”
I clung to my glass and stared up at him, only just realizing he had to be at least six foot one. This close he also seemed broader than I’d originally thought. He blocked everything.
I swallowed, thinking of what to say in answer. “I saw you ready to punch that guy.”
“Not now. On Saturday. What did you see Saturday, Shelby?” Nick punctuated several of the words by stealing more of the precious space between us.
Ice cubes rattled against glass as my hand trembled. “I don’t know.”
“Since the police didn’t break down my door, I assume you made something up.”
“I didn’t know your name.” I winced as soon as the last word left my mouth. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
He shook his head. “I told you my name.”
“I didn’t know your surname.”
Nick smacked a palm onto the door above my head and left it there. “If you had, what would they have charged me with?”
“Um…” I lifted my glass in the bare space between us, taking a shaky sip. Non-alcoholic this time. Damn. “An adrenaline-related escape?”
A laugh snorted out of his well-formed nose. The air puffed at my hair and made me shiver. “Adrenaline,” he said. “You think that’s what you saw?”
I shook my head almost imperceptibly. “I don’t know what I saw.”
He smacked the other palm against the door, caging me. “How about what you heard, Shelby?”
My glass was the only thing keeping his body from touching mine. I didn’t dare drink from it and give him that opening. “I don’t know what I heard.”
His pitch lowered. “Take a guess.”
“I still don’t know what your surname is. I don’t know what I saw. I don’t know what I heard. You have nothing to worry about because the police are looking for the cop killer, not for you. They only want you for questioning. And I’m not going to tell them I saw you. So just—”
“Kang.” He cut my rambling short with the single word.
I didn’t understand what he’d said and blinked in confusion. He lifted the arm closest to the corridor’s corner. Nick’s fingers curled around my drink. He peeled it out of my grip, reaching over his shoulder, and then dropping it. I winced as my Shirley Temple shattered into who knew how many pieces. His palm slapped beside me before I could move.
“My surname is Kang.” Nick leaned in, letting his chest settle along mine, hot mouth grazing my ear. “What you saw was me Transforming.”
“I don’t want to know this,” I said, pitch rising as I squirmed away.
Nick’s arm lowered to keep me from bolting. “What you heard was me killing the guy who almost shot you.”
“I don’t want to know.”
His hand slipped behind my back and tugged my lower half flush against his. The hardness between his legs pulsed against my sex. A moment that had been a hairsbreadth from terror swiftly morphed into something hotter.
“And what you just saw back there?” He nuzzled his nose over the shell of my ear. “Me about to destroy that guy for calling you a bitch.”
I managed a breath that sounded like a canon in the relative silence between us.
“For touching you.”
Something warm and rough ran along the sensitive skin beneath my ear. Something damp. Oh my God, he’d licked me! Shock flew to my toes, curling them in my high heels.
“Wh-what…are y-you…doing?” I winced at my stutters, upset he now had audible proof he’d gotten to me. I could claim it was fear.
“Anything I like,” he said.
I elbowed him in the gut. He only grunted and lifted his head.
I tried for a glare. “So you tried to save me from the guy who wouldn’t take no at the bar so you could do the same back here?”
Eyes crinkling inward, Nick stared. “When did you say ‘no’?”
He had me there. I hiked up my chin. “No.”
Nick sighed and lifted off me. I used the tiny opening to duck under his arm and scramble toward the bar.
“You know I can’t let you walk out of here knowing what you know.”
I froze.
“Unless you promise not to say anything,” he said, “and you give me your phone number so I can make sure you’re keeping your promise.”
Give my phone number to a guy who admitted to killing someone? I supposed it was better than giving him my address. And if it came down to it, I could give the cops his number…provided he called me at least once.
I grumbled, but held out my hand for his phone. He reached into a back pocket and produced it, swiping and entering his passcode before giving it to me. He’d already opened the address book. I entered in my first name and mobile number and handed it back, pushing by him.
As I hurried though the bar toward Karen, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I ignored the sensation while I broke up her latest necking session to tell her I was calling for a ride.
She handed me her keys instead. “Dean will take me home.”
I paused long enough to smile. Finally. Maybe this was the last double date I’d have to go on.
My phone buzzed in my pocket once more as I slipped out the front door and paused for the plain clothes cop who had been waiting outside to catch up.
Useless jerk . Was he what my tax dollars paid for?
Fearing someone would follow me—someone who apparently had better-than-average hearing even in a busy bar, I told the cop I had a bad feeling and that he should stick close.
And that’s how I got a second ride in a police car that week.