Red dress, black high heels, and a confident strut - now that’s a woman whose every step demands attention.

I stroll casually down the sidewalk, keeping the distance, but my eyes are drawn to the perfect shape of her body. Every step she takes makes her body sway in a delicious way, her thighs moving unhurriedly and her ass cheeks clenching in such a way that I can’t help but imagine how it’d feel to slide my hands down the side of her body.

Damn. That ass is basically rippling. What I wouldn’t do to put my tongue in the middle of those cheeks. Just lick. Oh, yeah. Then pull out my cock and stick it in between those cheeks. Give them a good smack. Unngh. I bet she has no idea what I want to do to that fucking hot body.

Okay. I gotta stop this.

I take one deep breath and keep on walking, watching as a few girls approach the woman in the red dress, cellphones in their hands. I feel the muscles in my body tightening up as the woman stops more than twice for photographs, and I only relax when she starts going on her way uninterrupted.

Suddenly, she stops right before an alleyway, and I stop dead in my tracks as I notice her walking toward the shadows there and talking to someone. She clutches her black purse close to her chest and, still talking, hurries inside the alley.

What the hell?

I keep my steady pace as I close in on the dark alley, and I stop right in front of the narrow gap between two apartment buildings. I blink once, and then twice, as my eyes adjust to the dim light of the alley; in the distance, I see the woman in the red dress shouting something at a man in a dirty jacket, and I immediately realize what’s going on. I grit my teeth, ball my hands into fists, and feel a violent fire incinerating every single one of my muscles.

And that’s when I see the glint of a blade.

Fuck.

I hurry down the alley just in time to see the man slapping her with the back of his hand, sending her reeling onto the ground, and I close the distance between me and him, careful enough to be as silent as possible. Even though my boots are heavy, he never hears me coming.

Standing just two feet away from him, his back turned to me, I raise one hand up into the air and, rotating my hips, I send my knuckles into a collision trajectory with the man’s skull. Fingers meet bone in a fraction of a second, and all strength leaves the mugger’s legs, making him fall onto the ground like a discarded ragdoll.

I prod his limp body with the tip of my boot, making sure that he’s still unconscious, and then I turn to face the woman in the red dress. She’s sitting on the pavement, fingers curled around her swollen ankle, and she’s looking at me with an expression of disbelief.

“Are you okay?” I ask her, my eyes roaming up and down her body as I try to look for any bruises or blood.

“I… Yes... Yes, I am,” she says, still looking up at me as if I just stumbled out from a different dimension. One where damsels in distress are rescued at the very last minute by a knight in shining armor. Except I’m everything but a knight in a shining armor, and if there’s something I hate its jumping into action at the last minute.

“Where do you work?” I continue, doing my best not to stare at her legs. The hemline of her dress is slightly raised, showing just an hint of inner thigh, and I have to grit my teeth in order to banish all lust from my system. Which isn’t the easiest thing right now.

“R-Rockefeller Center,” she stammers, eyeing me curiously. I guess it’s not everyday you see a guy like me stepping in like I did to save the day. “Who are you?”

“Just a guy,” I reply flatly, and her eyes narrow slightly.

“Just a guy,” she repeats, the words rolling over her tongue slowly. “Okay, but who are you?” She insists, her focus shifting to the muscles bulging under my black shirt.

“No one,” I shrug, but I can tell that she won’t be happy with my answer.

“Oh, come on!” She starts, and then she falls silent, grabbing her ankle with her two hands and groaning. “Don’t you have a name at least?” She asks me between gritted teeth, the pain stemming from her ankle carving deep lines on her face.

“Sanders,” I reply and, deciding to put an end to this line of questioning, I let my name just hang in the air between us, silence settling in. She looks up at me, her unblinking eyes telling me that she expects me to go on, but then she just sighs heavily.

“Well, my name’s Stacy,” she says, a strained smile showing on her lips. She rubs her ankle harder now, her skin slowly turning purple there.

“It’s time we get out of here,” I tell her as I offer her my hand, making sure that my tone of voice leaves no doubts: this isn’t a request. “Come with me. You’ll be safe,” I continue, the words dripping out of me like ice and stone. I’ve never been one for niceties and I’m not sure if I can change that this late in life.

She looks up at me, hesitation washing over her face, but then she finally reaches for my hand. I can tell that she’s frightened but, at the same time, the expression on her face tells me that she prefers coming with me than remain sitting in the dirty alley next to an unconscious mugger. I squeeze her small delicate fingers in mine, pulling her up to her feet, but a groan of pain makes me stop.

“Crap, I think my ankle is --” Before she even has the time to finish her sentence, I bend over and slide one arm behind the back of her knees, the other going around her waist. I pull her up from the floor and then, shifting her weight, I place her over my shoulder as if she were a sack of potatoes.

She doesn’t protest and so, without a single word, I stroll back into midtown, the hottest woman I’ve ever laid eyes on slung over my shoulder.