Twenty minutes in and I realized coming here was a big mistake.

“Come on, Gina. Why do you have such a stick up your ass?” Gareth’s eyes were hooded and he swayed on his feet as he tried to hand me a red plastic cup. It was filled with something green that looked like Kool-Aid but smelled like battery acid. By the way he was pushing it, I was even more suspicious it had something more potent than alcohol inside of it.

“I’m tired, Gareth. I’m going home.”

He got close; his beer-soaked breath practically blew back my hair. “Gina, you’re a sophomore. You’ve got a looong way to go. The Omegas could make or break you at this school.”

I jerked my arm away from him. “You’re an ass. I’m not your property because of the letters on my sweatshirt, asshole.”

Gareth laughed and eyed Brent Martin and Ted Fordham, two of his frat brothers. They were the three biggest ringleaders in the whole house. I’d heard a rumor that Brent was trying to work his way through my entire pledge class. From some of the sounds I heard upstairs, he’d made some progress. It was so not my scene.

“Later,” I said. I got halfway to the front door before Serena Kent, my sorority sister, stopped me.

“Gina!” She held a red plastic cup in one hand and waved her other hand high in the air. The crowd outside started to swell. This was bad. The Omegas had been skating on some pretty thin ice with the Greek Council since one of their members broke a leg jumping off the roof last spring at their year-end bash. If I had to guess, somebody had posted on social media that tonight was an open party. Yep. Definitely time to get the hell out of here and head for home.

“Gina!” Serena got to me and put an arm around me. She wasn’t steady on her feet and I had to brace myself against the doorframe to keep her from pulling me over. “Where are you going? It’s early.”

“It’s late,” I said. “And this whole thing is a bad idea. I think we need to rethink our affiliation with these idiots. Somebody’s going to call the cops. I don’t want to be here for that.”

Serena laughed. “Right. Like your daddy would let anything bad happen to his precious princess. Come to think of it, maybe I better stick with you tonight. You can be my good luck charm.”

Rolling my eyes, I tried to unsnarl myself from Serena’s grip. She made those kinds of cracks about my father all the time. I found it insulting and unsettling. Nights like this made me question why I even agreed to rush GZG. I did it to appease my mother, mostly. It had been her sorority back in the day. I was pretty sure things had vastly changed since then. Now I just wanted to head home and get a good night’s sleep.

“I’ll see you at the house in the morning,” I said. “You sure you can get yourself home tonight? I mean it, Serena. Gareth and his crew are on the prowl. None of us are safe.”

Just then, glass broke upstairs. It was the second time in less than an hour. This time, it sounded like a window. Hell, I’d be surprised if tonight’s festivities didn’t land L.M.C. on cable news the way things were going. My luck I’d be front and center with a crawl across the bottom of the screen decrying the moral decline of millennials. The second I thought it, acid burned in my lungs. That’s exactly the kind of thing that was bound to happen. The sooner I found my way out of here, the better.

Someone else caught Serena’s attention and she mercifully let me go. I ducked out the front door and started to weave my way through the swelling crowd. It was thicker than I realized. Arms snaked all around me as the crowd pushed toward the front door.

Another window shattered and beer bottles rained down from the roof. One of them hit the ground and shards of glass sprayed out. A small piece bounced up and cut into my arm. A girl standing a few feet away from me got it much worse. A deep gash opened on her forehead. As blood poured into her eyes she let out a scream. It worked on the crowd like a match to gasoline.

People panicked and the crowd surged forward. I tried to push back but it got hard to breathe. Bodies closed around me, pushing against me from all directions. Fear finally snaked its way through my heart as I realized how much danger I was really in. One false step, one hard shove and I’d be on my ass beneath a stampede.

“Stop it!” I screamed, knowing it was far past too late to help. “Stop pushing! I can’t breathe!”

Hands clawed at my face and my hair got tangled on something. My head snapped back and my left knee gave out. I started to sink down beneath the sea of bodies as black spots swam in front of my eyes.

Then the sky opened up. The crowd in front of me moved to one direction. Just before I hit the ground, a heavy boot fell. It was attached to a tree trunk of a leg wrapped in faded denim. The scent of leather filled my head and I looked up and up.

Zig Wallace stood before me, his face hard. A muscle twitched in his jaw as he reached down and wrapped his solid arms around me. I opened my mouth to say something but no sound would come out. He lifted me as if I weighed nothing and the world spun upside down. Zig hoisted me over his shoulder. I kicked my legs wildly, but his grip was solid, firm, unyielding. He had a firm grip on the back of my thighs as he moved through the crowd. They parted for him like the Red Sea. My cheek pressed against the soft leather of Zig’s cut.

“What the hell are you doing?” I grabbed at Zig’s belt. He strode, sure-footed, moving people out of his way with his free hand while he held onto me with the other.

I’d worn cutoff jean shorts. The way Zig carried me, they rode up high. His fingers were just inches below my ass. The heat of them seared me. My heart raced with excitement as Zig charged down the sidewalk and carried me away from the Omega Pi house. I had a full view of his perfect, muscled ass under his own tight jeans and I can’t help that it made my pulse beat just a little faster.

He kept going, holding my legs tight against his chest as I tried to pull myself up. It was uncomfortable, undignified the way he held me, but I couldn’t deny that it was also hot as hell.

“Put me down!” I yelled. I slapped my hand on his back. It was like hitting a stone wall. Zig made a grunting noise, but didn’t lose momentum. He charged down the street. Upside down and backward, I could still see a few of the partygoers at the Omega house staring in disbelief at what had happened to me. Not one of them moved to do anything about it.

Finally, Zig rounded a corner. As we got out of sight of the party, rage took over where shock and desire had previously taken root. I was pissed.

“What the hell are you doing?” I yelled.

Zig had parked his Harley on a side street, tucked in the shadow of a tall tree. He put me down in an unceremonious heap. I staggered sideways, dizzy. He shot out a hand to steady me and I jerked away.

“What the hell was that?” I asked, fuming. Underneath my rage, I knew more than anything I was scared. Everything had happened so fast back there.  I looked up and up. Zig stood before me tall and solid like some sort of hardened statue. His eyes flashed with anger as he stared down at me, looking fierce. My heart trilled with fear but beneath that, something else simmered.

“You’re crazy,” I said, smoothing my shirt down and straightening my shorts. “Do you know that?”

“I’m crazy?” He jabbed a thumb into his chest. “Do you know how fucking dangerous it was back there? You were two seconds from getting trampled to death, Gina. Jesus Christ. If I hadn’t plucked you out of there, you could have gotten seriously hurt.”

He was right. I knew it. In some rational part of my brain, I knew I was reacting more from fear at what had almost happened than anger at Zig’s Neanderthal-style rescue.

“I can take care of myself,” I shouted, knowing full well how ridiculous it sounded in light of recent events. Still, he’s the one who had just inserted himself into my life. I’d never asked him to.

“Get on the bike,” he said, nostrils flaring.

I reared back as if his words had taken physical form and I needed to dodge them. “What?”

“Get. On. The. Bike. Now.” He balled his fists at his sides and clenched his jaw. God. Zig Wallace in a full rage was pure testosterone and menace. It was also just about the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. His blue eyes narrowed and flashed. His nostrils flared at the end of his razor-straight nose. A tiny vein bulged in his temple and I had the absurd urge to reach up and smooth a lock of hair out of his eyes. The hard-cut muscles of his pecs jumped beneath the tight-fitted t-shirt he wore.

“I don’t want to get on the bike,” I said, daring him. It was a dangerous game I played. I knew this. Zig was nothing like the men I went to school with. No. They weren’t men at all. They were boys. Zig was all man, quaking with some misplaced protective fury that set my blood humming.

Wicked thoughts flashed through my mind. Acting on even one of them would send everyone I knew into a tailspin. Every rebellious streak in my blood cried out for exactly that. If Georgio or my mother were trying to control me by sending this overgrown muscle man to check up on me, I could think of one very wicked way to fight back.

He reached for me. His need to grab me and pull me toward him flashed through his eyes with cold clarity. He didn’t though. Zig held himself back; his fingers hovered and twitched near my arms, but he didn’t lay a hand on me.

“Please,” he said. “Gina. Get on the bike. I need to see you home safe. It’s my job.”

If he’d said anything but that, I might have simply smiled, thanked him, and got on the damn bike like he asked. But those last three words ignited a storm inside of me.

“Your job?”

Reading me, Zig’s shoulders dropped. His face softened and he let out a sigh. “Not here. Not now. Just get on the bike, Gina.”

“If I don’t?” God, I hated the way I sounded. Petty. Immature. I knew that’s what he probably thought of me. I couldn’t help it. If I was his job, it just reminded me that my controlling family was behind it. That made it not Zig’s fault, but all of his problem.

“If you don’t,” he said, “I’m going to pick you up, throw you over my shoulder again, and put you on it that way.”

Liquid heat pooled through me and settled between my legs. God help me, I wanted him to do just that. It would have been easier, more honest if I just told him that. I couldn’t help it. I could feel my brother Georgio’s eyes on me at that moment. He’d been trying to run my life for years. It had gotten fifty times worse since my father got sick.

“Try it and you’ll be walking funny tomorrow, Zig,” I said. “Or I’ll scream. Someone will hear me. What do you think they’re going to do when they see someone who looks like you manhandling someone who looks like me?”

He took a step toward me. “It’s for your own good.”

“I’ve been hearing that my whole life. I’m not a kid anymore. If there’s trouble coming, then my family needs to tell me about it straight up, not send some thug to babysit me.”

“Thug,” he said through tight lips. “That’s what you think?”

“You haven’t exactly done anything to make me think otherwise.”

“Maybe not, but right now I’m not in the mood to argue. You need to get home. Lock your door. Hug your teddy bear. Go to bed. Got it?”

He took another step toward me, challenging me. It set my nerves on edge. Then Zig finally did put his hands on me. His fingers curled around my upper arm, sending searing heat straight down to my toes. My breath caught and my eyes widened.

“Make me,” I said. I was hot. Filled with lust. I knew he saw it in my eyes because I saw it in his. His tongue darted out and he licked his lips. My mind filled with all the other naughty things he could do to me with those.

“Gina,” he said, his voice dropping an octave.

“Zig.” I meant to sound defiant. Instead, it came out breathless.

One beat two. Zig took in a hard breath that made his nostrils flare again. He looked skyward for a fraction of a second. Then he fixed those cold blue eyes on me.

“Oh, fuck it,” he whispered. Then his lips were on mine.