Home > Wintertime Bad Boy(2)

Wintertime Bad Boy(2)
Author: Emelia Blair

He’s blatantly staring at me now, his eyes laughing at me, as if he can read my thoughts and I purse my lips, feeling a tingle of humiliation.

Don’t be a coward. Don’t be a coward.

I cross the road.

Heat blooms in my cheeks as I feel the disappointment settle in me. I should have lifted my chin and walked past him with my head held high. Instead, I took the coward’s way out. Even from across the road, I feel the man’s eyes burning a hole in me. My core tightens and I frown.

A breath escapes my lips.

So the man is insanely attractive. Big deal.

I mumble to myself, scolding myself for staring at a man in the middle of the night. I blame the exhaustion of the last few nights where I’ve been working back-to-back shifts. I pat my jacket pocket, feeling the can of mace I keep there. It offers me some measure of comfort, knowing that I’m kind of armed.

I start walking faster, suddenly feeling weary, the image of the man burned behind my eyelids.

He looked almost exotic. It must be illegal to be that handsome.

“I need to get laid,” I mutter to myself. “A good fucking and I’ll be fine.”

But who has the time to go and pick up a stranger in a bar? That sounds like so much work and effort. I think about the bottle of wine in my fridge and my next door neighbor, and for a few seconds, I contemplate seducing him. I know he finds me attractive. It would be so easy.

It takes me a second to realize my train of thought and I blink, baffled. Did I really just contemplate seducing my neighbor? Ok, he’s cute and a really nice compassionate person but I’m not into Chen. He feels more like a brother to me.

“Food,” I say, aloud. “I need food and a good movie on my old laptop and I’ll be fine.”

Maybe if I say that a few more times I might actually start believing it.

Seeing the familiar park in the distance, my shoulders relax and I can almost taste relaxation. My mouth is watering at the idea of hot food in my empty belly and I let down my guard.

Suddenly, the cold kiss of a blade’s metal touches the only exposed part of my throat and I freeze. My brain is slow to catch up and it’s only when the man behind me starts speaking in a low growl that fear seeps into my veins. It’s a gut wrenching fear that makes me almost whimper.

Always be aware of your surroundings, sweetheart. I can hear my dad’s whisper in my head and I suddenly feel so alone and scared that tears creep into my eyes.

Dad, I whimper in my mind, wanting him, the child in me reaching out for that blanket of safety that no longer existed in this world.

“Give me everything you have,” I feel the man’s hot breath on the side of my face. I can smell the liquor on his breath and I flinch.

I try to calm my racing heart, knowing that panicking in this sort of situation will only get me killed. Nobody is going to come to my aid. I’m all I’ve got.

The thought makes me press my lips together and I give a shaky nod, forcing some level of calm into my voice, not wanting him to panic and stab me. From the way his hands are jittery, I can tell that he’s on some kind of drug as well and that makes him even more unpredictable.

Even as I say, “Just take the money,” I’m mentally evaluating how fast I can sprint and make it to Chen Li’s restaurant. It’s closer than my apartment. One hand creeps into my jacket pocket, fingering the mace and the other goes into my bag.

Trying to sound relaxed, I say, “I can’t move with—”

“Hurry up, bitch!” the man snarls and the hand holding the knife slips and I hiss in pain at the burning sensation from where he’s nicked me. “Give me your money!”

“Why don’t you give me your money?” comes a coolly amused voice from behind us, the words layered over with a thick foreign accent that my subconscious points out helpfully as being French.

The man lets out a threatening growl and then he shoves me forward. Detecting the greater threat and despite my best effort, I end up falling on the pavement and I can feel my skin on my knees splitting.

The blood rushes to my head and I scramble to my feet and I see my attacker facing off against another man who is clearly taller than him and well built. My eyes find the face of my rescuer and I freeze on seeing those wild green eyes again. There’s a cold glint in them, but his lips are curved in a lazy smirk as he watches the armed man approaching him.

“Be careful,” I cry out in warning. “He has a knife.”

There’s a flash of amusement in those wild eyes. “Yes, mon chéri. I can tell.”

Definitely French.

I pull the mace just as the man lunges at my savior who doesn’t look alarmed in the slightest. It takes me a second to figure out why as he executes a textbook move, as I learned in a self-defense class I took back in college, and grabs the man’s arm, pulling it forward, snatching the knife and then hitting him with his elbow between his shoulder blades, making the mugger crash to the ground with a howl.

I stare at them and the Frenchman kicks at the man writhing on the ground who scrambles back and then jumps to his feet with an unsteady move and makes a break for it.

I watch him run, my heart thundering between my ears. “Th-Thank you.”

He’s staring at me now.

The full weight of his gaze makes my breath catch and it takes some effort to ground myself. I force myself to study the situation and my hands tighten on the mace. “Why did you follow me?”

“Why did you run away?” he replies back.

His hands are in his pocket and he tilts his head, studying me. Under the streetlight, his eyes glitter in a manner that almost looks inhuman. His eyes run over me and I can see the approval in them. Somehow that both offends and excites me. But after a narrow brush with death, I don’t care how attractive he is, he takes one step near me and I’ll mace his eyes off.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He smiles then, and it’s full of teeth and there’s a hunger reflecting in his verdant eyes that makes my insides tighten against my will. “A woman doesn’t give a man that kind of look and then just walks away.”

“Maybe you’re in need of glasses,” I say tightly.

His tongue darts out to wet his lower lip and I’m almost hypnotized by the movement. He watches me, not taking a step toward me, readily agreeing. “Maybe I do.”

We stand there in silence and I don’t know what to do. I’m reluctant to turn my back on him. The memory of the knife pressed against my throat is still fresh and my free hand immediately darts up and I know I’m bleeding even before I touch the wound.

Those green eyes tighten. “You’re hurt.”

He moves then and I immediately lift out the mace and point it in his direction. “Don’t take this the wrong way. I’m grateful that you stepped in and saved me. But I don’t trust you any more than I trust him.”

He stays still and I don’t understand the delight that fills his eyes. “Are you always this paranoid, mon chéri?”

“It keeps me alive,” I say bluntly. “Now back away and start walking.”

If it had been someone else, maybe I wouldn’t have been this harsh but there is something about this man that is putting me on edge and I can’t quite explain it. I see the way his shirt presses against his well-defined muscles, his jacket unzipped, and he exudes danger and sex, and that has me even more wary.

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