A shaft of moonlight peeked out from the clouds to reveal the bloodied face of the man who’d kissed me just a few hours ago.
Colt’s eyes blazed with intensity as he stared at me.
“Go back inside,” he commanded. His voice was angry, rough.
A shiver of fear danced down my spine.
Fear, and something else.
I turned to leave.
“Wait,” he called.
I glanced over my shoulder and Colt’s eyes held mine for a moment before he stared down at the guy on the ground in front of him. The prep was unconscious, breathing heavily after being knocked out cold. His head lobbed to the side and a trickle of blood and drool began to form a puddle next to his face. I wondered if I should call an ambulance and tried to look more closely at him in the light.
Yeah, definitely calling an ambulance.
I thought Colt would leave, but instead he began to stalk toward me, causing my heart to beat in terror. I scrambled back, tripping over the garbage bag behind me.
I was about to fall, but Colt was suddenly there, and his hands reached out to steady me. Hands that were surprisingly gentle as they held me, when moments ago, they’d been used to inflict violence.
It was too late to escape, so I forced myself to have a tiny shred of courage. I tilted my head back so I could gaze up at him. “What happened?” I whispered.
His expression was dark.
Murderous.
But for some reason—some stupid, asinine, hormonal reason—I didn’t truly believe that Colt would hurt me.
“Are you gonna call the cops?” he asked. His voice was heady, potent, unlike anything I’d ever heard before.
“That depends.” I wet my dry lips, briefly realizing his gaze tracked the movement of my tongue.
He paused again, clearly weighing whether or not to let me in, wondering if it would cause more trouble than it was worth to explain it to me.
“He drugged a woman.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“He might be clean cut and built, but he’s a rapist. He drugged a woman in your bar,” he repeated. “He bought her a cocktail and she accepted. She got up to use the bathroom and that’s when he laced her drink. That shit doesn’t fly with me or my club. You don’t hurt innocent people and get away with it.”
“Oh my God,” I said in horror.
“Zip noticed what was going on and we watched it unfold in plain sight. He stopped the woman from drinking whatever this fuck put in her glass and sent her home with her friends.” His gaze wandered to the guy still passed out on the pavement. “Dickhead didn’t like being accused of what he’d done and made the same mistake they all do.”
“What mistake is that?”
“Choosing a fight with me out back over the cops.”
I swallowed, but couldn’t find the words I wanted to say. It didn’t matter because Colt wasn’t done speaking.
“He’s damn lucky you showed up out here…”
“Were you going to—” I blurted out the words and then cut myself off before I said something that might put me in danger.
What was this man capable of?
Colt’s lips pulled back into a smile, but it wasn’t beautiful. It was demonic and vengeful. And the shaft of moonlight bathed half his face in shadow.
“He’ll live,” Colt assured me.
I felt him loosen his hold on me and relax. I was suddenly bereft and cold. I couldn’t understand why I wanted a savage vigilante to touch me again.
But I did.
“Better get back inside,” he said softly. He gestured with his chin to the passed out meathead. “He’s got friends in the bar. Let them know you found him and they’ll take him home. I’m pretty sure they aren’t gonna call the cops.”
With that pronouncement, Colt turned. A shaft of moonlight illuminated the logo on the back of his leather vest, a skull flanked by open angel wings.
He strode from the alley, becoming one with the darkness.
I crossed my hands over my arms, my fingers stroking the spot where he’d touched my skin.
After a few moments my daze cleared, and I got the bag of trash into one of the nearly full dumpsters.
I took one last look at the creep on the ground and then turned and went into the bar.
The next morning, my doorbell chimed. I shot up in bed, terrified, my heart in my throat. I’d been completely asleep, dead to the world, and the noise had sounded like it was playing on speakers directly in my bedroom. Cursing and sleepy-eyed, I got up, tripping on the comforter that hung off the side of the bed. I found a pair of pajama shorts before heading into the living room to the front door.
“You’re a terrible person, do you know that?” I glowered at Shelly as she stood on the steps holding two coffees and a paper bag from our favorite bakery. We used to do our homework together at Madeline’s. We’d sit in the back, sharing a chocolate croissant and a latte because that was all Shelly could afford. I always offered to pay, but Shelly never accepted charity.
“You look like hell,” Shelly said. Her honey blond hair was pulled up into a messy bun and she was wearing white denim shorts and a pink sleeveless tank. Her toenails were a subtle shade of coral. The woman didn’t ever look like she worked nights. No bags under the eyes. No pale skin from lack of sleep. Fresh as a spring daisy.
Always.
“I didn’t get to sleep until about four,” I admitted, waving her inside.
She handed me one of the to-go cups. “Why is that, I wonder?”
Shelly had tried to get me to talk about Colt and the kiss when we’d been closing up the bar. While we washed glasses, put the chairs on the tables, and swept the floor, she needled me relentlessly. I’d only managed to escape her inquisition because I’d volunteered to clean the bathrooms and then taken out the garbage. Not only did I want to escape her determination to find out how good the kiss was, but I also wanted to see if the guy Colt had beat up was still there.
He wasn’t.
“You got away last night, but I need details. And I need them now.”
“Why?” I asked as I walked into the kitchen to grab a plate from the cabinet. I took the pastry bag from Shelly and unloaded the pastries onto a plate. We both sat at the old Formica kitchen table from the 1950s. It was orange and hideous, but it had been my grandmother’s favorite piece of furniture and I didn’t have the heart to replace it. I didn’t have the heart to redecorate her home at all, actually. Surrounded by the decor of my childhood, I kept the memory of my grandmother alive as best I could.
“Why?” she asked, mouth agape. She tore the croissant but didn’t take a bite yet. “How long have we known each other?”
“Twelve years,” I said.
“Right. I’ve been there for boyfriends who have become ex boyfriends, I was the first phone call after you lost your virginity, and not once have I ever seen the look on your face that I saw last night—after you kissed a total stranger. A biker, no less. I was trying to tell you about the whole biker thing and you wouldn’t let me.”
“Let you? We were at work. What was I supposed to do? Ask our customers to stop ordering drinks so you could give me the run down? I got the memo. Don’t get involved.”
She popped a croissant bite into her mouth and chewed. After she swallowed and washed it down with coffee, she replied, “You shouldn’t have singled them out. You don’t understand them like I do.”