Seeing that I was having trouble standing, he came over and picked me up. “Wrap your arms around me,” he said.
“My boyfriend…?” I asked in a whisper.
“For now. Just to get you away from that shit stain.” Then, Muscles carried me back inside the building, stepping into an empty side room. He set me down on a padded bench and said, “Don’t move.”
I could see him through a crack in the door from where I was sitting and watched him walk to the bar and talk to the bartender and another guy standing near the entrance. Then, he pulled out his phone and made a call that lasted about thirty seconds. I saw the bartender hand him a few things before he finally made his way back to me.
Looking down, I noticed scrapes on my knees. They were bleeding with bits of gravel in the cuts. Muscles kneeled in front of me with a wet paper towel and started cleaning up the scrapes, removing little pebbles as he went. Each pass of the towel made me wince. He said, “I’m sorry. I’ve got a Band-Aid here. When you go home, shower, and just keep it clean. Don’t scrub it or anything. Reapply the bandage if you’d like, but everything is out of the cuts now. I called the police and reported that guy and the car. They’ll catch him eventually.”
I wondered,Who is this guy?Is he a doctor?He was dressed sharply, wearing dark-washed jeans, black boots, and a clean black T-shirt with a suit jacket over it. He took it off after he set me down. His muscles were bulging in the T-shirt. It looked as if it were about to burst at the seams. Suddenly, I felt warm again.
“Thank you,” I said, but cautiously. “Um…I didn’t get your name.”
“I didn’t tell you my name.”
Well, Mr. Charming just turned into Mr. Grumpy, I thought. “Ok, well, I guess we’ll stick withMusclesthen.”
He let out a low laugh that I don’t think he wanted me to hear because he stopped himself and went back to being serious. “Muscles?”
“Yeah, well, you have a lot of them, so I started calling youMusclesin my mind.”
“Hmmm.”
“Anyway, thanks, Muscles.” He finally stood up and held my hand to help me up. When he pulled me up, we were standing so close.The cologne. It was him. He smelled like the ocean, and he was just as intoxicating as the martinis I’d been drinking. “You smell like the ocean,” I said nervously. My eyes finally found their way up to his lips. Tasha was right. I thought,I’m a romance writer. I write about this sort of thing all the time, and now it’s happening to me. A man rescues me, and we hook up in the side room. I could go for a quickie one-night stand, never see him again type of hook up. Why not? It can happen to me. Right?
Chapter 2
King
I was supposed to be working. Well, Iwasworking,technically. I’m a security guard with Heartline Security, based in Cupid City. That’s how I saw that fucking asshole, looking creepy and follow her outside.
It was easy to spot him. His eyes kept darting back and forth as he lurked around the restroom with his hands in his pockets. There was no way he came in past me through the front of Velvet Arrow in a hoodie. I would’ve noticed him from my undercover position near the entrance hallway. He probably came in through the back door, near the restrooms, before scouting around to see if there were any guards or police nearby. I know I shouldn’t have left my post, but I wanted to follow him and figure out what he was up to. So, I had Gabe, another security guard with Heartline, take my post while I followed the suspect.
It was a good thing Ihadfollowed them outside, because he was obviously trying to abduct her and hurt her. It made me want to break every bone in his body. Instead, I had to settlefor a punch to his face, wearing that stupid fucking mask, before him and the vehicle he was in took off.
After I called the police and cleaned her up, she was standing in front of me, staring at me, and smelled so good. Sweet and musky at the same time. It seemed like she was thinking something when she looked at me. Something…lustful, and she was beautiful, no doubt, but I was supposed to be working. I wasnotsupposed to be looking at her like I could eat her alive. Idefinitelywas not supposed to be in that room with her, but I was, and she was staring at my mouth.
She asked me again, “What’s your name?”
“Why do you want to know that?”
She gave a hint of a smile before saying, “Because I want to be able to call it out while you’re fucking me.”
Fucking hell.Whowasshe talking to me like that? Every fantasy I’ve ever had was standing in front of me. She was Latina with curly hair, thick hips, a slight accent, and she wanted to say my name while I fucked her.Working. I’m working, I reminded myself. I had to leave before I did something that could get me fired if we got caught.
If I were a stronger man, I would’ve walked away. But I didn’t. Instead, I smiled and said, “King. My name is…King.”
She took a step toward me and put her hands on my chest. Then, getting on her tiptoes, which was way too cute, she grabbed my face and said, “Fuck me, King. Right here. And then we’ll just…walk away.”
Letting out a deep breath, I pulled her body to mine, grabbed her by her ass, and lifted her up against the wall. She wrapped her legs around me and squeezed me tighter into her. I said, “Fuck. Who are you? What’s your name?”
She kissed me again and said, “My friends call me Sara.
“Ok, Sara.” I set her down and reached under her skirt, pulling her thong panties down. She kissed my neck while Ishoved her panties in my back pocket, then moved to my lips and slid her tongue against mine. Finally, I moved us back to the padded bench seat and sat down. She instinctively straddled me. I said, “Lean back.” When she did, I unbuckled my jeans and slowly pulled them down far enough so she could see how hard I was for her. Then it hit me. “Fuck. I don’t have a condom.”
“Wait. I do!” She laughed.
“What’s so funny?” I asked her.
