She was completely unaware of the attention she had garnered from the men in the room, especially the fool behind the bar. I had seen their interaction earlier when she had picked up our beers. He had started off flirting with her, but by the time she left, Zoey looked annoyed and the man behind the bar became angry.
Each time she went to the bar after that, he would glare at her, but as she walked away, his eyes would eat her up like a starving man. I wanted to gouge his eyes out. She did not know the amount of trouble she was in—even in this restaurant.
“Have you looked into the bartender?” I asked Donovan as I looked around the den of the restaurant.
“He’s the manager’s son. Gotten busted for drinking and driving once and public intoxication. Nothing major, but the guy seems like a real prick.”
“I don’t like the way he looks at her,” I muttered, knowing it shouldn’t matter to me how the man looked at her. She was not my woman. Hell, she was too fucking young for me, but I still didn’t like the way he was looking at her.
Donovan’s curious gaze met mine. “She needs our help.”
“I know that,” I muttered as I took a sip of the beer that had grown warm.
“This is going to be complicated enough without sex and feelings getting pulled into it,” he mumbled, so only I could hear him.
“You don’t fucking think I know that? We’ve been put in a fucking impossible spot and she’s not going to fucking understand any of it,” I gritted out as my eyes searched out the beautiful brunette with haunted eyes.
“She is beautiful, though.” Donovan’s smile grew when I growled at him.
I was possessive of this girl. She looked lost and alone, and I wanted nothing more than to protect her and make her my queen. Give her a safe place to let go of everything because I could see the surrounding walls from a mile away.
She’d been through some shit that reminded me a lot of my past, only where I got demanding and dominant. She was closed off in a cocoon of the walls she built around herself. I wanted to break down those walls and see her let loose. See her give over the tight control she reigned in on herself.
An image of her on her knees looking up at me with those beautiful doe eyes, pleading for another release—hit me like a lightning bolt right in the dick. My cock swelled beneath the table, and I took another drink of the beer as I tried to calm my thoughts away from her and what she would be like giving up the rigid control she had on herself.
My eyes found her again as she was taking another order for a group sitting at one of the back booths. The table was full of men, but she didn’t give them any more notice than what she gave everyone else in this room. I watched as she rolled her shoulders and shook as if vibrations danced up her spine.
Her head turned, and her eyes met mine across the room. Her brows furrowed in confusion before the guys at the table drew her attention away from me again. She held her back ramrod straight, so rigid she looked like she might break if she bent even a little.
Zoey Bryant needed an out from her own life as much as she needed protection from it, but getting her to trust me would not be easy.
“What do you think of this place?” I dragged my gaze away from the brunette that was wreaking havoc on my libido and looked at the dimly lit restaurant.
Donovan shrugged. “It’s not bad, but it could be better. I don’t think the owners have kept it up as well as they should have. It’s a little dated. You looking for another business to buy?”
I shrugged, then replied, “If it keeps her safe.”
“She won’t be here forever, Killian,” Donovan mumbled, leaning forward on the table. “She’s got one more semester left of school, and she’s done. Her grades are good, and she works hard. She won’t have trouble finding a job.”
“What’s her major?” I asked my friend, even as my eyes tracked the subject of our conversation back over to the far table in the corner with the group of guys.
“She’s getting her associates in accounting at the community college.”
“Anything else I need to know?”
“From what Rowan could get off her computer, her uncle and her cousin treat her like shit. Apparently, her cousin deflated her tires, so she was almost late for school the other day. She didn’t call a tow truck, but Rowan found a credit card purchase for a portable air compressor.” Donovan glanced over his shoulder toward the woman in question. “My guess is she’s used to dealing with passive aggressive attacks from her cousin, so she just rolls with it now.”
“Sounds like it,” I muttered. “We need to move soon. I don’t know when the other side of this is going to strike out or when her uncle will go back to the cabin to find his girl gone.”
Donovan nodded. “When?”
“Friday.” Two days. We had two days to make sure everything was done. We had to get everything put in place, so it looked like she left, and nobody would look for her. I cast Zoey another look as she worked. “Watch over her until then, Donovan.”
“You sure you don’t want to be the one watching her?” He gave me a smart-ass smirk that only my brother would give me as he poked the beast inside me intentionally.
“I do,” I answered him seriously, “But I have to go hunting.”
