I don't examine that too closely.
"That guy from inside was a real tool." She glances back toward the bar.
"Guys like that are cowards." I scan our six, tracking reflections in windows, mapping exit routes. "They only push when they think no one's watching."
"And you were watching."
"Yeah." No point denying it. "You stood out."
A nervous laugh escapes her. "Right. The only woman dancing alone in a mountain bar. Real mysterious."
"Not that." We turn down a quiet side street. I position myself between her and the road, an automatic habit she probably doesn't notice. "The way you moved. Like you were trying to forget something. Or remember something. Maybe both."
A beat of silence. "You get all that from watching me dance?"
I don't mention what else I got from watching her. I don't tell her how my iron control snapped the moment I finally cut in—how she immediately stepped into my personal space, grinding her soft curves deliberately against my thigh in the middle of that crowded floor like she'd decided something and intended to make it my problem.
The friction was maddening.
I pulled her flush against me, one arm low on her back, intentionally letting her feel exactly what she'd provoked. She gasped—this quiet, sharp little sound that hit me straight behind the sternum and stayed there. Her eyes had gone dark, pupils blown wide, and the heat between us turned into something with actual weight. Something I could press my hands against.
Still throbbing. Stillhers, whether she knows it or not.
"I'm good at reading people," I say instead. "Occupational necessity."
"What occupation involves hanging out in bars and rescuing strange women?"
"The kind that pays well and asks few questions."
She halts. Turns to face me. The chemistry between us ignites on contact with open air—hot, immediate, no longer pretending to be anything other than what it is.
In the streetlight, her eyes are impossibly blue. Wide. That expression isn't innocent curiosity. It's a dare.
"I don't usually get rescued by mysterious knights in dark jeans." Her chin lifts slightly. "What's your angle? Looking for a grateful damsel to warm your bed?"
The blunt suggestion detonates low in my gut. She knows exactly what she's doing—standing there with the streetlight backlighting her dress, rendering the silk nearly transparent. The outline of her lace underwear. The hard peaks of her nipples pressing through the thin fabric.
The rational part of my brain, the part that handles threat assessment and exit strategies, goes very, very quiet.
I need her right now.
Not later. Not at her apartment, not in a bed, not with the proper setup and adequate time. Right now, in the dark, with the mountain air on our skin and no audience but the stars.
I need to taste her, need my hands on her, need to hear what sound she makes when she stops trying to keep quiet.
It's the same instinct that made me cross a bar floor to put myself between her and a stranger's hands—primal and absolute and entirely beyond my usual control.
I grab her hand and pull her sharply out of the light, dragging her into the pitch-black shadows of a narrow alley between two closed storefronts.
"My angle?" I back her against the rough brick wall, bracketing her body with my arms, pressing the rigid length of my erection firmly into the soft curve of her belly. Her breath punches out of her lungs. "I want to find out if you taste as good as you look. And I'm not in any mood to wait."
Her pupils swallow the blue of her eyes entirely. She grinds her hips deliberately into mine, and a raw sound escapes the back of my throat.
"That's a terrible line, but it’s working.”
I drop my forehead to hers. "Tell me what you want, little bird."
"You." No hesitation. "I wantyou."
