This woman stops men in their tracks. There’s no question.
From the wide, almost too large, blue eyes, to the gentle swell of her lips, to the dimple in her damned chin. I’ve never seen a more striking woman.
She’s like some kind of renaissance painting.
I curse myself. Jesus fuck. The woman’s just been attacked and I can’t keep my eyes off her.
“Do you have a headache or any dizziness?” I force myself into tactical mode.
Those pretty eyes stay closed.
”No, I’m fine, and even if I did, I can’t do anything about it. There’s no one to cover my shift here, and besides,“ she clears her throat. “I’m not in a position to… um pay for urgent care.”
When I stroke my thumb over the cheek that’s not bruised, she slowly opens her eyes and focuses on me again.
It’s not good. Or maybe it’s amazing. I’m confused as hell and I’m never confused.
I’m orderly. Tactical. Prepared.
Until today.
And now with her misty eyes looking up at me, I’m flying blind.
A strange sensation stretches inside my ribcage. It’s new and old. Recognized in some recess of my mind. Like an ancient part of me has come to life.
“You don’t have to worry about work, or paying for urgent care,” I tell this perfect stranger, “I’m going to take care of it.”
At first she looks confused, then within seconds, she’s frowning. Downright perturbed. “You’re kidding, right?”
Clearly, she has no idea what kind of man I am.
“Do I look like I’m kidding?”
After glancing down my body—all six plus feet of carved muscle, scars, and ink, she exhales. “You don’t really look like the kidding type.”
“Good, now you know.”
When I brush back a strand of hair from her forehead, tucking it in with the others, she shivers under my touch.
In the lobby, music bursts to life. That stupid donut song.
I glare at the doorway. “First, did that just restart on its own? And second, you have to listen to that all day?”
“It makes me kind of homicidal.”
“Me too. I almost shot the speaker.”
A ghost of a smile appears on her lips causing a stutter in my heartbeat and a feeling of skidding on ice beneath my feet.
“Please do,” she says.
I take a step back, looking at her too long before I walk into the front of the shop and rip the speaker off the wall.
When I present it to her with a grin, she shakes her head and the ghost-smile brightens. “That’s a different twist on chivalry.”
She has no idea the lengths I would go to for her if she were mine.
“Well, I’ve never been called conventional.”
