When He Guards (Protector and Defender #5)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

The sexy little FBI agent had no business walking into the packed bar as if she owned the place. A notorious dive, the place catered to motorcycle club members. The rough and the tough. The dangerous predators.

Not sweet-ass redheads in screw-me heels.

There was no way she should come strolling in, her thick hair loose around her shoulders, her heels too high, her skirt too short, and that top of hers far too tight as she ambled through the dangerous crowd and locked what were truly incredible blue eyes on him.

And she should not, absolutely should not, wink at him as she approached.

But she did.

Sonofabitch.

She winked at him, right before a crowd of far too eager and far too big MC members closed in on her and completely blocked her from his sight.

Cassius “Cass” Striker grabbed his beer bottle.

He barely felt the cold glass beneath his grip.

All he’d wanted was one night to just relax.

Time to drink a freaking beer in peace. But was he gonna get that peace?

Oh, hell, no, he was not. Because now he had to go and rescue the FBI agent who should’ve had more sense than to seek out the seediest bar in Atlanta.

Everyone knew this was MC territory. You did not stroll in like you were—

“Hi, there.” She was right in front of him. All electric blue eyes and dark red hair. Full, sexy lips smiling.

He blinked. Looked over her shoulder. The crowd of bikers had dispersed. Mostly, anyway. A few threw curious glances his way. One even gave him a thumbs up.

What. The. Hell?

She reached out and put her hand on the battered sleeve of his black, leather jacket.

“So, I am truly curious…” Her voice was very clear.

A little husky. Definitely sexy. Also, a wee bit too loud because he knew every ear in the place was probably straining to hear them.

“Just what does a woman have to do in order to get fucked by the leader of the baddest motorcycle club on the East Coast?”

He slammed down the beer bottle. It clinked against the bar top.

Her eyes gleamed, dancing with amusement. Because, what, she thought this was some kind of joke? Did it look like he was laughing? “You’re playing with fire, princess.”

Instead of having some common sense and backing away—running away would be the smart choice—she leaned even closer, and her seductive, feminine scent wrapped around him. “Absolutely fantastic,” she told him. “I love getting hot.”

His back teeth ground together. “Agnes…”

“You remember my name. So good to hear. Delightful, in fact. I was a bit afraid that you’d forgotten me. I don’t want to be forgettable.”

She was not. She was a pain in his ass. A sexy pain in the ass, granted, but still a pain.

He’d met her at the FBI’s main office in Atlanta a while back.

And the FBI office? That was a place that the leader of the Night Strikers did not want to be, ever.

But he’d been there because he’d been making absolutely certain that individuals who’d hurt his people paid the price, and FBI Agent Agnes Quinn had just strolled her hot self right up to him in the middle of that Bureau hellscape.

She’d stretched out her hand to him and said, “I’m Agnes Quinn.

” As cute and charming as you please. Like they were meeting for tea or something.

He had not introduced himself back to her. He also had not touched her hand. Feds and MC leaders did not shake hands. They did not mingle in public for fun.

They did not fuck.

But Agnes hadn’t been put off by his refusal to speak or touch her at the Bureau. Instead, she’d just asked with a bat of her long eyelashes, “Are you really as bad as they say?”

Oh, he was. Much, much worse, actually.

The woman should’ve had the sense to stay away from him.

Instead, she was in his favorite dive bar.

Right the hell in front of him now. Talking about fucking.

He rose from the bar stool and towered over her.

“I’m gonna have that sexy ass thrown out of here.

” Deliberately, he kept his voice low, for her ears alone because he was trying to give her the chance to leave on her own accord.

Look at him, being a semi-nice guy. That niceness would only last for about one more minute.

“If you don’t turn around and get out of here in the next sixty seconds, I will have my men carry you out and toss you onto the street. ”

Instead of appearing intimidated, she shook her head. Then she put her hand on his chest. She leaned close, too, so that it probably looked as if they were about to kiss. “I don’t think so,” Agnes told him, way too confident.

He blinked.

“I don’t think you’re the kind of man who would let someone else do the dirty work for him. If you want me out, I think you’d do it yourself. You’d put those big hands of yours on me, and you’d carry me out all by your—” Her words ended on a sharp gasp because he had just put his hands on her.

He’d wrapped his hands around her waist and lifted her onto the bar’s top. Now they were eye to eye, and any amusement that he might have momentarily felt fled. “You don’t want to know about me and the dirty work I do.” He did not have time to screw around with a Fed.

Though screwing with this Fed would be incredibly fun. Fucking the ever-so-hot Agnes? Hell, yes.

No, no. Hell, no. It was not going to happen.

“Did Gray send you?” Cass demanded, referring to her supervisor at the FBI. Grayson Stone, FBI mastermind, mind fucker, all-around asshole. And…

The closest thing to a brother that Cass possessed.

They were actually cousins. They’d grown up more as brothers, though, but that relationship was something that the majority of the MC did not know about.

If you wanted to stay in power, you didn’t advertise the fact that you’d kill to protect an FBI agent. That just wasn’t the way shit was done.

“Gray has no idea that I’m here,” Agnes returned. Her hands had flattened on the bar top, one hand on either side of her body. “I don’t exactly run potential lovers by my boss. That would just be weird.”

What?

Her words had been a bit hard to hear because there’d been a flurry of sudden shouts behind him. The crew always got rowdy the later it became.

Her head cocked to the side as she looked beyond him, toward the noisy crowd. “I don’t want to tell you your business…” With one hand, she reached for the beer bottle that he’d put down on the bar top moments before. “But I don’t think this is a friendly group.”

No shit. He snorted. “If you wanted friendly, then you should have stayed the hell out of this bar. Only MCs come here.” Not just the Night Strikers, either.

The Bottomless Pit was supposed to be a neutral zone, of sorts.

Only things had a way of not staying too neutral the later it got and the drunker the crowd became.

“You were here, so I had to be, too.” She raised the bottle.

So now the woman was drinking his beer? Drinking his beer, and, apparently, she’d been stalking him, too? Should that flatter him, terrify him, or annoy him? Maybe all of the above?

Her words definitely should not interest him. Should not. And why in the hell was he still holding her waist? Why was his gaze still locked on her face as he waited to hear whatever bullshit story she was about to spin for him next?

Random fact, she had a few freckles across the straight bridge of her nose. Oddly cute.

Dammit.

“Someone should really be watching your six,” she murmured as she scrunched her nose in what was an oddly adorable way.

Not that he thought she was adorable. Adorable and sexy didn’t go together. She was sexy. Way too hot. As for his six, he had a whole team who watched his six,

“Good thing I’m here,” she added, and then she threw the beer bottle over his shoulder.

What in the hell?

Even as he heard the thud of the beer bottle connecting with something, Cass whipped around. The beer bottle crashed to the floor. Shattered. But it wasn’t the only thing that crashed to the floor.

A knife did, too. The knife that some tricky bastard had been intending to stab into Cass’s back. The bastard was just a few feet away, and the expression of utter fear and horror on his face was almost priceless.

“He was going toward your back,” Agnes explained in a casual voice. “I saw him pull the knife from the inside of his coat. Everyone else seemed busy fighting or drinking or…you know, making out in dark corners. So I had to intervene.”

She’d intervened…?

“You really should have better protection,” she chided.

“I can protect myself.” Deliberately, he turned to fully face the man who’d frozen. The prick who’d intended to stab Cass in the back.

“You weren’t doing it this time,” Agnes piped in from her perch on the bar behind him. “Thus, I stepped in like the amazing girlfriend I am.”

Girlfriend? Since when? They barely knew each other. Had they even exchanged more than a full minute of conversation before this night? Cass didn’t think so. But he’d deal with his girlfriend later. At the moment, he had a conniving jerk who needed to be handled.

Cass scanned the tats on the man’s arms. His hands.

Cass grunted as he recognized the ink of a rival MC.

All those skulls with thorns twined around them.

But no sign of a tat that would show a position of power in that MC.

“Seriously? You think you’ll jump ranks by plunging a blade into my back? Aren’t you precious?”

The creep’s eyes darted to the left. To the right.

The fighting and the music and the laughter and every damn thing else in the dark bar stopped.