Chapter 1 #2
Things tended to stop when Cass used that particular tone of voice.
And when people knew he was about to kick ass.
He was so ready to kick some ass. Dark tension had been riding him hard.
Hell, the darkness always pulled at him.
Lately, that pull was even more intense.
The idiot before him had just given Cass the perfect excuse to let the beast within off the leash that normally held him in check.
For a beat of time, he studied the dumbass who’d come to the bar in order to attack. Shaved head. Long beard. Nose ring. Beady eyes. Those eyes made the mistake of darting to the discarded knife.
Cass sighed. “You don’t telegraph your intent, dumbass.
You just attack. When you telegraph, that lets people like the cute redhead behind me…
” He reached back. Maybe he gave her thigh a pat.
Fine, there was no maybe about it. He did pat her thigh.
Then his fingers lingered. The touch was supposed to be a sign for her to stand down.
Not like he wanted her to fly into the fight that was moments away from occurring.
Yet…
His fingers lingered a little longer than necessary.
And stroked. Stroked right beneath the edge of her skirt. Touched smooth skin. Dammit.
Her skin was way too soft. “You should fucking cover up,” he growled at her. “It’s cold outside.”
Amused laughter greeted him. Her laughter. “You should focus on more immediate problems.”
He’d never taken his gaze off the immediate problem. So when the bald biker before him lunged for the fallen knife, Cass was ready.
The fool never made it to the knife. His face did connect with Cass’s boot, though, as Cass kicked the prick hard and sent him flying back. The would-be attacker slammed into a nearby table.
Cass’s crew cheered.
The table wasn’t meant to hold the jerk’s weight, clearly, and it broke with a loud creak and a crash. The attacker’s ass landed on the floor.
Did the jerk have the sense to give up? To turn tail and run?
Of course, not. The idiots who came, trying to take down Cass so they could claim the glory of killing the leader of the Night Strikers, never had that sense.
Instead, the attacker grabbed a broken table leg, and, with a roar, the SOB was back on his feet.
He drew back the hunk of wood, holding it behind his head, and he barreled toward Cass.
“Uh, tell me you’ve got this…” Agnes began, her words sharp with tension. “Cass? Cass!”
He had this. He launched forward, going in hard, and he rammed into the idiot before the biker could take a swing. Cass’s shoulder hit the guy’s torso, all of the breath whooshed from his prey, and Cass took that prick down.
Thunderous cheers broke out. The crowd closed in. Very, very tightly.
Cass kicked away the broken table leg.
“Strike! Strike! Strike!” The chants filled the air.
Hell. He was gonna have to give the crowd what they wanted.
Cass rose to his full height. He rolled back his shoulders.
Shook out his hands. Got loose and ready.
“You want to come at me?” Cass challenged the creep who thought the best way to attack was from behind.
“Then you come at me directly. You don’t sneak up behind me like a coward. You hit me, face to face.” Cass smiled.
“Strike! Strike! Strike!” His MC members stomped their feet. Whistled.
The bald biker rose to his feet. Fury twisted his face. The golden nose ring gleamed.
Cass let his smile stretch. “You hit me face to face,” he repeated. “Just like I’m about to hit you.” Then Cass drew back his fist and attacked.
She couldn’t see a damn thing.
Agnes Quinn huffed out a breath even as she rose to her feet—on the bar. Yeah, she was standing on the bar. Not dancing on it or anything cool like that. Just standing in her high heels as she craned to see around the crowd and make sure that Cass Striker was not, in fact, getting his ass kicked.
Because, sure, he was supposed to be big and bad.
But the jerk who’d been sneaking up behind him—with a knife—had been bigger.
As in, while Cass clocked in at six-foot-three—yes, she knew his exact height, she’d done her recon work on him, after all—the biker with the shaved head and dark skull tats looked to be around six-foot-six.
Maybe six-seven with his boots. And the dude was big.
Not big as in muscled, but big with lots of extra weight and padding on him.
Since both men were so tall, she should have been able to see something. Especially from her high perch. But the crowd had closed in, and Agnes was pretty sure the fighters had to be on the floor.
Please, please, don’t let Cass be pinned on the floor.
Her jaw locked. Okay, enough of this bullshit.
She was a Fed, after all. Things had moved helluva fast, and she’d already shouted twice for everyone to stop.
She’d been ignored both times. Agnes didn’t enjoy being ignored.
She also was not going to just stand there while a major assault went down.
Time for her to call a halt to this mess, now.
She put her fingers to her lips and blew. Loud. Hard. Unfortunately, her whistle didn’t really cut above the crowd. When she grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the stunned bartender and smashed it onto the floor, well, her continued whistling and the crash finally drew eyes to her.
Stunned gazes to which she yelled, “Stop, now, because I am a—”
“She’s mine,” Cass snarled before she could tell everyone there that she was an FBI agent.
Her breath shuddered out.
“Mine,” Cass repeated gutturally.
And she could see him again. Finally. As if he’d spoken some magic word, the crowd parted around him. He rose to his feet, fisted hands at his sides, while his much bigger opponent remained groaning and slumped on the floor.
Uh, oh. “Does he need medical attention?” It certainly appeared that way to her.
Cass grunted. He also began stalking toward her. The place had been so loud moments before, but now, she was pretty sure that if you just strained the tiniest bit, you’d probably be able to hear a pin drop.
Agnes feared her heaving breaths were far too loud, and, oh, crap, she was still standing on the bar’s top. Awkward.
What else was awkward? The absolutely predatory look on Cass’s handsome face. Handsome as in…dangerous. Gorgeous. Knee-weakeningly sexy.
If you went for the type.
She normally didn’t. True story. She did not normally think bad guys were hot.
However, there was not anything particularly normal about her response to Cass.
From the first moment that she’d seen him at the FBI Atlanta office, she’d felt as if an electric shock had gone through her entire system.
She’d been working another case, and he had not exactly been enthused to meet her.
He was tall, broad-shouldered. He knew how to perfectly fill out a battered leather jacket and how to seriously work some faded jeans.
His dark hair was thick and tousled, his jaw covered by the dark scruff of a light beard, and his intense eyes glittered.
Not completely dark eyes. Some gold lurked deep in that darkness.
And such a fierce glower currently covered his hard and chiseled face.
Oh, yeah. I’m hot for the bad guy.
But she did have a few other concerns at the moment other than just his incredible hotness.
She craned her head and looked behind Cass as he continued his intent stalking routine. The man on the floor was starting to rise. Agnes cleared her throat. “Uh, Cass…”
He lifted his right hand. “Throw his ass out.”
That was it? Just throw him out? After an attempted murder?
Cass was in front of her now. Glaring up at her.
Agnes wet her lips. “He tried to kill you. You don’t need to throw his ass out.
” She kept her voice soft. “You need to press charges.” Obviously.
“Should I arrest—Cass!” The last of her words ended in a shocked yelp because he’d hauled her off the bar and just tossed her over his shoulder like that was a normal thing.
She would admit, it was a fairly hot thing, if you went for that sort of alpha behavior. Maybe I do. But, it was not normal. And there had just been an assault, an attempted murder honestly, and Cass should be pressing charges, not carrying her around on his shoulder as if—
“Mine,” Cass said again.
He was referring to her. Sighing, Agnes shoved her right hand against his back and levered herself up a bit so that she could see the crowd.
A whole lot of people were glowering at her.
So she sent a friendly wave with her left hand. “Delighted to meet you all.”
Cass growled. Then he began marching through the crowd—well, more stalking again, really.
The assembled bikers parted even more for him, and she saw that the attacker had already vanished.
Wow. Talk about fast. Apparently, when the leader of the Night Strikers said jump, everyone bounced.
Or, in this case, they all threw out an unwelcome visitor.
No one waved back to her which was, quite simply, rude.
Before she could tell them all her opinion, though, she was outside.
Cass had carried her outside of the dingy bar, and for a moment, she very much feared that he was just going to dump her on her ass on the sidewalk and walk away.
Then he’d strut back in the bar and tell everyone that she wasn’t supposed to be allowed inside and that would be problematic.
“Uh, Cass…” Agnes cleared her throat. She tried to sound charming instead of worried as she continued, “Cass, my awesome new friend, how about you calm down—”
His growl cut through her words. “We are not friends.”
Oh, ouch. “Someone’s extra pissy after a fight. Good to know. I—ah!”
He’d hauled her off his shoulder.
But he hadn’t plunked her ass on the ground. Instead, she was…