CHAPTER ONE #2
When she walked over to take their order, the same one leaned in too close. “Hey, honey,” the kid said, his voice loud and arrogant. “Why don’t you skip the pie and tell me what time you’re off?”
Keely didn’t blink. She leaned down, planting both hands on their table. “You want a burger or are you here just to waste my oxygen?”
The guy laughed, but it was forced. He reached out, his hand coming to close around her wrist to pull her closer.
I was out of the booth before he’d even finished the motion.
“Let go.” I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t have to. I stood over him, my shadow covering the table.
The guy foolishly held on. I reached out, bending his fingers back. Keely pulled her wrist away, stepping behind me.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” the guy snapped, standing up.
I stepped closer, my expression blank but my stance was a warning. “You do not touch her. Ever. Understand?”
I looked at his companions. “Get him out of here before he does something he won’t recover from.”
They grabbed their friend and hustled him out of the door, arguing as they went.
I stood there after the door closed behind them.
Jaw locked, the muscle jumping under the scar, every system in my body still running hot and looking for a reason to finish what had barely started.
I knew this state. Knew it the way you know a bad road—the feel of it under you, the way it wanted to keep going.
I breathed out through my nose and let the feeling run its course, but the tight knot low in my gut didn’t uncoil.
I made myself turn around and look at Keely, hoping the rage inside me didn’t show. The last thing I wanted to do was scare her.
“I had it,” she said, though her hands were shaking. “I was about to dump a pitcher of ice water on his lap.”
“I know. But I didn’t want you to have to mop the mess.”
“Oh, now you try to be funny,” she huffed, a small sound of annoyance and surprise at my words.
I hadn’t said them to be funny, just stated a fact.
I didn’t want her to have to do extra work because of someone else’s stupidity.
I also didn’t want any other man to touch her, but I couldn’t tell her that.
At least not yet. “You should have stayed in your booth.”
I didn’t answer her because she was wrong. I should have let her handle it, but there was no way I could have stayed out of what was happening.
Reaching out, I took her arm in my hand. A mark was already forming around her wrist where he had touched her. I wanted to kiss away the other man’s touch.
She stood there, her lips parted, her gaze locked with mine, searching. Was she trying to figure me out? Wondering why a man like me cared? Maybe. Or maybe she felt it too—the pull neither of us could deny.
“I need to get back to work.”
I didn’t let go of her wrist. No yet. My thumb moved across the mark again, slow.
Her pulse was quick and erratic. I wanted to think it was because of me and not what had just happened.
Her skin was dangerously soft against my calluses, and it made me want to feel that decadent softness everywhere.
My mind immediately supplied the image—Keely bare and flushed beneath me, the lush, heavy weight of her thighs bracketing my waist as I took her apart.
My cock hardened instantly becoming a thick, insistent ridge behind my dress pants.
I dropped her wrist and gave her a curt nod. She hurried away, sliding behind the counter. I knew I should leave, forget this ever happened. Forget I’d ever seen her.
But I couldn’t.
I sat back down and drank the rest of my cold coffee. Moments later, she reappeared. She refilled my mug without asking and set down a piece of pie topped with ice cream.
I let my eyes track the movement, catching the way her stomach pressed against the apron strings as she leaned over the table.
She caught me looking and immediately shifted her weight, a flash of self-consciousness crossing her face as she subtly tugged at the hem of her shirt to hide the curve of her hip.
That small, instinctive move hit me somewhere I wasn’t prepared for.
Like she was trying to make herself smaller.
Like she’d learned somewhere along the way that her body was something to apologize for.
It took everything I had not to reach out and stop her hands.
To tell her that every generous, lush inch of her was something a man would wreck himself over.
That I’d been wrecking myself over it for weeks.
I kept my mouth shut and picked up my fork instead.
Some truths had no business coming out of my mouth.
“On the house,” she said, giving me a look I couldn’t quite read. “For stepping in.”
“Didn’t do it for pie,” I muttered, but I picked up the fork, anything to stop the thoughts churning in my head.
I stayed until the end of her shift, watching her wipe down tables with a focused efficiency, even though she was clearly dead on her feet. When she finally emerged from the back with her keys in hand, she stopped when she saw me.
She didn’t even need to ask why I was still there. “I don’t need a bodyguard.”
“It’s late.” I didn’t say anything else, simply followed her out into the mountain air.
The parking lot was quiet, most of the customers had already left.
When she reached her car—a vehicle that had seen better years, hell, better decades—she turned toward me, her back to the driver’s side door.
“You’re a strange man,” she said. She was looking at me like she was trying to figure me out, completely unintimidated. By my scar. My size. By me.
Most people her age had learned to read the warning signs on a man like me and act accordingly. She wasn’t just young, she was innocent. And too damn trusting for my peace of mind.
“You come in here, barely speak, and then act like—”
A loud, sharp crack ripped through the silence.
In a heartbeat, the diner parking lot disappeared, and I wasn’t in Montana anymore.
I pushed Keely against the car, my body a heavy shield over hers, one arm pinned against the roof as I trapped her against me. My other hand went to my hip, searching for a sidearm that wasn’t there, my eyes scanning the dark tree line for muzzle flashes.
“Griffin.” Her voice was soft and even, cutting through the fog of my memories.
Her small hands were planted against my chest as if to ground me.
It took a split second for me to recognize the sound—a truck backfiring a few blocks over.
But that instinct to protect didn’t go away.
“It was a truck,” she whispered. “Just a truck, Griffin.”
I didn’t move. I couldn’t. She was warm, real, and smelled like coffee and apple pie. I could feel every soft curve of her pressed against me and had absolutely no defense against it. None.
Her body was lush and full and warm against mine, every generous inch of her fitting against me like the universe had made a mistake putting us this close together.
The heavy curve of her hips was pressed against my thighs.
Her chest rose and fell against mine. She was so damn soft everywhere I was hard, and the feel of all that warmth and weight undid something in my chest that I’d had locked down for years.
I wanted to pull her closer. I wanted to bury my face in her hair and breathe her in and let myself pretend, just for a second, that I had any right to hold something this good.
For a second, the too old and too damaged part of my brain went silent.
“I know.” My voice came out wrecked. I was still pressed against her, both palms now flat on the roof of her car, and I couldn’t make myself move back yet. “How do you know my name?”
She got a shy look on her face as if I had discovered a dirty little secret, but she tossed her head with a touch of defiance. “I asked.”
“Mmm.” I continued to stare down at her. If she was interested enough to find out my name, could she interested in getting to know me better? My body was pressed hard against hers and the flashback had already faded. If I leaned down—
Her hands were now moving against my chest. When her fingertips brushed against a nipple, I had to bite back a groan. “My name is Keely.”
“I know.” I paused for a second. “I asked around too.”
I’d asked about her schedule. Her family. Whether there was a man who drove her home at night.
“Oh.” Her mouth formed that perfect little round shape that had me wanting to bend down and find out exactly how she tasted. I wanted to find out if she was as responsive as she was stubborn.
I finally forced myself to step back, the sudden distance feeling like a physical ache. I opened her door, my movements stiff, but then so was my body.
“Lock the doors,” I said, my jaw so tight it hurt.
She got in, looking up at me through the window with an unshielded curiosity that was far dangerous. I stood there until her taillights disappeared around the curve, my hands still twitching for a weapon I didn’t have and a girl I couldn’t keep.
Years separated us, and about a hundred other things that had nothing to do with age. But as I watched her drive away, I knew I was done pretending I could stay away.