Page 8 of Striker’s Rebel

He jerks back with a curse, and for one glorious second his grip loosens.

Then the man behind me catches both my arms and drags me backward.

Fear hits hard and fast.

Three men.

Empty parking lot.

Locked bar.

Jamie advances again.

“Let me go!”

He reaches for me.

A voice slices through the night.

Deep. Calm. Close enough to make every man around me freeze.

“Let her go.”

I turn.

A man is walking toward us.

For one completely inappropriate second, my brain forgets how danger works.

He’s huge.

Tall enough to make Jamie look smaller just by entering the same space, broad through the shoulders, black leather cut open over a dark shirt. Tattoos cover his forearms, and dirty-sand hair falls over his forehead like he has better things to do than worry about it.

Then I see his eyes.

Green.

Sharp enough that my breath catches before I can stop it.

My pulse is already racing from fear, but something else slides underneath it now, hot and strange and entirely unwelcome.

Of all possible moments for my body to notice a man, apparently this is the one it chooses.

Wonderful.

His gaze moves over me once.

My face.

The hands gripping my arms.

Back to Jamie.

Something in his expression changes.

Barely.

But I feel it.