The man is apparently made of concrete and bad intentions.
So I bite his palm.
He grunts.
Not in pain, exactly.
More like a man mildly inconvenienced by wildlife.
“Little hellcat,” he mutters.
He drags me backward into a deep shadow between the villa wall and a tall hedge. His hand leaves my mouth, but his arm stays locked around me.
“If you scream,” he says, “they find you.”
“If you’re here to kill me,” I whisper, my voice shaking despite my best effort, “I’m going to make it very inconvenient.”
A beat passes.
His chest shifts against my back.
Was that a laugh?
It better not be. I deserve respect while being potentially murdered.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” he says.
“That sounds exactly like what someone here to hurt me would say.”
“Fair.”
He turns me carefully, keeping me hidden in the shadows.
And I forget how words work.
He is huge.
Tall, broad, all black leather and hard muscle. His dark hair is threaded with silver at the temples. Stubble shadows his jaw. His face looks carved by weather, war, and a serious lack of patience. But it’s his eyes that steal my breath. Dark gray. Sharp. Watchful. The kind of eyes that don’t just look at a person. They assess, measure, and decide whether the world needs to bleed for touching them.
A leather cut stretches over his shoulders.
The patch on his chest reads Damned Saints MC.
My stomach flips.
Everyone knows the Damned Saints. They ride through Lovestone Ridge and Swoon Peaks like thunder with moral issues. Rough men. Dangerous men. But they fix problems people are too afraid to report.
Locals trust them.
Criminals don’t.
Right now, I am deeply invested in being a local.
His eyes lock on mine, dark and steady.
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
“What are you doing here?”
