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Similarly, her would-be hero took a half-step backwards in tacit acknowledgment that she did indeed have matters in hand, though he did remain close as if for back-up should she need it. Elle appreciated both actions, even as the drunk man stumbled backwards, nursing his hand and shooting her a baleful look before appearing to realise he was free again. His eyes gleamed and he stood his ground, jutting his chin out pugnaciously. She opened her mouth to issue another warning, but this time the stranger beat her to it.
‘There isn’t a problem here, is there, lads?’
It ought to have been a question but it wasn’t. The stranger’s physical presence only emphasised his strength, and yet somehow he managed to make it do it without actually crowding the men or looking as though he was threatening them.
Her eyes were still firmly locked on the drunken man—something warned her that to look at the stranger directly would be as dangerous as staring straight into the sun. Elle tried to sound disapproving out of the corner of her mouth.
‘I really can handle him. But thanks.’
‘He’s drunk and humiliated. You have no idea which way he’ll jump,’ the liquid gold voice murmured.
‘Besides, that was one impressive thumb-lock you executed back there. I’d fancied myself to have been swooping in here like some modern-day superhero when I saw you almost fall off your stool before. At least throw me this bone now so I don’t feel completely impotent.’
There was something utterly secure in the stranger’s tone that made Elle smile. She doubted this man had ever felt anything close to impotent in his whole life. In any sense of the word. And his compliment had warmed her far more than it perhaps ought to have.
‘Then far be it from me to emasculate you.’ She covered her mouth with her hand to hide her sudden, irrepressibly inane grin.
Then, crossing her leather-trouser-clad legs on the bar stool—the brand-new purchase intended to lift her spirits—she gestured discreetly.
‘Be my guest.’
Without another word the stranger step
ped forward. Goose-bumps coursed along Elle’s arms and over her skin and for one long second her gaze lingered on a tight backside and muscular thighs, all wrapped up in black jeans, then slowly travelled upwards. He was tall, very tall, and solidly built, with a black T-shirt seemingly following every contour of his exquisitely hewn torso.
She blinked—since when did she ogle?—before forcing herself to focus on what he was saying.
‘Well, lads? Didn’t you say you were leaving?’ he said, offering the men a way of backing down while still allowing them the appearance of keeping their dignity.
It was a pretty impressive skill, which was sadly lost on the drunken duo. One of them craned his head up to glower, swaying precariously.
‘D’you wanna fight, or shhomething?’
‘I don’t, particularly.’ The response was even, conversational, but there was no mistaking the ominous tone. ‘But if that’s really how you’d like to end your evening...?’
For a moment everything seemed to hang. And then, to Elle’s relief, the one turned to his mate, muttering something about her not being worth the effort, and slunk away into the crowd. Still, the stranger watched with his arms folded across his chest making his biceps bunch appealingly from behind, and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Poised, controlled, but ready if they suddenly returned.
‘Better?’ she asked him, once she was sure the men had left.
Affecting nonchalance, she deliberately plucked a non-existent stray thread from her thigh, wondering who had removed all her internal organs and replaced them with a veritable butterfly pavilion.
‘Much, thanks,’ he agreed with no trace of embarrassment, pulling a comical pose as he flexed his muscles. ‘I feel like a man again.’
She finally made herself look at him properly, and the instant she did she found she couldn’t drag her gaze away.
And what a man.
He was strong, fit—Stevie had been fit, his football giving him an enviable physique—but this was something...more. A whole different level. The stranger had a dangerous power about him that seemed to emanate from the inside just as much as the view on the outside. He was commanding, impressive, thrilling. She’d worked with plenty of majors and colonels and brigadiers in her career, but this guy eclipsed them all.
Was this what she’d been missing all these years?
She barely resisted cocking her head to assess him more thoroughly. Lookswise, his face was inarguably masculine with a defined jawline and a blade of a nose. Not pretty-boy handsome, but far more arresting. The kind of face that would be imprinted in her mind for ever. Greedily she drank in the view. From the honed, squared jaw to the tiny crinkle lines around his eyes, which seemed to add character, it was a face that could have stopped a whole bar full of women and, if the daggers she could feel in her back even now were anything to go in, already had.
Unreadable and intense, his eyes were a smoky blue-grey and were were focussed entirely on her. They drew her in and refused to release her, and so help her she didn’t want to go anywhere. Forget the butterflies; now a hundred tiny fireflies had sprung up in her belly like a magical light show on a warm summer evening.
She couldn’t decide whether it was thrilling or nerve-racking. She flicked her tongue out to moisten nervous lips.
Something momentarily flared in his eyes, something that sent the fireflies racing for cover as fire spread through her entire torso and her heart pounded so hard it would surely leave black and-blue marks on the inside of her chest.
