AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I didn’t catch the scent of alcohol or anything, so she didn’t pass out from that. As a bouncer, I’d seen that more times than I could count.
But the fear I’d seen in her eyes. What was that about? I was scary looking, yeah, but notthatscary looking. Then again it was two in the morning, and I probably reeked of grease, sweat and beer from a long night at the bar.
“Hello?” a tiny voice called out. “Hey, you. Hello?”
I glanced around and saw only the empty hallway behind me. “Hello?” I called out.
“Here. Here.”
The voice sound like it was coming from the unconscious girl—wait, she had an earbud wedged in her ear. I scanned the floor and found her phone off to the side. There was a woman on the screen waving her hands.Holy shit.I snatched the thing up, and on the screen, there was a woman pointing to her ear.
“Oh. Yeah.”
I swiped the phone and turned off the Bluetooth. The woman’s image cut out a second, but then her voice cut in.
“—you so much. Thank God you came by. Please. You have to help her,” the woman on the screen of the phone said.
“What the hell is going on?” Maybe I was being punked or something. Maybe there was a hidden camera around. Hopefully not, considering I needed to stay off the grid as much as possible.
“What’s your name?”
“Hunter. You?”
“Jenna. Can you please press the 21stfloor? Oh wait, you need the pass. Hers is—”
“I got one. That’s my floor.” I leaned to the side and swiped my key fob then clicked twenty-one.
This girl lived next to me? I hadn’t met the neighbors yet, but I’d only moved in last week, and I made it a point to not mingle much.No personal attachments allowed.
“Thank you. Wait, you’re Angelina’s neighbor?”
“Angelina?” I shifted the stranger around and hoisted her into my arms. Light little thing. Fit, too. Those yoga pants suited her. “Is that your name?” I asked, looking into her relaxed face. She looked more like a Lina….
No. No nicknames. No connections.
But there was something about this girl that poked at my rigid no dating rule. Maybe because it’d been so long since I’d been with a woman. I was primed and ready—
“Yes. Oh, thank goodness.”
“What’s going on?” I asked, totally confused how I’d ended up holding a total stranger in my arms after a long night of plucking drunks off the floor of the club. None were as pretty as Lina, though. Such a fragile-looking thing. Her head lulled against my chest, and a strange sensation of electricity and tingling ignited where she touched me. It wasn’t even skin-on-skin, but I felt it.
Even through the stench of greasy food and sweat clinging to my shirt, her fresh scent sifted through. What was that? Cucumbers?
“…was that what your name was?”
The voice from the phone yanked me out of my staring. “Yeah. Hunter...Amos.” Holy crap, I almost gave her my real last name. “So, what’s her deal? Should I be calling an ambulance or something?”
“No. If you’re okay with it, can you get her to her apartment?”
“As in…like bring her in there?”
“I’ll stay on the phone with you the entire way. It’ll be fine.”
There was nothing fine about me, a total stranger, bringing another total stranger into her apartment. I took care of drunks at the bar, but the furthest I’d ever gone was to get them to their cab or their car if they had a sober driver.
“I know this might seem strange, and I can’t tell you much other than she’ll be fine. We were trying something out and…well, you were a little unexpected.”
“You her shrink or something?” I glanced up at the numbers as they edged toward our floor. I was a little sad at the thought of letting this warm woman go. It’d been so long. So very long since I’d just held someone.
