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The big buck at my side, apparently, was.
“I tend to fill the room.” Killian shrugged, but he didn’t step back, either.
I shot him a glance, surprised my usual irritation didn’t surface. “We’re not in a room,” I grumbled, unwilling to let him off without some form of comeback.
“Weak, much?” he noted.“You know you don’t need to hide. Not around us.”
“I don’t hide.” I snapped my mouth shut with an audible clash of teeth.
Killian winced. “Sure you don’t. Keep me awake for the drive home?” He yawned on cue.
My eyes narrowed.“You faked that.”
“Yeah, but it was a good fake.” He grinned.
His outdoor, active persona clashed against the image of his habitual three-piece suit and lary waistcoat collection he frequented in the club. My head whirled against the split personality, still trying to put them together, and failed.
“I—” A quick glance over my shoulder assured me James had his attention focused my way. My chest tightened, the onset of anxiety removing the release running offered in a short reprieve. I swept a hand throughmy hair, pushing it off my face. “I ride with James.”
“The swan’s good.” Killian turned his back to the swan shifter, his feet spread shoulder width apart. “He spent half his time pecking around the picnic grounds. Plenty of energy left there.”
“And youspent half your time pushing me,” I shot back, then wished I hadn’t. Running with Killian was a pleasure I didn’t want to give up. None of the ground-bound crew could keep pace with me over a distance.
“You noticed that, huh?” He folded his arms over his chest, not breaking my gaze when anyone else might have had the grace to look embarrassed at being caught out.
Not him.
The thought that he didn’t shy away from me brought a grin of my own on.
Where the hell did that come from?
“I really should…” I chanced a look past his shoulder for James, who mirrored Killian’s behavior.
Both of them were protective of me at work and play, and both for their own reasons. IgotJames. I worked alongside him five nights of the week and a few days. We’d developed a camaraderie. He knew more of my history than anyone, apart from Rafe, and he took my eccentricities in stride, even pandered to them.
But Killian… He’d taken to growling at everyone who had an eye on me, though he left James alone.
At least, that was their usual program.
Killian nodded without speaking. Canting his head to one side, he waved over his shoulder in a gesture that couldn’t be misconstrued as anything other than aget the fuck out of heresalute. I would have been less surprised if he flicked the bird, though that said something about how the bar contingent viewed the management team.
I grimaced, and James took a step forward. Offering my own half-hearted wave his way, I spoke out of the side of my mouth through clenched teeth. “You shouldn't havedone that.”
“And you shouldn’t run from confrontation every time it happens, Little Bird.” Killian took a step into my space. His knuckles grazed my waist, burning a path through the thin material as James pulled out in a larger cloud of dust than necessary. “It makes you predictable.”
I slapped his chest, encountering a solid wall of six-foot-six inches of muscle that towered over me. My body tingled head to toe, refactoring to his closeness. The air between us shrank as I left my hands pressed to his chest, Killian’s heart thumping that same, steady pace as when we’d run together.
His gaze sharpened on me, and my world narrowed to him alone.
“I am not predictable.” I stepped back, needing the room for space, air—to breathe—but a light squeeze at my waist held me frozen in place.
Rafe muttered something about space and rooms from ground level behind me. He packed his family up, pulling out of the parking lot in record time, leaving me alone with a very sexy bar manager and wondering what we’d been doingapart from staring at each other.
An empty beer can skittered past us, kicking up puffs of dust in its wake. I watched its progress in my periphery, every muscle tensed, though my gaze never left Killian.
“I’d break rules for you. My rules,” he mused. Hisheart picked up its tempo beneath my hand.
I traced my nails over the rough cotton, liking the sensation. The material suited him far more than his suited-up Dom outfit, which I was certain he wore with the sole aim to scare the shit out of newbs and baby subs.
