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Devin swallowed down a rush of acrid bile as her gaze darted to the packed crowd around her. How was no one seeing this? No one was stepping in to help, to make sure the terrified female being accosted was all right. They might be in a club, but the press of bodies should assure some measure of safety.
The Alpha behind Devin gave an enraged howl, pulling her off the stool with an implacable grip as someone else yanked him away. Her shriek was cut short as she flew backwards, the air knocked from her lungs by the sudden stop against a broad chest.
It wasn’t the same Alpha.
“Oh Gods,” Devin choked out between wheezing gasps, her diaphragm struggling to remember how it worked. Bulky arms as large as tree trunks came around her, lifting and turning until they cradled her against a great expanse of warm, soft fabric. There were roars and barks behind her, the sounds of flesh meeting as violence erupted. Every muscle locked up, petrified as the vicious cacophony spread in a wave. The male holding her so tight already straining lungs couldn’t take a much-needed breath kept her head tucked against his neck. Unable to see the brutality made it so much worse.
Then they were moving. The man carried her through a path that opened for him at once in the crowd, his heavy strides jarring her so that he gripped and clutched even tighter. Muscled arms crushed her against a broad chest redolent with Alpha musk, smoke, and scotch. The thought of going anywhere with him knocked the terrified paralysis from her limbs.
Clawing and kicking at the massive man, she refused to go wherever he thought to take her. Manicured nails painted a deep crimson luster to match her top lashed out to inflict as much damage as she could. Reaching for his face, Devin found her wrists caught and shoved to the small of her back by the man’s fierce grip, the small bones grinding together as he tightened his hold.
“Stop fighting me,” he barked in her face.
All Devin could comprehend was the dark fury in his eyes and the pain radiating up her arms. It did not ease her fears in the slightest, and she redoubled her effort to get free. Brilliant green and red pulsed at the edges of her vision in time with her heart where it hammered against the back of her ribs. It pounded down from her shoulders, wrenching them in the sockets as she twisted and bucked.
Perhaps seeing her abject terror, understanding filtered through the haze of anger and the giant gentled his voice. “I work here.”
When she didn’t grow still and quiet, he changed tactics. Mouth pressed against the shell of her ear, he let loose a reverberating purr that shuddered down her spine. Even through the steady thrum of the music, it slipped through her and sluiced away tension like dirty water. Her joints loosened under the subterranean rumble, muscles going lax as instincts had her melting against the male. Calm radiated through her in thick waves, a warm lassitude overwhelming her senses.
Suppressants only did so much.
He shifted his hold to release Devin’s wrists, but kept her arms pinned at her sides. A boost upward on his chest allowed her to peer over the wide breadth of his shoulder. Chaos reigned at the bar beyond where black-clothed bouncers pinned the aggressive Alpha to the sticky floor. Devin shrank away from the violence, flinching as the challenging bellow came to a sudden stop.
Thick fingers shifted at her side, grazing the swath of skin laid bare as the skirt rode dangerously low. Devin squeaked a protest, trying to slap the hand away as those searching digits moved under the swell of her hip and felt around.
“Jamie, Tom. Get Marco downstairs to help deal with the guy at the bar.”
It took Devin longer than she was proud of to realize he was speaking into a small microphone pinned to the collar of his shirt, and that the controller for it seemed to be at his waist under her hip.
“I’m sorry,” Devin said, trying to pitch her voice loud enough to be heard without yelling, shoulders rolling in so she could huddle into a smaller ball of humiliation. All of it made even more uncomfortable as her body rubbed against the man’s chest.
“Yeah.” The man’s voice was rough, his warm breath scattering over her bare shoulder as he put his lips close to her ear. “I’m going to take you upstairs so you can fix your outfit.”
“You don’t—I can go—my friend…” Devin bit her lips hard enough to induce a brilliant shock of violet pain to stop her jumbled excuses.
The Alpha’s clenched jaw and frigid blue eyes reduced her arguments to ash on her tongue. Arm circling her thighs, he waded through the crowd towards the front of the building. The smaller fenced area before the elevator came into view.
Inside the close metal box, the Alpha took up most of the available space. The bright peal before the doors closed was disorienting. Its cheery sound seemed so at odds with the dark confines of the club’s interior. The third floor was quiet, with only the deep thrum of the bass discernible as the elevator doors closed. A long hallway with heavy doors on both sides stretched out before them. Small chandeliers dripping with crystal and silver were dark, the only lighting coming from sconces styled to look like old-fashioned gaslights spaced wide along the walls.
“We’ll check you over and make sure he didn’t hurt anything.” The man angled towards an open door that poured bright light onto the hardwood floor when he flipped a switch inside.
“He d-didn’t… He only t-touched…” A full body shudder wracked her slight frame, bile rising to choke off further speech. Swearing she could still feel the man’s hand on her, his cock pressing against her back, she blubbered something incoherent as her stomach surged.
The purr was even richer now that she could hear it. It worked its way through her skin, resonating into her bones. Heavy and almost too hot, a hand settled on Devin’s nape. Firm and rhythmic, he massaged the pale column until she took a shuddering breath.
Somehow, she’d missed him taking a chair and how he’d arranged her across his lap. So strung out from the rush of adrenaline and the heady intensity of a comforting purr, she hadn’t even realized they’d made it inside the room. Her pleated skirt, having begun the evening at a barely decent length, had hitched high. A deep vee angled from the hem above her knees to the junction of her thighs, a glimpse of plain black cotton just visible. Fabric torn in a single line almost to her waist, it left precious little of her covered.
Further inspection saw the tips of dusty rose nipples peeking just over the edge of the corset bodice. In the tussle, the cinched fabric must have been pulled. Shivering, she curled up into a protective ball despite the Alpha’s soothing.
“You understand why I couldn’t let you traipse off to the bathroom now,” the man said through the deep purr. It was a statement, a light reprimand for Devin having fought him at all. He continued to work at the tensed muscles of her neck as the fingers of his other hand skimmed up her leg. “I couldn’t exactly trust you wouldn’t land in even more trouble.”
Grateful though she might be that he’d taken her off the floor before anyone could see the state of her, Devin still didn’t trust the scene. Sitting on his lap as he purred and petted abraded her already raw nerves. Shying away from the unwanted attention brought his hand to her knees, pulling her back onto his thighs.
“Let’s get these off, hm?” His hand went to her calf, smoothing up the leather of her boot until he found the zipper at her knee. The grating sound of the teeth giving way was as loud as gunshots to Devin’s ears.
“What are you doing,” Devin asked in a high-pitched whine. Her hand wedged between them, pushing against the broad chest that settled against her.
“You’re shaking,” he said in a rumble that was brimming with male satisfaction, pale eyes trained on her leg as even more skin was revealed to his hungry gaze. “These heels are awful tall for such a little thing like you. Don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
