Creeper mode.
Not exactly my style.
The address on the card was three blocks over.
Dodging the masses, I ambled that way, ignoring the rumble in my chest. The way my heart beat a little too hard, and the way my dick felt a little too excited.
Not good.
That lust still simmered. Unsated. Waiting to make its claim.
But then I remembered the look on her face when she’d been weeping on the hard ground. That was something impossible to forget. The storm in those blue, blue eyes. That was the kind of raging sea that shouldn’t be traversed.
Five minutes later, I stood in front of the three-story building. It was painted a yellow that was supposed to make it look cheery or some shit, the door and awnings a sky blue.
Quaint and homey like the rest of the buildings on this street.
Greed and curiosity flared.
When I pushed open the door, a bell jingled overhead, and I stepped into the small hair salon. Senses overloaded, I was hit with the pungent scent of hair dye and bleach, ears hammered with the sound of hair dryers and the lift of voices to be heard over the din.
All the commotion was coming from behind the partition wall that sectioned off the waiting room and the stations in the back.
The waiting room was completely empty, so I moved to the counter that took up the majority of the front, the wall behind it lined with shelves filled with products.
I leaned around to the left so I could see through the opening on that side.
In the back, four stations were set up on each side of the salon. A few women were sitting at them.
I angled farther, trying to catch a glimpse of her.
I pasted on a smile when a woman came barreling around the corner. Magenta hair and tattoos covering every exposed inch of her body and wearing clothes more fitting for a night club in LA than a business in Charleston. But whatever.
At least she didn’t have to wear a mask the way I did. Conceal what was really hiding underneath.
“Hey there, handsome, sorry about that, I was tied up in the back. How can I help you?”
I shifted, antsy, not sure what to say. “I’m looking for . . . someone.”
Blonde. Gorgeous. Sexy as fuck.
Have you seen her?
Like she picked up on something ulterior in my tone, she arched a questioning brow, the stud in her lip pulling up at one side.
“Is that so?” She looked me up and down, gauging me.
Protector.
I saw it written all over her.
“And just who is it that you’re lookin’ for?” She was tiny, but the girl so clearly packed a punch.
“Grace?” It came out like a question. Because, shit, I had no idea if she worked there or owned the place or merely had the card tucked in her wallet because that was where she got that river of hair done.
If so, they were doing a damned good job.
Like that was answer enough for her, she moved to the computer, muttering, “She is earning herself quite the reputation around here. People have been flocking in, asking for her. She’s pretty booked for the rest of the day, but I can . . .”
She narrowed her eyes as she squinted at the computer screen. “I think she could squeeze you in really quick before her next appointment. Just a trim? If that’s what you were lookin’ for?”
She glanced up at me wearing more of that speculation, voice twisting on the last, wondering how I was going to answer. Keen to the fact I wasn’t looking for a haircut at all.
I should hand over the wallet and run. Get the hell out of there like I’d planned on doing. But I needed to see her. Verify that she was okay. “Yes, just a trim.”
“Perfect. She’ll do you up good.” The girl winked at me.
I wished.
“Right this way.”
Slipping out from behind the counter, she rounded through the opening on the left, and I followed her, feeling another rush of sensation slam me when I sat down on the chair that she gestured to.
Antsy and needy and dark.
Fuck.
What was I doing? Whatever it was, I didn’t want to stop.
“She’ll be right with you.”
The girl headed to a short hall at the back of the salon, and she leaned into a room that I couldn’t see inside of, though I could hear their voices. “Hey, Grace, you have a walk in. Just a trim. You should be good on time.”
“Oh, good, thank you, Melissa.”
“No problem.”
Grace’s voice was deep. Sultry like a Southern summer. It instantly stirred that same feeling I’d felt on Saturday night. Energy and light.
And my body that hadn’t stopped wanting something it shouldn’t have only fired harder. My muscles tightened, and my dick—the bastard that I was pretty sure had talked me into this shit in the first place—was punching against my dress pants.
Painfully.
Need racing my blood, guts twisting up in knots, lust stalking my spine like a caged lion seeking a way out.
What messed with my head was the way I was hit with another swell of that protectiveness when I saw her round the corner and step into the salon.
A river of blonde and a sea of sadness in those teal eyes.
My heart shook at my ribs when she saw me sitting there.
Energy lapped, so fucking intense I swore I could see a shiver of it racing the floor.
I should have known better than to come here.
I’d felt the tremble of it. The warning of something unknown. Of something I couldn’t afford to get involved in.
It didn’t matter.
Because sitting there?
I knew it was exactly where I was supposed to be.
Six
Grace
I froze in the middle of the salon. Just staring. Heart taking off at a sprint and my mind whirring with all the possibilities of how it was possible that man was sitting there.
Cinnamon-colored eyes pinned me to the spot.
Hot, hard need coming off him in blistering waves.
I swore I had to be chained up to something solid.
Shackled.
Unable to move.
He watched me through the mirror, the ridiculously gorgeous man from Saturday night.
The guy who’d been trying to entice me with the most wicked night of pleasure who’d instead had knelt on the hard ground at my side and helped me gather my things. The man who was so rough and raw and dangerous and somehow unbearably soft.
The way he’d watched me as if I were fragile—as if he wanted to save me and then turn around and break me a little, too.
His striking reflection was captured in the reflective glass.
So menacing and ominous and intense that it about dropped me to my knees.
A shiver of fear crawled into my belly.
A different kind of fear from the one I’d felt at the thought of facing down Reed.
This kind of fear had me taking a step in his direction. Drawn toward the darkness, a prisoner to the tethers I could feel wrapping around my wrists and yanking me forward.
Tug, tug, tug.
Right there in my belly and in my heart.
How had he found me?
Better question, why had he found me?
Knowing it was dangerous that he had. I just didn’t know who it was most dangerous for.
Lifting my chin, I edged up behind him, trying to exude as much confidence as I could, trying to pretend as if him just sitting there didn’t threaten the rise of tears back to my eyes. The way I both wanted to thank him for what he’d done and scream at him to run.
Tell him I couldn’t afford for him to get tangled up in my business, sure that a man like him would never be willing to pay the price, anyway.
What I really was aching to do was walk up behind him and press my nose to the skin exposed at his neck.
Inhale and breathe him in.
Feel him under my hands.
Decide if he was real or a hallucination my mind had conjured.
I couldn’t help it that every time I closed my eyes over the last two days, he’d popped into my mind, haunting me with the tease of a memory, adding to all the mayhem that was already wreaking havoc on my insides.
Today he was wearing suit pants and a pin-striped white button down, the jacket gone, sleeves rolled up to reveal curls of ink covering both of his forearms.
My mouth watered, and my stomach clenched. Maybe I really had let my imagination run a little too wild. Because I felt like all those fantasies were catching up.
Taking hold.
A reality I most definitely could not keep.