Better when He's Bold

I sauntered up to the table and put my hip on the edge of the booth. He looked up at me with those pine-colored eyes and my mouth went dry.

“Hey.”

He smiled at me and I had to fight back a dreamy sigh. Race Hartman smiling should be illegal; it was totally a concealed weapon.

“I saw you called. Figured I would stop by and make sure everything was all right.”

I blinked in surprise and fiddled with the edge of my apron. No one had ever cared enough to check up on me like that. It made my heart want to be really, really stupid.

“I’m fine. I was just wondering what you were up to tonight. My sister isn’t at home, and honestly, I want to be anywhere but there. I know it’s the weekend and you probably have a million things going on, but I thought it was worth a shot.”

One of his eyebrows danced up and he turned so he could put a hand on my thigh. Considering I was wearing a skirt, that meant he got a handful of skin right above where my torn skin was still healing from the fall in the parking lot. It took me a minute to get my breathing regulated as my blood went warm and thick with just the brush of his palm. I wasn’t typically this brazen or this forward. But just like last night, something about him made me want to push boundaries, made me want to just take what I wanted—him.

“I am busy. I was working when you called. I’ve been working all day. What time do you get off?”

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him as soon as he got me off but I bit it back on a little laugh. What was wrong with me?

“Around one.”

He stood up abruptly and we were so close. He put a hand on the side of my neck and bent down and pressed a kiss to my surprised mouth.

“Meet me at the garage. I’ll text you the code to get inside the gates. I might not make it exactly at one, but if you go right there from here, you should be okay in that part of town—even that late.”

I wanted to spend the night with him, wanted to feel that return to my old self like I had last night. I nodded silently and his chin bumped my forehead. He brushed a thumb along the curve of my bottom lip.

“I don’t have a ‘minion’ to spare to follow you around tonight, Bry. So you need to keep yourself safe, all right?”

I nodded again and he took a step away from me.

“Race . . .” Those green eyes flared at me quickly and an easy grin played across his mouth. “You keep yourself safe too.” I felt like someone should be telling him that while he went off to do God only knew what.

Something crossed his face, something that made a shiver work across the surface of my skin.

“Suddenly making sure everyone is safe seems like more of a priority than it was the other day.”

He gave me another kiss and left me staring after him with a breathless anticipation that felt so nice, but also left me with a fair amount of worry about what exactly it was I was getting into.

I ended up with a late table of rowdy guys, so I wasn’t able to have Ramon walk me out of the restaurant until almost one thirty. I was tired but made sure I was very aware of all my surroundings as I went to the car. No one jumped out of any shadows. No car tried to run me down, and when Ramon sent me on my way with a little kiss on the cheek and a wink, I actually felt pretty good about things.

The drive into the Point was never fun. It was still sad to see the way things devolved the farther into the heart of the city I went. But now that I was spending more time here, was starting to understand the ebb and flow, the way the city fed off the lives of the people who lived in it, the less terrified I was of every dark thing that moved in the night. I had a moment of almost panic when a set of headlights suddenly shone in my rearview mirror. I squinted at the glare and my hands involuntarily curled tighter around the steering wheel. I picked up the pace, rounded a corner, and breathed a sigh of relief when the metal monolith of the garage came into view.

I wheeled in front of the massive gates and punched in the numerical code that Race had sent me earlier. The car that had been behind me drove on without even pausing, and my heart dropped back from throat into my chest. I settled down even more when the giant metal gates swung closed, sealing me inside. As barren as this place was, as industrial and unwelcoming as the façade was, there was no denying it felt like an iron fortress that could keep the wolves of the street at bay. I took a minute to get my thoughts in order, stripped off my apron, and went to walk inside when I halted because the gates were whining and whirring behind me as someone opened them from the outside.

The Mustang was loud and kicked up a cloud of dust as Race pulled into the lot. He pulled in right next to the BMW and killed the engine. I waved a hand in front of my face to clear some of the debris and walked around the front of the car to meet him. I stopped dead in my tracks and felt my jaw fall open when I caught sight of him. He winced when he saw me, and spit a mouthful of blood onto the ground.

His hair was sticking up all over the place. His bottom lip was split open. He had a gushing cut oozing blood out of one blond eyebrow, and one cheek was puffy and swollen. His button-down shirt was torn at the collar and streaked with pink trails of blood. Both of his hands had ugly abrasions and scrapes all along the backs and knuckles.

“What happened to you?” I sounded like I had sucked on a helium balloon, my voice went so high in alarm.

He spit again and shook out one of his hands. I cringed as little drops of blood went flying with the motion.

“Work happened.”

He was moving pretty slowly, but seemed steady on his feet as he made his way toward me. I reached out to grab him, but he held up his hands and backed away a step.