And seriously, why did she park so far away?
She glanced up at Reseph as he walked beside her, which was a huge mistake. The way he was looking at her made her want to drop into the snow and let him have his way with her right there in the parking lot.
“Hey, dickhead!”
Jillian groaned at Trey’s shout, and as they turned around, Trey and five of his lackeys formed a semicircle around them.
“You showoff punk,” Trey said. “You think you can come into my town and make me look like an ass?”
“You don’t need me to do that,” Reseph drawled. “You’re doing a bang-up job of it all on your own.”
Trey’s face mottled with rage. “I’m going to fuck you up, Amnesia Boy. Maybe that’ll be something you remember.”
“Look, man.” Reseph’s voice was calm, his grip on Jillian’s hand firm but gentle. “You want to back off. You and your buddies need to turn around and go back inside. You can tell everyone you beat me up and I ran away crying. I won’t say any different. But trust me on this one… you want to back off.”
“What a pussy.” Trey’s friend, whose name she thought was Darren, laughed. “Pussy wants to run off with his tail between his legs.”
“Shut up, Darren.” Jillian tugged on Reseph’s hand, hoping to get the hell out of there before things deteriorated. She didn’t doubt Reseph’s ability to fight, not after what she’d seen him do to the demon in her barn, but they were badly outnumbered. “Let’s go.”
Trey and two of his buddies moved to block them. “You aren’t going anywhere.”
“Last chance,” Reseph said. “Go back inside the bar.”
“Fuck you.”
Reseph sighed. “Okay, then.” He shoved Jillian behind him. “Get back.”
“But—”
“Get. Back.” Deadly menace all but leaked from his pores, and suddenly, she revised her earlier thought. Reseph wasn’t outnumbered. Trey and his buddies were.
“Reseph…”
He looked at her from over his shoulder and lowered his voice. “You need to stay out of their reach, because if one of them touches you, I’ll kill him.”
Jesus. He was serious. The way he’d said it, as if he was going to take out the garbage on just another ho-hum night… just, Jesus.
He swung back around to the idiots just in time for Darren to throw a punch.
It never landed. Reseph blocked Darren’s swing and took the other man down with a powerful right hook before spinning around to nail Trey in the gut with a kick that sent the jerk airborne. Trey slammed into his own pickup’s tailgate. Before he even hit the ground, Reseph put two more of Trey’s friends on their backs, one with a clearly broken arm.
A big red-headed guy rushed Reseph. Almost as if Reseph were bored, he jammed the heel of his hand into Red’s face, breaking his nose with an audible crunch. Blood sprayed as Red shouted in pain and lurched toward the bar’s back door.
The remaining guy backed off, hands up.
Dear Lord, Reseph had taken out five men and he wasn’t even breathing hard. The guys on the ground scrambled awkwardly out of his way as he strode over to Trey, who was holding his ribs and struggling to get to his feet. Reseph grabbed him by the throat and lifted him off the ground as if Trey weighed no more than a jug of milk. With a nasty snarl Jillian could only describe as inhuman, Reseph rammed Trey into the driver’s side door, the impact crumpling the metal.
“I warned you,” Reseph said, his voice so bereft of emotion she shivered. “And now I’m warning you again. You fuck with me or Jillian, you so much as look at either of us with anything less than respect—nah, let’s go with awe—and I’ll dismantle you. If you survive, I promise you’ll spend the rest of your life pissing yourself every time you hear Jillian’s name. You feel me?”
At Trey’s frenzied nod, Reseph grinned coldly and looked down. “Looks like you got a head start on the pissing thing.” He dropped Trey and wheeled around to Jillian. “You ready to go?”
All she could do was bob her head in answer as Trey and his buddies limped and shuffled their way back inside the bar.
Reseph took her hand and guided her toward the truck. “You okay?”
Aside from adrenaline scouring her veins like Drano, yes, she was. A huge sense of relief was tripping through her. Something told her that Reseph had held back with those guys. A lot. He’d been level-headed, efficient, and restrained.
It had been kind of… hot.
“I’m fine.” She twined her fingers in his. “And you?”
“I’m on fire.” He jerked her to a halt just shy of the truck and tugged her against him. Even in the shadows of the parking lot, his eyes glowed with a primitive, elemental need that called to a part of her she didn’t understand. All she knew was that her body felt both electrically charged and pliant as rubber, and liquid desire bloomed between her thighs. “I can’t explain it, but I need to be inside you more than ever.”
Her breath stuttered. “Yes,” she whispered.
Normally, now would be when Reseph gave her one of those cocky grins, but not this time. This time he was a single-minded predator, locked on target, and she was in his crosshairs. God, she loved this side of him. She never in a million years thought she’d be the type of woman to like the caveman type, but Reseph managed to not overwhelm. If anything, she couldn’t wait to feel him unleash his inner Neanderthal on her.
His hand dipped into her jacket pocket and withdrew her keys. Before she could protest, he unlocked the truck and opened the passenger side door.
“I’ll drive,” she said, but he lifted her into the seat.
“I have to drive, Jillian.”
“Why?”
His low, throaty growl triggered another rush of wetness. “Because if my hands aren’t on the wheel, they’ll be on you.”
She damned near moaned. “And that’s a bad thing?”
“It is when you’re driving.” He tugged the seat belt across her, and as he clicked it into place, he pressed a hot, velvet kiss to her throat.
“I can pull over,” she squeaked.
His nostrils flared, and she swore she saw flames in his eyes. “I’m on the very edge right now.” His voice throbbed with raw lust. “I want you under me. I want to claim you, get myself all over you. And as much as I’d love to mount you right here in public, right now—and I think in my past, I would have—I never want anyone to see you like that but me.”
Oh, damn. Her heart was pounding out of her chest. She wanted it now, and who cared who saw or heard what. “I’ll park somewhere dark.” She fisted his T-shirt, not even ashamed of her desperation. “Out of the way—”
“Tempting… so… fucking… tempting.” He gently peeled her hand away, slammed the door, and got in on the driver’s side. Then he turned to her, the harsh planes of his face in the shadows creating a savage expression that stuck her tongue to the roof of her mouth. “I need you in bed tonight, Jillian. I need more than a fuck. I need to make love to you until neither one of us can move, because after tonight, I don’t want there to be even the slightest doubt that you’re mine.”
Eighteen
God, Reseph was lit up. Lit like a torch, burning so hot he was afraid he’d melt the steering wheel as he whipped Jillian’s pickup into the driveway. The drive had been silent, tense, the air in the cab so charged with sex that he felt it on his skin, as if a single touch could put him over the edge.