Her eyes widened as her rage bounced up another notch, and the mantra of not losing control slipped away like it had never been. That was what losing control was all about, but she was too lost in it to notice. “Okay. Done talking now. Get your ass over here and take what’s coming to you.”
“No thanks.” The bastard had the audacity to yawn. “As much as I hate to repeat myself, I’m going to go ahead and repeat myself for you, because you’re sexy as hell, and you seem to be a slow-learner. Ready? Here it is. I. Don’t. Hurt. Women. Period. Even when they’re so fucking stupid, a good slap would probably knock some much-needed sense into their heads.”
Goddamn it. “You fucked with the only people I have as family. My life is in shambles. You should’ve thought of the consequences before you pulled any of that shit.”
“This Felix fuckface guy was the one who didn’t think of the consequences, lady. He should’ve thought of you and your life before he stepped up to me. Obviously, he didn’t.”
Her brain shut down. Everything in her shut down. Everything… but the Halliday rage. “Get over here.”
“No.”
Eyes on him, Alice put a hand on the bike’s chrome ape-hanger handlebars. Grim satisfaction speared through her when he went statue-still.
Hello, Achilles heel.
“Lady,” he said, his voice so soft it sent a shiver down her spine. “It’s your turn now to think about consequences, yeah? I don’t raise a hand to women, that’s true. But whether or not you’ve got a dick won’t mean fuckin’ shit to me if you’re looking to damage what’s mine.”
She gave the handlebar an experimental shake, then hesitated. It would take some muscle, but she could push it over. But the pink lady was right; it was clearly the one thing he loved, and enough damage had already been done. In good conscience, she couldn’t add to the misery. “Go ahead and try to stop me from—”
Holy shit, he was fast.
And he’d caught her in the middle of a sentence.
How rude.
It only took a couple steps for him to close the distance between them. As he did, his arms came up like a huge clamp to grab her in a smothering bearhug. She whirled away, keeping her weight on her toes before she dropped and spun into a low sweeping kick, the back of her leg slamming against his booted ankles.
She’d executed this sweep kick a thousand times before, both while in taekwondo tournaments and in teaching self-defense classes at Felix’s gym. She knew this move like she knew her own face. But, wow, pitting it against this breathtaking specimen of raw masculinity was something else again. It was like she’d kicked a tree trunk at its base. The impact of it jarred her so much it rattled her eyes in their sockets.
Holy crap, this guy was solid.
Luckily the ankle sweep did the trick—no doubt because she’d surprised him—and he went down on his ass. Smoothly she whirled with the momentum she’d created with the spin kick and struck a defensive pose. If she’d seen one of her self-defense students acting this way, she would have screamed at them for not running like hell at this point.
But she wasn’t trying to get away.
This man had to pay for the misery he’d caused, either in the money he’d stolen, or in blood.
The choice was his.
“Look at that.” The light in his eyes turned savage as he pushed to his booted feet with a fluidity that made her back up another step, her moves light and on her toes. “Little girl’s got some moves in her bag of tricks.”
“I haven’t been little since I was ten.”
“Yeah, you’ve got the kind of legs that probably looked gawky and ridiculous at that age. Bet all the kids called you names. Stretch, or Baby Giraffe, maybe.”
“Storky Alice, actually. But don’t worry about little ol’ me. I taught them not to.”
“Oh, I bet you did, Alice. Nice, old-fashioned name, by the way,” he went on, his smile a white slash in his beard while he watched her with eyes so strangely hot she felt scorched all over. “Good thing for you I’ve got a weakness for nice old-fashioned names and long, fuck-me-now legs. Good God, woman. You’re just about perfect, you know that?”
A wave of heat flashed through her that almost—almost—felt like alarm. “I just landed you on your finely toned ass, and you call me perfect? You must like it rough.”
“Oh, baby, I fuckin’ love it rough. And by the way, Stems, I’m thrilled you like the look of my ass. Believe me, that feeling’s more than mutual.”
Arrrgh. “Just get over here and take what’s coming to you.”
“Do I look stupid to you?”
“You look…” Hot. Indescribably, overwhelmingly hot, with eyes that were undressing her where she stood, and for some insane reason her brain was hopelessly distracted by it. “Powerful.”
“You know it.” He outright flexed, showing her without preening just how right she was. “Thing is, you’ve still got murder in your eyes. And while I’m crazy enough to find that so fucking hot I can hardly concentrate, I’m still smart enough to know you’re going to kick me to death with those heart-stopping stems once I get within range. Am I right?”
Shit. “You sound like you doubt I can do it. Come on over here. Let’s find out.”
“That’s the problem with pure kickers like you, Stems. Sure, you’ve got epic reach and speed, but you don’t have the greatest mobility when it comes to fighting, do you? Best fighters are a mongrel mix of wrestling, punching and kicking. Fighters like me.”
Damn him, he was bang-on target. “Come on over here and prove it.”
Again he shook his head. “See, when you’re a mongrel like me, your opponent never knows which form of attack is going to put you—”
He launched once more, this time interrupting himself. Idiot that she was, she fell for that distracting trick again, and reacted a half-second too late. She tried spinning away toward the main empty space separating the rows of parked cars, and almost made it.
Almost.
He caught her with one arm, and the next thing she knew her feet left the ground. A heartbeat after that, her back slammed the pavement, knocking the breath out of her. That was why it took her a second to realize that her head had hit too, but instead of hitting hard asphalt, it hit something… soft.
His hand.
Even as she’d been flying through the air, he’d clutched the massive mitt of his hand around the back of her head and kept it from splattering against the asphalt like an egg.
What…?
Did he actually just… save her? From his own attack?
No.
No, that couldn’t be.
The man her foster brother had described would never save her from harm. All he did was bring harm to others.
And yet…
His hand was still between her head and the pavement.
He most definitely saved her from a terrible injury.
What the actual fuck.
“You’re bad at this, Stems.” There was a hint of laughter in his voice, much to her outrage. Torn between that and genuine gratitude that her head wasn’t smashed like a melon all over the parking lot, her gaze jerked to his. Something weird fluttered in her chest when she looked into his eyes—only a handful of inches away—and discovered they were such a light brown they appeared gold. A heartbeat later she found she couldn’t move, with his body holding hers down, and his forearms trapping hers. “Props for your enthusiasm when it comes to caving my head in. I know you wanted to do me some damage, but you were too nice to push over my bike just now. You know what that tells me?”