I returned his grin with comfortable ease. From the outside, Scooter looked rough and wild with his long hair and scraggly beard, but he’d been a complete sweetheart all night.
He’d introduced me to the guys he was with, but I’d learned so many new names already I could only remember about a quarter of them. The group was an eclectic mix of all different ages, from men who looked to be around my age, all the way to guys the same age as Scooter. They’d been loud and somewhat rowdy, but they’d all seemed nice.
“Could we get two more pitchers of Bud when you get a chance, darlin’?” a man I thought I remembered as Danno asked.
I turned my smile to him. “Sure thing.” I looked around the rest of the group for more orders before finally forcing myself to turn my attention to the man who’d made my heart beat at a dangerously fast pace.
His eyes—a beautiful hazel that looked amazing with his tanned skin and dirty-blond hair—were already on me, and I got the distinct impression he’d been watching me from the moment I entered his space.
I did my best to keep my expression neutral while my pulse skyrocketed. “And for you two?” I asked, tilting my chin to the woman still sitting on his lap who now had her face buried in his neck.
He gave me a slow, measured look from my cute new shoes to the top of my head, completely ignoring the chick who was currently trying to fuse herself to him. The way his eyes took me in made me shiver in a way that was both good and bad. I couldn’t deny that he was attractive, but the visceral reaction I’d had to him made that all too familiar panic squeeze at my chest.
“Two shots of tequila and whatever you got on tap,” he finally answered. As soon as the words left his mouth, I nodded and spun around, hightailing away from him as quick as I could without breaking into a run.
Shane was waiting on her drinks at the end of the bar when I came up beside her and slapped my tray down, spouting off my order to Darla.
“So far so good?” Shane asked, drawing my gaze to her.
“Yeah. It’s not too bad.” I chanced a quick peek back to the group I’d just left and saw that the chair the man had been sitting in was now empty. A scan of the area showed him standing at one of the pool tables, a cue in his hand, waiting as another guy lined up his shot. The woman who’d been on his lap was now sitting at a high-top table tucked into the back corner, chatting with a couple other women who were all dressed like her in barely-there clothes. “Hey, do you know who that guy over there is?” I asked, tilting my head in his direction. “Dark blond hair, navy tee, at the second table?”
She looked toward the pool table I indicated for a split second before whipping back around to me. “Cannon Banks? Girl, you’d be smart to steer way clear of that one.”
My eyes went big, and I lowered my voice to a whisper as I asked, “Is he dangerous?” Something in my gut told me Cannon Banks was all kinds of dangerous.
She gave her head a shake. “Only to your ovaries.” At my questioning expression, she continued to explain. “He’s not a criminal or anything like that, he’s just a dawg with a capital D. That chick sitting over there drooling after him?” I nodded, letting her know I knew who she was talking about. “She’s just one of many, babe. That dude’s broken more hearts in this town than half the male population combined. You seem like a sweet girl. I’d hate to see you turn into one of his castoffs.”
“Wait . . . Oh. No!” I said on a yelp. “No, no, no. It’s not like that. I’m not looking . . . That is, I’m not on the market. Like, at all. You don’t need to worry about that happening.”
Shane’s features grew sympathetic. “Darla said you mentioned a cheating ex.”
I had, but that wasn’t even half the reason I was currently—and for the foreseeable future—anti-man. “Yeah,” I mumbled. “Anyway, I was just asking because I got a vibe off him when he first came in.”
She let out a snort. “Yeah, you and every other woman in a three-town radius from here. Me and the other waitresses call that the Cannon Effect. You’re really pretty. No doubt you’re already on his radar, so watch your back, yeah?”
With that word of warning, she picked up her loaded tray and headed off. Leaving me shaken. I didn’t want to be on his radar. I didn’t want to be on any man’s radar. I hadn’t been lying when I told her I was off the market.
I was still plagued with nightmares from the attack every night. I could still recall the cigarette smoke on his breath and the feel of his rough, calloused hands pulling at me viciously. That night remained in my mind with disturbingly perfect clarity. The panic attacks might have subsided, but I was nowhere near ready to put myself out there.
And now that Shane had laid everything out for me, I knew my gut instinct to stay away was spot on. Sure, I hadn’t felt that stomach-swooping, pulse-pounding, skin-tingling sensation I felt when he walked through the door with another guy in so long I couldn’t even recall the last time it happened, but there was no way in hell I was going to let something as trivial as attraction push me off the course of my new life.
Even if he was the first man I’d been attracted to since that awful night.
Chapter Four
Farah
I felt the cold metal of the blade bite into my neck. I felt the weight of his body press harder against my back, shoving me into the side of my car with so much force it pushed the air from my lungs.
The rancid smell of cigarette smoke made my nose burn and my eyes water as his breath fanned across my neck. “Fuck me. Knew a rich bitch like you’d smell good. Tell me, that cunt of yours smell just as sweet?”
I opened my mouth to scream, only to have the sound cut off when his big gloved hand slammed over my lips, muffling the noise.
I thrashed and struggled as hard as I could, trying my best to kick the man who’d just come out of nowhere and pinned me against my car.
“That’s it, little girl.” He let out a vicious laugh that made my blood turn to ice. “Show me what you got. Not worth it if you don’t put up a fight.”
I screamed from behind his hand again, but it was no use. The lot where I’d parked was cast in shadows. There was no one around to see or hear me.
Fear gripped at my chest, squeezing it in a vice-like grip as panic clawed at my throat. I was so terrified; it was getting harder and harder to breathe, but I didn’t stop fighting. I couldn’t. It was all I had. The man was so much bigger than I was, so much stronger, that flight wasn’t an option.
A shiver of revulsion wracked my body when I felt his nose brush the hair from my shoulder and trail up my neck.
“Now we’re gonna have a little fun.”
I came awake, sucking in a gasp so big my lungs burned as I shot up to sitting in my bed. My whole body shook, and a fine sheen of sweat coated my skin. The covers were tangled around my legs from where I’d been thrashing in my sleep. Just like every night for the past several months, it took a while for the dream to release me from its clutches.
“Just a dream, Farah,” I said to myself, blowing out a shaky breath as I lifted a trembling hand to brush the damp hair from my forehead. “It was just a dream. You’re safe.”