Hell, no she wasn’t okay. Her sister was hurt and bystanders lined both sides of the street waiting to see what happened next, but all Viv could think about was how his voice would sound up close and in the dark. Preferably between heavy breaths with lots and lots of skin involved. She’d chalk it up to exhaustion, but her nonexistent sex life was probably the real culprit.
“I’m fine. Just tired.” She forced herself to step away and faced him, holding out her hand. “And it’s Vivienne. Vivienne Moore. Or Viv. Callie’s the only one that calls me Vivie.”
He studied her outstretched palm, scanning her with languid assessment, then clasped her hand in his and pierced her with a look that jolted straight between her legs. “Jace Kennedy.”
Figured that Fantasy Man would have a fantasy name to match. It sounded familiar, too, though with all the pheromones jetting through her body she couldn’t quite place where. Maybe wishful thinking or one too many romance novels. She tugged her hand free and stuffed her fists into her pockets. “Thanks for not letting me bust my ass in front of everyone.”
He matched her posture and shuttled his toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other with his tongue. “Pretty sure I got the best end of the deal.”
Zeke’s voice cut in from behind her. “I think she’s fine. Just a nasty goose egg and too much booze.”
Viv turned in time to see the two men guide Callie to her feet. She weaved a little and looked like she’d fall asleep any second, but the pain seemed to have knocked off a little of her drunken haze. Her floral bohemian top was wrinkled and askew on her curvy frame, and her golden-brown hair was mussed like she’d just had monkey sex. Otherwise, she fit the rest of the crowd a whole lot better than Viv.
Pegging Zeke with a pointed look, Jace cupped the back of Viv’s neck. “Check Little Miss out, too. Didn’t like the angle her neck took when her girl went down.” He focused on Viv and held out his hand, palm up. “Keys.”
“What?”
“Keys,” he said. “Give ’em to me and we’ll bring your car around.”
“You don’t need to do that.” She pointed at the lot across the street. “I’m just over there, and Callie looks—”
“It’s almost two in the morning, your sister’s hammered and you both took a fall. Fork over the keys, we’ll get your car, pull it around and load your girl up.”
Four unyielding stares locked on to her—Zeke, Trevor and Jace, plus a new guy with black hair and a ponytail nearly down to his ass. The way the new guy trimmed his goatee gave him a Ming the Merciless vibe. She shouldn’t let any one of these guys near her, let alone surrender the keys to her car. “I think it’s better if Callie and I handle it ourselves.”
The muscle at the back of Jace’s jaw twitched and his eyes darkened.
“I don’t mean to sound ungrateful,” Viv added. “I appreciate everyone jumping in to help. It’s way more than you needed to do. I just don’t know you guys. Have you watched the news lately?”
“That’s fair.” Trevor’s focus was locked on Jace when he spoke, but then slid his gaze to Viv. “But this is my bar, your sister drank too much while she was in it and hurt herself on the way out. It’s in my best interest to make sure you make it home safe. Anything bad goes down between here and there, you could give me and my new business a whole lot of heartache I don’t need, right?”
Trevor had a point.
“Give me the keys, sugar.” Jace crooked the fingers on his outstretched hand. “You’ve done enough solo tonight.”
She handed them over and Zeke stepped in, gently prodding the muscles along the back of her neck. “Any soreness?”
Viv shook her head as much as she could with Zeke’s big hands wrapped around her throat.
Behind Zeke, Jace handed off the keys to Ivan. A second later, jogging boot heels rang against the asphalt followed by the chirp of a disengaging car alarm.
Zeke tested her movement side to side and front and back as he’d done for Callie and checked her pupils. “I doubt you’d feel it until tomorrow anyway. Probably wouldn’t hurt to take a few ibuprofens before you go to bed.” He jerked his head toward Callie, still swaying next to Trevor. “Same goes for her. You’ll have a hard time keeping her awake and not puking with as much as she’s had to drink, but if she starts to act confused, can’t remember things or complains of ringing in her ears, get her to an ER.”
“You got anyone that can help you tonight?” Jace asked.
Trevor piped up. “I can ask one of the girls to stay with you if you want.”
“No, I can handle it.”
Zeke gave her a knowing look, pulled a card out of his billfold, and handed it over. “You need help, call. We’ll get her where she needs to be.”
As in to an ER, or a place that had a minimum thirty-day stay? God knew, she’d begged her sister to at least try an AA meeting, but Callie and their dad had cornered all the stubborn genes for the family.
Her hybrid hummed up beside them and Zeke stepped away. “Lay her down in the back, Trev.”
The bouncer hopped out of the driver’s seat and opened up the back door for Trevor, who’d given up steering Callie and opted for carrying her to the car.
Jace moved in close and lowered his voice. “She get like this a lot?”
The men situated her sister in the back seat.
“Yeah.” God, she was tired of this routine. She’d give just about anything to surrender, curl up into a little ball and let someone else handle Callie’s tricks for a day or two.
Jace splayed his hand along the small of her back and urged her forward as a big, mean-looking bike with even nastier sounding pipes rolled up behind her car. “Danny’s gonna follow you home and help you get Sleeping Beauty settled in for the night.”
“I don’t think—”
“If your sister passes out, can you get her in the house on your own?”
“No.”
“Then stop thinking and let us handle this,” Jace said. “Danny so much as breathes funny, you call the number on Zeke’s card and we’ll deal with it.”
Another good point. After everything they’d done for her tonight, the odds of any of them having bad intentions were pretty slim. And her dog would leave even a big guy like Danny a heaping bloody mess if Viv so much as snapped a finger.
He opened the car door and she slid behind the wheel, fastening her seat belt in a bit of a daze. “Thank you. For everything.”
“Just doing what decent people do.” He started to shut her door and stopped. Leaning slightly into her space, he seemed to listen for something, glanced at the stereo display, then eased back. He studied her car, Callie curled up in the back seat, then Viv. His gaze lingered on her hair and he ran a few fingers through the curly strands. “Like it better down. Kinda wild.”
Her heart tripped, and the last bit of logic left in her brain poofed to nothing. She clenched the steering wheel and swallowed, grateful to find her mouth wasn’t hanging open.
He winked and stepped back. “Take care, sugar.”
The car door thumped shut, muting out everything but the quiet strains of Shinedown and Callie’s muffled snore.
She put the car in Drive and forced her eyes to aim straight ahead. She wouldn’t look back. He might’ve nudged her long-dead sex drive out of a coma, but he was bad news. Everything about him screamed danger and headstrong alpha, and she’d sworn she wouldn’t have that kind of life for herself. One look in the back seat showed where that landed a person.
Still, making a right turn onto Highway 75 for her town house in Uptown instead of circling the block for another peek was tempting as hell.
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Copyright © 2017 by Rhenna Morgan
About the Author
Rhenna Morgan is a happily-ever-after addict—hot men, smart women and scorching chemistry required. A triple-A personality with a thing for lists, Rhenna’s a mom to two beautiful daughters who constantly keep her dancing, laughing and simply happy to be alive.
When she’s not neck deep in writing, she’s probably driving with the windows down and the music up loud, plotting her next hero and heroine’s adventure. (Though trolling online for man-candy inspiration on Pinterest comes in a close second.)
She’d love to share her antics and bizarre sense of humor with you and get to know you a little better in the process. You can sign up for her newsletter and gain access to exclusive snippets, upcoming releases, fun giveaways and social media outlets at www.rhennamorgan.com.
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ROUGH & TUMBLE
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ISBN-13: 9781488024498
Tempted & Taken
Copyright © 2017 by Rhenna Morgan
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario M3B 3K9, Canada.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
Tempted & Taken Page 35