The bass thudded through my chest as we entered the nightclub, vibrating up through my soles and into the sweat-heavy air, crowded with bodies and perfume. The dance floor lights sliced through the darkness of the nightclub. The entire place felt hot, loud, and alive as we headed to the bar.

Justin lifted his shot. "Here's to Aria finally letting her hair down."

I rolled my eyes, but I clinked my glass against his anyway. "Don't get used to it."

We threw back our shots, then moved to the dance floor with our drinks in hand. I was about to step onto it when a bouncer blocked me. "No drinks on the dance floor."

"What?"

"No drinks on the dance floor," he said louder. He held out his hand. "Either lose it or finish it." His eyes bored into mine. "Your choice," he barked.

I blinked at him.

He didn't move or look away. He just held out his hand, expecting me to hand him my drink. I'd paid too much for the watery excuse for a cocktail and smiled sweetly at him. I wrapped my lips around the straw and drained every last drop while holding his stare.

"There," I said, handing him my empty glass. "Happy?"

His lips twitched, almost as if he wanted to laugh, but he turned into the crowd.

The music was rattling my ribs and shoving out my thoughts. Lakesha and Melinda dragged me deeper into the dancing crowd. Sweat dampened my neck. Someone's elbow brushed my arm. I caught hints of tequila, cologne, and pure body heat. My hair stuck to my shoulders as I danced under the hot lights.

Then Baby Got Back began blaring through the speakers, and the dance floor got much more crowded. For the first time all night, I stopped thinking. Stopped thinking about the fight. About Gunner and how he'd picked me out of a crowd, talked to me, and how my body had reacted to him.

I wasn't thinking about him until Melinda shouted something over the music, wiggling her brows at me.

"What?" I yelled, laughing.

She leaned toward me, her lips close to my ear. "That fighter was into you."

I snorted. "You're drunk."

She smiled. "He was only interested in talking to you and nobody else."

"He talked to all of us."

Lakesha grinned. "No, girl. He couldn't take his eyes off you."

Heat rushed to my face, burning my cheeks.

"Please," I said, dismissing it with a wave. "Men like that don't notice women like me."

Melinda barked a laugh. "He noticed."

I turned away before they could see how that landed. Because I knew she was right. I'd felt it back inside the arena. The drag of his eyes. The way he'd smiled at me. And how he'd aimed every word only at me and not at those who were with me.

So I danced harder. Laughed harder. I moved with the crowd, letting the music swallow me whole.

Then the mood in the room changed. It happened so fast I barely caught it.

One moment, Melinda was in front of me. Then a man shoved past, knocking me off balance. Someone cursed behind me. A drink splashed on my arm. Another body slammed into my side.

At first, all I saw were shoulders. Then there was shoving. Hands and faces were flashing in and out beneath the strobe lights.

Then I saw Dan. His jaw was clenched, his eyes looked wild, and his body was squared off with some guy twice as drunk as he was. My brother was beside him, and his friend Jake had just been shoved in from the side.

Suddenly, it turned into a brawl. "Jesus," I muttered. Then someone crashed into a table, and the glasses on top shattered just as the dance floor erupted into chaos.

Bodies stumbled backward in panic. Others rushed forward like idiots who thought breaking up a fight meant joining in. Punches were being thrown blindly. One guy swung at another guy, missing him and hitting someone else instead, while others did the same. Then Justin disappeared into the mess.

"Justin!" I shouted, shoving forward before I could think better of it. Someone hit my shoulder, and someone stepped on my foot. Then a hand grabbed at my waist and missed. "Justin!" I yelled again, forcing my way between men scrapping like animals.

The next thing I knew, the floor dropped out from under me. One second, I was lunging into the chaos; the next, I was lifted clean off the ground, my stomach flipping as I was hauled up against a large, hard, unyielding body. I gasped and kicked on instinct.

"Put me down!"

A strong arm locked across the backs of my thighs. My body tipped and then settled over a broad shoulder like I was a feather. The room tilted wildly beneath me. The lights streaked. The music thundered. Blood roared in my ears.

I beat a fist against the man's back. "Put me down!"

"Not happening."

His voice hit me harder than the lift had. Low and rough, and warm enough to curl my spine, so that my breath caught in my throat. The voice sounded familiar.

He pushed through the crowd like it had parted for him. Bodies bounced off him as he kept moving. A huge hand spread across the backs of my legs, holding me in place with ease as he carried me away from the violence. As if I were an inconvenience he intended to personally deal with.

"Put. Me. Down," I demanded once again.

"A couple more seconds."

Recognition of his voice prickled over my skin. He lowered me carefully with one hand braced at my waist until my heels hit the ground. I straightened fast and spun on my heel toward him, breathless. Furious. And instantly unable to be either of those things correctly.

Gunner.

The flashing lights caught the sharp cut of his cheekbones, the dark sweep of his hair, and the hard line of his mouth. He looked bigger up close. Bigger than he had under the arena lights. His shirt clung to his chest, shoulders, and arms, dense with muscle and colorful ink.

He looked like trouble with a pulse.

"You," I said, stupidly.

His lips curved up. "Me."

I opened my mouth, shut it, and then found my anger. "You cannot just throw me over your shoulder like I'm-"

"Like you were about to get trampled?" he cut in.

I glared at him.

He stepped closer. Just enough to crowd my space, yet not enough to touch. "There are drunken idiots swinging at anything that moves, sweetheart. You running into the middle of that was a terrible idea."

"My brother's in that mess."

"And now he has security and half of my staff on him."

His staff? I hardly had time to process that before he angled his head toward the dance floor. Men in black shirts were flooding the room now, dragging the fighters apart, barking orders, and forcing people back. The music had quieted completely, and the chaos sounded worse than when the music had been blaring.

"Your staff?"

"My club."

I stared. He didn't elaborate. Apparently that was all I was getting. I turned, scanning the floor, looking for my friends, but Gunner's hand closed around my waist before I got two steps in. Every muscle in my body locked. Heat shot straight through me.

"Don't," he said.

I tried to pry his hand off. "Let me go."

"No."

"You're bossy."

"And you're unbelievably determined to get hurt."

"I can take care of myself."

His eyes dragged over my face, my mouth, and then back up again. Slow enough to make my pulse stutter. "I don't doubt that. But I'm still not letting you go in there."

Before I could argue, he pulled out a chair from a nearby table, gripped my waist, and gently lifted me onto it. I stared at him.

He leaned in, bracing one hand on the back of the chair, the other on the table beside me. His face was suddenly far too close. I caught the scent of clean soap under the sweat and the bite of whiskey on his breath.

"Stay here."

Then he was gone. Swallowed by the bright chaos near the dance floor. I sat there furiously for all of five seconds before my pulse betrayed me.

I could still feel his hands. At my waist and my thighs. Steadying me like I belonged in them.

"There you are!" Lakesha cried, rushing to me.

I shot her and Melinda a look. "You left me."

"We got shoved apart," Melinda said breathlessly. "I turned around, and you were gone."

"What happened, anyway?"

Melinda huffed and pushed her hair off her face. "Some creep grabbed me. Dan told him to back off; then the guy groped me again." Her expression hardened. "Dan saw it and punched the guy."

Lakesha's eyes widened over my shoulder, stopping me from responding. I turned. Gunner was heading toward us through the thinning crowd with Justin and the other guys behind him, all looking pissed off.

The worst part? Gunner was looking directly at me.

That slow, knowing look slid across his face, and my stomach dropped out from under me. Like I'd stepped wrong in the dark and there was nothing there to break the fall.

***

Gunner's Escalade smelled like leather, expensive cologne, and a faint metallic tang of the city after midnight. I held the door handle with one hand and a bottle of water with the other, resting my forehead against the cool window and watching the streetlights blur past.

Every turn made my stomach roll, and every stop made my head swim. The SUV's interior felt too warm and too full of male voices, adrenaline, and Gunner.

Especially him.

He sat across from me, one arm stretched along the back of the seat, his long legs braced wide, looking entirely too comfortable for a man who'd just dragged half a nightclub out of a brawl. Justin and the others were talking over each other, replaying the fight like they were reliving a championship round.

Then the water I'd been holding appeared in front of my face. "Drink," Gunner demanded.

"Thanks," I said, grabbing the bottle. I tried unscrewing the lid, and my heart stopped when the bottle nearly dumped in my lap.

Justin burst out laughing. "You're such a lightweight."

I glared at him. "And you're an idiot. Do you always have to fight?"

"The guy had it coming," Dan piped in. "His hands were all over Melinda."

"So that gave you all the right to go macho inside a nightclub?"

"It was handled," Gunner said, ending the argument before it even started.

"By you?" I asked.

The corner of his lip lifted. "By security. I just stepped in before it got uglier."

Jake snorted. "You mean before we murdered that guy?"

I closed my eyes briefly. "Wonderful. I'm surrounded by hotheads." That got a laugh, even out of Gunner.

I hated that I noticed the sound of it, that I noticed everything about him. The way he took up space without effort. The scrape of his knuckles.

The dark shadow along his jaw. And the fact that every time I risked glancing his way, he was already looking at me.

One by one, my friends were dropped off. Jake and Dan stumbled out, still arguing over who'd thrown the first punch.

Melinda blew me a kiss through the open door, and Lakesha mouthed, "Call me tomorrow," before following her boyfriend out.

Then it was just me, Justin, Gunner, and the driver. Which somehow felt worse.

Justin talked to Gunner as if they'd been friends for years, discussing fights, training, and the club. I listened to maybe half of it. The rest of my attention was trapped inside my own body.

Gunner's gaze flicked to me like he was checking whether I was still holding myself together. And then I sat up too fast when I saw we'd turned into Justin's neighborhood.

"No."

Justin glanced at me. "What?"

"You're not getting out first."

"It's on the way to yours."

Justin laughed. I didn't see what was funny.

"I'm serious," I snapped.

The Escalade slowed near the curb in front of Justin's place. I grabbed my purse and scooted across the seat, fully intending to get out behind Justin and deal with everything later.

Then Gunner moved. Fast.

His hand closed over my thigh, warm and solid, and entirely impossible to ignore. I froze.

"I've got you."

My pulse spiked.

Justin opened the door, still grinning like this was the funniest thing he'd seen all night. "Aria, relax. He's taking you home. Not abducting you."

Gunner squeezed my thigh a little, and heat exploded through me. His palm was broad, heavy, and steadying, but intimate enough to steal the air from my lungs anyway. I went completely still.

"Look at me," he demanded, and I did. "You're safe," he said, his thumb flexing once against my skin. "Let me take you home. Trust me."