Page 6 of Tempting the King

The waitress and I turn in unison to see a petite brunette with fire in her eyes stomping toward our table, laser-focused on me as I do a quarter spin on my too small Dolces, trying to figure out if I know her from somewhere.

“I’m sorry?” I say, then remind myself that apologizing even before I know I’ve done anything wrong is a horrible female habit.

“Who is she?” The brunette’s attention turns to Frank, her arms crossed, hip cocked, as his sex-entitled arrogance melts away like the ice in his overpriced gin and tonic.

“Margot,” he stutters, his shiny lips falling open. “What a surprise, honey. I… She—”

He covers his nose and mouth as the room key sits in the center of the table, looking like an abandoned prom date. He sidesteps the waitress, who has shifted in my direction as if to say, whatever this is, girl, I got you.

Girl code.

The angry woman grabs the sweating glass of water from the table in one hand, then Frank’s gin and tonic in the other.

My reflexes are a split second too slow and ice cubes batter my nose and cheeks. The freezing water blasts my senses as the waitress raises her tray as a shield, a moment too late.

“You’re a cheating asshole!” the brunette screams, and the entire bar falls silent except for the sound of Alanis Morissette streaming through the ceiling speakers.

“Baby,” Frank starts, hands turning palms up, his nose dripping with clear liquid, the front of his shirt turning dark.

“Who is she? Someone from work again?” She eyes me up and down. “No. Definitely a by the hour situation.”

“What?” I gasp, water dripping from my lips, looking down as the drenched front of my four-hundred-dollar dress turns the color of a dead rose.

She ignores me, reaching forward and grabbing the hotel card, flinging it at Frank.

It hits him square in the nose, and the waitress and I both snort.

“She’s no one!” Frank’s voice shifts into falsetto. “She just walked up to my table, put down that room card. I was telling her to get lost when you walked in. I wouldn’t pay for that if it was the last set of open legs on the planet.” Frank looks at me like he took a drink of sour milk. “She’s just a whore, baby—”

I’m ready to bolt, when out of the corner of my eye, there’s a streak of blue, the scent of cologne and then, BOOM.

Frank is on the floor with a tight-lipped, angry man in a blue hoodie standing over him.

“Oh, shit,” I hiss, my hands flying to my mouth as my eyes gobble up the enormous warrior hidden behind the blue hood. He’s got five or six inches in height on Frank—and most of the guys standing around. He’s lean, but from the power of that punch?

He’s lethal.

“You ever talk to her again like that, you’ll be pulling your nuts out of your throat.” His voice is like velvet gravel as he shoots me a look from under the blue fabric which matches his eyes. My legs start to shake and butterflies flap their wings over my skin.

A chaotic chain reaction follows as all the air feels like it’s sucked from the room.

Curse words fly, the scorned brunette flings herself at blue hoodie man, sweeping a beer bottle from a neighboring table as she goes, bringing it crashing down on the side of his head.

Within three seconds, the bar erupts into a scene from Road House.

The waitress pushes me behind her, and I stumble into the table of twenty-something, suited guys, all channeling their inner Fight Club personas as they push and shove into the center of the melee with primal grunts and bared teeth.

A sea of cell phones rise above the crowd, and anxiety tangles its fingers into my core.

The bar devolves into a disordered mob that tightens my throat, leaving me gasping and sweating as bodies bump me from all sides.

There’s yelling and catcalls, and huge men converge from the corners of the bar. Frank rolls to his knees, pushing up unsteadily to his feet. I’m a long-lost thought as he cocks back a clenched fist.

The sexy stranger is currently being ridden piggyback by Frank’s wife, her arm around his throat in an attempted half-nelson. He roars, easily blocks Frank’s attempt, then lands an uppercut on the lukewarm, cheating asshole whose screen name on Hollar was HotCatch69.

Sure, hot mess, maybe. What was I thinking?

Every cell in my body crackles with heat as I take another look at the crooked-nosed, blue-eyed stranger as he stands over Frank, nostrils flaring, fists balled.

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