Page 6 of Hat Trick Heart

“Yeah.” I point at the woman sitting there glaring at me with her mouth hanging open. “She doesn’t want you touching her so I think that you should get your filthy hands off of her.”

“Or what, buddy?”

Okay, clearly he’s not that smart or he’s got a death wish. Not really sure which it is.

But I pick him up by the scruff of the neck and shake him like a rag doll.

“She would like you to keep your fucking hands to yourself,” I growl, low and rough.

“Hmph! I think she can talk for herself.”

She stands up, visibly shaking, her face pink and her eyes so bright they could cut glass. “She can speak for herself and she’s been saying it all night. Keep your dang hands to yourself. Now I think I’ll go.”

She smirks at me as she steps away.

But the idiot just can’t let her go and he grabs her arm. A rumble of some feral noise rips out of me when she flinches. But that’s all the warning he’s getting.

I grab his arm and jerk it away from her, slamming my fist into his face and putting every bit of my hate into that one punch.

He falls to the ground, out cold.

I shake my fist out and smile at her. “What’s your name?”

Her eyes are wide and she stares at me like I should be wearing a fucking mask. Like I’m a criminal. “Sassy. I need to go.”

“I’ll take you.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“It absolutely is. Let’s go, angel.”

I grasp her elbow, feeling a zap of electricity in my fingers. They tingle and I stretch them on her soft skin. I lift the coat on the back of the chair and hold it out for her to put on, tucking her into it and fluffing her hair, my fingers lingering on the silky curtain. We leave the bar that’s gone eerily quiet except for the guy writhing on the floor as he comes to.

But I don’t give a shit about any of it. I found what I’ve been looking for for the last week and I finally feel my focus coming back.

I’m just not sure if it’s great that it’s all on the tiny woman walking beside me.

3

SASSY

I’m honestly not sure what just happened. I was on the date from hell and trying to escape the octopus hands of the guy that Becca’s boyfriend set me up with. He’s an absolute ass. For some reason he seems to think that even though we just met, I should be putting out because Becca and her boyfriend are touchy-feely to a PDA level that makes me uncomfortable. Which certainly means that I’m not interested in it for myself. Especially with a total stranger.

He grabs me one last time and then all hell breaks loose as a growly, gigantic guy yanks him off of me and then they get into it, and I blink, surprised to see Mr. Handsy lying on the floor of the bar, holding his jaw and moaning.

I look up and up and into the green eyes of the guy from the hockey game and for some reason, my belly just flips, my insides melting into a puddle of goo and my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.

“Let’s go, angel.”

And then I’m walking out the door with the guy I’ve been dreaming about for the last week. He looks back at me, his lip turning up at the corner and giving him this sexy, quirky vibe that I have to admit, I like a lot.

“I can manage to get home by myself,” I say softly, putting my hands in my pocket to keep from touching him. The impulse to touch him is so damn strong that my fingers curl inside my pocket, wanting loose to get to him.

“Not gonna happen. I’m going to take you.” He looks around the jammed parking lot at the Summit. “Where’s your car?”

“I walked.”

“Great! ’ll walk with you.”

---