When he finished, the entire bar erupted in applause that only died down when Reseph moved on to Alan Jackson’s “It’s Five O’clock Somewhere.” That one brought people out on the dance floor, and they stayed for Reseph’s incredibly deep rendition of Big and Rich’s “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy.”
When the last note played, the bar crowd once more exploded in cheers. Jillian, too breathless to cheer, had been so mesmerized by Reseph’s performance that she didn’t remember standing up. And when Reseph’s gaze locked on to her as he leaped gracefully off the stage, she moved to meet him. The people on the dance floor parted to allow him through, his shoulders rolling, his predatory intent clear.
She held her breath as he approached, and when he was inches away, his heat searing her skin, he grabbed her around the waist, tugged her against his hard body, and bent his head to her ear.
“How was that for taking the attention away from Trey?”
“Trey who?” she breathed. “God, you were amazing up there.” She’d never in her life been the type of woman to swoon for musicians, but she’d just become a Reseph groupie. “Ride a cowboy? Baby, saddle up.”
His teeth grazed her earlobe. “Home,” he said roughly. “I need to make you mine. Now.”
She shivered at his words, at the erotic undertone. And at the sheer, raw possession. She could tell him she already was his, but she wasn’t about to ruin his fun. Or hers.
“Do you think we can make it to the house?” she said, just as roughly. “My truck has a big cab, you know.”
She swore flames flared in his eyes, but were quickly doused. “Another time. I’m going to do this right.”
Okay, then. She wasted no time grabbing her jacket and paying the tab. Reseph waited by the door, but his eyes never left her, and as she walked toward him, his gaze grew more heated with every step. For fun, she slowed down as she neared him, and even from several feet away and with the music blaring, she heard his impatient growl.
Sweat bloomed on her skin and her blood raced through her veins, and that was enough teasing. She had never been more ready for bed in her life. When she reached him, he very carefully pushed her against the wall and kissed her, a punishing, sensual kiss that probably didn’t last longer than five seconds, but that left her dizzy, needy, and so on fire that the ten-degree night air didn’t feel nearly cold enough when they stepped out in it.
And seriously, why did she park so far away?
She glanced up at Reseph as he walked beside her, which was a huge mistake. The way he was looking at her made her want to drop into the snow and let him have his way with her right there in the parking lot.
“Hey, dickhead!”
Jillian groaned at Trey’s shout, and as they turned around, Trey and five of his lackeys formed a semicircle around them.
“You showoff punk,” Trey said. “You think you can come into my town and make me look like an ass?”
“You don’t need me to do that,” Reseph drawled. “You’re doing a bang-up job of it all on your own.”
Trey’s face mottled with rage. “I’m going to f**k you up, Amnesia Boy. Maybe that’ll be something you remember.”
“Look, man.” Reseph’s voice was calm, his grip on Jillian’s hand firm but gentle. “You want to back off. You and your buddies need to turn around and go back inside. You can tell everyone you beat me up and I ran away crying. I won’t say any different. But trust me on this one… you want to back off.”
“What a pussy.” Trey’s friend, whose name she thought was Darren, laughed. “Pussy wants to run off with his tail between his legs.”
“Shut up, Darren.” Jillian tugged on Reseph’s hand, hoping to get the hell out of there before things deteriorated. She didn’t doubt Reseph’s ability to fight, not after what she’d seen him do to the demon in her barn, but they were badly outnumbered. “Let’s go.”
Trey and two of his buddies moved to block them. “You aren’t going anywhere.”
“Last chance,” Reseph said. “Go back inside the bar.”
“Fuck you.”
Reseph sighed. “Okay, then.” He shoved Jillian behind him. “Get back.”
“But—”
“Get. Back.” Deadly menace all but leaked from his pores, and suddenly, she revised her earlier thought. Reseph wasn’t outnumbered. Trey and his buddies were.
“Reseph…”
He looked at her from over his shoulder and lowered his voice. “You need to stay out of their reach, because if one of them touches you, I’ll kill him.”
Jesus. He was serious. The way he’d said it, as if he was going to take out the garbage on just another ho-hum night… just, Jesus.
He swung back around to the idiots just in time for Darren to throw a punch.
It never landed. Reseph blocked Darren’s swing and took the other man down with a powerful right hook before spinning around to nail Trey in the gut with a kick that sent the jerk airborne. Trey slammed into his own pickup’s tailgate. Before he even hit the ground, Reseph put two more of Trey’s friends on their backs, one with a clearly broken arm.
A big red-headed guy rushed Reseph. Almost as if Reseph were bored, he jammed the heel of his hand into Red’s face, breaking his nose with an audible crunch. Blood sprayed as Red shouted in pain and lurched toward the bar’s back door.
The remaining guy backed off, hands up.
Dear Lord, Reseph had taken out five men and he wasn’t even breathing hard. The guys on the ground scrambled awkwardly out of his way as he strode over to Trey, who was holding his ribs and struggling to get to his feet. Reseph grabbed him by the throat and lifted him off the ground as if Trey weighed no more than a jug of milk. With a nasty snarl Jillian could only describe as inhuman, Reseph rammed Trey into the driver’s side door, the impact crumpling the metal.
“I warned you,” Reseph said, his voice so bereft of emotion she shivered. “And now I’m warning you again. You f**k with me or Jillian, you so much as look at either of us with anything less than respect—nah, let’s go with awe—and I’ll dismantle you. If you survive, I promise you’ll spend the rest of your life pissing yourself every time you hear Jillian’s name. You feel me?”
At Trey’s frenzied nod, Reseph grinned coldly and looked down. “Looks like you got a head start on the pissing thing.” He dropped Trey and wheeled around to Jillian. “You ready to go?”
All she could do was bob her head in answer as Trey and his buddies limped and shuffled their way back inside the bar.
Reseph took her hand and guided her toward the truck. “You okay?”
Aside from adrenaline scouring her veins like Drano, yes, she was. A huge sense of relief was tripping through her. Something told her that Reseph had held back with those guys. A lot. He’d been level-headed, efficient, and restrained.
It had been kind of… hot.
“I’m fine.” She twined her fingers in his. “And you?”
“I’m on fire.” He jerked her to a halt just shy of the truck and tugged her against him. Even in the shadows of the parking lot, his eyes glowed with a primitive, elemental need that called to a part of her she didn’t understand. All she knew was that her body felt both electrically charged and pliant as rubber, and liquid desire bloomed between her thighs. “I can’t explain it, but I need to be inside you more than ever.”
Her breath stuttered. “Yes,” she whispered.
Normally, now would be when Reseph gave her one of those cocky grins, but not this time. This time he was a single-minded predator, locked on target, and she was in his crosshairs. God, she loved this side of him. She never in a million years thought she’d be the type of woman to like the caveman type, but Reseph managed to not overwhelm. If anything, she couldn’t wait to feel him unleash his inner Neanderthal on her.
His hand dipped into her jacket pocket and withdrew her keys. Before she could protest, he unlocked the truck and opened the passenger side door.
“I’ll drive,” she said, but he lifted her into the seat.
“I have to drive, Jillian.”
“Why?”
His low, throaty growl triggered another rush of wetness. “Because if my hands aren’t on the wheel, they’ll be on you.”
She damned near moaned. “And that’s a bad thing?”
“It is when you’re driving.” He tugged the seat belt across her, and as he clicked it into place, he pressed a hot, velvet kiss to her throat.
“I can pull over,” she squeaked.
His nostrils flared, and she swore she saw flames in his eyes. “I’m on the very edge right now.” His voice throbbed with raw lust. “I want you under me. I want to claim you, get myself all over you. And as much as I’d love to mount you right here in public, right now—and I think in my past, I would have—I never want anyone to see you like that but me.”
Oh, damn. Her heart was pounding out of her chest. She wanted it now, and who cared who saw or heard what. “I’ll park somewhere dark.” She fisted his T-shirt, not even ashamed of her desperation. “Out of the way—”
“Tempting… so… f**king… tempting.” He gently peeled her hand away, slammed the door, and got in on the driver’s side. Then he turned to her, the harsh planes of his face in the shadows creating a savage expression that stuck her tongue to the roof of her mouth. “I need you in bed tonight, Jillian. I need more than a fuck. I need to make love to you until neither one of us can move, because after tonight, I don’t want there to be even the slightest doubt that you’re mine.”
Eighteen
God, Reseph was lit up. Lit like a torch, burning so hot he was afraid he’d melt the steering wheel as he whipped Jillian’s pickup into the driveway. The drive had been silent, tense, the air in the cab so charged with sex that he felt it on his skin, as if a single touch could put him over the edge.
If Jillian’s spicy scent was any indication, she felt the same way. Her arousal had been powerful enough that twice he damned near pulled the truck over and did exactly what he’d said he wouldn’t do.
Thank God they were at her place. He slammed the truck into park and was out in a flash. Before Jillian could even get fully out of her seat, he had her in his arms and was carrying her through the front door. He kissed her as he kicked the door shut, his heart going mad with want. He needed her like he needed air, and until he had her under him, her arms and legs holding him tight, he felt like he might suffocate.
He laid her on the bed a lot less roughly than he could have—would have, if this had been any other night. But he’d experienced a shift today, a one-two punch of reality and emotion. He’d faced the fact that he wasn’t going to find out who he was, and the Amnesia Boy bullshit had driven that home. It was time to stop worrying about the past and make new memories.
With Jillian.
Jillian, who had saved his life, taken care of him, made him laugh, given him an anchor when he should have been drifting.
Reseph stripped off his shirt and joined her on the bed, and when she sat up to meet him, he pushed her back down and covered her body with his. Their gazes locked, and Reseph’s pulse thundered in his ears. When Jillian’s palm came up to his chest, the heat of her touch spread through him, sizzling over his skin.
Lowering his mouth to hers, he kissed her, somehow taking it slow and leisurely, as if they weren’t both ready to go into orbit. He undressed her, breaking off the kiss only when he pulled off her shirt or shoved down her jeans. When they were both na**d, skin on skin, he kept his hands to rated PG parts of her body, stroking her shoulders, her neck, her arms.
She didn’t play like that. No, Jillian’s nails scored his back before dropping to his ass, where she dug her fingers into his cheeks as she rocked against him, grinding her mound against his erection. They both groaned at that, but he wasn’t ready yet.
Well, he was ready physically, but not mentally. He needed to be thorough, attentive, possessive.
Jillian was his, and she was going to know it when he was done.
Tangling his fingers in her hair, he let his other hand drift up her rib cage. He stroked the curve of her breast, feeling the skin tighten beneath his palm. His thumb circled her nipple, and the impassioned whimper breaking from her throat said she liked it.
“I need you to believe me,” he murmured against her lips, “trust me when I say that I’ve never made love to a woman. Not like this.” The knowledge was soul-deep, not even a question, and he needed Jillian to understand.
“I believe you. And I’ve never had a man make me feel so special.” She arched under him, hooking one ankle over his leg and rubbing her foot seductively along his calf.
He looked into her eyes, determined to make sure she understood what he was about to say. “You’re more than special. I love you, Jillian. I love you, and I want this to be the start of something new.”
Her foot stilled on his leg. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that I don’t care who or what I was in the past.” The vision he’d had in the barn tunneled up from where he’d buried it in his mind, but he ruthlessly slammed it back into its dark hole. Whatever he’d been before had no place in his new life. “I don’t want to know anymore. I’m going to stop looking.”
Both hands came up to frame his face. “Oh, Reseph, I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You didn’t ask.” He rubbed his cheek against her palm, thinking he’d never felt anything so soft as her skin. “I’m doing it. I love this life, I love you, and I want to start our lives together now.”