Page 26 of Savage Hearts

When I turn the water off and reach for a paper towel, I happen to glance into the mirror above the sinks. I freeze in horror.

A man is directly behind me. He’s huge.

Frighteningly tall and broad, he stands with his legs spread open and his massive hands hanging by his sides. He’s all in black, including a heavy wool overcoat with the collar turned up against his tattooed neck.

His hair and beard are thick and dark. A small silver hoop earring glints in one earlobe. Beneath lowered brows, his eyes are a startling shade of pale green.

A powerful energy of violence and darkness emanates from him.

It’s like being in a room with a supermassive black hole. I’m about to be devoured and disappear for all eternity.

He’s the most beautiful and the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen.

His intense gaze locked on mine in the mirror, he murmurs, “You don’t need to sell yourself,malyutka.”

His voice is deep, rich, and hypnotic.

So is his scent. He smells like something that lives and hunts in the woods.

“You’re better than that, no matter what he tells you.”

He’s speaking English, but I have no idea what he’s saying. I can’t think. I can’t focus. All I can do is stare at him, seized with terror and fascination, my heart beating like mad. The rest of me is frozen solid.

“Take this.”

Stepping closer, he removes an envelope from an inside pocket of his overcoat. It’s a thick brown rectangle with a rubber band around the middle. He leans over and sets it noiselessly on the countertop beside the sink. He gazes down into my wide, unblinking eyes.

“Don’t go back to him. Leave now. Make yourself a better life.”

He reaches up and gently brushes his knuckles over my cheek. His voice drops even lower.

“I can tell it’s not too late for you. There’s still hope in those pretty eyes.”

Swift and silent as smoke, he turns and vanishes out the door, leaving me stunned and breathless.

I’m a sweaty, shaking, disoriented mess.

What the hell just happened?

After several moments, I gather my last two living brain cells and look at the envelope. Turning it over, I pull off the rubber band, slide my finger under the flap, and stare in disbelief at the stack of crisp one-hundred-dollar bills looking back at me.

I say to the empty room, “Wait. Wait a second.Wait just a fucking second.”

Thumbing through the stack, I estimate I’m holding about a hundred thousand bucks in my trembling hands.

My brain does a series of complicated gymnastic flips, then presents me with a hilariously impossible scenario: a hot, scary, wealthy stranger just tried to save me from being my future brother-in-law’s prostitute.

I run over the encounter again in my mind. Then again. Then once again for good measure. The only other possibility I can come up with is that Sloane is playing a bad joke on me.

Or she just doesn’t want to lose our bet. Maybe that’s it. Maybe she paid a guy to come in here and screw with my head.

No, wait. It’s all mixed up in my mind. The bet was thatIwould win if a man thought I was a hooker because of the way I’m dressed.

Wasn’t it?

I don’t know. I can’t think. Giant Hot Dangerous Stranger ran off with my IQ.

Plus, how would she have found someone on such short notice? After we made the bet, I was only out on the patio before we left for like four minutes. Is that enough time for her to arrange this kind of prank?