All Chained Up (Devil's Rock #1)(34)

The guys were still loitering in front of the door when she exited. Their gazes fell on her. The one that had tried talking to her earlier was ready for her. He pushed off one of the cement posts he had been leaning on. “Whatcha got? Some ice cream? I like ice cream.”

Rolling her eyes, she turned to head for her car. She definitely wasn’t in the mood to suffer some delinquent’s awkward attempts to hit on her.

Her eyes burned and she wished she had just stayed home. She wished she had never seen Knox Callaghan. Her last memory of him in the infirmary had been better than the memory of him turning his back on her at a convenience store. Almost to her car door, she fumbled with her keys to push the unlock button.

“You shouldn’t stop at convenience stores so late at night.”

She jumped and swallowed back a squeak, dropping her keys. She hadn’t even seen or heard him approach, but Knox was at her side, towering over her.

He glanced behind them and she followed his gaze, noticing that the boys were closer, the burrito-wielding guy who claimed to like ice cream hovering at the lead. They’d actually been following her toward her car, and she hadn’t noticed. She was too upset over her run-in with Knox to even pay attention.

The boys stopped and looked between her and Knox.

Knox adjusted his stance, bracing his legs and looking even more imposing. He nodded once at them. “S’up?”

The leader of the group eyed him. “Nothing, man.”

“Yeah? Then turn around and keep walking.” Knox stared hard at him, his blue eyes flinty, his jaw locked tight.

The boy sank his teeth into his burrito almost defiantly and turned around, walking stiffly back to his post at the front of the store, his two friends sticking beside him, casting shifty glances at Knox.

Knox faced her then and she realized they were standing really close. Closer than they had ever stood before. The top of her head barely reached his chin. “Uh, thanks. I’m sure I didn’t have anything to worry about, though. This is a pretty safe neighborhood.”

His lips twisted. “Never know what you’ll run into late at night at a gas station.” His head dipped a fraction closer and she felt his breath on her cheek. “You could even run into a dangerous felon.”

She arched an eyebrow. “You trying to tell me I should be afraid of you?”

He released a short huff of laughter as if that was the dumbest question in the world with the most obvious answer.

She lifted her chin. “Well, I’m not.”

The laughter faded from him. His gaze flicked over her face, taking in all of her features, scrubbed free without so much as lip gloss. “You should be, Nurse Davis.” Yeah, he was definitely annoyed with her. “I’m still that guy you knew behind bars.”

“Yeah. I remember you. I remember what you did for me in there, too.” She moistened her dry lips and her stomach tightened, clenching as his stare dropped down, watching the slide of her tongue. She was suddenly tempted to take the ice cream she purchased and roll it down her overheated throat.

He moved in suddenly and the air sucked out of her in a hiss. Until she realized he was only bending to retrieve her keys. Not to touch her. Not to do anything else.

He held her keys out for her to take. “Don’t confuse me with some hero. I’m as tarnished as they come.”

She opened her hand, palm up, and his fingers brushed her skin as he dropped the keys into it. He started to turn to go.

“Why did you do it?” she whispered so quietly she wasn’t sure he heard her. “Why did you save me?”

He stopped and turned back. Another huff of laughter. “Hell, who knows why I did it? Just a whim. Who’s to say I’d even do it again?”

“Liar,” she challenged, something prickly hot spreading through her chest. She didn’t like his words. She refused to accept them. Refused to believe that they might be true and she was wrong about him. “You’d do it. For me. For Josiah and Dr. Walker. For anyone who was working in the—”

“No. You’re wrong.” His eyes drilled into her, moving left and right as they stared into her eyes, and he inched closer, invading her space, the immense size of him eating up all the air between them and filling her up with his heat. “I did it for you.”

Then he was gone. A stinging curse burned on the air in his wake. He left her gaping after him, her heart pounding like a drum in her chest.

She stalled from sliding into her car, the small carton of ice cream sticking to her fingers. She adjusted her grip slightly, feeling brittle sheets of ice slide between her skin and the cardboard carton. It was cold in her hand but she felt so hot and achy that it felt good. She was actually tempted to roll the carton against her feverish cheeks, her throat . . . lower.

Panic welled up in her as she watched his retreating back. She shifted on her feet, certain that if he left now, she would never see him again. No. She couldn’t have that.

Sucking in a thick breath, she called out to him, “Knox!” Her voice rang out louder than she expected, and even to her ears there was a hint of desperation to it. Need and want. Her face burned hotter.

He stopped several yards away, not quite to the gas pumps yet where he had left his pickup truck. He turned to face her, his deep-set eyes almost black across the distance.

His expression revealed nothing. Impassive as ever. But just this sight of him—that hard warrior body that seemed to belong to another time, when men wore chain mail and armor and knocking heads was a part of every day—pulled at something deep in her belly and gave her all the encouragement she needed.