Page 5 of Off-Limits to the Grizzly

Five minutes later,I stride through the bar and out into the cold night. Adrian is still in one piece, but he might think twice about abusing his female staff again. My heart is pounding beneath my ribcage, and my beast won’t quit pacing and snarling. It was hell getting it to go back inside me just now.

It’s all riled up, desperate to lay eyes on Blair again.

She’s there. A sigh of relief bursts out of me. Standing beside my truck, a duffle bag laying on the sidewalk beside her. So small and vulnerable looking. And she’s shivering. Damn. I click the fob and the door locks clunk open.

She shoots me a wild glance, questions flashing in her eyes. There’ll be time for all that later.

I dart toward her, open the door. “Get in, honey.”

She hesitates a second longer, then she clambers in.

I go around, jump in the driver’s seat and shut the door, and it’s just the two of us, alone together in this little space.

Her scent fills my nostrils. That citrus-musk perfume she wears, and the rich, clean smell of her hair.

This is the closest I’ve been to her since she was still in her teens, and I was starting to have some thoughts about her that were not appropriate at all.

Now she’s an adult, glowing with a mature, womanly beauty. Her hair has lost its teenage frizz and hangs in glossy waves the color of maple syrup. She’s also quit wearing heavy make-up and her golden-brown eyes are more lovely than ever.

But right now, they are wide and stunned. “W-what just happened?”

I start up the car. It’s a long drive home and the sooner we get going, the better.

I turn over my thoughts. This will take some explaining. She doesn’t need to know I’ve been watching over her ever since she left Twin Falls.

“I saw how that asshole was coercing you, and I put a stop to it,” I say at last.

“You were drinking in the bar?”

“Yup.”

She blinks several times. “I’ve never seen you there before.”

“Oh, I was just passing through. Not my kinda place.” I give a dry laugh.

“I-I don’t usually work the topless night,” she says quietly. “But Adrian talked me into it, and then…” She trails off. I see her chest heave.

“I heard it all, hun, you don’t need to explain.”

“He got real weird. He’s never been like that before.”

I crook an eyebrow. “He was probably all Mr Nice Guy before that, huh?”

“Yeah.” She injects so much embarrassment and dismay into the word, it breaks my heart.

“It’s not your fault, Blair. Some guys are just like that.”

“Thank you for saving me, Mr Johnson,” she says after a beat.

Mr Johnson.

I stop breathing.“You can call me Zach. We’re both adults now.”

“Z-Zach. She rolls my name around her mouth. Jesus. That shouldn’t feel so good. “Where are you headed?”

“Back to Twin Falls,” I say.

“Oh…” Her shoulders slump. “I left there a long time ago.”

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