Asshole Number One sneered. “God, what a cunt.”

Mack saw red. He grabbed the guy’s arm, twisted it, and had him chest-to-bar in one second flat in a move he’d learned as a young bouncer. The guy let out a bellow of pain, and the crowd around them gasped and jostled to watch or get out of the way.

“Apologize. Now.”

“Get the fuck off me, man.”

Liv tugged on his arm. “He’s not worth it, Mack. Let’s go.”

Mack gave him another shove and stood. Asshole swung his arm around, missed Mack, and instead hit a pitcher of beer, sending it sloshing onto the floor and all over a woman standing nearby.

She swore and smacked him.

And hell officially broke loose.

“Mack! Watch out!”

Mack looked up to find Liv crawling over the bar. She pointed, but it wasn’t in time. He felt the bash of a fist against his jaw, and lights exploded behind his right eye. Mack stumbled back but righted himself quickly enough to ward off another blow from one of Asshole’s friends.

The next thing he knew, Liv was standing on the bar, yelling at the cowering bartenders to call the cops.

“Get down!” he yelled at her.

Asshole Number One took another swing, and Mack hit him in the gut. He doubled over and went down on one knee. People screamed and ran. Jesus Christ, what a fucking nightmare. He’d never had a fight in one of his own clubs. Never. Two bouncers shoved people out of the way and ran into the fray. Just in time to hold back one of Asshole’s friends from going after Mack again. But not fast enough to stop the two women who were still fighting off to the side from knocking over a barstool and wiping out on the floor.

Mack reached out to break them up, yelling once again at Liv to get down from the bar. She did, but not in the way he’d intended. She leaped down and grabbed the arm of one of the women.

“Knock it off,” she yelled, trying to yank them apart.

“Let me handle this, Liv,” Mack barked.

She ignored him, because of course she did.

The women’s boyfriends got into it next, shoving and swearing and knocking shit around. Liv tried again to haul one of the women up, but the woman yanked her arm away and instead sent Liv stumbling backward into the warring boyfriends. One of them whipped around and accidentally elbowed Liv in the cheek.

Things sort of happened in slow motion after that. Liv slipped and fell onto her ass. Mack shoved one of the assholes out of the way, leaped over the two women on the ground, and grabbed Liv under the armpits. He swept her up fireman-style and ignored her protests as he carried her out of the melee.

“What the hell, Mack? Put me down!”

“Knock it off,” he growled, kicking open the swinging door to the outside. He set her on her feet and immediately cupped her cheeks. “Christ, are you okay?”

She tried to push his hands away. “I’m fine—”

“Tilt your head higher.”

The streetlight illuminated a swollen red splotch just below her eye. Mack swore. “What the hell were you thinking, Liv?”

“Me? What the hell is wrong with you? You started a bar brawl!”

“I was protecting you!”

“From what? Bad language?”

“He called you a cunt.”

“I was a bartender for three years, Mack. I know how to handle guys like that.” She threw her hands in the air. “God, I was actually starting to like you, and then you pull this overbearing macho bullshit!”

Even as his pulse raced and his hands shook, a detached part of his brain was just like Del and the Russian, casting bets over what it would take to strip away the veneer of perfect romance hero to reveal an out-of-control alpha male, and he’d finally found it. He opened his mouth, and out came a tone of voice he’d never, ever used with a woman before.

“I swear to fucking God, Liv, you are the single most frustrating woman I’ve ever known.”

“And you think you’re one of the good guys behaving like this?”

Her words hit their mark. Adrenaline collided with anger and lust and regret into one combustible mix that took control of his senses. No, he wasn’t one of the good guys. Not right now. Not when the rise and fall of her rapid breathing made her T-shirt spread tightly across her breasts. Not when he realized she was ogling him right back. Not when the sidewalk suddenly felt too small and too big at once.

His hand reached out, and his thumb wiped a drop of liquid from her collarbone. Water? Beer? He didn’t know. Her lips parted, her breaths quickened. Then his thumb traced a slow path of exploration up the column of her throat, along her jaw, until it finally came to rest on her bottom lip.

They moved in a blur, and it was only that tiny bit of recognition—that she had moved too—that allowed him to give in to the fire. His mouth covered hers, and without a moment of hesitation she dove her fingers in his hair and held him there. She smelled like rum and tasted like a mistake, and he didn’t fucking care. Driven by some painful urgency he neither recognized nor understood, he let out a growl, wrapped an arm around her waist, and lifted her ass to press her against the wall of the bar. Her legs widened, welcoming him into the space between.

Liv gripped his face and pulled him in. In an instant his body went hot and tight. She gripped his arms to steady herself or maybe to stop him from going full caveman. He changed the angle, and she opened wide beneath him. His tongue swept inside her mouth.

The door suddenly swung open, and a crowd stumbled out, yelling that the cops were coming.

Liv went rigid in his arms and pulled a Heisman stiff-arm to push him off her. She dropped to the ground, her feet landing on top of his. Mack turned away, hands in his hair. Oh shit. Oh shit, what did he just do?

“We need to go,” she said.

“Liv,” he rasped, turning. “I’m sorry. I’ve never—”

She brushed past him and was headed to the parking lot. “We need to get out of here.”

Mack jogged to keep up. “Wait. We need to talk about this.”

“No, we don’t.” She picked up the pace and stomped to his car. He beeped it unlocked and held open her door for her. She slid in without a word.

He got behind the wheel and looked at her. “Liv.”

“Just drive.”

With a muttered curse, he pushed the ignition button and jammed it into drive. Silence reigned for ten full minutes before he finally caught his breath.

He glanced over. “We should get you checked out. You were hit pretty hard.”

“So were you.”

“I’m fine.”

“So am I.”

“Dammit, Liv. I’m trying to apologize.”

She snorted. “For what?”

“For . . . what I did. Kissing you like that. Without permission.”

She ran a hand over her hair. “I was an enthusiastic participant, Mack. Don’t get your guilt panties in a wad.”

“Liv—”

She held up her hand. “Enough. Just drive me to my car.”

She’d met him at Temple, and her car was parked behind the bar in the employee lot. He pulled in and killed the engine. Neither of them moved.

“Can we please talk about this?”

Liv opened her door, got out, and then bent down to look back in. “Ask Noah if he can figure out how the goons found us.”

She slammed the door shut and left. What the fuck had just happened?

And how many times was she going to leave him alone with that question?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

This was a bad day to discover she was out of foundation.

Liv peered into the bathroom mirror the next morning and tilted her face into the light. Nope. Not a trick of shadows. She had a bona fide black eye. Concealer hid the worst of it, but anyone who looked at her directly would know she’d either been in a fight or had gotten the worst sleep ever last night.

Actually, both were true thanks to Mack. Christ, that man could kiss. Not that she was surprised. He probably had enough experience to write a how-to manual. Of course, she wasn’t sure which step in the instructions would include leap off her like you’ve been electrocuted and shudder as if you need a shower. If she’d built a shield of armor around herself over the years, his reaction was why. She should’ve been used to disappointment and the sting of rejection, but she wasn’t. That was a fresh wound over an old scar.

Didn’t matter. Kissing Mack had been a mistake. An adrenaline-fueled clash of libido and bad decisions. It would not be happening again, and that was that.

Liv blasted her curls with a hair dryer, twisted them into a bun, and then distracted herself before breakfast by paying bills. The number left over in her bank account was enough to make her stomach clench. She needed to spend a few hours today sending out more résumés and kissing ass on LinkedIn. The only place that had responded so far was the Parkway. She had an interview next week, and she figured she only had Alexis to thank for that.

On that happy note, Liv slipped into her farm boots and did her chicken chores. She tried to hide her face when she walked into the house a few minutes later, but Rosie saw everything.

“I hope there’s an interesting story there.”

“Define interesting.”

“Sex injury?”

“Sorry. Bar fight.” Liv started washing the eggs she’d gathered. “Want help with breakfast?”

“I pay you to tend to the animals and the garden—”

“Not to cook,” Liv finished, smiling.

The bang of the back door interrupted her. Moments later, Hop wandered in. He took one look at Liv and scowled. “What happened to you?”

“Cage fight. The money’s good.”

“Where are you going all dressed up?” Rosie asked him.

Liv looked up. He was dressed up, at least by Hop’s standards. His jeans had no stains, and his shirt had actual buttons down the front.

“None of your business,” Hop said. The door banged shut again.

Liv sighed. “Why don’t you put him out of his misery?”