Irritation flashed in his eyes. “A girl who strips for a living isn’t a girl who says no a whole lot.”
I stood up from my seat and slapped him in the face so hard that his sunglasses hung askew. “Don’t you dare insult me like that again.”
The girl next to me was suddenly holding up her phone, and I knew this was all going on video.
This show needed to end quickly. When I reached for my purse, everything happened so fast. One minute Dave was standing in front of me with a stunned expression, and the next, when I looked up, Wheeler had spun him around and shoved him against the wall. So hard that a picture of an employee’s face fell to the floor and smashed into pieces.
Wheeler threw a series of punches—the third splitting Dave’s cheek and bright blood appearing. Someone in the back shouted to call the police, and that’s when my adrenaline spiked.
Dave erupted with anger and charged at Wheeler, who suddenly stepped aside like a matador dodging a bull in Spain.
When Dave stumbled forward, the teenager stuck out her leg and sent him flying. A chair fell over when he hit the ground. I smirked and gave her an approving wink before grabbing Wheeler by the arm.
Taut arm. His muscles were so tight that he felt like stone beneath my touch. “We have to get out of here, so I hope you filled up on your meat sandwich.”
Did he hear me? I wasn’t sure. His eyes were locked on the human, and I’d never seen the features of his face so fierce. Moving him seemed impossible, so I slipped four fingers down the front of his pants so I could get a firm grip on his jeans.
That seemed to snap him out of it. When he lightly gasped and turned to look at me, I gave him a hard tug and pulled him toward the door. “Come on, sugar. We’re late for the parent-teacher conference.”
Once outside, I realized that Wheeler was compliantly following behind me, allowing me to tug him forward. I glanced over my shoulder and saw why. It almost stole my breath how thick he was—so much so that I snatched my hand back before I felt a surprise. The length and size of him pressed so hard against the fabric of his jeans that it looked painful.
“Come on, Romeo. Before the cops show up and wonder why sloppy joes give you an erection.”
Chapter 8
Wheeler stretched out on Naya’s white sofa after she went to take a nap in her bedroom. He couldn’t stop replaying the events in his head of what had happened earlier at the diner. While sitting at the counter drinking his milkshake, he’d heard Naya’s sultry voice sharpen. When he glanced over his shoulder, a man was facing her with his hand on the table. Because of the distance and the music on the speakers, he couldn’t hear the conversation.
He’d wanted to turn around and finish his lunch, but something had compelled him to watch—a spark that coiled in his stomach and burned hotter with each passing second. Should he interfere? He was hired to protect her life, not to meddle with her personal business, and a woman like Naya was certainly used to men approaching her all the time. When he saw the man’s fingers slide up her arm, his wolf began to snarl and pace within him.
Naya suddenly sprang to her feet and slapped the man in the face. Wheeler had flashbacks of when she’d done the same to him, and a surge of adrenaline poured through his veins like lava. Maybe seeing that should have made him dislike her for being so callous to men, but a smidge of unexpected jealousy bloomed in Wheeler, as if her punishments belonged only to him.
And wasn’t that a crazy fucking thought?
Wheeler didn’t even realize he was walking in their direction—it was as if his body and brain had disconnected, replaced by animal instinct. When she turned away and reached for her purse, the man curved his left hand across his right shoulder. Wheeler had seen that gesture before, and it meant the guy was three seconds from backhanding her.
Wheeler caught the man’s wrist and spun him around. “Thought you were going to do that, didn’t you?” he said through clenched teeth.
He blacked out for just a few seconds. It always happened during the first moments of a violent outburst. It didn’t matter if humans were watching. In his world, a man didn’t put his hand on a woman.
Wheeler shifted around on Naya’s sofa and rubbed his eyes. Just thinking about how that scene had played out made his heart thump so forcefully that he could see the rapid pace through the thin fabric of his sleeveless shirt. Then blood rushed to his cock as he remembered the feel of her slender fingers sliding down the front of his pants. That in combination with the way she had forcefully led him out made him ache in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time. Even now the constriction was too much, so he freed the button and unzipped his pants, which only made him harder.