There was something in his eyes as he said it that suddenly had me thinking that my first impressions of him weren’t correct. Perhaps he hadn’t been raised with a silver spoon like I’d assumed. Maybe he, like me, had needed to fight past adversity to get where he was.

Like I needed yet another reason to like him.

Or, even more dangerous, respect him.

“Cold?” Soren asked when I crossed my arms, my hands chafing up my bare skin.

I wasn’t cold.

It was kind of balmy down underground, the air getting trapped between trains.

But before I could tell him that, he was shrugging out of his suit jacket and wrapping it around my shoulders. “Here,” he said, pulling it close around the front. “Little big,” he said, giving me a slight smile as the material completely dwarfed me.

I was overwhelmed by the scent still clinging to the material—tobacco and leather—and the way it was still warm from his body heat.

“Thanks,” I said, keeping my gaze lowered, so he didn’t see the desire that I felt coursing through me once again. “That’s me,” I said, having no idea what train was rumbling up through the tunnel, but deciding I was taking it regardless.

“I’ll just wait to make sure you get on.”

“Okay. Well, uh, I’ll… see you tomorrow,” I said as the train pulled up beside us. “Oh, wait,” I said, starting to pull off the jacket.

“Give it back to me tomorrow,” he said, looking past me to give a trio of what looked to be teenage boys a hard look.

That protectiveness should not have had my sex doing a fun little clench. But there was no denying it happened either.

“I’ll be fine,” I assured him.

“Would you do me a favor?” he asked as he walked me to the door.

“Okay…”

“Can you text me when you get home, so I know you got there safely?”

Alright.

This time it was my heart doing a little clench.

Which was even more unnerving.

“Uh, sure. Okay.” I stepped inside the car.

“Saffron,” he called.

“Yeah?”

“Right when you get home.”

I wasn’t prepared for the simultaneous heart and sex clench. But there it was.

“Okay.”

Before he could say anything else, the doors slid closed, and the train was shooting off.

Soren wasn’t exactly wrong to be suspicious of the guys who, upon closer inspection, looked closer to twenty or twenty-one and almost immediately started to glance over at me.

I hated that he had such good instincts.

And was even more curious about what his life was like before becoming some nightclub mogul because of them.

“Today is not the day,” I said, moving over toward a seat. “And I am not the one.”

“Oh, please, what could you possibly—” the bolder of the group—all swagger, no brains—said as he moved closer.