“Alonzo.” One of the men smiled hesitantly at him. “We’re here on business.”

Alonzo shook his head. Evangeline curled her fingers into the back of his suit jacket and held on, her heart pounding. If she didn’t pay these men off, like everyone on the street did, she would find herself without a shop. They’d come in when she was renovating and explained they would never take more than necessary to keep her shop safe. She knew that meant pay up or they’d burn her out or something equally as horrible. She’d talked with other shop owners and all of them paid protection money. She figured the price into her monthly budget.

“They have guns,” she whispered against his back. “I’ve got their money.”

“The boss won’t like this,” one said, but he took a step back.

“You let me worry about that. This shop is mine to take care of. He has a problem with that, I’ll settle it myself.”

She was fairly certain he was talking about the mafia. Was he involved? The men shaking her down knew him by name, but they appeared to be afraid of him. She didn’t want him in trouble with a mafia boss.

“I’ve got the money,” she reiterated, trying to reach around him to hand the envelope to the two men.

Both men nearly fell backward, stumbling away from her hand. Her Iceman caught her wrist with a gentleness that shocked her and brought her hand down to his thigh. Alonzo didn’t look at her, but continued staring at the two men who turned and walked very briskly away.

“If I don’ pay, they’ll ruin my business,” she said, taking a step around him toward the door.

“They won’t.” He tugged on her hand and led her back to the counter. “In the six months I’ve been coming here, your male customers have quadrupled and they hit on you continually. You never date. Why?”

It was the last thing Evangeline expected him to ask. She still clutched the envelope in her hand, holding it tight against his rock-hard thigh. “Why do you ask?”

“A woman like you has no business being alone.”

“Like me?” She echoed it, trying to figure out where he was going with his questions and that statement that she found alternatingly annoying and alarming. Did he know she was leopard? Just what did “like you” mean?

Subtly she twisted her hand, expecting him to release her. She couldn’t keep her palm pressed against the heat of his thigh with his muscles moving deliciously beneath it and not react. Heat spread through her like molten lava, a slow fire building in her veins and pooling low.