So, him threatening murder did not make sense.

Not that anyone threatening murder ever actually made sense.

But he meant it. Staring at him, into those tempestuous eyes, I knew he was seriously going to end the life of the man who’d threatened me.

“Don’t,” I whispered, my previously sharp tone completely gone.

I grabbed a hold of Rowan’s large, strong hand. It made me feel warm. Safe. Tethered to the earth.

“Please do not kill a man for me,” I asked, begging him with my eyes.

“He would’ve hurt you if we hadn’t driven past when we did,” he ground out. “He was already hurting that girl.”

“He was,” I agreed, my blood still boiling with that knowledge. “But she has brothers who will make sure she’s never hurt again. And then there’s the possibility of Ronnie turning up dead, and those boys being accused of his murder.” Half of me was joking, or at least hoping this was some kind of hypothetical conversation. But the other half was being dead serious—pardon the pun—knowing that I was speaking to another version of the man I was quickly—far too quickly—falling in love with.

Now that I was looking at him closer, without my red veil of rage, touching him, I could see just how tense he was. Felt the tremble of rage in his hands.

He had transformed into the dangerous—deadly—man I knew he could be. Who, at some point before I’d known him, he’d had to be to survive.

I had no idea how to deal with truly dangerous men. No idea how to bring him back from the brink. I just knew I needed to.

So, I worked on instinct. I went up on my tiptoes so I could clutch his face, bringing it downward to me, our lips almost brushing.

“Will you take me home?” I asked softly, looking into those savage eyes of his.

He didn’t respond, just kept staring, his hands gripping my hips tightly.

I didn’t back down, though I felt uncertain, unsure if I was doing the right thing.

“Please?” I whispered, brushing my lips across his.

Then he responded.

Enthusiastically.

I’d intended to give him a delicate kiss, to coax him back to the man who didn’t need to use violence to avenge his woman.

He was not that man.

He was now the man who needed to claim his woman in a brutal kiss in the parking lot.

My back slammed against the car before I knew what was going on, Rowan’s hands on my ass now, kissing me fiercely.

To be fair, I kissed him back just as fiercely, realizing that I had some adrenaline of my own spiking in my body.

“I’m takin’ you home,” Rowan growled against my mouth right when I was about to wrap my legs around his hips and put us both in danger of getting arrested for indecent exposure.

“Yeah,” I agreed, trying to catch my breath.

He didn’t let go of me right away, just kept me there, pressed against the car, pressed into him, my chest rising and falling rapidly.