How to Flirt With a Naked Werewolf - Molly Harper [25]
No such luck. It was the outsider, the trucker from before.
“Hey, here we are again,” he drawled. His smile was friendly, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. Some instinct had me putting my back against the wall, my keys clutched between the fingers of my right hand. “I think I left something on the bar earlier, a blue knit cap. Did you see it?”
I shook my head, trying to keep my face a blank, pleasant mask, despite the frisson of fear rippling up my spine. “No, I checked the bar over when I was closing up, and I didn’t see anything. But maybe if you come back in the morning, you might find it.”
He furrowed his brow, his expression one of practiced disappointment. “Well, I’m heading out early, before dawn. I won’t have time to stop by. It would only take a minute for us to duck in and check. It’s my favorite hat. You don’t want me wandering around bare-headed, do you? I could catch cold.”
“I really can’t,” I said as I dropped the garbage bags to the ground. “I can’t let anyone in after hours.”
“We don’t have to tell anyone,” he said, winking at me. Something about the way he said “we” had me gritting my teeth. He leaned close. “Come on, it’ll just take a minute.”
I gauged the distance to my truck, too far for me to make a break for it. “Sorry. Maybe you can pick it up next time you’re in town.”
“You’re being awfully rude, honey. I’m not asking for a big favor here.”
For a moment, I felt guilty. He wasn’t asking that much. How hard would it be just to let him back into the bar to look for his stupid hat? I was being sort of rude. But some organic alarm deep in my brain was telling me not to go into the darkened bar with him, to get out of the alley and get home as quick as I could.
“Come on, be nice. Just let me in,” he said, grinning widely even as I took a step around him.
Not by the hairs on my chinny-freaking-chin, my brain yelled back as his hand clamped around my arm.
My heart thundered in my chest as I realized how trapped I was. Even if I made it to my truck, if I managed to get inside before he stopped me, I would have to run him over to get out. Could I do that? I took in his huge, hulking form, his cold, dry hands, and I shuddered at the thought of either touching me. Yes, yes, I could.
I’d taken a women’s self-defense course when I moved out on my own. Somehow my dad’s safety advice, “Just try to reason with them,” didn’t seem adequate walking alone in Jackson’s darkened parking structures. I tried to remember what I’d learned, but all I could recall was the instructor’s advice for women living alone to put muddy men’s boots and a huge dog’s dish on the porch so it looked as if the home was well protected. That didn’t do me a lot of good at the moment.
“Look, I just want to leave. Leave an address at the motel, and I’ll send the hat to you.” I tried to jerk my arm out of his grasp, but he was too strong.
He twisted my arm behind me and shoved my face against the rough brick. His voice was still so soft, even friendly, as my face scraped against the wall. “You have a choice to make here, honey. I don’t want to hurt you. But I will. You don’t want to make me hurt you, do you?”
I winced as he wrapped his fingers around the back of my neck. “Yes or no, honey?” he asked.
I whimpered. “No,” I choked out, wincing at the grinding pain in my cheek.
“You’re going to hand me your keys, and we’re going to go inside and take a look at the register. It was a nice busy day for you, right? Probably lots of cash in there. Is there a safe in the office? Do you know the combination?”
“No, I just started working here,” I said, thinking of the full night-deposit bag I’d left under the counter. Evie had said that dropping it off at the bank every morning was easier than messing with the bulky old safe at night. She said the