Kayla balanced herself on the tips of her toes to press a kiss to my lips before turning and vanishing into the crowd. She was a head shorter than most of the people in there, so I lost sight of her almost immediately. As soon as she was gone, however, several young women in the place seemed to catch sight of me.
I was approached first by a nurse and a girl in a costume that was basically just lingerie and bunny ears.
“Hi, handsome,” the nurse purred. “What’re you drinking?”
“Where did your friend go?” the bunny asked.
I pried an arm free from the nurse, who’d taken to trying to wrap herself around me like a snake. Alcohol made people stupid.
“She’s coming right back,” I said lamely.
The nurse giggled. “You should dance with us.”
“You’re so sexy.”
“Are you a professor?”
“What do you teach?”
“Do you want to teach us something?”
I backed up with a nervous chuckle. “Ladies, I appreciate the flattery but I’m just not interested. I’m sure you could have any guy in this room you wanted. That guy just isn’t me.”
The nurse winked. “It could be.”
The bunny turned and pressed her ass into my crotch. “We could show you a better time than that prudey princess you’re with.”
I extracted myself from the women with a shake of my head. “Leave me alone,” I growled, and much to my relief, they didn’t follow me into the crowd as I headed toward the back of the bar to look for Kayla.
She’d been gone longer than I expected.
And I needed to be saved from these women.
Chapter 32
Kayla
When I pushed through the swinging door of the women’s washroom, it got stuck and I walked straight into it. I smacked my nose on the door, quickly followed by my forehead, and stumbled back cursing my own clumsiness as someone out in the hall opened the door the rest of the way and apologized.
He was a young man, maybe twenty-five or twenty-six, and he wasn’t wearing a Halloween costume. He wore a blue and white striped polo shirt and jeans, and he was flanked by two friends. All three of them had the look of football players, and all three of them looked me up and down as I massaged my aching forehead and stepped out of the room.
“Sorry,” the guy in the stripes said. “The door jammed on my boot.”
“It’s all right,” I told him. “I’m kind of clumsy anyway. I shouldn’t have come out so enthusiastically.”
He looked me up and down for the third time and I was thankful I’d worn a kid-friendly costume that showed no skin. “What are you supposed to be?”
I pointed at my tiara. “A princess. Obviously.”
One of the other young men turned around to face me. He had a beer in his hand and his cheeks were rosy, a suggestion that this wasn’t his first, second, third, or fourth beer, but more likely his eighth or ninth. “I haven’t seen you around here before. What’s your name?”
I turned sideways to squeeze past them and the wall so I could get out of the cramped hallway and find Lukas. “Sorry, I have to go. Someone is waiting for me and—”
“Have a drink with us, sweetheart.”
I shot the guy in the stripes a dark look. I did not appreciate strangers calling me sweetheart. Hell, I didn’t appreciate pet names from anyone who wasn’t my partner. “No thank you.”
“Oh shit.” One of them snickered, patting Stripes on the shoulder. “She’s feisty. I like that in a woman.”
“I’m leaving,” I said firmly.
“In such a hurry?” Stripes pressed. He stepped in front of me and blocked my path. “Stay a while. Tell us about yourself.”
One of the others raised an arm over his head to brace it against the wall. “Yeah, tell us about yourself. Why’d you pick this dress? You’ve got a hot body. Why not show it off?”
I glared darkly up at them. “Get out of my way.”
The three men snickered.
“Let us buy you a drink, babe,” one said.
“Or two,” another added.
“Let us show you a good time,” Stripes added for good measure.
I held my ground. “If you don’t get the hell out of my way, I’m going to scream bloody murder and I swear to God at least one of you will know the pain of having the toe of my shoes rammed so deep into your dick it will be inverted. Now move.”
They didn’t move.
Apparently, my grit and threats meant nothing to them. I was sharply aware of how small I was as they stepped toward me. Sharply aware of how poorly lit this hallway was, how far away from Lukas I was, and how a situation could go from bad to worse in the blink of an eye.
A familiar voice cut through my panicked thoughts.
“Hey!”
Relief rippled through me when Lukas broke through the tight wall of three men. I reached for him on instinct and he caught my hand so he could guide me behind him. I tried not to cower and instead peered around him to shoot dirty looks at the men.
“This your girl, man?” Stripes asked, nodding past Lukas at me. “We wanted to buy her a drink. We liked her costume. But she got all up in arms and—”
“You’re very obviously making her uncomfortable,” Lukas said, seething. He moved forward and closed the space between him and Stripes so that they were almost nose to nose. “When a lady says no, you back the fuck off.”
“We just wanted her to loosen up,” one of the guys said.
“No harm in a drink or two,” the third added.
Lukas’s eyes flicked between them. “Do you know who the fuck I am?”
None of them answered.
Lukas jabbed a finger in Stripes’ chest. “I’m Lukas Holt, and if I hear so much as a whisper of you behaving inappropriately with any woman tonight, I’m going to have you arrested. Do you understand me?”
“Holt?” one of them breathed.
“Shit,” Stripes said, backing up several paces. “We’re sorry, man. We didn’t mean
