When Night Falls by Jenna Mills Page A

handed him a wet cloth. “Braxton’s long gone, you know. You lost your chance.”
    “There’ll be other chances,” Liam growled. He wasn’t done with the boy, had a few more lessons to teach, but instinct had taken over the second Jessica hit the barroom floor. No way could he leave her there, hurt and alone, in trouble.
    “Detective?” The formal title tasted bitter on its way out, but some hazy part of him recognized the wall he was trying to erect, the barrier. The way he touched the damp cloth to her parted lips was entirely too intimate.
    “Can you hear me?” he asked.
    Her eyelids fluttered, another soft whimper.
    “Easy does it.” Blotting away the blood, he resisted lifting her into his lap. He needed to discern the severity of her head injury. Pushing back her hair, he dabbed the cloth to the wound. “You’re okay, Detective. Just open your eyes for me.”
    Slowly, she did. Her eyes were as dark and swirling as always, but dazed, unfocused.
    He leaned closer, stroking his hand along the side of her face. “How do you feel?”
    She winced. “L-like a truck just slammed into me.” Her voice was soft and throaty, gravelly, like she lived on cigarettes and whiskey.
    “You took a nasty blow. Can you see me okay?”
    “F-fine.”
    “How many fingers?”
    She squinted at him. “Three.”
    “Good. Who am I?”
    A weak smile curved her lips. “Sir Lancelot?”
    He almost laughed. “Sorry, rescuing damsels in distress is hardly my style.”
    “Good,” she whispered, “because I’m hardly a damsel in distress.”
    Her flippancy brought a surge of relief. Her mind was clearly connecting the dots. “Do you always try to be so tough, Jessica Clark?”
    Her gaze focused. “With men like you, there’s no other way.”
    Encouraged she wasn’t suffering a concussion, he eased her into his lap. He wanted her off the cold sticky floor but found himself unprepared for the feel of her lithe body so close to his. Those smooth curves and long legs, the heat. Just the sight of her watching him with those wide, cautious eyes, of auburn hair spilling over his thighs, was enough to send a weak man running for cover.
    Good thing Liam wasn’t a weak man.
    He leaned down and fingered the corner of her month.
    Her skin was soft, the feel of her breath warm.
    “You caught a pretty brutal hook,” he said, “but I don’t think anything’s broken.”
    Frowning, she worked her mouth, opening it, shifting her lips to the right, then the left. Pain flashed in her eyes.
    “Don’t overdo it.”
    “No, I’m okay,” she said. “I’ve been through worse.”
    The matter-of-fact words stirred something deep inside. Something dark and primitive. Something he didn’t like. He knew the danger being a detective entailed, but when he looked at her in his lap, her flawless skin and provocative eyes, he saw a woman of silk and lace, not a cop.
    The reality of her putting her life on the line, of getting hurt in the process, didn’t sit well.
    She struggled to pull herself upright, then pushed the hair from her face and cupped her forehead. “Tomorrow won’t be any fun.”
    For either of them.
    He gently inspected the nasty bump on her head, but the feel of all that luxurious hair, the kind a man liked to twine in his hands, undermined his good intentions. “The bleeding’s stopped.”
    “Everything okay here?” asked a voice from his right.
    Liam glanced at the club’s manager. “If you call assaulting an officer okay, then I suppose we’re right as goddamn rain.”
    The man’s jovial face went ashen. “Assaulting an officer?”
    “It’s okay,” Jessica said, trying to stand. When she swayed, she cut Liam a smile. “Okay, anti-Lancelot, here’s your chance to redeem yourself. You going to help me up, or what?”
    Liam didn’t understand how easily she made him want to laugh. He’d be a fool to forget what he’d learned about her that afternoon, an even bigger fool to let misplaced chivalry distract his