“Need you out front, boss. Got a brawl.”

Other than the furniture that might get busted up, and the tips the girls were losing, the idea of a fight didn’t piss me off too bad.

I would never be too old for cracking skulls together. A little bloodshed never hurt anyone.

Until I stepped into the main room and caught a flash of a blond head ducking behind the bar.

No way. She wouldn’t be stupid enough to come here.

A chair swung toward my head. Any answers would have to wait.

I bobbed and weaved, letting the chair fly over my shoulder and coming up to land two solid jabs and an uppercut that put the asshole on the ground and the chair skidding across the carpet. I stepped toward the bar, but halted when a huge motherfucker downed Nick, the biggest of my bouncers, and rushed toward the two girls cowering on the edge of the stage.

“Watch out!” The words and the voice grabbed my attention, and I glanced over my shoulder. A skinny fuck with a broken beer bottle swung it at me and missed. He blanched when I charged him. Grabbing him by the upper arms, I tossed him aside. The crunch as he hit the floor would have been satisfying, except I didn’t have any time to enjoy it. Another jackass was heading toward the bar—where my little society princess was hiding. I dodged fists and elbows as I crossed the room.

I reached the jackass before he could zero in on his target. All it took was a single hit to the jaw, and he crumpled to the ground. I jumped over the edge of the bar, uncertain of what I would find behind it.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Con landed on his feet in a crouch. His voice was hoarse, and his chest heaved with exertion. From what I’d seen, he’d taken on about a half dozen really unfriendly looking guys, all by himself.

My eyes must have been the size of dinner plates. What I’d just witnessed was so far out of the realm of my experience I didn’t even know how to begin to process it.

It hadn’t even been a bar fight. I’d witnessed a strip club fight.

When I didn’t answer, Con gripped my arm and shook it.

“Vanessa, what the fuck are you doing here?”

The adrenaline that had been pumping through my veins began to dissipate. Con’s hold relaxed, and his equally horrified and pissed off expression faded.

“Jesus Christ, you’re shaking,” he said.

I blinked several times before staring down at my arm. Con’s wide fingers were wrapped around it, his thumb skimming back and forth over the vein at my wrist.

I didn’t know what to say, but I opened my mouth anyway, and words tumbled out. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?” My voice trembled and had never sounded quite so small. I cleared my throat and tried again, “Are—”

Con’s head lifted as the sound of sirens filled the air.

“Shit. Time to go.”

He twined an arm around my shoulders and under my knees, lifting me off the ground as if I weighed nothing—which was certainly not the case.

“I can walk. Put me down.” I struggled in his arms, but he didn’t slow his stride as he crossed the room.

He jerked his head to one of the bouncers and paused at the threshold to a hallway. “You got this?”

“Yeah. No worries, boss.”

“Make sure Hennessy gets the report. I’ll catch up with him later.” Con looked down at me. “I got more important things to worry about right now.”

The bouncer may have smiled, or frowned, or burst into flames for all I knew. Because I didn’t want to break Con’s stare to check.

“Sure thing, boss.”

Con finally looked away and headed into the dimly lit passage.

“Where’s your car?”

“I took a cab.”

“So you did at least one smart thing tonight.”

He shouldered open a door, and the humid night air hit my skin. A single bulb was mounted on the brick wall next to the exit, and the yellow glow glinted off the chrome of Con’s Harley. He settled me on the bike and strapped a helmet to my head. It didn’t occur to me to ask where we were going—because I’d already made my choice tonight when I’d walked out of the house and hopped into a cab waiting at the corner.

Con took his place in front of me and started the bike.

I wrapped my arms around his waist even before he tossed the words “hold on” over his shoulder.

Pressing my cheek against the soft cotton stretched over the hard muscles of his back, I let the vibrations of the bike calm my still-racing heart and focused on the lights rushing past me. When we didn’t head toward Voodoo and Con’s apartment, but away from downtown, I should have been worried. I should have smacked his arm and demanded he tell me where we were going. But I didn’t. I just held on tighter, closed my eyes, and enjoyed the ride.

Because that was exactly what I’d decided to do with Con. Grab hold of this craziness and let myself enjoy life for once without worrying about every which way it could go wrong.

With the exception of following Con home that night two years ago, I’d never stepped off the carefully planned path that was my life. I’d never thrown caution to the wind. Thirty years old, and I’d never done anything else remotely spontaneous and wild. I felt like the clock was ticking—the proverbial sand trickling through the hourglass—and I was letting my life pass me by without doing anything memorable. My greatest fear was waking up, ninety years old, swathed in my lace nightgown, waiting to die and regretting that I hadn’t lived every moment of this life to its fullest.

So right now, when it was the absolute worst time for me to even consider straying from my regimented life—when I had the most to lose—I felt this insane compulsion to take a risk. To jump.

My arms were wrapped around the sole reason for that irresistible insanity.

I did the math in my head. Yep, there’s a strong chance that this is a mid-third life crisis.

When I finally opened my eyes again, my confusion levels hit the red zone. Why would we be here?

Con turned down the driveway of a house that wouldn’t have been amiss in the duPont Registry.

Solar lights highlighted six square columns fronting a wide covered porch that split into two giant curving staircases.

Con pulled the bike between two of the many stilts holding the massive house aloft and killed the engine. Settling it on the kickstand, he climbed off and removed his helmet. I got caught up in watching him and forgot that I should’ve been attending to my own. Not bothering to wait for me to get with the program, once again, Con undid the chinstrap and set it on the seat.