Kyra cast a look back at the timber roadhouse. Places like this made up her bread and butter. So many suckers, so little time. She loved the euphoria of getting away clean.

Then she heard the crunch of footsteps on the gravel behind her.

Shit, she thought. I knew it was too good to be true.

She picked up the pace to no avail. A hand on her arm spun her around, and she found herself craning her head back to see who had a hold of her. At five foot four, she was neither petite, nor average, and he topped her by a foot. More interesting, he hadn’t been involved in the game.

“What did you do in there?” She recognized his voice—a cross between black velvet and a buzz saw—he’d demanded Chet pay up. The guy had been drinking alone near the back, but she hadn’t gotten a good look at him.

She’d remember a face like this, hard angles softened by a spill of midnight hair, and eyes so dark they seemed to drink the light—black pools with azure lightning in their depths. He had skin like old mahogany, weathered but lovely. But his fine, unusual looks didn’t give him an excuse to touch her.

Thanks to this ass, she’d be lucky if she didn’t wind up in the fetal position, groaning through a migraine. With a prowess she must’ve snagged from him, Kyra neatly broke his grip on her forearm. Surprise flickered in his gaze, as if he recognized the maneuver but didn’t understand how she’d done it. Well, hell, she didn’t know how, either, and sometimes it got damn confusing, but it was a living.

“I won a pool game. And now I’m leaving.” Her tone dared him to try something, especially when she sensed the deadly readiness in her muscles. She knew without a doubt she could snap somebody’s neck. Comforting. It’d be better if she wasn’t nearby when the skill she’d stolen reverted to him.