masculine hand cupped her rear end. Sassy yelped in surprise at the intimate contact. The back of her dress had ridden up, exposing her bottom. The warmth of his palm through her lacy panties was a red-hot brand.
Sassy drummed her fists against his broad back. “Put me down.”
He paused a few feet from the embankment. The water swirled around his powerful legs.
“A precipitous notion.” His deep voice sent a little zing of awareness through her. “Perhaps you should—”
“I said put me down. Now.”
The man’s massive shoulders lifted in a shrug. “If you insist.”
He tossed her into the creek.
The frigid water closed around Sassy once more.
Of all the bad-mannered, ungentlemanly—
Sputtering in outrage, she scrambled to her feet. Her four-inch spike heels sank into the sand. The water hit her below the waist, plastering her dress to her shivering body. The current was strong. She lost her balance and went down on one knee. She struggled upright on the spindly shoes.
He grabbed her arm to steady her. She repaid the act of courtesy with a glare.
“What’s the matter with you?” she said. “When I said put me down, I meant on the road.”
“Then you should have said so. Humans are woefully inexact.”
Ignoring her protests, he lifted her in his arms and carried her up the kudzu-choked embankment. He plunked her down in the middle of the bridge, returning her outraged regard without expression. At five foot two, Sassy was used to looking up at people, but, jeez, he was a big guy, a lean, hard giant of a man. His long hair was a rich reddish brown, the color of cinnamon. He wore some kind of metal-studded leather vest over a muslin shirt. The damp fabric clung to his pectorals and bulging deltoids. The dark swirl of his chest hair was visible through the thin cloth. A necklace of braided silver with an iridescent medallion hung from his muscular neck.
Her gaze moved to his face. She searched for a flaw. There were none. Cheesy Pete, the guy was a looker: eyes like beaten gold, chiseled jaw, and a stern, unsmiling mouth.
Contacts. The thought drifted through Sassy’s befuddled brain. He must wear contacts. No one has eyes that color.
“Next time you wish to be placed upon the road, say so,” he said with more than a hint of disapproval. “Clarity is the heart of useful discourse. Unless you enjoy being difficult?”
“Me? Any sensible person—any gentleman—would know what I meant.”
“I am not a gentleman—”
“No, you’re not.”
“I am Dalvahni.”
“What’s that, some kind of religion?”
“No. We hunt demons.”
Lord a-mercy, he was nuts—gorgeous, but nuts. Sassy took a hasty step back and almost fell off her shoes. “Demons? My, that does sound important. Don’t let me keep you.”
His russet brows drew together in a frown. “Your shoes are frivolous. You should wear something more practical.”
He wasn’t looking at her shoes. He was looking at her legs. Sassy was accustomed to masculine admiration. As a rule, she enjoyed it, but this man’s attention made her insides flutter. Why, it was almost as if she were nervous.
Sassy discarded the ridiculous notion. Why, she’d been wrapping males around her little finger since she was in diapers. Charm was her super power. Everyone said so.
She gave him one of her signature sunny smiles and held out her hand. “I’m afraid we got off on the wrong foot. Thank you for saving my life. I’m Sarah Elizabeth Peterson, but everybody calls me Sassy. And you are?”
He turned on his heel and walked away without a word.
“Rude.” Sassy propped her hands on her hips. “Rude, rude, rude.”
He kept going.
“Wait,” she cried. “Come back.”
“Abide here until my return,” he said without slowing his stride.
He took a running leap over the side of the bridge and disappeared. Sassy blinked. People didn’t vanish. She must have hit her head when she wrecked the car.
Bunny rabbits, the car. Sassy tottered to the side of the bridge on her kicky little sandals and peered over the railing into the water. Her stomach did a queasy flip-flop. Daddy Joel’s prized convertible sat at the bottom of the creek like an abandoned toy in a swimming pool.
As she gazed in dismay at the sunken convertible, her brain registered a curious anomaly. High heels make their own kind of music, a syncopated tapping rhythm Sassy loved. But she hadn’t tapped. She’d clomped. She glanced down at her feet and shrieked. She was wearing boots. Not stylish booties with stiletto heels or ruffle-front knee boots or even leather platforms.
She was wearing thick