“It’s not nice be rude like that,” a dark, deep voice said behind her, and Portia spun to look.

The music was loud enough that she shouldn’t have been able to hear his voice so clearly.

He wore a dark jacket with a hood pulled up, and threw his face into shadow. His arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against a pillar. There was a sense of danger and determination about him, and he was a big mother. Her be-careful-o-meter pinged.

Portia wasn’t short. At five foot, seven inches, she was tall for the average female, but this guy towered over her.

She gave him an up down look from the dark hood hiding his face to lean hips and jeans tight enough to showcase the strong mussels of his thighs.

He straightened under her perusal, dropping his hands to his side, and she noted he had long fingers like a pianist or an artist. His hands were beautiful.

“Are you mute?” he asked.

She detected a hint of unease in his tone. Or maybe she just wanted to because his body language was saying something else entirely. Here was a strong self-assured male that was scared of jack and wanted her attention. Fine, he had it.

“You hide your face because you are ugly?” she asked, tilting her head to the side.

She saw his shoulders tense. Then he reached up and pulled the hood back. Portia’s world slowed down. The sounds of the club muted in the background as she looked into his face for the first time.

Gods in heaven he was beautiful in a purely masculine way. His jaw was sharp and chiseled his nose straight and just this side of being hawk like. His eyes were piercing, a deep burgundy that was redder than any other color she could name. She’d never seen eyes like that before. She looked at his hair and her heartbeat sped up. She’d always had a thing for long hair on a male, and his was down to his hips, and as dark as a moonless night. He wore it in a neat braid that flowed over his shoulder as he snapped his head to look left at something.