She and her boyfriend, Adam, had been coming to this club for a while now. Being from Ireland, it wasn't really her thing. She preferred the pubs of the Temple Bar in Dublin with their relaxed atmosphere and air of craic to the seemingly frenetic chase for a mate - any mate - that she’d witnessed in Sydney’s nightclubs.

She believed she was a confident person, but felt off kilter in these places; a feeling compounded by the fact that she’d started to change since being with Adam. She didn’t see her friends as much and her previous satisfaction in her appearance had begun to erode under Adam’s criticism. However as an Anthropology student, she was curious about the way people interacted with each other and she hadn't been with Adam long and was still in that stage of a relationship where pleasing your partner seems to matter.

Had she noticed the guy at the door? Of course she had.

The fact that he towered over her barely five foot frame would have been enough, but she'd have to have been dead not to notice the fact that he was a dead ringer for The Rock. Long midnight hair, silky coffee coloured skin covering the vast expanse of his muscular frame and a "fuck you" attitude that quietly pulsed off of him in waves.

Whenever she came in with Adam he was just...there. Not joking with the men or flirting with the pretty girls in their barely-there club wear. Just watching with an almost preternatural stillness from his position next to the door in a way that Adam said he found unnerving but to her was quietly thrilling and a million miles away from Adam and his overinflated opinion of his own bravado. He would watch them come up the stairs and ignore Adam's “man to man” banter as she paid the cover charge for them both, keeping his eyes on them until they disappeared from view through the doors of the club.

Quite frankly, the guy had Alpha stamped all over him. Not in a boardroom kind of way either but in a "kill or be killed" barely civilised way and she’d begun to secretly obsess about him, torturing herself with images of him and an endless parade of faceless supermodel-types thrashing around between his sheets. In her imagination those women were polished, willowy and ethereal. The perfect foil for his dark eroticism. They were not short and overly curvy with a riot of untameable ringlets and pale green eyes that had drawn Adam to her but which he now decried as “creepy”. And although she'd bleached her hair to please her boyfriend, in her imaginings the door guy's women were all naturally blonde to go with their icy sophistication.

The night she witnessed his transformation from bouncer to savage, started like any other. They'd come to the club, paid the cover under his watchful gaze and Adam had proceeded to get drunk while tossing innuendo laden remarks at most of the attractive single women who managed to come into his range. They in turn gave her glances ranging from pity to open scorn for putting up with him.

He’d drunk much heavier this night, his suggestions to the female patrons lewder than previously and she’d started to become concerned about the almost rabid look on his face. He’d eventually been refused service at the bar, an occurrence that angered him and although it was common for him to be asked to leave, this night he’d had to be escorted to the door when he’d refused. She’d followed him with a willingness that betrayed her relief to go.

As she followed him onto the seemingly empty landing at the top of the stairs, he’d turned on her. “You know,” he slurred, “it’s you who should leave. How’m I ‘sposed to score a quick fuck with you ‘round?” He lurched back toward the entry. “You go home. I’m goin’ back in.”

She swallowed the sting. “You don’t mean that, Adam. You’re just drunk. Let’s just go home,” she coaxed.

She reached out and touched his arm as he passed her. He shoved at her, causing her to overbalance and she felt her center of gravity shift sideways, directly over the lip of the top stair and the yawning chasm below that was the worn wooden staircase.

One hand groped for the banister as the other windmilled frantically, trying to correct gravity but she felt herself becoming weightless, gulping in air to scream, her lungs paralyzed with fear so that only an undignified squeak emerged. The point of no return came over her in freeze frames, the panic of inevitable injury flushing her adrenal system scalding hot then icy cold and she closed her eyes. Falling, inch by crushing inch.

The burning band of iron around her wrist didn’t register at first; not until she realised that she seemed to be defying gravity and moving in the opposite direction. Upright, she stood, eyes closed, trembling fit to collapse.

“Thank God you were here, Adam,” she whispered.

Her wrist was immediately dropped and her stunned senses kicked in at the same time she heard the growl, a feral rumbling that resonated through her. Her eyes flew open as his scent washed over her and as her knees literally buckled beneath her, her nipples hardening, she knew exactly who it was. Lack of height restricted her view to sculpted pectorals, snugly encased in the soft black cotton of the club’s security uniform. Her gaze flew up to find his whiskey coloured eyes, above sharp cheekbones, boring into her.

"Oh God," she breathed, although whether from embarrassment or instantaneous desire she didn't know.

His pupils were dilated, the muscle in his jaw clenched beneath the thin veneer of skin that covered it. Somehow she knew he was furious with her but was confused as to why. She wanted nothing more than to let her legs go out from under her and kneel at his feet, waiting for him to command her.

She started sinking to the floor but he captured her upper arms to keep her from falling.

She had no doubt that the heat from the contact would remain under her skin for days. She stared at him breathlessly for what seemed like a small eternity, torn between her ancestor’s age old instinct to flee the barbarian and the compulsion to touch and be swallowed by the storm. As she started to lift her hand to smooth the muscle of his jaw she heard Adam from behind him, shattering the moment.

"Oi! Watta you think your doin'? Tha's my girlfriend."

Adam had apparently heard her strangled scream over the muted sound of techno coming from the club but in his drunken state had been oblivious to the near catastrophe he'd caused. The door guy on the other hand had seen it all. His body was inches from hers and the tightening at the corners of his mouth was the only indication of the savagery lurking, ruthlessly leashed, beneath the glamor of a civilized man. He released her carefully, turned a scathing look on her inebriated boyfriend and started to walk away.

Adam grabbed her roughly by the wrist. "You're goin' home," he ordered. "Jesus, you're a bit of a slut, hey? You'd fall into any man's bed wontcha ya?" he drunkenly ranted.

It was all a blur really. As Adam tried to drag her towards the stairs she went from struggling against his grip to being literally swept aside. One of the bouncer’s arms curled around her waist from behind. As he stepped between her and Adam his arm propelled her behind him. His hand at the small of her back pressed her against his ass, breasts pillowing softly into the warm steel of his back, her palms pressed to him on either side of her breasts.

“I think it best for you to leave,” he quietly ordered.

His chilling voice was so compelling that she started to peel herself from his spine but he flexed his arm and the restraint in that one limb alone was enough to keep her immobilised. She peeked out from around his side. Her eyes widened when she saw Adam, suspended from the door guy’s fist by his hair, tears of pain streaming down his cheeks. He had wrapped his hands around the wrist above his head in an attempt to alleviate the pressure being exerted by the bouncer’s grip. He opened his mouth to speak but he only managed to let out a whimper.

The bouncer dragged his helpless captive closer to him and tilted his head to the side.

“Speak,” he instructed.

Adam’s gaze shot to her. “Sienna,” he whined. She ducked back behind her protector, cheek nestled in the hollow groove of his spine.

“You will leave now,” he coldly enunciated. He twisted his fist fractionally to enforce his point. “Alone.”

As the tension in his shoulder abruptly lessened, she knew he’d released her now former boyfriend and she looked again in time to see Adam staggering headlong down the stairs. He stopped once to look back at her but if he was going to say anything it was forestalled by the menacing growl that the man in front of her directed Adam’s way.

“Don’t return,” he shot at Adam’s retreating back.

Once he was sure Adam was gone he asked, “Are you alright?”

She was assaulted on duel levels by his smoky voice drifting over her and the effect on her breasts that the vibration of his speech had caused. She nodded, cheek rubbing against the soft cotton of his shirt. The friction caused a lingering trace of his scent to invade her senses, a potent mix of spice, soap and pure male that upped her hormones another notch. She surreptitiously inhaled, knowing that if she were to rub her thighs together to ease the ache building there, the naked lips of her sex would be slippery with desire.

He dropped his arm but made no move away from her otherwise. They stood in silence, surrounded by the muted music coming from within the nightclub. She hadn’t lied to him. Physically she was alright; it was her emotions that were a wreck. She realizes that she is virtually plastered to a man who, while having saved her from a 3 am trip to the hospital, had also shaken with the need to crush the skull of the creature who’d insulted her. She was both enamored and terrified of him in equal measure.

She felt him shift and was puzzled when he stopped. She’d expected him to leave and belatedly realized that he had stopped because his braid was wrapped around her hand. She quickly unraveled herself a moment before he turned. She can feel him looking down at her but refuses to look at him. Embarrassment, shame, fascination and lust compete for dominance inside her. She’s thinking she should just thank him and leave.

“Look at me, Sienna,” he commands softly.

Reluctantly she raises her head and meets his eyes. It is as if he’s trying to sift through her brain, he studies her so intently. He seems to be waiting for something but she doesn’t know what to say, pinned by his gaze. As if he’s come to some internal conclusion that satisfies him, he inhales deeply and steps around her.

The doors to the club behind her open, spewing forth a parade of drunken revelers. His fingers wrap around her elbow as he stops next to her and leans down. She closes her eyes on a shiver as his lips graze her ear.

“Don’t come here with him again,” he breathes.

When she nods he releases her and wades through the tide of humanity to vanish into the club.

To be continued...

Author's Note: I have always wanted to write but never had the courage. This is my first attempt and amidst all the people rattling around in my head, clamoring to have their story told, these guys have fascinated me the most. I hope I can do them justice. Please enjoy, knowing that creative criticism will be noted. Thank you.