Kingsman: Statesman Meets Challenger

Chapter 1

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It took Jack a good ten minutes to work his way through the crowd and when he reached the top of the short stairway that led to the loft, he found someone else beat him to it.

"C'mon, that's way too much car for a woman," a voice oozing sleaze was drawling, and when Jack looked through the curtained archway he saw a snot-nosed young punk in an Armani suit leaning over the lady's wing chair with an entitled, possessive air that immediately pissed him off. "You need a man to handle a car like that." He leered at her suggestively. "You need a man for anything else, I can handle that too."

Her lip curled in disgust, and Jack could tell her patience with this dickhead was about to run out.

The punk's hand dropped down toward her breast, and even as her eyes narrowed in anger and she moved to knock the pawing hand away, Jack was across the alcove with the punk's arm twisted up behind him in a hold that not only immobilized, it hurt.

"The lady ain't interested, junior," Jack drawled softly, "and dickheads like you give real men a bad name." The punk looked disposed to argue and Jack twisted harder, and the dickhead went white as pain choked off anything he might have said.

"Take off," Jack said, his tone soft but so loaded with menace the punk finally figured out he was up against someone way out of his league, and he'd be lucky to get out of this without a broken arm.

Two enormous bouncers appeared in the archway in the time it took Jack to immobilize the punk, and he noted with approval they knew exactly what was going on, and didn't waste a minute taking custody of the Armani-clad asshole.

"We'll take him now, sir," the nearest bouncer told him, his deep voice briskly professional. "We appreciate your assistance."

The other bouncer had taken up a guard stance by the archway entrance, and Jack noticed him quietly querying the lady with a glance if she wanted him escorted out as well.

A slight shake of her head gave the bouncer his instructions, and so he merely nodded at Jack and said politely, "The rest of your evening is on the house, sir. The Cathedral Club greatly appreciates your courtesy." He bowed slightly to the lady and followed his companion out, the punk hanging like a doll in the bouncer's meaty grip.

"Thank you for your help," she said, studying him curiously. "That was thoughtful."

Jack shrugged, doffing his hat with a restrained flourish. "No trouble, ma'am. Just don't like to see a lady pawed at. Manners maketh man, you know."

A smile quirked the corners of her mouth. "I haven't heard that phrase in a while."

Jack found himself entirely unwilling to repeat the punk's intrusion on her privacy, so he simply tipped his hat to her before putting it back on his head and said, "If there's nothing else this old cowboy can do for you, ma'am, I'll be on my way."

She cocked her head slightly and a second smile curved the corners of her mouth higher. "There might be one thing, if you mean that."

A little startled at her reply, Jack was more than a little startled at how it warmed his heart to hear it- and she was even prettier when she smiled for real. "Say the word and it's done."

"That's the third jerk the bouncers have hauled out of my loft tonight. I need them down on the floor, but that empty chair across from me seems to be an irresistible invitation. Perhaps you'd be so kind as to occupy it and solve the problem for me?"