His heartbeat shifted to a lackadaisical rhythm. His breathing relaxed until the metallic mineral tang of blood mixed with the garlic of her fear. She was injured and still scared.
“Are you okay?” His gaze locked on her lips to read her words, but she didn’t speak. He’d read that telling a person your name put them at ease. “My name is Lathan.” He knelt next to her, careful to keep the guy in his peripheral vision, and held his gloved hand out to her.
She grabbed his hand with greedy strength. She sat up but didn’t release him. “I’m a funny.”
His eyes read her words, but his ears heard nonsense.
I’m a funny? Did she hit her head? Or was he not reading the words right? V’s and f’s looked exactly same. Vunny? Avunny? Didn’t make sense.
The guy lurched to his feet, reached into his shirt pocket, and removed a yellow paper. Stitched across that pocket was the name Junior. Great. Somewhere out there was a Senior, who was probably just as big an asshole as his son.
“She’s none of…business.” Junior’s volume was loud enough Lathan heard the essentials. He rose to his full height. He had at least four inches and fifty pounds on Junior.
Still clutching his hand, the woman scrambled to her feet and hid behind him. He had a solid hunch that if she could, she’d open a door on his spine, crawl inside, and hide until Junior left.
“She’s standing with me, holding my hand. I’d say she’s my business.”
Junior started yelling, the histrionic lip movements making it impossible to read any of the words. He jabbed the yellow paper toward her car.
Answers. Lathan needed honest answers, and SMs never lied.
The SMs. His heart skittered. He hadn’t paid any attention to controlling them. Hadn’t needed to. For the first time ever, they waited, patient as a shelf of DVDs for his attention. Whoa. What was going on? He’d figure it out later.
Watching an SM of Junior’s would take only a few seconds. He inhaled through his nose and let Junior’s memory play in front of his left eye.
He chased her down the hall.
Her glossy, black ponytail swung across her shoulders, its movement almost as sexy as the sway of her running hips.
She ran into her bedroom, slammed the door.
“Open it!” He put a pound of menace in his voice to disguise his satisfaction. He admired how she always ran, and when cornered, how she always fought.
“Leave me the fuck alone!” She screamed the words loud enough for everyone in the house to hear.
A smile pulled at his mouth, but he forced his face into a stern expression to convey his tone. “Don’t cuss.”
“Fuck you.”
He felt the wide smile slash across his mouth. Why did his father insist that he tame her? Her spunk, her spark, her spirit continually amused him.
With a well-aimed kick, he busted the knob and charged into the room. She held her softball bat in a batter’s stance, prepared to slug his head off his shoulders and score a home run.
One hundred percent warrior to the end. God, he loved that about her.
He rushed into the room, arm raised to deflect the blow. The bat cracked against his bone. Pain spiraled up and down his arm. She would have to completely incapacitate him before he stopped. He rammed forward, knocked her to the floor, and threw his body over hers. His weight was his greatest advantage in subduing her without really hurting her. He pinned her arms above her head.
She thrashed and bucked underneath him. Twisted, gnarled anguish played across her face. She grunted and strained against his hold.
Those perfect little sounds of pain, those facial expressions belonged only to him. She belonged only to him. How could his father not understand how special she was, how amazing it felt to earn his time with her? Because his father was used to her mother’s complete submission.
She opened her mouth wide, so wide he could see the back of her throat, so wide he wanted to shove his dick in the pink hole. But his naughty darlin’ would bite it off the first chance she got.
The scream burst out of her mouth in a rush of peppermint from her toothpaste. “Mom! Mom! Help me.”
By now, she should know—her mom wanted them together.
Lathan opened his mouth, diffusing the amount of air going to his nose, and then pulled his attention away from Junior’s memory before he saw something he’d regret forever. With hardly any effort, the SM retreated to his preconscious. Complete vision returned to his left eye faster than ever before. But the urge—oh God, Junior’s urge—to ram his dick into her was overwhelming.
Nausea gyrated in Lathan’s gut.
Not his urge. Junior’s urge. Not his urge. Junior’s urge.
No amount of telling himself it was someone else’s memory eliminated the feeling that he’d done that to her. Why couldn’t the SMs be like watching a TV show? Something he could walk away from. Easily forget.
“What’re you—” Junior’s expression froze halfway between a snarl and a sneer. The scent of burning cinnamon choked the air around him—rage at not getting what he wanted. Her. That amount of anger led down a road named Violence and ended in town called Body Dump.
“Take the car and leave.” Lathan nodded toward the Miata. The car would have to placate the asshole. If it didn’t—he flexed his free hand—Junior would be leaving with a fractured face and his ’nads shoved so far up his chest cavity he’d need open-heart surgery to extract them.
He heard odd sounds. No, female sounds. The woman was talking, but he couldn’t link a meaning to the noises his ears picked up.
She tugged his hand but didn’t let go. Probably protesting him giving her car away.
Lathan spoke over his shoulder, but never let his gaze stray from Junior. “Give him your car. I’ll help you figure things out after he leaves.”
She leaned full-body against him, letting him take her weight, support her like a crutch. Her head rested on the wing of his shoulder, and she nodded her agreement against his back.