Soothing coolness spiraled through his insides. It was just a silly nod, but the gesture symbolized more. Trust. Her trust in him to make this decision for her and to keep her safe from Junior.
And he would keep her safe. It made him gut-sick that the same girl who was such a fighter in the SM was now a frightened woman. And why shouldn’t she be? Get knocked down enough times, it becomes harder and harder to get up swinging.
Junior smiled, a malicious upturn of the lips, the kind of smile a bully has right before he wallops on someone weaker. “Darlin’, I’ll see you soon.”
“No.” Lathan said. “You won’t call her. You won’t look at her. You won’t touch her. You fucking try it, and I’ll hand you your balls on plate. Then I’ll stuff them down your throat and enjoy every second of watching you choke to death.” He meant every goddamned word.
It was only after Junior hooked up her car and drove out of sight that she stepped out from behind Lathan, her gaze locked on the narrow place where the road disappeared from sight. And still she didn’t let go of his hand. Not that he minded. Not one bit.
Dusk had begun to settle around them, sucking away the light. In a few minutes, it’d be too dark to read her speech. He should tell her he had trouble hearing. But he wasn’t going to. For this one moment in his life, he was going to be normal. Just an ordinary man.
He shifted to face her, to see her mouth. “There’s no place for him to double back, so you don’t need to worry about round two. Do you want me to call the police?”
She closed her eyes and shook her head with an anguished expression. The scent of her fear had begun to dissipate, but he still smelled her blood.
Where was she hurt?
Her ebony hair was pulled up in one of those artfully messy hairstyles that showed off the contour of her neck and an expanse of pale skin leading all the way down to the hollow between her breasts. He forced his gaze away, searching for blood. Along the side of her left arm, streaks of red meandered to her wrist.
“You’re gonna need a Band-Aid at minimum, stitches at max.”
She looked down at her arm. Even in the dim light, he could see the color rinse out of her face. She’d better not pass out, not here, with only his bike for transportation.
“You don’t do well with blood, do you? Look at me.” He waited until her gaze shifted away from her arm. “Don’t look at it anymore. It’ll only make you feel bad.”
She didn’t look away from him. Pass-out crisis averted.
“Is there someplace you want me to take you?” Why was he all of a sudden a Chatty Chucky? Because she was being too quiet. He clamped his lips closed, forcing himself to wait for her response.
She didn’t move, didn’t look away from his eyes. Most people never met his gaze during a conversation; they ogled the tattoo on his cheek. The black feather started on his cheekbone and angled downward toward his chin, the spine of it torn apart with jagged edges that dripped blood down his jaw and neck. How could she not stare at it?
After a full thirty seconds where her lips didn’t so much as twitch, he concluded she was in shock—in no condition to make decisions. After the sick shit he’d seen in Junior’s SM, she had a right to take a mental time-out.
“I live a few miles from here. I’ll take you to my house and help you figure out what you want to do next.”
“Okay.”
She’d finally spoken. Maybe she wasn’t as far gone as he’d assumed.
He started toward his bike lying in the ditch. Whoa. He didn’t remember dropping his Fat Bob so carelessly.
She trailed behind him, still attached to his gloved hand. Not once in his life had he ever held a woman’s hand. He’d never known how intimate cradling a smaller palm against his could be, or how protective it’d make him feel, or how strongly he’d desire to rip off the glove and touch her, skin to skin. Not going to happen. Ever.
He tried to release her, but she remained fastened to him. A selfish corner of his mind reveled in her desire to cling to him. He raised their hands between them to catch her eye. “I need to get the bike out of the ditch.”
Her brows rose an infinitesimal degree. Embarrassment flashed in her eyes at the same time the spoiled dairy scent of it hit his nose. She dropped his hand and stepped back.
“Hey, no worries.” You have no idea how much I’d sacrifice to keep hold of you. He clenched his empty fist a few times to eliminate his hand’s memory of what it felt like to hold hers.
While he hauled his machine onto the road, he didn’t look away from her. She stood bereft in the middle of the pavement, staring out over the pasture. Emotions infused the air around her. Shame. Hate. Embarrassment. Sadness. Fear. Desperation.
He recognized that tangled combination of scents. Knew them intimately. Knew the feeling of being hurt and vulnerable and powerless to stop the pain. Knew how memories, like the one he witnessed, had left wounds on her soul and Junior had just ripped off all the scabs.
She was raw, bleeding emotionally in front of him, and yet holding it together by a spider’s thread. He could see the effort in the way she stood straight and stiff.
Fury simmered low in his gut. After he got her squared away, maybe he’d pay a visit to Junior. Show the asshole what it felt like to be the victim.
He walked the bike to her. After he straddled the seat, he held out his hand to her. She grabbed him, her grip hungry.
“Climb on up.”
She tossed her leg over the seat, using his hand to balance her weight.
He sat at the same time she did, her body settling against his back.
Holy Jesus. He couldn’t activate the ability to think. His brain short-circuited from her nearness. Everything disappeared but the feeling of her open thighs wrapped around his ass with nothing but a tiny pair of black shorts and his jeans between them.