“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.
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 as 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.