I felt my eyes spring wide as I renewed my efforts to get free. “You’ve got to be kidding me! I didn’t sleep with you because I’m not attracted to you. I didn’t want to have sex with you then and I don’t want to have sex with you now. You need to go or Rule is going to murder you.”
He pulled my wrist tight behind my back so hard I yelped. He lowered his face until it was right in mine and grabbed my jaw with his other hand. I was starting to actually panic, my room was upstairs and on the other side of the big house, sure someone would hear me scream if I yelled but I wasn’t sure how the fall out of that kind of scene would be. I struggled to be released and he just laughed.
“I’m not scared of the street thug nor am I impressed by his artistic genius or whatever Carsten was going on about. He’s trash and not going to get in the way of what I want, and Shaw you belong to me you should know that now.” He gave me a hard shove back so that I fell onto the bed I immediately scrambled across the other side so that the entire mass was between us. “You better get on board with this, Shaw before it gets ugly.”
I was breathing hard and had a hand to my throat. It was shaking and so was I. He threw my keys on the bed. “I’ll get my own ride back to Denver, wouldn’t want you to spend any more time alone with tattoo boy than necessary would I?”
He strolled out of the room like he hadn’t just assaulted or threatened me. I shook myself out of the shock and gathered my stuff and bolted down the stairs. I found Rule wandering around the kitchen looking lost and clearly searching for me. I handed him my bags and hustled him out of the house without bothering to say goodbye to anyone even my mom and it wasn’t until we were on the highway headed home that I broke down. Out of the blue broken sobs wracked my whole body and I couldn’t stop crying. I was shaking so hard and making such a hysterical mess that Rule freaked out and pulled over to the side of the road. He kept asking me if it was my head but I couldn’t answer so I just crawled into his lap and cried and cried.
It took a solid twenty minutes for the deluge to stop and by then Rule was frantic and threatening to take me to the nearest emergency room.
“No. It’s fine just give me a minute.” He was rubbing my back and his blue eyes were crystal like frost. I pressed my forehead against his and pushed up the sleeves of my coat. Angry red welts and ugly purple bruises were encircling my entire wrist. “Gabe ambushed me in my room when I was grabbing my stuff. He shoved me around and threatened me, he said I needed to get on board with this, whatever that means before it gets ugly. He really hurt me Rule and he scared me. I don’t know what’s wrong with him but it’s getting really bad.”
He went still as a statue underneath me and he lifted one of his hands to grab my injured wrist. He turned his head to press a soft kiss against my pulse and breathed out in a tone that sent chills up my spine, “I’m going to kill him.”
“I know.” I let him sooth me for a minute before climbing off him and settling back in the passenger seat. “I have to go back to Brookside and get my car tomorrow.”
“Don’t worry about it, I’ll take Rome and we’ll go get it.”
“Don’t you have to work?”
“Not until one but I think I want to call Mark and ask him about getting you a restraining order.”
“I can’t believe this is happening.”
“I can’t believe you let us leave without confronting him. You should have raked his ass over the fire in front of his parents and all those people he was trying so hard to impress.”
“I was freaking out, I just wanted to escape. I just wanted you.” My voice trailed off in a whisper and he reached over to haul me up next to his side. Having bench seats in a big truck was nice.
“You have me Shaw, any way you need me, any way you want me, you have me.”
I pressed my face into the curve of his neck and exhaled. I think that was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me. “How about you being the bell of the ball today? I bet that made my mother furious. She looked like she was going to have a coronary.”
“I have a lot of clients that are out there in the business world, more and more of the general population is sporting some serious ink. She shouldn’t be so judgmental.”
“No she shouldn’t. I don’t want you to get into trouble over Gabe. I just want him to leave me alone.”
He gave me a one armed hug. “Don’t worry about me, Casper. I promise not to do anything overtly stupid. I just want him to leave you alone as well and I will make sure that happens. In the meantime I don’t think you should leave work alone so have Lou walk you out and if we can figure something out with our crazy schedules I want you to stay with me or I’ll be with you.”
“You don’t have to do that, I don’t want you to rearrange your whole life around because some guy is being an ass**le to me.”
“Yes I do and not because I have to but because I want to. He isn’t getting his hands on you again Shaw. Not ever again.”
It was a nice thought so I didn’t want to argue instead I let him snuggle me into his side and absently ran my hand up and down his leg while he drove. I didn’t ask if he was taking me home or to his place and I honestly didn’t care until I remembered Rome was crashing on his couch.
“Hey are we going downtown or to my place?”
“I figured mine since I need to get Rome to help me with your Beamer in the morning. Is that okay?”
“Uh is it going to be weird walking in together with him there? I’ve had about enough drama for one day.”
I felt him shake his head. “Naw we talked about it today. He knows we got something going on and its cool. He did say that he would break both of my legs if I kept acting like a jackass though, so there is that.”
“Hmm…why did you do it?” I knew he would know what I was asking about without explaining.
“Because it’s what I do.” He swore under his breath. “Girls have always been easy and they usually smell good and taste good so for just a second things are simple and nice and all the crap doing battle inside my head goes quiet. I knew I didn’t want someone that wasn’t you but I was pissed off and confused so I just did what I always do and thought maybe it would make me feel better. It didn’t, it made me feel like absolute shit and made me see pretty clearly there is no substitute for you. I made a mistake but it could have been so much worse and I hope you can sincerely forgive me.”