by Emilia Finn
“Come on.” Limping and in pain, Kane carries me through the alleyway toward the street. He presses a hand to the back of my head to keep my eyes down as we pass through the shadows my no-named attacker hid in earlier. “Shhh.” Running rough fingers through my hair when I choke on my air like it’s made of rocks, he massages the back of my neck and soothes my aching heart. “Hold on to me, Jess. I’ve got you. I promise, I’ll keep you safe. You just gotta breathe.”
I wrap my arms so tight around his neck, he probably struggles for breath, but he doesn’t complain. He simply carries me away from the still noisy, still pumping club as more cheers ring through the air as two other men, fresh faced and not yet unconscious, fight in the ring in the center of the great room.
As we move to my car directly across the street, every man who watched me arrive earlier still watches us now, but when Kane turns and meets their eyes, they disappear back into the shadows.
Prying my stiff legs from his injured body, he sets me on my feet, but I leave my arms around his neck; I refuse to release him, refuse to let him leave.
I can’t let him go.
“You got your keys, Blondie?” With his hands on my ribs and our foreheads touching, my teeth chatter with shock as I stare into his eyes.
“Blondie? I need your keys.”
Nodding, I feel the keys digging into my palm, biting my skin, but like I’ve been petrified, I can’t release them. I can’t show him.
I can’t even move my arms and let him go.
“Relax.” He presses a gentle kiss to my forehead and slides his hands along my arms until he reaches my hands. Tugging my strong grasp apart, he brings them between us and pries them open. “Blondie…” He tsks at the red welts from where my keys dug into my skin, brings my hand up, and presses his bruised lips to my palm.
His kindness brings a brand-new bout of tears to my eyes. I can’t stop crying. I can’t relax. I can’t stop shaking.
Like I’m in a vacuum, I see only small snatches of time. The car door opening. My seatbelt being fastened. Kane’s broad chest taking up my space as he clips the belt in, the door closing and then him moving around my small car at the speed of light – but with a limp. Him climbing in, then smiling in an effort to comfort me, even with a split lip and swollen eye.
My fingers tingle to make his injuries better, but my brain continues working in that vacuum seal; streetlights, parking lot, dumpster. Then I’m back in his arms, legs around his hips, face against his naked chest. Stairs – so many stairs – and he carries me the whole time.
An apartment door.
Pots and pans.
Hot water.
My favorite dress being lifted off my body.
Naked and alone, I drop to the tile floor of this stranger’s shower, and with a palm full of liquid soap, I scrub my vagina until my skin burns and the memory of that man’s fingers no longer exists.
10
Kane
Salvation
Rage.
Boiling hot, venomous rage courses through my blood and blocks my post-fight pain as the beautiful woman I brought home howls in my bathroom. Howls. She sobs so loudly, the sound so full of pain, she digs at my heart the way a warm spoon digs inside a tub of ice cream.
I never intended to become attached.
To create a weakness.
I never intended to feel this need to protect her, but seeing her red face, her bulging eyes, her kicking feet while she struggled for air, made the decision to kill another man as easy as breathing.
Just like that; here one second, gone the next.
A neck will snap like a dry twig if you know how to do it right. And I do. I’ve trained a long time.
I know how to kill men.
I’ve received awards and pats on the head for being so skilled at it.
I don’t want to kill, but like a debt collector might not want to call and harass people who can’t afford their bills, they’re probably good at it, which is why they got the job.
Then when they succeed and wring every last penny out of the person who can least afford it, they’re rewarded with nothing more than a pat on the head by the guy who gave them the task.
I don’t want to be a killer in her eyes. I want to be worthy.
But when faced with the choice between that man’s life or hers, I made my choice.
I’m not sorry.
I’m not even sad to add to my tally.
But I’m scared of how she’ll look at me when she finishes in the shower, when she’s done crying, when clarity comes back and she remembers what she saw.
With his pants around his ankles and his fingers still inside her body, he died.
She might never recover from that, and if she looks at me the way she did when she ran away last time, I might go back and kill him again for good measure.
I told her to go away. To not come back to my world. That she doesn’t belong.
But if she fucking insists on being where she shouldn’t be, then I insist on keeping her safe.
No one fucks with me. Not a single soul on this planet.
Except Abel.
So for as long as he remains blind to her, there isn’t a person in this world she need fear…
Except me.
I can protect her from everything. From everyone. From any threat.
But I can’t protect her from me.
I already tried. I tried to tell her to leave.
But now she leaves me with no choice.
Like a recovering heroin addict, I’ve been left in a room all alone with my drug of choice… and I’m gonna taste it a little.
Some men would have more willpower. Some would sit in the corner, close their eyes, and wait for the torment to end.
But not me, because I enjoy my addiction.
I think she’s the most beautiful creature that ever graced this universe.
So each cry that echoes in my bathroom, each pump of the soap dispenser, I can hear her pain. And each sound, every sob that breaks through her chest, flies through the room and batters at mine.
Why, after almost thirty years of strength and willpower and solitude, have I found my kryptonite?
Was she sent here to destroy me, or to complete me?
Kicking off my shoes and pulling on a shirt, I move back to my front door and reset my locks.
They haven’t failed me yet.
I turn back to the bathroom and hesitate. A part of me says to stay away, to not go in, to not violate her privacy; but her cries draw me in despite it all.
Her privacy is important to me, but her pain trumps it.
Stepping into the steaming bathroom and glancing down at the floor, my heart gives a deep knock-knock at the sight of the broken woman that scrubs at her skin until it’s red and splotchy. The bandage over her stitches remains blood free, but the cover is soaked and in need of replacing.
I won’t even scold her for getting it wet.
“Jess?” I leave the bathroom door open, allowing the steam to escape, and step in. Grabbing my best towel – though still ratty – and moving closer to the small cubicle, I study the long hair sticking to her chest and neck.
You’d think the first time I saw her naked would turn me into a powerless animal set on attacking and claiming, but this broken woman, the tears in her innocent eyes, the wobble of her bottom lip, turns me into something else.
Someone else.
I’m a man with something to lose.
I don’t even have it yet, but now I stand to lose it just as easily as that man lost his life tonight.
“Come on.” Flipping the taps off, I take her shaking hands and pull her to her feet. Chest to chest – Jess’ naked skin against my shirt – sex is the last thing on my mind as I wrap the towel around her body and tuck it in at her cleavage.
I look up and meet her gaze as she watches my movements. Her blonde hair – still light even when wet – sticks to her face, to her lips, to her bruised neck. I place a hand on the back of her head and pull
her in until her arms automatically go around my waist and her face presses to my chest.
I bend closer and press the softest, gentlest kiss to the tiny silvered scar on her neck.
I’m not looking to take advantage, I don’t want her to think of me the way she thinks of Lance and that asshole tonight. I want to help, to soothe; to slow her racing heart.
I won’t touch when she doesn’t want to be touched.
I won’t say a single crude thing – even though that has been my defense since meeting her.
My plan was to be crude, scare her off or turn her on; either was fine with me.
But it’s not like that anymore.
“I won’t let you hurt again, Jess. I promise.” I hold her tighter. “You can trust me.”
She lets out a sob against my chest and strangles my heart just a little. Wrapping one arm around her back, I bend forward and scoop her up into the cradle of my arms.
She doesn’t freak out. She doesn’t react at all except to close her eyes and wrap her arms around my neck.
On aching legs, I carry her out of my shitty bathroom and into the bedroom, placing her onto my meticulously made bed – though I left that fucking thread there. My father would kick my ass and make me run drills for six hours straight if he knew.
But for her, I left it there.
Laying her on her side the way she was just a few nights ago, I move up the bed to catch her gaze.
Glassy eyed, shocky, she stares into space.
“Jess? Can I take a look at your stitches? I won’t hurt you, I promise. I won’t look at your body, just your ribs. But I need to get that bandage off and check them.”
When she doesn’t react and I begin to think she didn’t even hear me, I lie on my side and brush the hair off her jaw. “Hey.” I stroke a thumb over her bottom lip. “Jess, look at my eyes.”
Like I said the magic words, her gaze snaps to mine.
“There you are.” Grinning the way I haven’t since kindergarten when a girl picked a daisy from the garden and gave it to me, I stare into her eyes. “Did you hear me? I need to check your stitches. They’re all wet, and I need to get the bandage off. They need to stay dry. Have you been taking good care of them?”
She nods and clamps her bottom lip between her teeth.
“You’ve been using the ointment?”
She nods again.
I declared my love to that flower-wielding little girl way back in kindergarten. She was my girlfriend for three days. We held hands once. But by Friday, she pressed a kiss to my cheek and broke up with me.
She wanted to give flowers to other boys on Monday.
It was amicable and I hold no grudges against that beautiful six-year-old. She’s married to a banker now and has two and a half children. She’s happy, and that makes me happy.
“Did you think of me while using the ointment?”
Jess’ eyes well with tears, but with a wobbling lip, she keeps it together and nods.
Yes, she thought of me.
“Can I take a look? I need to make sure they’re okay. I won’t let you die from infection. I’m too fucking stubborn to let you get away with that shit.”
“Yes.” Clearing her throat, she nods. “Yes. You can look. But I took care of them. They’re okay.”
“Alright.” Leaning forward, I drop a gentle kiss to her forehead, and when her bravery escapes on another sob, I close my eyes and absorb her desperation. “Relax, Blondie. I’m here now. I won’t let you hurt again.” You’ve just earned yourself personal protection from the most competent enforcer you’ll ever meet. “No one will touch you again. I promise.”
I sit up and stiffly cross my bruised legs, and when my knee touches her belly, she doesn’t complain. She does nothing but blink away silent tears.
Leaving the towel secured at her breasts, I pull the fabric up her legs and work hard not to look at her toned thighs or the swell of her ass. I try not to notice her bony hip, the tiny Dr. Seuss tattoo, or the cute fold of skin as her belly ignores every single abdominal muscle she owns.
Peeling back the waterlogged bandage and taking care not to pull on her skin, I study the stitches I branded her with and nod in approval.
Even after everything she went through tonight, even after that shower, they’re in perfect shape. Not a single drop of blood. The swelling is going down for the most part. The red edges that once threatened infection are now pink and work to marry up and pull her back together.
“These look perfect, Blondie. You’re a great patient.”
“No time to die,” she croaks out. “I have shit to do. Exams to sit. Criminals to lock up.”
The corner of my lips twitch at her jab. Terrified, in pain, in shock, she still has enough sass to take a swipe at me.
Good for her.
She won’t ever win. She literally can’t. But she might break me while she tries.
It’s both win-win, and terrifyingly, lose-lose.
“How’s that case going?” I reach under my bed for the first-aid kit I kept close since I knew I was fighting tonight. What I didn’t know was that I’d be losing. It’s my first loss… ever. “You catch your guy yet?” I take out a packet of antibacterial wipes and a new tube of antibiotic ointment. Setting the tube on my knee, I go to work sliding a wipe over her stitches.
At the cold touch on her side, she jumps but doesn’t scramble away like I expect. Instead, she brings her hand up to my thigh and works on a loose thread in my shorts.
I swear, I had no clue how many loose threads were in my life until she started picking.
“Didn’t catch him yet,” she murmurs. “I got a verbal confession, but nothing else. Mostly I’ve slept since I last saw you.”
“You sleep with my files? Dream about me?”
Her shaking fingers slide along my flesh, sending weird pricks of heat under my skin. “I did, actually. Slept. Dreamed.”
Folding the wipe with a satisfied grin, I untwist the cap on the ointment. “Yeah? You sleep with me under your pillow?”
“Uh-huh.” Clearing her throat, she nervously brings a hand back to tuck her hair behind her ear. A flash of light reminds me she has a small piercing in the top half of the shell. For a man who rarely forgets things, I continuously forget the jewel’s existence until she tucks her hair with nerves. “Did you know, if you sleep with a book under your pillow, you dream of it?” Her blue eyes come to mine. “If you sleep with a textbook under your pillow, you learn the contents. It’s a magic I learned when I was little.”
I squeeze the ointment onto my thumb and begin slowly massaging it into her skin. “Is that right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So you sleep with my file in hopes to understand me? You think dreaming of me will help you lock me up?”
“Uh-huh. I found the magic when I was about seven or eight.”
“Yeah?” Keep talking, beautiful. You’re doing great. “How’d you discover the magic?”
“I was in bed reading a Babysitter’s Club Little Sisters book.”
“A…” I choke on a laugh. “A Babysitter’s Little Sisters book? What the fuck is that?”
“Books about girls who babysit. But the original Babysitters books were too grown-up for me. So I started the Little Sisters series.”
“You read about a group of babysitters?”
“No.” Her icy blue eyes snap with attitude. “I read about their little sisters. One night, I shoved the book under my pillow just before I fell asleep, then voila, I dreamed of them all night; I was one of them. I was a little sister. The next afternoon when I went back to keep reading, I realized I already knew the story. Almost line for line. I’d already lived it.”
I bite my lip and consider how to respond to her bullshit. She’s lying. She clearly already read the book. But if she wants to play, then I’ll play along.
If she wants to sleep with my files and dream of me, I won’t stop her.
“So what about the textbook thing? Did you dream of math? Did you pass
your studies simply by sleeping with the brick under your pillow?”
Pouting, she shakes her head. “I’ve slept with a textbook or file under my pillow almost every single night since high school. I took a few months off between graduation and law school.” Her eyes come back to mine as I work the ointment into her skin. “Babysitter Club books were reintroduced into my bed during that period. But my magical dream theory has worked for almost every book I’ve ever tried.”
“Almost every? Which one’s didn’t work?”
“Commerce in high school never stuck. Marketing never stuck. And so far, Abel Hayes isn’t sticking.”
“Abel?” Playful mood forgotten, I narrow my eyes and stop moving my hand over her skin. “You keep Abel’s file under your pillow, too?”
“Uh-huh. But he’s not talking.”
“But I talk?”
Grinning, she goes back to stroking my thigh. “Uh-huh. We had a billion conversations before we actually met. You talk a lot more in my dreams than in real life. And you’re not as mean.”
“You think I’m mean?” I guess I kinda am, if I consider the whole telling her to fuck off and stay on her side of town thing.
“Only a little. Sometimes. But anyway, the book under the pillow thing really works. You should try it.”
“I should?” Taking more ointment, because I’m not done touching her delicate flesh, I start again. Just making sure. “What do you think I should learn?”
“Maybe you should get a Bruce Lee autobiography or something.” She shrugs. “Chuck Norris. Betty White. Someone. Anyone. Learn how to fight better. You sucked tonight. You lost.”
“Learn how to fight–” For a girl on the verge of tears, was attacked tonight, was almost killed again, she sure knows how to rip a guy to shreds with her words. She’s a lawyer. I should’ve expected it. “I know how to fight, Blondie. I’m fuckin’ good at it.”
“So why’d you lose?”
“Because he was Russian and thirty feet tall!”
“Russian.” Snickering to hide the wobble in her voice, she concentrates on the coarse hairs on my legs. “He wasn’t thirty feet tall. He was no more than nine. And you were doing really well, then you lost.”