Arrick seems to be deaf to me, oblivious to my pulling at his shoulders and arms, he hits him again and again. The guy tries to fight back, obviously someone who can fight, yet still no match and is already on the floor, but Arrick’s too fast, too well trained and too enraged to be controlled. The other man has no chance. He’s on the ground, cowering as Arrick rains an assault of blows and kicks, and surrounding dancers are starting to turn with the commotion which at first had been concealed. I look around in panic, thinking of what this will do to his career, his reputation. It will be in every paper and magazine if I don’t stop it. This could ruin his life.
Throwing all faith in how much I mean to him, I let him go, run around the side of the two of them and push in between as soon as he reels back to take another punch. I close my eyes tight, and brace myself for the impact of at least one hit, because of how quickly I have managed to get between the two bodies. Freezing when I do so, inhaling sharply as I prepare for a blow; yet nothing happens.
I open one eye, then the other slowly, relieved to see him staring at me, fist poised in mid-air and breathing so hard that he’s panting. His eyes are on mine, that look of confusion and rage mingled together and I literally cross myself and make a little ‘thank you’ sign to the gods above, even though I am not religious. That could have been god damn nasty.
I reach out, grabbing the wrist of that mid-air arm and pull it down to me, cradling his bunched fist in my two hands and pull him with me, tugging him in the direction of the door. Too many onlookers are starting to fuss over the semi dead man on the floor and I can already see he’s out cold. I have no idea which hit put him there, maybe he was semi alert from the first blow, and right now all I can think is ‘You deserve it, you scumbag’.
Treating Arrick like some sort of childlike victim, I lead him, walking backwards hurriedly, banging into people, keeping my eyes on his and urging him to come. Managing to get far enough away from the man he left mangled on the floor, and no one seems to be looking our way. In all the confusion and drunkenness of people here, I pretty much doubt anyone really knows what happened, as it all happened so fast. I manage to turn and haul ass, pulling him as he speeds up to follow me out of the dancing area and to the quieter outer lobby. Turning back on him just as he seems to have snapped out of that fight rage he goes into. Arrick back from planet cuckoo, where his head seems to go in the midst of battle.
‘Sophie?’ His face softens from hard lines and intense eyes, his jaw slackens, pupils dilate and then he’s all over me. Hands around my face and my throat, pulling me nose to nose and breathing against me like he has lost all control, still breathing hard, that broad chest heaving with the effort.
‘Tell me you’re okay, tell me he didn’t really hurt you.’ He seems overwhelmed, emotion going crazy as he keeps pulling my face to his, too close for this to be innocent. His forehead against mine, his hands in my hair and around my throat gently, checking me for wounds, checking that I am breathing, uncontrolled and still wired. It’s a fight to try and reign him in, cool is hands on me and the way he keeps bringing my mouth to his, his nose pressed into my face so he can lock hazy eyes on me intensely, breathe my air, as though he needs my face against his to calm down. His hands keep burying themselves in the underside of my hair over my ears, crouching slightly so I’m in between his thighs, pelvis to pelvis, so he can get on my height level and just assure himself that I am not damaged. It’s crazily intimate, even with his frantic behaviour.
If I wasn’t still stuck in the bristling mode of ‘don’t touch me’ from what just happened I would be enjoying this a little too much, but I just feel suffocated right now. Stuck in memory mode and not wanting anyone to touch me, even him.
I try and control him, bring him some calm. He just keeps bringing me back again and again, hands roaming all over me, his mouth close enough, he almost grazes my lips more than once. He is in obvious turmoil emotionally, keeping me with him, pulled to his body, no matter what I do. He just seems intent on bringing our faces together, forehead to forehead, noses touching, so he can hold me.
Something inside of me keeps telling me to untangle him, like a sixth sense that he shouldn’t be touching me like this, even if I wasn’t feeling this way; and when I catch a glimpse of Natasha from the corner of my eye coming towards us, I push him away hard. Putting a little distance between us and trying to give him facial gestures to calm the fuck down.
‘I’m okay… I’m fine.’ I snap coldly, pushing his hands back again as he tries to grab me still; I grab his wrist instead and tug him to the side to alert him to her approaching figure. Seeing as facial messages are not doing anything to reel in his hands-on behaviour right now. Arrick’s too intent on me, missing the signal and reaches out for me again to try and pull my body back to his. It’s like he’s stuck in some over protective mode of checking for damage, only focused on touching me up and reassuring himself that I really am unharmed. It’s like he’s oblivious to her presence at all.
‘Natasha.’ I say harshly, slapping down his hand, like scolding a child right now, turning to meet her with a serious look on my face and breathing in harshly. Still really recovering from my own collapsing lungs and really needing him to snap back to reality right now.
She looks wary, not sure what she’s walking into, obviously, as we are both acting cagey as shit, and I even know this must look dodgier than hell. The odd expression on her face has me feeling guilty, even though I have done nothing wrong this time. I have no idea how much she saw and I just feel stupidly awkward, majorly guilty, which annoys me, and Arrick is being unpredictable.
‘What happened? What’s wrong?’ Natasha’s sixth sense seems to be firing on all cylinders, looking from him to me and back again, as Arrick completely disregards her and pulls me back into his arms, pulling me nose to nose with a hand on each side of my face and looks me dead in the eye. Some sense of focus has seemed to return anyway, yet he still looks scarily distant and not quite here.
‘I wanna fucking kill him.’ He utters, lost in his own head yet, and I realise just how drunk he is, far worse than when I had been upstairs with them and it’s only dawning on me that this is half the problem. He has a lot less control when he’s drunk, and it explains how weird he is being, lack of inhibitions in front of his ‘maybe once again’ girlfriend. I push him off gently, eyeing him with a more speculative eye and see it far more noticeably, he’s absolutely smashed, and turn to her pleadingly.
‘Some guy tried it on. Forcefully.’ I blurt out crazily, praying she’s not as drunk as him and someone else, besides me, has a little sense here.
‘Arrick hit him, a lot…. He’s out cold, pretty fucked up. Arrick needs to get upstairs and out of sight until this calms down.’ I command at her, nerves hitting me, voice and hands shaking wildly, and try to push him towards her; my brain in over load about how this could come back to bite him in the ass, his career, his future, his reputation. Natasha seems to blink herself into sense and widens big brown eyes in alarm, there’s a definite look of suspicion, but she blinks it away.
‘You don’t fight in bars!’ She looks at him oddly, accusation, confusion and a weird expression of disbelief and then just stares at him. A lip wobble that seems to suggest she is hurt about this right now, and I want to shake her dense little head about how non-important that is. I feel myself snap.
‘Natasha! Take him upstairs, I can find my own way home. Right now. He needs to be up there with friends who can back up that he was not down here at all when this went down. If there’s any throw back from this it will fuck up his fight career.’ I snap at her and push him away again, his hands are back on me, this time on my upper arms and he is really starting to make me crazy with behaving like this in front of her. It’s like my normal calm and in control protector is so homed in on his own head that he is not even here. I guess this is the drunk Arrick, I missed back when he was partying his youth away, and it’s more than a little infuriating right now.
Natasha
reaches out and takes his arm, bringing him back to reality. He frowns at her and then me and follows obediently for a second, letting his hold on me go.
‘Wait.. Where are you going?’ He turns back at me when he realises I’m not following him. Eyes suddenly clear and confusion ruling instead. I guess he was really not listening after all. I blanche at his sudden mental presence, really thinking he could have snapped back to the present a bit quicker than this, but right now is not the time.
‘Home. Bring my coat later, when you come back, I’ll get a cab. I have my bag here and money.’ I point at the little tiny clutch that has been nestled on me all night, a thin chained strap over my body that makes it almost invisible. I have everything I need to get home to his safe apartment.
‘No Soph’s… I’m taking you home, I’m coming with you. I take care of you, I always take care of you.’ His eyes burn into mine, his speech slurred, yet intense and I just feel myself getting ready to self-implode as Natasha’s face crumbles beside him. I haven’t got time for tears and guilt and dealing with him like this too. I just want to rip my hair out at both of them right now.
‘I’m fine, I can handle it. Please. Just go with your girlfriend and I’ll go straight home.’ I see her face straighten out a little, she looks at me strangely and tugs him once more, no idea what’s even going on in her head and really, I do not fucking care anymore. If I don’t get out of here I am going to end up having some sort of breakdown, and that bitch Camilla is still strolling around, most likely would get all my rage pounded into her face if I don’t leave. Nodding at them both, like a mom directing kids with a frown, I turn and move fast so as to get going, before he can haul me back.
I duck my head as I get to near a crowd out front, I hear a girl telling security they need a paramedic and curse under my breath. Moving fast and hoping no one realises I am anything to do with this. I thank my stars that Camilla has never met Arrick, because even she won’t be able to piece this together and I doubt she will be telling anyone about it anyway. Her little porn thing she had going was clearly not exactly above board, considering the bitch tried to drug me and then palm me off to some abusive rapist.
I walk out into the foyer of the club and walk faster, until I get out the door and onto the dark street. Cold air hitting me hard, making me suddenly wide awake and alert, less dreamlike and hazy. Completely sober, heart hammering in my chest, legs shaking from adrenaline, I check to see I have Arrick’s spare key card for the apartment.
My coat slides over my shoulders from behind me, making me jump a mile and I spin back to see Arrick looking at me intensely, right behind me with his own coat on too and looking a lot more together. I move to look past him, expecting to see Natasha, but it’s just him and his hands pulling me against him so my body is tugged against him fully.
‘You’re really okay?’ He questions me again, this time his voice seems more normal, if a little unsteady, and even though he’s obviously still very drunk he seems a little more focused and with the now. More here. And I guess it was partly that crazy mode he goes into when fighting is involved, that was making him weird.
‘I’m really okay, now go. Go back in.’ I shrug his hands off and move out of his embrace. Determined to get home and burn this god damn dress, bleach the shit out of my skin to remove that vile pricks heat from memory. I put my arms into my jacket, relieved he brought it as it’s pretty cold out here, and I haven’t quite met with the shock of what just happened to me. I am already starting to shiver in after shock.
‘I’m taking you home, I always take you home Sophie.’ He slurs softly, keeping up with me as I hurry along the side walk towards the row of parked cab’s in the distance. This is a hot spot for cabs at this time of night, so getting home is going to be easy; I just want to get out of here and back to safety.
‘This is different. I’m not even drunk and I’m going back to your apartment. You have Natasha in there, probably wondering where you are.’ I feel his hand back on my shoulders and want to just yell at him right now, my body is bristling with adrenalin and so many fucked up emotions, anxiety reeling and he is just making me more antsy right now. I hate being touched when my head is this way. Arrick knows this.
I feel like Natasha’s eyes could be everywhere too, and more than aware that this isn’t how he should be behaving right now. It feels claustrophobic, like a boyfriend molly coddling you. I have enough guilt already, without this to add to it.
‘She’ll understand, she always understands when it comes to you.’ He utters at me, pulling me against him again, halting us on the street, so we are moving nowhere fast; making it clear he’s coming, no matter what I say. I stop dead in my tracks and turn on him.
‘Wait. She doesn’t even know you’re out here? Did you even tell her you were leaving?’ I ask in shock, not a cool move. Definitely never an Arrick move, and I can’t believe he would be that shitty to her, after everything. I feel myself turning back to towards the club, some crazy notion that I am going to make him march back in there to stay, or at least tell her he’s gone. I get the heart-breaking visual of her searching the empty club like some lost freaking puppy and it does weird shit to my heart, that I really don’t like.
What the fuck is with this sudden Natasha love? Fuck off out of my head.
‘I’ll call her when I get us in a cab. I’m coming with you Sophie, whether you want me to or not. I want to come home with you. Take care of you.’ His endearing focused look on my eyes makes me break. Unable to deny him anything when he’s looking at me like this, like my beautiful gold hearted protector, and the guy I am hopelessly in love with.
I sigh, knowing how crappy a person this makes me. Part of me wants him to come with me, even though sense, guilt, and some weird, shitty new feeling, I have for that girl, has me telling myself he should go back to her. I don’t even know what they are to each right now, seeing as I was not privy to their heart to heart upstairs. I sigh and let him come, despite all of it.
‘Okay… But when we get home, we go to bed and we don’t talk about this. I just need a shower and some alone time to leave this until tomorrow, okay? I need to process this.’ I command bossily. Arrick nods, looking paler than normal and definitely a lot more sombre than I think I have seen him in a long time. He moves in close to me silently, eyes trained on mine and runs a gentle thumb down my cheek tenderly, like he’s assuring me I’m safe, or that he’s here, or god knows what. I can’t even think anymore and I am definitely starting to freeze out here.
I take his hand from my face, clasping his hand, and pull him with me, stubborn and determined to go, looking for the first available cab.
Chapter 25
I tie the robe around me when I’m dry, the shower made me feel a hundred times better and I have chucked everything I was wearing in the bathroom waste bin; underwear, shoes and all. I never want to lay eyes on any of it again and if I didn’t think it would set of all of Arry’s fire detectors and cause a huge scene, then I would burn all of it. The thought of that creep all over it makes me want to gag.
I venture out into the lounge slowly, I need a glass of water and then I’m going to bed to forget this night ever happened, and deal with the emotional fall out tomorrow. Stopping short when I see Arrick still sitting on the couch, nursing a coffee, still dressed, looking a lot more normal and sober, but completely in angst. I figured he would have gone to bed by now and not to still be sat out here. He looks wrecked, definitely more with it, and just emotional for once.
‘You feeling any better?’ His eyes meet mine, so dark tonight and so very green too. It’s weird, a combo I have never seen in this way and I guess he’s been out here thinking this over and sobering himself up, while I removed all traces of that creep from my body.
‘I’m okay. You can stop worrying about me….. Did you call Natasha?’ I look at him pointedly, standing awkwardly in the space beside the coffee table, aware that I am naked under this robe and really should just go get a drink, and go to bed.
/>
I really am fine, I don’t feel any worse over this than any of the millions of creeps who have tried it on before. No lasting permanent damage, more just a bruise to my ego now that I have calmed down and let it sink in. It just made me realise how dangerous the world can be for someone like me, and from now on I am going to be a lot more responsible for my life. A lot safer.
‘I have somehow managed to lose my phone, somewhere between smashing some asshole, and running out of a club after you.’ Arrick shrugs, looking completely exhausted suddenly.
‘I’m hoping she has it and has sense to realise I did in fact follow you.’ He leans forward, putting his mug on the table, obviously feeling remorse at ditching her now that he is a lot less drunk. Back to my more considerate Arry, finally.
He looks up at me, from this angle he looks young boy cute, adorably endearing, and I notice the bruises on his knuckles, spanning both hands as evidence of just how hard he was hitting that perverted creep, and frown. It’s not an uncommon sight on him, even during training he sometimes has them, even with gloves and padding, but I feel myself staring at them and his eyes follow. He looks at them too, gazing at the marks for a long moment and then stands up suddenly.
‘I wanted to kill him.’ He states it so seriously; our eyes meet as we stand feet apart and then he frowns hard.
‘So, I saw.’ I frown too, tears in the backs of my eyes threatening as he reminds me of what just happened tonight, like weirdly making it more real just by seeing his hands that way, hearing him talk like this. I don’t want to talk about this. I just want to forget it and move on in my life, something I am good at doing.
‘I would have killed him Sophie, if you hadn’t got in the way, if you hadn’t stood between us. I have never wanted to hurt someone so badly in my life, I didn’t care about the outcome at all.’ He looks at his knuckles again, makes fists and then shakes them away, as though trying to shift the memory from his head.
The Carrero Heart - Beginning: Arrick and Sophie. (The Carrero Series Book 4) Page 38