Slade took in the sight of the beautiful woman in front of him. Her perfect skin, something that he’d always noticed, was marred with scrapes and bruises. Her eye was swollen shut, her lips inflamed and split. She didn’t look like Jessica.
“Jess. I came as soon as I heard.” He walked hesitantly toward her. When he got close, she turned her face away from him. He pulled up a chair and sat down beside her. “Jessica, please, sweetheart, look at me.”
He heard a sniffle. “No, I can’t.”
“This isn’t your fault. He’s the monster. You were just a victim. A brave victim. Please, Jess. Look at me.” He heard more sniffling before she turned her head slowly toward him.
His gaze was locked on her beautiful brown eyes. He reached up and smoothed her hair away from her face. “I’m so sorry this happened, Jessica. So sorry. This is all my fault. You shouldn’t have gone alone to talk to Dennis, baby. You should’ve called me. He’s lucky he’s in jail.”
Her lip quivered. “And you?” It was difficult to understand her because her jaw was swollen and her voice was low and muffled.
“Thanks to you, everything’s clear.”
“Oh, thank God.”
“Immediate family only,” a nurse said curtly as she walked in.
“It’s oka—” Jessica began to say.
“I’m her brother.” The nurse eyed him before shrugging and continuing toward her patient. Jessica’s eyes narrowed, but she seemed to accept his lie in order to have him there.
“What’s the prognosis? When can she go home?”
The nurse looked at Jessica for permission to discuss this with Slade. When Jessica nodded, she flipped open the chart and skimmed it before answering, “She’ll probably be here a few more days. Just waiting for some lab work and scan results. The broken rib punctured her lung and caused it to collapse. It’s looking better already, but we need to continue monitoring her. She’s on heavy sedatives for the injuries as well. Her arm’s broken, which is why she’s in the cast.” She turned her attention to Jessica. “Honey, I hope you have lots of family, because you are going to need help once you get out.”
Jessica’s eyes watered, and she gave an unconvincing nod to the nurse, who smiled before leaving the room.
“Jess? Have you called your family? They’re from Charlotte, right? Are they coming?”
Jessica shook her head.
He reached for her hand. “Baby, you want me to call them for you?”
She shook her head again. She looked so fragile, so alone, and so scared that Slade wanted to put her in a protective bubble and stand guard. From the day they’d met, he’d felt this way about her. He was notoriously selfish, but when it came to this woman, a surge of protectiveness consumed him.
“Please, what can I do? I’m so sorry about—”
She shook her head again. “Not your fault.” Speaking made her grimace.
“Does it hurt when you talk?”
She nodded.
“Then yes-or-no questions only, ’kay?”
She squeezed his hand and blinked. Her face was turned to his, and tears were slowly running down her cheeks.
“You don’t want to call your family?”
She shook her head.
“I think you need to tell them what happened.”
She shook her head again, this time frantically. Her chin quivered as the tears continued to fall onto the bed.
“Baby, please, don’t cry. I don’t know how to handle this, but I’m here. Okay? I’m here. You’re not alone. If you don’t want to call your folks, that’s cool. You’ll just be stuck with me.”
She frowned at him.
“No?”
“No,” she whispered.
“Why?”
She shrugged.
“Not a good reason. And, since you can’t speak, it’s me or your parents. You pick.” He reached for her phone as if he was going to dial her parents.
She seemed to ponder it for a few moments, then pointed at Slade.
“Okay. That’s settled, then.”
He reached over and stroked her hair. “Go to sleep, baby. No one’s going to hurt you. I swear to you. No one will ever hurt you again.” Her eyes slowly closed, and then she was asleep.
Slade sat there for hours, looking at the beautiful woman who lay there broken.
He’d had a few regrets throughout his life. One was letting his sister walk out of his life more than ten years ago because of some bullshit he had said to her during their father’s funeral. The second thing he regretted was not finding Dennis Stavros and fucking him up himself. Even if it had led to prison, he should’ve done it. Slade had stayed away from Jessica, and that allowed Dennis to severely beat her.
He vowed at that moment never to let her get hurt again.
Chapter 2
Jessica hadn’t set foot inside her house since the day Dennis had hit her. Now she was climbing out of Slade’s truck, hoping that their date later that night would wipe away those horrific memories. Slade had hired a company to clean Jessica’s house, and then he’d gone himself and removed anything that looked as if it belonged to Dennis, including clothes and photos.
“I can’t believe that asshole was released on bail,” Slade said as he took her bags out of the bed of his big black F-150 truck.
Jessica looked over at the angry man stalking toward her front door. “I know, but Chrissy told me that according to Jack, part of Dennis’s condition for bail was that he couldn’t be near me. So don’t worry. He might be a sadistic jerk, but he’s not crazy. If he comes anywhere close to me, he’ll go to prison for a long time. He’s not going to risk it. Prison would certainly taint his political aspirations.” Slade shrugged, and Jessica continued, “I’m so happy to be home. I can’t wait to be able to start yoga again. My doctor and PT said I should be okay to do some light yoga next week.”
“Absolutely not! You’re crazy, Jess. You’re all broken. Nothing strenuous for a while.”
She rolled her eyes. The man was nuts if he thought that the commanding tell-her-what-to-do thing would work with her. It hadn’t even worked when Dennis did it, and he’d used violence to try to get his way. She reached for the doorknob at the same time he did, and their hands touched. She looked up at him and smiled.
He was really a good man, despite being a tattooed and badass mixed martial arts cage fighter, and she was grateful that he was in her life. “Slay?” He looked down, their hands still connected. “I know I’ve already told you, but I really appreciate everything you did for me while I was recovering.”
The last two weeks had consisted mostly of Slade taking Jessica to the doctor and tending to her. She couldn’t lift a finger without him helping. In the evenings they would watch television or movies while he cooked or ordered in. She continued to tell him she was okay to stay on her own, but Slade refused. She slept in his room and he slept in Chrissy’s old bedroom because he said his bed was “better.” When Slade had to work, he would make sure Chrissy wasn’t far and that she’d check in on Jessica repeatedly. Since the moment he rushed into the hospital, she’d not been alone. Pushing aside the circumstances that led them to cohabitate for the last two weeks or so, it was the most at peace and safe she’d ever felt.
He smiled down at her. “Don’t mention it.”
Jessica let go of the doorknob, turned to him, and wrapped her arms around his waist. She looked up, and up, and up at him, and smiled again. “No. I have to mention it. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you and your sister.”
Slade looked a little uncomfortable with the hug, but he finally wrapped his arms around her and hugged her back. “You’re thanking me already by agreeing to go out with me tonight.”
“Well, I want to make sure you know that I’m grateful. If it wasn’t for you, I probably would have had no choice but to call my parents for help, and they would’ve begged me to go back with them to Charlotte, and I would’ve probably gotten fired from work and lost my house and everything I’ve
worked so hard for.”
“I still think you should’ve told them the truth.” He leaned down and kissed her head, her arms still wrapped around him.
“You don’t know them. They’re kind of intense. Good people, but intense. I’m telling you, I wouldn’t have been able to come back here to Tarpon Springs.”
He smiled down at her. “I hope I got everything out that belonged to Dennis. If I left anything, you just tell me and I’ll get rid of it. You sure you’re ready for this?”
She nodded as he opened her front door. Jessica spent the next few minutes looking around and was surprised to see how normal everything looked, with absolutely no sign of the terror she had lived through. It felt strange, as if something should be off. That night had changed her so much, it was as if something should look different. She should feel something walking into her house. But she didn’t. It just felt…like her house.
“I’m going to go unpack and get ready for our date.”
Slade nodded. “Before I leave, I want to see if I can fix your television. The screen’s not cracked, but it was on the floor.”
“Yeah. Jerk pushed me against it. I don’t know how it didn’t break. I definitely thought my skull did.” She heard Slade mumble a few very descriptive expletives about Dennis behind her as she walked down the hall.
—
Slade ran outside half naked. He was in the middle of getting ready for his date with Jessica. Their first date. He looked around for the source of the yelling that he’d heard from his bedroom window. He was still pulling the drawstring at the waistband of his black gym shorts when he saw his sister in a tug-of-war with old Mrs. Weatherby, Chrissy and Jack’s other neighbor.
“Don’t do it, please. I’ll keep them all, I promise.” Mrs. Weatherby’s Dalmatian was on a leash, and Chrissy was pulling on the leash with one hand while holding a growling Drogo (aka spawn of Satan) with the other.
“What the hell’s going on here?” Slade asked, reaching for the leash, but Chrissy used her body to shield it from his grip. At the same moment, Drogo leaped out of her grasp and began snarling at Slade.
“Language, Slade Martin!” Mrs. Weatherby reprimanded, giving him a judgmental once-over as she looked at the tattoo that ran down the right side of his bare chest. “Your poor ol’ father is rolling over in his grave hearing you speak like that. Bad words, I tell you, they’re the work of the devil! And speaking of the devil, keep that mutt away from my Daisy.”
“I’ll do my best, Mrs. Weatherby, but please don’t do anything rash,” Chrissy pleaded.
“I don’t want a litter of pups running around my house. It’ll take who knows how long to find them a home. And breeding with your mutt, Drogo…good Lord, those are gonna be some mean pups.” At the mention of his name, Drogo turned his snarl from Slade to Mrs. Weatherby.
“I’ll take them. All of them. I’ll find them homes, but please don’t, you know…”
“What’d I miss? I’m confused.” Slade ran his hand through his hair, the tousled strands just short of shoulder-length.
“Drogo seems to have…” Chrissy’s gaze ping-ponged back and forth between Slade and Drogo, avoiding Mrs. Weatherby’s death stare. “He…uh…he impregnated Mrs. Weatherby’s dog, Daisy. Mrs. Weatherby came by to tell me that her dog’s expecting, and…” After a pause, Chrissy’s next words came out fast and in one long sobbing jumble. “She wants to have an abortion. Well, not Mrs. Weatherby, but she wants Daisy to get one. I know Daisy wouldn’t want to do that, and I already promised her I’d keep all the puppies. I mean Mrs. Weatherby, not Daisy. But she’s going to have a doggy abortion either way. The same woman who just scolded you for cussing.” Chrissy bent down and picked up Drogo.
Slade tilted his head and looked at the tiny, growling devil dog of a Chihuahua Chrissy held in her arms, and then down at the humongous, beautiful Dalmatian calmly lying on the grass with its tongue hanging out. It almost seemed as if Daisy was smiling. “How in the hell did those two dogs fu—”
“Slade!” the two women cut him off.
At the same moment, Jack came out wearing just gym shorts and looking more asleep than awake. Yawning, he said, “Baby? What’s going on? You’re still not completely healed from your car accident. You shouldn’t be outside exerting yourself.” Jack tipped his chin up; Slade echoed the gesture.
“Look what you did, Mrs. Weatherby!” Chrissy cried. “You woke Jack. He worked all night catching bad guys to keep this town safe, and you’re standing here complaining about poor Drogo, who wouldn’t hurt a fly.” Slade glanced at Drogo, who was still snarling at the elderly neighbor, ready to attack her with his tiny sharp teeth.
“Babe?” Jack said, befuddled.
“She wants to kill all the puppies, Jack.” She finally released her viselike grip on Daisy’s leash and turned to face her fiancé. “All. The. Puppies!” She used her free hand to swipe her fingers across her neck. “Dead!”
“What puppies?”
“Drogo’s children.”
Slade was standing beside Jack, legs shoulder width apart, arms crossed over his chest, looking amused at the ridiculous situation, while Jack looked completely confused, shoulders slightly dropped, an eyebrow up, a hand rubbing his unshaven face. Chrissy continued to sob while the old lady mumbled all sorts of things about “the youth nowadays.”
Jack scratched his head. “I don’t understand what the hell is happening right now.”
“Brother, the bitch is pregnant,” Slade said matter-of-factly.
Jack’s eyes flew open. “Mrs. Weatherby’s pregnant?” he gasped.
Everyone, including the two dogs, stopped cold.
Slade doubled over and began to laugh hysterically. Chrissy pressed her lips firmly together, trying to suppress a giggle, but failed, and the sound came out as a snort.
“Not me! Daisy,” Mrs. Weatherby clarified, pointing down. “My Daisy’s pregnant by that little…menace.”
“Oh, shit. Sorry, Mrs. Weatherby,” Jack apologized.
“Language,” Mrs. Weatherby reprimanded him, and Jack gave her an apologetic glance.
Jack then turned to Chrissy. “And you’re crying because…?”
“I don’t want her to have a doggy abortion. I promised Mrs. Weatherby we would keep all the pups and find them homes.”
“Uh…” Jack looked dumbfounded.
Slade stood with a grin on his face, watching the train wreck unfolding in front of him. Chrissy was his sister, but Jack had been his best friend almost his entire life. And if there was one thing he knew, it was that Jack was not going to keep a litter of pups. Slade couldn’t even understand why he’d taken in Drogo. Jack was not an animal person. He might be in love with Chrissy, but he wasn’t a pussy-whipped pushover. Hell, the man was a cop by day and a professional cage fighter by night. Surely he could handle the two crazy-ass women silently regarding him. There was no chance that Jack would go for this ludicrous idea.
No way.
No way in hell.
And then Chrissy sniffled.
Slade watched as Jack’s demeanor instantly thawed. He turned to his neighbor and said in a stern, official-sounding voice, “Mrs. Weatherby, you are not allowed to abort those pups. It’s against the Tarpon Springs code of—”
Slade didn’t hear the rest of the bullshit that spewed from Jack’s mouth in order to protect the puppies Chrissy was concerned with. He couldn’t believe it. But then he thought back to Jessica’s actions earlier that day. She had hugged Slade, and it had caught him off guard. Even though he had been asking her out for weeks, he wasn’t a settling-down kind of guy. At least, he hadn’t been. Slade had been deluding himself into thinking the attraction he had to Jessica was just sexual. Slowly he was coming to realize that Jessica wasn’t like any other woman he’d ever dated, and his feelings toward her weren’t like any other feelings he’d ever had. He’d never been interested in anything other than sex, but suddenly this date with Jessica felt important. Seeing his best friend and his sister
so in love surprisingly made him feel empty, as if something was missing.
“Well, I’ll leave you crazy kids to your crazy suburban problems. I have to go get ready.”
Damn Chrissy and Jack. Now he was nervous about his date.
—
Jessica was ready. She still got a little winded every now and then, but for the most part she was feeling like herself again. She wore her favorite white shift dress and had paired it with pink strappy sandals. Perfect for spring. Perfect for a first date.
She wasn’t good at walking in heels, but she loved wearing them. One of her favorite things about Slade was how tall he was. She could wear whatever heels she wanted and he would still be taller. Well, the same could be said about Dennis, because he was a pretty big guy too. But nothing in comparison to Slade. He was huge. She estimated he was at least six foot four. Her own personal Conan the Barbarian. That was the only way she could describe him. But his most impressive feature, what had her mesmerized from the first day she’d seen him fighting some poor schmuck who never stood a chance, was his blue eyes. Because of his milky white skin and black eyelashes, his blue eyes seemed even bluer.
She hadn’t been able to believe it the first time Slade asked her out. She knew the women he usually dated: blond, busty, and dumb. Hell, they’d approached him in front of her a few times. Yet he was clearly interested in her.
Jessica looked at herself in the mirror before answering the knock on the door. “Give me a sec, gotta go fix my hair,” she said as she flung the door open without even a glance on the way to her bedroom.
Slade caught her by the waist so quickly, she almost fell. “Hello to you too.” His eyebrow arched and the corners of his lips moved up slightly.
“Oh, sorry.” She reached up and gave him a peck on the cheek, then tried to escape to go fix her hair, but his grip was too tight. He lowered his head and gave her a soft kiss on her jaw, then nuzzled her hair.
Her body instinctively became gooey; thank goodness his grip around her was tight. “Oh,” she said dreamily, her eyes closed, as he pulled away. “That was…” Her words trailed off, and she sighed.
Full Contact (Worth the Fight #2) Page 2