Fingers curling into fists as tremors rolled through my body.
“Beau, please,” she whispered, voice shaking about as badly as I was.
“Think you’re tough shit,” the first guy continued as I forced my arm around Savannah and told myself to move. To walk away. To get her outside. “Making women cry. Telling them what to do and where they can go. Bet she falls into doorknobs a lot too, huh?”
No sooner had his hand met my shoulder in another shove than I had the collar of his shirt in my fist. Pulling him close enough to watch his eyes flare with fear before a look settled there that I’d seen too many times in my life.
As if I was proving him right.
“Beau,” Savannah begged, soft as a whisper as she pressed harder against my side.
I took a breath. Another. And then another. “Touch me again, we’re gonna have a fucking problem. Call my girl darlin’ again, you’re gonna wish you’d never set foot in here tonight.”
“Beau,” she repeated, this time harsher.
“She doesn’t have to go anywhere with you.” His stare shifted toward her, and my hand tightened. “You don’t have to go with him.”
“And you need to mind your business because you have no idea what you were eavesdropping on, you idio—” A breath of shock and pain fled from her as she staggered a few steps to the side, her head whipping around to see the second guy trying to pull her from my hold.
The last full thing I remember was moving Savannah behind me as everything went so fucking red.
And then that dark, sickening rage was there, consuming me until it was all I knew.
Crawling through my veins.
Driving every fierce beat of my heart.
Distorting every thought.
Blurs broken up with flashes so bright and vivid that it was disorienting. Like being in the darkest depths of the sea before being shoved back into a reality that moved at a slightly slower pace. Letting me take in everything that was happening for those seconds before time slipped away again.
My hand on the guy’s throat who had grabbed Savannah as I pinned him to the floor, blood pouring from his nose.
My ribs aching in protest from the kick that was delivered there.
Slamming the talker into the bar and dodging his fist before delivering a knockout uppercut to his jaw.
I remembered all that.
Being grabbed from behind and throwing the guy overhead, slamming him onto the floor . . . I remembered that too.
And then screaming.
So much screaming and honey eyes directly beneath me. Her small hand gripping my fist that was raised in the air, ready to strike. Her other hand pressed firmly to my harshly pitching chest.
Jagged breaths rushed from me as I studied Savannah’s horrified stare and trembling chin, as shame and humiliation and denial ripped through me when I realized our positions.
I wasn’t . . .
I wouldn’t have . . .
Never.
“Savannah,” I forced out, fear coating her name.
“You wouldn’t . . .” she breathed, voice nothing more than a whispered tremor. “I couldn’t get you—”
A moan sounded beneath her, and she tilted her head toward the sound before turning completely, revealing what I hadn’t noticed before.
The man she was lying on.
The man she’d thrown herself on.
“Fuck,” I muttered when I saw Alex there, only looking him over for a second before I focused on where Savannah was on her hands and knees next to Tanya as they checked him.
I reached for Savannah, but she shifted away to prevent me from touching her.
Fuck.
Her shocked stare flashed my way, conveying everything I needed to know without saying a word.
I hadn’t hurt her . . . and she had nothing else to say to me.
Savannah had never looked at me with anything other than understanding until we were alone and could talk about it freely. This also wasn’t the first time one of my friends had gotten caught up in my wrath. For her to have that look on her face, it had my shame burning hotter than ever.
“What the hell, Beau, what the hell?” Tanya sobbed as she scooted closer to Alex, cradling his head in her lap.
“I’m fine,” he wheezed, then sputtered out a cough as he met my stare. “I shouldn’t have tried to stop you. I knew better.”
I clenched my teeth tight and struggled under the weight of loathing bearing down on me.
But I stayed there. Frozen. Unable to say a word.
When the familiar red and blue lights bounced around at the edge of my vision, getting brighter and brighter as they pulled closer to the entrance of the restaurant, I sat back on my heels with a heavy sigh and looked to Savannah.
My world.
My everything.
With a stuttered exhale, she glanced my way. Looking all kinds of confused and trying so damn hard to hide something from me.
“Alex,” I gritted out, his name scraping up my throat as my stare shifted to him.
He pushed himself up to sitting and waved me off. “I knew better, man.”
My mouth parted just as the doors to the restaurant opened. My eyelids slowly shut as I placed my hands on the back of my head. Vacantly listening as the officers spoke and gave orders as the flashes I could remember from the past few minutes replayed in my mind, ending with Savannah beneath me again and again and again.
Jesus Christ.
I stood when the officer pulled on my cuffed hands and finally looked at the destruction around me.
The broken and toppled barstools. The spilled drinks and broken glass on the floor. Chips littering the bar and floor, baskets tossed carelessly around. Friends watching with varying expressions of disappointment and frustration. Strangers looking at me with shock and hints of fear. The guys who had intervened were pressing cloths to their bloodied faces and speaking to an officer.
And Savannah . . . struggling to find the expression she always wore after I lost control. The one that dared anyone to say something to me or her about what happened. Struggling to hold my stare.
Ripping out my fucking heart even though I’d been waiting for and expecting that reaction from Savannah for most of our lives.
I love you.
I love you.
I’m so damn sorry.
“Dixon.”
My stare shifted to the irritated-looking deputy standing at the holding cell door, and I slowly stood from the metal bench I’d been on since the night before.
He played with the keys in his hands before folding his arms over his chest, his head moving in faint shakes. “You gotta be about the luckiest son of a bitch I’ve ever met.”
Confusion and curiosity tugged at me, but I remained silent.
Waiting for him to take me to see the judge or get out whatever he felt he needed to say.
“When they brought you in last night,” he went on, “I thought this was gonna be the time we got you. Plenty of witnesses. Destruction of property.” He sucked in a breath through his teeth and shook his head again as he reached forward to unlock the cell. But once he had it opened, he stepped in front of me and held my stare. “One day, Dixon. One day . . . that luck’s gonna run out, and then you’re going nowhere. And I, for one, can’t fucking wait.”
A tic started in my jaw when he stepped even closer. Knowing exactly what he was doing by getting in my face.
Gently pushing.