“Karen, where’d you go?” Dennis Wheeler, one of the men in my brother’s club spoke sullenly, looking around for the now-unconscious woman. “Oh,” he said while staring openly at the mess before him. “Looks like you’re in a bit of a pickle.” He smiled at me, and for a moment I thought everything would be okay.
Karen lay crumbled on the ground, her eye already starting to swell with the impact of my hit. She didn’t hit her head when she went down, and I could see her breathing, so it’s not like I killed her or anything.
Wheeler always watched out for me, just like the rest of the guys in my brother’s club. They took turns making sure no one fucked with me. At least, when he was sober and paid attention to what happened around him. So, with him there, I really thought I would be alright.
Clearly, the guy had been drinking though. The way his ice-blue eyes couldn’t quite stay in focus gave him away. Wheeler couldn’t be more than five or six years older than me, but he carried some heavy baggage that he refused to talk about. The tattoos on his arm snaked down from his t-shirt and wound around his wrist, like a drawing that Rett had done. Even though I hated it when people got drunk, I couldn’t blame the man. Deacon told me once that Wheeler had gone through Hell and left a part of his soul behind.
Still, I felt safe with him. That was until he put his arm around me.
Bile rose in my throat. His skin touching mine dragged glass and sand down my skin. The shudder that tore through my body left me shaking viciously, struggling to move away. Even as he tightened his hold, obviously thinking that I was about to keel over. He just didn’t understand.
“I don’t like to be touched, Wheeler.” The words made me sick to even say, and I tried again to get out of his embrace. “Come on, man. I want to get out of here.” But he was too drunk to really understand what I said.
A second later, Wheeler still hadn’t moved his arm, and I couldn’t control the visceral reaction that came next. I tried to pry his hand off and remove it myself, but he was too heavy and too drunk. So, I did the only thing I could. I shifted on one foot and hit him in the gut with my knee. Except I missed and got him right in the family jewels.
Unfortunately, the door opened as I was doing it, and a familiar face stood there with a scowl as he watched Wheeler drop to the ground, cupping himself and wheezing.
“I really don’t want to have to arrest you Avery. Why do you keep doing this to me?”
I stared at Carter Malone, with his red-rimmed eyes, and the dress uniform he should have taken off right after the funeral but didn’t. There was only one thing I could say. Even when I saw the handcuffs we’d discussed earlier hanging from his belt and the dark expression on his face as he followed my line of sight.
“She assaulted me.” Karen slurred from the ground. “I want her arrested.”
Of course she’d have to pick that moment to wake up. I shot a glance down and tried to decide if I could kick her before Carter got in the way, and decided I wouldn’t get away with it.
When Carter didn’t take his eyes off mine, Karen started to sputter indignantly. “Pay attention to me. I’m the one she assaulted.” The sound of her stomping her foot didn’t even have the power to break the staring match between us.
I looked up at Carter and my heart started to race, pounding against my chest so hard I thought I’d have a panic attack. Fear of being arrested made up part of it, but the way his eyes flashed with desire while his eyes were locked on mine fucked with me in a way I couldn’t turn away from. I wasn’t stupid, but Carter made me want to make bad decisions—with him and those handcuffs.
There wouldn’t be any chance in hell of forgetting the fire I saw burning in his eyes. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t try, though. I’d already been burnt once, and I didn’t have the strength to go through it again.
So, when Carter grabbed his cuffs and pulled out his cell phone to call in the fact that he was putting me under arrest, I did the only thing I could. I lied.
“The vodka made me do it?”
7
Carter
The goddamned menace in a dress standing in front of me had my blood boiling and my heart racing at the same time. Not only did she piss me off, but she turned me on, too.
While lying right to my face. The vodka made her do it? My ass.
Even seeing Avery at the funeral had burned her image into my brain. But seeing her here, her hair slightly disheveled from the day, and her dress riding up on her thigh almost destroyed me. I was done for, and I hadn’t even had her. Yet.
And when I did have her? I don’t think I’d be able to let her go.
“Why did you have to do it? Couldn’t you hold back at least for a day?” I tried to put a cap on my emotions while I waited for the patrol officer to show up to escort Avery to jail. I failed right about the time I saw her tears, and the red handprint on her face. Not because I was a sucker for tears, but because I realized that I’d walked into the middle of something, yet again, without knowing the whole picture.
“She hit me,” Avery admitted, sounding a lot like a child afraid of being punished. “I had to defend myself.
“And after you defended yourself against her,” I looked pointedly at the woman struggling to stand up after what appeared to have been Avery knocking her out. “You stuck your knee in your boyfriend’s balls, why?”
“Boyfriend?” Avery blinked, looking around. “I don’t have a boyfriend.” She dutifully ignored the man wheezing on the ground behind her as she stared back up at me innocently.
“Him,” I pointed at the biker currently nursing his sack on the ground behind her feet, and grimaced when I saw how much pain he was still in. Avery definitely packed a punch, even with her knee.
Avery, who didn’t even skip a beat as she met my gaze and put a hand on her hip defiantly. “Wheeler won’t press charges against me. He touched me, even though I don’t like being touched and he knows that. I told him to move his hand, and he was too drunk to do it, that’s not my fault. Technically, I’d say that’s self-defense too. Just ask him.” She stepped aside so that I had a clear view.
The drunk man on the ground nodded in agreement, still cupping his dick and trying to rub away the pain Avery had caused. “Waaa see said.”
“See?” Avery shrugged nonchalantly, but I could see the tension in her shoulders, even in the subpar light coming from the streetlights around us. “And he’s not my boyfriend.” She repeated herself.
Karen heaved herself up finally, full of rightful indignation and a snarl on her lips. While I watched her struggle without offering to help, one particular memory of her from high school hit me like a freight train.
“Isn’t she the one that lit your car on fire?” I put the cuffs back on my belt and kept both hands free, because I knew the answer to my question.
Karen Zucker was a bitch, through and through. She always had been, especially when it came to Avery James. I remembered the month we graduated high school clear as day. Karen hadn’t warranted an invitation from Avery to Deacon’s graduation party. So, in retaliation, she’d torched Avery’s car.
“Yeah.” Avery stepped away from Karen, doing her best to stay as far away from the other woman as she could.