His chest heaved on each of his breaths, and his dark eyes swirled. He was on the edge, I could see it clearly, but so was I.
“Okay,” he murmured, and my muscles relaxed. Had I won? Had I finally put my foot down and he’d listened? “I can see what has to happen now.” A calmness washed over him, the kind of calm I’d never seen from him before. It should have been a red flag. It should have been the alert I’d needed to get away from him as quick as I possibly could. But he’d fooled me. Fooled me into thinking I had any right to say what I had.
“A lesson is needed.” He stood to his full height, towering over me. “And I’ll be the teacher.”
I didn’t see his fist coming toward me, not until it was too late to move my face from its path. Pain like I’d never felt before exploded in my eye and knocked me off-kilter. My body swayed to the right, and I managed to stay on my feet, but another punch a second later made the edges of my vision blur, and I went down—hard.
My hands scraped against the ground, stones sticking in the palms on my hands, and I turned my head to look up at him—to look at the Knox standing over me. But this wasn’t the Knox I’d made friends with all those years ago. This was a new Knox, one who got what he wanted. One who thought this was the answer. One who won at everything.
But this time I’d be victorious. I could take this. I could stay here while he emptied his rage out and marked my body, but I’d never be his. My heart would never belong to him.
Chapter Nine
ASHER
I sprayed the area of skin of my second client of the day and wiped away the extra ink to reveal the perfectly shaded elephant on her skin. It had taken three sessions to finish, but it had been worth the wait and extra time to get it perfect.
“Take a look and see what you think,” I said, standing up and pulling my gloves off. This was always my favorite part of doing a tattoo—seeing the reaction it got.
She jumped down off the bed I had set up and walked over to the main mirror in the shop, staring at the tattoo covering her thigh. “It’s perfect,” she said wistfully. “Absolutely perfect.”
My lips lifted into a smile. “Let me wrap you up, and then you can go.”
She nodded but didn’t move from in front of the mirror for several minutes. She stared at it from all angles, sighing happily every now and again. Finally, she made her way back over to me, and I wrapped her leg up, knowing I didn’t need to give her care instructions because she knew what she could and couldn’t do while it was healing.
Maverick was on his day off, so I rang her up in the front of the shop, and she left with a huge grin on her face. But no sooner had she walked out than she ran back in, her face pale and eyes wide. “There’s some guy beating on a woman out here!”
I didn’t think as I leaped over the counter and out of the door with Jez and Lara on my tail. They were both in the middle of tattooing their clients, but neither thought twice about joining me. The woman pointed toward Aleste’s dance studio, but I couldn’t see anything at first, and then I heard, “You’ll never get away from me. I’ll always be there!”
I looked left, then right and darted across the road toward the voice. I was hyper-focused on getting to them, but as soon as I spotted Elodie’s car, my stomach dropped. Her driver’s door was open, and as I rounded it, I saw the guy on top of her, holding her around the neck and slamming his fist into her face over and over. My instincts led me as I yanked him off her, and my MMA training wanted me to beat the shit out of him, but I didn’t. I didn’t do what I wanted to do because all I could think about was Elodie. I wasn’t sure it was her. I hadn’t seen her face yet. But my gut told me it was.
“Holy fuckin’ shit,” Lara gritted out. “You’re that dance girl.”
“I’m okay,” Elodie whispered, and I turned away from the guy, knowing he’d be gone within seconds. I let him go so I could get to her, and I didn’t regret it, not at that moment. Elodie rolled onto her side, groaning at the move, and I reached for her but stopped at the last second. “I’m good,” she said, but her eye was half closed, and blood dripped from her lip. What the fuck had happened?
She pushed onto her hands and knees, coughing and gasping, and I knew she wasn’t okay. I knew she needed medical attention.
“Elodie?” I asked, my voice low. “It’s me, Asher.” I crouched down in front of her and held my hands out, not sure what exactly to do. I didn’t want to touch her, not if she didn’t want to be touched. “I’m gonna call the cops—”
“No.” She turned her head, her hair covering half of her face, but her gaze met mine. I’d expected to see sorrow, sadness, pain, but instead, all I could see was relief. “It’s okay. Just…” She heaved a breath and groaned. “Just help me up?”
I didn’t hesitate. I hooked my arms around her, picking her up and holding her to my chest. I stared down at her, really stared at her, and wondered if I should ask what the hell had just happened. But it wasn’t my place. I didn’t have the right to enquire about her life, but fuck, all I wanted was to make sure she was okay and then go find the guy and teach him a goddamn lesson. He’d hit her…out in the open. He hadn’t cared who could see. He hadn’t given two shits.
“The guy ran away,” Jez said from beside me with a red face. I ground my teeth together, trying to keep my goddamn cool, but it was fuckin’ hard when a bleeding Elodie was in my arms. She was hurt, and I wasn’t sure how bad. The swelling on her cheek and eye told me he’d gotten in at least a good four or five punches before we’d gotten over to them, and I dreaded to think what else he’d done. And why. Why had he hurt her? Did she know who it was?
“Lock her car up and bring her keys back to the shop,” I gritted out and held her closer to me. Her hand covered mine on her stomach, and I glanced down at it, wondering if it was okay to touch her there. She gripped my little finger and held it tight, and that small move had my shoulders relaxing a little. She was okay with me touching her. She was okay with me holding her.
“You can let me down,” Elodie whispered as I crossed the street to the shop, but she didn’t make a move to try and get out of my hold. She may have been saying it with her words, but her body didn’t want to heed to it. I turned and pushed the door to the shop open with my back. Her face was a mess, and her whimpers didn’t go unnoticed as I moved us through the shop and past the two clients waiting for Lara and Jez to come back.
I walked to the back and to the small room we used as a break room and placed her on one of the seats. My hands shook as I turned away from her and found the first aid kit. I was trying to keep my own anger under control, but it was taking all of my energy. A man had laid his hands on her.
“Asher,” Elodie whispered as I kneeled in front of her. “I’m okay. I can do it myself.”
“No,” I gritted out, and immediately berated myself for using that tone with her. “Sorry.” I opened the antibacterial wipes from the kit and started to wipe at her face. “I got you, Elodie.” She’d never know how much I meant those words. She’d never truly understand how I’d live by them.
She didn’t say another word. Not while I wiped at the two cuts on her cheek, and not while I checked to see how deep her split lip was. She sat there patiently as I cleaned her up and applied some Steri-Strips just in case. “You should really go see a doctor,” I told her.
“Nah.” She shook her head, then groaned at the movement. “I’ll be okay.” Was she saying that because she was used to this type of treatment? Was this something which happened all the time, and she knew how to heal from it? Was this yet another secret she was keeping?
I moved into a crouched position as I gathered all of the trash and looked at her. Her face was swollen, and her lip was still oozing blood, but fuck if she still didn’t look as beautiful as the first night I saw her. “Who was it?”
“No one,” she answered right away, which told me it was someone. Someone she knew. Someone she’d taken this from before. And I wasn’t sure what angered me more, someone doing this
to her, or her not telling me who it was. I should have expected her to keep it close to her chest, but fuck, I wished she’d let me in. I wished she’d let her walls down a tiny bit so I could peek inside. But she was locked up tight. What she wasn’t aware of was I was a patient man. I’d lie still while I was in the Marines for days at a time with my eye connected to a scope on a gun. I could wait her out too.
She stood, her legs wobbly, and I moved to help her. My hand gripped her wrist the same as it had the other day outside of Aleste’s dance studio. Her soft skin met the palm of my hand, and I was sure I heard a soft sigh escape her lips.
“Do you need me to call anyone?”
Her gaze met mine, the navy blue pulling me in and trying to tell me something I couldn’t quite decipher. “No.”
“No, you don’t want me to call? Or no, there isn’t anyone to call?”
Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. “The second one.” She wrapped her arm around her middle, and I stared down at her T-shirt, which was ripped in several places.
“Wait here.” I exited the room and ran up the back stairs to the apartment. I hadn’t used it for anything but storage, but I knew I had some T-shirts up here with the shop logo on them. I grabbed one out of the first box and stomped back down the stairs, just in time to see Elodie moving into the main part of the shop.
“You okay?” Lara asked from her station. Her attention was solely on Elodie, but she didn’t give anything away from the expression on her face. Lara was a stone wall, kind of how Elodie was.
“Yeah, I’m good,” Elodie responded and turned as she heard my footsteps approaching. I handed her the T-shirt, and she smiled gently at it and then at me. “Thank you, Asher.”
“No problem,” I croaked out. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her I could help. I could call Ford, and he’d be here within the hour and take a statement from her. I could message Jax, and he’d be here to help her too. But it wasn’t my place to interfere—not yet anyway.
“Not just for this,” she said, holding up the T-shirt. “But for you know…” She tilted her head toward the front of the shop, and I knew what she was saying. She didn’t want to say the actual words, and I understood.
“Anytime.” I cringed and shook my head. “I didn’t mean anytime as in you would you know get hurt, but as in I’ll help anytime and—”
“I get you,” she interrupted, putting me out of my misery. “I better drive home and—”
“Are you crazy?” Lara asked, standing up and moving toward us. “You just got beaten the crap out of. You can’t drive.”
“I’ll be fine—”
“She’s right,” Jez inserted, looking up at us from where he was tattooing. “You can’t drive, hon. Never know what damage the douche caused.” His client was sitting in front of him, watching the entire conversation, and it made my skin crawl. These strangers shouldn’t get to see her like this, not after what she’d just been through.
“I’ll take you home,” I told her, not willing to take no for an answer. There was no way in hell I’d allow her to drive herself home in the state she was in. She may be able to make the decision of who she called and who she didn’t call, and whether she’d see a doctor or not. But this…this was for her own safety.
“I need my car,” Elodie whispered, turning around to face me fully. Her back was to everyone else in the shop now.
“I’ll get it to your place.” My fingers itched to touch her, to place my palm on the side of her face and tell her everything was going to be okay. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t touch her. I couldn’t promise that to her. I didn’t have the right, no matter how much I craved her.
“I can’t ask that of you, Asher.” She shuffled on her feet, looking vulnerable. All I wanted to do was scoop her into my arms and never let her go.
“You’re not asking me to, Elodie.” The way her name rolled off my tongue felt like fuckin’ heaven. “I’m offering, and you’re not going to refuse, right?”
She stared at me, her eyes shuttering closed after a couple of seconds as she nodded. “Okay then.” Her voice was small, smaller than I’d ever heard it. “I need my bag from my car first and—”
“It’s on the counter,” Lara said. “Figured you’d need it.”
“Thank you,” Elodie whispered and opened her eyes. I wasn’t sure whether she was saying it to Lara, or both of us, but I wanted to tell her she didn’t need to thank us for helping her. And it was at that exact moment I realized she wasn’t used to people helping her. There was so much to Elodie, so much I hadn’t even dreamed of, and I wanted to know it all. I wanted to find out what made her tick. I wanted to know what made her happy and what made her sad.
I wanted to know all of it—all of her.
I shook my head, dispelling the thoughts. Now wasn’t the time or place. And besides, she had a boyfriend—my head spun, my pulse thrummed faster, and I looked down at Elodie. Really looked at her. “It was him, wasn’t it?”
She blinked several times. “I…who?”
“The guy who picked you up yesterday.” I pointed at her face. “He did that to you.” She didn’t answer, so her silence was enough for me to know. It had been her boyfriend. Her boyfriend had touched her in a way he had no right to, and it didn’t take me long to figure it out. Aleste had said he wasn’t good for her, but I hadn’t thought she’d meant like this.
Elodie’s cell beeped, and she pulled it out of her pocket, but as soon as she read whatever was on there, her shoulders tensed. “Everything okay?” I asked, placing my hand on the bottom of her back and leading her through the shop. We didn’t need to stand here where everyone could hear us—hear her.
“Yeah.” Her fingers typed away, and the sent-message sound whooshed out as I opened the front door. “It was Leo asking if I got my car.”
“Leo?” I pulled my keys out of my pocket and clicked the button to open the locks on my truck. “My Leo?”
Elodie snorted. “I totally forgot you knew Leo like that.” I pulled open the door for her and held my hand out to help her up. I boosted her up into the seat and closed the door behind her.
“Where to?” I asked, turning the engine on.
There was a beat of silence and then, “Do you know the trailer park over on Sixth?”
I pulled out of the parking space I was in and headed toward the end of the street, knowing exactly where she was talking about. “Yep,” I answered her and turned the volume down on the stereo system.
She was quiet most of the drive until I pulled into the trailer park. She told me where her trailer was, and once we were parked outside of it, she turned and asked, “Please don’t tell anyone what happened today.”
“I—”
“By anyone, I mean Leo.” She undid her belt and turned in her seat. “He’s my only friend and—”
“That’s the exact reason you should tell him.” I met her stare, not willing to bullshit her. After what I’d seen happen to her, it would have been easy for me to nod and go along with what she wanted, but I wasn’t that kind of guy. I wasn’t the person who would do something for an easy life. Hence why I was driving her home.
“I know, but…” She sighed. “You’re right. It’s not as if he doesn’t know what Knox is like anyway.”
She let her head drop back, and I frowned at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It was Knox who pushed Leo into the lockers.” Her eyes closed, and she looked so at peace but also like she was fighting to stay alive. “And that was my fault too. I shouldn’t have made friends with Leo. He wouldn’t have gotten hurt, then. It’s my fault—”
“Stop,” I demanded, my tone firm but low. I couldn’t resist not touching her any longer, so I reached over and grasped her hand in her lap. “It’s not your fault.” Her eyes opened, and she turned her head so she was focused on me. “Don’t take the blame for him. Never take the blame for anyone else.” I rubbed my thumb over her knuckles and gritted my teeth at the softness of her skin. I wondered if
her skin was this soft everywhere?
“You can only control what you do, Elodie, not what everyone else does.” I leaned closer to her, fully aware people were probably watching. “You do you, sweetheart. Ain’t nothin’ else you can control but that.”
She swallowed and gripped my hand. “Thanks, Asher. I mean it.”
“You need me again, you just call. Got it?” She nodded in answer and let go of my hand, but I knew deep down she wouldn’t call. She was a loner, a survivor, someone who never relied on anyone else. “I’ll get your car here for you by the morning.”
“Okay.” She pushed open the passenger door, took one last look at me, and got out of the truck.
I couldn’t do anything but stare at her as she went inside the trailer. I wished I’d been able to do more. Wished I could have kept her safe. Wished she didn’t have to put up with the shit I assumed she had to deal with. But that was the problem. I was assuming I knew, but I didn’t, not right then. But I would. I’d find out and figure out a way to help her, whether she liked it or not.
ELODIE
My eyes hadn’t even opened, and already, the pain ricocheting throughout my body was almost unbearable. I opened my eyes and wished I hadn’t. I could feel that my left eye was swollen, and I ran my tongue over my bottom lip, silently cursing when the sting from the cut made me wince.
Fuck. I hadn’t ever felt this beat up. I wanted to laugh, but only because the alternative was to cry, and I was afraid if I let the tears slip, I wouldn’t be able to stop.
I rolled over and groaned, just as my cell beeped for the second time. I had no idea what time it was, but I’d known when I got into my bed last night that I wouldn’t be going to school today—not after what happened. My body ached in places I had no idea it could ache, and the thumping of my head felt unlike anything else. And it was all because I’d stood up to Knox. Part of me was proud, but the other part was still terrified. He’d whispered, “This isn’t over,” in my ear a second before he’d been pulled off me, and I had no doubt he meant it.
Burned Duet: Asher & Elodie: Fast Burn & Deep Burn (Easton Family Duet Boxsets Book 4) Page 12
