by Aly Martinez
My love?
He dug for something in his pocket. I jerked, preparing myself for whatever weapon he was going to reveal, and I vaguely noticed Don reach to the back of his navy dress pants. We both froze when Davenport produced a hotel keycard and tucked it into the cleavage of my dress.
“Room two forty-seven, love. Don’t be late.”
Then he kissed me.
Hard.
Painful.
Vile.
Just as quickly, he released me and moseyed away, unfazed.
My knees shook, and my ankle rolled, almost sending me to the ground, but Don caught me around the waist.
I was in shock, and tears started to well in my eyes.
Don was obviously uncomfortable and most of all confused, but he kept his arm anchored around my waist until I was able to get my bearings.
In the distance, I heard a car peel out of the parking lot. I could only pray that it was Davenport.
“I-is…is he gone?” I asked.
He didn’t exactly answer me. “I don’t mean to sound disrespectful, and I’m only going to ask this once. Do you have something going on with Garrett Davenport?”
My head jerked to the side as if he had physically slapped me.
He pulled me into a hug. “Goddamn it. I’m sorry,” he replied, having read my response loud and clear. “Yeah, he’s gone, Liv.”
And that was when the tears came. Full force.
“Oh my God. I’m going to lose Quarry!” I wailed as the adrenaline fled my system. “He…he kissed me.”
“Shhh,” Don soothed. “You’re not going to lose anyone. He can’t be mad that some lunatic held you against a car and kissed you.”
I rocked out of his arms. Doubling over, I rested my hands on my knees and attempted to catch my breath. “I am. I’m going to lose him. Quarry is going to kill Davenport and then spend the rest of his life in prison.”
Don’s mouth hitched in a smile.
“This isn’t amusing,” I informed him.
He put his hands up in surrender, but his smile grew to full-blown.
“Stop smiling! This is going to be the worst kind of bad. He’ll probably go all Mel Gibson in Braveheart and paint his face with Garrett’s blood.”
Don laughed—like an actual laugh. “That doesn’t happen in Braveheart.”
“Right. Well, let’s hope Quarry hasn’t seen whatever movie that does happen in.”
“All kidding aside, are you all right?” he asked, shoving his hands in his pockets.
I sucked in a deep breath and did a quick physical assessment. My back hurt like hell, but everything else seemed to be in working order, so I nodded.
“You want me to get Gwen to drive you home?” he asked.
Swiping my index fingers under my eyes, I fixed my makeup. “No. I think I’m okay. I’m supposed to be meeting Quarry at Till’s for dinner.”
“Good.” He bent down and scooped my keys off the ground before offering them my way.
I reached out to take them, but he didn’t let go.
“You have to tell him, Liv. Even if he does go Braveheart. You have to tell him. That shit Davenport just pulled is not acceptable, and your man has a right to know he had his hands on you.”
I closed my eyes in defeat. “Can I leave out the part where he had his lips on me?”
Don chuckled. “No. But I would definitely forget that hotel room number before you tell him. That is…unless you feel like hiding a body tonight.”
My eyes popped open. “Oh, God!” I yanked the hotel keycard out of the top of my dress and then Frisbeed it across the parking lot.
Don grinned his approval then swung my car door open. “Get home safe. Let me know if you need me to cover for you tomorrow.”
I returned his smile. “Thanks.” I tipped my head in the direction Davenport left and finished with, “For everything.”
“Glad I could help.”
Don stayed on the sidewalk until I pulled onto the road. At the first stoplight, I retrieved my phone from my purse and texted Quarry to let him know I was finally on the way.
My phone chirped with his reply, but my shaking hands gripped to the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white.
For the first time in my entire life, I was dreading seeing Quarry.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Quarry
I WAS SITTING ON THE couch with Till’s son, little Slate, when Liv finally arrived. While she hadn’t come right out and said it, I knew she was nervous to tell my family about our relationship. But, to be honest, there wasn’t a whole lot left to tell. Every single one of them had cornered me over the last two weeks, even before our picture together had been published. And, while she was hesitant, I was fucking ecstatic.
So, when Liv walked in, her eyes wide, looking like she had just seen a ghost, I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Liv!” little Slate called out, hoofing it in her direction to show her the new Lego ship we had built.
“That’s great, buddy,” she said absently, her eyes flashing to mine before immediately bouncing away.
Even before things had changed with us, Liv would always come straight to me and chat for a minute before tracking down the girls in the kitchen.
This time, she walked straight to the dinner table, where Till was putting out plates with Blakely, and she whispered something in his ear. A plate froze in midair and his body tensed before his eyes dangerously cut to me.
Now that got my feet moving.
“What’s wrong?” I asked before I’d even made it over to them.
“Blakely, take Slate and Cole upstairs and put on a movie,” Till ordered.
Her eyes lit. “But it’s a school night.”
“Go,” he said in a gentle but firm tone. “Flint! Get in here!” he called into the kitchen.
By this point, my entire body was on alert. When I got within reach, I curled my hand around the back of Liv’s neck and forced her eyes to mine.
“What the hell’s going on?”
She pressed to her toes and placed a lingering kiss on my lips.
It did nothing to answer my question though.
“Rocky?” I growled.
“Everything’s fine.” She looped an arm around my hips and tucked into my side. “Let’s get the kids upstairs and I’ll tell you, okay?”
“Bullshit,” I gritted out, studying her eyes, which I now noticed were red-rimmed. “Were you crying?”
Resting a reassuring hand on my chest, she answered, “Stop. I promise I’m okay. Let’s just get the kids situated so I can tell everyone at once.”
The room fluttered around us as my family caught the angry chill that had begun to fill the room. My imagination was running wild as I paced a hole in the carpet in front of the couch. Ash and Eliza settled next to Flint on the sofa, while Liv sat in the recliner, chewing on her thumbnail.
When Till reappeared from upstairs, he didn’t settle next to Eliza. He eerily walked beside me and got all up in my space. Not touching me. Just looming.
Fucking hell. He was bracing for the explosion. Whatever she had whispered in his ear must have been really fucking bad.
“Talk,” I demanded.
“Okay, so, ummm, Davenport was waiting for me outside when I left the community center tonight.”
The room erupted into a combination of gasps and curses. Five sets of eyes all landed on me, but mine stayed leveled on Liv.
“He was waiting for you?” I asked in a malevolent whisper, my muscles going taut.
“I’m fine,” she reiterated.
Which was fantastic. I needed her to be fine because I was as far from fine as a person could get.
I sucked in a deep breath and then held it. Cracking my neck, I motioned for her to continue, hopefully to the part where he had been hit by a truck when he’d left.
“I guess he saw the picture of us together. And…uhhh, well… He came to say congrats. Sorta. But it was fine. He left. All’s good. Don kinda saved the da
y.” She was rambling—and lying some kind of serious.
Davenport was a big enough asshole to show up just to piss me off, but with our fight less than two months away, he wouldn’t have left without delivering a message.
“What. Happened?” I pushed.
Her eyes jumped to Till’s then to Flint’s. Then she moved toward me. “Turn around.”
I shook my head.
No way I was going to let her to bury her face in my back, hiding the truth in her eyes so she could feed me more glossed-over shit. I wanted the entire motherfucking story, especially the little details she was going to try to leave out.
“It wasn’t as bad as it’s going to sound,” she whined.
Which only meant it was far worse and she was trying to soften the blow for me.
I ground my teeth and prepared myself. “I’m not asking again, Rocky. Tell me all of it.”
Her shoulders fell, and she rolled her eyes. “He called me a whore. Pinned me against the car and then kissed me.” She rested her hands on my chest and rushed out, “But I swear to you, I’m fine. Please don’t kill him.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“He kissed you?”
“Oh my God!”
“What the fuck.”
Those all echoed behind me, but I couldn’t make out who’d said what around the blood roaring in my ears.
Liv could beg every day for the rest of her life, but I was still going to kill him for so much as breathing her air.
Blinding rage consumed me.
The last thing I remembered was Liv standing in front of me, pleading for his life, before I found myself being physically restrained across the hood of my car.
“Stop!” Till said, wrestling me down.
“Let me the fuck go!” I seethed, rearing back to head-butt him.
He quickly dodged it and forced me back down. “Chill out and get your shit together. Davenport will still be an asshole in ten minutes. Liv is freaking the fuck out right now though.”
My senses started to return to me, one by one, and I heard Liv screaming my name from inside the house. Flint was blocking the front door, but his gaze was aimed over his shoulder at me.
“Shit,” I breathed, the fight ebbing from my system.
My knuckles ached, and my lungs felt as if I’d just gone ten rounds.
“There you go,” Till encouraged. “Now, take a damn breath and calm down.”
“Let me go,” I replied, my voice jagged.
I was slowly coming down when Liv shrieked my name again.
“Let me go!” I repeated, becoming agitated all over again.
He didn’t. He leaned into my ear. “I know how you feel, Q, but I swear to God there is nothing you can do to Davenport right now. And all you are going to do is ruin your own career by trying. Let’s call the cops. Let’s call the boxing administration. Let’s call Slate and get him to throw some weight at this. But you, right now, need to get your ass inside and take care of your girl.”
He was right. I needed to take care of Liv. But he was so fucking wrong about the rest. The cops wouldn’t do shit. The boxing administration would do even less. Slate could throw all the weight in the world behind this kind of attack, but it wouldn’t change the fact that it had still happened.
And I hadn’t been there to protect her.
Two weeks into our relationship and I was already treading dangerously close to failing yet another woman.
And, this time, it was Liv.
Not a consequence in the world could sway me from making Davenport pay.
And I knew that that was exactly why Liv was freaking out. She knew me all too well.
It was my turn to lie.
“Okay,” I told Till. “Call the cops and fucking let me up so I can get to her.”
Liv
I had expected Quarry to lose his shit, and it was precisely why I’d made sure his brothers were there when I’d dropped the bomb. They could at least physically prevent him from going off the deep end until I had a chance to calm him down and talk some sense into him.
However, I never could have expected the scene that played out.
His face turned red, pure madness brewing in his thunderous eyes. I was still clinging to the front of shirt when he spun on a heel. His powerful stomps carried him to the door, Till barely managing to get in front of him before Quarry threw a punch. And it was thrown with such a force I knew that it had been intended for Davenport and not his brother. Quarry had one hell of a temper, but this was something else altogether. Intense anger rolled off him as Till fought to pry the keys from his hand.
I was able to hold it together until Till dodged a punch and Quarry’s hand went through the sheet rock. That’s when I lost my shit too.
Davenport was once again going to get his way. One way or another, whether Quarry found him and beat him within an inch of his life or Quarry broke his hand in another fit of rage, the fight was going to get canceled.
I gave up on Till handling the situation and attempted to step between the brawling brothers.
Unfortunately, Flint caught me around the waist.
But, on the other hand, it was fortunate Flint caught me around the waist because I almost caught an elbow to the face.
When Till and Quarry had made it out the door, Flint promptly blocked me. I was having a nervous breakdown from not being able to see what was going on.
I was seriously contemplating the ramifications of stealing Flint’s cane and beating him with it when Quarry suddenly appeared behind him. Flint gingerly stepped out of the way for his seemingly no-longer-irate brother to pass through.
Raking my eyes over his body, I checked for any type of injury, but his stormy eyes held the only lingering proof of his outburst.
I opened my mouth to ask if he was okay, but his thick arm hooked across my stomach, folding me over and lifting me off my feet.
“What are you doing?” I cried, dangling like a rag doll at his side.
He didn’t answer. Nor did his feet slow until we reached his old bedroom.
After kicking the door shut, he deposited me on the bed. Then my arms were yanked up and my dress was stripped over my head. His shirt followed. Then he landed on the bed next to me. Rolling to his back, he tucked me into his side, and only then did he breathe a huge sigh of relief. His heart was still slamming around in his chest, and his body was stiff, but his words were soft.
“What happened…exactly?”
“Uhhhh, is there a reason we have to be almost naked to have this conversation? If you decide to haul ass out of the room again, it’s going to be embarrassing when I have to chase you down in my underwear.”
“I won’t leave again,” he replied emotionlessly, but his lips found the top of my head.
“Okay, but if you’re planning to have sex with me, you’re going to have to be quiet because I’m pretty sure Ash and Eliza are listening at the door.”
This time, his voice was terse. “My head is two seconds away from exploding. If I fucked you now, I might kill us both. So, please, just tell me what the fuck happened.” His lips once again found my head, easing the sting in his tone.
So I told him.
Every single bit.
Except for the hotel room number.
Thank God for Don Blake! Because, if the way his body went rock solid when I got to the keycard part was any indication, I would have in fact been hiding a body later that night.
After I finished, Quarry remained silent for several minutes. I tried to soothe him by tracing the black tattoos that covered one of his pecs, and his breathing gradually slowed and then evened out. I thought for a moment that he’d fallen asleep. But, when I glanced up, his eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling in deep contemplation.
“What are you thinking?” I asked quietly.
“Honestly?”
“Yeah.”
“Right now, it’s how I’m going to keep your dad from killing Davenport before I get the chance.”
I giggled, relaxing into him, relieved that he at least had it in him to joke. Ten minutes ago, I would have thought it impossible, but when he shifted his gaze down to me, the tiniest of smiles tipped one side of his mouth.
Then it vanished as his expression turned serious again. “I took your dress off because I wanted to be sure you weren’t hiding anything else from me. Downplaying the way he put his hands on you just to keep me reeled in. But I have to be honest with you here: I’m terrified to look at your back. I swear to God, if he left a mark on you—”
“My back is fine.” It wasn’t totally a lie. It didn’t hurt anymore, but I was sure the car door handle had left a bruise.
He closed his eyes and shook his head as if he could erase the thought of it.
“Quarry, listen to me. This is worse than his normal brand of asshole. I’ll be the first to admit that, but getting a reaction from you is what he wants. It’s what he’s praying for. And, if he doesn’t get it before the fight, you know he’s going to use it in the ring. He’s going to talk shit and have you fighting with your heart and not your head. And, when you give him that, he will beat you.”
Quarry barked a laugh. “Is that your pep talk?”
“No. That’s my ‘keep your head together and embarrass this guy in front of the entire world’ talk.” I pressed a kiss to his still-smiling lips. “You’re so close, Q. Two months.”
He suddenly rolled so I was on my back and his upper body was pressing against me. “And what if he tries something like this shit again? What if it’s worse next time? Then what? Because I don’t give one single fuck about that fight anymore. Embarrassing him isn’t going to give me peace of mind. Eating popcorn and listening to his screams while he burns inside a fiery inferno might be the only possible thing that could give me any kind of satisfaction at this point.”
“Okay, and if, in six months, you want to follow through with that, I’ll buy the popcorn. But we will watch the inferno on TV in the middle of a public bar so we at least both have an alibi.” I smiled. “For now, though, we’re going to let everyone else handle Davenport.”
“I can’t just sit around and let this go. He touched you, Liv.” His voice was harsh, but his fingers gently sifted through my hair.
“And I slapped him for it,” I answered matter-of-factly.
