by Piper Malone
Fuck that plan. I am not getting in the way of that.
My initial hurt slips away when I envision Nick punching Blake. I don’t want Nick to kill him before I have the chance to yell at him, but maybe one punch for me would be satisfying to watch. She is naked, after all.
My crazy thoughts are snatched away when the sound of the whip cracks, the deafening noise rattling me. Seconds later the air is filled with a strangled cry ripping from Skyler’s lips. The sounds, the situation, jarring me to the core. She sounds like she’s in pain, but I know she must have asked him for this. The flashback pops up, the image of my aunt seared in my memory forces me to question everything again. Prickly numbness slides down my arms and legs. I don’t know what to believe.
I can’t make sense of this. This can’t be wrong. Blake isn’t wrong… But he’s here with another woman. I inhale and try to focus when the icy tingles stabbing my scalp make me shiver. I need to get back to Room One and wait for him.
When I try to move away, my knee gives out, making me stumble. The tools slip from my sweaty grip and clang on the concrete floor. I scramble to cover them, stop the teeter-totter flopping of each tool, but it’s useless. The metallic sounds ring against the cavernous hall and echo into the main room.
I watch Blake pivot toward the sound, his body poised to strike against the assailant disrupting the moment. His features fall, confusion crinkling his brow when he sees me on all fours, hands covering the offending hardware. I open my mouth to try to explain what I’m doing, or to tell him to carry on, or to warn him that Nick is barreling toward him like an unmanned freight train, but it’s all too late.
Nick tackles Blake from behind with brutal force, slamming him to the ground. With swift action, Nick flips Blake to his back and drills his jaw with a heavy fist before laying a follow up blow to his ribs.
My protest against Nick’s assault enters the room before I do, my heavy limbs preventing me from moving gracefully. Once in the main area, the sounds, the smell, the intensity of the moment creates a heavy chaos that I can’t comprehend.
“You!” Ax barks, his finger pointed at my face. “Tend to her.” He points to Skyler before moving around the bodies rolling on the floor.
My head bobbles in response. I force myself to breathe through the adrenaline rush and purposely avoid looking at my boyfriend currently getting beat to shit. I move to the naked woman tethered to the ceiling. Skyler strains her neck to see what is happening behind her. I glance over my shoulder and see Ax trying to intervene but it’s no use. Nick is a wild dog set to destroy an intruder. My stomach bubbles with pain as I see Nick pummel Blake, grunts and curses flying between them. I can’t stop it, I can’t defend Blake, but I can try to help Skyler.
I might not know what I’m doing, but I’m good with my girlfriends when they are in rough situations.
“Skyler? Hi, it’s Kat. Reagan’s friend,” I say loud enough so I don’t surprise her. “Can I, uh, help you?”
She shivers, her shoulders pressing inward as if trying to cover her body. “Please…” She chokes on her tears.
I move around her, making sure she sees me in her peripheral vision before I come close. Once I’m in front of her, I see the agony etched on her face. Her eyes are bloodshot and puffy. Her skin is no longer the pristine porcelain I remember. Skyler’s bright face looks dull and sallow.
She looks at me, her eyes pleading. “He can’t see me,” she whispers, leaning back to pull at the ropes.
“Okay,” I look up at the intricate knots holding her in place. Holy shit that is some serious Boy Scout business…
“Please, Kat.” Her voice cracks under the flow of new tears. “He can’t see me like this.” I don’t understand her discomfort; she knows all the men in the room. Maybe it’s Ax?
“Tell me what you need. I don’t understand.”
“Cover me,” she pleads. “He can’t see me. On the floor….there’s a wrap.”
“O-oh,” I stammer, confused about who she’s referring to. Blake has already seen her naked and so has Nick. I look around the room and quickly locate a pile of terry cloth nearby. Even when I issue a warning that I’m starting to cover her, Skyler still jumps and hisses from the contact. I falter, trying to adjust the fabric around her so it shields her without making too much contact.
“Quick, Kat,” she begs, “please.” Her chest rises and falls with heavy bursts as I start to fasten the edges of the wrap around her front.
I can’t help but glance at her naked body, her rib cage pressing against the thin flesh of her torso. Her breath lifting her chest up and out, angled from her elevated arms. When I pass a glance at her breasts, I gasp. Determined to stay focused on her face, I missed the screaming red scar puckering the skin around the curve of her breast.
“Oh my God.” The words rush from me, followed by the flow of embarrassment that heats up my cheeks. I look at Skyler, her face lined with shame and understanding.
“I know,” she whispers, her eyes filling with tears. “Please, he can’t see it.” Her distress closes my throat, her pain is palpable, but I don’t understand.
“Who, Skyler?” I ask, making sure the wrap is covering all her parts.
She drops her head, rocking back and forth, allowing the restraint to hold her weight.
“Nick.” His name falling from her lips is faint and distant, but he hears it.
Skyler’s voice stops him from laying another punch into Blake. His eye is swollen, lip and nose bloody from grappling with Blake. In seconds, he’s edging me out of the way to be close to Skyler.
“Fucking asshole!” Blake hollers, wincing as he curls into a ball, hugging his side and touching his face, equally bloodied and very bruised.
The tension in the room fades the instant Nick is with Skyler. He cups her tear-stained face, tilting her chin up to look at him. His touch is gentle and calm. “My angel.” His voice betrays the longing Nick has been battling. “Where have you been?”
“Nick…” Skyler blinks, the tears pushing past their hold, as she sags toward him. Nick cages her with thick arms, absorbing the tremors of her shaking body. “Nick…please…”
His face contorts in a mash of anguish and anger before he deftly cradles her with one arm. Nick fishes in his back pocket and pulls out a pocketknife. He uses his teeth to extend the blade and shreds the rope with three jerky slashes.
She falls toward him when the rope gives. Nick easily manages the weight of her body, shushing her cries as he scoops her legs in his arms and carries her down the main hallway.
“Where are you taking her, man?” Ax calls after him.
“Away,” he says, before walking into the shadows of the club.
Chapter 22
Blake
JesusfuckingChristshitonabiscuitfuckingfuckmemotherfucker!
I can’t move. I’m pretty sure Nick obliterated my spleen. But watching him carry Sky out of here has to be the only time I’ve ever seen him show an ounce of emotion that could be called romantic.
Why he had to break my nose in the process of getting to her is beyond me, but Nick has always been a loose cannon. Her pristine desk. Finding him passed out in her room. The inability to talk about her since she left. It all adds up to this. He loves her and just tried to kill me because he thinks I crossed a boundary.
“Can you stand up?” Ax extends a hand to me, offering to pull my beaten ass off the floor.
“Yup,” I huff, gripping his hand before hauling myself up with his support. I press my fingers to my face, wincing at the tenderness of my jaw and cheek. The flesh above my eye throbs with the pace of my heartbeat. “How long was he there?”
“Not sure. Long enough for him to lose his mind,” Ax offers, checking me over before taking a defensive stance. “What the hell were you thinking? You know how he feels about her.”
Rocking my head back and forth, I feel the bones of my neck crunch and pop. “She came to me, man. She asked me to keep it quiet. We didn’t expect
him to be here. He’s been MIA for a few days and I assumed he went up north.”
“Right.” Ax hesitates, glancing between Kat and myself, lips pressed into a thin line.
“How did she get here?” I ask with my back turned to her. I know he let her in. She thought I was working today.
He lifts his hands to stay me, an evil smirk lifting his cheeks. “She came to me, man.”
Ax nods to Kat before retreating in the same direction Nick took Skyler, leaving me to contend with another possible battle.
Taking a deep breath, I turn to face her. The fight I’m about to engage in is rolling inside my girl’s mind. She looks anxious and confused, her fingers snaking around each other as her eyes bounce from the shredded rope to the equipment in the open play area. Her teeth grip her bottom lip, her eyes distant, lost in thought. Her chest heaves under the stress of the moment.
“Doll?” I attempt to take a step toward her and she immediately backs away.
Her head shakes, a quick tremor. “I don’t understand.” Her voice is distant. My bold woman can’t look at me.
“Kat…” When I try to take another step, my knee gives, side cramping from the sucker punch Nick ground into me.
Her instinct kicks in, and she’s at my side, as if stumbling gave her purpose. “I don’t understand,” she whispers, before walking with me to my private room, “but you need to explain this to me.”
I nod but I’m not sure what to say. She’s here with Ax. I’m here with Skyler. I think she’ll win this argument. Skyler was naked. She’s dressed in jeans and Chuck Taylors. Skyler walked in alone. Kat came here with that maggot-filled meat bag.
She came to me. I’m going to fucking kill him. It’s that simple. He’s dead.
Caleb will understand.
“Shit.” I wince at my own stupidity, the responsibility of the moment lost on the ass kicking Nick laid on me. I can’t let Skyler go. We were midscene. I need to talk to her, make sure she’s all right. “Doll, can you wait for me for a few minutes. I need to make sure everything is okay with Skyler.”
“Sure,” she says quietly, “just don’t get punched again.” On any other occasion, her sass might be comical. Today I think she’s actually warning me.
I usher her to my private area in Reign. “You can stay here until I get back.” I close her in the room hoping she’ll still be there when I get back. I’m sure if Kat goes missing, it will be easier to track her down than Nick. He goes into the mountains and disappears.
Checking all the places within Reign where Nick could have taken Sky is time consuming. It’s been at least ten minutes. They aren’t in his room, the office area, the den. There’s no one in the kitchen. Her living quarters are locked. I ran into Ax doing the same thing and he found nothing. Since he’s going to die away, the least he can do is be of some use to me until he meets his fate.
We get back to the main play area at the same time. Facing Ax, actually looking at him, I can see blood smeared on his arm and shirt. Yup, that would be mine.
I feel a trickle of thick liquid running from my nose and cresting my lip. I wipe away the fresh blood and hope it will stop soon. If that fucker broke my nose, he’s a dead man.
“Outside,” Ax barks as he jogs past me.
Ax pushes through the back entrance first, the bright afternoon sun blinding me for a moment. There are three cars in the lot, one of which is Nick’s truck. The driver side doors on the extended cab are pulled open. Nick’s form is bent over Skyler lying on the backseat, her bare feet sticking out from under a blanket.
“Yo!” Ax yells at Nick’s back. “C’mon, man. Think about what you’re doing.”
As we approach the vehicle, Nick’s hands move to cover Skyler. He whispers something to her before extracting himself from the cab and slamming the doors.
When he turns to me, I know he’s ready to gut me.
“What happened to her?” he demands through gritted teeth.
“You saw us, Nick,” I offer, trying to placate him. “I didn’t do anything—”
“How did she get here?”
“I met her here.” I look around the near empty lot. My truck and Ax’s bike are the only other vehicles in the lot. Skyler’s beat-up Civic isn’t here.
“Did you bring her here?” Nick turns on Ax.
“No, man,” he smiles a toothy grin, “I had the pleasure of meeting his girlfriend here today. I can’t juggle more than one at a time.”
You motherfucker!
Nick’s eyes zero in on me again. If my head wasn’t spinning from the adrenaline rush of the scene and getting the shit beat out of me, I would swear the Mortal Kombat battle cry bellowing “Finish Him!” was a hallucination. Unfortunately, it’s not.
Two iron-fisted punches obliterate my gut before he lands one last fist on my jaw. My head snaps, limbs hitting the macadam in wild succession. The world grays around the edges of my vision. His body hovering over mine blacks out any ray of light or speck of hope.
“Never again,” Nick spits inches from my face. A second later, I hear the angry growl of his car and the vibration of several thousand pounds of steel moving.
I think he might run me over and leave me for dead. My girlfriend probably thinks I cheated on her. One of my buddies thinks I’m messing with the object of his obsession. I’m left with Ax, who is an asshole. My face is bleeding. Pain registers everywhere. My head, gut, heart.
Sprawled on the cold parking lot like roadkill, my thoughts drift to how bad this really is.
Caleb is going to flip.
It’s his fault for leaving.
The realization that he’s still out of the country for another week makes the blood in my mouth taste thick and coppery.
Fuck you for leaving, Caleb. Fuck me for this colossal mess.
“You gonna lay there all day, Romeo?” Ax calls from a few feet away. “I don’t want to call the coroner because someone plows over you in a few hours. We need to clean the main room up.”
I roll to my side, groaning from the pain of multiple assaults. “This sucks.”
“Yeah,” Ax agrees. He stops at the open doorway and looks at me. I can tell he’s biting back words.
“You got something say?” My ability to be cordial is gone, pounded out of me by Nick. I’m done with this shit.
His lips mash together, eyes narrowing in what I can only imagine is deep thinking. I swear I can hear a half-dead mouse trying to spin the wheels of his mind.
“She’s a good one, man,” he finally says. “You should have told her about Sky. I think she would have listened. Maybe even been interested in observing. You need to give her a chance.”
His knowledge of her makes my blood boil. “Do you think you have any business telling me how to manage Kat? You shouldn’t even be involved with her.”
Ax nods, a smirk of satisfaction settling on his face. “Pardon me,” he offers. “You handled all of that so well, clearly you don’t need any advice.”
He walks into the building before I can rail at him. Or beat myself up. Ax is right; this could have been better. Today fell apart because of me.
I have to fix this. I need to work this shit out.
My fingers start punching out a text message that will help clear my head until I realize I’m an idiot. He won’t get it. I pocket my phone and limp toward where Kat is waiting for me.
This is so screwed up.
I feel like an absolute pussy.
I miss Caleb.
*
After wasting time trying to figure out what to say to her, I finally decide to face the potential fight with Kat. She is perched on the edge of the expansive bed in the middle of my room as if she sat there every day.
“The deep crimson accents are really nice against the leather furniture,” she says. “This is homier than Caleb’s room.”
“I don’t usually play in here, doll. This space is more like my private quarters.” I can’t tell if she’s toying with me or actually calm. When she doesn’t resp
ond, I walk to the bathroom and get a good look at my face. Black eye, cut lip, nose feels broken but doesn’t look crooked. My ribs are going to hurt for days. “I think you’re the first woman in here in about a year.” I offer to her through the open door. Maybe if I build her up with facts she won’t run with half-truths about what happened.
“She didn’t come in here today?” Her tone is flat, but she still sounds wounded.
“No.” I walk out of the bathroom so we can face each other. “We negotiated the scene over the phone and I met her in the open area.”
“Why you?” Her voice catches on the words but her eyes are trained on the floor.
“She was hesitant to talk to Nick. We thought he was gone.”
“We agreed to be exclusive.” Kat’s voice is distant; she still won’t look at me.
“We negotiated a scene she requested. I never touched her.”
“But she was naked.”
“It’s protocol.”
“It’s intimate,” she hisses. The accusatory glare that accompanies her statement loosens the weak grip I have on controlling my possessive temper.
“You came her with Ax,” I challenge.
Her stubborn jaw sets firm as she drills me with her icy blue eyes. “And my pants are still on,” she pushes through clenched teeth. “I came here to set up a scene for Reagan. You told me you were at work today.”
“What would you have done if I told you she reached out to me?”
“I would have listened to you, Blake!” she yells. “You didn’t give me the chance to hear the situation.” Kat stares at me, her leg bouncing as if she’s getting ready to strike. “How many other times have you done this while we’ve been together?”
“None!” The pain in my body is amplified by the frustration forcing my blood to race. I can’t hold on anymore. “Kat, I’ve been on hold because you can’t decide what you want. I’m perfectly fine with giving you time to think but I have needs too. I feel like I can’t even talk to you about this because I’m afraid you’ll freak out and run. She came to me and it was a win-win situation. I could blow off some steam and refocus my attention on helping you deal with your fears that you still won’t tell me about. She needed to let go of whatever is going on with her. Right now, the people Skyler and I care about are more focused on throwing up walls than building trust. I’m not going to apologize for helping both of us.”
