A while later I have basically spilled most of the reason I am here to the poor girl TJ talked to before he left for the safety of his office.
“Is that your Ryder that just came in the door?” She ask, pointing behind me.
Turning, I see Jake. Just the person that could make this whole week worse. At least it isn’t Lyla. He finds me at the bar and strides over to me with purpose.
“Fancy meeting you here, Kat.” He spits my name like venom. He settles himself as close to me as he can. “And all by your lonesome, too. Seems tonight is my lucky night.”
Gagging I push him back, “You have high hopes and wishful thinking, if you think I will ever let you touch me.”
He grabs my wrist and squeezes until I can’t hold him back anymore and he steps back into me. Still holding my wrist in a death grip, he leans in next to my ear and tsk me. “Oh, but I will.” His hand runs through my hair pulling it to him and smelling it. “I will get you this time, no mistaking it.”
I grit my teeth to keep all the liquor down. “You are one sick and disgusting man. It’s sad really, having to force yourself on women. Can you not get anyone willing to fuck you, Jake?”
“I can have whoever I want and that just happens to be you.” He sneers in my face.
“You’re the man, huh?”
Leaving my hair to fall around my neck, his arm snakes around my lower back and pulls me in, “That’s right, sweetheart and don’t you forget it.”
“What do you think is going to happen? I will not leave with you willingly and Ryder will walk through that door at any minute. He isn’t too keen on me being alone with you.” I tell him twisting to get out of his grip.
Jake lets out this bitter, vile laugh that makes my skin crawl. “You are even more stupid than I thought. Ryder isn’t coming. I had the lovely Lyla send you those text.” He twist his face, which makes him look all the more evil, “You see she is in the same boat with him, that I am with you. She wants him, but you both are blinded by each other.”
What.The.Hell. I am starting to believe there is more to this whole him and Lyla than I thought. “What are you saying?”
“Really, Katrina? Fine I will spell it out for you. Lyla was really pissed after the first time her and Ryder slept together. You see she was a virgin, and afterwards he said he just didn’t want to be in a relationship with her. Ever since she gets him when he is done with his toys, and I get the toys.” He pulls back to see my reaction to the information he just handed over. “The first couple times it just happened that way, but then we made it into a game. Betting to see how long each girl would last. I throw my charm their way the whole time they date and when he dumps them like a sack of taters they come running to me for a shoulder to cry on, meanwhile Lyla just happens to arrive at Ryder’s.”
I can’t believe what I am hearing. He uses vulnerable women as fucking entertainment. It takes everything I have not to vomit all over him. I stand up and take a step away from him. He stares me down like I am his new plaything, ready to pounce. I reach into the inside pocket of my jacket to grab my knife. I keep it there during the winter because it takes longer to get through all the layers of clothes if it’s in my bra.
“You never learn do you?” He steps back into me and pulls my hand out with the knife, pulling it from my tight clasp. “You can’t pull that same shit on me you did last time. I told you it wouldn’t save you next time.” He snickers.
“It may not but I will!”
Jake releases me so that he can turn and see who plans on stopping him. Still standing in front of me, blocking my view I stand on my tiptoes to look over Jake’s shoulder. TJ is standing their looking like a bull ready to charge.
“Who the hell are you?” Jake dares to ask.
TJ doesn’t waste any time talking, he marches right up to Jake and gets in his face. “You don’t want to find that out. But you are about too if you don’t back the fuck up from Kat.”
“Does it bother you?”
TJ backs down a bit, then replies, “Does what bother me?”
“That she loves someone else. The fact that it will never be you in her bed, or her arms?” Jake bites out.
TJ’s doesn’t say or do anything. I watch as his chest expands and deflates several times with ragged breaths, when he finally responds, “Listen to me mother fucker, and listen good. Don’t come near Kat again. If I catch you anywhere near her, or you so much as think about her, I will make sure no one is able to find your body.”
“Fuck you, man.”
A loud HA comes from TJ just before his fist makes contact with Jake’s jaw. The bone crunching noise it makes echoes throughout the bar. Everyone has already been watching it play out, but as Jake lands on the floor, they all freeze. It feels like slow motion as I get scooped up into TJ’s arms and carried back to his office. He lays me down on the couch and brushes the hair out of my face.
“Are you ok? Did that asshole hurt you when he was grabbing at you?” He ask in a panic.
When I don’t answer fast enough he tells me not to move and rushes out of the room. I curl up on the couch holding my knees to my chest and slowly drift to sleep. Safe. Alone.
Chapter 17
My short nap is interrupted by shouting. Peeling one eye open at a time I scan the room to see where all that noise is coming from. When I don’t find anyone in TJ’s office with me I sit up and get scared shitless by the door slamming open and hitting the wall so hard drywall takes to the air. When I bring my focus back to why the door flew open my heart stops. In front of me with a look of despair on his face is Ryder. I don’t get the chance to ask him why he is even here before TJ stands in front of Ryder.
“I told you to leave. She was supposed to meet you here and instead got violated by your friend. She doesn’t need that shit.” TJ punctuates it my poking a finger in Ryder’s chest.
Ryder straightens his back up, “And I told you that I didn’t know shit about that. I saw the text on my phone and came down here as soon as I did.”
They are both in one another’s face, waiting on the other to back down. Backs rigid, necks tense.
“Enough! Both of you calm the fuck down.” I yell, getting to my feet.
TJ turns to me, softening a tad, “Why? He is the reason for everything you have been through tonight.” His eyes go to the floor before continuing, “After everything that has happened to you, the last situation you need to be put in is a guy forcing himself on you.”
“Wait, you told him about your past and I had to find out by accident.” Ryder questions. I can see the hurt on his face.
There is only one way TJ could have known about me. I turn my attention on TJ and state, “Lexi told you?”
“She wanted me to keep an eye on you tonight. I didn’t know until tonight. Please don’t be mad at her, you was never supposed to find out that I knew.” He pleads to me.
“I can’t be mad at her for looking out for me.” I pause and tell myself to breath. “Ryder isn’t lying to you. He really didn’t know about us meeting here. Jake told me that much, before you came out.” I take a step towards TJ, “Could you give us a minute. I really need to talk to him.”
He grabs my hand and gives it a gentle squeeze. “I really don’t want to, but I will. If you need me I will be right outside in the hall.”
“Ok.”
On his way past Ryder, TJ makes sure his shoulder bumps his and eyes him till the door comes in contact with the frame in a final click. Neither of us say anything for several moments, we just stand there. I have no idea what to say to him, this is the first time I have seen him in a week. This time seven days ago he was holding me in his arms, telling me that he loved me.
“I’m sorry.” His voice cracks as he says those two small words. I want to run to him and bury myself in all that is Ryder. Forget that he wouldn’t talk to me, let me be there for him like he was me. Instead he just locked himself away. With Lyla.
“That is all you have to say for yourself? Really? I’m fuc
king sorry.” I run my hands through my hair and out of nerves I start to pace. “I tell you my history, about how I came clean and everyone just turned their backs on me and that is exactly what you did, too. You didn’t even have the decency to face me, you crawled from my bed in the middle of the night while I was fast asleep and just left.”
I can tell that he is looking for the right thing to say, but in all honesty I don’t know if there is anything he could say to make me feel better about that. His hands rub over his couple day old scruff on his chin. “Katrina, I don’t know how to explain it. I lost Bethany and she was like a grandmother to me. I deal with things opposite as most people. Instead of surrounding myself with others, I hide away by myself.”
“You call being with Lyla by yourself?”
“She wasn’t there the whole week. Hell she just showed up the other night to check on me. Lyla had known Bethany since she was little, too.” He tries explaining, but all I hear are lies.
“You are telling me she came over to give her condolences? That when she answered the door all disheveled it wasn’t because the two of you had gotten frisky like old times?” I say snarky.
His eyes go round, but slowly turn to anger. “I didn’t tell you about my transgressions with her for you to throw them in my face later.”
“Ugh. That’s not what I am trying to do, but do you do deny it?” Please, do. Deny it, say that you didn’t give into her this time. Time stops as I wait for him to give me an answer, along with my heart.
“Emotions got high. We were both grieving and…”
I hold my hand up and turn away. “I take it back I don’t want to know. I was just hoping that she and Jake didn’t get their way this time.” I say weakly, shaking my head.
“I didn’t sleep with her, Katrina. She kissed me and tried, but I pushed her away. Her answering the door when you came by, that was her leaving. I told her that we would never be anything and made her leave. I didn’t know you had come by till this morning when she came by to apologize about throwing herself at me.” He exclaims taking a step toward me, one hand outstretched to me.
I back away from him so he doesn’t touch me. I know if he does I would give into his warmth, let him hold me and forget the week we have been apart without a word. “You let her in your house and long enough for her to get your phone and text me. Twice.”
“When she told me about running into you on her way out the door I yanked her in and told her to tell me exactly what she had done. I didn’t realize it was a trick until an hour ago when I checked my phone and saw the text she sent to you and came straight here.” He said in one breath. The hand that was out to me is still there and he takes another step into me.
“You checked your phone? Have you been checking it this whole week, seeing my text and calls? Listening to my voicemails? What you just didn’t think it was a big deal to not reply at all?” I say shoving his hand away.
As I do, it gives him the perfect opportunity to step completely up to me. He clasp my hands in his and hold them between us. “I’m sorry. You didn’t need to see me like that.”
“You’re kidding, right? I don’t care about that bullshit. I could have been there for you, could have held you the way you did me last week.” I point out. I bend my neck until my head rest against our hands. “Why did you abandon me? I kept telling myself that you were different than the other guys out there and you proved I can’t even trust myself.” I start to pull back, but Ryder won’t let me.
“I didn’t abandon you, I promise. I wanted and needed you there with me, but I just couldn’t. I am different. I am here and have been. If you needed me I would have come running. None of your messages sounded urgent.” Bringing our entwined hands up to his mouth he kisses each knuckle, as if to sooth the pain away.
I shove him back with all my might, and this time he lets go. “Stop with the promises! You don’t understand. I thought we were fucking perfect…you are the only man I’ve ever loved. And one day it’s just gone. You didn’t call, or answer my calls. I lost you, and it broke my fucking heart. No, it broke me.” Anger and heartbreak make my breaths come out in heaves.
“Wait. What?” Ryder ask bewildered.
“You broke me, Ryder.”
His lips turn up on each side of his mouth, “No, the part where you said you love me.”
I am stuck lightheaded at the fact he is right. I had told him I loved him, even after I had worked so hard to keep it to myself to keep from him hurting me. I thought, somehow, if I never said it aloud then it wasn’t possible for him to shatter what was left of my heart. “I won’t ever feel for someone the way I do you, but I don’t know if I can do us again. You can’t begin to understand what you did to me.”
“Don’t say that when you know it’s not true.” The hope that sparks in his eyes when he realizes that I love him vanishes. “Please, don’t give up on this.”
I blink up at him letting a lone tear escape. Ryder sweeps in and his thumb wipes it away. My eyes search out his emerald ones, “I don’t want to, but I can’t put myself out there again. I let go with you and you hurt me.”
“I didn’t think. I cannot tell you how sorry I am. I never wanted to hurt you. Hell, that is the last fucking thing I would ever want to do and I am so mad at myself because I did.” His thumbs are still rubbing back and forth on my cheek bones. “Give me another chance, Katrina. Let me be here for you. Be the one to hold you at night, to keep you. Be mine.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you. And I need you just as much as you need me. You said that I am the only man you have ever been in love with. The same goes for me darlin’.”
I raise my eyebrow up at him and smile, “You are the only guy that you have ever fell for?”
That gifts me with his full on, megawatt smile. “Well, yeah. But, what I meant…”
“I know.” I say grabbing the front of his shirt. “I was just teasing you.”
“That’s not very nice, ya know?” He states towering over me. I watch as his tongue comes out and wets his lips.
“I’m not really in the nice kind of mood.” Slowly I pull on his shirt, his lips getting closer to mine with each beat my heart takes. Just when there is nothing but the stir of our breaths in between us connecting, the door opens and TJ is standing there with his arms folded and mouth hanging open.
“You have got to be fucking shitting me, Kat. You should be tearing this guy a new one. Not about to kiss and make the fuck up.” He yells his arms flailing at his sides to make it more dramatic.
“Ugh, TJ. I can take care of myself.” I tell him. I look down as Ryder reaches over and grabs my hand and slips his fingers in with mine.
“Whatever. He’s just going to hurt you again. But go ahead. Everyone has to learn from their mistakes right?” He turns on his heel and storms down the hall towards to bar.
“He’s in love with you.” Ryder notes.
I jerk my head up to him. “No he isn’t, he is like a big brother to me. There is no way.”
“Trust me, that…” He pauses to point dramatically at the door where TJ was just standing, “was not brotherly love. Nor was the way he acted with you at Sir Goony’s.” He tugs my hand, “Come on let’s get you home.”
“Ok.” Is all I say as I follow him out of the office and into the bar, hand in hand. I look around and find TJ at mine and the girl’s usual table with a bottle of Jack and a shot glass. He catches my eyes as he throws back his head to swallows a shot. He averts his eyes just as quickly as I found them and pours him another.
Outside, I realize that both of our cars are here. Ryder sees my head going back and forth between the two and says, “We can take mine and I can bring you back for yours in the morning. If you want to that is.”
I smile at him. He really is amazingly sweet. “That’s fine.” I laugh.
“What’s so funny?” He asks.
“You are. You are acting like I am going to take off running in the other direction any minute.” I expl
ain.
After the car doors are shut, he reaches over and pulls my face to look at me. “I fucked up pretty bad with you. The one person I never saw myself running from, and I ran. I may not have realized that was what I was doing, but it was.” His gaze darts out the windshield and comes back to me, “If I do it again, I’ll lose you. I know that.”
I place my hands over his on my face. “Everyone fucks up, but you coming for me tonight, to explain everything to me, that made it right. I don’t want you or me walking on glass because we are scared. That’s not how a relationship works.”
“So you are really going to give us another chance?” He asks hesitantly.
“I think we owe it to ourselves to be happy.” I give him a peck on the lips and ask, “Don’t you?”
“Oh, sure. And I know just how to start the happiness.” His lips meet mine in a kiss so needy, so hard I am sure it could break and repair my heart at the same time.
I plug my phone in on the way to my house and hit random. The fact that ‘Alone’ by Sleeping with Sirens is the first thing that starts playing, out of the thousands of songs I have isn’t lost to me. I really need to re-evaluate my thoughts on coincidence and fate. Maybe, just maybe she isn’t the bitch I thought she was.
Walking to the front door I send a silent prayer that everyone is still out. Just me, Ryder and an empty house! Hmmm. I open the door and flick on the light. Before I can turn around Ryder’s hand are on my hips pulling me back into him. I giggle and angle my head to that I can see him, “Anxious, aren’t you?”
“Mmmmm.” Is all I get for a response. One hand roams to the front of my body and splays across my stomach. His mouth descends to the crook of my neck licking and kissing me. The hand on my hip makes a path down the front of my jeans and into my panties. When his fingers run between my folds and across the sensitive nub hidden there, my knees try to fold in. Ryder’s strong hand on my stomach hold me up as the other continues rubbing slow, deliberate circles. I bring my hand up and run my fingers through his hair, when his mouth finds mine.
From Lies to Promises Page 13
