Aww, fuck. This is going to end badly.
She has everyone’s undivided attention now. Might as well throw a brick of cocaine into a crowd of addicts. I stand up, trying to discretely adjust my jeans to hide the partial I’m sporting, and point for her to get down, but she just laughs.
“You want me to get down? When I’m having such a good time?” she yells over the music.
“Yes.” I’m dead fucking serious, but she just gives me this dreamy smile and turns away, the haze of whiskey running through her veins calling to her like a madman in a funhouse of smoke and mirrors.
She struts down the length of the bar, her ass shaking, peeking over her shoulder at me, the look in that sultry expression saying this show is all for me. She reaches the other end and blows me a playful kiss. I have to admit, it’s hot as fuck seeing her uninhibited like this. But I’m worried she’s too hammered to realize I’m not the only one she’s getting a rise out of.
Emma begins to move with the music, dancing her way back to me, her movements suggestive and erotic. My heart races into my throat as she lifts her shirt over her midriff. Several men are cat-calling at her, but I doubt she even hears them. In her mind, we’re the only ones in this little hole in the wall bar.
She slides the shirt up then pauses, looking at me slyly. I shake my head, no. But that’s exactly the reaction she wanted from me.
A second later, the shirt is gone, dropped on the bar. The amount of alcohol she’s had on so little sleep should be bringing her to her knees by now, but she’s riding that hard edge I’ve caught glimpses of, the fighter in her refusing to give in.
I shake my head and reach for my phone. I send a quick text to Jude — just the street address and a shorthand code he’ll understand from back in the day. But even as I put the phone back in my pocket I have the feeling it won’t matter, because I think this is going to go down way faster than he can get here.
Sure enough, the crowd at the bar is now three deep — where the Christ did they all come from? They’re sprouting out of the goddamn woodwork now, as Emma slips off her shoes and works at the button of her jeans. My heart’s pounding a million miles an hour, adrenaline firing through my synapsis like a shower of bullets as she undoes the zipper. Every muscle in my body stiffens, including my cock. I’ve been in the mood to fight. And in the mood to fuck. But never at the same time, not like this.
One guy whistles, then another. I ball my hands into fists as she pushes her pants down her thighs, and I can feel the testosterone in the bar pick up several notches. Goddammit. Pretty soon, these guys are going to be doing more than just cat-calling, and I’m going to have to kill some motherfuckers.
Emma lifts her feet out of her jeans and kicks them away, putting on one hell of a show in nothing but bra and panties. God, she has a beautiful fucking body. Every asshole in here is practically salivating.
The howls of delight from the on-lookers are quick in coming, but she doesn’t pay them any attention. Her eyes are locked on mine as she dances, shifting her hips to the music and rolling her shoulders, her voluptuous body curving and swaying seductively.
The barkeep hands up another shot — on the house, apparently — thanks, asshole. The last thing I needed back in the day when I was in a cocksure altered-reality was encouragement. But she has it in shitloads.
She downs the shot quickly and bends over to set it on the bar, drawing my attention — and every other set of eyes in the room — to her barely-covered ass as she runs her hands up her calves and thighs. The bridge of the song kicks in, and she gives me a sultry wink, her thumbs tucked into the slips of fabric gracing her curvy hips.
My jaw is set tight, and my eyes burn into her furiously even though I’m actually mad as fuck at myself for letting this get out of hand — but despite all of it, my cock still throbs as she looks at me, my sexy angel behaving badly. Oh, hell yeah, I want to spank that ass and do a whole lot more, but that’ll have to wait, because the hairs at the back of my neck are pricking up, and my body is already shifting gears.
The cat-calls are coming more frequently now, encouraging her to take it all off, show us your tits.
Yep, this is definitely going to end badly.
I push to the edge of the bar. “Emma, let’s go!” I growl. It’s not a request, but my voice in drowned out by loud whoops of excitement coming from the hoard of men crowding the bar. I feel the dark pull of days gone by as my muscles tighten and my breathing quickens. But there was no Emma then. This is going to be much worse.
When I brought her here for a drink to help loosen her up, this isn’t what I had in mind. I should have known better. She’s been a walking ball of pent-up emotions for days and no sleep for nights on end — a quiet storm waiting to erupt. Adding alcohol to that concoction? I might as well have doused her in gasoline and lit a match.
I search for the guys yelling the loudest, ready to break their faces on the edge of the bar, but I can’t fully take my attention from Emma. Not just because this is already getting out of control, and not just because she’s hot as sin. Knowing all these guys are seeing those gorgeous curves of hers is driving me crazy.
Not too long ago, I would have considered myself a lucky man to be privy to such a show. Hell, I’ve been known to encourage women to do stuff like this just for kicks. Another amusement to pass the time; it didn’t matter. But this heat inside me now isn’t just arousal — it’s a fury like I’ve never known. And it’s growing stronger with every second that passes, threatening to consume me.
I want all these assholes out of here. I want her all to myself. I want to rip their goddamn eyes out just for looking at her.
Emma runs her hands across her breasts, down her stomach, and traces the line of her panties down to between her legs. I don’t know whether to cup my hard cock or punch every asshole in here. But the decision is made for me.
A big dude with a bushy black beard reaches a hand out toward her, and everything shifts into slow motion as my eyes track his movement with laser focus.
Oh, fuck. Don’t do it, man.
But it’s too late.
His palm wraps around the bare skin of her leg, and I see the motherfucking light of God.
7
Emma
“Take your hand off her. Now.”
Jax’s words are almost lost to the pounding music and the shouts of other men, but even through my heady buzz, I notice how composed he seems, speaking with a quietness that seems strangely calm. Eerily calm. Too calm.
For the first time since I climbed onto the bar, I take my focus off Jax and look around. I shake my head, trying to focus on the sea of faces staring up at me, but everything is swimming together.
“Back the fuck off,” the guy responds, never removing his hand from my leg. “The lady is trying to have some fun.”
I freeze in place as he grips harder when my foot slips as I try to keep my balance. I resist the urge to kick him in the face with my other foot, because I’d probably fall flat on my ass. The room is tilting, and it feels like I’m trying to stay upright on a surfboard instead of a wide, flat wooden counter.
“Okay,” Jax says with the same strange calmness, shrugging his shoulders with a look of resignation.
The guy snorts dismissively at Jax, his fingers digging into my calf, and turns his eyes back to me.
I barely catch the motion. It happens before I have time to blink.
Jax’s body twists back to the right then forward, his hands locked together near his chest, his right elbow out, slamming into the man’s temple like a concrete tidal wave. The guy drops instantly, his chin smacking against the bar on the way down.
The man behind him rears back to take a swing, but Jax has already stepped through his swift elbow strike and is coiled into a twist to the left, wound tight like a spring. He releases, his left arm a missile ripping through the air, his fist connecting with the side of the man’s face like a sledge hammer, and I swear I hear a crack as the guy’s head snaps back. He st
umbles, flailing backward until he falls and lands on his back, out cold.
My eyes go wide as I stare in shock at the two men on the floor. I turn my gaze back to Jax, blinking slowly as I try to process the situation. What just happened?
In seconds, the mood in the bar has flipped upside down, heads turning in disbelief. The shouts from the men that I was barely noticing in my periphery have died off, and all attention is on Jax now. For a moment everything goes dead silent, just the hard rock music over the speakers echoing strangely in the stillness of the bar.
After a beat, the sound of a chair scraping against the floor ricochets through the space, and Jax lunges into action, jerking backward just as the legs of a chair whip through the air an inch from his nose. It smashes against the bar and clatters to the floor in broken shards of wood.
He dodges a punch from a wiry guy on his right and weaves away from the bar, pivoting toward a huge, red-bearded man who’s mid-swing. Jax ducks in a flash of movement, spinning as he dives to the side, and the guy misses, careening into one of the stools at the bar. Before he can right himself, Jax lands a sharp blow to the back of his neck, and the guy’s face slams into the wood near my feet so hard he bounces.
A fourth guy approaches him from behind, his massive arms spread wide to grab Jax in a crushing bear hug.
I scream out his name in panic, but Jax has already noticed. He’s moving so fast, my eyes can hardly keep up, as if his body is running through a choreography he’s practiced a thousand times, sheer muscle memory driving him.
He turns sideways and dips low, his body sliding toward the guy like a pendulum, ducking under the man’s grip. Jax’s right hip drives into the man’s thighs, and the guy folds forward just as Jax snaps his arm up from over his shoulder, wrapping around the guy’s neck. He drops into a tight crouch, and the guy spills over Jax’s back.
Jax rolls with him, his arm tightened around the guy’s throat like a vice, and the big man hits the ground with a heavy thud. I cringe, my stomach plummeting, sure I’m about to see Jax kill a man with his bare hands. But he releases the guy’s head without snapping his neck, instead springing up on his hands in a partial flip, swinging his body into the air, landing hard on the guy, his right knee slamming into the man’s solar plexus as he does. Jax follows with two brutal punches to the guy’s jaw.
The man curls into a ball, wheezing and clutching his chest.
I shriek and raise my hands to my face in horror as another guy steps in and connects his fist to the side of Jax’s face just as he starts to stand up.
Jax’s head rocks to the side as he absorbs the blow, and I don’t even know what happens next. All I see is Jax grabbing the man’s arm before he can pull it back, his leg coming up at the same time, slamming a boot into the guy’s abdomen as he twists his upper body hard to the right. A harsh pop cuts through the music, Jax lets go of his arm, and the man crumbles to the ground at Jax’s feet, clutching his elbow and screaming in pain.
A second later, two guys rush in from opposite sides, and Jax flips to his feet instantly, dodging the first guy’s blow but catching a punch to the side of his ribs from the man behind him. He takes the hit like it was nothing and drives his elbow backward without looking, the hard point smashing into the guy’s throat.
The man gurgles and goes down to his knees, his hands at his neck.
Without pausing, Jax thrusts his arm forward, and a hard smack echoes through the room as his fist connects with the face of the man in front of him. A spray of blood erupts from his nose, and red splatter slices across Jax’s face, but he doesn’t even blink, grabbing a fistful of the guy’s shirt and pulling him back, delivering a second punch followed by a rapid fire third and fourth, the guy’s body jerking with each successive blow.
I lose count of how many times Jax hits him before letting go, tossing him backward. The man falls against a table before slumping to the floor, and Jax turns his full attention to the other guy, who’s on his feet again, weaving toward him like a cobra ready to strike.
The rest of the crowd has pulled back, either waiting for an opportune moment or opting out of the fight, I’m not sure.
Jax watches the guy calmly, tracking every movement, waiting patiently. The guy sneers at him arrogantly and turns his arm over, revealing something large and metallic. My knees go weak as I see the glint of a blade.
I tear my eyes off Jax long enough to glance to either side of me — desperate for ideas, looking for any way I can help. Something he could use as a weapon. Hell, something I could use.
But Jax calmly stands in place as the guy approaches. “You don’t want to do that, man.”
“The fuck I don’t,” the man snarls. “You come into our fucking bar and think you can start this shit? I hope you enjoyed your visit, because you won’t be walking out of here.”
Jax just lets out a small laugh and shakes his head. “Yeah, that’s not how this is going to end.”
The guy bares his teeth and strides forward, blade out. In one fluid movement, Jax reaches to his right and grabs something off a table, and by the time the sound of breaking glass reaches my ears, Jax is already midair, his boot landing against the guy’s head as he completes a twist in the air, knocking the guy off his feet.
In a split second, the man’s on his back, and Jax is on top of him, the jagged edge of a broken beer bottle pressed into the left side of his throat.
“Drop the fucking knife,” he growls, flexing his arm and twisting the razor-sharp glass against the man’s neck.
I hear a clicking sound that makes my heart go still, and I slowly look over to the far side of the crowd, my worst fears confirmed.
Jax glances up at the man holding the pistol, unfazed. “You pull that trigger, and he’ll bleed out right here. One more ounce of pressure, and he’ll be dead in two minutes.”
The guy continues to aim at Jax, but his eyes dart around the room uneasily, looking for guidance. No one moves a muscle.
Jax smiles darkly, a glint of sinister amusement in his eyes. “You could ask the last guy I made this offer to, but you know… he wasn’t feeling too cooperative. He regretted that decision. Well, for two minutes, anyway. I timed it.”
The man stares at Jax for another long moment but finally lowers the weapon, and a second later the guy on the floor opens his hand, the knife clattering to the floor.
Jax picks up the knife with his free hand and stands slowly, carefully putting the toe of his boot against the broken glass as he removes his hand, a trickle of blood running down the guy’s neck as Jax straightens fully.
He’s breathing through his nose, his jaw clenched, his chest heaving. He makes eye contact with every man near him, fire burning in his gaze. There’s some uneasy shifting and livid stares — the anger in the room so heavy I can almost smell it. But no one steps toward Jax.
“You know who I am?” he calls out.
He opens the left side of his jacket and twists his torso left then right, letting everyone get a look, and their reaction is instant. I hear half a dozen murmurs of oh, fuck, and the man holding the weapon quickly stuffs it into his belt as he steps back deeper into the crowd as if he’s trying to disappear, a look of fear and regret settling onto his features. But I don’t know what they’re looking at — I just see Jax’s clothing.
Jax lets go of his jacket and lifts his foot from the broken bottle. He looks back at the guy on the floor, who has a hand around the bottle, carefully pulling it away as he shifts into a sitting position. Jax crouches down in front of him.
He touches a finger to the blood on the side of the guy’s neck and drags his finger slowly from left to right, smearing the blood into a red line across the man’s throat. When he lifts his eyes to the man’s face, his expression is ruthless. “I don’t know who the hell you are. But this my fucking bar.”
Just then, the door to the place slams open, and Jude steps in, his eyes sweeping across the room, taking in the silent crowd and the bodies on the floor. Then his eyes land o
n me, and he does a double-take, staring at me in surprise for a moment before snapping his gaze to his twin, who stands up and adjusts his jacket.
Trigg appears in the doorway behind Jude a second later, and he reaches a hand to his back as he takes in the scene.
Jax raises a hand. “It’s okay. We’re done here.”
Trigg lowers his arm slowly, but he scans the room like a hawk as Jax walks over to the booth we were sitting in and grabs my jacket.
He comes toward me, the men parting to give him wide berth. The guys nearest to the bar shift uncomfortably, and one raises his hands, palms out in supplication as he backs away.
Jax turns his attention to me, and his expression is hard and wild, absolutely feral. His eyes trail up and down my body, and I’m painfully aware I’m almost as naked as a blue jay. But there’s something intensely thrilling about the way he looks at me.
Jax slings the jacket across my shoulders and swipes my clothing from the bar then leans forward and swiftly wraps one arm around the back of my thighs, knocking me off balance as he pulls me toward him. I don’t resist as he folds me over his shoulder, the side of my ass brushing against his cheek.
He spins around and carries me toward the door, the men shifting out of his way immediately. “Show’s over,” he growls.
8
Jax
In the backseat, I cradle Emma’s head in my lap as Jude and Trigg drive us back to her and Zoey’s place. She passed out almost as soon as Trigg started the car. I can’t believe she stayed conscious even that long. Five — no, six shots plus the hot toddy. She’s going to be feeling that tomorrow. But at least for now, she’s asleep.
The guys have been silent the whole way, but Jude turns to look at me as we pull up in front of the apartment.
“Got your text a little too late, brother,” he says.
Broken Process Page 5
