I had to stop it.
It wasn’t even a conscious thing, honestly, I just reacted. From the time I was two years old, Dad had taught me martial arts. Every morning before dawn we ran through the katas, and once a week I went with Dad to his gym to spar. I never really cared about belts or anything, because I did it for Dad more than anything, but I’d passed the second-degree black belt test, on Dad’s insistence.
So I knew I could handle myself, and jumping in to stop a fight was just second nature. I had the skills, so I was obliged to use them when necessary in the defense of others—another lesson Dad had impressed on me, growing up.
So when the fists started flying, I went in.
I blocked Sebastian’s right cross and redirected his momentum aside, sending him stumbling, and then spun to face Zane, who already had his own punch rocketing toward where Sebastian had been—and where I now was. I twisted to dodge it, stepped inside Zane’s reach, caught his off-hand and twisted against the joint in a wrist-lock.
The plan had been to spin him around and shove him away to separate the brothers, but I underestimated the snake-fast speed of Zane’s instinctive reaction to the wrist-lock. The man was a Navy SEAL for fuck’s sake…what had I expected? He simply accepted the pain of the wrist-lock and slammed the heel of his palm into my chest, right against my diaphragm. Knocked the wind out of me, sent me stumbling, gasping for breath. It wasn’t a hard hit, and had been instinctive, the result of hundreds of hours of practice.
Before I could react, he had his fingers around my throat, cutting off my breath and lifting me clear off the floor a solid inch. “Who the fuck is this bitch, Bast?”
Of course, my training had obviously covered how to counter a hand around the throat, and I wasn’t about to be choked out or intimidated, SEAL or not. I grabbed his hand in both of mine, twisted to break his grip, wrenched his arm around behind his back, spinning him in place, and then brought my knee up between his legs as hard as I could.
Which dropped his big soldier ass to the floor, post-haste.
I crouched beside Zane, who was writhing on the floor in agony. “My name is Dru Connolly. And if you ever call me a bitch again, I’ll rip your fucking balls off, do you understand me?”
He nodded, cupping his balls with both hands, struggling for breath.
I felt two hands grab my shoulders and pull me away. My first instinct was to start breaking bones, but then I realized it was Sebastian, so I let him pull me a few feet backward.
I twisted in place and stared up at him. “You said your brother was ugly, not that he was a complete asshole.”
Sebastian’s lips quirked. “I think I also said not to expect much by way of manners from him.”
“True.” I noticed then that Sebastian’s lip was split, and he was trickling blood from his nose. “You’re hurt. Come here.”
Another instinctive reaction, happening without conscious thought. I pulled him over to the bar and sat him down in a chair. There was a clean white towel sitting on the bar, folded in quarters; I grabbed it, stuffed some ice from the service bar into it, and touched it to the puffy, swollen, split open lump on Sebastian’s lip, and then used one of the dangling corners to dab at his nose. I wasn’t sure what came over me, honestly. Even as I was doing it, it felt odd. Unlike me. Yet also oddly…right. And familiar.
Which freaked me the fuck out.
I don’t have much of a nurturing instinct, and never have. Or, at least, I never thought I did. Michael sliced open his finger cutting bell peppers once, and my idea of nurturing him then had been to toss him a roll of paper towels and tell him not to bleed on the peppers. That cut had required four stitches, and the man had been my fiancé. Now, a man I’d met the night before got into a fistfight with his own brother and got a split lip and bloody nose for the trouble, and I was wifing on him so hard my ovaries were wondering if it was baby time.
I blinked up at him as I realized what I was doing, and that he was staring down at me with those wild warm intense brown bear eyes, exuding heat and sexuality.
I stepped back abruptly. “Thanks. For the clothes, I mean. And…for—for last night. You were a true gentleman, and I—yeah. Thanks.” I turned away, moved past the still gasping and writhing Zane for the exit.
I made it to the door, had my hand on the knob.
“Wait.” Sebastian’s voice halted me. It was a growled order, rumbling so low and so powerfully I had no chance of resisting.
I couldn’t move. I felt him come up behind me, felt him grab me and spin me around. “Why’d you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Jump in like that.”
I shrugged. “Instinct. I told you already, my dad is a cop and a former Marine, and I’m his only kid, so he taught me everything he knows and then some.”
Sebastian was too close. “You kicked my brother’s ass, and he’s a Navy SEAL.”
“I wouldn’t say I kicked his ass, but even Navy SEALs are still men with sensitive balls.”
“He didn’t mean it. The choking or the bitch comment.”
“Felt like it, in both cases. And I don’t take being called a bitch any better than I do having a man put his hands on me against my wishes.”
“You wrist-locked me.” This was from Zane, behind us both. “It was muscle-memory instinct.”
I stepped past Sebastian. “Yeah, and what about calling me a bitch?”
He was on his feet, albeit gingerly, and limped over to me. “That was uncalled for, and I apologize. I was pissed off, and you got in the way of it.” He held his hand out for me to shake. “Can we start over? I’m Zane Badd.”
I shook his hand. “Dru Connolly.”
Zane glanced past me to Sebastian. “Since when you do you do girlfriends, Bast?”
“I’m not his girlfriend,” I said, before Sebastian could answer.
“Not yet,” Sebastian murmured under his breath, just loud enough for me to hear.
“Not ever,” I said, shame and embarrassment over my behavior last night blasting through me. “I need to find a flight back to Seattle.”
Sebastian frowned down at me. “Why?”
“Because nobody knows where I am. I sort of ran away on the spur of the moment, and I—”
Zane spoke up, then. “Sorry, sweetheart, but you’re not going anywhere.”
I whirled on him, ready to get pissed all over again if he was trying to order me around. “And why not?”
He leaned past me and pulled open the door, revealing a torrential downpour, and then let the door close. “My flight here landed just barely ahead of this storm, and I heard the pilots saying all flights were going to be canceled for at least the rest of the day, if not longer. This storm is huge, and nasty.”
“Shit.” I turned away from both men and moved to sit at the bar. “I’ve got to call Dad at the very least. ”
Sebastian pushed Zane toward the door to the upper level. “Come on, we’ll talk upstairs.”
When they were gone, I pulled out my phone and unlocked it. Sixteen missed calls, nine voicemails, and forty-seven texts.
Fourteen of the calls, seven of the voicemails, and forty-two of the texts were from Dad, everything else from Michael.
Really? He had the balls to try and get hold of me after what he did? Dumbass.
I was tempted to delete everything from Michael unheard and unread, but I didn’t—I couldn’t. I’d been with him for four years, and couldn’t just dismiss him that easily, as much as I wanted to. I was still in shock, I think, still mentally and emotionally processing what had happened, what I’d seen.
Yet another reason to keep my distance from a man like Sebastian Badd. I knew the old adage about the best way to get over someone was to get under somebody else, but I didn’t roll that way. It wouldn’t work. No amount of casual fucking could erase four years of my life with Michael. No matter how spectacularly Sebastian might fuck me, it wouldn’t fix my broken heart.
It would be fucking spectacular, though�
�or, should I say spectacular fucking.
Shit. I was not supposed to be thinking about how good Sebastian would be in bed.
Bad Dru. I wasn’t fucking him. I was going to go back home and deal with the mess that was my life.
The problem was, I didn’t want to go back home. I didn’t want to walk the Seattle streets and see our favorite restaurants and bars. I’d have to go back to my condo. I’d smell him on my sheets, and I’d have his toothbrush in my bathroom, and his pubes in my shower drain, and his size medium condoms in my bedside table, and his clothes in the drawer I’d given him. He was woven into every facet of my entire fucking life, and I didn’t have the slightest clue how to unravel it all.
Against my own will, my thumb tapped the messages app, and brought up the text message thread with Michael.
Dru, it wasnt what you think., please call me!!!!
She meant nothing to me baby i swear. It was a moment of stupidity please please please forgive me! Ill do anythng!
There were three more texts in the same vein, each more desperately misspelled and unpunctuated than the last. I didn’t respond to any of them, but I knew he’d get the ‘read’ receipts. He’d know I saw them, which meant I’d be hearing from him at some point. No way I was ready for that, so I pulled up the voicemails and listened to the ones from Michael first.
In the first one he sounded frantic, desperate, a little crazy. “Baby, baby—you gotta call me back. I know what you saw, and it’s not like you think. It was just that once. We can fix this, Dru, I know we can. I love you.”
Delete.
“Dru, baby. I’m so sorry.” He sounded calmer in this one, and honestly close to tears. “I screwed up. I know I did. I just—I wish you’d give me a chance to explain.”
Explain your cock in Tawny’s blown-out pussy, asshole.
Delete.
When I finally drummed up the courage to open Michael’s last voicemail, it wasn’t what I was expecting. “I’m guessing you won’t listen to this, and if you do, you won’t call me back. I get it. I was an asshole. Nobody has any clue where you are and we’re all worried. It’s not like you to just vanish. At least call your dad so he stops panicking. I think if you don’t let him know where you are soon, he’s gonna make me disappear, and I’m not entirely sure that’s a joke.” He sounded lucid, but drunk. “There’s so much I could say, but I’ve been drinking and I’m not gonna say it in a voicemail. I just—I know I messed up, but—fuck. Your dad’s calling again. Hopefully somebody will hear from you at some point, Dru. We’re all worried. So…bye, I guess.”
I didn’t delete that one. Not sure why, honestly. I just…couldn’t.
Something wet dripped from the end of my nose onto the bar top.
What the fuck? I refused to cry about that bastard again. Not anymore.
He wasn’t worth wasting any more time or thought or energy on. Nobody was ever going to be faithful; Mom left Dad and me when I was eleven, cleaned out the bank account and split with some dude on a Harley. I remember it. She had a backpack, a too-big helmet, and walked out of the house, climbed onto the back of a rumbling Harley, wrapped her arms around the rider, a big, burly, hairy beast of a man, and they left, just like that. Dad stood beside me on the front porch, watching, utterly shell-shocked.
It had come totally out of left field. Dad had joined the Marines at eighteen, had spent twenty years in the Corps, and had finally retired. He hadn’t been sure what he was going to do, and had been at loose ends. Money wasn’t tight, but we weren’t flush, either. We’d had a nice house, a decent car, food to eat, enough extra cash to go to the movies now and then, out to eat maybe. I remember Dad being home a lot, and Mom working at a diner to put a little more cushion in the bank until Dad figured out his next career.
And then, without a word, without a reason, without so much as a single argument or blowout, Mom just…left.
It had scarred both Dad and me for life. Dad never dated again, and I’d always found it impossible to trust anyone except Dad. I never really had many friends, never really dated all that much. I got into lots of trouble in high school, of the drinking and smoking pot and fucking boys in the back of cars variety, but that was because I was angry and confused. I didn’t have a mom to show me how to be a woman, and Dad had his career as a cop by then, so there wasn’t anyone to tell me no. None of the boys I ever fucked meant anything. It was what troublemakers did, and it was—believe me when I say I get how fucking cliché this is—a cry for attention.
I met Michael my junior year of college. He was a few years older than me, cool, laid-back, good-looking, had an intact nuclear family, mom, dad, brother, sister. He wasn’t exactly close to his siblings, but he had them and saw them regularly. His dad was an asshole and his mom was a drunk, but he had them, both together in the same house, still married. It was odd, for me. We’d go over to his house, the same one he grew up in his whole life—unlike me, a Corps brat who’d been to six different elementary schools between kindergarten and fifth grade—and we’d sit around the dinner table with his whole family, and they’d argue and bicker and drink too much and sometimes Michael and his brother would nearly come to blows after too much red wine, but they’d always hug before Michael and I left, and he’d hug his mom and dad and sister too, and it was just…so weird. It made no sense to me. They were dysfunctional, sure, but in a normal way.
My mom had abandoned me. I’d been more independent at twelve than most college kids. I made my own breakfast, packed my own lunch, and usually made dinner for Dad, too. I did my homework without being told, and most of the housework. I could take a bus from home to the precinct, and did so regularly. I’d routinely accept rides to and from school or to the station from Dad’s cop buddies, which meant climbing into the passenger seat and playing with the radio and turning on the siren if they got a call.
I could shoot a gun better than most rookies, knew a dozen different ways to break someone’s wrist, and owned my own Taser. Which I’d once used on a guy on a bus who was trying to cop a feel on fourteen-year-old me.
My dad was big, gruff, cynical, tough, intimidating. He once arrested a boy I’d been fooling around with—the kid had wanted me to blow him and I’d said no, and he’d gotten a little handsy in his teenage displeasure. Unfortunately for Billy Price we’d been in his car outside my house, and Dad had been watching. Honestly, Billy had been lucky Dad hadn’t pepper sprayed him. He’d been cuffed, booked for assault, and had spent the night in the holding cell with the drunks before Dad let him out. I hadn’t needed Dad’s intervention, but I hadn’t been upset about it either.
Then along came Michael and his normal family and his affectionate-but-not-clingy ways, his not-impressive-but-decent cock, his not-impressive-but-decent ability to last for more than five seconds in bed, and the fact that he’d claimed to love me. He’d pick me up from work at the law firm, take me to dinner, buy me roses, take me to the movies or a concert, and we’d have sex and wake up and have breakfast, and he’d go to work in the marketing division of Amazon and I’d go to work in the small but intense firm where I was a law clerk, and that was life. He seemed happy. I’d thought I was happy.
He proposed over dinner at a swanky restaurant, and we planned the wedding. We’d planned it to be small, just his family and closest friends. Dad and I didn’t really have anyone except Dad’s cop buddies since we didn’t give a shit about Mom’s family, and Dad was the only child of long-dead parents.
I never questioned Michael. He didn’t stay late at work, didn’t keep his phone under his pillow or text at odd hours or take secretive phone calls. There was no lipstick on his collars, no perfume I didn’t recognize on his body.
The lipstick on the collar thing, though—does that actually happen? How do you get lipstick on a guy’s collar? Are you kissing his shirt?
Point is, there weren’t any warning signs.
We had regular sex. He never acted weird. He wasn’t super possessive or jealous, never obviously checked out o
ther chicks…
Then…on our wedding day, he fucked Tawny Howard in his dressing room.
If I hadn’t caught him, would he have married me? Taken me to bed on our honeymoon with Tawny’s pussy juice all over his dick?
I shuddered, since now I had no clue what else he’d been up to—or, rather, who else he’d been up in. We never had sex without protection, since I wasn’t on birth control—I had regular, not-very heavy periods and hated the way birth control messed with my hormones. I was glad for that, now, because it meant I was clean even if he was a cheating bastard whore.
I felt another tear trickle down my cheek, and then another. He’d probably been cheating on me the whole time, I’d just been too stupid to see it. I’d made the conscious effort to trust him after he’d told me he loved me. He’d said it first, without any pressure from me. It hadn’t even felt forced, or unnatural, or fake. I’d believed him. And I’d let myself feel like I was in love with him, too. I’d put blind faith in him, which had gone against every instinct I’d ever had. I hadn’t wanted to trust him, hadn’t wanted to fall in love with him. But I’d made myself trust him because, as I told myself, if I didn’t choose to trust someone eventually, I’d go through life alone, like Dad. Who was sad, lonely, and difficult, except where I was concerned.
Speaking of Dad…I opened our iMessage thread and started reading through the backlog.
Dru? Where the shit are you, girl?
Seriously. Call me. NOW.
WHErE THE fUCk DID YOU GO?!
DRU EMMALINE CONNOLLY CALL YOUR FATHER FUCKING PRONTO!
The texts got increasingly angry and frightened, until the last few were nearly unintelligible. The voicemails were worse. He sounded absolutely terrified, and for a guy who’d done a tour in Iraq and patrolled the worst parts of Seattle every night, that said something.
Shit.
SHITSHITSHIT.
I’d fucked up.
Mom had left him for no reason, and now I had, too, or at least I was assuming it must have felt like that. I mean, I’d told Rolando to tell him I’d call him, but for someone who’d already had his wife abandon him, it had to have felt like a betrayal. Like a knife to the heart.