Adrenaline sending electrical currents through my body, I played chicken with a car as I burst out the opening of the street, charging out in front, feeling the front light grazing my hip as I flew past it.
There was no time to take satisfaction in the curses behind me, knowing the car was a small obstacle, knowing I had only gained a couple dozen yards at best.
But I was almost there.
Lungs in a vice, I went behind the building, knowing the front would be closed. It was late. After hours.
Even if I could get to the bell and ring it, the chances of being grabbed before the door could be answered were too high.
I found the door nestled down an alley, just a gray steel thing that looked like it led into what seemed like an old, abandoned building.
But I knew where it led.
To his small apartment.
My arms rose, both fists pounding desperately, faster even than my heartbeat was thundering in my ears.
"King!" I screamed from somewhere deep inside, a sound I had never heard before.
Terrified.
Desperate.
"King!" I screamed, louder, not caring that I was giving myself away. It was all over if he didn't open the door anyway.
There was nothing more beautiful in the world than the sound of the lock turning on the other side.
Except, maybe, the sight of the man who yanked it open.
I shouldn't have been able to appreciate him. Not in a moment like this. But, quite frankly, there was no way you couldn't admire one of the Rivers Brothers when they were standing before you. I didn't care if I was being stabbed to death, my internal organs being pulled out and played with.
If King or Nixon or Atlas or Rush were standing somewhere nearby, I was pretty sure my last worldly thoughts would be about how beautiful they were.
And they were.
And he was.
Perhaps the most beautiful of them all.
The oldest, time etched his lines more sharply - the strength of his jaw, the cuts of his cheekbones, the razor's edge of his brows.
Beautiful.
"Savvy?" his voice asked about a split second before I threw myself at him.
Now, I had dreamed of throwing myself at a one Mr. Kingston Rivers more than a few times. More often than I ever cared to mention. He was related - in a very convoluted way - to one of my best friends, I had spent many a nights drooling over these men, this man in particular.
In almost all of these dreams, there was nudity involved.
Not a soaked body.
Okay, well, sometimes a soaked body.
But no fear turning my belly upside down.
"Fuck," he hissed, slamming and locking the door behind me, reaching behind me with one hand as the other held onto my hip as my arms, well, clung to him.
Not in the sexy way I had pictured them many times before. But in absolute crippling fear.
"What's going on?" he asked, voice concerned, but firm at the same time as the light flicked on overhead, as his hands sank into my hips, pushing me away, pressing me against a wall.
I don't need to mention here about the wall-pressing fantasies, right? Because those existed too.
"Christ, you're shaking. What happened?"
"Men," was the only intelligible sound that escaped me as he stood there, worry seeping from those deep, chocolate brown eyes.
My hand pressed to my heart, sure it was steadily thrusting itself roughly enough against my ribcage to attempt to bust right through.
"Men? Men were chasing you?" he guessed, glancing over toward the door for a second before landing back on me.
My head jerked up and down. "Two? Or three..." I added, not sure if the other had left Harry to follow me too.
I imagined witnesses to their illegal activity were maybe more important than Harry's beating.
"Okay. Deep breaths," he demanded softly, pressing a hand in the center of my chest, his wide palm making it so that both his thumb and his pinkie were grazing either of my breasts, something I absolutely should not have been noticing. Not at a time like this. But when you imagined a man's hands on your breasts for years, you noticed it when it happened. Even if only for a second.
Okay... two.
Three tops.
Finally, I sucked inward, feeling my chest shake with the new air, but finding it clearing some of the terror from my brain, allowing thoughts to move freely once again.
Swallowing past my dry mouth, I found the words that needed to be said. "They were beating my boss."
"And they saw you," he added.
"Yes."
"And chased you."
"Yes."
"Where were you?"
"At work."
"Work is closed," he reasoned.
"I forgot the lettuce!"
Yep.
And that was the moment when my overwrought system decided to exorcise its emotions in the most humiliating way possible.
Tears.
Nope.
Not just tears.
Sobs.
"Okay," King said, voice soft as his arms closed around me - one low at my hips, pulling me to his chest, one behind my head, holding me there. "Alright. It's okay. Did they hurt you?" The shake was about all I could manage. "Good. It's alright. We'll handle this. I'll handle this," he clarified.