“You piece of shit . . . is that all you got? Only way you can get a woman is by forcing her? Huh? Is that how the game is played by pussies with nonexistent dicks? Or is it just so small no one knows it’s there?”
I knew I was taunting him. Enraging him more. Inciting him to keep pounding on me.
But that was just fine.
Only thing I was doing was buying time.
Because the girl had already dialed 9-1-1, shouted out her address, had given the vile piece of shit’s name.
She’d be safe.
That was all that fucking mattered.
I tried not to wince when I saw him cock back his fist, his knuckles going straight for my temple. This shit was gonna hurt. Probably knock me out flat.
She was worth it. She was worth it. She was worth it.
Sirens whirled in the distance, coming closer and closer.
She would be safe. She would be safe.
But that fist never met its mark. The asshole howled in agony. He flew off me, catching air, tumbling across the floor before he was bent over on his knees, clutching the side of his head. Blood poured out from between his fingers and dripped to the carpet.
I squinted, wondering if I was having some kind of hallucination. The perfect kind. The one where the most gorgeous girl I’d ever seen was standing above me. That chestnut hair matted, mangled with blood. Chest heaving. A huge glass vase gripped in both her hands, an enormous crack zigzagging down the middle of it, and a river of fractures splintering out.
Outside, engines roared. By the sound of it, at least three cruisers came to a screeching stop in front of Rynna’s house. Feet pounded and voices shouted.
Seconds later, they were piling into her house, shouting for everyone to freeze.
Rynna dropped the vase. It finally gave up its fight with the impact, shattering into a thousand pieces when it hit the floor. Just as Rynna was doing the same. Dropping to her knees and hitting the floor.
Sobs wracked her body when she realized it was over.
That she was safe.
Right then? It was the absolute only thing that mattered.
21
Rynna
“Thanks again, man,” Rex said to Seth, the last officer at my house. He was a guy Rex had apparently known since high school, someone Rex considered a friend.
“Just, stay safe,” Seth said, glancing between the two of us before he ambled down my porch steps and slipped into the driver’s seat of his Ford sedan and pulled away.
Timothy Roth had been fired this afternoon. Apparently, my complaint of sexual harassment hadn’t been the first he’d received. Apparently, when his wife found out the reason for his termination, she’d kicked him out.
His wife.
I trembled at the thought of it, at the arrogance and stupidity of the man and how much worse it could have been.
The taillights of Seth’s patrol car splashed another dose of red into the blaze of reds and oranges and purpled blues that twisted into the sunset as he accelerated down the narrow neighborhood road.
Then it was as if the dial had been turned up on the silence.
So loud it was profound.
As loud as Rex Gunner’s presence that eclipsed all.
A thunder.
A thriving, living being.
His gruff voice cut into the tension. “Don’t like that you refused treatment. You sure you don’t want me to give Kale a call?”
I chanced looking over at him where he stood behind me on the far side of the deck.
My savage savior.
Streaks of blood were dried on his face, and a small gash oozed from the corner of his eye. His clothes were tattered, soiled with sweat and blood, his hair a mess, body still bristling with remnants of pent-up rage.
My lungs inflated at the mesmerizing sight of him. Every part of me expanded. Reaching toward him.
“You’re worried about me?” I managed. “You’re the one who came to my rescue. The one who put himself on the line. Again. I can’t . . . what if . . .”
His head angled and his shoulders rolled back, and the man took a powerful step forward.
The energy spiked.
“You think I’m not worried about you?” It almost sounded like an accusation. He took another step forward, the man a raging tower of protection. “You think I wouldn’t do it all over again? You think I would have let him hurt you?”
He was suddenly in front of me. My breath gone when he stood over me.
An imposing, conquering shadow.
Eclipsing the fear that had taken me hostage. If it weren’t for Rex, today would have ended in an entirely different way.
He lifted his fingers and brushed back a chunk of hair stuck to my cheek. His words rumbled like a threat. “I wanted to kill him, Rynna. He was going to hurt you, and I wanted to kill him. I would have. Second I saw you were in trouble, my heart was screaming out to protect you. To protect what belonged to me. To shelter what was mine.”