By the time we enter the bar, I’m in full on panic mode. My heart is racing, and I feel like I can’t breathe. I scan the room for Ryder, hoping, praying he is here, but all I see are unknown faces.
Maddox drags me through the bar area by my arm, and I’m reminded of the very first time I was here. The same fear I felt then is coursing through my veins now.
We get to the back of the bar, and that’s when I finally see him. Ryder is sitting at one of the tables, his hand wrapped around a beer bottle in front of him. He looks up, and his eyes find mine immediately.
“Ryder has finally agreed to share,” Maddox announces. “This is going to be her last night here, so make it count, boys.”
Appreciative cheers erupt around us while Ryder sits still like a stone statue.
For a split second, I think he is going to jump up and rip me away from his friend. I think he’ll save me, protect me like he promised, but he doesn’t move. His face giving nothing away. His glassy eyes void of emotions.
Hopelessness washes over me, threatening to pull me into the darkest waters to drown.
Maddox shoves me into the crowd, and hands I don’t know grope me. I try to get away, fight them off, but that only makes them grab me harder.
“There she is! I’ve been waiting for you, sweets,” someone slurs. I squeeze my eyes shut when he presses his face into the crook of my neck, licking my skin there.
I recoil, bile rising in my throat, making the man only laugh louder. Someone else comes up behind me and grinds himself against my ass. Another hand grabs my breast, kneading it painfully. A sob rips from my throat, and tears spring from my eyes.
“Cry for us,” someone whispers in my ear. “Makes my cock hard.”
A hand shoves into my pants, cruel fingers running over my panties, digging painfully into my sensitive flesh. I want to keep fighting, want to be strong and brave, but I know there is no use. That will only make it worse.
So, I do the only thing I can. I stop fighting, stop thinking, stop being present in this room. I let my mind go blank, letting darkness surround me. The voices get further away, their touch less painful. I’m about to be gone, in the place I visit during my darkest hours.
Just before I close myself off completely, something happens around me. The fingers between my legs disappear, the hands groping my breasts vanish, and I’m moved around the room forcefully.
I’m slammed against a brick wall, hard enough to knock the air out of me. Before I have the chance to regain my bearings, a large hand wraps around my throat, holding me in place.
My hands come up, pressing against the chest of my attacker, but he moves as much as the wall behind me would.
My eyes fly open, but I can’t see anything besides the dark fabric covering the shoulder right in front of me. I suck in a breath, taking in a familiar male scent.Ryder.
“Calm the fuck down,” he growls. His lips so close, I can feel his breath against the shell of my ear.
As soon as I hear his voice, my fingers curl into his shirt, pulling him closer instead of shoving him away.
His grip around my neck is firm, but not enough to make it hard to breathe. Instead of me panicking more, it calms me.
His body is pressed up against mine, and only then do I realize what he is doing. With the wall behind me, there is only him. He surrounds me, and no one can touch me—no one but him.
To everyone else, it might look like he is scaring me, choking me, crowding my space. But Ryder knows how to use his body to soothe my fears, and that’s exactly what he is doing.
I relax into his hold, trusting him with my body, believing that he is going to protect me from everything bad.
I don’t fight him when he pulls me away, and I don’t fight him when he picks me up and throws me over his shoulder.
Wherever he is taking me, whatever he is going to do, I know I’ll be safe.