Noah gave me a fleeting glance before he went after David, and I saw the rage that flamed behind his darkened eyes like red serpents licking a velvet sky. His shoulders heaved with angry breaths, his body tensed and ready to strike. I had never seen him look so fearsome.
He stalked toward the place where David lay among the debris trying to regain his bearings, but before he could get to his feet, Noah was there. Noah grabbed David’s collar and drew his fist back, and then a loud crack echoed through the room when he landed the first blow to David’s face.
David retaliated by grabbing Noah and throwing him back far enough to allow himself time to get to his feet. Blood spilled from his lip, and his face was swollen and discolored to an angry red. Then a battle cry clawed its way out of David’s chest and he ran full force toward Noah, hooking him around the waist and driving him into the wall behind him.
“Noah!” I screamed as I got to my feet. I ran at them and jumped on David’s back, wrapping my arms around his neck to put him in a choke hold. Admittedly, I probably didn’t pose much of a threat. David proved that when he grabbed me and pulled me off his back to throw me back onto the floor.
It was the distraction Noah needed. He threw another punch, this one striking David’s rib cage. David doubled over and Noah took the opportunity to land an uppercut to his chin, sending him flying back again.
When he crashed onto the floor, David’s head lolled to the side and his body went limp. His face was bloodied and bruised, but that didn’t keep Noah from continuing his attack. He straddled David and kept pummeling him over and over again. When he was satisfied David had no more fight left in him, he shook out his swollen hand and stood, looking down at his foe with disgust.
He turned toward me, his face quickly morphing from anger to heart-clenching concern, and then he knelt beside me. “Are you okay, kitten?”
Everything, the whole weight of the situation, finally hit home and I sobbed uncontrollably. David knew everything, and that still wasn’t enough. No, he hated Noah so much, he was going to rape me just to destroy him. He was going to rape me.
I clutched Noah’s shirt in my fists and pulled him to me so I could bury my head in his chest. “He wanted me to … And I couldn’t do that to you, and he was going to …”
“Shh, shh, shh,” Noah said, cradling me in his arms. “I know, kitten. It’s okay. I’m here now, and I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
Oddly, it wasn’t the fact that I had nearly been raped that had me so upset. Sure, that had a lot to do with it, but David hadn’t gotten the opportunity to follow through on his threat. Noah had protected me, just like he had promised he would. What was most upsetting was the fact that David knew everything and would stop at nothing to see Noah a broken man.
It wasn’t fear for my own well-being that had me so distraught; it was fear for Noah’s.
I saw movement out of the corner of my eye just before heavy footsteps made a mad dash for the door. It was David, and he was running away. Noah turned me loose and made to go after him, but I pulled him back.
“No, you can’t!” I yelled, holding on to him with all my might.
“He’s getting away,” Noah said, trying to pull my hands loose.
Grabbing his face, I forced him to look at me. “He knows, Noah. He knows everything.”
And just like that, our perfect little bubble had popped.
9: I Sort of Like Dez
Noah
Samuel had just dropped me off at the front of the house with my briefcase and a bouquet of flowers for my girl in hand. I stared in confusion when I noticed we had a visitor, and I knew for a fact it wasn’t Dez. David Stone’s Viper was parked in plain sight, and for just a moment, my mind flashed back to the day I had found him ass-fucking my would-be fiancée in my bathroom.
All I could think was, Please, not her.
My knuckles tightened around the bouquet in my hand until my senses brought me back to the fact that Lanie wasn’t that slut Julie and she would never do anything of the sort to me.
Still, the fear was there. Had I let my guard down only to be fucked over again?
Haunted by the desolation that replayed like a wavy vinyl disc under the needle of an old phonograph, I found it hard to force my feet forward. It was as if they had been fastened down with cement blocks to the rocky bottom of a murky river, cutting off the freedom required to swim to the surface for a much-needed breath of air. My heart was giving me a pep talk like a motherfucker, but the agony over the possibility that Lanie could have fallen under David’s mysterious spell overshadowed the trust I had given to her so easily. What the fuck did women see in him?
I was bitch-slapped out of my morbid thoughts when a bellow came from somewhere inside the house.
“You bitch!” It was David’s voice, outraged and laced in venom.
The bouquet and my briefcase tumbled to the ground at the next sound, and the hair on the back of my neck stood at attention.
Lanie’s scream was a desperate plea, and I took the front steps in giant leaps. Without a second thought, I threw myself against the door, my body numb to the pain I should’ve felt in my frantic attempt to get to her.
The violent scene was displayed before me; my girl had obviously been knocked to the ground by that piece of shit motherfucker. Her cheek had a huge bruise beginning to rise, and it was obvious that a heavy hand had landed there mere seconds before. Tears streamed down her cheeks and her eyes were squeezed shut.
He put his fucking hands on my girl!
My heart was seized by a myriad of emotions that seemed to take on a life of their own. As they took shape, a full spectrum of colors clouded my eyesight and rendered me helpless to the maniacal beast that lay dormant within. Horrific greens morphed into sodden blues of terror. Violent midnight shifted to an outraged orange consumed by disgust until my vision was inflamed with a demonic red that burned white-hot with the intensity of rage. And then finally everything went black with the vengeance every microscopic cell in my body needed to claim.
“Get the fuck off her!” I barely registered my own movement before I had David’s clothes clenched in my fists and had thrown him across the room, away from my girl. Lanie looked up at me, and everything inside screamed for me to provide the comfort I knew she needed, but the driving force to make David pay for what he had done won the battle.
Fury consumed me until I was possessed with no control over my own body. Fists were thrown and connected, my back was slammed against a wall, and then Lanie leaped across the room and landed on David’s back. It was when he swatted her away like she was nothing but an insignificant gnat that I snapped like a rubber band that had been stretched beyond its limit. I’d had enough of wrestling around with him like two scrawny boys grappling for dominance on a school playground. I was out for blood. I meant to beat him to a pulp until the very life force that kept the pathetic excuse for a human being alive was sucked out of him.