HANNAH
I sure did know how to make a fucking mess! Feeling like shit over walking away from Brandon, I didn’t see Carter standing in the bus terminal. I saw Shark drive away, leaving me to live with my decision, and I stepped onto the bus.
Carter jumped on right behind me. Calling me baby, he made a big ruckus about how I was on the wrong bus and that our honeymoon was in Vegas. The few people on the bus didn’t even look up when I tried wrenching myself out of his grasp. He managed to get me off the bus before he threw me over his shoulder. He hollered something about heading off on our honeymoon, and carried me over to his bike. No matter how much wiggling and screaming I did, it didn’t matter. A couple laughed as he walked us past them, commenting on how his bride liked to roleplay.
The only reason I didn’t jump off his bike was because he had my wrists tied around his waist. My face pressed right up against his dirty leather jacket the whole time. I twisted this way and that, but I couldn’t get the right leverage. It occurred to me to try to tip the bike, take us both down, but then I remembered Hunter. I didn’t need two murders on my hands.
“You awake?” Carter kicked open the door of the tiny room he’d shoved me in. I leaned against the headboard of the twin bed, my wrists were sore from the rope he kept them tied with. Trying to wiggle free of them had only resulted in rope burns around my wrists.
“I haven’t slept.” I turned my head away from him. My lips burned when I moved them, the bottom lip had split open when he backhanded me the night before. I wouldn’t open my mouth for his cock so he spent his energy smacking me around, and then he tore off my panties and did what he wanted anyway. And that’s how he left me, laying on the bed, ass naked, and a swollen face.
He walked over to me with a tray, putting it on the TV stand near the bed. I didn’t look over at it, but it smelled like shit. “Let me see your face.” He sat on the bed, pulling my chin toward him. I wanted to spit in his face, but I was too tired to gather up enough saliva. “Fuck, you swell up good. Next time I tell you open your mouth, you open up. Got it?”
I turned my eyes to see what the foul smell on the plate was, completely ignoring him. Never again would I willingly open my mouth or my legs for anyone I didn’t want to. “I think those eggs are rotten.” I winced at the pain in my jaw.
He picked up the plate and sniffed them, making a face. “You might be right. But that’s all you have, so eat if you’re hungry, or don’t. I don’t much care.” He got up from the bed, shifted his dick in his pants and looked me over. “Starting to get a little worn out. Rest up, I’ll be back in an hour. Need to try Hunter again.” He took his phone out and started dialing.
I groaned and slid down on the bed until my head hit the flat pillow. Hunter. He didn’t know about Hunter yet. Maybe he just didn’t want to admit what he already knew. The asshole was dead. And I killed him. If he knew that part of the story, I wouldn’t have been suffering from just a split lip and sore jaw. I’d be dead.
The time slipped past me. I had no idea what day it was or what time of day it was; Carter had tacked up a blanket over the window after the tied a leash to my wrists. Getting off the bed to stretch was about as far as I could go, not an inch farther.
Brandon crept into my mind. How would he know to look for me? Would he even bother after I walked away from him like that? As far as he knew I took a bus north, never to see him again. Over and over again, I replayed that afternoon in the back of the diner. Thinking over what he said.
He was right. When shit got hard, I ran. Taking care of Mom, that had been easy. Clean up the puke, wash her hair, drive her to the doctor, pay the bills. It was all methodical and I could put myself on autopilot. When she died, though, all of that went out the window. I had no idea what to do with myself. Reinvent myself? Live for me and not her? How did I do that? So I ran.
Every excuse I came up with why I couldn’t get away from Carter had to do with protecting Brandon. I couldn’t let him hurt because of me, or anyone else. The truth was, though, that hiding in my little room at Carter’s club had become my new shelter. I knew what I was, who I was. Then Brandon walked into my world and changed all that.
With him I could be something else. I wouldn’t daydream about going to nursing school, I’d actually get to go. Was I just too scared to give him a chance? I’d run away once from him, wasn’t I doing it again? Only this time, he let me. He didn’t run after me.
I told him I didn’t want him to give up his life for me, but the truth was I was too scared to change my life for him. A coward.
I heard Carter start yelling through the door. I couldn’t understand him, though. He’d been rambling on and off since he dumped me in that room. His eyes looked crazed when they didn’t look angry.
“Where is she?” I heard a familiar voice bellow. The walls practically shook with the sound. I didn’t move, or make a sound, convinced my mind was starting to crack. “Where the fuck is she?”
Brandon?
I turned over just as the door to the room splintered into a little pieces. Brandon with his gun drawn, eyes wild, and lips tight jumped into my room. Our eyes met, and for a moment I let myself believe I wasn’t dreaming. That he stood only a few feet from me. I reached my hands out, thinking to touch him before he dashed back into my mind.
“Baby. I’m here.” I sat up as his arms wrapped around me. God he felt good. Strong, warm. “Fuck, look at you.” He gently cupped my face and looked at the damage.
“Brandon. Are you really here?” I whispered my question, not wanting to scare off the image.
“Yeah, babe. It’s me.” He wiped the tears falling from my eyes and ordered me to stop crying, which only resulted in more tears.
“You’re so bossy,” I complained, but didn’t mean it in the least. I heard Carter yelling still from outside the door and sprung into action. “We’ll have to hurry. He’s coming back.” I started yanking on the rope.
He captured my hands and held me still. “Stop, Hannah. Stop. Your wrists can’t take much more. Shark is with him. Don’t worry. He’s not going to touch you ever again.”
A strangled scream came from outside the room and I looked back at him. “You came for me.” I watched him work the ropes around my wrists. Blood rushed into my fingers, burning and tingling.
“I will always chase your stubborn ass down. But I would really rather you stopped running.” He threw the rope to the side and massaged my hands. “We need to get your wrists cleaned up and bandaged. You’re gonna hurt for a few days.”
“I wouldn’t have blamed you if you didn’t come.” I blinked. How could he forgive me so easily?
“Well, sometimes you’re an idiot,” he said with a soft smile. “I told you, you belong to me.”
“Even after I ran away?”
“Even then.” He pulled me close to him, resting his chin on the top of my head. “But if you ever run away again, I swear I will chain you to my bed.”
The irony made me laugh. “You realize—”
“I do, and I don’t care. I’m not Carter. You’d love being chained to my bed. All the dirty things I’d do to you. Every one of them, you’d beg me for. And damn if I could ever tell you no.”
His hand slid into my hair, griping me by my scalp and pulled my head back. His lips crushed mine, another claiming, another deep, branding kiss. I didn’t even care about my split lip.
When he pulled away, staring down at me with his dark eyes and serious expression, I cupped his face with my hands. “I’m okay, Brandon. I’m going to be just fine,” I reassured him. He looked down at my body, at the tear in my shirt, and the tattered pants lying on the end of the bed.
“You need a hospital,” he ground out.
“Probably, but what I need most–more than anything in the world–is you, Brandon Knox. I just need you.”
He nodded, scooped me off the bed and carried me from the room. As we walked through the apartment I saw Carter, sitting up against a wall, a large gash running down the side of his face to match the one on Lacy’s cheek. Shark stood over him, his chest heaving and his hands bloodied from dealing with Carter. He wasn’t breathing. Just propped up against that wall.
“Don’t look, baby,” Brandon ordered, and carried me from the apartment. “Eyes on me, always on me.”