Chapter One
The breaking of a beer bottle on the ground forced me to jump backward.
The group of men outside of the bar snickered loudly as they looked me up and down, no doubt wondering what a girl like me was doing in this part of town. I had been asking myself the very same question all day. The answer, of course, was an easy one.
I was here for my dad. Everything always traced back to him.
Still, I had promised myself a long time ago the day I returned to this going nowhere town was the day hell froze over. Apparently, it was about to get pretty darn cold. Leave it to my father to throw me a curve ball just when everything else in my life was starting to fall into place.
“Well, now, what’s a nice girl like you doing down here all alone?” One of the men in the group of hooligans’ stepped forward and licked his thick lips while he looked my body up and down. “Not from around here, then, are we?”
Actually, I was.
Still, it had been years since I’d been back and between all the new developments and buildings all over, I was having a little trouble navigating my way around. What used to be a small country town was looking more and more like something I would see in the streets of my Boston neighborhood back home.
“He asked you a question, missy,” one of his friends snapped, stepping closer to me. “What do you think you’re too good to answer him or something?” He narrowed his eyes at me. “I bet you do, don’t you? You look just like the kind of prissy bitch who has a stick shoved up her ass.”
“I would love to shove something else up her ass,” the first guy mumbled, causing an uproar of laughter and hollering from his pack. He took a step toward me and reached out, rubbing his hand up and down my arm. “You look like the kind of girl who could take it…”
I yanked my arm away too aggressively and anger flashed in his eyes.
“Did you see that Lance?” his friend called. “She snubbed you.”
I pulled my coat closer to my body. Why had I decided to try and find the rental car place all by myself when I left the airport? My phone had told me it was only a two-block walk from where I landed but I should have taken a taxi. You always take a taxi! What had I been thinking?
“I didn’t, I… I’m sorry, I’ve been traveling all day and I'm a little out of it.”
“Told you she wasn’t from around here.”
“Shut up,” Lance snapped, turning his head halfway around. “Leave us.”
“Ah,” one of them groaned. “Keeping her all for yourself?”
“Now,” Lance sneered and his boys scrambled away, making it clear who the alpha was here. Once they were gone he closed the distance between the two of us even more. “So, new in town, huh? You know, not much goes on around here that I don’t know about,” he told me smugly. “Why don’t you come back to my place and I’ll tell you all about it?”
I pushed back, putting distance between us. “That’s kind of you, really, but my family is waiting for me, maybe some other time?” I offered helplessly, it was a poor attempt to stroke his ego, he didn’t seem like the type who was used to hearing the word no.
I had barely made it two inches before he had me by the arm, yanking me up against his body. “You think you’re too good for me, is that it?” He let his eyes travel down to my breasts. “In your fancy clothes and tight skirt.”
Fancy clothes? This was from Target!
I tried to pull away from him but it was of little use, he was too strong for me to match. “No, that’s not it, I just… I really need to get to my father, he’s not well, he’s, he’s sick.”
Lance reached up with his free hand and popped open the first few buttons on my blouse, letting it fall open so that my pink bra was exposed. “Yeah, you look like you need to loosen up a little bit.” He reached out and ran one of his fat fingers up and down the top of the thin fabric that separated my left breast from his bare touch. “You need to be broken in, don’t you?”
“Ah… shit,” I mumbled under my breath.
Being polite clearly wasn’t going to work out for me.
I gathered up as much spit as I could, pulled my head back, and let it loose right in his face. He yanked back, cursing loudly, and I took the chance to free myself from his grasp and take off running down the street.
I ran so fast I felt like my legs had left my body but it was no use, I could hear him closing in on me even before he grabbed me by the back of the head and yanked me down to the ground by my hair.
“You stupid little bitch,” he yelled, shoving the back of my head into the ground and climbing on top of me. “You think you can walk around like your shit don’t stink, huh? Disrespecting people?” He wrapped a hand around my throat. “I’m going to teach you a lesson.”
I pulled back, hitting him in the chest, but he held me down easily.
The more I struggled the bigger the evil grin on his face grew.
I was going crazy, screaming at the top of my lungs and flapping my limbs all over the place. There was something about being in a dangerous situation that made me lose all self-control. Everything I had ever read or watched about what to do when you’re being assaulted went out the window and one emotion took its place; total and utter panic.
Lance tightened his knees around my waist and laughed loudly before opening up his mouth and letting out a scream that was even louder than mine. “You idiot, scream as much as you want, no one is going to hear you out here! You’re in the middle of nowhere!”
Tears filled my eyes.
He ran his thumb over my bottom lip slowly. “I can do whatever I want to you and no one’s going to do a damn thing about it.” He leaned down and crushed his lips on top of mine, filling my mouth with his slimy tongue.
I screamed loudly, full on sobbing now.
Please, I begged, please let someone hear me.
And just like that, like someone had been reading my thoughts, he was being dragged off me and thrown across the street onto the porch of a small business that was dark next to where Lance had caught me.
I backed up, my body still on the ground, and crawled backward until I was a safe distance away. My hero was beating Lance’s face into the ground, on top of him while he screamed out in pain.
I waited for him to stop, to pull back when it became clear Lance wasn’t a threat but he didn’t. He kept pounding his face into the ground, causing more fear to creep into my body.
He was going to kill him.
If I didn’t do something he was going to kill him.
Still, I was too shaken up, frozen in place.
My mind was telling my feet to move but my body wouldn’t cooperate.
Come on, Bella, I told myself, move. Do something.
Finally, I found my legs moving forward. I hurried, desperate to close the distance between myself and the horrific scene that was unfolding around me. “Hey!” I called out. “Stop it! You have to stop!”
The stranger ignored me, continuing to use Lance as his personal punching bag until I wrapped my hand around his arm and pulled on his shoulder, snapping him out of whatever trance he had been in.
He swung around filled with rage but his deep brown eyes softened when they met mine. I jolted backward, stunned, and for the second time in the last few minutes, my body went numb, sending me flying to the ground and landing on my butt.
He stood up, his 6-foot frame towering over Lance as he moaned in pain on the ground. He held my gaze for a few beats longer before turning back to the groaning mess of a man in front of him. “If you ever come near her again, I’ll kill you.”
No, no, no.
This couldn’t be happening.
Not now, not like this.
I wasn’t ready.
“Hello, Bella.”
His voice was even deeper than I remembered and the sound of my name on his lips was enough to make my heart start beating more rapidly than ever in my chest.
There he was in all his glory: Asher Dawson.
One of the main reasons I had promised to never return in the first place.