I was pulling my key from the ignition as I swung my leg off the bike. I pulled my helmet off, and as soon as my ears were exposed, I could hear yelling coming from Jo’s house.

The front door was wide open.

“Fuck,” I growled, tossing my helmet on the lawn as I rushed up the curb and toward the door. I didn’t bother taking my gloves off. The yelling was getting louder. I could hear Jo screaming curses. Brett was yelling back. Something slammed into something else.

I blew through the front door and slid to a stop on the hardwood of the hallway. To my left was a living room. Both Brett and Jo were there, and each of them looked up at me.

Brett’s eyes were wide. His teeth were bared, and he looked like a wild animal. Had I come any later, I would not have been surprised to find him foaming at the mouth. He was dressed in a beer-stained white shirt and torn blue jeans. His boots were untied and loose and leaving dirt all over the cream-colored carpet.

His forearm was pressed against Jo’s throat, who had one leg up to bury her knee in his gut.

She was clawing at his arm. It became quickly apparent that she was having a hard time breathing. Her face was bright red, and a vein was thickening in her forehead.

“Get your fucking hands off her,” I growled. I hadn’t even realized I’d spoken. The worry that had been building inside me during my ride over had morphed into rage. My adrenaline was pumping, and I was ready to go head to head with this bastard.

“Who the fuck are you?” Brett shouted.

I pulled my leather gloves off. No point in cushioning the blow. My knuckles would do more damage exposed than they would wrapped in leather. I dropped them on the hardwood. “I’m your worst fucking nightmare, you piece of shit.”

Brett released Jo. She sucked in a deep breath of air and slid halfway down the wall. Rage licked at my insides. How long had he had her pinned there? How much longer would she have been able to stay on her feet without air? She wrapped her hands around her own neck and gasped for breath as her eyes shot toward me. I couldn’t read the expression on her face. For all I knew, she was angry that I was interfering. But the way she leaned away from Brett as he turned to face me suggested she was relieved.

“Get the fuck outta my house!” Brett roared.

I rolled my shoulders and clenched my fists. “Make me.”

Brett let out a bellowing yell and charged. He dropped his head with the intention of slamming into my midsection to knock me off my center of gravity. I stepped aside, and he went blundering by me into the hallway. I caught hold of the back of his shirt and yanked hard, jerking him off his feet.

He went down on his back, and the impact pushed a rush of air out of him. I drove my boot into his gut and then dropped to a knee beside him, where I wrapped my fingers around his throat and squeezed. “How does it feel?” I snarled.

Jo walked by me. She went down the hall to a bedroom where I could hear her tearing through drawers. “What the hell are you doing?” I called after her.

“Packing his shit!” she yelled back.

I opened my mouth to respond.

Then his fist slammed into my ribs. I released his throat, and he rolled upward, coming after me with a yell so primal, he sounded like a wild beast. His fists beat at me but missed every time. He was wasted, as was expected. Pain would not mean the same thing to him as it would to me.

I pushed myself backward until there was nowhere else to go. My back was against the wall, and I used it to push myself to my feet. Brett was on me before I had fully straightened. He buried his fist in my gut once before I managed to drill a knee into his stomach. He doubled over, a grunt escaping him, and clutched at his midsection. I gave him a rough shove, and he stumbled away from me to retreat back into the living room.

As he passed the fireplace, he grabbed a glass vase. He wound back with it in his hand and threw it at me with all the force he could muster. I ducked out of the way, and it shattered against the wall in the hallway behind me.

He picked up a picture frame and hurled that next. It whizzed by my ear and crashed against the wall.

Jo came thundering down the hallway. She had a black duffel bag slung over one shoulder and a pack of beer tucked under one arm. She stormed by me and went straight outside, where she tossed the duffel bag on the lawn.

“Woman!” Brett shouted as he watched her through the living room window. “Bring my shit back inside!”

“If you don’t leave,” I said, “we’re going to have a serious problem.”

Brett wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He was covered in sweat and smelled like death. “You don’t scare me, asshole.”

“I don’t give a damn whether or not I scare you. This isn’t your house anymore. Get out, or I’ll call the cops.”

Brett dropped his chin and glared at me from beneath his thick blonde eyebrows. “She fucking you, then?”

I didn’t indulge him in an answer.

Brett chuckled. “Of course she is. So you’re here to do her dirty work? Clean up the mess she made all on her own? Come on man; she’s not that good of a lay.”

“Last warning.”

Brett threw his head back and laughed at the ceiling. “Did she suck you off, too? She never does that—”

I lost it.

Every fuse I had simultaneously exploded, sending me reeling toward Brett in a flurry of punches. My knuckles smashed into his jaw and then cheekbone. He hollered in pain and surprise and clutched at the gash the impact had left below his right eye. His hand came away bloody, and he stared at his fingers, eyes wide, as if in shock that someone managed to do damage.

“Son of a bitch!” he shrieked, before charging me again. He wrapped his arms around my waist, and we both went down on the living room floor. He managed to end up on top of me, and we beat at each other, each of us laying hits on one another’s ribs and chest. I protected my face with my forearms and suffered a few blows that I knew would bruise. I clenched my jaw and endured the pounding while it lasted.

Brett, in his drunken stupor, didn’t have much stamina. He tired quickly and sucked in great gulps of air as his upper lip became beaded in sweat. I took the opportunity to drive my elbow up under his chin. I heard his teeth crash together, and he yelped in pain. At least one of them cracked.

He pushed himself off of me, and I went after him. Mercy was not in my mind. I wanted him to suffer. I wanted to make him pay for what he’d done, and a few broken teeth were not nearly satisfying enough.

I barrelled in on him, fists flying as high as my temper. I didn’t know it, but I was yelling.

Then someone else’s yell cut through and reached me.

“He’s had enough!” Jo shouted. She grabbed my elbow and pulled my raised fist down. I glanced down at her. Her cheek was bright red. He’d laid a hand on her. Fucking scum. I lifted my fist again, and Jo held onto me tighter. “No. Please. Enough. Let him go.”

I looked down at Brett, who was pressed against the wall between the bookshelf and the fireplace with his hands over his head. His knees were drawn into his chest to protect himself from my wrath.

I kicked his shin. “You heard her. Go.”

Brett looked up at me from between his hands.

“Just go, Brett,” Jo pleaded. “Your shit is on the lawn. Don’t come back.”

Brett slipped out from between me and the wall. I kicked him in the ass as he went, and he pitched forward, caught himself, and hurried outside. Jo and I walked to the front door after him and watched as he stooped to pick up his bag.

He slung it over his shoulder and turned to look back at us as he dragged his hand across his mouth and nose. There was blood all over him. It was also all over my hands and my shirt. He’d bled on me while he was wailing on my arms.

He didn’t say anything. He put his back to us and started walking down the street. As I watched him go, the pounding in my chest subsided and was replaced with a dull ache that coursed through my entire body.

It had been a while since I’d been in a fight like that.

I glanced down at Jo. She was staring after Brett, and there were tears in her eyes. I grabbed her shoulders and turned her to face me. “Are you all right?”

She nodded, but I didn’t believe her.

“Jo,” I said, my voice hoarse from yelling. “You did the right thing.”

Her bottom lip trembled and she nodded once.

I did the only thing I knew to do when a woman cried. I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and pulled her into me. She stood perfectly still in my embrace for a brief moment, and then she wrapped her arms around my waist and buried her face in my chest. I rested my chin on the top of her head and stood like that until she pulled away—which was a good minute or two later.

When she did, she looked up at me. The tears were gone. She was steady and calm. “Thank you for coming for me,” she whispered.

I kissed her forehead. There was literally nothing that would have stopped me from getting to her. “I’ll be honest,” I said. “I’ve been wanting to beat his ass since I first heard about him.”

She laughed and wiped at the corners of her eyes, even though they were dry. “Yeah. I’m sorry you had to do that. Are you okay?”

“Okay?” I chuckled. “Never been better.”

“Come on,” she said, and she took me by the hand and pulled me back inside. She closed the front door behind her and locked the handle and deadbolt. I knew she would probably do that every day for the rest of her life now, thanks to Brett the asshat. She turned to face me where I stood in the hall. Then, much to my surprise, she popped open the top few buttons of her black shirt and pulled it off over her head.

I blinked at her. “What are you—”

“Shh,” she whispered as she tossed the shirt aside. “I thought you said you had been thinking about this for the last five years?” She unzipped her jeans and began working them down her thighs.

“Uh.” I swallowed. “Yeah. I have.”

“Well so have I. And here we are. Alone.”

I watched as she stepped out of her jeans. She was only wearing a black thong and a lacy red bra. Her eyes were hooded, and something told me she’d been fantasizing about this moment for as long as I had. Her legs were long, and her thighs were thick. I wanted to put my hands on her; to squeeze her and kiss her all over.

“You sure you want to do this after this shit show?” I asked, gesturing at her disaster of a living room.

She nodded slowly and moved toward me, putting one bare foot in front of the other. Her toes, I noticed, were bright pink. “I’m sure,” she said softly.