Chapter 11
Snake
I was watching from the bar as they danced and I kept clenching my fists. I couldn’t go over there and break it up. I had no right. Laiken wasn’t mine, no matter how much I felt she was. Laiken wasn’t someone I needed to defend anymore, though she never needed my protection in the first place. She was a strong woman who could take on the likes of this asshole without a problem.
But it was shocking how long she was dancing with him.
Watching her dance reminded me of this one night when we were dating. She wanted me to take her dancing, and I would’ve rather swallowed barbed wire. I hated dancing. It was pointless to me. I could do a lot more with a woman if she let me lay her down. Fuck swaying to some mindless droning beat. I could pin any woman against a wall, keep her upright, and make her feel things dancing never could. Dancing was just some wimpy man’s way of getting a woman into bed. If a real man wanted a real woman, he made his intentions known. Women worth their weight in salt never tried to hide what they were looking for. They didn’t allow society to force them into burying their desires. They owned up to them just like men did, and it was those men that found those real women.
By being honest, not by playing some fucking game.
But that was rich coming from me. The man who fucking lied to her for the majority of our relationship. I could spin it. However, I fucking wanted to, but that was what I was doing. Lying to protect her. Lying to keep her away. Lying to keep her at arm’s length just in case shit happened to me. And for a while, I convinced myself I’d done the right thing. She and I ended things explosively, and then a few months later the shootout with The Devil Saints happened. Carnage flooded the sand of our compound, and my family fell to the ground. Dead. We buried more lives that weekend than we ever had in our entire fucking history, and I convinced myself I’d done the right thing by Laiken.
By lying to her about all this shit so she’d leave.
But that night-- the night after the shootout-- I laid in bed and dreamt of her. I woke up begging for her, reaching for her and only finding my pillow. I lost myself in my dreams that night, wishing I’d never wake up. She was there to comfort me. Hold me close and fuck me stupid. She was there for me to bury my tongue into and take showers with. She was there to remind me that beauty still existed in this world, and the proof was in her eyes.
Those beautiful hazel eyes that couldn’t be replicated.
But when I woke up, she wasn’t there. And she never was for years to come. I sank myself into different women every night, hoping to rid myself of her memory even though a part of me was begging to replicate it.
And still, nothing worked. She haunted me in my dreams every night for the past however many fucking years it had been since I’d destroyed us.
Now, life was punishing me again. Punishing me for ruining the best thing that had ever happened to me. I was watching her dance with some asshole who kept tightening his arms around her. Taunting me with her. Turning from innocent when he looked at her to malicious when he looked at me.
Laiken was in trouble, but I had no right to intervene.
The bartender brought me over another beer, and I took it gladly. I kept my eyes on them, hooking my gaze with Laiken every so often. Had I not known any better, I could’ve sworn she was longing for me. Her eyes seemed to be searching for something, I just wasn’t sure what. Every time her eyes came around to mine, there was a different emotion behind them. With every song, I could see her growing less and less confident in her decision to dance with this guy.
But he kept holding her tightly to him, and it was pissing me off.
He looked down and said something to her, and I could see anxiousness roll across her features. I down the rest of my shitty beer and readied myself to move at a second’s notice. The moment that asshole touched her in any way she didn’t want to be touched, I was going to beat the shit out of him.
Just one fucking excuse to rip his throat out.
Song after song came on, and the two of them continued to dance. How long had they been on that fucking dance floor? I groaned and rolled my eyes as they continued to turn, but then there was a rapid movement in my peripheral. I whipped my head around to see what the hell was going on and I saw Laiken’s hands pressed into his chest. She was saying something, but she was speaking too low for me to hear.
But then I saw her push at him, only for him to tighten his grip on her.
Laiken wasn’t enjoying dancing with him anymore. I slid from my chair and watched as she tried to push him again. She was trying to get away, and he wasn’t letting go. I moved like lightning to their side, shocking even myself at how fast I’d moved. Laiken had her foot in the air, ready to crash down on his toes and break them if she needed to.
But my hand was already around his throat, and my body was already tearing him away from her.
People got up and scattered from their chairs. I wiped my hand over a table before bending this motherfucker over it. I could feel his blood surging underneath my fingertips. I could feel him choking on his lack of air. People were gathered towards the front door, gasping and murmuring as I held him to the rickety wooden table.
What the fuck was this asshole thinking? Did he think he could actually get away with some bullshit like that?
Someone was blowing cigarette smoke our way. I heard someone cock a fucking shotgun to my left. I looked over and saw the bartender eyeing me closely, but instead of having his gun aimed at me, he had it aimed at Devon.
“Is there a problem here?” I asked. “Because it looks to me like there’s a problem.”
Devon was gurgling underneath my fingertips, and I felt my eyes widen with joy. This was the opening I was looking for. The excuse I needed to beat this shit out of this man. It was obvious I wasn’t taking home a woman tonight because Laiken sure as hell wasn’t going to let me near her. And with the steam I needed to let off, I was looking for a fight. I was looking for blood to spill around my knuckles.
I was looking for someone to punish besides myself.
“Yes, there is.”
Her voice was so soft. Defeated, almost. I felt my shoulders relax as my grip loosened on the guy’s neck. He sucked in a breath of air that startled the room, and the color slowly returned to his face.
Those three little words rattled around in my head, distracting me from what had happened.
“I was just showing her a good time,” Devon said. “She was into me at the bar and thought she was playing hard to get.”
“You wanna know what hard to get is?” I asked as I strengthened my grip. “‘Hard to get’ is when a woman makes you chase her up the stairs to have sex. ‘Hard to get’ is when a woman gives you a strip tease and tells you not to touch her. ‘Hard to get’ is when a woman pulls her lips away just before you kiss her. But do you know what ‘hard to get’ is not?”
I tightened my grip on the guy’s throat as he began to choke again.
“Jace.”
Again with that soft voice. It was a voice I’d never heard Laiken use before. Her voice had always been low and sultry. Full of laughter and luscious pride. It was like this moment had drained her of her confidence. Of her faith in herself.
And all it did was make me angrier.
“‘Hard to get’ isn’t holding a woman to you when she’s pushing away. That, you piece of shit, is the first step towards rape.”
I picked the guy up off the table and held him in the air. Everyone in the bar began to cry out for mercy as my vision dripped with red. Never in my life had I been this angry. Never in my life had I wanted to kill someone as badly as I did right now. This man thought he could force himself on someone? On a woman who was looking for some sort of distraction? This man thought he could come in here, take the hand of my woman, and force her to do something she didn’t want to do?
That was when I felt a hand come down onto my forearm.
“Put him down, Jace.”
I turned my head over and looked into Laiken’s eyes. They were saddened and tired. Distracted and ashamed. I lowered the man to his feet and released his neck, listening as he gasped for breath. I hooked my eyes onto Laiken’s as I lifted my hand to her cheek, chancing the idea that she just might let me touch her. That she just might allow me that one small moment to remember what it felt like to have her in the palm of my hand.
And the moment my hand connected with her cheek, I was lost in her.
“Laiken,” I said. “Are you hurt?”
“It would take a hell of a lot of force to hurt someone with so much padding.”
“No. No, no, no, no… Jace!”
I slipped my hand from Laiken’s cheek and balled up my fist. I connected my knuckles with the man’s face, dislocating his jaw on the spot. People in the bar shrieked as the bartender fired off a blank warning shot, trying to get everyone to settle the fuck down. Devon was on his back, cradling his jaw as it swung from his face.
My hand was trembling with unused energy. I could feel Laiken’s wide eyes on me as I stood over the guy. He was whimpering as tears streamed down his cheeks, and all I could do was smile. He got what was coming to him, and I was ready to give him more. I was ready to tear into that pretty little face of his and claw out those mischievous, manipulative eyes.
I wanted to make sure this man could never do to a woman what he just tried to do with Laiken.
“Jace!”
Her voice pierced my beast-like haze, and I turned my eyes towards her. Her beautiful hazel eyes were wide with shock, but she hadn’t yet run. She was still standing there, watching my every move.
“Get the fuck out of here,” the bartender said.
I walked back over to the bar and grabbed my leather jacket. I threw it over my shoulders and watched as people tried to help Devon up off the floor. He was moaning and gurgling as blood and spit spilled from his lips, and I grinned at the mess that asshole now was.
One fucking punch was all it took for wusses like him.
Then my eyes settled onto Laiken. She was staring at me from the middle of the floor, gazing at me in the shadows. I locked my eyes with her and straightened my back as the bar erupted into a disaster zone of people taking pictures and others making phone calls.
I had to get out of here, and I wasn’t willing to leave Laiken to fend for herself.
I stepped from the shadows, and I saw something like relief flood her features. I stood there at the corner of the bar, waiting for her to make a move. To run out the door or come over and slap me. To get her stuff and get out or sit down and order another fucking drink. I didn’t know what she was going to do and I didn’t know where to go from here, so I did the only thing I could think of.
I held out my hand for her.
She looked at it momentarily before her eyes made their way back up to mine. There was a mixture of disbelief and curiosity racing behind her eyes. I stood there, waiting for her to make her choice as my mind screamed at her for her to take my hand.
Then, the flashing and sounds of sirens raced into the parking lot of the bar.
Everyone began to scatter, and Laiken lunged for me. Her hand slipped into mine, and I pulled her towards the back exit. We barreled out into the alleyway and took a hard right, wrapping around the building to where I had parked my bike.
In the shadows, so I could come and go unannounced.
I unlocked the cargo container and removed two helmets. I handed her one as I slid mine on, but she just looked at it like she didn’t know what to do. Conflict roared in front of her eyes as she looked at the helmet.
The same helmet she’d worn all those years ago. When we were young and in love.
“Put it on,” I said. “I need to get you out of here.”
And without a second thought, she obeyed.