I slid into the secluded horseshoe booth with my crew. Ash was sitting directly across from me and Zee was stuck in the middle. His eyes flicked between the two of us.

I got why his nerves were all kinds of rattled.

Zee was the blameless of the bunch. Not a malicious bone in his honest body. Sometimes I wished he wouldn’t have stepped up to stand in his brother’s shoes. Mark had gotten messed up, mixed so deep in the corruption that was our lives, he’d lost his in the middle of it.

When Mark died two years ago, Zee took his place as drummer. He wanted his brother’s legacy to live on through him. I totally got it. That didn’t mean I was okay with him seeing the ugly shit that defined our world. With this kid getting tainted by it. Not when it felt a little like he was our responsibility.

“She good?” Ash asked with a rigid lift of his chin. The lights strobing from the stage just barely lit up the lines set in his face. Ash was normally as casual as they came. Nonchalant. Everything a fucking joke. Until the shit going down wasn’t funny at all.

“Yeah. She’s good.” I swallowed down some of the violence still screaming through my veins. Seeking a release. Because if I was being honest, I wasn’t sure she really was. “Is that piece of shit good?”

Ash shook out his right hand, flexed his fist. “Yeah, man. Taken care of. I don’t think anyone’s going to see the cocksucker hanging around Charlie’s any time soon.”

I nodded tight, because I really wanted it to be me who got to beat the asshole bloody. But Ash knew me well enough to know when I needed to be sidelined. Saw it the second I was about to come unhinged and things were going to get ugly.

Last night when I’d left Tamar and gone back to my apartment, I’d tossed and turned all fucking night. Worried about her when I didn’t have the right to. Fought the goddamned overwhelming compulsion to track down the fucker who’d hurt her and inflict whatever pain he’d caused her a hundredfold.

What I’d fought against hardest was the need to go back to her place and wrap her in my arms. Hold her and soothe her pain away.

And that right there was what led me to the decision to walk. To turn away and never look back. Just like I should have done in the first place.

I couldn’t afford to worry.

To care.

I had convinced myself getting involved in her mess would just make it messier.

Get her dirtier.

And I knew without a doubt this girl didn’t need that. She needed no part of my black, filthy heart.

She needed the good shit I couldn’t give.

Funny how it hadn’t taken Ash all that much to persuade me to head down to the bar for a couple drinks. Not after I’d spent the entire damned day watching out my window for a glimpse of her. To make sure she was okay. Guilt ate at me like some kind of flesh-decaying disease, because no question it was me who’d pushed her over the edge.

I’d had the stupid compulsion to apologize again.

Instead I’d pressed my back against my wall to keep myself concealed when she’d come out her door, looking like the best thing I’d ever seen. Like everything I couldn’t have. So I’d convinced myself again just to let her be.

Of course that’d been shot straight to hell when Ash, Zee, and I had come strolling into Charlie’s. She hadn’t seen me, but I’d caught the tail end of what the piece of shit had said to her.

Worst of all was I’d seen the look in his eye.

Like she was dirt and he was about to get dirty.

Charlie had intervened with Tamar, because I was pretty damned sure I’d seen the girl just about to lose her cool, while Nathan, the big-ass, burly bartender who doubled as security, started to haul the piece of shit out the door.

I’d seen red.

It was instant. The spike of rage that pierced me like a fiery arrow. It’d come on like a hurricane. The need to protect this girl. The need to hurt whoever hurt her.

I was right behind Nathan.

I knew it was the aftereffects of last night. Of feeling so fucking helpless when all I’d wanted was to track down the bastard who’d struck that all-consuming fear in her.

Nothing had prepared me for the look of absolute horror—fear—on the normally fierce, beautiful Red.

Ash had intervened, got in between us and shoved me back. He knew from experience. If I unleashed the fury there would be no stopping its force. He told me to go check on his Tam Tam while he and Zee took care of what needed to be done. Charlie’d been game and pointed me in the right direction.

Wasn’t supposed to end up with her pressed against the wall with my hands and mouth all over her lush body, words falling from my tongue that didn’t belong.

But the second I’d seen her slumped over, like she was giving it all to hold herself up? I couldn’t stop it.

It felt like holding her might be something right.

Like maybe I’d be doing something good.

So yeah, I wanted to fuck her. Wasn’t gonna lie. I knew a piece of me was just being greedy. Wanting something I shouldn’t have.

But maybe two months would give her more than that. Maybe it’d give her back something she’d lost. Maybe for once I’d be counted a benefit rather than a stain.

I studied Zee whose knee was bouncing around with enough amped-up energy to light up the town.

“You okay?” I asked.

He shrugged a single shoulder. “He had it coming.”

Ash gestured at him. “One of these days he’s going to jump in.”

Zee cracked a smile. “Looked to me like you had it handled just fine.”

Ash laughed. “Dude was a pussy. All he needed was to be taught a little respect. Nathan and I were all too happy to give him a lesson. Pretty sure he’s feeling it in all the right places.”

“Thanks, man,” I said to Ash.

“I’ve got you,” he returned seriously before a knowing smile came sliding back to his face.

Great.

My gaze slithered over the darkened space. The crowd churned, doing their best to get up close to the stage, and a mob swarmed the bar.

Tamar had pulled herself together and gotten behind it. Fingers fluttered over her shirt to smooth it out, swept through that wild red hair to tame what I’d spent the last fifteen minutes mussing up.

She caught my stare and a tic of one of those sexy smirks curved her sweet mouth. But there was timidity, too. She waved a bottle of Jager my direction.

You want?

Hell yeah, I most definitely did want.

I lifted a chin in acknowledgment.

Sure.

Ash clucked. Heaviness gone. Pot-stirrer firmly back in place. “So, did you ride in there like a knight in shining armor and save the damsel in distress? Kind of ironic because my Tam Tam just doesn’t seem the type. Looks to me like she is perfectly capable of doing a little ass-kickin’ herself.”

That’s because he didn’t know her.

Not at all.

And by some miracle…I did.

I hiked my shoulders, not about to betray what she’d somehow trusted me with last night. “We talked. She’s good. And I’m sure she could have handled herself just fine.”

His brow lifted like maybe he suspected more. Like he’d sniffed out my bluff and was getting ready to call me on it. “You sure about that…the two of you were just talking? Wanna tell me what the hell happened last night? Tamar up and disappeared right when the party was getting good.”

He smiled wider. “And so did you. After you were both looking like you might reach across the table to kill the other. And here I was thinking you’d met your match. Thought you said you didn’t like her?”

I scowled at him. “It’s nothing like that.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Then what’s it like?”

I gritted my teeth. “It’s like it always is. I fuck. I leave. Simple as that.”

But simple wasn’t close to describing what this was.

Ash knew it just as well as I did. Knew I was acting a fool. Stepping into territory where I didn’t belong. Everything about it felt miraculously right and profanely wrong.

He sat back in disappointment. “You’re an idiot.”

Leaning forward, I cocked my head to the side, my voice dropped low. “Even if I wanted something more, did you up and forget who I am? What I did?”

He huffed in frustration. “I know exactly who you are, my friend. And you’re nothing but a fool.”

Tamar took that moment to duck under the bar to come strutting our way, looking like my favorite fantasy. Flimsy-white blouse, tight black leather pants, five-inch killer heels. She stirred up a tornado in her path. She turned every damned head in the place as she went, every guy panting for a taste when the girl was only looking my way.

Red.

That side of her was in full force.

Damn. The girl was a gorgeous nightmare.

My chest tightened like a fist.

Maybe I had met my match.

She balanced a tray on her hand, all fire and sass when that gaze bounced around our table. She set a tiny shot of Jager in front of Zee. “There you go, handsome,” she said.

A ripple of embarrassment bled out in Zee’s laughter. “Are you trying to make me look like a sissy boy? I know I’m the youngest and all…but seriously, I think I can handle a whole shot.”

He was grinning full by the end.

“Nah.” She smiled at him with a wink. “I just know you’re way smarter than these two who seem to think it’s a good idea to drink their weight in alcohol night after night.”

“Ouch.” Ash slammed his hand over his heart. “Just what are you implying, darlin’?”

She placed a tumbler down in front of him, the short, fat glass swimming full of near-black liquid. “Don’t worry, you know I love you.”

Ash gave her his best dimpled smile. “Oh, Tam Tam, you are my dream girl. Bringing me drinks without even having to ask for them.”

“And it’s a triple,” she said.

“I’m in love. That’s it, someone find me a ring. I’m dropping to one knee and proposing right now.”

She laughed and pushed at his shoulder. “Save your breath, buddy.”

Ash grabbed her hand. “Come on, Tam Tam, we’d make magic together. Almost as good as the magic I make in the studio. Let’s do this.”

He slanted me a wide-eyed glance, baiting me, while Zee looked at me with a sly grin. “You gonna sit there and let him talk about your girl like that?”

My girl?

What the fuck?

Assholes. Both of them. Goading me like I had something to give.

Both of them were so good at pointing out what wasn’t there.

As if I’d ever deserve her.

Tamar’s expression softened when she turned toward me. Everything about her seemed to turn timid. She leaned down and looked at me from under her lashes and slowly slid a drink toward me. It was completely unlike the others.

Bright neon-blue liquid danced within the walls of the glass.

Hypnotic.

Just like her.

At the thought of the special red-headed slut she’d made me, I eyed it warily, though excitement went twisting through my gut at the same time. “What’s this?”

“It’s a Blue-eyed Angel.” She whispered it close to my ear, where only I could hear. Her warm breath tickled at my neck. All my blood went stampeding south.

Blue.

And I got it. She was offering a side of herself to me that she didn’t let anyone else see.

The innocent side.

The side that was broken and soft and pure.

And she was trusting me with it.

I grabbed the drink and tossed it back.

Yeah. Assholes were right. At least for a little while, the girl was mine.