This would have been an ideal time to scream, but I could barely gasp breaths. I heard his footsteps pounding unevenly behind me and I focused on Lucas’s door at the top of those steps. I was halfway down the driveway when Buck lunged from behind and grabbed at my hair, yanking me to a stop painfully. I yelped as we went down, immediately turning onto my side as Lucas had taught me, dislodging him.

Suddenly, Lucas was there. Like a dark avenging angel, he yanked Buck away from me and threw him, and then installed himself between us. I scrambled backwards, crab-like. He spared me one glance, his colorless eyes flaring in the dim light cast by the flood lights at the side of the house, before he turned back to Buck, who’d rolled to his feet. Blood coated the space between his nose and mouth and was smeared on his chin, but there was little on him aside from that.

A second floodlight at the corner of the house popped on, illuminating the scene.

Panting, I glanced down at my chest and started. My pink and white knit shirt was stained dark from the neckline to the top of my belly. Because of our positions when I’d slammed Buck’s nose, my chest had caught the majority of blood that gushed from his face.

I battled the urge to rip my shirt off in the Heller’s front yard.

Crouching, he tried to circle Lucas. Rather than turn with him, Lucas moved sideways, remaining with his back to me, blocking Buck from getting any closer to me.

Buck’s voice was a gruff snarl. “I’m gonna bust that lip wide open, emo-boy. I’m not fucked up this time. I’m stone-cold sober, and I’m gonna kick your ass before I fuck your little whore nine ways from Sunday—again.”

Lying bastard.

Lucas didn’t rush him, and didn’t respond at first, and then I heard his very controlled voice. “You’re mistaken, Buck.” Never shifting his eyes from him, Lucas unzipped his leather jacket, shrugged it off and tossed it aside. As he shoved the sleeves of the dark long-sleeved t-shirt above his elbows, I noted the worn jeans he’d pulled on earlier and the shit-kicker cowboy boots he grabbed when he was in a hurry, because they didn’t require the time-suck that lacing his black combat boots involved.

Buck threw a wide punch and Lucas blocked it. He tried again with the same result, and then rushed forward to pin Lucas in a hold. One kidney punch and left ear cuff later, and Buck staggered to the side, pointing at me. “Bitch. Think you’re too good for me—but you’re nothing but a whore.”

Lucas tracked him, staying between us. When Buck jabbed, Lucas grabbed his forearm and turned, wrenching Buck’s arm in a direction arms aren’t meant to go before turning him to deliver a quick uppercut to the jaw. Buck’s head rotated so far he was almost looking backward over his shoulder. He turned back and Lucas snapped another blow straight into his lip. Holding his defensive stance and cocking his head once to each side, Lucas’s ghost smile took on a menace it didn’t imply when he turned it on me.

Buck roared and lunged forward, and they went down. Height-wise, they were evenly matched. Weight-wise, Buck had a clear forty or fifty pound advantage, and he used it to pin Lucas, punching him in the side of the head twice before Lucas twisted, tossing Buck onto the top of his skull. Flopping onto his back, Buck shook his head twice, like he was trying to clear it.

Lucas tackled him, held him down, and slugged him four times in quick succession. The sound made me think of dad texturing steaks, and my stomach turned. Buck’s face was quickly becoming unrecognizable, and though I couldn’t feel sorry for it, I was afraid Lucas was crossing into what might be construed as deadly force.

“Landon! Stop!”

Dr. Heller was tearing down the driveway.

He pulled Lucas off Buck, who wasn’t moving. For a split second, Lucas fought back, and I was afraid Dr. Heller was toast, but I’d underestimated my professor and his Special Forces background. His arms a band around Lucas’s chest and arms, he barked, “Stop. She’s safe. She’s safe, son.” When Lucas sagged, Dr. Heller loosened his hold.

Lucas’s eyes found me instantly and he lurched in my direction. Sirens sounded in the distance, closing in quickly. I heard them turn down the far end of the street at the same time Lucas dropped to the grass beside me. He was shaking violently, the adrenaline still pumping through him with nowhere to go. Breathing heavily, he stared at me, lifting a hand cautiously, like he was afraid I might recoil.

My jaw throbbed, and I deduced from his expression that it must have looked bad. His fingers grazed over it and I flinched. He snatched his hand back and I came up on my knees.

“Please touch me. I need you to touch me.”

I didn’t have to ask twice. His arms came around me, pulling me onto his lap and cradling me against his chest. “His blood? From his nose?” He pulled the shirt away from my chest, and it stuck, the blood already drying, to the bra underneath, and my skin.

I nodded, disgusted.

“Good girl.” His arms slid around me again. “God, you’re so fucking amazing.”

I thought of Buck’s blood on my skin and I pulled at the shirt as my stomach heaved again. “I want it off. I want it off.”

He swallowed. “Yes. Soon.” His fingers moved gently over my face. “I’m so sorry, Jacqueline. Jesus Christ, I can’t believe I sent you out the door like that.” He choked up, his chest rising and falling. “Please forgive me.”

As he caressed me, I turned my head under his chin, folding into him as small as I could get. “I’m sorry for looking her up. I didn’t know—”

“Shh, baby… not now. Just let me hold you.” He pulled me tighter still after grabbing his jacket from the grass nearby and draping it over me, and we stopped speaking.

An ambulance arrived, and the EMTs roused Buck, who at least wasn’t dead. Arms crossed dispassionately, one of the officers monitored his care as he was transferred onto a stretcher while his partner conferred with Dr. Heller over the altercation.

“Lan—Lucas,” he called. “You and Jacqueline need to give your statements now, son.” Lucas stood carefully, pulling me up with him, supporting me fully. Dr. Heller reached a hand to his shoulder. “This young man is the son of my closest friend. He rents the apartment over the garage.” He glanced at us with an odd look before continuing. “As I said, that fella—” he pointed at Buck, who was being loaded into the ambulance “—has a restraining order filed against him on behalf of this young lady, which he violated by coming to her boyfriend’s home.” Ah, there was the reason for the look.

The officers’ eyes widened when they took in my bloody shirt. “It’s his blood,” I said, pointing toward the ambulance.

One of them smiled and echoed Lucas. “Good girl.”

I leaned into Lucas, and he tightened his arms around me. The officers, already softened by Dr. Heller, couldn’t have been more sympathetic. Twenty minutes and all of our statements later, they, and Buck, were gone, and Lucas and I were gathering my things from my truck and the road after assuring Dr. Heller and his family that we would see to each other’s injuries.

Without speaking, Lucas led me up the stairs, into his apartment and straight into the bathroom. He turned on the shower and lifted me onto the counter to pull off my boots and socks. Without pausing, he removed my shirt and bra and tossed them in the trash. His shirt, speckled with droplets of blood—both his and Buck’s—followed.

Standing between my knees, he turned my face towards the light and inspected my jaw. “You’re going to bruise. We’ll put some ice on it to get the swelling down, after you shower.” His jaw clenched tight. “Did he… hit you?”

I shook my head, which made it throb a bit. “Just grabbed it really hard. It’s sore, but actually the spot where I head-butted him hurts more.”

“Does it?” He brushed the hair back from my face and kissed my forehead so gently I couldn’t feel it. “I’m so proud of you. I want you to tell me about it, when you can… and when I can stand to hear it. I’m still too angry right now.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

He ran his fingers over the back of my neck. “I knew I’d fucked up. I was getting on my bike, coming after you—and then you were running up the driveway.” His jaw compressed and flexed. “When he tackled you… I wanted to kill him. I think if Charles hadn’t stopped me, I would have killed him.”

I didn’t move from the counter until he’d undressed. He pulled me down, slid my jeans and underwear off, and led me to the shower, where he washed and inspected every part of me. We were both bruised and abraded in unexpected places, and I could barely lift my arms.

“That's normal,” he said, wrapping a towel around his waist and folding another around me. "During a fight, you don’t realize all the places you catch a punch, land wrong, or slam into something. The adrenaline deadens it—temporarily.”

His dark hair grazed his shoulders, dripping lines of water down his back and chest. He sat me down to dry my hair, and I watched as thin rivulets snaked over his inked skin, flowing over the rose, cutting through the scripted words, and moving into the line of hair on his abdomen before finally soaking into the towel.

I closed my eyes. “The last time anyone dried my hair for me was in sixth grade, when I broke my arm.”

He lifted each strand gently, pressing the towel around it to absorb the water without tangling it. “How did you break it?”

I smiled. “I fell out of a tree.”

He laughed, and the sound reduced the pain of every sore place on my body to the dullest ache. “You fell out of a tree?”

I squinted up at him. “I think there was a boy and a dare involved.”

His eyes burned. “Ah.”

He squatted in front of me. “Stay here tonight, Jacqueline. I need to keep you here, at least tonight. Please.” He took one of my hands in his, and I brought the other to his face, wondering how his eyes could look like chipped ice and still warm me to my core. A bruise was forming near one eye, and the skin was scuffed and split high on his cheekbone, but his face was otherwise unhurt.

His next words were a whisper. “The last thing my father said to me, before he left, was, ‘You’re the man of the house while I’m gone. Take care of your mother.’” My eyes filled with tears and so did his. He swallowed heavily. “I didn’t protect her. I couldn’t save her.”

I pulled his head to my heart and folded my arms over him. On his knees, his arms slid around me while he cried. As I stroked his hair and held him tight, I knew this night had struck a chord at the heart of his pain. What tormented Lucas went further than the horror of that night eight years ago. What haunted him was guilt, however insanely misplaced.

When he grew quiet, I said, “I’ll stay tonight. Will you do something for me, too?”

He fought back his instinctive wariness—I’d seen him do this before, but never from such close range. He inhaled a shaky breath, shoring up his courage. “Yes. Whatever you need.” His voice was gritty and hoarse. When his tongue rolled over his lip ring, I wanted him so badly that it was difficult to waste time talking.