Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 63842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
The area around us had gone quiet during the confrontation. When Rip stepped away and picked up his beer from the bar where he’d set it down, the noise from the rest of the room bled back in gradually.
Rip turned and looked at me. “You OK, honey?”
The question was direct, and he waited for an actual answer while I stared up at his concerned face. The man actually cared about my answer. I could see it in the way his brows knit together.
“Yes,” I said. My voice was steady. My hands were not.
He nodded and said nothing else about it, just moved back to his position beside me and put his eyes on the room again.
I stood there and tried to understand what was happening inside my chest. The panic had receded the second Rip stepped between me and that man. Not slowly, not after I’d talked myself down. Like a switch flipped. My lungs had opened back up and my muscles had unlocked before Rip had said anything to the guy. Before the guy left, my panic attack ended and my legs wanted to turn to jelly with the sudden and total relief.
Now, Rip stood beside me drinking his beer while he watched everyone around us. My confusion wasn’t about Rip. It was about me, about not trusting what my own body told me anymore, about the gap between knowing something was safe and actually feeling it in my bones. A man I’d only just met shouldn’t feel like the only safe haven for my bruised and battered soul right now. What if I misjudged him the way I had Eric? If this man turned violent on me, he’d kill me.
Try as I might, though, I couldn’t feel anything other than relief, gratitude, and the need to keep him near me so I always felt protected physically and emotionally. I took a sip of my soda and tried to figure out what the fuck to do with my feelings.
After I felt steadier on my feet, I drifted toward the back of the bar near the pool tables mostly because the crowd was thinner there. I needed a few feet of breathing room. Rip still hadn’t engaged with me, but he kept a respectable distance. I knew he watched over me, though, and I was more grateful than he could possibly know. That was how I ended up close enough to hear Rip talking to Knight.
Knight’s voice was smooth and low. His face was covered in tattoos, the whites of his eyes colored black so that the glacial blue of his irises stood out in a way that’d made my skin prickle the first time I’d seen him up close. His wife, Lavender, was one of the sweetest women I’d ever met. His daughter Brynn was a holy terror and I loved her.
Now, Knight held a beer and spoke with a calm that suggested he’d had this kind of conversation before. “Need you for a run tonight. Couple hours, quick in and out.”
I was looking at the pool game. I wasn’t trying to listen, but the music had dropped between songs and Knight had decent projection.
Rip shook his head once. “No.” He glanced toward where I stood, just a flick of his eyes, then back to Knight. “She goes home first.”
Knight’s expression softened. “Yeah, man. Sorry. I should have expected you’d want to get her home safely.” He took a pull of his beer and looked out over the crowd. “Cash can do it. He’s been wanting to do more. I guess this will be a trial run of sorts for him.”
“Good,” Rip said. “Once I get her settled, if she’s doing OK, I’ll see if he needs help.”
“No need, man. Her first night out, with all she’s been through, you take your time with her.”
That was the end of it. Knight moved away from the pool tables without another word and Rip turned and walked toward me with his hands in the pockets of his jeans, completely unhurried.
I looked back at the pool game. My face felt warm. The thing about being treated like I mattered was that I didn’t know how to receive it cleanly. There was a part of me that immediately looked for the hook, the place where the consideration would cost me something. But my bullshit filter kept coming up empty with Rip. I didn’t know what to do with him, what category to place him in, because he didn’t fit neatly into any box I’d ever imagined.
He appeared at my shoulder. “Ready to head out?”
“You didn’t have to skip the run,” I said.
He looked at me steadily, holding my gaze with his. “I know.” He jerked his head in the direction of the door. “Come on. We’ll ride back the long way.” Maybe the offer sounded like a come on, like he wanted to get me off in a secluded place and do… whatever he wanted with me. But to me, it sounded like heaven. Another thing I’d learned about staying near people like Kiss of Death -- they all loved riding. And, if you asked nicely, one of them would take you on a ride. Well, Rip would. If I asked him, at least. Riding on the back of a bike with a person I trusted in control made me feel free. It relaxed me in a way nothing in my life ever had.