Brutally Beautiful

Chapter 9

Fran graciously sat me down and broke the delicate news to me that our relationship was not proceeding at the speed he liked, and that we would be better suited as friends. Valiantly (you can’t see me, but I’m laughing here) he expressed his extreme guilt for going home with Natalie the night I left to have coffee with Kade. He believed she was the speed–relationship wise-he needed. Eh. Gotta give him props for honesty, right? I was still wondering where in the world he got off thinking we were in a relationship when I blatantly told him I was NOT in one of those WITH HIM. Two make-out sessions does not a relationship make, this wasn’t high school.

Natalie was completely nervous and stressed about how I might take the news. I hugged her and whispered a relieved thank you in her ear. I didn’t think she understood, but she would when she orders a beer in front of him, or wants a coffee, or tries to spit gum out of the window of his moving smart car, or God forbid, forgets to recycle a can of soda. Mentally, I was high-fiving her with my vagina.

It had been five days since I went for coffee with Kade. Five days since I’d seen him, and five days since he followed me. Five days since I opened my big mouth to get him to talk to me. Five days of uncontrollable itchiness to jump in my car and hightail it out of here to find another hiding spot.

That night, there was a huge last minute bachelor party at the bar, which I wished I had known about in advance. Say, like when I was dressing for work, so I could have opted out of wearing the short denim skirt I had on. I wasn’t comfortable with all the men that night, I was just afraid of unwanted touches and looks that I wasn’t emotionally stable to deal with. Worse than the strangers was Fran, who was sitting in the corner, pounding back an insane amount of red wine, two whole bottles to be exact, and bothering the hell out of me about how ‘soft the legs of my skin look.’ No, I didn’t just say that backwards, it was an exact quote.

When Kade walked in from the back hallway, I was stunned. His eyes blinded me. His stare made my knees go weak. He looked angry, enraged, and murderous. There was a new bandage around his wrist, making me wonder what he did to himself. I knew I would never be able to save him, but it was ingrained in me to save, and I wanted to be able to so badly.

From the corner of the room, his eyes claimed me, all of me-my eyes, my neck, my legs…making me feel like he was touching my skin… The heat that spread over every inch of where his eyes looked had me dizzy, like an acute case of vertigo, and I wanted to spin in it, spiral out of control and drown in it. Sitting on a bar stool, I let my skirt ride a bit further up my legs to watch his eyes widen and his breath quicken. I was swept up in a frenzy. I wanted to make him look at me; I needed him to.

“I really need to talk to you,” Fran slurred behind me, practically pinning me to the edge of the bar.

“Maybe later, Fran. I need to use the restroom,” I lied, squeezing my way around him and rushing into the back hallway. Glancing back over my shoulder, I smiled at Kade, hoping he’d find his way to talk to me.

Locking myself in the stall, I heard the bathroom door open and footsteps squeak in. I opened the stall door thinking that Kade would be there, his face, smirking at me, but it wasn’t. The muscles in my shoulders tightened when I stepped out to see Francis. Drunk on either the wine he was guzzling, or some sort of nontoxic environmentally safe fumes of maybe, I don’t know, bacon grease or something. My thoughts were quick and precise. He had me cornered by the sheer luck of me thinking about another man, and I was going to need to fight him. “I think you’re in the wrong bathroom,” I said. He just laughed condescendingly, as if I should know better.

“I think I made a terrible mistake about us,” he slurred, stepping forward. I sidestepped him, squeezing my body around him without ever touching him. When I was the one closer to the door, my shoulders slumped a bit with relief. “Please hear me out,” he mumbled.

Before I could get out an answer, Fran’s body catapulted onto me. His mouth was on mine, bitter wine breath, strong body order and I swear I smelled one of those old-fashioned evergreen car fresheners. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had one in his pocket. Revulsion quaked in my belly and I shoved him off me quickly. “Fran, don’t make me have to kick your…”

With a loud thud, the bathroom door flew open and smashed up against the wall, splintering one of the white tiles with a web of cracks. Natalie stomped into the bathroom, hands on hips and her usually cheerful expression twisted into rage.

“What the fuck is this?” She screeched, looking from me to Fran, eyes narrowing. “Are you fucking kidding me? My kids asked to call you daddy!” In five days, she let her kids meet him and want to call him DADDY?

Fran’s hands dropped from my arms, his pleas were whines and lies, and it made me sick to listen. I couldn’t look at the hurt in Natalie’s face. I couldn’t take the heartbreak, because it was like looking in a mirror and I knew just how she felt.

I ran out of the bathroom, tears stinging my eyes for Natalie for having feelings for a jerk like Fran. Running down the hall, I slammed head first into a solid chest, and looked up into the stormiest eyes I’d ever seen. With my stomach twisted into knots, I swallowed thickly and sucked in a sharp breath. Kade.

“Lainey, what’s wrong?” he asked, eyes narrowing. There was tightness in his jaw, the muscles flexed and clenched. His hands instantly cupped my face, big, thick, warm hands. I wanted to tell him everything. I wanted his lips on mine, because I wanted to matter and make a difference to someone, and I wanted to stop this lethal game of hide and seek I was playing. I just wanted to be Samantha Matthews again. Hell, I wanted to tell Kade that I was just like him.

Natalie stormed out of the bathroom, and pushed between Kade and me. “Don’t worry, hon. I know that was all him. I hate him so much right now, because my kids were crazy about him. What am I going to tell them now?” She sighed heavily, and looked up at Kade as if she just realized he was standing there. “But,” she purred like a cat, “Revenge is sweet.” She winked and grabbed Kade by the hand and shoved him into Dylan’s office. “Take out that cock, Kade, I want to dance on it,” I heard her say as the door slammed shut.

Instantly, I was sick. Desperation ripped through me, and I wanted to bang on the door and throw her off him. Though, what right did I have to do that? Because he stared at me for a few weeks? Because he took me for a coffee when he saw Fran treating me like a child? I was nothing to him; I was just a goddamn waitress in a God forsaken strip bar in the middle of nowhere. And what was he to me? Nothing but my boss’s brother who lived a tragically lonely life. There was nothing between us but a simple attraction. Nothing to put hope in.

Nothing.

Yanking off my apron and crumpling it up in my hands, I walked into the bar and threw it under the counter. Then I walked out the door and right home to the shitty little trailer I lived in. Heading straight for the bathroom, I rummaged through my bag, grabbed a bottle of sleeping pills, and swallowed two dry.

Tossing myself fully clothed on my bed, I grabbed my iPod and jammed my earbuds in my ears. Pressing play, I was instantly surrounded by the haunting voice of Amy Lee and the heavy rhythms of Bring Me To Life by Evanescence, and waited until the magic of my pills worked. The night chilled my bones as small drafts of the cold winter winds drifted through that old tin trailer. I wrapped myself in a soft fleece blanket to keep myself warm and pretended I was lying in Kade Grayson’s arms. Sleep lumbered slowly over my body as I thought how preposterous of a fantasy it was. I had enough scars on my body from the last man that held me in his arms, raised stains that read like Braille across my flesh, so I shouldn’t desire another violent one. However, he wasn’t the same man as the last; he was a far better one, were the last thoughts before sleep took hold of my mind. I didn’t wake up until the next morning.

Armed with an entire pot of coffee, I walked through the dense evergreens that crowded this little part of the world, until I reached the bar. An early morning slideshow of images flashed through my imagination of the carnage and chaotic state of mess the bar must be in, and I cringed, hoping there were latex gloves I could use to clean. Darker images clawed at the back of my brain, juxtaposing themselves against the chaos, thoughts I didn’t want to be thinking, despite the clarity of them. Twisted white sheets, guttural moans and whimpers of two lovers; I didn’t want to visualize them, but visions of Kade and Natalie wrapped around each other were screaming in my mind.

Dylan already had the front door unlocked, and was standing in the middle of the barroom holding a mop in one hand, a bucket in the other, wearing a sheepish smile across his lips. “Morning, love. Where did you get off to last night?”

I wanted to grab the filthy mop out of his hands and sanitize it, but instead, I just slid my jacket off, hung it over a stool and started collecting the strange clothes and debris that was strewn around the bar. Feathered boas. Tassles. A riding crop. I completely passed over picking up the dirty looking G-strings. “Ugh. I hand a run in with an extremely drunk Francis and an angry Natalie, so I thought it better if I just left. Sorry.”

“No worries. Did Kade get to see you?”

“I bumped into him in the hallway last night, but I didn’t speak with him. Natalie needed him for something, I think.”

A strange smile played at the corner of his lips, “He was looking for you most of the night. He slept on the couch in my office.”

All I could think about was scrubbing the bar with bleach, so I shrugged my shoulders and held up all the costumes I collected to ask, “Where should I put all this stuff?”

“Just throw it in my office on the floor, or in my closet. It all needs to be cleaned,” he murmured, pushing the mop along the floor, trying to hide his smile from my eyes. Shit. Didn’t he just say that Kade was asleep on the couch in there?

Maybe he had lost it, drank too much of the Kool-Aid around here. I walked over to the entrance of the hallway and turned to face him. He was staring at me with a stupid knowing smile on his face. What it knew was beyond me. Maybe Dylan wanted me to walk in on Kade in some precarious position. Slowly, I backed into the hallway and made my way to the door of his office.

I was about to throw all the crap on the floor and run when I heard Fran’s voice in the barroom talking with Dylan, asking him if he’d seen me.

Crap. Now it was between hearing Fran’s excuses for drunkenly attacking me in the bathroom, opposed to sneaking past Kade asleep on the couch.

Kade. Fran. Kade. Fran.

All right, deep breath, there was no way I wanted to see Fran and listen to his whining and begging. In a rush of glittery costumes and feathered freaking boas, I dashed through the office door and searched for the nearest hiding spot. It was either under Dylan’s desk where I sure as shit couldn’t fit, or in his coat closet. Closet it was. I didn’t even look to see if Kade was asleep on the couch.

Diving in, glittery sequins and all, I yanked the door shut behind me. Total darkness consumed me and a lone hanger swung against the rod and whacked me in the eye. “SON OF A…” I grabbed for the door handle, and it wouldn’t budge.

Oh, just wonderful. I was locked in.

“Lainey? Lainey?” Fran’s muted voice called from the hallway. His footsteps clopped heavily against the floorboards and moved throughout the room. “Oh, Kade, hey. Have you seen Lainey?”

“No,” Kade’s rumbly voice replied from somewhere just outside the closet door.

“Dylan said she was just here,” Fran pushed.

“Does it look like she’s in here? Go check the bathroom,” Kade rumbled. Fran’s fast footfalls stomped down the hallway, the closet door swung open, and a blast of bright light hit my eyes. Kade’s face came towards me like a ton of bricks.

“No-no-no don’t…don’t close the door…” I whispered loud as he stumbled in with a rush of air, slamming into me, causing my head to knock against more empty hangers that jangled amongst each other and clanged to the floor. “The door locks…”

“Now, that’s a piece of information I wasn’t aware of.”

Awkward silence. From somewhere just above my head the tiniest puff of warm breath came.

“This…is…interesting,” he chuckled.

“Why are you in here?” I hissed, realizing that because of the way Kade landed in the closet, he was now pressed up against me. Leaning back as far as I could, I pressed the palms of my hands against his chest to push him away. Except that I couldn’t, because as soon as my fingertips touched the tightness of his chest, the gasp that came out of his mouth made my heart race and I had to resist the urge to pull him close and bury my face in his scent. Godfuckingdamnit! I was not going to turn into one of those women who threw themselves at a man who didn’t want her.

“I wanted to see why you jumped in here,” he whispered back. Strong thick fingers gripped my arms. “You smell good.”

“That’s cleaning supplies, jackass.” It wasn’t. I lied. I actually did smell good.

He gripped me tighter, and I wanted to run, run before I did something stupid, like kiss someone who didn’t want to have anything to do with me. A warm hand slid slowly up my arm… He had to stop playing with me. I was not a toy. As I started to speak, I felt the tip of his nose softly trace the edge of my jaw. The smooth, moist heat of his lips moved down to my neck then back up trailing a path of fire to my ear. I needed to stop him. I needed to push him away, but I couldn’t, because I was frozen.

And, of course, there was the little fact that I liked it. I sighed into the silent darkness.

“You left me with that creeper last night. I couldn’t find you. I knocked on your trailer door almost all night and I just came back here to sleep,” he whispered hotly in my ear.

“Creeper?” My stomach flipped. He had looked for me?

“Yeah, what’s her name, Natalie, I think,” he replied, pulling the warmth of his face away from mine. I could still feel his breath on my skin, but I couldn’t make out any of his features. “She was one of those touchy feely, be my baby daddy, gold digging, online pussy showing creepers.”

“I figured you’d enjoy her company,” I laughed darkly.

“Seriously? Did you get dropped on your head as an infant?” he asked dryly.

“Yep, into a large puddle of glitter, glorious intelligence, and flawless awesomeness. What happened with you, did you get left in the mud?” I heard him chuckle. “Oh, God. Look, I didn’t quite think it fully through. I just wanted to get away from Fran, so I went back home and went to sleep, had my earbuds in listening to music and I might have taken two sleeping pills.”

Against my ear, I felt him take a deep breath and exhale slowly with the smallest tremor. “Didn’t affect you one bit that I might have fucked Natalie, huh?” he asked.

“I didn’t think about it. Why would I care? You threw me out of your car last week and I haven’t seen you since,” I said in a low voice.

“Okay, then. I’ll just grab my phone here…” he whispered, and there was a loud thud as, what I believed was his elbow, whacked against the wall. A string of murmured curses hissed under his breath. Then, suddenly a bright light illuminated the small dark closet, reflecting the planes and angles of his face. “And I’ll just call Dylan and tell him to tell Fran where you are.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Fuck yeah, I would. Or you could tell me how you really felt about the stripper and me.” A smirk lit up his face. “You never know, Fran could go all caveman on you. Get all possessive, seeing you talk to me this close in a closet. Grab you right out of my arms.”

I leaned my back against the wall and shrugged my hands in my front pockets. “He could be a bad ass tree hugger. Very dangerous. What if he grabs you instead of me? You might want to rethink this plan of yours.”

Kade leaned in, smiling. “Yep. I bet he could be very scary to a few dust bunnies under a chair somewhere.” Taking in a long breath, he sighed, “Tell me how you felt.”

I laughed, and looked down shaking my head. We were getting too close to each other in here. “I’ve been to his place; he lives in harmony with his dust bunnies.” I looked up as a dangerous flash of something flickered in his eyes.

“You’ve been to his place.” He leaned away. He looked down at his phone, closed it, and then leaned quickly back into me, his lips whispering against my ear, hot breath tingling down my neck. “I hate thinking that he’s been inside you. It makes me want to hurt him. And I’m sorry for being such a mean dick the other night.”

My breath caught from his closeness, “He was never inside me.”

A small movement and the phone illuminated the closet once again.

“Okay. So you didn’t fuck him, and now you know I hate thinking you were. What did you think about me and Natalie?” He flicked the phone off again and total darkness engulfed us.

“I didn’t like it.”

Light flooded my eyes again. His eyes looked menacing, intense. “Why?” He raised the phone.

“What, are you twelve? You shut that phone off one more time; I’m going to kick you, Kade.”

“How about you kiss me instead?” The tension thickened, the small space turned humid, hotter…slicker. Scents of cinnamon apples against worn leather saturated my senses.

“I don’t think that would make me smile half as much as kicking you right now!”

“Seriously?” He flicked the phone off again. Darkness.

“Kade,” I hissed smacking my hand against his chest. The light on the phone flickered on again and we both watched the phone tumble out of his hands and land amongst the clumps of boas and costumes at our feet.

“Tell me how you really felt,” he said, eyes softening, face moving closer to mine. “I need to know,” his warm breath fanned across my lips. Eyes so painfully, savagely grey that they looked lost and colorless, starving.

Fuck, his words made sweat break out on my skin. Primal. Heated. “Yeah, why is that?” The phone’s light blinked out.

“I want you to hate the thought of it.”

“Kade, I hated the thought of it. I hated it so much I didn’t even want to know. I want to get out of this closet and away from you. Your mood swings are giving me whiplash.”

“I didn’t,” he whispered, pulling me closer. “I didn’t touch her. I ran out of there and looked for you. All I wanted was you.”

For a few slow heartbeats, the only sound was our breathing, soft hot breaths against each other’s skin.

“I read your book,” I whispered.

His movements stilled for a moment. I feared he stopped breathing, yet just underneath the tips of my fingers, I felt the erratic acceleration of his heartbeat and I knew I had somehow affected him.

My hands closed over the material of his soft cotton shirt, fisting it in my fingers. I wanted him to know that I didn’t want to let go. In the pitch-blackness, I had shaken off all my inhibitions, all my fears of not being good enough for someone.

“Dedicated to me,” I whispered. Light fluttery touches, brushes of heat against my skin caused shivers that made my whole body tremble.

Thick heavy hands slid slowly up the flesh of my neck, rough fingertips sending shivers up my spine, both of us breathing loudly into each other. In the dark, my senses exploded. My pulse raced, my body melted into his. Powerful.

“Cliffhanger almost killed me. How does it end,” I whispered against his lips.

“Comes out next month,” he said, as warm lips brushed past mine.

“How does it end?” The tension coiled around us thickening, expanding, and absorbing us. In the darkness, it was a tangible smell, feel and taste. Our bodies were touching, pressed close together in the dark. I could feel him everywhere, leaning against my knees and thighs, his broad thick chest rising and falling heavily against mine.

“Brutally beautiful.”

The gasp that escaped my lips caused my own breath to quicken. His hands lay on my collarbone, hot and heavy and I wanted more. I wanted to feel them slide across my skin, every last inch of me. This was so different, so different from how I’d ever felt with a man before. This was more than want, this was more than lust, this was…pure need.

“Fuck this. I’m not staying away from you for another second,” Kade growled. Hot hands grabbed the back of my neck, our lips collided, and my legs just gave out from his touch. Kade groaned softly, low in his throat as his taste flooded into my mouth. I could have measured the moments in heartbeats, because in the deep darkness, our beating hearts was all I heard. Loud. Pounding. Rising. Twisting together.

Heavy lips opening mine, the wet swell of his tongue had me falling, falling into him. Tumbling gently at first. Then plummeting, pulse thundering in my ears, hands tangling in strands of hair, fingertips slipping…sliding. Our lips circled and nipped. His lips pulled at my bottom one, tugging and sucking. Our tongues slid against each other’s, dancing and thrusting. The kiss made me dizzy. He drew me in closer, arms tightening around me, hands gripping flesh harder, and the erotic sounds of our whispered moans vibrated between our lips.

When our lips finally parted, we were both panting, tangled in each other’s arms, fisting silken handfuls of one another’s hair, holding on to each other like lovers. In the darkness everything outside just faded away, just us existing together, all the heartache and all the suffering gone in an instant, in his kiss.

I didn’t want it to end.

A sudden rustle of the costumes below and Kade’s body slid down mine, his fingers wrapping around the waistband of my pants, “I need you, Lain.” His words tore an ache through my body that tingled through the muscles and flesh of the warmth in between my legs. I moaned faintly in approval, covering my hands on his, helping to slide down the material. Gently, with no light to help guide him, he unwrapped one leg out of my pants as his lips brushed my skin and a trail of wet fire was left from his tongue. His hands, warm and heavy, slid up the bare flesh of my thighs to cup my behind and squeezed with slick intense pressure. His hot breath fanned out across my thighs. “I’ve wanted a taste of you since the first time I saw you,” he mumbled hotly against my skin, his lips and fingers reaching their goal and the long wet lick of his tongue sent me reeling, arching my body into his face. "Fuck, you’re as smooth as silk. Wrap your leg over my shoulder," he whispered. Flinging my leg over his broad shoulder, his fingers reached deeper, his tongue dancing eights along my clit. Oh my God, I can’t believe we’re doing this. His faint silhouette knelt before me, my thigh against his face, his lips and tongue exquisitely torturing me. My hips rolled into his mouth and the pressure started immediately building, coiling tightly as his thick fingers moved rhythmically inside me. Sweet waves of aching heat skittered up my skin, over my belly and spread across my chest. My muscles tensed, tendons pulsed and vibrated. He’s going to make me come like this. He’s going to make me come harder than I ever have before. I could feel it, the explosion riding me, pushing me, taking me. I arched my back and jerked, shuddering against the heat of his mouth. Trembling and moaning, I melted back against the wall panting. To me, in that very instant, in the confines of the small dark closet, a Supernova was created, exploding with force under my skin, annihilating me, sending my thigh muscles into clenched quivering flesh. A tiny nip of his teeth and I moaned out in delicious agony. Shuddering, panting, I swore under my breath and arched my wet flesh up to him to take more. A future in this closet with Kade Grayson was all I wanted. “Kade, I think I just kind of fell in love with your tongue.”

His lips smiled against the flesh of my thigh, wet fingers slid across smooth lips and dampened skin. “Then I can’t wait to introduce you to the rest of my body.”

Tugging him up by his hair, we heard the low murmur of voices and the shuffling of footsteps just outside the door. Bree’s voice called out my name, as Kade slipped my undies and pant leg over my ankle, softly yanking them up my leg.

“You okay?” Kade whispered against my temple.

“If I say no, will you stay in here and introduce me to your other parts?”

Chuckling, lips brushing past my ear, “Fuck, Lainey. I want to taste you coming again. Next time, I’m going to bury myself in you and I want to hear my name on your lips when you come.”

I was too stunned to realize he called out to Bree right after that, my body was still trembling and in between my thighs was a tingling throb that drummed the rhythm of Kade’s name, and my panties were damp from the most intense orgasm I’d ever felt.

Blinding bright light made me squeeze my eyes shut as soon as the closet door swung open. Knowing giggles flooded from Bree’s lips when she noticed how disheveled Kade and I looked, but thank God, she had the manners not to say anything. I leaned my back against the closet door, trying to adjust my eyes to the light, but my head still seemed foggy.

Dylan and Bree were explaining how they got rid of Fran; at least I think that’s what they were saying. The only sounds that reached my ears were the recollections of Kade’s heavy breathing and soft guttural moans. It took every ounce of restraint I had not to drag him back into the closet with me.

Kade’s eyes were wide, too. He looked ravaged; stunned. His eyes locked on mine and I was utterly swept up in Kade, in his eyes, drowning, drowning, not hearing or seeing anyone else in the room. I wanted to drown in him. I wanted to feel every inch of that look against my skin. I wanted to touch every last part of him. I wanted to make him call out my name.

Standing there in the office with Bree and Dylan still talking about Fran, I felt faint, surreal.

Still feeling his kiss burn against my lips, I covered them with trembling fingers. His voice, deep and husky, still echoing in my mind. Nobody ever kissed me like that, with force, with need, with fucking power. Nobody ever paralyzed me with one single look. Some nameless undiscovered organ in my body had opened and Kade Grayson was pouring himself inside me, seeping into my flesh, my veins, my cells, taking over my body. I was torn between wanting him to and not.

This man pierced my soul with his eyes. I feared he was seeing too much in me, peeling open my skin to try to find all the secrets within. However, the truth still remained that I wanted his lips on me, I haven’t been kissed well in ages. I hadn’t felt wanted and excited about a man in forever. I knew I shouldn’t want him. He was wrong for me. He was someone I could never be real with. Shit…I’d never be able to be real with anyone for the rest of my life, would I?

Bree and Dylan ended their sentences and walked out. I wondered vaguely what was said, but I was too Kade-induced to care.

“Kade?” I walked closer to him. The only response was his eyes following me. “Kade?” I whispered. “Talk to me.”

“I can’t control myself when I’m around you.” He stepped closer to me, face leaning down into mine, hovering over me, “You don’t make me crazy, you make me feel sane. Don’t ask me to stay away from you. I’ve been doing that for too many weeks now. I feel like I’ve been stealing from myself something I've been starving to have. And it’s you.” Damp sweaty hands cupped my face, “What happened in that closet is going to happen again, and again, and a-fucking-gain, Lainey. It’s never going to end.” He pressed his cheek against mine, the stubble of his unshaven face sent prickles of heat across my skin. The hands cupping my face shifted, and slid over my breasts and down my stomach. “This, Lainey,” he growled cupping in between my thigh, squeezing hard and releasing, “is mine. And, I’m yours. All of me. Destroy me, Lainey.”

He shuffled backward, and walked out of the office, leaving me…breathless.

Oh, my God…I was smiling.

The Kade-coma didn’t release me from its tight grasp until late afternoon. We spent the day cleaning, me demonstrating to everyone how to sterilize and scrub the hell out of things, and everyone moaning and groaning about me being an anal-retentive crazy clean freak. Well, everyone but Kade. Kade understood and scrubbed harder than I did, and I know this sounds sick, but it made my muscles clench and pool with want.

As night settled, and darkened the skies outside the bar windows, four men came in, a handful of regulars, and one of them, Bobby, dropped a few quarters into the old jukebox. Without looking, I could hear the familiar jingle jangle of the coins clinking against the sides of the metal as they slid in. It was so quiet in the bar that I heard the clicks of the buttons as his fingers chose the numbers to the songs, and soon after, the first guitar strums of Paint It Black by the Rolling Stones drifted eerily to my ears.

Bree, Dylan, Kade, and I, were sitting behind the bar on our small booth. Bree sat next to me, the smell of lemons, limes and thick dark beer erased the clean sent of disinfectant, and I missed its calming sterile scent. I’d been staring down at the little square napkin I’d been unknowingly folding into one of those origami animals and thinking about the heat of Kade’s lips on mine, when I felt Bree shift to stand. She walked over to the group of four men as Dylan made his way to the other end of the bar. My stomach did a flip knowing Kade and I was alone at the table and just out of the view of everybody and my hands stilled their movements.

My heart rate sped up when the small cushion I sat on shifted under more weight next to me. The warmth of Kade’s arm brushed against my skin and the slight touch made my body tremble. Leaning in closer, he brushed his knuckles along my jaw, immediately making my eyes meet his. So many thoughts were said between us in that stare, so many secrets were shared, so many strings were pulled that I lost myself a little drowning in those eyes.

“You’re going to leave, aren’t you?” he whispered.

“Why would you ask that?”

“You haven’t looked at me all afternoon. Your eyes are constantly on the door, and you look ready to run…Please stay…I didn’t mean to scare you before…” Intense.

“Kade, I’m not scared of you. There’s just…”

An explosive gritty crack rocked through the bar, a bright flash of light and the sizzling sounds of showering sparks and broken glass shattered out across the room, landing at my feet, and the music died instantly.

Even if I had never heard a gunshot before, it was not one of those sounds that you could mistake this close, but I knew for sure with every heartbeat what it was. That explosive sound that could deafen for minutes after, the slow motion of events right after, as chaos prepared its introduction. My heart thudded hard and all my muscles tightened into fight mode. For a half of a second, the room stilled and everything was bathed in thick silence. The smell of burning wires and acid filled my nose.

“Now that I have all you redneck’s attention, where can I find Samantha Matthews,” the gritty voice said, and I felt it in every cell in my body. This was it. Game over. I’d been found. My muscles tensed. Would he kill me quickly or drag me back home and kill me slowly in front of a live audience?

I still wore the stains of my decisions in slight white scars and discoloring on my skin. The strong feelings that I once had for my husband were locked in a small hidden box, and once that gunshot rang out, once the knowledge that his heart still beat somewhere, the lid of that box popped right open. My past exploded like warfare before my eyes. The feelings that I once had of love and comfort were twisted into hate and fear.

Holding Kade’s wide stare, anguish tore through me. God, please don’t let him kill me in front of Kade. Please, don’t do this to him again. I slid down onto the floor, crawled in front of the safe, and focused on turning the lock without being heard, or missing a damn number. Kade’s eyes pleaded with me. His hands grabbed after me to stay. His body slid across mine to protect me. My heart surged in my chest. Tearing my gaze away from Kade, I focused on the lock to the safe.

“I’m gonna repeat the question one more time. Where the fuck is Samantha Matthews?” The voice wasn’t familiar, the son-of-a-bitch must have paid someone to hunt me down. I dialed the lock to the safe. Right 12. Left 27… as Kade’s tense muscles hovered over my body mumbling low, just above a breath, in one of those horror movie singsong whispers… “2 exits. 5 windows. 4 customers. 1 waitress. 1 brother. 1 Lainey. 1 shooter. How many guns…” His hands gripped the flesh on my arms protectively as my heart was pounding through my chest. Oh, God, he was losing it.

The safe’s door bounced open and I grabbed for Dylan’s gun. I knew it was there, and I knew it was usually loaded. All I had to do was click the magazine into place and pray the gunman didn’t hear. Slipping the safety off, I tried to get out from under Kade’s arms.

“Don’t know anybody by the name of Samantha Matthews,” Dylan’s voice said. Oh, God, Dylan shut the hell up. I could see him at the other end of the bar, both hands raised, face probably looking into the end of the barrel of a gun, his fingers trembling.

“I’ll just get her to come out then,” the voice laughed dryly, as two more flashes of light and sound exploded from his gun.

Behind the bar, a mere ten feet from me, Dylan dropped instantly.

Jumping up, gun raised, I braced myself for impact. “Drop the gun,” I said. From the corner of my eye, I saw George, one of the regulars standing next to Bobby, with his gun already raised right at the shooter’s head.

I adjusted the aim of my gun a few inches to the right until it lined up flawlessly to the shooters forehead, knowing perfectly well George was about to pull his trigger. Another shot ripped through the bar and the shooter collapsed. Shit, it was Deputy George and Deputy Bobby, as a matter of fact, all four regulars were cops. The four men moved in sync, two surrounding the shooter’s body, the other two going out to see who else was around.

Bree screamed Dylan’s name, then mine. It was crushing to hear the primal sound of her heart breaking as she crawled to get to him. I recognized how scared and freaked she truly was. It was the same way when they told her about Michael. She looked at me then as she looked at me the day they found his body. Please help me. I didn’t realize it until then that she’d fallen in love with Dylan. I nodded to her with watery eyes.

Kade reached Dylan first and slumped down mumbling next to him. Bree slid next to us hiccupping and sobbing. “He’s still breathing. Please help him. I can’t do this again. I can’t. I can’t live through another Michael, Sam.” Her tears spilled, cascading waterfalls of sorrow. Desperation.

“Bree, get the car and bring me my bag. Olaes is there. Get Olaes. Bring it all,” I said.

Kade was breathing heavily next to me, whispering, “Who the fuck is Elias? Is he a doctor?”

Dylan’s eyes looked into mine; fear and surprise. “What? What’s going…what the fu…” His eyes scanned his body, registering the blood. “Oh, God…oh, God…I don’t want to die.” His eyes shifted to Kade. “Kade, I…I don’t want to die.” Sweat started falling from his brow.

Tearing his shirt off, I scanned the wounds. Hunger and anger bubbled in my chest. Two bullets split through his skin. Slipping my hands beneath his back, I searched, no exit wound on his back, one ‘through and through’ on his right arm. I was not worried about his arm, because it wasn’t a life-threatening hit, but the one in his torso could be. It could be. The scent of fear and metal stung at my nose and the guttural sob that ripped from Kade’s throat was like a steel vise that wrenched around my chest, squeezing so hard I gasped for breath. I had to stop them, to calm them before their panic spread like frost against glass, freezing and paralyzing them both. I had to stop them from making everything worse. My hand shot out to Kade. I laid my bloodied fingers against his cheek and his eyes snapped to mine. I’ve done this before. “It feels like you can’t breathe, but you can. It feels like you’ll never get through this, but you will.” My own breathing regulated and I offered him an encouraging smile. “Kade,” I said evenly. I slammed my hands down hard on both of Dylan’s wounds, applying as mush pressure as I could. “Dylan is doing great. Let’s keep him talking and thinking about other things and we’re going to get him some help. Trust me.”

I could hear the men in the background of the bar. They had a cruiser and ambulance on the way. However, the hospital was at least a twenty-minute drive from there.

Dylan wasn’t going to make that. My throat thickened as visions of granite headstones stood like soldiers in a field of dead pressed up against the sky. I pressed the weight of my body against his punctures, smiling…calmly…always show them calmness…always be the comforting voice in the middle of madness.

Bree was next to me in a flash of panting sobs and cold winds, holding my aid bag. She had the zipper open and a torn Olaes pack in her hand before I could even ask her.

“What…What…What is that?” Dylan was asking.

“This is a tourniquet that’s going to save your life, sweetheart. This is called an Olaes Modular Bandage.” Calm him. Talk to him. “It’s named after a very brave soldier.”

“I…I…don’t want to…to die,” Dylan pleaded. His words sank in my belly, chilling my bones.

“Not on my watch you won’t,” I answered, wrapping and pressing, sealing and praying. It wasn’t even a battlefield. This was not his fault. We should have never stayed here. These people were innocent. Innocent and bleeding, spilling and splattering crimson sunsets across the floor.

Because of me.