Page 58 of Tormented

I step back, removing Tap from my personal bubble. Anybody else getting that close up in my space, and I would have smashed a fist into their face hard enough to send the cartilage of their nose into their back teeth. But this is Tap: the man who made a quiet promise that he’d see me redeem myself, and the man who pulled a few strings to make things happen when I admitted I needed to return to work to feel myself again.

I swing my attention back Abbey’s way, and growl as one of the prospects makes his move, bumping his hip against hers when he crowds her space. She jolts, taking a step sideways, her brow a hardened line.

“Don’t you worry about her,” Tap says with humor in his tone. “Watch.” He jerks his chin her way, standing shoulder to shoulder with me.

The prospect tries to throw an arm around her, but she ducks, leaving his limb to fall heavily at his side. Words are exchanged, her lips downturned at the corners as he tries to joke it off, given the cocky smirk on his as he talks, gesturing wildly with his hands. Beer sloshes out of the bottle he grips in the right, the left moving closer to her the more he spouts off.

Her eyes track his every movement—the concentration, the planning and preparation written in her gaze.

Interesting . . . .

Indeed. Seems our Abbey isn’t as vulnerable as she once was. The fight’s always been in her, but when I left Lincoln five weeks ago, her first instinct was still to run, to hide, and to deny.

Now she looks as though she’s planning how to kill him.

Even more interesting . . .

“Here comes the good bit,” Tap whispers, leaning in close as though this is some great conspiracy.

The prospect shuts up, giving Abbey the side-eye while she takes a swig of her drink. She lowers the tumbler to the top of the bar, and then turns it between her hands; seemingly oblivious to the fact the prospect is now eyeing her ass. My fists clench, my chest a little tighter and my jaw a little harder. If she won’t let me have it, then no one gets it. Tap gently sets a hand on my forearm in warning. I grit my teeth painfully hard and try to focus instead on Abbey, rather than where that prospect fucker has his hungry stare.

She hunches her shoulders and takes a deep breath, right at the same moment the guy swings out his left hand in a sweeping arc toward her butt.

His hand connects.

The slap of flesh on her backside echoes through my skull.

I break skin on my palms with how tight my fists are.

And then the best thing of all happens.

Abbey stands rigid, her back snapping into a steel rod as she pulls her elbow back, the tumbler firm in her grasp, and hammers it down on the prospect’s head.

Shock registers in his eyes.

I chuckle.

And then the worst thing of all happens.

The little fucker wraps his hand around her throat and pushes her back so her spine arcs over the bar.

Somewhere amidst the chaos Tap yells for him to be removed from the premises, a blur of black leather and silver accessories flashing in a morbid kaleidoscope before my eyes as I close the space between where I was and where I should have been all along. Tap has kept me to myself the past month for a fucking good reason, and it ain’t because I do well on my own.

I just do worse in a crowd.

Been a while since we’ve smelled blood . . .

It’s been barely forty-eight hours, fucker.

Long enough. My devil shrugs.

“Head out back, Abbey,” I bark through gritted teeth. “Make yourself scarce.”

The prospect whimpers with pain from the grip I have on his wrist. His fingers are limp, the pain incredible thanks to the precise pressure point I grind my thumb into.

“Let go, man,” he complains. “I get the message.”

Oh, no, my devil chuckles. I don’t think he does . . .