He scoffed at me and poked a finger in my chest. He was lucky I didn’t knock him in the mouth. “You’re so stupid, so uneducated, and low class to think it has anything to do with sex. I can get sex anywhere. You really think I let Shaw dangle her ass in front of me for six months and didn’t get some on the side? Sex is irrelevant and if she’s giving it up to you I don’t want to go near her with a ten-foot pole. This is business and image; she can’t set a precedent that I’m replaceable with a tattooed punk who has nothing to offer. I can’t have people remembering that.”
I grabbed the wrist of the hand that was poking me and shoved him back into the car. “If you think sex with Shaw is irrelevant, then you’re the one who’s uneducated, jackass. Get over yourself. If I can prove that you had anything to do with her car, we’re pressing charges. If you keep harassing her, we’ll keep going to court and eventually someone will notice your old man covering your ass. I’m telling you this stops now or you can go to the hospital and I can spend some time in jail, got it?”
We stared each other down. By now there was a sizable crowd gathered around while we sized each other up. I didn’t see the security guard until he was getting between the two of us. Before he could start asking questions, I flipped Gabe off and headed back to the side street where I had parked the truck. The guard called something after me and I heard Davenport’s raised voice, but I didn’t stop until I was back in the truck and had the heater blasting. I flexed my hands repeatedly on the steering wheel and took a few deep breaths to get myself back under control. The last time I had felt this amount of impotent anger, this unfinished need to destroy something, was when I had watched them put my brother in the ground. I wanted to tear Polo Shirt’s perfectly tailored body apart seam by seam and watch him suffer. Pushing him around and making him uncomfortable just wasn’t enough. The darkness, the unpredictability that lurked inside me reared up again and wanted unbridled vengeance, but I had to put it back in the box because I wasn’t going to make Shaw wrestle with it again so soon.
It took me a solid half hour before I felt like I was ready to go home and face her. When I walked in the door, Nash was playing one of the game units and screaming a mouthful of obscenities through the headset at whomever he was playing with. He ripped the gear off and gave me a once-over as I shut the door and climbed to his feet.
“I don’t see any blood or gore.”
I shrugged and tossed my jacket on the back of the couch. “Too many people around. Plus, I think kicking his ass would only encourage him. The guy has a whole toolbox of screws loose. It isn’t even about Shaw; it’s all about how it looks that she dumped him and is hanging out with me. His ego is out of this world. I seriously don’t know what we’re going to do about it because he’s right about his dad being able to cover for him; he already proved it once.”
Nash jerked his head in the direction of my room. “She hasn’t made a sound. She never surfaced after the shower so I don’t know how she’s doing, but I have to go or I’m going to be late for my appointment and I still need to tweak the drawing a little.”
“It’s cool, I got her. Maybe she was just so stressed out she slept the whole time.”
“You could only be so lucky, bro.”
I snorted and waved him off as I headed toward my room. The door was closed and everything was dark when I pushed it open. Shaw was curled up in a fetal position in the center of the bed and it didn’t take a genius to tell she was wide awake and had been crying. She had her hands tucked up under her cheek and was staring sightlessly at the blank TV.
“What did you do to him?” Her voice was raw and even more husky than normal from crying. I sat on the edge of the bed and reached out to run a hand over her thigh.
“I told him to back off and that it wasn’t smart to piss off someone who had me as a boyfriend. I don’t know what his deal is, Shaw—I think the dude is certifiable. He just doesn’t relate on any kind of logical level.”
“I thought you were going to hurt him.”
“Well, I might have but it was broad daylight and there was an entire college of students walking around. I pushed him around a little and we tossed some crap at each other, but I just mostly wanted him to know you aren’t alone, that if he hurts you there are plenty of people waiting in the wings to hurt him back.”
Silent tears ran down her face and I had to lean all the way over her supine form to wipe them away with my thumbs.
“I just want him to go away. I never did anything to deserve this. All I ever do is what everyone else wants. Why I am being punished for doing the one thing in life I want for myself?”
“I don’t know, Casper, I just don’t know.” I didn’t know how to make her feel better so I just scooted up on the bed behind her and gathered her up in my arms while she cried. I didn’t consider myself an empathetic or even a compassionate guy. I was usually too wrapped up in my own head and my own spiral of emotional nonsense to pay much attention to anyone else’s, but holding Shaw while she cried changed something in me on a fundamental level. I felt like there was nothing on earth I wouldn’t do or wouldn’t give to make this better for her. I felt like a failure for not stopping it from happening in the first place, and I knew that from this point on, keeping an eye on her and keeping her relatively safe from just Davenport wasn’t enough.
Suddenly, with blinding clarity, I knew that I wanted to keep her safe from anything that could hurt her, and that just sucked, because I had a sneaking suspicion that somewhere along the line I had been the source of just as much distress as Polo Shirt was proving to be. That made me want to break things all over again.
CHAPTER 14
Shaw
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Ayden sounded nervous and she wasn’t thrilled I had dragged her to Marked so early in the morning. We were sitting in a little room at the shop I had never seen before, even though I was spending more and more time at the shop waiting for Rule to get off or dropping off dinner for him if he had to work late. The room had clearly been decorated by a female; Cora’s funky sense of style was all over the place and it smelled a little less antiseptic than the rest of the shop. I was sitting on a chair that looked an awful lot like the one you would find in a gynecologist’s office, and nervously fidgeting with everything in sight.
“I’m sure.”
“I just don’t understand why you want to do something that’s going to hurt.”
“It’ll only hurt for a minute and I trust Cora.” I did. Whenever I was at the shop we ended up spending hours talking, and had even taken our budding friendship out of the building. When Rule or Rome were unable to pull “eyes on Shaw” duty Cora didn’t seem to mind hanging out with me until one of my many watchdogs was free. I really liked her and having someone I was comfortable with pierce me was the only way I was going to go through with it. Cora had even agreed to come in when the shop was closed while Rule and Nash were at the gym so that I could keep it a surprise.
“I just want to make sure you’re doing it for you and not for Rule. What if you guys break up and the next guy you date is all straitlaced and proper? Pierced nipples might not work for your next boyfriend.”
I gave her a bored look and tried to calm my nerves. The truth was, doing it had nothing to do with Rule. I was back to feeling like I had no control over my life again. The thing with my car and the way Gabe was still influencing my day-to-day life, the pressure from my parents about everything from my hair to Rule, the way Rule disappeared inside himself when I started to get too close—it was all closing in on me and I needed something that was just for me. I wanted this little something that was my choice, a decision to alter my body that no one else had any say in.