Page 58 of Bad for You

Nope. Wrong answer. I swung and kept on swinging. He went down to his back and I gripped his shirt, lifting him as I slammed my fist into his jaw, anywhere I could hit him, over and over. Red clouded my vision, and for a split second he wasn’t some random asshole, it was my old man.

The urge to keep on hitting until he wasn’t moving anymore drove my fist into his face again and again.

“Enough,” Stones said. “Not in the mood to deal with a body.”

My president’s rough voice was enough to snap me out of it.

I took in the bloody, barely conscious asshole under me and felt cold inside. I had no sympathy for this piece of shit. “You come to the clubhouse again, you won’t be walking out, understand?”

He managed a jerky nod. A decent crowd had gathered. I searched it and my gaze collided with a pair of cold, green eyes almost identical to mine. I flinched.

My father. I had no idea he was here.

Forcing myself to ignore him, I motioned to one of the prospects. “Get him out of here.”

I stood and turned—

Lila stood there, big brown eyes round, afraid—of me.

I moved toward her cautiously, afraid she’d spin and sprint away from me. She moved from foot to foot like she hadn’t quite decided what to do.

“Lila,” I choked, feeling sick to my stomach that she’d seen that. That she’d seen a part of me I’d never wanted her to see.

Instead of running though, she reached out, taking my hand, and led me back across the lot. She didn’t stop on the small porch, she tugged the quilt off the couch as we walked by and led me inside, shutting the door.

She moved around the shadowy room and switched on the lamp by the bed before coming back to me.

“Let me see your hand,” she said softly.

I held still as she studied my abused knuckles, frozen, afraid of what she’d say. Positive she’d tell me we were done. That she didn’t want anything to do with a violent asshole like me.

She glanced back up at me. “He hit her?”

I nodded.

“I’ve never seen…been around anything like that…” She bit her lower lip, her delicate nostrils flaring. “You were so angry, Jesse. What you did to that man…”

“Yeah,” I choked out and tucked a silky lock of her hair behind her ear. I couldn’t not touch her. “I scared you. Shit, I never want you to be scared of me.”

She shook her head. “I’m not scared of you. You’d never hurt me.”

Relief throbbed through me and I shook from it. “No. Never.”

She started to shake as well, something moving across her eyes I couldn’t name. “Your brother…what happened out there, it was about him, wasn’t it? About him hurting Sofia?”

My chin jerked back. How the hell could she know that? Only it wasn’t just about Trip. But she didn’t need to know just how fucked up my family was.

Her hand drifted down my stomach and rested on my belt. “You’re a protector,” she said in the quiet of the room, music from outside a low, muffled beat. “You’re a good man, Jesse.”

Yeah, I wished that were true. I wished I was the man she thought she saw right now.

Her delicate fingers worked the worn leather of my belt, pulling it through the heavy buckle. “A good man.”

“Bambi?” Fuck knew how I managed to even get that out with the way she was looking at me, like I was some kind of superhero, as she popped the button on my Levi’s.

“What am I doing?” she said softly. “I’m taking you to bed. I’m helping you forget.”

“Is that right?” I choked out.