Bottles & Blades (Eagles Hockey: Oak Ridge Vineyards #1)

Chapter 11

Eleven

Tiff

One second, Dave is being his usual drunk jerky self.

The next, my eyes are going wide as Jean-Michel rushes forward.

With a speed I can barely track, he’s gripped Dave by the throat and shoved him back against the wall on the opposite side of the hallway. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he growls.

Dave tries to answer, but with Jean-Michel’s hand around his neck, clenching so tightly his face is turning purple, my pain in the ass neighbor can’t so much as utter a word.

Not that Jean-Michel seems inclined to listen to any answer he can conjure up.

“You.” He shakes Dave violently. “Do not .” Another jerk that has Dave’s head lolling back. “Harass. Women. And you especially—” Dave chokes. “Do not harass this woman. Or else you’ll deal with me.”

He bends, puts his face right in Dave’s, and I know I should probably be scared, know I should probably want nothing more than to get the hell away from this man and the very real possibility that he could hurt me…

But I’m fascinated.

Awed by his strength.

Infatuated with the way he didn’t hesitate to protect me.

Shocked by the brute force, the speed, how Dave appears to be no more than a ragdoll in his hold.

And…entranced.

“Do you get me?”

More choking, whatever Dave is trying to say completely indiscernible.

Something Jean-Michel seems to realize because he loosens his grip enough for Dave to rasp out, “I get it, man. Jesus Christ, I get it.”

The choking increases again. “Not Jesus Christ,” Jean-Michel growls. “You come here late at fucking night pounding on my woman’s door, and not for the first time. You’re lucky this is all you’re getting because if it happens again, you will spend the rest of your life breathing through a fucking straw.”

“I—”

“ Now do you get me?”

“I—”

“I don’t need more words, asshole. Just nod once if you get me.”

Dave nods more jerkily than a bobblehead.

“Now”—Jean-Michel shoves him so he crashes to the floor—“get your fucking keys out.”

“Wh-what?”

“Get the keys to your fucking apartment out .”

Dave reaches a shaking hand into his pocket, retrieves a set of keys.

“Unlock your door.”

I shift closer as Dave clambers to his feet, walks down the hall, struggling to unlock his door because his hands are shaking so badly.

Jean-Michel doesn’t help.

Neither do I.

We just stand there, watching his attempts to insert the keys.

Eventually, he manages to unlock his door, to push it open, but as he’s about to step inside, Jean-Michel speaks again, his voice so cold that I shiver.

“Don’t forget that now I know where you live.”

Dave freezes.

Then lurches forward, slamming the door behind him.

Jean-Michel stares at it for a long moment then turns back toward my apartment. His eyes flare when he sees me standing by the open door, and I hold my ground as he comes near.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, running the backs of his knuckles over my cheek.

God, I love it when he does that.

“For what?” I whisper.

“That you had to see that.” He ushers me inside, closes the door behind him, and glares down at the lock as he engages it.

“Are you kidding?” I ask. “That was amazing. ”

His frown as he turns to face me again is fierce.

I move to him, want to reach my hand up and smooth out the lines on his forehead, around his eyes, but I don’t have the courage to go quite that far.

Instead, I squeeze his forearm. “He’s been doing that for months and management doesn’t care, and”—my mouth curves—“I don’t think I have to worry about him any longer. Now”—I tug him back to the couch—“you didn’t finish your food.”

His frown doesn’t smooth out.

Not as I push him back down onto the cushions and shove the plate in his hands.

Not until I smile at him and say,

“If you eat your dinner, I’ll even share my ice cream.”

I’m moving.

That last thing I remember is resting back against Jean-Michel’s chest.

He finished his plate.

We made a decent-sized dent in the ice cream.

And…

We talked.

About my classes. About his job and all the places it took him.

And then about nothing important—the books on my shelves, the dry tomes that he pretends are books on his at his place.

No novels.

Dry historical military nonfiction. Business nonfiction. Technological nonfiction. And the occasional biography.

The last one, at least, I can understand.

The ins and outs of someone’s mind, learning what makes someone tick, empathizing with all they’ve overcome—there are so many beautiful stories to take to heart.

But the universe will have to tear my romance novels out of my cold, dead hands.

He laughed at my indignation when he teased me about my books, but then he did something wonderful—and it was somehow more wonderful than all the things he’d already done today?—

Minus the kidnapping.

Yeah, that’s a convenient fact I’m dissociating from.

Though, of course, now that I’m understanding him a bit more…it makes sense.

In a pushy, alpha, billionaire way.

Like something out of my books.

Like something out of my fantasies.

Because he’d teased me then he tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, drew me back against his chest, and did that something wonderful.

Because he shared.

Because he was thoughtful.

“My daughter,” he said, smoothing that hand down my spine, “Chrissy loves reading romance books too. Do you want me to ask her what she’s reading right now? See if she has any recommendations?”

I smiled, listened to the steady beat of his heart beneath my ear, and murmured, “Sure.”

Because guaranteed happy endings will always triumph over everything else.

Especially when happy endings aren’t promised in real life.

Then I asked him to tell me about her.

And I listened to the obvious love and affection in his voice as he talked about her cat rescue and her work for the Eagles. I listened as he talked about the man she’d fallen in love with and the future they’re building with a baby on the way and a wedding to plan.

I listened to him…

And now I’m moving.

I peel back my lids. “What?—?”

“Shh,” he murmurs as the movement stops and he sets me on something soft.

My bed.

But then he’s pulling the sheet and comforter up and over me.

A kiss to the top of my head, those knuckles brushing over my cheek again.

More soft words.

“Go back to sleep, buttercup.”

After all that happened today, I know there’s no way that’s happening.

Only, by the time he’s made it to the door, my lids grow heavy again.

And before it swings closed, sleep has risen up and coaxed me down under again.