Chapter Thirty-Five #2
I also said to Colt—that’s the guy’s name—that we’d grab takeout and eat in the park instead of at the crowded and enclosed restaurant.
I want Arsen to leave, not be further tortured.
At least outside there’s an option for him to move around or pick a lonely corner somewhere, which he sometimes likes to do when things get hard, especially during bonfires at the ranch.
I breathe in a sigh of relief when the food arrives and Colt has to let go of my hand to pick up the brown paper bag.
As soon as we walk out the door, I know he’s following me; he was there at the restaurant, too, at a table in a far corner.
And he was across the street from the shelter to escort me back to the apartment at the end of my workday.
I came out with Colt today, though, a first, so I don’t know how that affected him.
I also don’t know what he thought about the detour we took to this restaurant.
But now that we’re walking to the park, I can’t ignore his heat.
It’s so thick that I can feel it grazing my back.
It’s brushing the nape of my neck, prickling the bare skin of my arms. And I just want to stop it.
I want to tell Colt this was a mistake, that I’m not interested in him.
I will never be interested in him or any other man because there’s only one man I want and he’s currently following us.
Just as I turn to Colt, he turns toward me and grabs my hand again.
The shock makes me come to a halt. We’re a block away from the park, on the sidewalk with an alley between two buildings.
Seems like a good place to talk and get this awkward encounter over with.
But he’s the first to speak: “I never thought you’d be the one to ask a guy out. ”
Yikes. So he knew it was a date. It makes things even more awkward, but I have to forge ahead. “Um, yeah, about that. I think I—”
“You are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen,” he says, his brown eyes sparkling.
“Oh, I… Thank you. But I just—”
“And truth be told,” he keeps going, leaning toward me a little bit.
“You’re exactly my type.” This is going downhill super fast, so once again, I take a breath to prepare to get my point across, but he doesn’t let me.
“I’m into heavier girls. With curves and all that…
” He pauses to gesture with his hands and motions toward my chest and then my ass. “This is fucking amazing.”
Embarrassed and quite frankly offended, I step back and finally speak: “I don’t think this is going to work out.”
But he either doesn’t hear what I say or chooses to ignore me, because the moment I widen the gap between us, he closes it and obviously intends to put his mouth on mine. I can smell garlic on his breath from lunch. But before he can make contact, he’s been pushed back.
He’s been dragged back, because my stalker has decided to make his presence known.
He’s got Colt by the collar as he slams his back into the brick wall.
Colt groans and coughs, but Arsen doesn’t give him a chance to catch his breath before he rears back and punches him in the face.
And before Colt can recover from that, Arsen lays another one on him.
Then he gets up in Colt’s face, wrapping his fingers around his throat as he growls, “Stay the fuck away from her. You think you can touch her? You think you can touch what’s mine? ”
“Arsen!” I call out, his bearlike voice bringing me out of my shock. With my heart racing, I rush over to them. “Arsen, let him go.”
He doesn’t listen to me. Instead, I watch as his bicep bulges more and Colt’s eyes bug out. “What if he calls the cops? You could go back to jail. Stop it, right now.”
But of course he doesn’t listen. If anything, his grip increases, and his expression turns even more mean.
When has the threat of cops ever stopped this man?
So I say the only thing that I know will get him to stop.
“Arsen, if you don’t stop, I’ll… I’ll never talk to you.
I’ll never write you another note and I’ll—”
Just like that, he lets go. His fingers around Colt’s throat loosen, and he steps back from him, turning toward me. Colt’s body slumps, and he’s coughing as he goes down to his knees on the pavement. But neither of us pays any attention to him. Arsen’s focus is locked on me as my focus is on him.
I take in his wildly breathing chest, his fisted hands, his clenched jaw as I say, “I’m not yours.”
He wipes his mouth with the back of one hand as he studies me back, my heaving chest, my flushed cheeks. “You did that on purpose.”
My heart is pounding. “You could’ve killed him.”
His nostrils flare with a big breath. “He would’ve deserved it for puttin’ his hands on you.”
I lift my trembling chin. “I wanted his hands on me.”
His jaw tics. “No, you wanted to piss me off.”
“I thought you wanted to watch,” I taunt. “So I gave you something to watch.”
“And put yourself in danger in the process.”
I swallow as a small shiver of fear runs down my spine.
Rationally, I know we were out in the open and so I probably could’ve gotten out of the kiss Colt was going to lay on me.
But still, no girl wants to be kissed without her consent.
So damn it, I’m grateful he came. But he doesn’t need to know that so I lie, “It was fine. I was fine. You didn’t need to barge in and save the day. ”
“When it comes to you, I’ll always barge in and save the day. Or die tryin’.”
“God,” I growl, stomping my foot. “What about other guys, huh? Is that what you’re going to do when I start dating other people? You’ll come in and punch them and scare them away.”
His chest shudders with a large breath and something violent passes through his features. “If they hurt you, yes.”
“Oh, so, what, you’re my bodyguard now? A guy has to pass your test to be deemed worthy of me?”
“No one,” he growls, violence flickering through his features once again, “is worthy of you. No one will ever be worthy of you. No one will ever be fit to breathe in your direction, or share the same space as you. No one will ever come close.” Then, with a large breath that seems designed to calm him down, “But I’ll settle for someone who doesn’t hurt you or make you cry.
Or put his hands on you in an alley when you don’t want it. ”
And you didn’t want it.
He doesn’t say that, but it’s clear he means it; and Jesus, I’m so done with him.
I’m done with his tortured expression, his anguish, his stubborn protectiveness.
The fact is that I’m so fucking happy he put an end to this farce I started for reasons I can’t remember right now.
And I can’t have that. I cannot have him melting me like this.
What does it say about me if I keep forgiving him for all his crimes? If I keep giving him second chances.
“For the thousandth time, okay? Just leave. Leave, leave, leave. Go back to your ranch.”
His eyes turn into angry slits and his chest vibrates with his next words: “And for the thousandth time, I’m not leavin’.
I’m not goin’ anywhere. I’m not wastin’ my life livin’ somewhere you are not.
Somewhere I can’t protect you, keep you safe, watch over you.
Even if I have to do it from afar. And you can call me your bodyguard or whatever the fuck you want but you know who I am.
You know I’m the man you saved. You know I’m the man you brought back from dead.
I’m the man you taught how to dream again.
I’m the man you let touch you with his filthy cowboy criminal hands.
You gave me the privilege to touch you and I ain’t forgettin’ that.
“It doesn’t matter if I have to watch you go with another man and if I have to cut myself every single minute of every single day just to stop myself from fuckin’ him up because you smiled at him; I’ll still do it.
I’ll walk through fire. I’ll walk through land rigged with explosives.
If it means I get to be able to look at you.
So you wanna ignore me, you go ahead and ignore me.
You don’t wanna look at me, you go ahead and look somewhere else.
You can walk by me and pretend I’m dead.
You can go about your fuckin’ day like I don’t exist. It’ll kill me but I’ll take it.
I’m not leavin’, because I’m branded. You branded me when you saved my life.
So I’m not leavin’ and you need to get that through your head and stop actin’ foolish. ”
You know what, fuck it. How dare he? How dare he throw my words back at me and call himself branded when he doesn’t even know the meaning of it.
When he doesn’t even know how much it hurts me to ignore him and pretend he doesn’t exist. So without thinking it through, I launch myself at him.
I don’t care that Colt is still coughing and wheezing somewhere close to us.
I don’t care that we’re in the middle of a sidewalk and even though we were alone up until now, anyone could walk by and see a crazy girl in a pink dress beating on a huge cowboy who doesn’t do anything to stop her.
He simply gives my foolhardy launch a safe place to land, his chest. He simply keeps me plastered to it with his arm around my waist as I keep punching him and smacking him and scratching his jaw and his face.
And as I do it, I hear myself sob. I hear myself cry and chant how much I hate him.
How he makes everything so hard. How he always, always does that.
And if this is his way of protecting me and keeping me safe, then he’s not really doing a good job of it, because he keeps hurting me himself.