31. Shep
31
SHEP
A red haze slipped over my vision as I moved to deck the bastard in front of me. But someone grabbed my shirt from behind just as Kye stepped between us, giving Russ a strong shove.
“Get the fuck out of here, Wheeler,” Kye growled. “Shep held back. You know I won’t.”
“His whore started it,” Russ whined.
Thea’s face paled at his words, and the red haze came back. I charged.
“Hell,” Anson cursed. “A little help?”
Kye turned, his eyes flaring slightly as he pushed me back. “Don’t. He’s not worth it.”
But I couldn’t stop. Thea had been hurt too much already. I wasn’t about to let it happen again.
“Jesus,” Anson muttered as he tried to hold me. “Have you been taking steroids or something?”
A soft hand pressed against my cheek. “Shepard.”
Thea’s voice was far from loud, but I still heard her above all the noise—the smoky lilt to it, the way it curled around me like an embrace.
Unshed tears shone in her eyes. “Please, don’t.”
All the fight went out of me, and Anson and Kye felt it, releasing me but keeping watch. I moved into Thea, my hands skimming over her. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
Russ was shouting in the background as a bouncer dragged him toward the door.
“I’m fine. It just took me by surprise. That’s all.”
She wasn’t fine. I could feel the tremor in her muscles. I pulled her into me. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
“Oh, God. Thea,” Rhodes said, moving toward us. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t see him. I was talking to the bartender, and then someone yelled?—”
“She’s okay,” Anson said, tugging her gently toward him. “But I think we should head out.”
Fallon sent me a worried look. “Want me to call Trace? Thea should file a report. That was assault.”
Thea’s head snapped up. “No! No cops. I just…I just want to go home.”
Fuck.
She didn’t want the cops because she didn’t want a paper trail.
I struggled to keep my breathing under control as I tucked her under my arm. “No cops.” I sent Fallon a warning look. She wanted to believe that she could help, that laws and regulations could, but that wasn’t always true.
“Come on,” Kye said gruffly, wrapping an arm around Fallon’s shoulders. “I’ll take you home. I’ll even get you a milkshake on the way.”
Since coming to live with us at sixteen, she was the only person he was openly affectionate with. Maybe because her tender empathy had snuck under his walls. But, sometimes, I swore they could communicate without speaking. Like now, as Fallon stared up at him with challenge in her eyes. Then something shifted, and she simply nodded .
I let out a breath. Fallon could be a crusader and would march right up to the sheriff’s office and file a report herself if she was determined enough.
Pulling Thea tighter against me, I guided us toward the exit. Just before we reached the door, a worried-looking Mara stepped into our path. “Jesus, Shep. Are you okay?”
“Fine.” But my voice was tight, giving away the lie. My knuckles throbbed, and I could feel torn flesh there. I must’ve clipped Russ’s teeth on my punch’s follow-through.
“Do you need to go to the hospital? Get an X-ray?” Mara pressed.
“I’m good, Mara. Just need to get home.”
Mara’s gaze flicked to Thea for the briefest moment, and then she swallowed. “Right. Of course.”
I didn’t have it in me to feel guilty. The anger still pulsed through me, along with the need to get Thea out of there and know she was safe.
Anson held the door, and we stepped outside into the cooler night air. Just as we made it onto the street, the bouncer appeared. John shook his head. A beefy guy a few years younger than me, he’d been born and raised in Sparrow Falls.
“I’m sorry about him,” John muttered, glancing at Thea. “Ma’am, I can call the sheriff’s department if you’d like to press charges. But know he’s been eighty-sixed. He won’t be allowed back.”
Thea gave him a shaky smile. “Thank you. I’m okay. Really.”
“All right. But next time you come in, drinks are on us. We don’t stand for that sort of thing here.”
Thea relaxed into me. “I appreciate that. Thanks for being on it.”
John nodded, clapping me on the shoulder before heading back inside.
“I’ll be on it with a junk-punch,” Rhodes muttered as she moved down the block to where we’d parked.
Anson shook his head as he followed her. “Am I going to have to bail her out of jail tomorrow?”
“The chances are good,” Fallon singsonged.
“It’d be worth it,” Rhodes grumbled .
We all slowed as we made it to our vehicles.
Rhodes studied Thea for a long minute. “You want us to come back with you? I could make you some tea and?—”
Anson wrapped an arm around her shoulders, squeezing. “Shep’s got her, Reckless.”
Rhodes still waited for Thea’s answer.
“I’m okay, really. Getting past freaked and on to pissed.”
Fallon gave Thea a gentle smile. “Pissed is better.”
Thea’s lips twitched. “Agreed.”
Kye sent me a questioning look. “You good? Need backup?”
I knew what he meant. He’d drop Fallon and go with me to send Russ a stronger warning if I thought he needed it. That was brotherhood right there. Even as risky as it would be with Kye’s history, he’d do it. Because he always had my back.
“No, not tonight,” I said, suddenly bone-tired, my hand aching.
Kye jerked his chin in my direction. “Just say the word.”
I nodded at him and Fallon.
“Text in the morning and let me know if you’re up for work or not. I’ve got things I can do on my own if you need to give that hand a rest,” Anson said.
“Thanks, man.”
He and Rhodes climbed into his truck as I guided Thea toward mine. I let go of her to open the door. She was quiet as she climbed up, not moving as I rounded the hood and got behind the wheel.
“Should you be driving?” Thea asked quietly.
“I’ve only had two beers between dinner and the bar.”
She turned then, fingers ghosting over my already swelling knuckles. “I meant your hand.”
I flexed it on instinct and winced as pain flared and I saw the blood smeared across my knuckles.
“I’m so sorry.”
My gaze cut to her. “This isn’t your fault.”
“I know.” There was a certainty in Thea’s words that eased the anger pulsing through me. She brushed her fingers across the back of my hand. “But I’m still sorry. ”
“I’ll pop some ibuprofen and be fine tomorrow.”
Thea nodded but didn’t look totally convinced as I started the engine and headed for her place. Both of us were quiet on the way home, lost in our spiraling thoughts. The moment I parked in front of Thea’s house, she was out of the vehicle and waiting for me.
“Come on. I need to get some ice on your hand.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I argued.
Thea’s head tipped back, strands of hair falling out of her haphazard bun. “You’re always taking care of everyone in your orbit. How about you let me take care of you for once?”
I stared down at Thea. She always saw more than the average person. “Okay.”
“Good.” She took my uninjured hand and tugged me toward the house. As we approached, she pulled her keys from her purse and unlocked the industrial deadbolt. With each catch of metal against metal, I was reminded just how much Thea had given me by letting me into her space. Her haven. Her escape .
The moment we stepped inside, Moose greeted us with mangled meows. He padded down the hallway, surprisingly light on his paws for how massive he was. He wove through Thea’s legs as she walked, squawking at her.
“I swear he’s yelling at you,” I mumbled as we moved toward the kitchen.
“Oh, he definitely is. He’s not used to me leaving him at night.” She inclined her head toward the small kitchen table. “Sit.”
There was an authority to her tone that had my lips twitching slightly. “Yes, ma’am.”
Thea just shook her head and crossed to the refrigerator. I watched her pull out a few things, not focusing on the items but on how her sundress swished around her as she moved.
“Are you okay?” Countless others had asked tonight, but I needed to give voice to the question myself, hoping for an honest answer.
Thea stilled and then turned to face me. She leaned against the counter, letting out a long breath. “At first, I was scared. Then, I felt guilty.”
I sat forward and opened my mouth to tell Thea she didn’t have a thing to feel guilty about.
But she held up a hand to stop me. “Then I realized guilt was just one more lie. One more piece of poison in my brain. Wearing a sundress and dancing with friends doesn’t make what he did okay. Russ is an asshole with a warped sense of reality.”
She lifted a ginger ale and a bottle of pills from the counter with one hand, and an ice pack and towel with the other. “I’m not sorry you punched him. Sometimes, that’s the only kind of consequence that someone like him can actually understand.” Thea lifted my uninjured hand and poured three ibuprofen into my palm. “But I hate that you got hurt.”
She dabbed some hydrogen peroxide on a cotton swab and gently cleaned my torn skin. The moment it was sanitized, she dabbed on some ointment I didn’t really need, then stepped back, slowly wrapping the ice pack in the towel and laying it over my abused knuckles.
I looked up at Thea, gazing into those pale green eyes. “You aren’t mad at me?”
She moved closer, stepping between my legs and running her fingers through my hair. “You made him let me go. Why would I be mad about that?”
“I made a scene.” And that , I did regret. Thea didn’t need more eyes on her, more attention, not when she was trying to stay under the radar.
“ He was already making a scene.”
“Stole ten years off my life when I saw his hands on you. What I would’ve been capable of in that moment? It scared the hell out of me.”
Thea’s brow furrowed, tiny lines digging in as her fingers dropped to my neck. “I’m okay.”
My free hand cupped the back of Thea’s thigh, just needing to feel her, to assure myself that was true. My fingers skated across her skin, feeling the smooth heat. They teased the hem of her dress, lifting the fabric there as my thumb traced circles on her flesh .
“Shep,” she whispered, her voice dipping low.
“This helps. Just feeling you here. It’s telling my brain you really are all right.”
Thea moved in even closer, her legs pressed against the insides of my thighs, her chest close. So tempting. She lifted a hand to my face, her fingers stroking my scruff. “Maybe I need that, too.”
Fuck.
“Thea,” I croaked. “Not a good idea tonight.”
There was a flicker of hurt in those green eyes.
I squeezed the back of her thigh. “Not because I don’t want to. Trust me, I fucking want to. My head just isn’t right.”
The heat was back then, that green sparking and turning deeper. I saw something warring there as Thea gazed down at me. Then she bent, her lips ghosting over mine. “Goodnight, Shep.”
Fucking hell.
Thea released me and stepped back, her eyes holding mine. “Tell me it costs you not to go there.”
The way my balls were aching, it definitely fucking cost me. “More than you’ll ever know.”
Her mouth curved. “Good.”