Chapter 18
IVY
Suddenly self-conscious, I push away.
“I need to use the restroom,” I say, standing up. I straighten my clothes, pressing down my tank top, making sure the waistband of my shorts is flat against my waist.
He glances at me. “Are you okay, Ivy?”
“Ye–I’m fine,” I say. “I’ll be right back.”
I notice a couple of guys leering at me as I walk past. They smell like beer and bad decisions. One rakes his eyes over me from head to toe, and my entire body tightens.
“Hey sugar,” he says, his voice a little loose. “Come over here and talk to us. We have a question for you.”
I’m sure they’ve been here for a couple of hours at least, guzzling beer after beer, finding false confidence with every sip.
I ignore them and keep walking. It’s par for the course in an establishment like this.
Not that lecherous creeps don’t exist in sophisticated champagne bars—they just tend to be a little more discreet about it. Or prefer to whisk women away to private yachts in international waters and magical islands. Or have them sign NDAs and make big confidential settlements.
But I digress.
I push through the peeling saloon door leading to the unisex bathroom, and close myself in a stall.
There are noises outside, and I don’t think much of it until I flush the toilet and step out of the cubicle.
There they are—the two guys from before. Standing just outside the stall, by the sinks, staring at me with a look in their eyes that I recognize and don’t appreciate.
“Hello there, pretty lady,” one of them says.
And it’s clear they’re not going to just let me leave.
I try to play it cool and walk to the sink to wash my hands. The larger one moves to block my path.
“Not so fast,” he says, standing in front of the sink. “We just want to know your name.”
“Please,” I grit out. “Let me wash my hands.”
But he refuses to budge.
“Fine,” I sigh, and start moving toward the saloon door. I have sanitizer in my purse. Which I now want to pour over every inch of my body.
God, why do some guys have to be so gross. So predatory.
Cornering women in the dirty bathroom of a dive bar. Pathetic.
But now the other one blocks my path, hemming me in.
It’s just me and them now.
The large one starts moving toward me. I’m cornered.
He reaches out for me, grabbing my forearm. I try to wrench it away, but he just holds on harder.
He leans toward me, his eyes glassy. “You’re going to pay for ignoring us, you dumb whore,” he says, spittle forming at the side of his mouth.
His friend steps closer and I shudder as one of his hands reaches out, and his gnarled finger caresses the side of my breast through the fabric.
“Stop touch—” My words trail off as the saloon doors fly open, and a looming figure appears like a dark specter. In the dim light, it’s hard to make out any details and, just for a second, I feel like I’m in the middle of a spaghetti western.
Two arms shoot out from the giant shadow, one hand grabbing the fingers that dare to caress my breast, and the other wrenching the larger man’s hand from my forearm.
“What the fu—” says the larger man.
The dark shadow doesn’t rush.
His hand closes around the smaller guy’s fingers slowly—like he’s deciding exactly how much pressure to use.
Then he bends them back.
The crack is sharp. Deliberate.
The small man whimpers, grabbing his arm to his stomach as he backs away, giving the shadow a chance to step into the light.
Soren.
Without warning, he rears his elbow back, connecting with the creep’s windpipe, knocking the breath out of him.
He sputters, trying to breathe, momentum knocking him onto his ass on the sticky, dark corner of the bathroom.
Soren rises up, turning his attention to the larger man.
“What the fuck are you doing, pal?” He smirks at Soren.
Who by now doesn’t appreciate being provoked.
“Taking back what’s mine, you low-life piece of shit,” he sneers.
“Oh yeah? What are you going to do about it? She’s the one whoring around this bar, showing her tits off to anyone with eyes.”
Soren seethes, his eyes shading over, no longer gray but an intense charcoal that obscures his pupils.
He grabs the man’s wrist, his fingers digging into his bloated flesh. “Apologize to her,” he says, his voice low.
The guy tries to shrug off Soren’s grip, but to no avail.
“Listen, man,” he says, suddenly backtracking, his eyes growing wide. “There seems to have been some kind of misunderstanding. I didn’t know she was with you.”
“So, if she was by herself it would be okay for you to sexually assault her with your little friend here?” He frowns, jerking his thumb at the large guy’s acquaintance who is still cowering in the corner, watching everything with wide eyes, his breath stilted.
“Well, I mean… you don’t come to a place like this to play Barbies, do you?” The creep has the audacity to grin, as if he’s some type of comedian.
When there’s no response from Soren, he glances over at his friend. “Right?”
His friend averts his eyes, suddenly not so sure about their acquaintance.
“Why is it so hard to act like a gentleman? To not be an absolute creep around women who are just trying to go about their lives and not have to deal with freaks like you?”
The large guy frowns at Soren, but then his expression morphs into something darker, his mouth curling at the side. “You’ve really got it bad for this stupid bitch, don’t you. What? Is her cunt made of gold? Is it dripping with diamonds?”
Soren changes his grip on the man’s forearm, momentarily pulling him closer before shoving him away and spinning him around so he faces the grimy mirror in front of the sink.
His voice, usually quiet and controlled, is a roar. “You do not talk about her like that.”
He curls his hands into the hair on the back of the guy’s head and slams his face into the mirror. The glass shatters immediately, slivers of it embedding into the guy’s forehead, cheeks and chin.
He squeals as he sees his reflection, blood starting to seep out of every micro-crack, some larger fragments of glass protruding out of his face like something from a grotesque horror.
Soren doesn’t stop there.
He maneuvers the guy slightly backward, then uses his leverage to smash the guy’s head down onto the sink so hard that the porcelain splits clean in two.
The guy is quiet now, as Soren continues to smash his face into the once-white surface, now smeared with sticky crimson.
“Holy fuck, nope!” A voice whispers loudly from the corner.
I glance over, and the smaller guy scrambles to his feet and shoves his way out the saloon door. I hear his footsteps running out as he flees the dive bar.
I’d forgotten he was there, my focus on Soren and the justice he’s enacting on his friend.
He pulls the guy’s head up and forces him to confront the mirror. “Look,” he commands.
Barely conscious, his face mangled beyond recognition, the man averts his eyes.
“I told you to fucking look.” Soren’s voice is dangerous.
The guy somehow manages to focus.
He gasps at his own reflection.
“Apologize to her. Now,” Soren growls.
The guy glances behind himself in the reflection and his eyes meet mine, a blood vessel burst in one of them. “I—I’m sorry, ma’am,” he coughs out, a little blood shooting out and hitting the mirror, adding to what’s already there.
“Don’t you ever treat another woman like that again.” Soren spits in the man’s face, and it co-mingles with the abundance of crimson that makes him look like his skin has been flayed.
Letting out a sigh, he shoves the guy to the floor where he crumples into a sad heap. He walks to the other sink and washes his hands. Water runs pink, then clear.
He doesn’t rush.
The same hands that just broke bone move like this is routine.
I don’t look away.
Then he turns to me, placing both of his hands on my shoulders, his eyes locked on mine.
His touch heats me instantly. It’s a simple touch, his palms heavy, but he’s got the attention from deep within my core.
He could hurt me just as easily.
I don’t step back.
“Are you okay? Did they hurt you?” He asks.
“I’m okay,” I nod, trying to push aside the way my body feels right now. “Just a little shaken up.”
“Let’s go,” he says.
He holds open the saloon door and we walk out.
He nods to the bartender on our way out, and gestures with his thumb toward the saloon door. “There’s some cleanup to do in there.”
The bartender nods. Just another regular Friday for him, most likely.
We step out, and the night has grown more humid. The stickiness reminds me of the surface of the dive bar, full of stories, some of which are probably better left unsaid.
We walk past a few alleyways, dark and slick. Cigarette smoke permeates the night air. A woman’s laugh rings out from nearby and just sounds wrong somehow. Heat still radiates from the concrete, a reminder of the earlier sunshine. Broken glass glitters under a streetlamp.
The grit of the city somehow makes the earlier events of the evening a little more normal. Even though there was nothing normal about the way Soren arranged that creep’s face.
A man standing by a lamppost stares at us a fraction too long, and Soren’s jaw tightens, and so does his grip on me.
I feel it before I see it.
A part of me waits—just for a second—to see what he’ll do.
For a moment I think he’s going to punch him in the face, but then— just as quickly—he recovers himself and he smiles at me, loosely putting an arm around my lower back.
I breathe a sigh of relief at a confrontation avoided.
We hop in a taxi and pull away. Music plays from the speakers, more bass than melody. Buildings whiz by, darker than earlier. Somehow there’s even more grit to the city now, shadows looming taller than before. It’s harder-edged, more intimate, more dangerous.
And I realize I like that—I like it here. I can see myself learning the city’s secrets, immersing myself in the history and becoming part of its fabric.
That sounds a hell of a lot better than where I’m living now.
In the back seat, I curl into the nook of Soren’s shoulder. He’s so large that I fit perfectly. He feels solid. Protective. Safe.
Heat soaks through his shirt.
My thigh presses to his. I don’t fix it.
I tilt my head up, and his eyes meet mine. “Thank you for what you did back there,” I say. “That wasn’t going to end well until you intervened.”
“I would never let anything bad happen to you, Ivy. I’m never leaving your side again.”
It should feel like too much, but it doesn’t.
I shift slightly against him, letting my body press closer than necessary.
I’m keen for things to progress. We’re both grownups. I think he’s hot as hell, and it seems to be mutual.
Instead of making a move, he drops one of his hands, threading his fingers between mine. His grip is tight, secure.
He’s been such a gentleman since I got here. I can tell he’s interested in me—that he wants more, too—but he hasn’t come close to pushing it. I’m not sure if I’m happy or insulted by his complete self-restraint. His ability to make me feel comfortable and not pressured.
In the meantime, I’m over here increasingly wanting to rip both of our clothes off and jump on him.
It’s like we’re magnets, but the kind that are drawn to each other. Hard.
And I never want it to stop.