Chapter 52 Twin Tricks
TWIN TRICKS
RIPLEY
The douchebag locks his arm around my neck, my back to his chest as he breathes on me. He smells like patchouli and sandalwood, like he did that night at the hotel bar.
Then, he was just a jerk, not taking no for an answer. Now, he’s a threat.
My pulse is surging, and my brain is racing quickly through escape plans, the ones my grandma taught us. But first…his arm. He’s not cutting off my airway, but he’s coming far too close.
Before I can knock him down or kick him in the balls, I need to turn my head so he doesn’t cut off my air.
“I’ll make this real easy for you two,” he hisses as he sneers at my sister, and in the distance, I hear the scrabble of paws against grass, then footsteps, moving fast.
I don’t know how close they are, and Haven’s eyes are wide, etched with terror—and fury too. “Let her go, you jackass,” she bites out.
“I will. If you do something for me.” As he tries to negotiate whatever the hell he’s doing, I’m focused on one thing—getting enough oxygen that I don’t pass out.
Carefully, I turn into his body to relieve the pressure on my airway.
“How about you call Chris over here right now?” he says.
“So I can get something this time. Now I want my fucking picture.”
Jesus. This guy is desperate.
“No,” I spit out.
“I’d be happy to hurt your sister so you can help me,” he offers to Haven in a faux sweet voice.
Fear charges through me, but so does rage, and I lift a foot to kick him in the shins, but I only clip the edge of his leg.
He dodges the blow, feinting a bit to the side but still keeping that arm around my neck.
“Let her go,” Haven demands as she reaches her hand into her front pocket. Please let that be her mace.
As I work out a better angle to kick the guy, I hear Hudson barking somewhere nearby. I don’t know what my dog will do if he reaches us. He’s a tracker and a lover, but he’s not a fighter.
I don’t let it distract me. I have to focus on fighting.
“One picture, then I’ll let you go,” he says. “Because guess what? I’m not missing the chance this time.”
This guy is pissed because he didn’t get something from me that night? So now he’s determined to get what he thinks he deserves?
Fuck him.
Haven jerks her arm out of her pocket right as I lift my right foot and put everything I’ve got into a kick aimed straight at his crotch. Hudson’s barks grow louder. As I connect, Banks flies around the corner of the hedge past the dog, lunging for the guy while I kick the bastard in the balls.
Banks grabs the guy’s arm right as he tries to reach for his bruised crotch with it. “Fuck, that hurt,” the guy whines.
“Good,” Banks seethes, then rips him the rest of the way off me. In no time, Banks slams him to the grass, jerks both arms behind him, and pins his wrists.
Oh.
Ohhh.
Banks sinks a knee onto the guy’s back.
“Get the fuck off me,” the asshole mutters in between gasping breaths.
With anger pouring off his body in waves, Banks fumes at him, “Like I told you before, get away from my girlfriend. And her sister.” Hudson jumps in front of the guy, barking right at his face.
“Fucking dogs,” the guy grumbles.
Banks jerks the guy’s wrists harder, handling him in a whole different way than he handles me. “And don’t even think about touching her dog.”
The helpless photographer kicks his feet as if he can escape that way. But it’s like watching a cartoon character try to free himself from under an anvil. Banks is impassable as Hudson barks angrily at the guy who’s trespassed in his maze.
And the man who swore he’d protect me turns to me with passion and fire and love in his deep-brown eyes.
“Are you okay, sweetheart?” he asks with such worry that my heart breaks beautifully.
“I’m okay. I kicked him in the balls!” I bounce on my feet, a surge of post-ball-kick adrenaline coursing through me.
“And I was about to mace him if you hadn’t,” Haven says, waving a small pink tube.
“Twin tricks,” I say, then, flooded with relief, I hug my sister, and I’d really like to fall into Banks’s arms too, but he’s busy restraining the guy who’s clearly so pissed at me for turning him down, at Banks for saving the day, and at himself for failing to take a picture of me in the wild back then, that he followed us into a maze tonight.
Only it’s my maze, my farm, my home. As Banks jerks him up from the ground, keeping a firm grip on his hands, I stare at the guy who does indeed look like the douchey boss in a movie.
He’s got a fancy dress shirt on tonight too.
I guess he thinks he doesn’t look like a scumbag photographer, but he does look like a scum.
“Guess you missed the shot a second time, asshole,” I say, then smile at the jerk.
And we leave the maze.