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“Please, just get me out of this fucking dress.” I hung my head, lifting my hair. It looks like you’ve rolled in hay. I flinched at the memory. What had I been thinking? Like a dress could change anything. Makeup.
A stupid thong.
I felt Joe’s fingers against my skin and the slow unzipping of my dress was silent, but his breathing was loud.
Was this real? I wondered. I mean, it seemed obvious. But what if I was wrong. The way I was wrong about everything. It suddenly felt like a trick. A joke he might play on me. And I shrank inside my skin. Tears burning again.
The door to the warehouse clanged and I heard the scuff of a shoe on the cement of the steps. I turned, only to find Fucking Sam Porter sitting on the top step, his elbows braced on his knees. Totally casual. Just having a seat. Taking in the sights.
But his face was ominously still.
My dress gaped around my body, the shoulder strap slipping down my arm, and I put my hand to my chest, holding the sequins against my boobs so I wasn’t flashing Sam and Joe.
“What the fuck, man?” Joe said, bristling as he stood in front of me as if to protect me from Sam’s eyes.
“Don’t let me stop you,” Sam said, waving his hand at us like none of this—me half naked, Joe’s hands on my skin, Sam sitting there watching—meant anything. “Seemed like things were just getting good.”
My cheeks blazed red hot.
“Get the fuck out!” Joe said, taking a step toward Sam, and I finally found my voice because Joe didn’t need to get a beatdown just for trying to protect me. Because Joe was young and strong and tough, but Sam was some kind of super soldier with blood on his hands. The more casual he acted, the more lethal he could be. I’d seen him, in a bar fight years ago, pulverize a guy who wouldn’t take no for an answer from a girl in a back booth, and Sam had been whistling as he walked over to the guy.
He wasn’t whistling now, but he did stretch out his legs, leaning back against the landing like he was sitting by a goddamn river.
“Joe,” I said, holding the dress against my chest. “It’s…fine. Everything’s fine. Why don’t you go back to the party?”
He looked back at me, aghast. “I’m not leaving you here with some creeper.”
“He’s not a creeper,” I said. “He’s my brother’s best friend.”
“That don’t mean he’s not an asshole.”
A harsh laugh scraped my throat.
“I’m an asshole,” Sam said. He was using his military voice. Firm, but kind of soft, too. Like he understood everything Joe was feeling, like suddenly he and Joe were in something together. It was the voice I imagined convinced men to follow him into the shitty places where they might get hurt or killed. “But I’m not going to hurt Soph. Go on back to the party.”
Joe looked back at me. He really was a good guy. And I gave him my very best smile. My Sophie Kane special. Nothing hurts because I’m as tough as they come.
But inside, all my stupid dreams and wishes had broken edges, and they were sharp and cutting me to pieces.
“Okay,” Joe finally said, shaking his head, like he just didn’t understand why I wasn’t picking him, and honestly, I was beginning to wonder the same thing. “But if this fucker does one thing you don’t want him to—”
Like laugh in my face. Like tell me I look weird. Yeah, he’d already done that. I couldn’t imagine there were all that many ways left he could hurt me.
“He won’t,” I said at the very same time Sam said, “I won’t.”
Joe walked up the steps, giving Sam a death glare in an effort to provoke him into standing up and throwing a punch, and I wanted to tell Joe to save his energy. Sam Porter couldn’t be provoked. There was no stick I’d ever seen that got Sam to do anything he didn’t want to do.
The door closed behind Joe and the silence in the warehouse was deafening.
“Go back to the party, Sam,” I said and turned away. My clothes were on my desk. My hoodie and jeans, and I wanted to take off this dress so bad, but I was frozen by not wanting to reveal even an inch more of myself to him.
“He was touching you.”
Sam’s voice was practically in my ear and I whirled back around, still clutching the dress to my chest, only to find him a foot away. Not even. Close enough I could see the green in his eyes. The edge of that scar through his eyebrow. The muscle ticking in his jaw.
“Joe’s harmless,” I said, exhausted by…everything. “Please go, Sam.”
“Did you want him to touch you?”
