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They didn’t intervene though, they watched as if the fight was something not meant to be interrupted. It only stopped when Damien beat the other guy down to his hands and knees, bloody and battered.
“What the fuck you two fightin’ about?” asked one of the other two bikers in the lull.
“That bitch of hi—” the beaten man’s words were cut off as Damien grabbed the back of his hair and slugged him once more, right across the jaw. The man’s body went limp after that and he hit the pavement before coughing and sputtering.
Damien cracked his blood spattered fist and gave a deathly glare to the other two bikers.
“Shit man, you made your point,” said one of the bikers as he knelt down to help the beaten guy up.
“Lousy shit doesn’t know when to clam up,” said the other, as Damien kept a steady look at the others, asserting a quiet control over happenings after what he’d just done.
It was a side of him Britney had never seen before, never even imagined. It was terrifying, yet at the same time, it was all to defend her against that crass creep’s words. Damien was sticking up for her, so why did she feel so shaken up?
She reached out, tugging Damien’s coat like she was a kid trying to get their parent’s attention, her blue eyes wide and saucer like.
“I wanna go,” she said, and her voice quivered.
But Damien still wouldn’t budge. It wasn’t until the other three guys slunk away back to their bikes that he finally loosened up and turned with her back towards his own motorcycle.
“Let’s get outta here,” he said in a low gruff voice, looking about the area, as if expecting further trouble.
She was only too eager to comply. Her head was rushing and she thought she might faint at any second. She needed to sit down, to let what just happened sink in.
“Who was that?” she asked, half afraid of the answer.
“A scumbag,” he said curtly, taking her bag and stowing it before climbing atop the motorcycle. He wasted no time getting them going, and once they were cruising down the highway there was no more talking to be done over the noise.
It had to be a good hour before Damien pulled them off the main road and took them down a quiet path she didn’t recognize. Home was still a nice long drive away, but he came to a stop in a grassy little area, secluded from the noise of the road.
Once he shut off the bike he turned to peer back over his shoulder.
“I owe you an explanation,” he said, and she could see that despite his victory, he’d taken some nicks and scrapes to his own ruggedly handsome face in the fight.
The hum of the motorcycle had quieted her mind and her racing thoughts, but the second they were free to talk, her stomach tightened. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to know, but that was just fear talking. The idea that she really didn’t know him and that their time together had been little more than a farce scared her.
Like it could all be taken away just like that.
“Okay,” she managed as he rose off the bike and then pulled her up with him in a smooth, careful motion.
“I know that must’ve been an ugly sight to see,” he said, his hard face contorted into one of sympathy. “You ain’t used to seein’ fellas slug it out like that over a woman. Or at all, I s’pose,” he conceded, taking a deep breath that made his chest swell up.
She bit in on the corner of her mouth before giving him a little nod.
“We should’ve just taken off,” she said.
He reached out and placed his two hands upon her arms, holding her in his grasp lightly as he stared into her eyes.
“That ain’t how things work with guys like them. Especially that piece of shit,” he said, just a little bit of his angry rumble eking back into his voice. “When he talked about you like that… well,” he betrayed a facial tick of irritation. “It didn’t just piss me off, it meant I had to do somethin’. Had to stake a claim to you, or else someday, if he came across you again… he might try somethin’. And get rough.” He sighed, “And with those guys, there’s only one way you stake a claim to a woman. It’s with brute force.”
She gazed up at him as she listened, heard the hurt and anger in his voice that simmered just beneath the surface. She’d never seen nothin’ like that, and especially not over her. Some girls might be pleased to have a guy rush in and defend her like that, and thinkin’ back to the crude, horrible things that other man said it wa
s hard to believe he didn’t deserve it.
But seein’ what Damien could do scared her more than a little.
“That all just seemed normal to you, Damien.”
He stared at her a while, lettin’ more than her words sink in, but her worries. The expression on her face that said it all.
