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I heard my security guys speaking to Marcus and was vaguely aware of them carting the preppy and his friend out of the club, but I was too concerned with the broken skin on Lucy’s knuckles to give a damn what they did to the fucker. Her hand was going to be bruised pretty badly by morning. It was already starting to swell. “You need some ice, baby.”
She tried to pull her hand away. “It’s fine,” she muttered in a hoarse voice, refusing to meet my gaze. “I just need to go to the bathroom and wash it off.”
Kin moved to stand beside Lucy, putting an arm around her to comfort her. “Come on, slugger. Lets go clean you up.”
Reluctantly, I released her hand. When she turned to follow Kin, I thought I saw tears in her eyes and reached for her without thinking. Lucy wasn’t a crier. Either that fucker had said something even viler to her than what I’d heard or her hand was killing her. I wrapped her up in my arms and tucked her head against my chest. “Baby,” I breathed against her sweet-smelling hair, “it’s okay. I’ve got you.”
A small sob escaped her. “I-I think I broke my h-hand,” she murmured, burying her face in my chest.
I clenched my jaw, hating that she was in so much physical pain, but relieved that she wasn’t crying over what the preppy prick had said to her. My girl was too strong to let some idiot that didn’t matter get to her. I doubted, however, that she had broken her hand, although it probably felt like it to her. Her hand was probably just bruised and maybe even sprained. “Okay. I’ll take care of you.” I pulled back just enough to look down at her and bent my head to brush a kiss over the tip of her nose.
Lucy nodded and stepped back, scrubbing her uninjured hand across her damp eyes. “I need to call my dad. And Aunt Emmie. That guy knows who I am. He’ll go out there and start talking to the paps and this will be all over the tabloids in the morning.”
“That can wait, baby.” I lifted my head and saw both Tiny and Marcus standing behind Lucy. I nodded once at Marcus then inclined my head at my head of security.
Tiny stepped forward and spoke into my ear. “Got him in the back, boss. What you want us to do with him?”
I stroked my hand over Lucy’s hair, unable to keep my hands off her as Kin lifted the possibly broken hand and examined it closer with Jace. “Keep him there,” I muttered low enough so that only Tiny could hear me. “If he starts getting hostile, tell him that the cops are on their way for solicitation of a minor.”
Tiny’s eyes widened, his jaw clenching. The man was scary as fuck—which was one of the reason’s I’d hired him. The quickest way to piss him off was for a man to hurt a woman in any way. “Did he?”
“Might as well have.” I stepped closer to Lucy, wrapping my arm around her waist, needing to feel her against me. “I’ll deal with that piece of shit later.”
For now, I needed to make sure that my girl was going to be okay.
Chapter 3
Lucy
The minute we walked into the emergency room, Harris took charge. He took a nurse aside, told her what had happened and who I was and, even though the ER was pretty crowded, the nurse took me back to one of the triage rooms. I guessed after years of watching his stepmom work her magic, he’d picked up some valuable tricks.
Now he was sitting in a chair beside the small gurney I’d been told to sit on, his phone in his hand as he typed one message after another. Marcus was standing outside the triage room while Kin and Jace were out in the waiting room because the nurse had only let one of them come back with me. I would have rather had Kin with me, because for once in all the years I’d known Harris Cutter, I didn’t know how to act around him now.
A number of conflicting emotions were churning inside of me like a storm. I was still upset that he couldn’t be bothered to so much as text me back in the last week and a half. I was hurt, pissed off…and so damn glad he was here with me now.
I didn’t know what was going on with him, but I didn’t want the kiss that we’d shared to mess with our friendship. Going eleven days without talking to him in any shape or form had wilted my heart. I loved him so fucking much that it scared me, but to be without his friendship? I didn’t know if I could survive that. He kept the bad dreams away. He protected my sanity.
When Harris had come back into my life, the nightmares I’d been living with since I was nine years old had calmed down. I had only had a few in the months since we’d reconnected. For the first time in four years, I’d been getting enough sleep. In the eleven days since I’d last spoken to him? I’d had nothing but nightmares about that damn night with my biological father. Sleep had become my worst enemy and I’d fallen back into old habits that helped me deal.
Hitting send on another message, Harris finally raised his head and flashed those damn dimples at me. “How’re you doing over there, baby?”
I clenched my jaw, refusing to shiver at the little endearment. I didn’t want him to call me baby. Didn’t want to be shuffled into the same category as every other girl he’d had in his life. “Don’t call me that,” I muttered and lowered my eyes to my bruised and swollen hand, hoping the pain that was causing my entire hand to throb would distract me from the guy sitting so close. Physical pain was my friend. It had always been a release from the emotional pain I’d had to deal with. Tonight, however, with my hand feeling like I’d punched it through a brick wall instead of using it to break that bastard’s nose, it wasn’t helping much. I still felt raw emotionally, and it was all Harris’s fault.
The sound of him scooting his chair closer made me raise my eyes to find him less than an inch away. Tossing his phone onto the gurney beside me, he took my injured hand into both of his. “Ouch. That can’t feel good.” He lifted my hand closer, his eyes skimming over the broken skin on my knuckles. The blood had dried and no one had given me time to go to the bathroom to clean it up. “If you were Trinity, there would be only one solution good enough to make this feel better.”
I knew exactly what he was talking about and tried to pull my hand free before he tried fixing me up like his baby sister would demand to be fixed. His fingers tightened and he lifted my injured hand to his lips, brushing them tenderly over my skin. I couldn’t help the instant reaction I had. Couldn’t stop the shiver or the gooseflesh that popped up along my entire arm. Had no control over the sudden tightening of my nipples or the dampness of my panties.
How could he af
fect me like this when I was still so damn hurt?
With his warm, damp lips still pressed to the back of my hand, he lifted his aquamarine eyes and captured my gaze. He knew exactly what he was doing to me and from the look in his eyes, he liked that he was doing it. I jerked my hand back, wincing at the pain I’d just caused myself.
Desperate to dispel the sudden sexual tension that was filling the room and especially filling my body, I reached for my phone. “I should call my dad.” Dad would distract me. He would even toss Harris out if I wanted him to.
Stupidly enough I didn’t know if I wanted Harris gone or not. Damn it.
“No need,” Harris assured me, sitting back in his chair and watching me closely. “I texted both him and Emmie on the ride over. Jesse and Nik are already over at First Bass.”
