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Before I can mull it over, a man walks up to her, pulling my focus back to the here and now. It took less than three minutes for her to be approached and I’m not at all surprised. What I am surprised by is the instantaneous jealousy lighting up my veins. The immense protectiveness I feel over her. Where the fuck is this coming from? Haven’t I learned my lesson from the past? The one person I’ve ever tried to protect fucking DESTROYED me. She took the one thing I valued, the one thing that made me,me, and now I’m left as half the man I used to be. All because ofherand yet I’m about to make the same goddamn mistake.
I watch as she tries to ignore him, and then he grabs her face and I snarl. His fucking filthy hands dare to touch her?! I clench my jaw as I feel the same rage I felt in the past rising up to greet me like an old, familiar lover.
“Sir? Sir, are you ok?”
I’m temporarily distracted by the piece of shit I was just having a meeting with. I move out of the booth and stand, never taking my eyes off of her and the fucking hand that’s about to be amputated, as I address the guy sitting in my booth.
“Leave,” I say, in a dangerously low warning.
“But, Sir, we haven’t--”
I turn my head to face the idiot who dares talk back to me. He cowers under my stare, shrinking into the booth before he nods his head like a bobble-head doll and then jumps out of the booth, practically running away from me. He’s lucky he’s not my priority or I would have made him regret ever eventhinkingof talking back to me.
I stalk towards the bar. Her fear hangs heavy in the air now and I can hear her heart slamming inside of her chest. The sensory of it all pulls at the memory of that night.
The night I savedherand lost everything.
I should have walked away then, just like I should walk away now. So why the fuck don’t I?
Before I can attempt to get my mind straight and talk myself out of it, I pull him off of her, slam his back into the bar, and take his disgusting face in my hand. Then, I squeeze his jaw the way he had been squeezing hers.
Hurting her.
Threatening her.
Terrifying her.
Well, he’s about to feel that fear tenfold. I grab the cigarette that’s dangling on his lips and turn the burning ember towards his face, threatening to put it out in his fucking eye. He doesn’t deserve to even see her much less fucking touch her skin.
I can feel her eyes on me and it’s fucking me up. It’s distracting. I clench my jaw again, nostrils flaring, as the scent of her fills up my nose and muddles up my goddamn good sense. Who am I kidding? I’ve never had good sense. That’s how I ended up here in the first place.
I blink, returning my focus to the man at my mercy, but I still feel her as if I don’t have a fucking choice. I sense her fear dissipating and her heartbeat slowing. So much like the past and that memory stirs my rage even more.
“Did you not hear her when she told you to let her go?” My voice comes out calm, hiding the raging inferno inside of me.
Then again, I never have to raise my voice to threaten anyone. My actions do that for me. Case in point, I push the burning ember of the cigarette into his sensitive skin, right at the corner of his eye. I hear the hiss and smell of burning skin and it fucking delights me.
“The next time you so much aslookat her, I will light a hundred cigarettes and put them out in each of your fucking eyes. Do you understand?"
The urge to crack his fucking jaw is thrumming through my veins with a vengeance. I have to rein in the rage. I lift him up by his face and throw him into the crowd. The crowd parts, letting him fall to the floor and then stumble to his feet, his legs shaky and unsteady underneath him.
“Slightly, Cubby, get him the fuck out of here,” I growl. “Better yet, take him to Hook, dock H2. It’s time he meets The Crocodile.”
“No!”He yells. “Please, I’ll never look at her again. I swear!”
I trust my Boys to do what I ask. They’re the only ones that I trust. Well, them and Tink. They’ve been with me the longest and have never given me a reason to doubt them. They better not fucking start now.
“Please! Sinn, I’m not ready! Please!”
The man is yelling as he’s pulled out of my bar, but I don’t hear what he’s begging for, my attention is onher. On her beautiful pale face, flushed with a mixture of alcohol, fear, and…arousal. I can smell it hanging in the air between us and it’s like a damn aphrodisiac. I have to force my hands to remain at my sides instead of stroking my cock like I want to. Or even worse, touchher. She finally turns to look at me, her green eyes lock with mine, and I’m once again transported to the past. She gasps when she finally looks at me,reallylooks at me, and I wonder what she sees? Because what I see when I look at her, is a mixture of feelings, none of which I want to fucking feel. I hate what I see in her eyes. Everything I want to explore and everything I want to fucking forget.
Why is she here?
Am I being fucking tested? Again!
Fuck this.
I’m not going to fall into the same trap.
