AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I see red. With a roar, I push another couple out of my way and grab her by the elbow, yanking her out of the dude’s grip and barely refraining from removing my gun and putting a bullet between the guy’s eyes.
“Hands off, buddy, playtime’s over,” I bark.
Rather than going macho bullshit on me, the dude laughs and takes Isabella back, his massive palms on her hip bones. “Sorry, dude. The lady wants to stay and play with me.”
Yeah, he’s got about a foot or so on me, but I’ve never let the height thing stop me before. Six feet tall is perfectly respectable.
“Maybe she’s just tired of pretty boys,” he continues.
Isabella laughs, shaking her head and tossing her hair back in a black wave, making no move to correct him.
I smile at the two of them coldly. My switchblade is in my hand a second later, shoved into the side of his torso in a quick prick no one can trace back to me but will bleed like hell. It takes the dude a second to register the pain and even longer to realize the source of it, but he lets go of Isabella. She falls forward toward me with an indignant yowl.
The knife is back in my pocket a second later, my other arm iron around Isabella and keeping her pinned to me.
“Why do you have to ruin everything?” she yells out.
I drag her away from the stranger, now bent over and groaning with only a small bit of blood slipping between his fingers. “Him? He’s going to be fine,” I assure her. “He won’t die.”
“You can’t just stab someone on the dance floor and get away with it.”
“I can, I will, and I have. Now shut the fuck up. We’re going home.”
She slams her palm against my chest again. “I don’t need you, Ricardo. I don’t need you to step up and act like you’re protecting me or like you actually give a shit. Just let me have a fun night.”
She digs the pointy bit of her elbow into my gut and follows it with a spiked heel to my toes, which might have been an accident and might have been on purpose, but the timing suggests the latter.
“You’re nothing but a pain in my ass.”
She doesn’t need me, and I don't need this. Why did I come after her, anyway? Why did I take the time out of my night to trail after her?
She’ll be fine. She’ll be fine. Right?
Abruptly, I release her, to the point where Isabella loses her balance and scrambles away from me.
She recovers quickly enough and whirls, slapping her fingers to my cheek.
“Asshole!” she screams. She glares at me, the gesture full of acid and ice.
Without thinking, I grab the front of her dress and tug. The material dips dangerously low, but I’ve got her, and as soon as she’s close, I transfer my fingers to her hair and grip hard.
“Why do you always ask for more than people are willing to give? Why do you always push?” I want to know.
She trembles, and her muscles knot with tension. She has no fucking clue what she does to me. I’m the guitar string, strung tight enough to snap, and she’s the finger plucking me.
I want to kiss her more than I want to take my next breath. “Fuck, Iz.”
And for the second time tonight, I do the unexpected and let temptation lead. I pull her face to mine and steal a kiss, my tongue sliding along hers for a moment and tasting hints of myself. I kiss her with the intensity of an animal and heat and just as little control.
She mewls, a slight burst of sound that has my lips curling in a smile and a hint of sanity returning. I break away and glare down at the twin spots of color on her cheeks. Her skin has gone unusually pale.
“What did you do?” she asks, her lower lip puffy and trembling.
“Sweetheart, is this man bothering you?” A dude in a suit steps up, close enough for me to smell his cologne.
His eyes take in every detail of her, every curve of her body, and I frown. His attention lingers on her cleavage. Dude’s old enough to be her grandfather, and it doesn’t matter how neatly his salt-and-pepper beard is trimmed or how neatly his hair is greased.
Barrel-chested, the gold of a necklace glints against the forest of black chest hair visible at the open V of his shirt.
