Suddenly, the woman he’d been dancing with appeared. “I have to go to the bathroom,” she said to Rue. “Do you want to come with me?”
He shot her a look. “We’re fine.”
The woman crossed her arms and stuck her chin out. “I’ll let her tell me that.”
“He’s fine,” Rue said, shoving his shoulder. “He’s just a dick. He’s cockblocking me.”
“You can hang out with me for the rest of the night if you want,” the other woman said. “I guarantee I won’t cockblock you.”
“It’s fine. We just need to have a talk.” Then it was Rue’s turn to begin to drag him out of the bar.
He let her; Lord knew she wasn’t actually propelling him forward on her whiskey-shaky legs. And then they were out of the loud, crazy bar and into the cold night, freezing air heavy with cigarette smoke, individual strains of conversation that much more apparent than they had been inside.
“What’s the matter with you?” she asked.
He knew what was the matter with him. He just hated it. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to admit it to her.
He was still pissed he’d admitted it to himself.
“Those guys were making jackasses of themselves, and one of them hit you. What did you expect me to do?”
It was part of what had made him mad.
“I’m not achild,” she said. “I didn’t need you to step in the middle of that. They were two grown men, and they both wanted...”
“They were treating you like you were some kind of steak, fighting over you like feral dogs.”
“Well, that’s what I wanted,” she said, outrage pouring through her. “It’s what I wanted. I wanted to be fought over. I wanted to feel pretty. I wanted to get fucked.”
It was like she’d taken a torch and run it clean through his midsection. Hearing that word on Rue’s lips... like that. It was enough to push him over the edge. She couldn’t give that tothem.
If Rue wanted it hot, sweaty, dirty...
Do you hear yourself right now?
This was the problem. She’d been on her way to safety. Safety from all this, safety from him. Her relationship with Asher had kept his mind from going here, and now? If he had to watch her hook up, it was going to drive him over the edge.
“By one ofthem?”
She stumbled back. “It doesn’t matter. I just need to do it. I need to get it over with. I didn’t drink all those shots of Jack Daniel’s so that you could storm around acting like my angry older brother and ruining my buzz.”
“That’s exactly why I can’t let you behave that way. You’re drunk.”
It was a good excuse, anyway. It was one he could rally behind, unlike the other thoughts and reasons tumbling around inside of him.
“You knew that I planned to get drunk,” she shot back.
“I did. But I also didn’t expect that you were going to actually... I just thought you were going out to loosen up a little bit.”
“So this is only fine for you.”
“Dammit, Rue. I know what I’m doing. I am an experienced rake, okay? You can’t make these kinds of decisions tipsy when they’re not decisions you’d make sober.”
“That’s stupid. You don’t get to be in charge of what I want. Of what I think.”
“I’m the one guiding you here. It was time for me to step in. It was obvious that you needed an intervention.”
“That girl you were with didn’t think so. She was worried about the wayyouwere treating me. Even she thought you were being a possessive asshole.”
