SIX (11 page)

Holding my hands over my erect nipples pushing though the fabric, I shuffle out of the changing room to show her.

“Holy shit, girl! Where have you been hiding that figure?”

“I look bloated! It shows every imperfection.”

“You’re crazy. I didn’t even look like that before I had Emma, and I was a fitness freak who lived on two smoothies a day,” she exclaims, her voice gaining attention from other shoppers.

“I’d kill for those hips. You have Kardashian hips,” she muses, shaking her head.

“What’s a Kardashian?”

“Oh God, are you even a real person?”

“What?”

“Never mind—here.” She snaps the tag off the dress and a gasp rasps from my mouth.

“Now, we have to buy it.” She grins.

“Go take it off and I’ll check out with the cashier.”

I don’t like the caramel swirls the hair stylist put in my hair, but according to Parker, “they’re smoking.”

She told me to meet her downstairs in the bar, but I can’t get my feet to move.

She relented and let me buy a smaller heeled stiletto, but made me promise I’d wear the dress, so here I am staring at a stranger in the mirror.

My cell beeps and I pick it up.

Parker
:
DON’T YOU DARE CHICKEN OUT ON ME.

She made me promise that earlier as well, laying on the guilt trip about her mom only babysitting once in a blue moon unless it was for work.

Gulping down a shot of tequila for liquid courage, I descend the stairs to the bar, careful not to fall on my face in these heels.

The music is heavy tonight and the bar is packed, so I’m hoping I can slip in and out with Parker in tow while everyone else remains none the wiser.

Kate and Samuel, our part time bartenders, are covering for us tonight. Most people hate the smell of alcohol and sweat, but oddly, it’s comforting to me and reminds me of my dad.

The bar is packed and that smell it potent in the air.

A guy I don’t recognize blocks my path toward Parker.

“Hey there, gorgeous,” he slurs.

I nod in response and try to push past him, but he grabs me, his hand helping itself to a palm full of my ass.

Pushing against his chest, I fight to get free.

I hated over-intoxicated men acting stupid because drink poisons their bloodstream.

“Hey, man, I don’t think she likes that,” another guy tells him, grabbing at his arm, but the drunk guy manages to keep me pinned to him with one arm and knocks the other guy to the floor with his other.

“You can’t behave like that in here,” I shout.

Before I can say anything else, Six is here, grabbing the guy around the throat with one hand. Lifting him to his tiptoes, he forces him backwards.

The man crashes through a table and on to the floor.

Someone kills the music and a couple women sitting at said table scream and jump up as their drinks shower the perv.

A flick of metal chimes and I glance toward the sound to see Six holding a pocketknife he didn’t have earlier.

Gasps echo through the bar and I grab Six’s arm as he takes a step toward the mess on the floor.

“What are you doing?” I ask, my words coming out more frightened than I intended, but I am scared—for Six.

If he does something reckless in the heat of the moment, he’ll regret it.

He shakes my hand off his arm and bends down over the guy.

A pool of red liquid oozes from a small cross Six carves into his forehead. “You’re barred,” he snarls.

Bodies shuffle around as people leave and others go on enjoying their night like nothing happened.

I don’t know whether to mention the barbaric action or get the hell out of here and pretend it didn’t happen.

“He’s so scary,” Parker whisper-yells in my ear. “Who does that?” she asks, shaking her head. “I’m so glad he and I are friends.”

“That guy was out of line,” I defend.

“Agreed, but come on, what’s with the carving shit?” She knocks her teeth together and shivers.

“So we know who he is if he tries to come back in?” I sound pathetic.

There really is no excuse for what Six did, but I’m not going to talk bad about him or let anyone else. He did what he thought was right: protecting me from a grabby asshole.

Still in my dress, I’m standing in the bar watching Jimmy scorn Six.

When the police arrived, everyone else cleared out and we were ordered to shut down for the night.

Parker tried to make me slip out with her still, but I couldn’t in good conscience, so here I am being stared at by Lucky with a cocksure smile nearly reaching his ears.

“You can’t go around cutting people up!” Jimmy shouts.

Six has his arms folded and his frame casts a shadow over Jimmy.

If it were anyone else, they’d be cowering, but he looks menacing and pissed.

His eyes burn into me and I fidget under their heated glare.

“It’s not like he actually cut him up, though. It’s a scratch,” Jude defends, gaining a laugh from Lucky.

“He sliced a cross into a man’s face.”

“A little one.” Jude lifts a shoulder, nonchalant.

“Whose side are you on? You’re a man of the law.”

“I know, and I know sometimes assholes have what’s coming to them.”

Throwing his hands up in the air and pointing his finger into Six’s chest, which earns him a growl in response, he narrows his eyes.

“There’s only so much we can let you get away with before we have to abide by the rules and take you in.”

“Noted.”

My eyes dart between the retreating police officers, Six, and the stairs to my apartment.

The dress now feels like I’m wearing just my underwear—
has the hem gotten higher up?
This is my fault.

I should have been firmer with the handsy asshole and broke free before Six had to step in.

His eyes track my own and my nerves bubble in my gut.

Running to my apartment and hiding out or changing, at the very least, is sounding better and better with each second that passes.

He’s mad at me, and I don’t want him to be.
He has no right to be.

My line of vision creeps to the stairs once more.

“Don’t even think about it,” he warns, and I let out a defeated breath.

“Why would you be dressed like that?” he accuses.

“Why wouldn’t she be should be the question. Damn, Mist,” Lucky drawls, biting his fist.

“Fuck off, Lucky.”

“I’m just saying.”

“Well, don’t. Now fuck off.”

Holding up his hands and still grinning over at me, he takes off, slinging a, “Good luck,” over his shoulder, leaving Six and me alone.

“What’s the problem with what I’m wearing? Are you insinuating I deserved that asshole to grab at me?” I fold my own arms and stand as straight as I can manage in these shoes.

His jaw ticks and with a swipe of his tongue, his lips glisten.

I want to lick the saliva off them.

“I don’t care if a woman is buck ass naked and doing the slut drop, no man should put his hands on someone who doesn’t want it,” he growls.

Muscles flex in his arms as he runs both hands over his head and then down his face. “I need a drink.”

“I’ll pour you one,” I offer, going around the bar and grabbing the whiskey bottle from the top shelf.

“You don’t look like yourself,” he mumbles, and I try not to sigh.

I didn’t like him being upset, but at the same time, he didn’t own me.

He was clear nothing would ever happen between us, so why would he care?

“You mean hot,” I jest, waving a hand down my outfit and giving him a wink.

His face remains resigned.

I stop what I’m doing to shake my head at him.

He taps the glass on the bar, instructing me to fill it without words.

I roll my eyes and pour the liquor.

“You don’t need to put on a slinky dress to make you hot, Mist. You’re the sun, and I need sunscreen because I’m burning up.” He gulps down the drink like it’s water and leaves me standing there, open-mouthed.

The door slams on his exit and I jump
. Roller coaster.

I’m stoned on that girl.
Fuck

The copper twang bursts on to my taste buds as I bite down on my tongue thinking about seeing Misty coming down those stairs dressed in a figure-hugging, skimpy dress and high heels.

Her legs appeared to go on forever and each step she took flashed her panties. Her hair was down and had lighter color raining through it.

Makeup smeared across her eyes gave her this smoky, sultry-as-sin look.

I watched every sway of her hips as she walked amongst the bodies filling the place, all eyes on her, and then he grabbed her.

Being so close to the edge of my own demons was scary for me.

I haven’t felt that kind of blood-steaming, bone-solidifying anger since Haley. And it was scary touching my darkness in a room full of people, and in front of Misty. If it weren’t for her hand reaching out and touching mine, I would have gone over the edge and cut that man’s throat.

Instead, I taught him a valuable lesson he will be reminded of daily when he looks in the mirror.

Nothing got me from zero to ten quicker than a fucking punk thinking he can use his size and strength to overpower an unwilling woman.

Twisting my neck and rolling my shoulders, I try to think about anything else.

It had been a week since that night and I still relived it every day and dreamed about it every night.

She has a way of making me think about her without actually doing anything. Everything out of her mouth sounds sexual in an indirect manner.

“You look thirsty.”

“It’s bedtime.”

“Are you staying back for a drink?”

“It’s so hot, I’m soaking.”
She was talking to Parker about the heat at the time, but I was there and she was looking straight at me.

She’s trying to make me chase her words for the true meaning behind them, but I don’t need to, I know she wants me to take her, so I’ve been avoiding her like the plague.

“Don’t zone out,” Lucky scorns me.

Wiping off the ink and blood from a new tattoo I’m putting on his calf, I don’t bother responding.

“So, what do you think—to make me jealous?” he asks.