What He Shields (What He Wants Book Seventeen) (11 page)

“What’s your problem, slut?” one of them called
after me.
 
“You think you’re better
than us?
 
You
ain’t
nothing but a whore shaking your ass in a
club.
 
Like a fucking
skankass
bitch!”

It took a lot to scare me.
 
But I was officially scared.

I started to run.

The men started to run, too.

They caught up to me in no time.
 
They were bigger and stronger and they
were wearing work boots, while I had on these ridiculous high heels.

I looked around wildly for a store I could duck
into, somewhere I could get away from these guys.
 
But the two of them surrounded me,
forcing me up against the brick of the building behind me.
 

“Don’t touch me,” I snarled.

The man grinned again, showing his gnarled
teeth.
 

His friend started to get anxious.
 
“Come on, man,” he said, glancing around
nervously.
 
“Let’s just get out of
here.”

“First we play.”
 
The one with the bad teeth had a glint
in his eye that terrified me.
 
It
was s a glint I’d only seen before in my old foster dad, a horrible man who still
haunted my dreams at night.
 

I closed my eyes tight and thought of Declan.

I knew I should fight, that I should kick and
scream and bite, but I also knew that men like this one got off on that, that
if he was going to do something to me, I should protect myself and float away,
out of my body, until it was over.

I felt him move toward me, felt him reach out
and grab roughly at my breast, pinching the nipple.
 
His other hand grabbed my chin and
squeezed, pushing my cheeks together.
 
I bite the inside of my mouth to keep from screaming and the taste of
blood hit my tongue.

I whimpered, which excited him even more.
 

“Ooh, baby,” he said.
 
“You like to be a bad girl, don’t
you?
 
You like to be taught a
lesson.”
  

His friend wiped his lips and then giggled
maniacally.

Tears welled up in my eyes, and I could feel
myself drifting away, going to the place I went whenever things like this
happened.
 
It started when I was
ten, and my foster father held me down while he shoved his hand in my pants and
told me to be good.
 

Fight,
Olivia.
 
I could hear Declan’s voice in my
head.
 
Don’t fade away.
 
Fight.

I snapped out of it and bit the thug’s hand.

“You bitch!” he shrieked and pulled back.
 
“The fucking whore bit me!”

He reached out and slapped me across the face
so hard I could hear ringing in my ears.
 
My cheek burned and my skin felt like it was vibrating.

It was so shocking that for a moment, I
couldn’t breathe.
 
It was like the
wind had been knocked out of me, even though I was still standing.
 
A second later, my
knees started to buckle.

That’s when I heard the car.

It was black with tinted windows and the
driver’s side door opened and a second later the sound of shoes scraping
against the sidewalk filled my eardrums.

It was Colt.
 

I blinked my eyes a few times, quickly,
wondering if I was seeing things.
 
The ringing in my ears was subsiding slowly, but perhaps I was
hallucinating.

Everything was moving in slow motion and then
Colt was there, in front of us, and he grabbed the men who slapped me by the
back of his shirt and threw him to the ground.
 

“Get away from her,” Colt growled, his voice
making it clear he wasn’t messing around.
 
“You keep your fucking hands off her.”

For a moment the man’s eyes darkened and his
pruny
face set into a determined expression.
 
“Oh, yeah?” he asked.
 
“What the hell are you going to do about
it?”
 
His friend, who was lingering
in the background, stepped forward and pulled a knife out of his pocket.
 
The blade glinted as he popped it open.

I gasped and put my hand to my mouth.
 

But Colt didn’t even hesitate.

He stepped forward and in one fluid movement,
knocked the knife out of the man’s hand.
 
The knife went skittering onto the pavement, coming to a rest near
Colt’s feet.
 
He picked it up and
dropped it into the sewer grate.

The men looked at each other nervously.

“Hey, man,” the one who pulled the
knife
said.
 
“We
don’t want any trouble.”

Colt took one step toward him, and the men went
running down the street.

He turned to me.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”
 
I wasn’t.
 
My cheek was throbbing where I’d been
hit.
 
The adrenaline was leaving my
body and I was starting to feel the pain.

“You’re not.”
 
He cupped my chin tenderly and lifted my
face, studying my cheek.
 
“It’s
already starting to swell.
  
Stay here.”

He walked across the street to a tiny
bodega.
 
There’s an ice chest
outside, with a combination lock on it.
 
I watched as he put his ear to the lock, then turned it and popped it
open.
 
He reached in and pulled out
a handful of ice, then walked it back across the street.
 
He wrapped the ice in a towel that he
pulled from his trunk and then pressed it against my face.

I winced at the coldness and tried to move
away.
 

“Stop,” he commanded.
 
“You need to put ice on it.”

I turned my cheek to him and let him put the
ice on my face.
 
After a minute, my
skin started to go numb, and I began to feel better.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”
 

I reached out to take the ice pack from him,
because he was still holding it to my skin.
 
His closeness was making my stomach
twist itself into knots.
 
I thought
about how close I came to kissing him a moment ago, how close I came to
wrecking everything, to destroying the only thing that had ever meant anything
to me.
 

“Olivia” Colt said, and the way he said my name
made me shiver.
 
“I’m taking you
home.”

“No.”
 
I shook my head.
 
“No, that’s
okay.
 
I can’t… I mean
,
I’m not going to…” I was babbling and I took a deep breath
and tried to calm myself down.
 
I
couldn’t let Colt take me back to the shelter I’d been staying at.
 
It was in a horrible part of town, even
worse than this one, and it was humiliating.
 
The last thing I wanted was this
put-together, rich guy knowing where I was staying.

“You’re coming home with me.”
 
It was a command.

“What?”

“You’ll stay at my apartment.
 
With me.”

“Oh, no.”
 
I shook my head vehemently.
 
“I can’t ask you to do that.”

“You’re not asking me.”

“No, I really… I need to get home.”
 
I tried to make my voice sound like I
had people there waiting for me, a mother or a father or maybe even both.
 
A roommate or an older sister who would
be worried about me, expecting me, wondering where I was if I didn’t show
up.
 
Over the years I’d perfected
saying “I need to get home” instead of giving details.
 
Usually, it worked.
 
But not this time.

Colt shook his head.
 
“Too bad.”
 
He took my hand and pulled me toward his
car.
 
And this time, I let him.

***

His car smelled of leather and sandalwood,
mixed with the spicy scent of cologne.
 
The seats were close to the ground, and I had to duck to get inside.

Colt climbed into the car next to me, and as he
turned the key in the ignition, I caught sight of the watch on his wrist.
 
It was silver and
heavy-looking
,
with a thick band.
 
I had never been
this close to that kind of wealth.
 
I’d seen it on
tv
and in magazines, but I’d
never been so close that I could touch it.
 
I marveled at the fact that Colt’s watch probably cost the same amount
as what it would take me to live for a whole year.
 

He shifted the car into gear and pulled out
onto the street.
 
I expected him to
peel out, for the wheels to squeal and the smell of burning rubber to fill the
street.
 
You don’t have a car like
Colt’s without liking to drive fast.
 
But Colt drove slow, controlled, and I got the feeling he was doing it
because I was in the car.

“What did those men want from you?” he asked once
we were on the main road.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, what did they want?”

I shrugged and pulled the ice from my face,
studying myself in the side view mirror.
 
I winced at my reflection.
 
There was already an ugly bruise beginning to form under my cheekbone.
 

“What did they say?” Colt pressed.

“Not much.
 
They called me a slut and a whore, told me they wanted to have fun with
me.
 
You know, the usual things
you’d expect guys like that to say.”

His hands tightened around the steering
wheel.
 
He took in a deep breath,
like he was trying to control his temper.
 
“That’s all they said?”

“Isn’t that enough?”

“Did they mention anything about money?”

“Money?”

“Yes.”

At first, I didn’t understand.
 
But then I got it.
 
“You mean like paying me to have sex
with them?”

He nodded, like this was completely normal in
his world.
 
It made sense.
 
I supposed you couldn’t run a strip club
without having to worry about prostitution.

“No.”
 
I shook my head.
 
“Not for
sex.
 
But they offered me twenty
bucks to flash them.
 
Then they
called me a whore and slapped me.”

His hands tightened around the steering wheel
again and his knuckles turned white.
 
I saw the fire burning in his eyes, and I wondered what he would have
done to those men if I hadn’t been there.
 
Something made me think it wouldn’t have been pretty.
 
Something about his presence was
unnerving me, making me feel like I needed to get out of there.
 
I thought again about the way his arms
wrapped around the back of my shoulders, how they pulled me close to him without
even asking permission, like he just knew I would want to kiss him.

He was right.
 
I did want to kiss him.
 
An image flashed through my mind, his
hands in my hair, his lips on mine, our tongues intertwining.
 
In my daydream he tasted like peppermint
and alcohol, and his kisses left me breathless.

Declan.

“You don’t have to bring me to your house,” I
said.
 
“I just... you can take me
home.”
 
Obviously he couldn’t really
take me home.
 
I didn’t have a
home.
 
But I could give him
directions to the shelter, could make him drop me off around the corner and
then wait until he disappeared before I went in.
 

“No.”
 
He shook his head.
 
“You
can’t be alone tonight.”

“I won’t be alone,” I lied.
 

He raised his eyebrows.

“I have a boyfriend.”

He snorted, like that was completely out of the
realm of possibility.

“What’s so funny?”

“You’re lying.”

“How do you know?”