Page 2 of Lace 'em Up

“Rory,” I say, skidding to a stop and reaching for her. “Are you?—?”

But I don’t finish the question because the moment my palms touch her shoulders, she’s flinching back…

And stumbling over the hem of her dress, falling backward into the little gully on the side of the road.

Water—from the same rain that left the pavement slick—splashes, soaking into the fabric of her dress, the long blond curls cascading along her spine, and up onto?—

Her face.

“What. The. Fuck?” I snarl as red hazes across my vision.

Most of her face is done up in makeup—what my sister Annie would call The Works. Lashes and glittery eye shadow, her brows on fleek, pink shit on her cheeks, lips filled in with a bright red color that makes her mouth look all too kissable.

That’s beautifully done.

Making Aurora somehow look even more gorgeous than she is normally—and, for the record, this woman could have her head in a goddamned paper sack and she would still be breathtaking.

But it’s not her makeup that has rage snarling through my veins, tearing like lightning through my middle.

It’s what’s showing beneath the smudged edges of her foundation, what’s being revealed ever more clearly as water from the puddle drips down her face.

A bright red mark on her jaw.

A fucking handprint on her throat—complete with the impression of four fingers on one side and a thumb on the other.

And a bruise forming across her fucking cheekbone.

I bend over—slow and steady so as not to scare her, but inexorably because I’m not going to stop moving, not going to leave her there, wet and cold and fucking terrified on the side of the road even if we don’t get along, even if she despises me, even if every interaction ends in a fight.

I slip my arms beneath her back and scoop her up into my arms.

She cries out in pain.

“Sorry, princess,” I murmur, shifting her even more carefully, holding her even closer as I scale the embankment and carry her over to my bike, settling her onto the seat.

Climbing on in front of her.

Bring her arms forward, wrapping them around my middle, holding them in place.

She’s shaking, and I don’t miss that tears are soaking into my back.

“Who?” I whisper before I start up the engine.

“Phillip.”

I turn the key.

I’m going to fucking kill her fiancé.

No.

Her ex-fiancé.

Two

Aurora

My throat hurts.

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