Page 66 of Tempest

“Get them to the car,” he says to Letty, before he turns around and gets nose to nose with the guy who shoved me. “You want to put hands on someone, asshole, you put hands on me.”

“I didn’t mean…”

“Bullshit.” Gavin spits the words in the man’s face. “You knew exactly what you were fucking doing. I’m going to teach you to never fucking touch her again.”

“That would be assault! I could sue.” The guy tries stepping back, but Gavin stalks him.

“I fucking dare you to,” he growls. The man tries to shove Gavin away, but he doesn’t stand a chance against the wall of a man. Fists raise and it’s the last thing I see before more guys join in the scrum and obscure my vision.

“I don’t have his keys, Blom,” Letty says.

“Put her in with Britton. I’ll stay with them.”

The men load us into Hugo’s truck and Lehtinen immediately turns around to join the fray.

“I’m sorry, this is all because of me,” Britton says, nervously sighing.

“Darling, we live for this shit,” Hugo says, standing in the open door of his truck, blocking anyone from us. “They’ll have it handled in short order.”

“I don’t want anyone getting in trouble,” she argues.

“Won’t happen.”

I hope he’s right, I think as I strain my head from side to side, trying to catch a glimpse of Gavin.

“Is this a regular sort of thing?” Britton asks.

“We’re hockey players, it’s not irregular.” He shrugs.

“It’s kind of hot,” she says, and Hugo grins devilishly.

For as mad at him as I am now, Britton isn’t wrong. It did unspeakable things to my lady bits when Gavin placed me safely in Letty’s arms and faced off with the asshat. At the same time, I’m worried. My fingers tremble some, so I ball them up in my fist and try to shake the wariness of him potentially getting a fist to the face.

It’s different watching him on the ice, when I can see every move and know it can’t go too far.

Violence like this has never been something I’ve experienced.

“He’s okay, Odette,” Hugo says, tuning in to my concern. “He’s got the whole team and Damian in there with him. But I think he’s pissed off enough to take the lot of those chucklefucks all by himself. Vaughn looked like he wanted to cut that dude’s twig and berries right off, drop ’em in a blender, and water his flower bed with it.”

“He did,” I agree, still watching. Still waiting for him to emerge.

“Seems awful protective of you, darling.”

“I’m sure he’d be that way with anyone,” I say.

“He’d stick up for anyone, sure. He wouldn’t be murderous, though.”

Finally, the crowd breaks up. I catch sight of Vaughn as he heads straight toward us, his eyes boring into mine through the windshield.

He looks…fine, actually. He’s not even disheveled, his curls in perfect place, just as they were before all of this. Other than the tension he wears in his jaw, he shows no sign of being in any kind of altercation.

Hugo moves aside only when Gavin is within a few steps.

“Are you okay?” he asks me, palming my face and turning it side to side as if he’s looking as hard as I am for any injury on him.

“I’m okay, you caught me.” He stills at my words, a silent promise crossing his face. It’s as if I can hear him promise that he always will.

I look away so I don’t risk believing it.

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