Page 9 of Under My Skin

“Visiting family. Going to introduce me to yourfriendhere?” He sneered, throwing a look of disgust in Malachi’s direction.

“This is Malachi Houston, our quarterback. Mal, this is Jeff Hollister. Plays for the Foxes. I went to high school and college with him.”

“Nice to meet you, Jeff,” Malachi said, holding his hand out.

Jeff just looked him in the eyes, looked down at his hand, and then back up at his face again. The friendly smile that Malachi was wearing disappeared as he lowered his hand, and his lips pressed into a thin line while his eyes grew hard.

Luckily, his phone rang at that moment, and he pulled it out of his pocket to answer it. “Hey, baby. What’s up?”

There was a pause as his girlfriend, Morgan, spoke. It had to have been her, because he wouldn’t have called anyone else “baby.”

“Whoa, baby, slow down. Give me a second. It’s too loud in here. Let me go outside,” he told her, then walked out of the bar.

“Well, Hicks, you like to hang out with the dregs of society, don’t you?” Jeff scoffed. “You always have.”

My blood started to simmer in my veins and the hand that wasn’t holding my beer bottle clenched into a fist. It was all too clear from his body language what he wasn’t saying, and maybe Malachi was used to it, but it wasn’t acceptable to me. Not in any way, shape, or form. His skin color had absolutely zero bearing on who he was as a person. None. And the fact that this asshole thought it did just pissed me off even more than I already was.

“I hang out with people whose company I enjoy,” I bit out.

“Like…oh, what was that mousy girl’s name?Kyler. You know, the quiet one who liked to do ‘em three at a time. Shame I missed my opportunity to tap that before the asshole, Thomason, claimed her,” he laughed. “Heard she was afreakbetween the sheets.”

I heard the sound of my bottle slamming down on the counter before I registered that I’d set it down, and I turned toward him, seeing red. This jackass had picked thewrongday to fuck with me.

“You’re going to want to watch the next words that come out of your mouth,” I warned him. “Those are my friends you’re talking shit about.”

“What? I can’t point out that she ruinedthreegood guys’ lives and got another dudekilledbecause she had some morning-after regrets?” he taunted. “She wanted it, they gave itto her, and then she went crying rape. What kind of fucking bitch does that?”

My fist connected with Jeff’s face before I realized what I was doing. He stumbled backward, and I took advantage of his startled state, delivering another blow to his jaw and a knee to his balls.

His knuckles crashed against my cheekbone, making me see stars for a second, and he threw me backward onto the bar top. I heard a crash and what sounded like breaking glass, and something wet soaked through my back. I tried to shove him off, but he had one of my arms pinned behind me.

“I’ve wanted to punch that smug look off your face foreight fucking years,” he gloated.

He raised his fist again, and I surged forward, planting my head square in the middle of his chest as I pushed him back. As he stumbled backward, I delivered a sucker-punch to his gut and then a shove to his shoulders, knocking him down onto his ass. I wasted no time straddling him and punching his face again.

“Do.Not. Talk. About. Ky. Like. That!” I roared, accenting each word with a blow.

“She was fucking asking for it!” he laughed as he spat out a mouthful of blood.

I delivered an uppercut to his jaw. He coughed and sputtered, and I saw him spit some more blood out.

Good. Fucker deserved to bleed, just like he thought Kyler wanted to happen to her. My knuckles were going to be black and blue tomorrow, but I didn’t give a fuck.No onetalked about my sister from another mister like this.

“No one asks to be raped!” I growled as I raised my hand to punch his fucking lights out. “No! One! But you? You’reaskingfor this!”

A pair of dark-skinned, tattooed arms wrapped around my chest, pulling me backward.

“Don’t be stupid, B,” Malachi said into my ear. “Someone called the cops, man. Don’t make this worse than it already is.”

“He fucking?—”

“I know. I heard what he said. Be the bigger person,” he said as he pulled me up, still restraining me. “Nothing you say or do is going to make a damn bit of difference to someone like him.”

At that moment, a couple of uniformed officers walked through the door of the bar, heading right for us.

“Can someone tell us what happened?” one of them asked.

“That fucker, Braden Hicks, punched me!” Jeff whined like a fucking toddler.

---