Page 63 of Pretty Broken Things

“How would I know?” Jess says, reminding me I asked her a question. I should feel bad about using her to piss Tessa off, but it’s hard to respect someone who won’t respect themselves.

“Why do you even care? Tessa will always be the stuck-up bitch who looked her nose down on the rest of us. She left you when you needed her, but I’ve always been here waiting for you.”

She turns around putting her back to my chest, and starts to grind her ass against my cock. “I can make you feel good baby,” she coos.

I put my hands on her waist, and push her back. “I wouldn’t fuck you with someone else’s dick.”

Her mouth gapes open, and she stares up at me like maybe this is just a bad joke. If I were a nice guy I would apologize, but I’m not a nice guy. I never was, and since Hurricane Tessa blew through my life I’m even worse. I close her mouth by lifting her chin with my finger.

“Here I am, throwing myself at you, and you still want to chase after the ice queen,” she whines.

“That’s always your problem. You throw yourself at every guy you meet thinking it’s going to fix something in your life, and it won’t. You have to fix yourself, because there aren’t any white knights who are going to charge in and rescue you. And if there were, it sure as fuck wouldn’t be me.”

Jess stomps off, and I refocus my attention on Tessa and the soon to be dead asshole. If I can’t rip her out of my head, then she’s sure as shit not going to be free of me.

Music pounds through the club with flashing lights pulsing through the space. He leans closer to her, whispering something in her ear that makes her tip her head back and laugh. Somehow that’s worse than if they were kissing. Her laughs are hard to earn, and her smiles just as rare. Yet here she is laughing and smiling, and all it took were a few whispered words to get from her what I always had to fight hard to get.

Crossing the distance between us, I grab her arm and yank her away from him. He takes a step toward us, but I pull her tight against me and bend down to whisper, “Get rid of him, or I’m going to fuck him up. You and I need to talk.”

She shivers in my arms, and I don’t know if it’s out of fear for her boyfriend, or the feel of my warm breath against her neck. She swallows, and says, “Benji, we’ll talk later, okay?”

“Be careful, Tessie, but be brave,” he says. Then he disappears into the crowd.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Tessa spits out at me.

“You and I need to talk,” I say and drag her through the crowd and down a hallway.

At the end of the hall there’s a room marked “Employees Only.” I open the door and fling her into the room before slamming the door shut. There’s no lock, but I know how to improvise. I grab a wooden chair sitting near a small desk, and wedge it under the doorknob. Confident no one is coming in, I stalk Tessa across the small room.

Every step I take she takes one back. Her chest is heaving, and I can see the vein in her neck pulsing with her increased heart rate. I’m making her nervous. That should give me pause, because I’ve never tried to intimidate or scare a woman before, ever. It should, but it doesn’t. She’s off balance, which means for once she’s not in control of the situation. For once I’m going to get a straight answer from her lying mouth.

Tessa’s back hits the wall, and I place my hands on either side of her head, keeping her there. “No where to run, Tess. I know how much you like to play rabbit, but I’m done chasing you.”

Her chin tips up, and some of that fire comes back into her eyes. That’s the thing about Tessa, she doesn’t cower when cornered. No, she bites.

“When have you ever chased me? I was in Seattle for six months, and I’ve been here for several months now, and this is only the second time I’ve seen you. And for the record, I didn’t run away, not then and not now.”

I choose to ignore what she is saying, because she’s partially right. I didn’t chase after her. When someone shows me they don’t want to be a part of my life, I let them go. That doesn’t mean she didn’t run out of town like a coward.

Instead there’s only one question I have for her right now. “Who the fuck is that guy?”

“Bennet? He’s one of my best friends from Seattle.”

“Why is he here?” I practically growl.

She shrugs. “I don’t know.” Tessa looks down, a sure sign she’s not telling me everything. “Tracy called him.”

I grab her chin and force her to look at me. “You don’t know why he’s here? I call bullshit. I’ll tell you why, he wants you. Tell him to fuck off back to Seattle. Because you. Are. Mine.”

Tessa laughs. “I’m not yours. I haven’t been from the moment you turned away from me at the hospital.”

I narrow my eyes. “Are you fucking kidding me? Is that why you left? Excuse the hell out of me for not wanting to see you right then. My entire world blew up, and you were part of that. I needed some fucking time, Tess.”

She holds her arms out to the sides. “I gave you all the time and space you could possibly need.”

“I don’t want space,” I blurt out without thinking. It’s true, I want her back. I want her in my life, in my arms, and in my bed, but I’m terrified of letting her back into my heart.

Tessa pushes against my chest. “Too bad, because I do.”

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