Page 87 of Savior

The pounding in my ears drowned out Jeremy’s next words, and I limbered up my shoulders and neck before stalking into the kitchen.

I was tired of cowering.

I was sick of waking up with the image of his smile burned into my mind.

By the time I made it back into the living room, Jeremy had his hands around Nate’s throat, squeezing. A strange sensation flooded my veins, leaving me feeling as if I was invincible.

“Get the fuck away from my husband!” I roared, holding my weapon to the side of Jeremy’s neck just like I’d seen my mother do to Bear.

He released Nate’s throat and rocked back onto his heels with his palms in the air. “Christ, Kate! Calm the fuck down!”

Nate’s left eye was rapidly swelling shut, but his right one was focused entirely on me. Something like confusion came over his face before he drew in a ragged breath.

I continued staring down at Jeremy in an attempt to frighten him, ordering, “Get away from him,” through a clenched jaw.

“You can’t be serious.” He stood up and stumbled back into his chair with a pant before glancing down at Nate with a cruel smirk. “You rely on her to finish all of your fights for you?”

Nate made a sound that might’ve been a growl before moving into a crouch.

“Babe,” I said, no longer feeling like a superhero as tremors wracked my hands, leaving me struggling to hold onto the butcher knife. “We got what we came for. Take me home.”

Please.

Nate placed a thumb on his jaw, working it back and forth, before giving me a slow nod. I stepped across the overturned chair and reached for him, keeping the knife pointed in Jeremy’s direction.

I noted, with more than a little horror, that the knuckles on my husband’s right hand were split open. “Come on, Rocky. I’ll drive,” I stammered before linking my arm through his.

Nate’s nostrils flared as he forced his injured hand into a fist, but he let me lead him out of Jeremy’s house and into the passenger seat of his car.

My knees buckled as I slid behind the wheel, and I let out a huge breath before asking, “Oh my god, what the hell were you thinking? You could’ve broken your hand, and then how would you perform surgery? We need to get some ice on it before it swells.”

He let his head fall back against the headrest with a forced laugh. “What the hell was I thinking? He disrespected you, Katy girl, made it sound as if you were no better than one of the girls that hangs around their clubhouse. Like you’re just a fucking object!”

“Well, he’s a biker,” I said weakly, realizing that it sounded as if I was making excuses for the things he’d said. Jeremy might not have grown up around bikers, but he’d had no trouble acting like one.

I could’ve told your father, Kate. If I’d just told him, things could’ve been so different for us. Instead, I held onto my pride and kept the truth locked up tight.

“You know what? No, my dad’s a biker. Jeremy’s an asshole. Uh…” I winced, trying to decide how to best approach it. “So, you already know that I left you because of the video.”

He nodded slowly but remained silent.

Tears welled up behind my eyelids, but I blinked until my vision cleared. “It was just that you’d been taking on more shifts and acting so distant. At first, I thought it was because you were giving me time to work through the stuff with my dad, but then it felt like maybe you might’ve changed your mind about us.” I ran the back of my thumb under my eyes, angry at the stray tears that had managed to escape.

“Katy,” Nate said softly, finally turning to look at me.

“Don’t. Just let me finish. When I got that video, it was like things finally clicked. I felt like that was the reason things had felt off between us. I drove to Jeremy’s…” Nate’s jaw tightened, but I forced myself to keep going.

“I showed him the video, thought he might be able to help me make sense of it. We watched it and rewatched it until I could barely keep my eyes open. He told me I could sleep on the bed in his guest room and I didn’t even bother undressing… just collapsed on top of the comforter.”

For the love of all the saints, tell him what happened to you.

Nate’s undamaged hand moved over the console to rest on top of mine. “Babe, what happened?” The worry in his voice only made my tears fall faster.

“I, um, I woke up—” I saw Jeremy’s face in my mind, back-lit by the light from the hallway, his teeth somehow still blindingly white in the dark room. “One hand was under my shirt and the other—” I fought against rising nausea. “The other was between my legs, but still over my clothes.”

I left out the part about Jeremy being naked, with his erection pressed against my thigh, and waited for the laughter… for Nate to tell me that I was overreacting about nothing. Instead, he let out a rough exhale before tightening his hand around mine.

“After a well-placed kick on my part and multiple groaned apologies on his, I drove to my mother’s. I knew Dakota would just grill me for answers before deciding to become Punisher and you…” I paused. “I wasn’t sure what you would do.”

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