Page 86 of Worth the Chase

Fuck. This.

I stood right back up again. “I can’t sit still while you tell me this, Bells. But please hurry up so I can go find this motherfucker and end him.”

“He was going to force me to—” She sucked in a breath and let it out again. “He wanted me to—”

Was this motherfucker going to try to rape her?

“Did he force himself on you, Bells?” I asked, trying to make my voice sound controlled, even though I was becoming unhinged.

She shook her head. “No. One of his friends came out and stopped him; otherwise, I think he would have.”

I walked back to the couch and dropped to my knees in front of this woman I loved so fiercely that I’d do anything to keep her safe. “Are you okay? Do you need to go to the hospital and get checked out?”

“Nothingtechnicallyhappened,” she whispered. “I mean, he didn’t get to do anything to me. But, Matthew…” She stopped from finishing her thought.

“Yeah, babe?”

“I froze. I didn’t fight back or try to run or anything. I just stood there and let him assault me.”

My heart broke again when I heard how disappointed she seemed to be in herself. “You were in shock. It’s okay.”

“Is it?”

“We should call the police,” I suggested.

Her eyes whipped to mine so quickly. “Why? Nothing happened.”

“Yes, something did happen, baby. Just because he didn’t get to actually rape you doesn’t mean you weren’t assaulted,” I explained, choking on the words that felt like they were strangling me. “We need to file some kind of police report. So this guy doesn’t do this again to someone else.”

Calling the police seemed like the right thing to do. Bells was hesitant, but I figured it was only because she’d just been through something traumatic.

“Can you just give me a minute, please?”

“Yeah, Bells, I can give you a minute.” I pushed to a stand. “In the meantime, you can tell me exactly where this asshole is staying.”

“I don’t know what unit they’re in.”

“Then, I’ll go knock on every damn door until I find him. What did he look like?”

“Um, the guy who stopped it had red hair, and the guy who tried to”—she paused—“you know, he had a goatee. That’s how I told them apart. I don’t know their names. They paid in cash at the bar.”

“Red hair? Was there a group of them?” I asked, and she nodded. “I saw them leaving as I was pulling in. I only know that because I almost ran them the fuck over. Now, I wish I had.”

“So, they’re gone? They left?” She sounded a little relieved.

“Yeah. They couldn’t leave fast enough,” I said, remembering the sound of the tires squealing. “Let’s get your things together and get you home.”

There was no way that Bells was living alone for a second longer. I didn’t give a shit if she fought me on it. She was moving in and living with me from this night forward. There would be no arguments and no discussion on the matter. I didn’t care how pissed off she got at me at first; she’d forgive me eventually.

“Okay,” she said, a little too agreeable on the matter.

I was used to her fighting me every step of the way.

“Pack for more than just one night, Bells. We’re not doing this back and forth shit. Grab all your things. I’ll get the rest later.”

I wasn’t sure if what I was telling her was even registering or not. She looked so out of it. So beyond shaken up. So fucking lost. But when she started pulling her clothes out of her closet and tossing them onto the floor in a giant heap, I came up behind her and wrapped my arms around her.

She jumped before realizing it was me and calmed.

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