Page 9 of Undeniably Enemies

The fuck? Fuck no.

Something ugly and caustic burns through me, boiling my blood. It’s a brush fire until all I see is red. My fists ball up, and my jaw locks. And when I see him turn back to her and lean in to whisper something in her ear, there is no holding me back. My feet carry me with purpose, and before I know what I’m doing, I’m grabbing her by the arm and lurching her away from him.

“What the hell?” she cries, shirking my hand. “Jack? What on earth?”

“Yo, bro,” the dude barks as he tries to grab my shirt and shove me away. His fake tan, barbed-wire tattoo wrapped around his biceps, and spiked, gelled hair are so twenty years ago and cliché I want to laugh. “Who are you, her dad? She’s with me.”

“No, she’s not.” I turn to Wren, giving him my back and dismissing him. He’s nothing, and if he’s dumb enough to try shit, he’ll regret it. I’m drunk and bigger than he is with zero fucks to give. “What the hell are you doing talking with thereject fromJersey Shore?” I jut my thumb over my shoulder at him.

“Oh shit, bro. He just called you a reject. You gonna let that go? He’s trying to steal your woman,” one of his sycophants instigates.

I glare at him. “She isnothis woman.” I turn back to Wren. “Answer me.”

Indignation flares across her pretty face. “What does it look like I was doing talking to him?”

“Dredging the bottom of the genetic pool. Wren, he has maybe two brain cells total.Maybe,” I emphasize.

He taps on my back. “Yo, asshole. What the fuck, man?”

I ignore him since that doesn’t require an actual answer and keep my focus on her.

“Good thing I wasn’t interested in his brain,” she shoots back with a malevolent grin.

Is she kidding me with that? Is she trying to make me pop an aneurysm? Or worse, have me kill the man?

Another tap on my back like he’s a fucking bird pecking at a window.

“Guy, she’s going home with me tonight. And if you have a problem with that, I’ll take you outside and kick your stupid ass and then take her home and fuck her.”

Oh, he’s a dead man now.

I grab him by the front of his Drakkar-Noir-saturated shirt and hoist him up until his face is right in front of mine. His feet scramble for purchase on the floor, and his hands grip my forearms as he tries to drag me off him. His lackeys who were laughing at my expense aren’t laughing anymore.

“Listen, bro. I don’t know who?—”

I lift him up higher, using my height and strength to my advantage. “Listen,bro,” I mock sardonically. “Try to rub those two brain cells of yours together and get this through your thick skull. You arenotfucking her. Not tonight or tomorrow or ever.If you look at or speak to her again, I will beat you to within an inch of your life. And after I’ve done that, and you’re a sad sack of bleeding wounds and broken bones, and they wheel you into the emergency department, I’m also the doctor who will be there to greet you and truly make you understand the notion of pain. Find someone else to spread herpes to. You’re not taking her home.”

He holds onto his bravado for another second, just long enough for him to realize I’m not joking. Not even a little. I’m drunk and angry and fighting too many fucked-up things in my head to be messed with. Especially when it comes to her.

His hands fly up in surrender. “It’s all cool, bro. The chick and I were just talking.”

The chick? Seriously? She was going to go home with him?

I release him, and he skirts away, smarter than I gave him credit for. When I turn back to Wren, she’s seething. Her cheeks are flushed, and her eyes murderous. She grabs me by the sleeve of my charcoal button-down and drags me to the back hall that leads to the employee area. Releasing me, she gives me a solid shove in the chest until I hit the wall behind me.

“What in the hell?!” she shrieks. “What makes you think you had the right to step in like that?”

“You’re lucky it was me and not Owen or one of your cousins.”

She laughs. It’s bitter and laced with sarcasm. “Right. Okay, then. Good thing I don’t need their permission or yours. I’ll just have to go and find someone else now.”

She starts to walk away from me, and I can’t stand that. Not again. I grab her arm and swing us around until I’m blocking the path back to the bar. “I’ll cockblock you all night, sweetheart. Just try me.”

“You’re unbelievable. You have no right to do this.”

“How many men have you fucked since that night with me?”

My question startles her, and I’m startled for having asked it. Maybe it’s the alcohol burning through me and destroying my better sense, but I don’t know how to stop right now. I’m angry. I’m fucking furious. I’ve been stewing over that night for a year. And to her, it’s as though it didn’t happen. Just as she said. It’s driving me mad.

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