Page 15 of Dominate
J.D. went still then crumbled onto the pavement.
Quar shook his head. “Damn it. Dad always told me not to punch people in the face. Thathurt.”
Forest rushed over to Quar. “We can ice it.” He cradled Quar’s hand with both of his. “Your fingers are already swelling.”
“Not what I had in mind for tonight,” Quar muttered. He looked at Forest. “I missed you.”
“I missed you, too,” Forest said.“But I’m not going to move in with you tonight.”
Quar surprised him with a laugh. “We’ll take our time getting to know each other.”
“Hey, what happened out here?”
Forest and Quar turned to find John trotting toward them.
John scowled when he saw J.D. “Tell me one of you knocked that asshole out.”
Quar raised his bruised hand. “And I have the wounds to show for it.”
“You want me to callthe cops?” John asked.
“As much as I wish I could say otherwise, yes, please do.” Quar cradled his injured hand. “This is going to take hours. Damn. I’m afraid if I don’t press charges, though, he’ll keep being a pest.”
“At the very least.” John pointed at the club. “Go on in and get some ice. I got this motherfucker covered. If you’re worried that I don’t, you can send out reinforcements.Bo’s inside with Larry and Brant.”
“I’ll have them join you not because I don’t think you can handle this, but because it’s always good to have help…or witnesses.” Quar cupped Forest’s elbow with his uninjured hand.
“Do you think anything’s broken?” Forest was worried over how quickly Quar’s hand was swelling.
Quar held it up. “I hope not, but…this doesn’t look good.”
“We can talk anothernight,” Forest offered. “We’ll be busy with cops and probably a hospital.”
“No hospital unless absolutely necessary. I hate those places. Reminds me of my grandmother’s passing,” Quar admitted.
Forest understood then what had been fluttering on the edges of discovery. Quar was a tender-hearted Dom, not a hard-assed, unfeeling man with a chip on his shoulder—like J.D. He’d gotten lucky whenQuar had found him. That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to argue about Quar’s hand, though.
“You should at least get it x-rayed. We can go to an urgent care center if you’d rather. There’s one that’s open to midnight not ten minutes from here.” Forest smiled at him. “We can talk on the drive about how we’re going to make this work between us because we both want it. We do both want it, right, sir?”
“We do.” Quar thanked him for opening the door. “John was covering for our bouncer. Let’s find Bo, Larry and Brant.”
Forest was shorter than Quar, but he easily spotted Bo with his leather hood on. “Left of the bar.”
“Ah, I see them. Good eye.” Quar kept his grip on Forest’s elbow until the crowd made it necessary for them to slip through single file.
“Hey, what happened to your hand?” Boasked.
“Did you punch a clown?” a blond man inquired.
“Hey, he’s hurt,” Brant said. “Where’s John?”
“Outside with J.D.,” Quar answered. “And Larry, don’t tempt me to ask your Dom to paddle you.”
Bo, Brant and Larry all started asking questions at once. Quar stuck two fingers in his mouth and let loose an ear-splitting whistle, which effectively silenced most of the people in the club.
“Sorry,” Quar called out to the people behind him. “Go back to having fun.” He waited until the noise level began to pick up again. “I don’t know how you three thought I’d get a word in.”
“We just wanted you to whistle,” Bo teased. Then he was serious again. “Tell us what happened.”
