Page 13 of Break for Me

But first, I tried just slamming the door on him. He dropped his left shoulder and pushed against the door as I tried to ram it closed. I wasn’t willing to give away the location of the knife I had hidden on me just yet so rather than moving for it, I turned my back against the door to keep trying to push it into him while I kicked off both shoes. I bent down to grab them both when I jumped away from the door and that asshole barreled right into the room behind me. There was an absolute inferno of rage burning inside me when he turned back to close the door as calmly as could be. I shifted the heels in each of my hands, entirely prepared to use the actual heel as my weapon of choice when he came closer. These heels that I just fucking bought earlier today for the date that I thought we were going on.

“We don’t have to do this the painful way,” he said quietly.

“I was very much looking forward to the painful way.”

No fucking clue why taunting him felt like a smart decision, but I sure as shit did it anyway.

The smile that had been painfully gorgeous a couple nights ago was the single most frightening thing I’d ever seen when he flashed it at me right before he rushed toward me. I swung the first shoe at him as soon as he was within reach and just like I’d hoped, he struck out to grab that wrist in an instant. The moment that his fingers touched my arm, I swung the other shoe straight at his side. The heel connected well enough just below his ribs that it paused his movement for a fraction of a second, but he didn’t release my other hand. So, I swung it again, but got ballsy and aimed for his neck that time. That was the mistake. Should’ve stuck with the body shots where I could be more powerful rather than having to reach for it. He dropped his shoulder again like he’d done with the door and bulldozed right into me. I managed to stay upright until he rammed us both into a wall. The back of my head crashing into it left a couple of stars behind to explode in front of my eyes before I remembered what I was supposed to be doing. I swung the shoe at him another time, but he outright caught it. He slammed both wrists into the wall over my head and held them there.

“Drop them,” he hissed.

I only glared at him; right into those stupid, fucking gorgeous blue eyes that I suddenly despised.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said. “Drop them and just listen to me for a second.”

“Fuck you.”

“Not even in your wildest dreams, Fancy Face.”

He pulled both wrists back down in between us before he spun me around to slam the front of my body into the wall. He pushed both my wrists into my lower back to hold me against the wall that way. He started to squeeze both wrists.

“I’ll crush both of these if that’s really how you want to play this, little girl.”

He ripped me away from the wall just to shove me back into it a second later so the side of my head cracked against the wall that time. Then he squeezed both wrists so hard that I couldn’t even hold in the embarrassing squeal of pain as I dropped both shoes.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” He asked. “There. Let’s say that was the attitude adjustment that I promised.”

That seemed to bolster the inferno inside me well enough. I would’ve preferred to plant my heel directly in his groin, but he was standing too close to guarantee that it’d land in the right place. I turned my head so I could place my forehead against the wall for a second. He leaned in even closer to my entire body.

“I gave you fair warning that there was plenty of fight left in this old dog,” he said.

“Please,” I begged quietly, sure to force the quiver into my voice in the middle of the word. His grip on my wrists loosened immediately and I could feel him breathing against me a second later.

“If you’re about to make an appeal to my morality, don’t bother. The US government claimed that years ago and they never bothered to give it back.”

He leaned in another time to get ready to whisper something else and I took the opportunity to interrupt all his shitty words and probably even shittier thoughts.

“That’s a really sad story, Jersey. I wish I cared.”

I threw my head backward as hard as I could and felt the blinding pain just a moment later when the back of my skull connected with his face. I hit him so hard that I about toppled to the floor right next to him. The back of the head was never an ideal tool, but I learned years ago that you just had to fucking use what was available in the moment. I wobbled for a second while he cursed and tried to wipe the blood from his mouth. That was what hurt so fucking bad. He was too tall. I hadn’t smashed his nose like I wanted. I hit his fucking teeth. I made every effort to go flying around him while he rolled to his stomach to get back up. He caught my ankle and ripped it back toward him so quickly that I fell hard straight to the floor face first and never stood a chance at breaking that fall with my hands. He was scrambling across me in the next second until he was sitting on my lower back, holding me in place between his legs, with a solid grip on both wrists again. I heard him spit out what I imagined was a mouthful of blood.

“That wasn’t very nice,” he said. His tone had changed wildly from the cocky whispers from just a minute earlier, so I guess I’d call that a small win for myself. He shifted his hold on me so that he was crushing both wrists in one hand, and then his other hand ran up and down both my sides. He shifted his weight so he was holding me to the floor with just one horribly painful knee in my spine. My whole body flinched involuntarily when that roaming hand crossed right over my ass cheek and continued down my thigh. I jerked a second time when he moved to the other side and I was prepared to fight again when he got closer to that hip so I started squirming. He put more pressure into the knee on my back.

“I’m not hurting you,” he hissed. “I’m checking for weapons. Sit still or I will hurt you.”

His hand paused on my thigh as he said the last words and my heart tried to pound out of my chest. He chuckled and it sent goosebumps all across my flesh.

“And now I’m going to open your legs to remove whatever the fuck you’ve got strapped to this thigh,” he said and laughed. I tried to buck my entire body off the floor but it didn’t work very well being face down. He brought the rogue hand up to the back of my neck and pressed down on it until I squeaked in pain again.

“If I wanted to rape you, or even touch you, I would’ve already done it,” he leaned down to say right into my ear. “Just fucking stay still and I won’t hurt you. That’s all it takes. Fucking listen. Make it easy on yourself.”

I forced myself to just breathe while he pushed my dress up until it sat just below my ass. He really didn’t add any extra contact with my skin. He very angrily shoved my right leg further away before he unhooked the knife’s hilt from the sheath that was strapped around my left thigh. He laughed when he pulled the full length of the knife from its sheath.

“You were going to bring this on a date?” He asked and laughed again. “It’s not even legal to conceal a knife this size in Seattle when its intent is to harm somebody else.”

“You were going to bring your stupid fucking face on a date. Only seemed fair to bring a weapon of my own,” I hissed back. “And its intent wasn’t to harm somebody else. You picked this fight. So, its intent was self-preservation. Asshole.”

He laughed again. “Right. We’ll just act like you didn’t put on this dress and those shoes, do the hair and the makeup and all of it with the goal of getting my stupid fucking face between your legs later. That’s fine. I’ll save you the embarrassment.”

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