Unbeautifully (Undeniable, #2)(5)
“Don’t hate me,” he whispered. I glanced up at him, confused.
“What? Why would I hate you?”
He grinned, then dropped to his knees.
Correction. He dropped down on one knee. Heart pounding, not breathing, I stared down at ZZ, watching as he pulled a small black box out of his leathers. He looked up at me.
“You’re the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” he said softly. “The sweetest and the kindest, too. You make me so f*ckin’ happy, baby, you make life so f*ckin’ good. So I’m askin’ you if you’ll marry me and let me spend the rest of my life tryin’ to do the same for you.”
He flipped the box open and revealed the biggest diamond ring I had ever seen.
“Oh…my…god,” I whispered hoarsely, putting a shaking, sweating hand over my heart. I realized then that the yard had gone silent. Someone had shut the music off and all conversation had ceased.
I took a quick look around the yard. Everyone was grinning, smiling, and staring right at me.
This was bad. Very, very bad.
“Baby girl!” My head jerked at the sound of my father’s voice.
“You say the f*ckin’ word and I will throw that * into next f*ckin’ week! Fact, whether you say yes or no, I’m still gonna beat the f*ckin’ shit outta him!”
Eva, who’d joined him, planted her palms in his stomach and playfully shoved at him. He captured her around her neck and pulled her up against him, all the while smiling at me.
ZZ must have already asked him. There was no way my father would have appreciated this being sprung on him. My father was the sort of man who had to mentally prepare himself for things like his daughter being proposed to.
Which meant…my father was A-OK with me marrying ZZ.
In fact, looking around at all the happy faces, everyone was A-OK with me marrying ZZ.
More than okay. Elated, really.
Everyone except one.
I zeroed in on Ripper, whose sun-kissed skin had gone an interesting shade of green.
Our gazes locked.
And for a moment…I thought I saw the man I loved.
? ? ?
Ripper stared at Danny. Stared at ZZ kneeling on the grass in front of her, asking her to marry him.
He was going to flip his shit.
These *s all around him didn’t realize it, but they were about to get sprayed with blood, bone, and brain when his head decided to explode, which was in about five motherf*cking seconds.
Five…
Four…
Three…
Two…
One…
Fuck him.
Married.
ZZ was asking Danny to marry him.
Ah, f*ck. What was happening to him? Everything inside of him suddenly felt all f*cked-up and wrong. His heart started beating faster and his skin began to tingle irritably. The air around him grew thick, stuffy, making it hard to breathe. He felt lightheaded, his nose stung, and his stomach clenched painfully.
Before he began shredding his own body to pieces, just to make all these damn uncomfortable and unwanted feelings go away, he grabbed Anabeth and yanked her up against him. She responded immediately and curled seductively around his body.
Feeling like ten times an *, he kept his gaze on Danny as he groped Anabeth’s ass.
Danny’s beautiful blue eyes filled with pain and her gaze dropped back to ZZ.
He stopped breathing. She was going to say yes.
Say something, his brain screamed. STOP HER!
FUCKING STOP HER!
But he didn’t.
He never did.
Because he was a useless *, who would never f*cking deserve her.
So he just stood there like an *, manhandling her friend, and watching in horrified fascination as her lips parted and—
FUCK THIS SHIT.
Fuck the club and the code, and f*ck brotherhood.
He would give it all up for her. For his woman. Because she sure as shit was his, and he’d go to hell and back ten times over before he lost her forever.
He shoved Anabeth aside, his right foot moved, and…
“DANNY!” he bellowed. “BABY!”
CHAPTER TWO
Three years earlier…
Prom night. The culmination of thirteen years of school was ending with prom night.
All my preparing and primping, driving four towns over with Kami just to find the perfect pink dress and matching shoes, two hours at the salon getting my hair, nails, and makeup done and…
It all seemed so…anticlimactic.
But maybe that’s because I was on the outside looking in.
Because I could no longer relate to the laughing, dancing, happy people inside the gymnasium.
Whereas everything inside this building, my high school, had once seemed so important, my grades, my friends, homecoming, dance committees, cheerleading, and prom…had once been my entire world, they weren’t anymore. Hadn’t been since…
“He made me watch him rape her!” my father roared. “Do you f*ckin’ get that? I was chained to a f*ckin’ radiator, watchin’ my woman gettin’ slammed by a f*ckin’ psychopath, and I couldn’t do shit about it!”
I squeezed my eyes shut, gritting my teeth through the ugly memory.
“How’d they take him down?” Tap asked.
“They didn’t,” the FBI agent said. “The woman did. Nearly severed his head clean off with a dagger. She came walking out of the room holding it, half naked and covered in blood.”