Rock Chick Regret (Rock Chick #7)(125)

“A man like me,” he said slowly.

I swallowed.

He continued.

“A man like me who’d use your body and abuse your heart to exact f**kin’ retribution just because you walked away leavin’ my c**k hard?”

Well, since what he said sounded kind of stupid, I realized belatedly I might have been wrong about that.

“You think that’s the kind of man I am?” he pushed.

“Hector –”

It was then he lost control of his anger and the room went wired.

“Answer me, god damn it! You think I’m that kind of man?” he barked, I jumped and stepped back.

He advanced.

That knot in my chest spread to my belly and my heart, burning through me so I couldn’t breathe.

“Don’t touch me,” I whispered.

“I wouldn’t touch you, Sadie. Not that way.” He stopped just short of me and looked down at my face. “I’d like to knock some f**kin’ sense into you but that’s not the kind of man I am.”

At his words, my stomach clenched. Painfully.

“Maybe I was wrong,” I said quietly.

His head cocked to the side and his eyes flashed again. “Maybe?”

I reached back with both hands and grabbed my hair at my ponytail, my hands fisting in it.

“I’m confused!” I cried, “I don’t have a lot of experience –”

He interrupted me, “Mamita, I’m warnin’ you, that excuse is wearin’ thin real f**kin’ fast.”

My breath was coming in quick bursts; I dropped my hands and said, “You don’t understand.”

“Explain it to me.”

“You still wouldn’t understand.”

“Explain it to me!” he roared.

I shook my head, or more like, jerked it from side-to-side.

I couldn’t take anymore.

Not one more second.

I couldn’t breathe, my stomach hurt, my head was pounding and that thing in my chest was threatening to explode.

I had to go, get out of there, go far, far away.

I rushed around him, got to the door and threw it open but only took one step into the hall before his fingers wrapped tight around my upper arm and he swung me around.

“Take your hand off me!” I shouted.

“We’re not f**kin’ done.”

“We’re done!”

“No we f**king well are not!” he yelled.

Then it all came out in a humiliating, painful burst.

I couldn’t control it, I had to get it out; the burning hot knot would kill me if I didn’t.

“I’m protecting you!” I screamed, “Don’t you get it? I’m protecting you!”

He blinked, slowly, his brows coming up in surprise but I kept going and I did it loudly, shouting at the top of my lungs.

“You deserve better than me, Hector Chavez! You’re a good man from a good family surrounded by good people. My father was a Drug King, he kills people, it’s what I am, he made me. And Ricky Balducci raped and brutalized me, you know it, you saw it, you were even there!” I screeched, out-of-control, breath coming fast, eyes stinging with tears. “You saw me! You told me you’d never forget. You saw me! You’re better than that and I know it. You deserve more than that. You don’t think you do but you’ve got a tattoo on you that reminds you to think with your head, not your body. I don’t want to be the next tattoo you get when you learn your lesson one day and realize what you’ve done, that you could have had better. That you could have had more. That you could have someone good and clean and right. Someone who belongs at your side. Not someone vile and ugly and tawdry and used that you should have never, ever, ever settled for!”

He pulled me closer, muttering, “Mamita.” And I saw it in his eyes, they’d gone so warm they burned a hole straight through my heart.

With superhuman effort, I yanked my arm out his grasp, whirled and ran.

“Don’t follow me,” I shouted over my shoulder as I saw him advance into the hall. I stopped and turned again. “Don’t!” I shrieked, my voice so shrill, it was like a physical thing, clawing through the air.

Then I whirled again and ran, blind, mind blank, heart beating so hard I thought it’d hammer out of my chest.

I pushed through people, felt hands on me, heard calls, shouts, even grunts but I ran through it all, straight to the counter. I yanked open a drawer and pulled out the keys to my apartment.

People got in my way, I heard their voices speaking to me urgently but nothing penetrated.

I dodged, ducked, yanked my body away. I heard a gravelly voice say, “I got her,” but I was gone, out the door into the cold night air, running.

After a block I bent double, pulled off my shoes and threw them in traffic. Then I sprinted like the devil was at my heels, the second block then the third then the fourth, on the fifth I was at my apartment building. I threw open the outer door, punched in the security code, yanked open the inner door and darted into the lobby. I hadn’t been there since the rape and I didn’t think about it. I ran straight to the stairs, stitch in my side, breath rasping in my throat, up the four flights then out into the hall and to my door. With shaking hands I tried to unlock it. It took me three tries and then I was in and I stopped, looking around in the dark, feeling the emptiness, remembering…