Crash (Brazen Bulls MC #1)(75)

One second, maybe two, no more than three, had elapsed from the moment he’d tossed the table until this moment, when he was set to lose an arm.

“Ollie!” Willa’s voice still shook, but it was firmer. It came from a higher place, too; she’d stood up. “Off! Release!”

The growling stopped, and Ollie blinked.

“Release.”

Massive jaws levered loose of Rad’s arm, and Ollie stepped back. He went to Willa and turned and sat before her, facing Rad. He licked his chops, and Rad saw his own blood on the dog’s snout and teeth.

“Ollie, stay,” Willa commanded and came to Rad, kneeling at his side. “Oh God, you’re hurt.” She lifted his arm in her hands, turning it this way and that, studying the deep wounds.

His arm looked like a big, angry dog had taken a bite out of it. “Yeah, guess so. My fault. Sorry about your table.”

“No, I’m sorry. It was shitty for me to say you were like Jesse.”

“Yeah, it was.”

But Rad himself had thought on a few occasions that there was too much familiar about Jesse Smithers, that the only thing separating himself from Willa’s crazy ex was the crazy. That wasn’t true, but he’d thought he understood the jealous need and possessiveness. He was even a little jealous of Willa’s dog.

Right now, as Willa led him to the bathroom to tend to his wounds, and Ollie followed, keeping a suspicious eye on him, he was jealous of that dog, who’d actually protected her, whereas Rad had let her get hurt.

Part of why he was so goddamn angry at her was that she didn’t see that she needed him. It felt like more than just stubborn self-reliance. It felt like a rejection. She’d gone out of her way not to have his help.

He’d been terrified for her, and then furious with her, and he’d been hurt. He was hurt. She needed him. He needed her to need him. Why was that so f*cking hard for her to see?

For hours, for a whole day, he’d been stewing in that, forcing it down, into his gut, staying calm and taking care of her. Cleaning up after her at the motel. Tending to her here, helping her get well. Helping her work out what had happened. Telling her the real consequences of what she’d done.

He hadn’t slept in, now, nearly two days.

After all that, when she’d said he was like the guy who’d raped her, who’d beaten her, who’d drugged her so he could do it all again? That was too f*cking much. All that rage and hurt he’d been pushing down had erupted.

If Ollie hadn’t attacked, he didn’t know what he would’ve done. No, he knew. He’d have left. Walked out. Maybe for good.

Willa washed the blood from his arm and then dabbed a cotton ball soaked in antiseptic over his wounds. He hissed as the sting sank in. She stopped and met his eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Rad.”

“This is on me.” He lifted his arm an inch and dropped it again. “Ollie did what he was supposed to do. Don’t call me a rapist again, though. That ain’t right.”

She gaped at him, and Rad couldn’t help but focus on the damage to her mouth. That f*cker. He was nothing like that piece of shit. Nothing.

“I didn’t! That’s not what I meant. Not at all.”

“Then tell me what you meant.” He thought he knew—and, now, in the calm Ollie had forced on him, he knew she hadn’t been calling him a rapist. But she needed to see the difference between him and Smithers. The difference in their possessiveness as well as in their violence.

Focused on cleaning his wounds, she didn’t look at him as she answered. “I just…I don’t know. It scares me to have somebody tell me what I can and can’t do in my own life.”

“That’s not what I’m doin’, Wills.”

“It is. You said I had to trust that your way was the right way. That’s just a nice way of saying ‘shut up and do what I say’.” She stepped back and indicated his arm. “These aren’t long, but they’re deep. They should each get a stitch or two.”

“Whatever you think is best.”

Her eyes shot up to his, and a pink glow lit up her cheeks. Good. She’d heard both things he was saying there. Medical was her area of expertise. Protection was his.

“Willa, I don’t want you to sit down and shut up. I like that you can take care of yourself. I like talkin’ things out with you. I just want you to see that it isn’t just your life. It’s our life. That’s what I want. I love you. I want you to keep my flame. But I ain’t no librarian. The life I lead, it’s got its own ways. If you’re with me, that life is yours life, too. What you do has consequences for me, and the other way around. That’s the way it is—and that’s why I said what I said. I don’t want to break up. But you need to decide if the life I bring is what you want.”

She tore open a package of suturing needles. “You know, I never kept these on hand before at home.”

Rad smiled. Since the night she’d tended to Gunner and Simon, she’d built up a decent medical kit of her own. Griffin had been replaced as the club medic.

“You want me to numb your arm before I start?”

He shook his head. “What do you want, baby?”

Holding a needle and suturing thread over his arm, she studied his face, her eyes narrowing. He smiled back and waited.