Craving Lucy (3 page)

I frowned and stepped back, searching for Lucy and her ‘party’. I spotted Marcus first, standing right behind Lucy at a table for five across the room. His face was just as neutral as always, but the set of his shoulders and the fact that he was standing so close to Lucy let me know that West was probably right.

I couldn’t see Lucy clearly because the big man was standing in my line of sight, but I saw the two guys sitting at the table. One look and I could tell that they were tools. Preppy motherfuckers with just enough money to make them think they were gods’ gift, but not enough to make them able to buy their way into VIP status.

The one sitting to Lucy’s left was way too close. His chair was just inches from hers and he had a hand on the back of her seat. I watched as he leaned in, whispering something to her. She moved her head back, but I thought I saw her grinning. On her right sat a guy that was trying to chat up Kin but she didn’t seem all that impressed as she concentrated on the papers spread out in front of her. On the other side of Kin sat Jace, who was sitting just as close to the girl as the preppy was to Lucy, but his eyes were on the big man standing behind the smoking-hot brunette at the table.

Jealousy churned inside of me and I turned cold eyes on West. “Let Tiny know we are going to need two of his security guys down here, just to be on the safe side.”

“Sure thing, boss.”

I stepped away from the bar and turned to cross the room. The closer I got to Lucy’s table the more pissed I became. The guy was getting a little too ballsy for my liking and I was about to go full-on rage monster if he actually touched my girl. From the angle that I could see her from, she wasn’t doing anything to discourage the dickhead who was inching his way closer and closer to her.

Does she like that fucker?

Marcus took a small step forward, as if he were ready to extract Lucy from the table at any second; making me wonder if I was seeing the full picture from the angle I was at. I shifted my gaze on Jace who seemed to be tensing up. My gut twisted with dread and I broke into an all-out run. If that fucker was touching Lucy, I was going to break his face.

The place was crowded and I had to push two people out of my way in my rush to get to Lucy. I could feel eyes on me as people stopped what they were doing and watched me. Most of these people had to know who I was, either through the tabloids or any number of different avenues. I was probably acting like a lunatic to them, or they figured they were going to get a good show. When I reached the table, Jace’s jaw was clenched and Kin had pushed her papers away to turn her bright blue eyes on the dickhead sitting so close to Lucy. The other guy sitting beside her scooted his chair back, looking anywhere but at the dude next to my girl.

“You did not just say that to me,” Lucy snapped as she got to her feet and stepped away from the preppy motherfucker. “Who the hell do you think you are, asshole?” she demanded as she glared down at the guy.

I stopped right behind Lucy and my eyes went straight to the guy still sitting there, grinning up at her. “Take it easy, honey. I meant no offense. I thought all you rocker bitches sucked dick for fun.”

Jace’s chair scraped back as he stood, Marcus moved forward as if to grab the douchebag, and I took a step forward to move around Lucy and reach that motherfucker. No one talked to Lucy like that. No one. I would beat the hell out of this piece of shit. I would…

Lucy moved faster than any of us. One second the guy was grinning like the tool he was, and the next his head was snapping back and he was holding his nose as it gushed blood. “Don’t you ever speak to me like that again, you godsdamn motherfucking piece of shit. I will cut your dick off and feed it to you.” I didn’t think she even realized she had used the plural for God—something that Emmie did all the time. It only showed me just how upset Lucy really was that she was falling into old habits that her aunt had taught her.

Marcus grabbed the guy by the back of the neck and forced him to his feet. I was torn between wanting to beat the hell out of the prick and wanting to check on Lucy who was now cradling the hand she’d used to break the guy’s nose. I struggled for less than a second before I was reaching for her hand to examine it. Lucy would always come first.

I heard my security guys speaking to Marcus and was vaguely aware of them carting the preppy and his friend out of the club, but I was too concerned with the broken skin on Lucy’s knuckles to give a damn what they did to the fucker. Her hand was going to be bruised pretty badly by morning. It was already starting to swell. “You need some ice, baby.”

She tried to pull her hand away. “It’s fine,” she muttered in a hoarse voice, refusing to meet my gaze. “I just need to go to the bathroom and wash it off.”

Kin moved to stand beside Lucy, putting an arm around her to comfort her. “Come on, slugger. Lets go clean you up.”

Reluctantly, I released her hand. When she turned to follow Kin, I thought I saw tears in her eyes and reached for her without thinking. Lucy wasn’t a crier. Either that fucker had said something even viler to her than what I’d heard or her hand was killing her. I wrapped her up in my arms and tucked her head against my chest. “Baby,” I breathed against her sweet-smelling hair, “it’s okay. I’ve got you.”

A small sob escaped her. “I-I think I broke my h-hand,” she murmured, burying her face in my chest.

I clenched my jaw, hating that she was in so much physical pain, but relieved that she wasn’t crying over what the preppy prick had said to her. My girl was too strong to let some idiot that didn’t matter get to her. I doubted, however, that she had broken her hand, although it probably felt like it to her. Her hand was probably just bruised and maybe even sprained. “Okay. I’ll take care of you.” I pulled back just enough to look down at her and bent my head to brush a kiss over the tip of her nose.

Lucy nodded and stepped back, scrubbing her uninjured hand across her damp eyes. “I need to call my dad. And Aunt Emmie. That guy knows who I am. He’ll go out there and start talking to the paps and this will be all over the tabloids in the morning.”

“That can wait, baby.” I lifted my head and saw both Tiny and Marcus standing behind Lucy. I nodded once at Marcus then inclined my head at my head of security.

Tiny stepped forward and spoke into my ear. “Got him in the back, boss. What you want us to do with him?”

I stroked my hand over Lucy’s hair, unable to keep my hands off her as Kin lifted the possibly broken hand and examined it closer with Jace. “Keep him there,” I muttered low enough so that only Tiny could hear me. “If he starts getting hostile, tell him that the cops are on their way for solicitation of a minor.”

Tiny’s eyes widened, his jaw clenching. The man was scary as fuck—which was one of the reason’s I’d hired him. The quickest way to piss him off was for a man to hurt a woman in any way. “Did he?”

“Might as well have.” I stepped closer to Lucy, wrapping my arm around her waist, needing to feel her against me. “I’ll deal with that piece of shit later.”

For now, I needed to make sure that my girl was going to be okay.

Lucy

The minute we walked into the emergency room, Harris took charge. He took a nurse aside, told her what had happened and who I was and, even though the ER was pretty crowded, the nurse took me back to one of the triage rooms. I guessed after years of watching his stepmom work her magic, he’d picked up some valuable tricks.

Now he was sitting in a chair beside the small gurney I’d been told to sit on, his phone in his hand as he typed one message after another. Marcus was standing outside the triage room while Kin and Jace were out in the waiting room because the nurse had only let one of them come back with me. I would have rather had Kin with me, because for once in all the years I’d known Harris Cutter, I didn’t know how to act around him now.

A number of conflicting emotions were churning inside of me like a storm. I was still upset that he couldn’t be bothered to so much as text me back in the last week and a half. I was hurt, pissed off…and so damn glad he was here with me now.

I didn’t know what was going on with him, but I didn’t want the kiss that we’d shared to mess with our friendship. Going eleven days without talking to him in any shape or form had wilted my heart. I loved him so fucking much that it scared me, but to be without his friendship? I didn’t know if I could survive that. He kept the bad dreams away. He protected my sanity.

When Harris had come back into my life, the nightmares I’d been living with since I was nine years old had calmed down. I had only had a few in the months since we’d reconnected. For the first time in four years, I’d been getting enough sleep. In the eleven days since I’d last spoken to him? I’d had nothing but nightmares about that damn night with my biological father. Sleep had become my worst enemy and I’d fallen back into old habits that helped me deal.

Hitting send on another message, Harris finally raised his head and flashed those damn dimples at me. “How’re you doing over there, baby?”

I clenched my jaw, refusing to shiver at the little endearment. I didn’t want him to call me baby. Didn’t want to be shuffled into the same category as every other girl he’d had in his life. “Don’t call me that,” I muttered and lowered my eyes to my bruised and swollen hand, hoping the pain that was causing my entire hand to throb would distract me from the guy sitting so close. Physical pain was my friend. It had always been a release from the emotional pain I’d had to deal with. Tonight, however, with my hand feeling like I’d punched it through a brick wall instead of using it to break that bastard’s nose, it wasn’t helping much. I still felt raw emotionally, and it was all Harris’s fault.

The sound of him scooting his chair closer made me raise my eyes to find him less than an inch away. Tossing his phone onto the gurney beside me, he took my injured hand into both of his. “Ouch. That can’t feel good.” He lifted my hand closer, his eyes skimming over the broken skin on my knuckles. The blood had dried and no one had given me time to go to the bathroom to clean it up. “If you were Trinity, there would be only one solution good enough to make this feel better.”

I knew exactly what he was talking about and tried to pull my hand free before he tried fixing me up like his baby sister would demand to be fixed. His fingers tightened and he lifted my injured hand to his lips, brushing them tenderly over my skin. I couldn’t help the instant reaction I had. Couldn’t stop the shiver or the gooseflesh that popped up along my entire arm. Had no control over the sudden tightening of my nipples or the dampness of my panties.

How could he affect me like this when I was still so damn hurt?

With his warm, damp lips still pressed to the back of my hand, he lifted his aquamarine eyes and captured my gaze. He knew exactly what he was doing to me and from the look in his eyes, he liked that he was doing it. I jerked my hand back, wincing at the pain I’d just caused myself.

Desperate to dispel the sudden sexual tension that was filling the room and especially filling my body, I reached for my phone. “I should call my dad.” Dad would distract me. He would even toss Harris out if I wanted him to.

Stupidly enough I didn’t know if I wanted Harris gone or not. Damn it.

“No need,” Harris assured me, sitting back in his chair and watching me closely. “I texted both him and Emmie on the ride over. Jesse and Nik are already over at First Bass.”

My eyes widened. “Why would Daddy be over there?”

A smile tilted his lips, but it wasn’t a smile that relieved me in any way. If anything it was enough to stress me more than I already was. It was full of sinister amusement that made me want to smack his handsome face. “Tiny detained your friend and the guy he was with. I thought I would give your dad first dibs on sorting out the problem.”

“You didn’t,” I groaned when he shrugged his shoulders. “Damn it, Harris. My dad is going to end up in jail. He will destroy that guy. And he took Nik? Do you know what they will do to him?” It wasn’t going to be pretty. I’d seen my dad and Nik beat the hell out of a man before. Don’t get me wrong, I understood exactly why they had done it, and yeah, part of me had been vindicated to see it, but the sight still haunted my dreams…

“Emmie went with them, so stop worrying. She’ll make sure things are dealt with properly.” He spoke like the whole subject bored him and I glared down at him. “When they’re through, they’ll come over to the hospital. If we’re still here.”

With my uninjured hand, I pushed my hair back from my face and turned my head away from Harris, not wanting him to see the emotion I knew was shining in my eyes. Tonight had been a disaster. I never should have left the house, should have just told Kin that she had to go on her own. Nothing good had come out of going back to First Bass. I had no business going there ever again.

“I can hear the wheels moving in that beautiful head of yours, Lu. What are you thinking about?” When I didn’t answer him, he shifted forward in his chair and cupped my knees in both of his big hands. I didn’t look down at him. I couldn’t.

With one kiss I’d ruined everything.
Everything.
The relationship I’d once shared with Harris was gone. Over. I couldn’t go back to the way things had been before I’d let him kiss me—before I’d kissed him back. My heart just couldn’t handle pretending like what I’d felt when his lips were on mine hadn’t happened. It wasn’t fair to the love and respect I had for him—
for myself
—to put it behind me like it had never happened.

And it sure as hell wasn’t fair that he had moved on like it was nothing. Like
I
had been nothing. How was it so easy for him to forget about our kiss, to forget how powerful it had been? Was I like every other chick who had passed through his life? A passing thought that was so easily forgotten as soon as I was out of sight?

I clenched my throbbing hand into a tight fist as my eyes started to sting with tears. The shooting pain that ran all the way up my arm was enough to make me gasp and just enough to stop my mind from asking any more stupid questions. Questions I wasn’t likely ever to get the answers to.

One large hand grasped my wrist, gentle fingers skimming over my bruised knuckles. “Why did you do that?” he demanded in a quieter voice.

“Do what?” I asked, pulling my hand back. Surprisingly he let me, but I could feel his eyes boring into the side of my head.

“Lucy…”

The door to the small triage exam room opened and a doctor walked into the room like he owned the place. A nurse stood behind him and Marcus filled the doorway, both blocking anyone’s entrance and watching the doctor with eyes that were narrowed. I was thankful for the distraction. I just knew that Harris had been about to ask questions that I was never going to give him answers to.

“Well, Miss Thornton, my nurse tells me that you’ve got a hand injury.” I glanced at his nametag and saw that his name was Dr. Levin, but instead of asking me what had happened, he turned his attention to Harris. “How did this happen?” he demanded, as if accusing him of hurting me.

I nearly laughed. Harris hurt me physically? That was so funny. Not only did I know that he wouldn’t ever raise a hand to me but both our fathers would kick his ass if he so much as thought about it. His dad maybe even would have kicked his ass harder than my own would if that happened.

Before I could open my mouth, Harris took a step closer to the doctor, his eyes hard. “A guy said something to my girlfriend that upset her. Before I could deal with the douchebag, she handled it herself. She’s awesome like that.”

The doctor lifted my hand carefully into his hand, but I didn’t feel the pain as he examined it. Didn’t hear a word he spoke, even though I saw his lips moving. My mind had caught and was stuck on one and only one word Harris had said.

Girlfriend.

Had he really said girlfriend? As in I was his girlfriend? No. No way. I must have heard him wrong. My hand was causing me so much pain that I was starting to hallucinate. Or maybe I’d just misunderstood. I was a girl, after all, and until that kiss two Saturdays ago, we’d been best friends.

I shook my head, mentally scolding myself for even thinking that that one word had actually meant something. Dr. Levin placed my hand in my lap carefully and moved to the small sink to wash his hands. “I don’t think it’s broken. Most likely it’s just a really bad sprain, but we’ll do a few x-rays to rule out any hairline fractures.” He turned to face me, his eyes softening a little. “Would you like something for the pain, Miss Thornton? Nurse Frost can give you some hydrocodone…”

“No!” I shook my head adamantly. No way did I want anything stronger than Tylenol. I’d only had a narcotic once, the same night I’d gotten the scar on my lip. I’d hated the way that the pain medication had made me feel and they’d had to give me something for nausea. “I’m good with Advil or Motrin or even Tylenol. I don’t want anything stronger than that.”

The doctor’s eyes widened slightly, but he nodded his head and turned to the nurse. “Let’s get her some ibuprofen, and a bag of ice for the swelling.”

“Of course, doctor,” the nurse said with a smile. She bit her lip as she glanced at Harris, blushed, and then ducked out of the room.

I leaned back on the gurney and rolled my eyes at the obviousness of the nurse while the doctor excused himself. Harris dropped back down into his chair and scooted it closer to the gurney, his hands catching hold of my feet and pulling them onto his lap. I stiffened for a second then shrugged as I let him take my boots off and massaged my left foot.

Marcus stuck his head in the triage room. “You good, Lucy?”

I yawned and nodded. “As good as I can be.”

“I’ll message your mom and let her know that you’re doing okay.” He stepped back and let the door close. I watched as he took up his earlier position, his huge back blocking almost the entire window on the door.

Fighting another yawn, I looked down at the guy rubbing my feet. “Shouldn’t you be at work? Don’t you have a club to run?”

“I’ve got a great staff and I texted my assistant manager on the ride over here.” He pressed his thumb into my arch and applied enough pressure that my eyes drifted closed in pleasure. “It wouldn’t have mattered, though. I wasn’t going to let you leave without me. You’re more important to me than First Bass.”

For the second time that night tears burned my eyes. This time it wasn’t because of the pain in my hand, but in my heart. I watched as he examined the nail polish on my toes, trying to figure him out. How could this guy—this beautiful man—tear me up so easily inside? Why the hell did he get to have all this power over my heart when it felt like I had none over his?

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I did the one thing I’d sworn I wasn’t going to do. Bring up that damn kiss. “Do you regret kissing me, Harris?”

His dark head snapped up and those amazing aquamarine eyes caught mine, forcing me to hold his gaze. “No,” he breathed fiercely. “Lu, no. I don’t regret one second of kissing you.”

Some of the pressure in my chest eased and it felt like I could actually breathe again. He didn’t regret it. But… “So why did you disappear for so long? Why didn’t you text me?”

His eyes broke our connection first. He turned his head and blew out a long, drawn-out breath. “Tessa caused some trouble between me and Jenna. Jen called me, hysterical, threatening to leave rehab. I flew out the next morning and was there until yesterday, convincing her to stay until her scheduled time was up.”

My eyes widened. I hadn’t even considered that he’d left town because of Jenna. It made me feel self-centered and spoiled that I hadn’t thought of Jenna very much in the last few months. I knew she was working on turning her life around, and I was proud of her. We’d never been very close, though. Mostly because, until she’d come out to everyone in the family, I’d thought she and Harris had had something going on. I’d been jealous of her even at the age of twelve.

I closed my eyes. Pettily I’d been kind of glad that Jenna hadn’t been around for the last few months. It had meant that I’d had Harris’s full attention when we were together. Fuck, I was such a mean bitch.

“I-is she okay?”

Turning those mesmerizing eyes back to me, he gave me a grim smile. “So far so good. I think I’ve gotten her convinced that Tessa isn’t for her. Time will only tell, though. All I can do is be there for her. She has to be the one to decide who she wants in her life or not.”

I nodded. “Yeah, she does. I wish she would talk to Drake, though.” I knew that if she just talked to her brother about what was going on, from the bad girlfriend to the drugs, he would understand and maybe even be able to help her through the rest of her recovery.