Wrath (3 page)

“You fucking danced all hot for me not ten minutes ago, why are you acting like such a bitch now?” A fat fuck of a man had his hands on a woman who was clearly trying to take a smoke break, pushing her towards the wall.  It was around the corner of the building.  I was surprised there wasn’t a bouncer or someone there to protect the ladies.

The redhead ducked and tried to get around him, but he slammed her against the wall, one hand bruising her while the other grabbed whatever it wanted.  She didn’t seem to be enjoying the attention either.  First she struggled, then he hit her, and I watched her face stiffen and her eyes go blank. 

Maybe it was the eyes.  I knew that look.  Not like this, but I knew it.  The endurance, the way the mind just shut down. 

This jackass thought he was tough shit, pushing a woman around till she shut down.  It pissed me off.

I didn’t think.  I didn’t contemplate what I was going to do next, I just acted.

I cleared the distance between him and I grabbed him by the back of his shirt, tearing it as I dragged him around.  He stumbled back and I used the momentum to push him, slamming his fat ass up against the bar wall.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” My voice was chill as midwinter and twice as brutal.

He spit on me, asking me who I thought I was.  Two hard raps to the head and he was bleeding from his eyebrow and nose.

“You stupid motherfucker.”  I felt so cold, and every motion of my body felt so calculated.  I was so angry I was drowning it, and yet I was in total control.  It was that chill, toxic fury that lets a man kill another and sleep at night. 

When I spoke, my words felt like they came from someone else.  But they were mine and I meant every one.  “You fucking come around this club again - you fucking touch another woman without her permission - and I will break every bone in your body.  Do you hear me?” I said it calmly, quietly, and it scared the fuck out of him in a way hot fury never could have.

He couldn’t speak, and there was a strong scent that indicated he might have pissed himself.  Unfortunately, my leg was beginning to ache and the adrenaline was wearing away, leaving me all too aware of just how heavy this bastard was.  Luckily, Rage was there, backing me up.  “You hear the man when he talks.  Answer.”

That stirred the man’s tongue.  “What? Yes.  Yes I got you.”  He was nodding so fast, his chins were wobbling.

“Now get the fuck out of here.  I don’t want to see you around here again.”  I threw him, using my full body to do it, and turned my back as he struggled to climb to his feet.  I heard his scuffling echoing off the bricks as I looked over to the woman he had been harassing.

“Thanks.”  She said blandly, lighting up a cigarette.  She said it like this happened everyday, and maybe it did.  But I saw the slight shaking in her hand and knew it still bothered her. 

She wasn’t about to admit it though.  Instead, she looked at Rage.  “He one of yours?”

“Yeah, but he clearly don’t know who you are.  You stay away, Brandy.”

“Aw, but he’s cute.”  She purred deep in her throat, smiling at me, sweet as a cat, and twirling a bit of that red, red hair.  I liked women like that.  The playful, wicked kind who knew what they liked.  I also recognized this one was probably a bad idea.

So I didn’t say shit.  Honestly, I wasn’t sure I could. 

Rage put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me away.  He looked me over as we came back into the lot.  “I’d watch my back around Brandy, but that was a good thing you did.  Hell, I didn’t even hear that shit.”

There wasn’t much to say to that.  “I don’t like men fucking around with women when they don’t want it.  It’s just… Wrath.  Cold, biting anger, like poison in the veins… I don’t know…” I shook my head, gripping my knuckles in my hair.  I was rambling, searching for words.  I made myself shut up.

I was all for a hot bitch, but something about the way their eyes shut down… I’d heard guys say they “didn’t know she didn’t want it,” but I’d always known.  And after coming home, fighting the flashbacks and overcoming the shit with my leg, it seemed even clearer to me.  When a woman wanted you, you could taste it.  When she didn’t…

It was all in the eyes.   It was like looking down and seeing the grenade that had blown my leg off.  That half second of sheer, frozen horror.  You knew everything was going to hell and there wasn’t a damn thing you could do about it. 

Except when I saw it happening to a woman, I could do something about it.  Even with my leg gone… I could still do something.

Rage was saying something, drawing me back to the lot.  “… Would’ve done the same if I’d heard it sooner.  Stay away from her though, Brandy is crazy.”

“Yeah,” I muttered.  “Got it.  Still, though.  She’s hot.”

“She’s hot.  A hot mess and too much.  Seriously.  That’s more mess than either of us really wants to handle.”

“Is she a bitch or a bomb?” I asked.

Rage laughed at that.  “A bomb! Ha!”

As he pulled me into the club, though, he changed the subject.  Layla was ahead of us, and I admit, I lost track of what he was saying until he shook my shoulder.

“What?”

“What you said.  Wrath.  Think that’s what I’ll call you.”  He grinned and then let go of me the threat of his grip gone.  He’d seen me staring at his woman, but he was letting it sink in.  Watching me.  This wasn’t dumb man, quick to swing. 

Instead, he grabbed Layla by the waist and pulled her into him, kissing her.  And just like I could tell when they didn’t want it, I knew when they did.  Layla sure wasn’t going anywhere with me tonight.

Rage knew it too.  Obviously that made him feel benevolent.  “Hey, Sandy,” he called.  “Get my new man, Wrath, here, a drink.” 

When the bartender looked up, he started.  “Wait! Where’s Sandy?”

The girl grinned.  “Night school.  I’m Emma.  Nice to meet ya.”  She grinned at Layla and extended a hand over the counter to Rage, frank as you please.  “I can tell by your cut you’re one of the boys that my cousin talks so highly of.”  She nodded to his patch.

She was gorgeous. 

I’d stared at Layla, given “Brandy” a long, hard thought, but this young woman was pure sex in a pair of tight jeans.  Her tank top was simple but clung to her just right ways, flattering curves that even money couldn’t buy.  She had pulled her hair back, but a few strands had fallen loose, as if they always would, and I liked that.  I liked the way it wasn’t perfect.  It made me want to dig my fingers into it, feel how soft it was.  Because hair was strong too.  It could be so soft and yet so easy to hold a person by. 

You didn’t have to rip the hair out, either, to get her attention.  If you knew just how to do it, you could have a woman’s undivided attention, her eyes looking straight into yours with just the look you wanted. 

I shuddered and she shook my hand too.  She wasn’t flashy.  She wasn’t showy.  And she had curves that went on for days.  Fucking sex on a platter.  Just my kind of woman.

I must have let my thoughts show, too, because when she noticed me staring, her eyes narrowed, and she turned back to Rage.

“What’ll you two have?” she asked pointing to him and his girl.  She might as well have slammed a door in my face.

“I’ll have a scotch, she’ll have rum and lime juice.”

Emma made a face to Layla, wiping out a glass as if she had been at this for years.  “
And lime juice
?” she mimicked the President teasingly.  “How about a mojito?”

“You make those?” Layla asked, her eyes brightening.

“I’ll make anything you want.”  She grinned and grabbed the shaker.  Within seconds, she was pouring the liquor and fizz, bruising up some mint and pouring the lot over ice.  She gave it a good shake before pouring it into a high ball with a sprig of mint and a slice of lime on top.  I couldn’t have cared if it tasted like dirt.  She’d made it look like the best damn thing this side of gold.

“There you go,” she said cheerfully.

“Damn, Kat finally got some class in here.”  Layla was clearly impressed, and the smile that passed between them was one of instant like.  How did women do that?

“Right, and what’ll your leering companion be having?” she went on, her tone less pleasant as she looked over at me.

“Beer,” I answered automatically.  “Yuengling.”

She snorted, pulling a draft.  “Knew it’d be beer - but congrats, you have a little bit of taste after all.”  She slid one over to me and I caught it without thinking.

I liked this woman already.  She knew what the fuck she was about, and she didn’t care what I thought.  I doubted she gave a shit what anyone thought.

“Kat’s your cousin?” Layla asked over the raunchy bleat-and-grind music blaring from the speakers. 

I gave Emma another once-over, remembering Kat.  That would make sense.  Same amount of confidence.  Obviously had some sense, but a touch more brash. 

“Yeah, hired me yesterday,” said Emma.  “You must be Layla.  And that makes you…” She eyeballed the President.  “Rage, right? She said you’d be here tonight.  Your turn on duty.”

Duty.  That was why he and Thrash were here the other afternoon.  Clubs like this were protected territory.  Kat’s was part of that territory.

I couldn’t stop staring at Emma, and she noticed it.  But watching the way her chestnut hair fell down around her tits, it was worth getting glared at.

I’d been with women, all kinds, since I came home.  Back in the service, they’d said I was too serious, but when there was a woman around, I smiled at the right times and let them come to me.  As a result, the teasing had died down. 

I’d never lacked for attention.

When I returned home, things had changed though.  They didn’t come for my assets.  The ones I liked were shy of my injury, while the rest…  Women loved a good sob story, a hero to rescue.  And sometimes they forgot that the man was more than his injury. 

I never stayed with those women long.  To be fair, many of them didn’t stay with me either.  They liked the fetish of who I am, what I represented.  They want to make me “feel better,” but they couldn’t handle the reality.  The aches and pains.  The withdrawal.  The flashbacks.  The nightmares. 

In the end, we always parted ways.

None of my problems were going away.  But a warm body was nothing to spit on, and the company had been nice where it came.

So I played their game, got mine, and I went before things went bad. 

This one was playing but it was a different kind of game.  None of my past lovers had kicked me in the balls with a glare.  Emma, though, those blue, blue eyes were promising me more pain than pleasure.  I couldn’t help it.  I just kept staring.  She was taller than I was used to, but nothing I couldn’t handle.  Curvy, with a little extra meat for hanging onto.  Nice hair, gorgeous eyes… 

I’d go for that in a second, but she was sending me every “fuck off” single in the handbook of girl-talk.  Her extra height and perch behind the bar even gave her a vantage point to look down her nose at me. 
Fuck
.  She seemed pretty pissed with me.  I had no idea what the hell I was doing wrong.

Finally, she clunked a glass down a little too near my hand and smiled – smiled the way a cat smiles at the mouse it’s about to eat.  “So, you gonna be a creeper all night, or are you at least going to tell me your name?” The grin she shot Layla warned me that this was all at my expense, but I didn’t care.

“Ai-I mean, Wrath.  Name’s Wrath.”   Creeper, huh?  Well, I’d try for a bit of honesty.  At least she knew exactly who and what she was getting.

“Wrath.  That some kinda handle?”

Layla giggled.  I said nothing.

“Something like that,” Rage cut in for me.  “Wrath and I have some shit to discuss.  You ladies wanna chat for a while?”

Shit, what was there to discuss? I watched the way Emma glanced at me, her eyes narrow and smug, then caught sight of Rage’s serious face, and a flow of ice ran through me, making the nerves had once flowed down into my foot tingle.  The misfire created a pain in my left pinky toe.  Or it would have if I had one anymore.

It suddenly occurred to me that I might have been brought here to be fired.

Fuck
.

“Alright.”  I said, trying to keep it cool. 
Do your shit.  Listen to the man.  Focus.

That was the important part.  Rage liked my work.  He seemed happy with my work ethic.  It had just been one day.

Rage and I walked towards a VIP room.  “You wanna dancer?” he asked.

I shrugged.  Somehow, the question made me even more nervous.  Like it was a pity offering.

Rage motioned to two bouncers who opened the doors.  “These days I come for the drinks, not the girls.”

I bit my tongue to curb my anger.  “Yeah.  Well, I don’t have a girl like Layla.”

Rage caught the note in my voice and eyed me over his drink.  “I warned you man.  Don’t touch or –”

“I got it.  I got it.  Just saying.”

He was eyeing me, oh so carefully, he chose his words the same way.  “You do good shit.  Your work is good.  Your look like you could handle it.  Got a question for you though... 

“I’m low on numbers.  Need a man I can trust.  I’m feeling that with you.  Can I trust you?”