Chapter 270: Madeline
Reid’s hands close around her wrists—firm, controlled, careful in that way he gets when he refuses to hurt anyone—and I watch his jaw flex as he tries to ease her back. He looks angry now, the kind of angry that runs cold, but he’s still gentle, still measuring himself, and God, some terrible part of me wants him to just push her away. She wrenches free, smirking like she’s won a prize, and drags her palm down his chest—slow—like she owns the right.
Red. I see red. It pours through me so hot and fast I don’t even recognize the sound I make in my throat. I’ve never been the jealous type, never the angry type, but right now I want to rip her nails off one by one and gift-wrap them for the trash.
Charlie slips to my side mid-sentence—“I met the cutest girl, I swear her dimples could—” She breaks off when she clocks my face, follows my stare, and sees the girl slotting herself between Reid’s knees, trying to guide his hand up her thigh like he’s a thing she can operate. “Oh shit,” Charlie breathes.
“I’m going to kill her,” I say, and I mean it in a way that scares me.
Charlie doesn’t laugh. She cranes her neck and shouts into the crush of bodies, “Jake! Liam! Finn!”—that sharp, carrying bartender voice she uses when people don’t listen—because she’s seen my eyes and she knows I’m already moving.
And I am. I’m moving before the music catches the next beat. As I close in, I hear Reid’s voice, low and lethal. “Leave me the fuck alone. I have a girlfriend.”
“I don’t see her,” she purrs without even glancing around. “I can pleasure you more than her.”
“I’ll tell you to fuck off one more time,” he says, each word a nailed-down inch, “but if you don’t listen I’ll use force to move you away.”
His eyes cut sideways and widen when he sees me coming. It doesn’t slow me. I’m already there, already fisting her ponytail and yanking her off him hard enough that her balance stutters.
“Get your filthy paws off my man,” I snap, voice shaking with fury I didn’t know I possessed.
Who am I? I don’t fight girls over guys. I don’t fight anyone. But heat is roaring in my blood and I can’t stop, won’t stop, not with her fingers still reaching like she has a claim. She wheels on me, livid, and then looks Reid up and down with a nasty little curl of lip.
“Ew,” she says, bright and cruel. “This is who you’re with?”
“Mind your fucking mouth,” Reid growls, standing now, the air around us dropping ten degrees.
I’m about to explode.
I want to put my fist through her smile. I want to taste blood and watch that smug little curl of lip flatten under my knuckles. I’m shaking so hard my teeth click, and I hate that I’m shaking, hate that she can see it and mistake it for fear when it’s fury, pure and electric, scorching me from the inside out.
“But, Reid,” she purrs, like we’re at a casting call and she’s auditioning for Clingy Homewrecker, “you and I could have so much fun. A big guy like you needs someone who knows how to handle it.”
Heat detonates behind my eyes. “I can handle him just fine,” I snap, voice cutting through the music, through the bar, through her. “Him and his brother. At the same time.” A gasp pops somewhere to my left, but I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care. “And a skank like you couldn’t even dream of being with Reid.”
The words don’t even feel like mine; they’re molten, reckless, a part of me I don’t recognize—maybe the part that learned what losing him might feel like and decided we’re never doing that again.
Her face twists, pretty goes spiteful in a blink. “You sad little groupie,” she spits. “Look at you—clingy, desperate. You think a man like that sticks with… with that?” She flicks a glance at my body like it’s a flaw she found under harsh lighting. “Please.”
Behind me, Reid says my name in that low warning voice that usually melts me; right now it only fans the flames. He reaches, palm opening for my elbow, trying to draw me back, to tuck me into safety like I’m something to be stored and shelved.
“Don’t touch me,” I bite out without looking away from her, every muscle humming tight. “You let her touch you long enough.”
I feel, more than see, his shock—air stilling, heat rolling off him, the click of his jaw locking. “Mads—” he starts.
I lunge.
Fingers catch my waist—no, not fingers; an arm bands around my middle and hauls me back off my toes, a hard chest at my spine, breath at my ear, and the room tilts, the music surges, and I’m writhing against a grip I can’t break as the girl smiles like she’s won.
I wrench hard against the arm at my waist—twist, drop my weight, pop a hip the way Reid showed me once when he was teasing about “self-defense, trouble”—and my hand is free for exactly one heartbeat.
That’s all I need.
My knuckles meet her jaw with a clean, satisfying crack—not bone, just shock—and her head whips to the side, glossy ponytail snapping like a flag. The bar goes pin-drop quiet around the thump of bass, then someone near the jukebox breathes, “Oh, shit,” and the music seems to lurch back in too loud.
Hands clamp around me—steel, familiar, Jake—and I’m off my toes, hauled back against a chest I know even blindfolded. He cages me with his body, one arm high under my breasts, the other banded low, voice a rough rasp at my ear. “Easy, baby. I’ve got you. Breathe.”
The girl staggers, a hand to her jaw, eyes blown wide with fury and humiliation. “You psycho—”
Reid is on his feet before she finishes, chair scraping, the air around him dropping ten degrees. He doesn’t touch her—doesn’t need to. He just steps in, all height and cold, and says, calm as a verdict, “Walk away.” Two words, no room to argue. She falters, because every man within three tables has straightened, because Charlie’s already flanking Reid with a look that could peel paint, because Finn and Liam materialize out of nowhere like twin bouncers in lobster hats, because the Seafoam might be loud and messy but it is also ours.
“Outside,” Jake murmurs against my hair, shifting me like I weigh nothing. “Now.”
“I’m fine,” I grind out, even as my hand starts to throb, even as adrenaline makes my knees do a weird floaty thing. Heat roars through me; underneath it, the tremble I hate.
“You will be,” he answers, and that’s not a request. He moves me, and the crowd parts—curious eyes, a few grins, more than one thumbs-up (God), Charlie’s quick little nod like, that’s my girl—and then cool air slaps my cheeks as the door swings and we’re on the steps, the night thick with salt and festival lights.