Free Web NovelChapter 7: Whiskey & Regret
I should be curled up in the fetal position reevaluating all my life choices.
Instead, I’m sticky with shame. Not because of what happened, because of how badly I loved it.
I’m a sexual woman and damn proud of it, you’ll never find any slut shaming here, I say go and get that D girl.
But it was how fast I let go of every ounce of self-preservation the second a man with murder in his eyes and a six-pack said ’you’re late.’
I’m not the ditzy moron in a horror film who wanders into the murder cabin because she heard a noise. I’ve survived shit. Real shit. I’m street-smart. Cynical. Impossible to impress.
Or at least I was, until five men walked into a room and looked at me like they wanted to eat me alive. And I offered them a goddamn lollipop.
I need to reset, get some air, maybe a drink or seven. I yank on a hoodie, flip the hood up like it’s gonna protect me from bad decisions, and head out into the city night.
The streets are loud and grimy, and they help. I walk past the gas station where I once saw a guy throw a burrito at a cop, past the pharmacy and make it to Mack’s.
The perfect dive bar with a broken jukebox, sticky floors, and the exact level of no-questions-asked I need tonight. I slip inside, and the wave of old beer and sweat hits me in the face with a warm welcome.
Mack looks up from behind the bar and flashes a grin, forgetting I’ve ghosted this place for months.
"Well, well. Look who finally crawled their way back from Hell," he says, already grabbing a glass.
"Still smelling like sulfur," I mutter, sliding onto a stool and planting my elbows on the bar. "Gimme the usual."
He pours the whiskey without flourish.
"You look like someone ran you through a meat grinder. Twice."
"Got fired. Again," I say, taking a sip and wincing. "Then got offered a new job by five weirdly hot men in the woods. Not sure if I hallucinated it or almost joined a cult."
Mack snorts.
"Was it one of those hippy retreats? Chanting and goat yoga?"
"Something like that. Less goat. More growling."
I’m halfway through my drink when the stool beside me screeches against the floor, dragged way too close to me for comfort. My fight-or-flight instinct prickles up the back of my neck before I even look.
I smell him.
Rust and desperation. The man beside me leans in, vibrating in his seat, running on pure madness. His eyes lock on mine, pale and unblinking, and his lips peel back in a broken tooth grin.
"I’d know their scent anywhere," he says, voice low and too calm.
I stiffen.
"Excuse me?"
He leans even closer and inhales me, my skin starts to crawl.
"Hey!" Mack barks, slamming his hand on the bar. "Back the fuck off, creep." freewēbnoveℓ.com
The freak ignores Mack, and instead snaps out a hand and snatches a fistful of my hair in his grubby hand.
The world lurches, my stool tips, and in one beat, slams back to earth as something blurs past my vision in a flash of motion and fury. I don’t register the impact until I hear the sound, a crash, splintering wood, the groan of a man now embedded in the bar’s far wall like a ragdoll.
Crouched over the wreckage, fists dripping red, chest heaving, is Leo. freёweɓnovel.com
He’s a storm in motion, violence carved into muscle, his eyes blaze with primal rage. He doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t pause as he grabs the creep by the throat and pummels. Over and over. Bone crunches, teeth scatter, someone screams, chairs overturn.
Mack is yelling and I think calling the cops. Someone tries to pull Leo back and gets shoved halfway across the bar for their trouble.
No one can stop him.
Except, apparently, me.
"Leo," I say, voice barely audible.
He hears me.
The change is instant. He stops mid-swing, chest still rising and falling like a war drum. Then rises slowly and turns to face me. All the fury drains from his face but what’s left behind is worse, or so much better. Possession.
He crosses the room as if gravity pulls him, takes my hand like it’s the most normal thing in the world, and nods once toward the door.
I follow him.
No questions, instead the electric thrum in my bloodstream and the wild realization that whatever this is, I’m not in control of it. Not even a little.
The night air slaps me in the face the second we step outside, but Leo doesn’t slow, keeps his pace, hand still engulfing mine, afraid I’ll bolt if he lets go. And maybe I would. Because my brain is glitching, my legs are jelly, and I still haven’t figured out if I’m turned on, terrified, or both.
It’s both.
He leads me past the usual line of sad, dented cars and straight to the curb where a matte black motorcycle is parked, a machine that’s a goddamn sex scene with wheels. It’s huge, mean-looking, and exactly what I should’ve expected from a man who turns bar fights into performance art.
Without a word, he grabs a helmet hanging from the handlebars, flicks the visor up, and offers it to me.
I blink at him.
"You stalking me now?"
He doesn’t answer, instead lifts the helmet higher and holds it, patient as a statue.
I snatch it.
"Whatever. But if you drive like you fight, I’m suing."
He smirks, one of those crooked, lazy things that shouldn’t make my knees weak but totally does. Without effort he grips my waist and lifts me onto the bike.
I’m pretty tall, and definitely classed as plus size. Not that my tummy pouch has ever stopped me getting laid. That’s to say, to any normal person, I’m heavy, but to him I’m a paper napkin, made of his molecules and he’s just putting me back where I belong.
I’m about to object, but he swings a leg over, settles in front of me, and the world narrows to the width of his back and the hum of an engine. Before we set off, he reaches both huge arms behind him, grabs my hands, and pulls them around his waist. They won’t meet in the middle because he’s so massive, so I grab at his t-shirt and hold on.
My pussy is soaked again, but let’s ignore that for now.
We set off and colour me surprised, he doesn’t drive fast. He’s careful and measured.
The city peels away behind us as we coast through streets I barely recognise, down alleys and quiet roads, until the familiar slouch of my apartment building leans into view.
Leo parks smoothly, hops off, plants his boots on the curb and turns back to face me.
He’s auditioning for the role of every single wet dream I’ve ever had as he reaches up and unfastens the helmet. So gentle I feel like some delicate thing he’s afraid to break. I hate it. Hate how safe I feel with him. Hate how it makes me want to cry.
He lifts the helmet off my head, fingers brushing my cheeks.
My hands fly to my hips.
"Pause big man." I spit. "How do you know where I live? Are you following me? Do I have a tracker up my ass I don’t know about?"
That smirk again. He leans in, impossibly close, eyes dragging across my face memorising every freckle before killing my cheek.
The softest brush of his lips, a period at the end of a sentence I don’t understand.
"Stay away from that bar," he murmurs. "The people aren’t good."
He steps away, and before I can string a single coherent word together, he’s back on the bike flipping his visor down, revving the engine and he’s gone.
I’m left standing on the sidewalk, helmet hair and all, wondering what the actual fuck just happened, and why every inch of me suddenly misses the way his hands felt on my waist.
