Better When He's Bold

Chapter 5

Brysen

THE WATER BURNED EVERY place on my body where the skin had ripped off. The runoff swirled pink and dingy with leftover parking-lot goo, blood, and grime as it ran over my feet. Race hadn’t been lying, the shower was inferno hot, but it felt nice because I was ice cold on the inside.

I had no clue what was going on, why anyone would want to hurt me, but there was no trying to explain away the fact that I had almost been run down tonight. Along the way of giving up my life, of trying to take care of my family, it appeared I had managed to upset someone enough that they wanted to hurt me. I never went anywhere, kept my nose clean, and never wandered out of the basic suburban box my life had always existed in, so it didn’t make any sense. It was scary, and I didn’t even know where to start with trying to figure it out. For right now I was going to let the superhot water wash away as much of the blood and aching in my bones as it could, and try not to jump on Race in all his protective and glowering hotness. No one had claimed me as their own in a very long time. Add in the fact he was even more sexy and alluring when he was being threatening and up in arms on my behalf, and my resolve was flickering out like a low-burning wick on a candle.

He left me a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants Dovie had left behind when she was staying here with him, but I left both of them sitting on the counter next to the cracked sink and just wrapped myself up in a threadbare towel he had tossed haphazardly on the closed toilet. I still needed his help fishing a nice-size rock out of my elbow, and the outside of my knee looked like someone had attacked it with a cheese grater. Cleaning it was going to hurt like a bitch and I was going to be bummed out if I ended up with a gnarly scar. Right now I didn’t feel like I had very much going for me, and it would suck if the one thing I had always been able to fall back on—my looks—was suddenly compromised as well. I stuck my tongue out at my reflection in the mirror and twisted my hands through my hair to wring out some of the water. I looked like hell, but it fit since I felt like hell.

I pulled open the door a fraction and called Race’s name. There wasn’t a response, and I was about to go explore the tiny space he’d brought me to, when he suddenly appeared in front of me, green eyes flashing and that dimple indenting his cheek. No boy who was as bad as he was should be that beautiful. It wasn’t fair. Somewhere along the way he had ditched his button-down shirt and was now only wearing a white wife-beater, and his hair was sticking up in a sexy mess all over his head. He had a bottle of peroxide in his hand, along with a clean white towel.

“Let’s fix you up.”

I nodded and took a step back into the bathroom. It was too small a place to be in with him considering my lack of clothes and how much I wanted to be all over him. I felt my heart dip and his mossy gaze scanned over me from head to toe, turning darker and blacker the more naked skin his eyes took in.

“Sit down.”

I propped myself on the closed toilet lid and gazed at him with big eyes. “Be gentle.”

The dark center of his eyes flared and the corners of his sexy mouth turned down.

“What’s going on, Brysen? Why is someone fucking with you?”

I could only shake my head and shrug. It was a bad idea because the towel already didn’t offer much coverage, and with each move I made it dipped lower across the swell of my breasts. Neither one of us mentioned it, but both of our breathing changed. Mine rapid, his shallow and raspy.

“I don’t know. Honestly. For the most part, I’m a pretty nice person, I mind my own business . . . I don’t know.” My voice was barely a whisper that quickly turned into a yelp of pain when the white cloth soaked in peroxide hit the raw surface of my knee. I jolted so hard, the towel almost fell all the way down.

Race closed his eyes briefly and sank to his knees in front of me so he could grab my arm. He straightened it out with light fingers and looked me dead in the eye.

“The gunshots at the party were about me, not you. I was there to collect money, and the kid who owed it wasn’t happy about it. Why did you think someone was shooting at you?”

His long fingers softly manipulated the cut. I felt him stroke over the rock that was embedded in there still, and then heard him swear under his breath.

“I need to find something to get that out with.”

As he rose effortlessly to his feet and loomed over me I gulped and blinked back tears that suddenly filled my eyes.

“I got home from the party and someone sent me a text from a strange number telling me that I looked pretty and that they were sorry they missed me. It felt really threatening, like they missed me with a bullet, ya know?”