Ex.
Oh hell. This wasn’t good.
“Stop,” I said again, only this time I almost growled it. “Get the fuck off him, Zach.”
Not surprisingly, Zach didn’t release Davis instantly. An almost violent tremor went through me when Zach’s flinty eyes hardened even more. He was still holding Davis by the front of his shirt. The younger man’s mouth was bleeding and he had a red mark on the side of his face that was most likely going to turn into an ugly bruise. But it was like my ex had disappeared and it was just me and Zach as we stared at each other. It was moments like this that had gotten me into trouble with the gorgeous man so many times in the past. Too many times I’d imagined the looks to be something they weren’t. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
No fucking way.
Zach chose that moment to let his eyes roam the length of my body. My breath caught in my throat, and I was once again transported back to the night I’d bared my soul to yet another man who hadn’t wanted me.
“I love you, Zach. I always—”
“Don’t. Even if I were interested, I don’t fuck around with kids. Go chase someone else for a while… I’m getting sick of you always being right there every time I come out here to hang out with my brother.”
The familiar sour taste of bile crawled up the back of my throat as my stomach dropped out. The instinct to flee was as strong now as it had been then, and I longed to tear my eyes from Zach’s.
Davis chose that moment to open his fat fucking mouth, which I was oddly grateful for. “Lucky, call the police! I’m being robbed. Don’t just stand there. Do something!”
I turned the humiliation I was feeling into something else and threw it at my jackass of an ex. “You’re not being robbed. You’re being taught a fucking lesson.” I wanted to add that Zach was damn good at teaching the kind of lesson you’d never forget, but with Zach’s eyes still pinning mine, I was hopelessly ensnared.
Davis shook himself out of Zach’s grip and hopped two giant steps away from the angry Army Ranger. “What the fuck? Who the hell are you? Lucky, sweetie, do you know this man?” Davis tried to shift closer to me, his hand extended like he was going to reach for me again, but Zach stepped between us.
The move seemed to unlock my brain.
“Why are you here?” I asked the muscled military man as I stepped around him to move closer to Davis. I had no interest in being anywhere near my ex, but I knew overprotective behavior when I saw it. After all, I’d had years of watching my fathers and uncles chase off potential guys they’d decided hadn’t been good enough for me. But having Zach display the same behavior and knowing it was out of loyalty to his brother and my fathers gave me a new sense of courage. “What the hell’s wrong with you?” I bit out.
Zach’s attention shifted to me and his eyes once again roamed over every inch of me like a goddamned caress. I suppressed a shudder because I did not fucking care. At all. I knew he’d never look at me that way. He was most likely checking me for injury the way he’d been taught to in the service.
“Are you hurt? Did he fucking touch you?” Zach’s growly voice washed over me as he once again began scanning my body like he was looking for something.
“None of your goddamned business,” I snapped at him because my body was very inconveniently responding to his perusal. “Answer my fucking question.”
“Watch your mouth,” he bit back. “What would your dads say if they heard that kind of language out of you?”
I stared at him in shock, ignoring what his commanding tone was doing to the lower half of my body. I had no clue what possessed me to do it, but I stepped closer to him and dropped my voice as I said, “Why? Because I’m still just a kid, right?” Zach’s eyes flashed with some unnamed emotion as I sneered the word “kid.” This time, he was the one to look away and I grabbed onto that like it was the biggest win of my entire life. It was Christmas Eve all over again, but I was no longer some dumb kid declaring his undying love beneath a stupid sprig of mistletoe. I moved until I was practically flush against Zach’s body and whispered, “Maybe someone needs to spank me so I learn my lesson… you know, so I respect my elders.”
I swore I saw Zach’s throat struggle to swallow, but I couldn’t be sure. I’d hoped the jab at his age would do the same thing to him that him always referring to me as “kid” did to me, but instead of moving away from me, Zach pressed his body closer to mine until there was only the tiniest whisper of space between us.