Taboo: A Dark Romance Boxset (Stud Ranch 1)

I’m almost there when I hear a commotion off to my left.

“No. No touching. Stop!”

At a table in a dark corner nearby, a dancer is struggling to get off a guy’s lap. He’s groping her tits with one hand and holding her down with the other while he dry humps her.

Son of a—

I stalk over to them.

“She said to let her go, you piece of shit.”

I grab the hand of the arm he has around her waist and wrench it backwards until he lets out an effeminate cry and lets her go.

She springs out of his lap and hurries off.

“Who the fuck are you, asshole?”

It’s only now as I look around the table that I realize the fucker assaulting the girl isn’t alone. There’s a whole table of douchebags—frat boys who haven’t aged well—and they look pissed.

I grin at them and crack my knuckles.

“I’m the guy who calls out assholes and puts them in their place. Like your friend here. No means no, fuck face.”

The biggest guy at the table shoves his chair back and gets in my face. “You wanna say that again, motherfucker?”

I lean in, “I said your friend is a pathetic asshole who has to force women at a strip club to get his rocks off because he can’t get any anywhere else.”

The thug shoves me so hard in the chest I stumble back a couple steps.

Oh hell yeah, fucker, let’s fucking dance. My hand forms a fist and I come back swinging. I get one satisfying hit in, busting up the big bastard’s face.

He comes back at me and sucker punches me in the gut.

I take it and laugh at the pain.

He thinks he can hurt me? After everything I went through today, he thinks a fucking punch can hurt me?

I swing again with all my might and all my fucking rage and all my fury. Hearing the cartilage of his nose break is so satisfying that I immediately swing again.

I guess that pisses off his buddies because more hits come at me from all sides. The whisky is finally doing its job, though. I’m fucking numb. I turn around and roar at the bastards and hit anyone and anything I can get my goddamned fists on.

Twenty

MIRANDA

After Dylan stormed out earlier, I cried for about an hour. Then I cleaned up the burned spaghetti sauce. Then I kept cleaning. And cleaning. And cleaning.

I’m scrubbing the baseboards when I get Daniel’s call.

“Are you watching the news?”

“The news?” I frown. “Who watches the news anymore?”

I hear his huff of frustration over the line. “Turn on your TV. Channel 4. Right now.”

I drop the cloth I’m using and go over to the living room and grab my remote, flipping the TV on to Channel 4.

“Mark Morales, at Mercy hospital, has more on this breaking story,” says the perky news reporter, right before the screen flips to a reporter standing beside the hospital bed of a guy who looks like he got beat up really badly.

That’s when I read the ticker running at the bottom of the screen.

Tech billionaire Dylan Lennox, Lennox Brothers Corp, in jail tonight after bar brawl at a strip club leaves two hospitalized.

“Holy shit.”

“Right?” Daniel agrees.

We both watch in silence.

“This is Mark Morales of KQYN. So let me just ask a few questions to set the stage. You and your buddies were at the Big Bottoms Gentleman’s Club?”

The man in the hospital bed nods. “Just blowing off some steam on guy’s night, ya know how it is.”

It’s a little hard to understand him because his jaw is swollen and his lip is split. His nose is obviously broken and there’s a large white bandage circling his head, not to mention the black eye and what looks like a broken arm.

Holy shit, did Dylan really do all that?

“But then this guy just comes and jumps us. He must have been on something with as crazy as he was. He just starts wailing on my friend so I jumped in to try to protect him and the guy turns on me.”

“Did you recognize the man as Dylan Lennox, tech billionaire?”

“Naw, man. It was dark in there. I just knew there was this guy like on meth or whatever, just savage. He was attacking us and I had to do whatever it took to keep my friend from getting killed.”

My shoulders slump and I feel about ten inches tall.

“Miranda? You there?”

I startle at Daniel’s voice. I’d forgotten he was on the phone.

God, I don’t even want to answer because answering might lead to questions which would only lead to more questions, which would—

“Miran—”

“I’m here.”

“Are you okay? Is Dylan violent? Has he ever hurt you or threaten—”

“No! God. He’s not like that, okay? We got in a fight today and he was upset when he left, but he’s not violent.”

“Two guys in the hospital says different.”