Sinful Protector (Roughshod Rollers MC 2)

Wait… I sit back, frowning. As far as I remember, Kyle and Jesse barely spoke at all last night? In fact, the only words either of them said to each other was to swear before Kyle hit him and ran off with me. Unless I blacked out, which I’m reasonably sure I didn’t, Jesse didn’t say once that he knows where I live.

“How do you know that?” I ask.

“From the bar,” Kyle says. He yawns, suddenly looking tired. “He said it at the bar.” He catches sight of my raised eyebrow. “Tonight.”

Ah, that might explain a little more. Somehow, by some stupid coincidence, Jesse and Kyle ended up at the same bar tonight.

I can see what happened now. Jesse would have run his mouth, which is exactly what I knew what happen, and Kyle had gotten spooked. Then, for whatever reason, he had run here after deciding that he needed to protect me in case Jesse came here.

“Did Jesse follow you?” I ask.

“No,” Kyle says, shaking his head. “He ran first.”

“Then Jesse was never going to come here,” I assure him. “Whatever he said, he was just being an idiot, like he normally is.”

Kyle frowns. He doesn’t seem to believe me.

“He knows where you live,” he reminds me.

“Which is unsettling, but not a cause for concern,” I say. “Look, I appreciate that you were worried, but you didn’t need to come running here. I’m fine.”

I sigh as Kyle stares at me, uncomprehending. He really was just focusing on one thing to the exclusion of everything else.

“He was saying he was going to come here,” Kyle says slowly. For a second, he almost sounds sober, and his eyes are tired when they meet mine. “He said you’ll get what’s coming to you.”

“He’s an idiot,” I stress. “He won’t do anything.”

“It was the look in his eyes,” Kyle continues, as though he hadn’t heard me. “His eyes… Yesterday, there was something nasty in him.” He looks at me solemnly. “I think he’s more dangerous than you think he is.”

A chill runs down my spine as I stare at him. Part of me wonders if I should be indignant. After all, I’ve known Jesse for a long time. If anyone knows the way he thinks, it’s definitely me. What right did Kyle have to come to my apartment in the middle of the night and tell me that I’m wrong? No, he’s just being a fool because he got scared by some crap Jesse was saying.

The rest of me, however, can’t help but notice that Kyle is repeating my own thoughts. Because that look in Jesse’s eyes…

And Kyle had noticed it too? It hadn’t just been me? I remember thinking, last night, that Kyle was going to say something else to Jesse last night, perhaps to try and chase him off. Then something odd had crossed his expression as he stared at Jesse, his eyes narrowing and then widening slightly as though he had seen something.

Then he had punched Jesse, grabbed me, and ran. I never asked him why he chose to do that.

“Why didn’t you just run Jesse off last night?” I ask before I can stop myself. Kyle blinks at me. “Why did you run off with me instead?”

Kyle blinks slowly as his mind is forced to change tracks.

“He was…too far gone,” he said after a moment. “He wouldn’t listen. I’ve seen the type. He just wanted to fight. He would have struck out at anyone that was nearby.”

Jesse does that when he gets drunk. He throws punches at anyone, even if they haven’t done anything at all. I remember once refusing to bail him out of jail for a few days because he turned to another guy at the bar and began hitting him without provocation. Admittedly, after that, he did try and clean up for about a week before he went back to drinking.

I scowl at the memory.

“I know what Jesse’s like,” I say, my voice sharper than I intended. “I told you; he’s angry and he can be violent, but he’s never laid a hand on me before.”

“Until last night,” Kyle reminds me.

I feel a little offended that Kyle has decided to apply logic now. He’s looking up at me with serious eyes, which seem to bore straight through me. I scowl at him and sip at my coffee to avoid answering for a moment as I think about what to say. But it’s the middle of the night and I’m tired and I have the stranger that I took home last night on a whim sitting on my couch, telling me that my ex is a thug who is plotting revenge on me.

It’s all a little too much to take in at two-thirty in the goddamned morning.

So, I decide that I’ll deal with it in the morning.

“Okay, first, I do understand where you’re coming from,” I admit. “But, if Jesse had managed to hit me last night, he would run away as soon as he did it, scared of himself and what I could do to him in retaliation. He’s a coward like that, no matter what he says.” I sigh. “I really do appreciate you trying to protect me like this, okay? But I don’t need protection.” I give him a severe look. “Especially not from a complete stranger.”