With Every Heartbeat (Forbidden Men 4)

“Blondie? You in here?”

The door opening across the room, letting in noise from the party raging outside, startled my attacker into taking his attention off me. I wiggled my leg free enough to hike my knee up and catch him as hard as I could in the nuts.

As he groaned and doubled over, I escaped from between him and the wall to launch myself as a dumbstruck Ten stood frozen in the doorway.

“Ten,” I sobbed.

“Holy shit.” He shook his head and caught me, dragging me behind him before he looked down at Belcher, who was curled up on the floor in the fetal position, cradling himself and gasping.

Grabbing him by the shirt, Ten dragged him back to his feet. “Oh, honey. You just roughed up the wrong girl.” He fisted his hand and wound his arm back. But at the moment Belcher closed his eyes and braced for the impact, Ten paused and shook his head, dropping his hand. “No. You know what? I think I’ll just save your pretty face until Blondie’s boyfriend can get his hands on you.”

“Boyfriend?” Belcher croaked, cracking open one eye to look up at Ten. “Who’s her boyfriend?” He glanced at me, and I immediately hugged myself, backing away from him.

“Oh, you’ll find out…soon,” Ten promised him before shoving him toward the doorway. “Until then, you’d better

run as fast and far as you can, because he’s coming for you. I’ll make sure of it.”

Belcher stumbled out of the room, half limping, half running. As soon as he was gone and the door fell shut behind him, reality crashed down on me. Reliving in my head what had just happened, and even worse, what could’ve happened, I began to whimper out these gasping sobs. Feeling his phantom touch everywhere, I tried to wipe it away, but it just kept clinging to my flesh, so I gave up and rocked back and forth for a moment before I remembered my pants were still undone. I fumbled to pull them together, but my hands wouldn’t stop shaking, so I started breathing hard because I was so upset that my fingers wouldn’t work right.

I was half a second from a hysterical, hyperventilating breakdown, when I heard Ten shout, “ZOEY!”

He’d never called me by my name before. It broke through my daze and made me realize this wasn’t the first time he’d tried to get my attention. I blinked and looked up at him, gulping down my panic.

“Don’t you fucking freak out on me,” he warned, his voice stern. “I can’t handle shit like that.”

When he ripped off his shirt, I gaped in horror and started to back away from him toward the one door I knew had to be unlocked. “What’re you doing?”

He paused at my cry. “Relax, I’m just giving you something to cover yourself. He practically shredded your shirt.”

I glanced down to see that I was showing him half my bra. My fingers instantly went to straighten as much of my shirt as possible. My face ached where Belcher had hit me and my skin crawled where he’d pawed me.

I sniffed back tears when Ten tried to hand me his shirt. “I’m okay.” I didn’t want his shirt. I just wanted Quinn. I must’ve said that aloud, because he sighed.

“I’ll call him. But first I’m calling the campus cops.”

Cops, questions, having to tell someone what had just happened to me did not sound appealing at all. “No.” I shook my head. “I just want Quinn.”

I turned away from him and hurried toward the door. “Blondie!” Ten called after me, his voice irritated. “Damn it. Wait.”

I hurried out into the party, pausing when the noise and people assaulted my senses. Panic nearly took me under. So many people, no space. But through the horde, I spotted him. Quinn. My lifeline. My heart and soul. The relief of seeing his face nearly buckled me.

I gasped his name, but he lurched to a stop, staring at me until his face drained of color. Next to him, Cora folded her arms over her chest and smiled as if proud of herself. Quinn looked past me to Ten, who was still struggling to get his shirt on. Then he began to shake his head.

“No,” I said, when I realized what he thought. “Quinn!”

He backed away before taking off and escaping through the people. I needed him, no one else would do, so I raced after him, aching for him to hold me, to understand. To believe me.

Her voice tore into me, slashed open my guts and left me bleeding. Even though she pleaded for me to stop, I kept going, picking up my pace. Things seemed to tilt sideways in my path and I wanted to reach out for the wall to catch my balance, but I didn’t want her to see how much this had just devastated me. I would walk away from her without any kind of assistance.

Shoving my way outside, I hit the open night air and sucked in a clean breath. But I still felt nauseated. I wanted to rip out every horrible sensation bubbling inside me and just throw it all away. When I reached the end of the block, I heard her again. “Quinn, please! Wait.”

A half sob, half growl left my lips. I sounded like a wounded animal who’d just had a limb ripped off by a predator and was still trying to escape for its life, warning everyone away with a snarl and at the same time trying to lick its wounds.

As the park approached, I heard the heels of her sexy tall boots clacking against the sidewalk behind me as she hurried to catch up. The sound was so feminine and sweet, and Zoey, it made my heart wrench again.

Zoey. God, not Zoey.

“Quinn, you know me.” She was crying.