Kicked: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (35 page)

“Shut your mouth, bitch. What'd you think, that I'd bring you all the way out here for nothing?” He reached up and cupped my breast, making my head spin with another bout of dizziness. His touch was horrible, groping and uncomfortable. Unwanted. “I'm going to fuck you so hard you can't even stand. What do you think Tyce will think about that, huh? Will he still want you when he finds out what a whore you are?”

“Stop it,” I growled, my body shutting down on me in a scary sort of a way.
I've been drugged. He drugged me.
I could feel that something was wrong, but I was powerless to stop it. “Get off of me!”

When he didn't listen, I mustered up every last ounce of strength I had and tore my right wrist from his grip, slapping him across one cheek. I'd meant to punch him, but I was starting to droop down the wall again, my consciousness flickering in and out. In retaliation, Mason backhanded me as hard as he could, cracking my vision with white hot stars and blood. It filled my mouth, dripped down my nose as he hit me again. And again. And again.

Just like I'd done to Jia.

But worse I think. Much, much worse.

By the time he reached under my skirt, sliding his hand up my thigh, I was just about gone, on the verge of passing out.

That's when I heard the footsteps. That's when I knew.

I knew.

I sat in Kai's car for hours waiting for Teagan and Mason to come outside. I didn't know how I felt about our encounter, if it'd gone well or not. It was fucking impossible to tell. Teagan had looked about as jumbled up as I felt, and that dick, Fenna, hadn't made things any easier.

I should've decked him when I had the chance,
I thought, laying my head on the steering wheel and closing my eyes. I'd only meant to lie there for a second, but when I blinked awake, another hour had passed, and I was thrust into full-blown panic mode. I don't know why. Honestly, I didn't think Teagan was going to do anything with Mason. But for whatever reason, I shoved that car door open and stalked into the club. His Range Rover was still outside, but no one was in it. There was only one place they could be.

It was dark inside, the crowd thinned down as the bar got ready for closing. Tabs were being settled, lights strobed, and yet I didn't see either Teagan or Mason in there. Making a quick dash outside, my sneakers scraping against the pavement, I jogged down the block one way first and then the other.

I was starting to lose hope when I heard a sound, a small sad noise that I recognized with every fucking fiber in my being.

Teagan.

That was Teagan.

I started to panic, to freak as I kept moving forward, searching every nook and cranny for her. At first I thought maybe she'd gotten drunk and stumbled out, but then I rounded the corner and caught a glimpse of two figures pressed tight against an alley wall.

Teagan, with her red hair shimmering under the streetlights. Mason, with his dark oily hair and his shark smile.

There was blood on Teagan's face, on Mason's hand, the hand that was caught up in her skirt. The other was desperately fumbling at the buckle on his black belt. I stared at them for all of a half second, registering every little detail, the way Teagan's eyes drooped and her body slumped, the predatory leer on Mason's face and the pinprick pupils of his dark eyes.

It might not seem like a big deal to you, but when we touch, when we … do things together, I think about it all the time. It hits me right here.

My breath whooshed out of my lungs; my feet started moving.

A walk, a jog, a sprint.

Teagan's eyelids flutter as she turned her head to look at me, a pleading desperation somehow etched into the slack features of her face. Our eyes met as I came up behind Mason, wrapped my arm around his neck and threw him down to the pavement in one single motion. I didn't make a sound, didn't say a word, just made sure that his pants were still on, that Teagan was okay, confirmed in my head that he hadn't gotten far, hadn't managed to actually go through with the rape.

And then I snapped.

As he struggled and screamed, I sat on his chest, using my few extra inches and pounds to my advantage. I put my fists together and then slammed them down on his face. Blood spurted, cartilage cracked, lips split. I didn't give a fuck. I lifted my arms up again, hit him. Hit him. Hit him. Mason was screaming, I think, but I couldn't hear anything above the pulsing pound of my heart.

After everything we went through for you, because of you. Together. We were always together until we weren't.

I smashed Mason's face in, knocked his teeth loose, and then when I was sure he wasn't going to get up, I stood above him, stared down into his dark eyes.

Sound popped around me like a bubble being burst.

“I'm going to fucking murder you!” he screeched, but the sound was warbled and wet and hard to understand. I glanced up at Teagan, slumped to the ground against the wall, shaking. I looked back at Mason, a coldness coming over me that I didn't like, but didn't know how to stop.

Teagan is mine,
I thought as I stared at the man on the ground without mercy.
I love her. I've always loved her. I'm an idiot, but I want to stop being one. I want to kiss her awake in the morning and make love to her at night. I want to give her everything she never had and then some. I want show her that I
can
make the right choices, that I can be the man she needs and wants me to be.

I want to prove to her that she is and always has been my number one, even if I haven't shown it.

“Thanks,” I said to Mason, my voice practically unrecognizable. Empty. Dangerous. This was the power that made so good on the field, brought my enemies to their knees, left the Ducks undefeated this season. Here, this feeling inside of me. I wanted to fight and keep fighting. For Teagan. Always for Teagan. “You've just proven to me what I already should've known. I love her.” Mason groaned and rolled on his side toward me. I pushed him back with a sneaker to the chest. “And I won't let anyone take that from me.”

I kicked Mason as hard as I could in the side and he doubled over in pain. Again. Again. And then I moved my foot to his throat, lifted it up, smashed it down. His eyes rolled back in his head and his back arched in agony. I would've kept going; I think I might've killed him honestly.

But then I felt the softness of small hands on my arms, the gentle tug of fingers that should've been as familiar as my own but weren't, not yet.

“Tyce, don't,” Teagan whispered, her voice weak and wavering. Broken. Fading. “Please don't. If you do this, I'll lose you. I can't lose you now.”

I spun to face Teagan, catching her as she fell to her knees against the cement, her red lace dress fluttering around her bent legs. Her head drooped as I picked her up in my arms, a split second before Kai rounded the corner panting.

“Oh my god,” he said when he noticed Mason lying comatose on the ground, breathing blood, shaking. “Oh my god, Tyce.” I looked up at him, Teagan going limp in my arms, and I felt myself start to shake, too.

“Kai,” I said, and my voice sounded detached, like I wasn't even fucking there anymore. “Call an ambulance.”

I sat in the hospital with my head in my hands and shook. I kept shaking until the doctors came out and told me that Teagan was going to be okay, that Mason had dosed her with GHB, some bullshit date rape drug that in the case of an overdose can
kill
people. He'd come close to overdosing Teagan. Close to
killing
her.

I stood there in the center of that white room with my eyes glazed over and my hands curled into bloody, bruised fists that I couldn't bring myself to let go of.

Killed her. Dead. Raped her.

Mason almost raped and killed Teagan.

He hit her.

I wished I'd killed him.

I sat back down in the chair after they left, listening to the buzz of the hospital, replaying the doctors' words in my mind.
Her face is going to be okay. Nothing is broken. Just bruised and hurting. Bruised and hurting. Bruised. Hurting.

“Tyce,” Kai said, reappearing after a while. Or maybe he never left. He was sitting right next to me. I glanced over at him, at the thick blond stubble on his jaw, his slicked back hair. I wondered why he was there, probably looking for his car. Or for me. Maybe he was actually worried about me? He looked terrified. “Do you know what this means?” he whispered, voice gravelly and hoarse. Scared. But he shouldn't have been. The only thing that I cared about was the fact that Teagan was okay, that she was unhurt.
Alive.
Whatever happened to me, it didn't matter.

“No more football,” I said, trying to make myself breathe. It wasn't happening. All I could do was stare at the floor and shake.

“
Jail,
” Kai whispered, reaching out and putting his hand on my shoulder. “Tyce, you could go to prison for this. You almost killed Mason. He's not getting up anytime, and even when he does … he might not play football ever again, dude. You did something to his neck.”

“It's okay,” I told him, even though it wasn't. Not really.

I folded my hands together, put my elbows on my knees, leaned forward.

And tried to breathe. Breathe.

Just breathe.

The hospital sent me home while they held Teagan overnight. I didn't fucking want to leave that place, not without seeing her, but it wasn't actually a request or a choice. The cops came and went, took me with them, made me give a statement.

Reliving the whole thing from start to finish almost killed me.

The blood on Teagan's face. Mason's hand up her skirt on her thigh. His other hand at his belt buckle. If I'd been even a second later … I couldn't bring myself to think about that. So I told them everything over and over and over again, until I wasn't sure whether I was awake and telling them or asleep and dreaming it.

After that, they sent me home with Kai, and I fell asleep in the car.

In the morning, I woke up to a text from Teagan and a dozen missed calls from my QB coach.

I put my priorities in order and left to take care of the most important business first.

“Hey.”