Tame: Carter Kids #3 (20 page)

"Burn in hell."

Smoothing the paper against his thigh, Liam shoved it back into the ass pocket of his jeans and glared at me. "Last chance, Teagan. Walk out of here with me now and we can forget this ever happened."

I stifled a scream. "Just get the hell out of here before Noah –"

"Gets back?"

Noah appeared in the doorway of the bedroom, flanked by a baffled looking Quincy and a smug looking Beau.

Dread bloomed inside of me.

I was alone in a hotel room with my ex-boyfriend, and naked beneath the towel I had wrapped around my body...

"Noah!" My voice was strangled as I slid off the bed and rushed towards my husband. "Listen to me." Reaching him, I cupped his face in my hands and forced him to look at me. "This is
not
what it looks like." 

"How does it look, Thorn?" Noah asked in a deceptively soft voice. His entire body was trembling. His dark eyes were wild, flickering between my face and the bed. He was breathing hard and I felt like I was holding a bomb in my hands. "Hmm?" Noah was holding onto his self-restraint by the skin of his teeth and the rage emanating from him terrified me.

A bomb that was about to detonate at any moment…

"Bad," I admitted, voice torn. "It looks bad, but it's not, I swear."

"
Yeah, Noah
," Liam mocked, clearly provoking my husband. "It's
not
what it looks like." 

His provocation caused Noah to explode like a firecracker.

Roughly shoving me out of his way, Noah lunged towards the bed, taking Liam to the carpet with a spear to his midsection. "You must have a fucking death wish." Straddling Liam, Noah tortured him with punch after violent punch to the face.

"I didn't touch her…" Liam threw his arms up to protect his face, but it was no use. Noah was destroying him with blow after blow. "Get the hell off me, man…"

"Do something," I begged. Grabbing my hair with my hands, I turned to Quincy and Beau. "Stop him!"

Neither one moved a muscle.

"Don't hurt him," I begged as tears pooled in my eyes. "Noah, please!"

"Hurt him?" Noah roared. "I'm not going to hurt him, Teagan. I'm going to
kill
him."

Petrified of what was unfolding before me, but knowing I couldn't stand aside and do nothing, I raced over to where I was pretty sure my husband was killing my former flame. "He's not worth going to prison for!" I cried out as I pulled on Noah's shoulders, desperate to stop him from making a mistake that could take him away from me again. "Please," I growled. A bead of sweat trickled down my brow from the sheer force of trying to pull my husband off Liam.

"Noah, don’t!" Tommy's voice suddenly came from behind me.

Brushing me gently aside, Tommy lunged forward and wrapped his arms around Noah's chest before roughly dragging him off Liam. Lewis, who had followed Tommy, reached down and picked the bloodied heap that was Liam up off the floor. "Get him out of here," Tommy hissed as he struggled to retain his grip on Noah.

Wordlessly, Lewis walked from the room with a battered, but thankfully breathing, Liam in his grasp.

The other two men followed until it was just Tommy, Noah, and myself left alone.

"Are you stable?" Tommy asked.

"I wouldn't hurt
her
," Noah snarled, shoving hard against his friend's hold.

Releasing Noah, Tommy backed away slowly.

"I'll get rid of him," he added, eyes locked on me in pure and utter disgust.

The second he closed the door behind him, Noah went berserk.

Ripping one of the dressers clean off the floor with his bare hands, he tossed it against the wall, cracking the plaster when it landed with a huge bang.

"Fuck!" Snarling, he picked up a vase and tossed it across the room.

I watched the vase smash into pieces in a horrified daze.

What the hell had I gotten myself into?

This man was violent, he was deranged –
dangerous…

So why did I have an unstoppable urge to comfort him?

To reassure him and calm him down.

When had I become a masochist?

Everything inside of my body was telling me to run.

Get the hell out of here before he does worse.

I didn't move a muscle.

Walking over to the window, Noah kept his back to me as he spoke. "What was he doing here?" His body was shaking violently. Broken pieces of furniture shattered everywhere, fragments of glass sprayed over every surface of the room. His hands were gripping the window sill so hard, his corded arms were bulging with veins. "Why was he
in here
, Thorn?"

I approached with caution. "I know what it must have looked like, but you have to believe me when I tell you I have no idea why he was here." Shaking my head, I racked my brain for a better way of explaining this shit storm and came up empty. "I was in the bathroom and I came out and he was just…there. I've been set up."

Noah laughed humorlessly. "Set up."

"Yes!" I nodded vigorously. "I've been set up."

Closing the gap between us, I wrapped my arms around his waist and pressed my cheek to his back, but Noah wasn’t having any of it. He roughly shook me off before swinging around to face me.

"Did you do it on purpose?" he asked, his voice barely more than a whisper. "Pretend you were sick so you could flake out on me and meet up with him?"

"What?" I balked. "Of course not. I told you, I've been set up."

"It's too fucking late to leave me now," he blurted out, as if the thought just entered his mind. "I'm not like Jordan, Thorn. You're not leaving me without a fight."

"I don't want to leave you at all!" I screamed, desperate to make him calm down. "You're my husband."

"I can't…" Running a hand through his hair, Noah grabbed his wallet off the dresser and moved towards the bedroom door.

"Where are you going?" I demanded, appalled.

Noah's tone was clipped. "Out."

"I haven't done anything wrong. You can't just walk away from me." I cried out. "We're not done talking here."

"I'm done talking, Teagan.
I
am," he tossed over his shoulder, not stopping. "But hey, if you get lonely, you can always call
him
over again."

"Noah!" Springing into action, I raced after him. "Don’t go." I was making a habit of chasing after this man. The second my eyes landed on the rosewood six string resting on the couch, my feet came to an abrupt halt. "
Martin
?"

I approached the six string like it was an oasis that could disappear at any moment.

Closing in on the guitar, I reached a hand out trailed my fingers over the strings. My eyes roamed over the body. It looked exactly like the one my mother gave me when I was a child.

"This is…" Pausing, I shook my head and trailed my fingers over the strings. Tears pooled my eyes. "Why would you do this?"

"I ordered it a while back," he said gruffly. "Must have arrived tonight."

I didn't know why I was being so emotional.

I was built from tougher bricks than this.

Crying over men because they hurt my feelings wasn't me.

Crying when a man bought me a gift was even more out of character.

"I couldn't afford to replace it for you back in school," Noah added, tone clipped, jaw straining. "I can now."

"But you didn't break it back then."

He didn't reply.

"Thank you," I choked out. "This means a lot to me."

"Do whatever you want with it." With one final glance, he walked towards the door. "Use it for firewood for all I care."

"And what about
you
?" Teagan roared from the doorway of our hotel suite. "Kissing all those female fans. Whoring and touring like you were god's gift to women. Not telling me about that whore Reese sniffing around the place again."

Stopping halfway down the hallway, I turned to face her and narrowed my eyes in disgust. "Are you honestly going to throw shit in my face after what I just saw?"

"Yes," she hissed. "Because you didn’t
see
anything." Slamming the door shut, Teagan stalked down the hallway to where I was standing. "I haven’t done a damn thing wrong here, Noah."

I felt my skin heat with anger.

My temper was rising.

Screw rising, I was incensed with anger.

I was fucking raging…

"Then why was he in
our
bedroom, Thorn?" I roared into her face. Teagan had broken that fundamental element of trust inside of me years ago, and what I'd walked in on tonight had just shattered every bit of progress I'd made. "Tell me why he was in there alone with you?"

"I've already told you," she growled. "I was
set
up."

"Stop fucking lying to me." I needed to get a grip, but I couldn't take it anymore. "Tell me the goddamn truth, Teagan." Deep down in my heart, I knew there had to be a logical explanation for this, but logic wasn’t coming to me right now and the fucking realism of seeing him in that room with her?

It fucking
killed
me.

And knowing that it was my own goddamn fault he'd touched her in the first place?

Well, that took pain to a whole new level.

"Did you get bored of me?" My pain spewed out of my mouth like fucking poison and Thorn was the victim of my rant. I knew I was being unfairly harsh on her. "I'm training too much so you needed a little extra attention?" I knew I needed to stop, but I couldn't. "How was he?" I physically fucking couldn't stop myself. "Was he better than me? Did he fuck you like I fuck you?" I got up in her face. "Did you come harder than when you come with me?"

"You bastard!" Teagan screamed. I didn’t bother to try and protect myself from the hand my wife suddenly raised. Her palm smacked my cheek with more force that usual and I welcomed the sting.

Holding my hands out, I locked eyes with her. "Go ahead," I sneered. "Fucking hit me again."

"Why?" she cried out. "So you have a reason to hit me back?"

I paled and staggered back. "I would
never
hurt you, Thorn."

"You're hurting me now!" Teagan screamed, crying hard and ugly.

"And you are fucking destroying me," I shot back in a torn voice. "Do you want to break me?" I took a step back from her. I had to. "Is that it? Because you're fucking killing me right now, Teagan. Damn."

"I don’t know why he was there," Teagan cried out hoarsely. She was trembling all over, and it was only then that I noticed she was still wrapped in a towel. "I was in the shower and I came out and he was…"

"He was what?" I taunted, furious.

"He was just…
there
!"

"He was just there without a shirt on?" I sneered in pure disgust. "What happened?" I demanded. "Did his shirt just fall onto the goddamn floor?"

"You're not listening to me." Shaking her head in what looked like genuine confusion, Teagan threw her hands up in the air and screamed. "Why won't you listen to me?"

"Because you're not telling me the truth!" I roared into her face.

"I can't. I can't –" Her voice broke off and she swung around and rushed over to where Lewis was standing back, watching our little domestic.

"Tell him," she begged, clutching Lewis's arm. "Tell him I had nothing to do with this."

"Teagan," I snapped. "This is between you and me."

"Shut up," she hissed before refocusing her attention on her body guard. "Please, Lewis," she sobbed. "Tell him they set me up." Sniffling, she added, "Tell him what we heard."

Lewis stared down at Teagan for a long time before locking eyes with me. "I was instructed to let him inside when he arrived at the suite," he told me. "Their meeting was pre-arranged."

That's what I thought...

"What?" Teagan's jaw fell open. "Why are you lying about this?" Turning her attention to me, her eyes were wide and full of unshed tears when she said, "Noah, I'm telling you the truth."

"For what it's worth, it was strictly business," Lewis continued to say to me, ignoring my wife's plea. "I remained in the suite the entire time they signed the paperwork and dissolved their business relationship."

"Paperwork?" My brow furrowed in confusion. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"He's talking about my life's work," Teagan choked out, voice breaking. "The gym," she sobbed. "I gave it all away to him."

"Then why was his shirt off?" I demanded, shaking my head, unable to process everything I was hearing – everything I'd just witnessed. "Why was she in a towel?"

"Your wife was in the shower when he arrived." Lewis replied, without missing a beat. "He made an inappropriate comment about her attire and she responded by drenching him with a bottle of water."

"Why didn’t you just say that?" I whispered, feeling like the wind had been knocked out of me.

"Oh, because you know me, Noah," Teagan snapped. Hurt and betrayal were evident in her hazel eyes. "I was hoping to get a quick fuck in before you came home."

I flinched; the harshness of her words ripping through me like a blade through flesh.

With that, she turned on her heel and rushed back into the suite, leaving me reeling.