Page 35 of Devil Within

“I don’t need six months.”

“You don’t know all my flaws.”

“I hate to break it to you, but I have flaws as well.”

She gasped over-dramatically. “Say it ain’t so.”

He grinned. “In six months, you’ll see just how serious about us I am.”

“Well, then, this conversation will become moot.”

He leaned in and placed a quick kiss on her lips. “You don’t trust me yet. At least, not with your heart, and I understand. But I will prove to you that your faith in me won’t be misguided.”

“Okay,” she said, taking the leap. “Prove me wrong.”

Chapter Eleven

The next day, when they went to work, the day seemed a little brighter. Her soul a little clearer. Jade touched her more, and she realized she liked his touches and kisses and hugs.

At the end of the night, Jake raced out of there, saying he had a date, leaving Apollo and Jade to clean up, not only their stations, but his as well. One of the men usually took out the trash, but since they were busy, Shiloh gathered it all and left out the back door, careful to prop it open. As she tossed it all in the dumpster, arms came around her. Heavy chains suffocated her. Fear pulsed through her veins like a snakebite, filling them with venom. She was paralyzed as memories tumbled through her head.

Not again!

Help me! Somebody, anybody.

Save me!

“I got you, bitch. You know how long I’ve stalked you to find a moment when that God-damn biker wasn’t with you?”

That voice ... it wasn’t his. Her demon hadn’t returned to drag her back into Hell. It released her frozen limbs, and she struggled to get free. She refused to go back into the darkness. Refused to be a victim once again. She had barely survived the first time. She hadn’t been with Jade all that long, but in their small time together, he gave her back her strength. Her stubbornness against being a wounded casualty.

“Stop squirming, bitch! You made my girlfriend run from me, so this is going to be fucking payback.”

The man from the alley!

His girlfriend left him? That made her happy.

With the clarity of who this assailant was, she pushed away the terror and paralysis. Once those shackles had fallen, her self-defense kicked into gear. The asshole had her arms pinned to her body, so she stomped on his foot. Once, twice, and the third time with all her body weight.

“Shit! Stop that!”

Right. Like she was just going to roll over? She stomped the other foot.

“Cut it out!” he roared.

That had achieved what she hoped it would. He bent forward as he tried to step back, so she snapped her head backward so hard she heard a sharp crack. The sound of his nose breaking.

“Fuck!”

The arms holding her let go, and she immediately twirled and brought her fist back, aiming low. Directly into his crotch. With a strangled moan, he fell to his knees. Blood poured down his face as his face swelled, but she had no sympathy. Shiloh brought her foot up and kicked him in his chest so hard that he fell sideways, gasping for breath.

“Does that hurt?” she asked him coldly. “That’s why your girl left you. She was tired of the pain you inflicted on her. Men like you don’t deserve to live.”

She pulled her cell phone from her back pocket and called Jade. He answered on the second ring.

“Shiloh?”

“There’s a man who tried to hurt me,” she said in a flat, emotionless voice. “I think I want to kill him.”