Page 60 of I Almost Do

I freeze. Absolutely motionless with shock.

The entire group of his friends crowds around me, some laughing at their friend, some leering at me. Beth is working crowd control and puts her body between mine and the guys.

But not before the drunk guy who dropped his drink on me laughs, says, “Don't look like a princess now,” and grabs my breast with one hand and my ass with the other, yanking me against his body.

Beth pulls him off me, doing something that has him squealing, “Bitch,” and inserts her body between the two of us, backing me against the wall. Dean and Jack break up the group of guys.

And James loses his ever-loving mind.

It's not a fair fight. Frat boy is trashed, and James hasn't had a single drink. But even if the other guy were stone-cold sober, I don't think he would have stood a chance against my husband.

I don't know how or when he learned, but James knows how to fight. And he knows how to fight dirty. After a pathetic attempt to retaliate, the asshole is crying. No longer throwing his own punches, he's just holding his arms over his face and leaning against the wall.

"I'm sorry, man. I'm drunk. It's not my fault. I’m drunk.”

The words are gasoline poured on an already-roaring fire, and James goes back at him, punch after punch.

I clutch the back of Beth’s shirt and try to get out from behind her.

That prick isn’t fighting back anymore, but James isn’t stopping. And for a terrifying moment, I think he has no intention of stopping until the guy’s unconscious… or maybe dead.

Jack and Dean are trying to pull him away. They’re big guys. Between them, they should be able to get James off him. But they’re having no effect at all.

Finally, Jack says something that must sink in. James lifts his head, and his eyes shoot to mine. He stands there, breathing hard, one hand still wrapped in the guy’s shirt and the other clenched in a tight fist. His blue eyes are on fire.

I can't hear what Dean is saying to him. I can barely see what's happening because Beth physically keeps me behind her with my back to the wall. But whatever Dean says gets through to him, because James flinches and drops the frat boy with a shove as I manage to push my way out from behind my bodyguard.

James reaches me in three seconds flat. He runs his eyes over me, from my head down to my wet blouse. Then he takes off his henley and gently pulls it over my head.

When I’m covered in his shirt, he pulls me against him. “I'm going to kill him for this.”

I shiver and hold on to him. “Just get me out of here.”

Jack, with a firm grip on the belligerent drunk, shouts over, "Clarissa, are you pressing charges against this asshole?"

James and I both speak at once.

"No," I say.

"Yes," James says.

“Hey, wait. Don’t call the cops. Just forget it, right? I'll forget it. You forget it," the guy whines, smearing blood across his chin with his forearm.

Nobody is forgetting this anytime soon. There's no way video of James Mellinger, beating the shit out of a drunk guy and accusing him of sexually assaulting his wife, isn't popping up all over the internet. I give it three hours before it's viral. Tops.

22

I See Red

James

I haven't lost control like that in years. Before Clarissa, I'd have said the part of me that could kill a man and not lose a minute's sleep over it was dead. I'd have been wrong. That rage is still in me, crouching and waiting.

That bar had me on edge from the moment I walked inside. It smelled way too familiar.

That sticky floorfelttoo familiar. The way my shoes clung with every step.

My sneakers did the same thing when I walked out of our kitchen that night. The drying blood on my shoes tried to anchor me to the floor with every step I took. When the monster killed my mother, I waited too long to fight. I spent most of my teens proving I'd never hesitate again.

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