hand.
“Do bad guys help strange women down stairs?” She took my hand and eased her obviously pained body down the six-inch rise of the step.
Shut the fuck up. No more talking. “Well, I can’t be bad all the time. That would just be exhausting. You caught me on my annual day of redemption.” Like someone else had taken control of my brain, I felt my hand slide over her hip. My arm angled behind her back.
“Pretty sure bad guys don’t care about redemption. But thank you…again.” She got a death grip on my hand and hobbled her way down the stairs.
She was slower than my arthritic grandmother during the winter. “You’re welcome. Can I ask what happened.”
“You can.” She was busy watching her feet, her body swayed slightly from side to side.
I’d learned my lesson the last time. Not a Chatty Cathie, this one. Even more curious. “What happened?”
“A jackhole and a table.”
The idea that some asshole had left her in this condition had my shoulders tensing. “A man hurt you?” The part of me that was still human laughed uproariously. You hurt women all the time, dipshit. What’s with the righteous anger? I told that part of myself to take a fucking hike. It wasn’t the same. My girls didn’t end up in the hospital, scared out of their minds.
She shrugged. “Not precisely.” She gave me some ridiculous story about her best friend. Somehow it ended with her patting my arm. ‘I’ll be okay. You don’t want to waste your redemption day on me. You won’t get enough points.”
“There’s no hope for me anyway,” I mumbled it against her hair as we turned to the second last landing.
She asked for my phone. “Need to call someone?” About fucking time, pet.
She nodded, her hair sliding over my chin. “I need to call a friend to come pick me up.”
“A boyfriend?” I eased her against the wall, glad her eyes were mostly closed. I didn’t want to know anything else about her. Just how to get her off my hands. I could find another woman, one who already knew my tastes to ease the ache that had sprung up.
One was just as good as another in my mind. Interchangeable as long as they had working mouths and cunts.
“He’s a guy, but I can’t lose him, so we’re just family.”
She’s already taken and she flirts like this? And who the fuck lets his woman, even if she was a sister type, run around while she clearly needed medical help? My brow furrowed as my gaze heated. “He shouldn’t have left your side. If you were mine, you wouldn’t be out of my sight.”
She looked up at me. Like a little mouse cornered by a cat, she stilled as she watched me. “Boys are a lot of work.”
I felt the corner of my mouth tick up as a laugh escaped. “Pretty sure you mean women are work.” This one had some of the weirdest thoughts that just fell from her lips.
She chuckled. Gave me some kind of crap about the differences between men and women. “Ready for that number yet, Thor?”
That pansy in the cape with the long hair? I’d had better for breakfast. “Definitely not a god, sweets. Real or imagined.” I grabbed my phone. “Yeah, give me the number.”
I stabbed it into my phone. Just as I hit the connect button, she listed off to the side. Straight for the fucking steps once again. The woman had a death wish. “Shit.” I caught her before she face planted the rest of the stairs. “You really should be in a bed.” I wedged her body between me and the wall.
“Only if it’s yours or mine,” she whispered.
I startled at the idea of her in my bed.
“Don’t let him find me.”
She went limp.
Fuck.
Chapter 4 – Ryker
I wedged the phone between my chin and my shoulder, waited for it to be picked up on the other end. “Come on.” I eased my body away from the woman and helped slide her down the wall so she was flat on the floor. I watched her chest to make sure it was still moving.
“Who is this?” a gruff voice demanded over the line.
“I’ve got a brunette woman in my arms. She’s passed out in the stairwell of General Mercy Hospital.”
“If you’ve hurt her, I’ll fucking tear your life apart,” he said.
I snarled. “Would I be calling you if I planned to hurt her? Who are you?” I didn’t need this shit on top of the rest