But it doesn’t come.
Before I can process what’s happening, a wall of muscled, olive skin topped with light brown hair has blitzed into Jonah, and topples him to the ground.
Then all hell breaks loose.
A firestorm of animalistic masculinity and white sand tumults through the dunes as I stare in stunned silence. I crawl backward, out of the line of fire, a short but safe distance from the flying fists and brutal blows.
Crack!
The sound of bone giving way to a fist sends a tsunami of nausea rolling through my stomach, and I finally get my voice to work.
“Stop!” But my scream is more of a strangled sob, thanks to Jonah’s handiwork, and it has little to no effect.
Jonah and the massive form, which I belatedly recognize as Noah Reed, tumble and tangle in a mess of limbs and blows, grunts and growls, and an impressive range of choice expletives.
“Stop it!” I screech with the pitiful remnants of my voice. “Now! Or I’ll call the fucking cops!” I should call them anyway, a small voice whispers internally.
With one last mighty shove, Noah launches Jonah onto his back into a small dune, leaving no question as to who won the fight. He takes several steps back from the site of the skirmish, lifting his palms in a belated show of pacifism, but the blood coloring his knuckles scarlet betray the events of the last minute or so.
It all happened so fast. One minute I didn’t know what Jonah might do in retaliation to my knee to his balls, and the next...
The next, Noah was just here.
Noah’s hazel eyes are still dark with thoughts of violence, which, fortunately, a glance in Jonah’s direction—at the pitiful ball of drunkenness and injury—makes it clear are not directed at me.
Unlike Jonah’s was. I shiver at the reminder.
Noah's chest heaves as he catches his breath, his broad shoulders shaking, muscles and sinew flexed from exertion, his abs visible through a large rip down his white V-neck t-shirt.
I cringe inwardly. This is not a time to start drooling over Noah Reed.
“You need to get on home,” Noah says out of nowhere. As if what he just saw—what he just did—requires no discussion or explanation.
I bristle in place, irritated, but it takes me a second before I can form a coherent response.
Jonah cradles his smarting cheek, groaning in a way that makes it clear his intoxication and recent beating have left him incapacitated for the moment. But whatever sympathy I might have had for him was vanquished the moment he put his hands on me. Frankly, at this point, he’s lucky I don’t kick him while he’s down just for good measure.
But the last thing I need right now is yet another guy giving me fucking commands. Even one who looks like Noah Reed—even if he just saved me from God only knows what.
“I don’t have to do anything,” I insist, sounding more petulant than I intend. But I’ve just been put through the ringer and I need to process.
I turn quickly on my heel, my head shaking on its own in confusion, trying to reconcile everything that just went down.
I’m desperate to escape the last several minutes of events, and I rush back toward the ocean, to what has always been my happy-place, even if “happy” is so far out of reach right now I couldn’t locate it with fucking Google Maps.
But I need to find some peace, and if there’s anywhere it exists, it’s the shore—where ocean meets sky, where I am reminded of the universe, and my miniscule place in it.
Confused and stressed far beyond comprehension, I try to process what’s just occurred. I try to leave both Jonah Berry and Noah Reed—and all of tonight’s violence—behind me in those damned dunes. Even if I know that only one of the two men had directed it toward me, and, the other, in my defense.
It’s hard to process, because it makes no sense that the guy who tried to claim me as his girl is the one who hurt me, and the virtual stranger I barely even know anymore is the one who stopped him.
I shudder, my teeth chattering for entirely different reasons than this morning’s cold sea. My pulse races frantically, and I wonder if I’m in some k
ind of shock.
I don’t seem to know what to do with myself.
“Liza.”