I manage to turn my head to see the douche being restrained by his friends, the gash on his head pumping out a steady flow of rouge liquid.
My favorite color suits him.
“She’s a crazy fucking bitch!” he yells. We’ve gained an unwelcome crowd including the staff from the bar. I notice one on the phone.
She’s calling the police. Get out of there.
I manage to stand despite some woman telling me not to get up because I’m injured. I grab my towel and hurry away from the crowd with Georgina running to keep up and a chorus of people calling me to come back.
“Oh my God Cereus, are you okay? I can’t believe how that escalated!”
“You shouldn’t have brought them over, you know I hate people,” I growl, the throb on the side of my face annoying the hell out of me.
“I know, I know, I’m so stupid. I’m sorry. Damn you’re going to have a black eye. Ryan’s going to flip,” she worries, anxiety clogging her throat. “He’s going to kill me for this isn’t he?”
I spin and hold my hand to her chest to stop her barrelling into me. She startles and wipes the tears from her eyes. “Ryan can’t know what happened here,” I demand. Her brows crash together while her eyes assess my injury.
“You look like shit Cereus, he will see the huge bruise and swell coming up under your eye.”
This is a nightmare.
“We just tell him I swam too close to the surfers and a board clipped me.”
Her mouth drops open and then closes and a smile replaces the tears. “Oh shit, that’s such a great excuse!” She beams. Before she can get around me, I grab her under the chin so she can see into my eyes when I speak next.
“You ever put me in a situation like that again and it won’t be Ryan killing you.”
Her gulp tells me I’ve made myself clear.
ONE MONTH AGO
The air around me always appeared to buzz with energy whenever it was getting close to the times I would meet up with Blake. I can’t help the small amount of joy I feel when we meet up, and I hold the answers to the only thing I know is constantly on his mind. How is Cereus?
I was under no illusion that if he wanted to, he could track us down at one of our locations. No matter how careful I was he was still a fucking genius when it came to computers and hacking networks like bank accounts, CCTV cameras and anything else he would need to pin us down. But ignorance was bliss in this circumstance, he was still the law and we were still criminals. Not that that would stop him from protecting his daughter; that was the entire reason she was with me because he allowed it. It made my insides squeeze at the thought he has some power over me but he knew no matter what he did, Cereus’ heart was entwined with my own. She loved me and wanted to be with me. If he knew she’d taken in a stray he would no doubt be proud and think that made her human but it doesn’t, she used Georgina as a weapon against me to spite me for not giving her what she craved from my body. I would give her anything, including that, but I enjoyed the way she needed it so bad from me, and withholding gave me back some of the power she takes daily from me… from me loving her.
Looking at my watch it dawns on me that she’s not back from her swim yet. She is only away from me for short bursts of time, it’s as if being apart from me for too long is physically painful. She crashes and needs me to pick her up, and vice versa. That’s why going away was bittersweet. I missed her, unlike anything I ever knew existed. My chest constricts at the thought of the hours I’ll be away from her tonight. At least this thing with Georgie would mean she wouldn’t be alone tonight. And I’d be there before she woke, holding her like I always did when I returned.
The side door opens and they both walk in. Georgie startles when she sees me waiting and begins fidgeting with her bikini string. She’s gone pale which considering she douses herself in enough fake tan to create her own army of Oompa-Loompas is saying something.
“What did you do?” I growl at her, making her eyes grow impossibly wide. I should staple her eyelids to her eyebrows.
“What? Nothing … What?” she stumbles out. Was she dropped on her head as a child or what? The ground eats up the distance between us. I grab her by the throat and toss her out of the way, she was standing in front of Cereus like the queens guard… did she think I wouldn’t know something was wrong?
What a stunning creature my Cereus was. She was still in her one-piece which was odd, usually she would wear sweats and a tee to and from the water but she wasn’t even carrying her clothes, she had a towel in her hand but nothing else. Her head was down, her hair hanging in her face. Reaching out I tilt her head back by lifting her chin with my finger and swiping her hair away with my other hand. The red haze comes over me like a storm cloud. Her green eyes shine bright. Marring her perfect soft skin is a dirty bruise. Swelling is causing her eye to close.