Chapter 5 Ridge

• Ridge
• Goddammit. This isn’t how I wanted to get a half-naked girl in my arms.
• Normal guys, they go to parties. Go to bars. They talk up the first hot woman who shakes her ass in their direction, then fuck her senseless against a bathroom wall covered in graffiti that probably includes her phone number.
• Not me. No, my dumb ass has to find an unconscious woman in the wilderness and bring her home, only for her to strip to her panties and race madly through the village in an attempt to escape.
• I mean, I know I’m not People’s Sexiest Man Alive, but damn.
• The girl’s head slams back toward my face, and I have to crane my neck sideways to keep from getting a busted nose.
• “Hey! I’m not going to hurt you!” I snarl as she tries again, whipping my head back the other way.
• “Then put me down and let me go!” she gasps, struggling against my hold. She has a light, bell-like voice, though the bite to her statement takes some of the melody away. One bare foot catches me in the shin, and I grunt at the burst of pain. But so does she—hitting bones with bare limbs is like kicking concrete.
• On the third attempted headbutt, I lack any other option. Locking one arm around her waist, I wrap her long hair around my other hand and tug her head back. Not enough to hurt her, but enough to pin her firmly in place against my body. In any other situation, I’d be following this move up with my lips on her earlobe, my tongue sliding down her neck. In this situation, that would be highly inappropriate.
• But fuck if a part of me doesn’t have a split second desire to do it.
• “Calm down,” I say softly in her ear as her torso pumps with hysterical breaths beneath my other arm. “You’re hurt. You’re going to make it worse.”
• Bad choice. That’s when the screaming starts.
• Jesus fucking Christ.
• I thought I saved a sexy, blonde-haired princess last night, but this creature is a fucking banshee with the balls of a tiger. I knew the girl had been abused when I stripped her down and checked her injuries, but with her unconscious, I couldn’t exactly ask after her mental state. It’s clear now that I should have tied her to the bedposts for he r own safety—and mine.
• “Jesus, woman, I’m not going to hurt you!” I say, dragging her back the way we came. Dust is still settling on the road from our run through the village, but it’s not enough cover to hide the spectacle she’s making. Grady’s over in his front yard, eyebrows chasing his receding hairline as he watches us with wide eyes. Cordelia Raney is sitting with her sister on the front porch, both of them staring at me like I’m killing the woman and dancing in her blood—though the two of them judge every fucking thing in sight, so I can’t even care. Even more of my packmates are emerging from their houses to check out what’s causing all the commotion.
• Yeah. Not how I expected this day to go.
• “Let me go!” The banshee punctuates the last word with a full body wave, clearly intending to slither out of my arms like a snake. But she has no idea I’m stronger than any man she’s ever known, and she just jerks uselessly against my grasp. Unfortunately, that luscious ass I salivated over the night before slams right into my dick.
• I pause and grit my teeth against the pain and nausea rolling through my insides from the blow. Damn it all to hell. We aren’t even past the first row of houses, and she’s still screaming.Fuck. So much for keeping this quiet from the pack until I figure out what to do with her.
• Since our current arrangement isn’t going to work out—for her or my dick—I drop her to the ground. She’s so startled, she immediately stops screaming. Gripping her waist, I whirl her around, catching sight of wide, tearful blue eyes that make a pit yawn open inside me. Then I lean over and jam my shoulder into her abdomen, hauling her up onto my shoulder.
• Sometimes, you just gotta Neanderthal shit up.
• I can move quicker now, ignoring the ever-growing curious stares from my pack as I head straight for my cabin. They aren’t used to me having shit to do with women to begin with, and now they probably think I’m some kind of closet serial killer.The girl’s shock at being slung over my shoulder gives me a blessed moment of silence and stillness before she starts bucking like a fucking bronco and screaming like I’m ripping her skin off one strip at a time.
• Shit. Putting her next to my head probably wasn’t a great idea.
• I lock my arm firmly around her thighs so that all she can move are her arms. It works—barely. I’ll have some bruises and scratches on my back later, but if that’s all I walk away from this alley cat with, I’ll count myself fucking lucky.
• Yanking open the screen door, I cross the threshold into my cabin and then slam the front door behind me. I stop myself short of turning the lock.
• Yeah, I don’t want this mess of a woman launching headlong into the woods where another pack—or hell, one of those fucking witches—might not show her mercy. But I don’t want her to think she’s a prisoner either. I feel like I’m walking a tightrope, bringing a wild animal into my house and having to figure out the best way to navigate the situation.
• Good thing I have experience with wild animals.
• Sunlight spills through the large front window onto the smooth hardwood in my living room. I bend down, letting the woman flop out of my arms and onto the well-worn brown corduroy couch that’s probably older than she is.
• She’s no longer screaming, not since we passed through the door into the house, but she’s breathing like she just finished the Boston Marathon. Her fair skin looks even paler than it did in the dark of my bedroom last night, and with every breath she sucks in, she appears to have a harder time breathing.
• Fuck. It hits me in a rush as I gaze at her. She’s having a panic attack. I’m such an asshole.
• I kneel on the ground before her and reach for her hands, being as gentle as possible. The girl’s a deer, wide-eyed and terrified, and I’m the big bad wolf. I just have to convince her I’m not going to eat her.
• She jolts away from me, but I manage to clasp her small hands. Her skin is soft and smooth.
• “Hey. Hey, you’re safe,” I say, pitching my voice in the most soothing tone I can muster. Considering I have a deep baritone that sounds like I’m talking through gravel, it’s a far reach for “soothing.” I’ve got the kind of voice that leads a pack of feral wolves, not a namby-pamby motherly tone.
• She sucks in breath after breath, but her fingers cling to mine. That’s progress, right?
• “I’m Ridge,” I say when she doesn’t reply. “You’re in my cabin in the mountains. I found you last night. You were hurt, and I brought you home to take care of you. I’m not going to hurt you.”
• “H-how d-do I kn-know?” Every word comes out breathy, and on the heels of her statement, a crystalline tear crests over her lower eyelid and spills down her cheek.
• My heart twinges in my chest. She’s fucking terrified, so full of abject fear that she’s desperate to escape. I can see in her gorgeous blue eyes that she fully expects I’m going to hurt her.
• Just like the monster who marred her beautiful body.
• “I can’t prove it,” I tell her truthfully, rubbing my thumbs over her fingers in what I hope is a calming gesture. “But I promise, I won’t hurt you. I only want to help you.”
• We stare at one another for several moments. I keep rubbing the bend of her fingers and maintain a polite distance from her body so that I don’t overstep and make her even more frightened than she already is. She’s fucking beautiful, even with fear in her eyes and the pain etched on her face.
• I want to destroy the person who turned her into this pitiful creature.
• Finally, her shoulders slump forward, the tension in her body lessening by a fraction. She takes a deep, shaky breath and lets it out slowly.
• I did it—I got through the panic.
• “I’m sorry you woke up in a strange place. That was probably scary as fuck,” I say, trying to get on her level, to show with my apology that I get it. “Especially after whatever happened to you last night. How’d you end up in Devil’s Ditch? In the ravine?”
• She blinks at me as if she’s trying to relearn English. As if my words don’t quite make sense, and she has to take an extra few seconds to sort through them as her brain comes back from whatever place it went to during her panic attack.
• I don’t move. Don’t even blink. I just keep holding her hands, giving her the time and space she needs to answer.
• Finally, her tongue darts out to lick her lips. She swallows once, then opens her mouth to speak.
• But before she can say a word, several loud voices rise up outside the cabin. The girl’s face changes instantly, and she recoils into the couch cushions, her gaze darting toward the front door.
• I sigh, the sound a mixture of irritation and disgust. I recognize the voice clamoring loudest over the dull uproar.
• The front door bangs open, and my brother, Lawson, barrels into the house as big as a mountain and wearing his fury like a cloak. A handful of his cronies rush in behind him, until my living room is nothing but pissed-off shifter energy.
• “What the fuck, Ridge?” Lawson snarls, pointing at the girl.Too late, I realize I should have locked that fucking door.