Page 61 of Obsession
“He didn’t hurt me.”
Bricks’ face doesn’t change. “That’s not the line Saint drew.”
Cade scoffs, trying to recover the room now that someone else has entered it. “I touched leather. Everyone needs to calm the fuck down.”
Bricks lifts the phone to his ear without looking away from him. “Yeah, boss. Garage hallway. Cade got stupid.” He listens, eyes steady, then says, “No blood. Oisín says it doesn’t have to be a thing.” Whatever Saint says on the other end makes Bricks’ mouth pull tight. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
By the time Saint arrives, the club is filing back from the run.
Engines roll into the lot in waves, then boots hit the floor, men returning with dust on their jeans and road noise still in their shoulders. I stand near the edge of the main room with Tally beside me, her hand hovering near my elbow without touching. Cade is in the center, trying to look furious instead of nervous. Bricks stands behind him, arms crossed.
Then Saint walks in and his eyes find me first, moving over my face, my throat, my hands, and the front of my cut. I see the exact moment he catches the wrinkled leather near my chest.
“Saint,” I say, because I can feel him about to do something stupid.
His gaze stays on Cade. “Quiet.”
The word hits the room like an order meant for everyone, but it lands on me as if he put his hand over my mouth. Anger cuts through the fear so sharply I almost speak anyway.
Bricks fills the silence. “He cornered him in the garage hallway and put hands on the cut.”
Cade snaps, “I grabbed leather. That’s it.”
Saint narrows his eyes. “You grabbed what’s mine.”
Cade’s face hardens because men like him can’t survive that sentence quietly. “Your Rogue husband was wandering where he shouldn’t be. Somebody had to—”
Saint hits him before the sentence finishes.
The punch lands with a crack that silences the clubhouse. Cade stumbles sideways into a table, knocking a glass to the floor, but Saint catches him by the front of his shirt before he can fall. The second blow splits his lip. The third drives him down to one knee. Men move back, chairs scraping across the floor, no one stepping in because everyone understands this isn’t a fight. It’s a message, and Saint is delivering it in a language every man in the room understands fluently.
I stand frozen with my hands at my sides, the ring cold against my finger.
Saint hauls Cade upright and forces him toward the center of the room. “Look at him.”
Cade spits blood onto the floor, his chest heaving, though he refuses to lift his eyes.
Saint’s hand closes around the back of Cade’s neck, and he shoves his face in my direction. “Look at him.”
Cade’s gaze drags up, unfocused and furious.
“That man is my husband,” Saint states, voice low enough that every person has to quiet fully to hear him. “He wears my ring,my cut, and my name. If I tell you not to touch him, that means you don’t touch his skin, his clothes, his chair, or his fucking shadow unless he invites you to.”
Cade tries to speak. Saint drives a knee into his stomach, and the words collapse into a wet cough.
I step forward. “Saint.”
Cade is stubborn enough to keep trying to rise, stupid enough to keep giving Saint reasons to put him back down. Blood marks the floor. Someone mutters a curse and then shuts up.
When Saint finally stops, Cade is on the floor with one hand pressed to his ribs, breathing through blood and humiliation. The club has understood the message. It understood it three punches ago. Saint understood that too and kept going anyway.
Then he turns toward me. My stomach drops before he reaches me, because I know his face. I know that look now, the one that says he hasn’t finished turning fear into ownership.
He comes up behind me in front of everyone and wraps one firm hand around my throat, his palm hot against the place Cade had been too close to touching. His other hand drops low, palming me through my pants, claiming my body in a way that makes the whole room understand exactly what he means even if no one dares look directly at it.
I go rigid, shock burning through me so fast it steals the breath from my lungs. Heat follows because my body is a traitor, and then shame comes immediately after, thick enough to choke on.
Saint’s mouth is near my ear, but his voice is for the room. “He’s mine. My husband. Anyone wants to fucking touch him, you go through me.”
