Page 5 of Retribution
CHAPTER THREE
Cobra
Cobra tilted hishead back as the whiskey slid down his throat. It wasn’t fucking rocket science to tell when a woman didn’t like something—and the pretty, curvy hitchhiker who’d almost hopped on the back of his bike wore a grimace that could crack glass. Cobra had a narrow view of the hallway from his table, and he’d been debating about getting out of his seat ever since he’d seen the fucking frat boy head toward the women’s restroom.
But Cobra hadn’t. He didn’t want to be the one to break up a good time if they were just meeting up for a little kinky public fun. But judging by the hitchhiker’s expression at the moment, it didn’t look like she wanted the fucker plastered across her body. Standing up, Cobra’s blood burned through his veins as he stalked across the bar.
Yeah, there was no damn way he was letting that fucker grope her. Not even for a motherfucking second. It wasn’t like Cobra had a hero complex, but he knew a bad time when it popped in front of his eyes, and what was playing out less than a foot in front of him wasn’t right in any sense of the word.
Without saying a thing, Cobra snuck up on the fucker. When the girl locked eyes with him, expression wide and vulnerable with surprise, he put a finger to his lips and drew a finger across his throat, pointing to the asshole pinning her to the wall. She gave a barely imperceptible nod and flinched at something the motherfucker was doing along her neck.
“I got you,” he mouthed, hoping she could read lips in the muddy darkness.
A low growl barely leaked out from between Cobra’s lips. One minute his hands were fisted at his sides, the next, his fingers were tangled in the back of the asshole’s hair, arching his neck back as the sonofabitch cried out in surprise and pain. Cobra’s other hand grabbed the jerk’s wrist, yanking his arm backward until the biker felt the bone barely shifting from the joint.
Motherfucker was howling like a puppy—all but begging Cobra to leave him alone like a bully on the playground, not a grown-ass man getting his rocks off on an unwilling woman. He whimpered and Cobra tugged up a little harder, face-planting the asshole into the wall. He yelled in agony and pinwheeled his free arm. Meanwhile, Cobra saw the hitchhiker skitter out from under her attacker.
A thin smile tugged at Cobra’s lips as he watched her waste no time in dashing into the bar area. A groan snapped his attention back to the jerk in his grasp.
“If you touch another girl who doesn’t want it, I’ll find you, fucker. Got me?” Cobra breathed against the guy’s cheek, using his leverage to force him down on his knees as the guy made small, pained noises. “Answer me.”
“Sure, yeah, I won’t do it again,” he panted, his upper body weaving where Cobra still kept him upright. “I’m wasted. I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“Bullshit!” A fist to the pathetic loser’s jaw brought out another yelp.
“Okay. Please, it hurts.”
Cobra grunted without much sympathy and tossed the douchebag aside like a piece of trash. Thankfully, it looked like he’d kept everything quiet enough so that the other people in the joint wouldn’t take his confrontation as an invite to put the smackdown on anything that moved in the bar. An all-out brawl fest wasn’t on his schedule for that day. Cobra planted his feet wide apart and watched the sniveling pussy as he crawled toward the corner wiping the blood from his nose and mouth with the hem of his shirt.
Now thatthatwas done and over with, Cobra wouldn’t feel right with himself until he checked on the hitchhiker. If she was still even there. Cobra turned around and walked out from the small hallway, and his eyes flicked to the exit farthest away from the bathrooms where he watched her purple backpack duck out of sight before the door closed without any noise.
Cobra scrubbed a fist over his face. He should’ve been more forceful when he’d noticed the assholes were playing like they knew her, but he didn’t want her to feel pressured from him, especially since she’d seemed afraid of him even though she kept checking him out. She’d thought she was being clever by sneaking peeks at him, but he saw every single glance and the way she reacted to it. It was pretty damn sweet.
Snapping back to the present, Cobra got his ass in gear and high-tailed it outside the bar before the cute hitchhiker found another ride. He threw his hand up as the sun shone in his eyes and dug in his pocket for his sunglasses. The parking lot only had a few cars and a couple of rice burners in it—pretty much like it was when he’d pulled in. He hadn’t planned on stopping at Duffy’s for a shot, but when he saw the assholes’ Daytona, a bad feeling had hit him in the gut, so he decided to check things out. Cobra didn’t have many regrets, but letting the woman go off with those sonsofbitches had been damn high on his short list. At least he’d been given the chance to correct it.
“Where the fuck are you?” he muttered under his breath as he walked around.
On the far side of the building, he spotted her leaning against the wall with her head in one of her hands. Cobra hesitated, then stood in place and watched her. He had to play this one right or else he’d spook the hell out of her, and that’s the last thing he wanted. She already had hesitations about him, and he didn’t want her to think he was coming over to finish what the dumb fuck had started inside the bar.
Without trying to conceal his footsteps, the gravel crunched under his boots as he walked toward her. Dakota’s head jerked up from where she stared at the pavement, then she glared at him as if she’d already expected trouble and was ready to meet it. Cobra watched her fingertips linger along the pocket where he figured she was carrying a weapon.Smart girl.He held out both his palms in the air, indicating that he had nothing to hide, and kept his distance.
“You doing okay?” he asked, low and quiet so he didn’t frighten her.
“Why do you care? Did you come back here to finish what that asshole started?” She jerked her head in the direction of the bar. “Did you decide you want a piece of me while the getting is good?”
Cobra flinched and took a quick step backward, shaking his head. For a split second it angered him that she would think that of him, but then she didn’t know him. Disgust made his lips curl from the mere thought of her accusation.
“Forcing a chick doesn’t get me off.”
“Doesn’t stop everyone from trying it.” She coughed and wiped a hand across her forehead, her hand still resting on her pocket.
“Not me—that’s not my scene. You got a knife in there?” Cobra pointed at her hand.
“Yeah, so don’t try any shit with me.” Her chin lifted in defiance.
He almost broke out laughing, but he didn’t think she’d see the humor in it, so he just nodded and crossed his arms across his chest.
“It’s fuckin’ hot out here, and you don’t look so good.” A thin layer of perspiration misted over her pallid skin, and she looked like she was going to faint.
