The two women are on the couch. Scarlett is held up with cushions, so her back isn’t being crushed, and she’s dead asleep.
Eloise sits beside her, facing her, brushing her fingers lightly through Scarlett’s blond hair. She’s crooning softly to her.
“You’re so pretty,” she says. “Everything’s going to be okay. Our guys handled it. You just sleep now.”
Yeah, baby. We fucking handled it.
I step closer, and my firefly turns her head toward me and smiles softly.
“Hi,” she whispers. “Luke, come take over.”
She gingerly stands, and Luke sits where she was and leans in to kiss Scarlett’s head.
“I can come clean her wounds tomorrow,” Eloise offers, but Luke shakes his head.
“I’ve got her,” he says, but looks at my girl. “Thank you, Lulu. I owe you one.”
“Nah. She’s my friend. She’d do the same for me.”
I pull her into my side and wrap my arm around her shoulders, bury my nose in her hair.
“Come on, firefly. It’s time for you to go home.”
“Yeah, let’s go home. I’m hungry.”
I look back to say goodbye, but Luke’s focus has already shifted, and he’s crooning to a sleeping Scarlett.
When Eloise and I walk into the penthouse, she kicks out of her shoes, then immediately walks into my arms, presses her head to my chest, and holds on tight.
“Holy shit,” she says. Her voice is quivering.
“You held it together for her,” I murmur, running my hands up and down her back. “You can let go, baby.”
She sniffs against me. “That fucking sucked,” she says, holding on tight. “Tell me you hurt him.”
I kiss her cheek and her forehead. “We hurt him.”
“Good.”
I won’t lie to her, but I also won’t always give her all of the information. She doesn’t need to know that we basically tore that son of a bitch apart. She’s seen enough of it in her young life.
“I want to take self-defense classes,” she informs me. “Do you offer them here?”
“This conversation took a turn I wasn’t expecting.” I tip her chin up so I can see her face. “I’m your self-defense,firefly.”
“I know, but I think it would help my self-confidence. When the mayor touched me …” I growl low in my throat, but she keeps talking. “I froze. I didn’t like that.”
“I’ll make arrangements for you,” I tell her and brush my knuckles down her soft cheek. “Did he mark you?”
“No, he was justsuchan asshole. What is it with men not taking no for an answer?”
“I’ve never had this issue in my club in the decade I’ve owned it,” I confess to her. “And it’s pissing me off.”
I also suspect that it’s Loveland’s fault.
I’ll deal with her tomorrow.
“You said you were hungry?” I ask her.
