As always in these types of situations, the crowd surged to make a ring around the action. The crowd was three people deep, and Dakota would have to muscle in. Rylee didn’t know him, Dakota reasoned. Didn’t know he was on her side. He’d just be another man pushing into the space that she controlledwith mastery. The only reason for him to drop in on her then would be ego.
Rylee looked unhurt, or there would be zero hesitation from him.
“I have 911 on the line. They have a car coming,” called out another woman.
Dakota decided to hold there until something changed. He could be at Rylee’s side in a flash.
When Dakota felt a hand encircle his arm, he looked down to find Neesa looking worried. “Hey, Neesa, Rylee, and Erica look like they had to put some guy on the ground.”
“They must be okay, or you wouldn’t be standing here.”
“They have it handled. But I’ve got their backs.”
“Thank you,” Neesa said. “Any chance you can help me get over to them?”
It was a gift. Now, Dakota was the white knight escorting the friend, instead of being a Tasmanian devil hell-bent on shredding the man.
He reached for Neesa’s hands and pulled her around behind him, placing her hands on his hips. “Don’t let go.” Blading his shoulder and lifting his hands to gently move people to the side, he started forward. “Excuse me, we’re friends of theirs. Excuse me.”
And in that way, they made it through the crush to the inner circle when the cops pushed through the door and pressed everyone back. “Go on and enjoy your evening, folks. Let’s keep this doorway clear.”
“Did you see what happened?” Neesa asked Dakota.
Dakota recognized Rylee’s expression from his days on the battlefield: fierce, stoic, unyielding. “It was fast. Was Rylee in the military?”
“Navy,” Neesa said, “but worked green-side.”
“She hung out with Marines? That makes all the sense in the world.”
Since the cops blocked his view of the man, Dakota held his phone overhead, took a picture, and brought it down for Neesa to see. “She’s got him pinned. When you got to me, he was in an armbar. Now, she has him restrained. See this? By crossing his legs and pushing them toward his butt like that, there’s nothing he could do to get free.”
“What happened here?” a cop asked. That’s what Dakota wanted to know. What the hell happened in the blink of an eye that she was rebuffing the guy one second and she had him in a face plant the next?
And he was so close. So close.
Another couple of seconds, and he could have saved Rylee the effort, or maybe eliminated any threat by showing up and escorting the women away.
“I have video of it.” It was the lady who said she called 911. “You can see plainly. I started taping because that woman was saying ‘no’ on repeat and the guy wouldn’t let up.”
“Thank you for that,” Rylee said, standing and brushing off after the cop got the handcuffs on the assailant. She leaned in to watch the video with the officer. “Yes, see that? He grabbed my boob, and I’m pressing sexual assault charges.”
Violence rippled through Dakota’s body, and Neesa must have felt it because she petted a soothing hand down his arm and then held him a little tighter as the cop brought the groper to his feet.
“That woman is nuts,” the groper spat. “She’s crazy. I asked if I could buy her a drink, and she turned rabid on me. If I touched her, it was because the bar is crowded, and I got jostled into her.” As the man focused on Rylee, Neesa tightened both hands around Dakota’s arm.
Dakota had his focus on the man’s posture; the groper was still within kicking and head-butting range of Rylee, and Dakota was ready to snatch the groper’s soul straight out of his body with one wrong twitch.
“Look, lady,” the guy gasped, “you need to take your medicine on the daily. You’re obviously out of control.”
Rylee’s face was emotionless as she turned toward the cop jotting notes. “Let me give you my contact information, so I know when to go to court.”
Another woman standing there waved her hand. “I’m a witness. You should take my information, too. I’ll go to court. He approached her, she told him no, and he got verbally aggressive. I didn’t see his hands, but I did hear her say she didn’t want his attention.”
“Exactly,” the woman with the video said. “I saw the expression on his face and started videoing right from the start. The man wanted a fight, and it looks like he got more than he bargained for.” The woman turned to Rylee. “Good for you.”
Once the officers wrote down Rylee’s details, she said, “If you don’t need anything else from me, I’m leaving.”To Dakota, Rylee was taking care of business. She seemed completely unruffled. Coming out of Rose’s building the other day, Rylee looked much more perturbed, and he wondered, as attractive as she was, how often Rylee had to put up with crap like this.
With a nod from the police, Rylee stepped over by the door, where she pulled out her phone to text, Erica at her heels.
