Toby’s heart surged into his mouth. “Mate, it isn’t like tha?—”
“What’s it like?” Noah tossed the brass lion back and forth, back and forth. “Because I followed her here tonight, and she looked fucking stressed. Miserable. And you haven’t been coming around, making good with her sisters and acting like this isn’t some dirty fucking secret. So go on, tell me why she’s all marked up?”
Good sense stopped Toby from saying that Tabby was into rough sex. That lately, she’d been begging him to go harder and harder. “It’s consensual.”
“Right.” Noah let the lion roll out of his hand, and it thunked onto the marble tiling. “Sorry about that.”
Toby gritted his teeth. “I get that you’re worried about her, but I’d never hurt her like that.”
“And yet, the bruises…”
Noah stepped around the lion and walked toward him. The urge to stumble backward and concede ground was strong, but there was also anger flicking in Toby like a pilot light. His dad had talked to him like this when he was a kid; in irritating circular conversations designed only to embarrass him before the sword fell, and he’d either hit him or send him to his room to fast and think about Jesus. It had been years since he’d been stuck in one of these cycles, and his ego was howling in indignation.
He thought of Tabby: her laugh, her smile, the feel of her in his arms.
Stop, he told himself.De-escalate.
Lifting his chin, he held Noah’s murderous gaze. “It’s games. We’re both into it. And if you don’t believe me, ask Tabby.”
Noah’s eyes narrowed. They were red-rimmed and circled in black shadow. Was it the booze, or had Noah been?—
As though sensing his thoughts, the big man turned, striding back to where the brass lion lay. “I’m tired of looking at your goofy fucking face, so I’m gonna wrap this up,” he said over his shoulder. “We’ve got history, which is the only reason you’ll be able to walk tomorrow, but come near Tabby again, and I’ll break your fucking legs.”
Toby stared at Noah as he bent to pick up the lion. “You want me to stay away from Tabby?”
“I take back what I said about you being a quick study.” Noah returned the brass lion to the side table with a thunk. “Yes, that’s what I want. No calls. No texts. Nothing. As far as she knows, you fell off the face of the fucking earth the way you did when you were supposed to be her friend.”
Toby’s stomach turned over. “Tabby and I?—”
“Were friends, then you fucked off.” Noah advanced on him again. “Do you even know what’s been happening in her life? How she’s been doing?”
“I—”
“Of course you don’t. You’re too busy getting your sweaty little palms all over her, just like you always wanted.”
There was a wooshing sound in Toby’s ears, the sense of falling through the floor and into different dimensions. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that I know who you are, and I know what you’re like.”
Toby couldn’t help but step backward. “I don’t?—”
Noah moved in closer, his green-red eyes glowing like a nuclear reactor.
“I know. Who. You. Are,” he repeated. “I know you were a fuckless wonder who had a thing for Tabby. I know you used to follow her around with your tongue hanging out, praying she’d see you as anything other than a guy who bored the shit out of her.” He pressed a blunt fingertip to Toby’s chest. “I know you got fed up waiting and decided to change tact. I know you went and got yourself rich somehow, found a few girls willing to fuck you so you wouldn’t have virgin stink all over you when you started sniffing around Tabby again. And until I came here, I had no idea how you got her to give you the time of day, seeing as she fuckin’ hated you, but…”
Noah’s hand closed over his right bicep, gripping it and turning it to the side. “…you called her and said you wanted a tat and only her shit would do, right? Wouldn’t take no for an answer?”
Toby’s vision swam. “Noah…”
But the man seemed not to hear him as he inspected Tabby’s stag. “It’s good work, but I doubt you give a fuck. How much did you pay to get her to do it off the books? She probably thought you were trying to avoid Scott, but you just wanted her here, didn’t you? Bed nearby, nice and cosy. Show her what a successful little boy you’d become?”
“No,” Toby said, shaking his arm loose. “I would have been happy to come into the studio.Tabbywanted to do it here.”
Noah’s face split into the ugliest smile he’d ever seen. “Bullshit.”
“I’m not a fucking supervillain! You’re right about me liking her, and I did want to see her again, and that’s why I asked her to give me a tattoo?—”
“So, you did pay her to see you again?” Noah regripped Toby’s arm and shook it. “You got her into your house, listened to her talk, gave her your phony fucking shoulder to cry on and then you had it. The most popular girl in school sucking on your dick, just like you always wanted.”
