Crash Into Me Read Online Free Page A

so fucking
     high you think you can fucking rape a girl?” A one-two combo straight to Max’s stomach.
     “Who the fuck do you think you are?” He gave up punching him—Max wasn’t putting up
     much of a fight—and started slamming him repeatedly against the wall. “Who. The. Fuck.
     Do. You. Think. You. Are?”
    Max gurgled completely unintelligible reply. A warning went off in his head, told
     him to stop, but the blinding rage ripping through him made it impossible for him
     to listen. When he’d walked out of his dressing room and seen Max forcing himself
     on that girl, all he’d been able to think about was Carrie. About what some asshole
     in their local Battle of the Bands challenge had done to her. And how she’d never
     recovered. How she’d always blamed him for not being there for her. How he’d always
     blamed himself.
    Pulling his fist back, he plunged it into Max’s face again. The guy was a total douche.
     This wasn’t the first time Ryder had thought he overstepped his bounds with a woman,
     but it was the first time it had been blatant enough that he could do something besides
     making a comment about it. The first time, that he’d ever seen, that Max had actually
     laid hands on an unwilling woman. The thought that this might have happened before
     and he just hadn’t seen it, had bile churning in his gut. He channeled it, continued
     whaling on Max. By the time he was done with him, the other singer would think three
     or four times before he ever put his hands on another unwilling woman.
    “Ryder.” The girl Max had been hassling called his name in a tremulous voice, but
     it barely registered. He was too intent on making sure Max wouldn’t hurt another woman
     the way he’d tried to hurt this one. “Ryder, stop.” Her voice was more insistent now,
     and familiar. Very familiar. “Come on, Ryder. You need to stop or you’ll kill him.
     Please. That’s enough.”
    He turned to her , dazed, , his fist still cocked in midair. For long seconds he wasn’t
     sure he was really seeing her, that she was really there.“Jamison?”
    She nodded. “I’m okay, Ryder. You stopped him. You got here before he did anything.”
    “Jamison,” he repeated again as he finally relinquished his hold on Max’s shirt. It
     had been the only thing keeping the other singer upright and left to his own devices,
     he slid slowly down the wall to land in a bloody heap on the floor.
    Ryder didn’t even spare him a glance. Instead, he wrapped an arm around his best friend’s
     little sister and pulled her into his chest. “Are you really okay?” He couldn’t believe
     she was here. Couldn’t believe that she was the woman Max had just been assaulting.
    The fury came back, burning hotter than ever. There was a part of him that wanted
     to keep beating on Max until the other man was unconscious. Until he’d ripped him
     apart with his bare hands. He’d touched Jamison. He’d scared Jamison. The bastard
     didn’t deserve to live.
    More than prepared to finish what he started, he turned back around with a growl.
     Would have started back in on Max all over again if Jamison, pale-faced but solid,
     hadn’t grabbed onto him and held him in place. Not with her strength, but with the
     look on her face. With the words that she spoke.
    He stiffened as her words hit home. He pulled away, not liking the way her voice had
     gone all soft and grateful. He didn’t deserve her gratitude, didn’t deserve anything
     when he’d almost been too late.His gut clenched as he was bombarded with images of
     what might have happened to Jamison if he hadn’t come out when he had. Even worse,
     of what might very well have happened some other night to some other woman while he’d
     been safely ensconced in his dressing room.
    He shut his brain down, not wanting to go there tonight. But what he wanted and what
     he got were often two very different things—rarely did he catch more than a couple
     hours of sleep