Young Love Dies Hard: The Young Brothers, Book 1 by Nikki Lane (best memoirs of all time txt) 📕

me for a drink right now? Save me from having to summon the courage to ask you out again.”

Another streetlight fizzled out.

“Thank you,” I said, “but I’m pretty tired.”

I reached for the door to close it, but Randy held it back.

“Come on, now. Just one drink.”

My heart knocked in my chest. I did a quick scan of the empty, and now even darker, parking lot. “I said no thank you.”

I tried to pull the door closed again, but he held his grip. I clenched my keys with sweaty hands.

“Please let go of the door.”

He positioned himself in the space between me and the car door and took another swig from the flask. “I don’t understand why you’re being so difficult, darlin’. Maybe I should make it easier for you.”

He took a few deliberate steps closer. I smelled the whiskey on his breath. A chill zipped through my spine, raising the hair on the back of my neck.

“I’ll ask you again. Why don’t you join me for a drink?”

He grabbed my hands and pulled me away from the car.

“I’m not going anywhere with you.” I tried to rip my hands away, but his grip was too tight.

“That’s where you’re mistaken.”

I pressed my shoes against the asphalt. The soles scraped against the ground as he continued to pull me toward his truck. I doubted this was his first attempt at this kind of thing. But this wasn’t my first rodeo, either. I knew how to fight back.

I lowered my head, wrapped my mouth around his upper arm, and bit down.

“Shit,” he cried, letting go of his grip to clutch his arm. “Come here, you bitch!”

I almost made it back to the car. He grasped my arm just inches from my car, and my keys hit the ground. His hold was so tight it hurt.

“Let me go,” I begged. “Please.”

He ignored me and once again dragged me through the dark parking lot to his truck.

“Help!” I shouted. “Somebody, help me!”

Randy twisted my arm and put a sweaty hand over my mouth. “Shut the fuck up.”

I nodded, wincing from the pain searing through my already tender shoulder.

I kicked. I flailed my arms and knocked his hat off his head. But he had freakishly good reflexes for someone who’d consumed as much whiskey as he had.

I dropped like a weight to the ground to make my position harder for him to handle.

“Get up,” he said.

I kept my body limp, and he tried to hoist me up. When his attempts weren’t working, he clasped my hands together and pulled me the last few feet by my wrists. My backside scraped against the hard surface beneath me. Sweat dripped down my face and stung my eyes.

“Time to get up,” he said. He hooked his hands under my arms and hoisted me up. “Get in there.”

I shook my head. “I told you I’m not going anywhere with you, asshole.”

His hand met my face with a hard slap. The skin of my cheek blazed.

“Now that’s not how a lady’s supposed to talk.” He opened the door of the truck with his free hand and jerked me toward the seat.

“I guess I’m no fucking lady.” I could barely catch my breath but managed to spit in his face.

He wiped it off with the back of his hand. “You’re going to wish you never did that.”

Another hard slap against the cheek. The sound of his hand hitting my face made my stomach sick. He pulled in close and crushed his mouth on mine. I bit his lip and he pulled me back.

“The fightin’ kind, huh?” he said with a smirk. “Don’t worry, darlin’. I like that.” He pressed me close to his body again.

I lifted my knee and rammed it into his groin. He recoiled and loosened his grip on my arm. I sprinted toward the club. But Randy got hold of my shirt. He held on until the fabric stretched and the threads ripped.

I used all I had to resist him, every trick I’d used to rescue myself from Doug. But it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t strong enough to take this fight alone.

I screamed again until my throat was raw, holding on to every last shred of hope I could muster. Randy tried to silence me with a few more hits, harder ones this time. Each blow was a cruel token of what I’d learned from past experience but chose to ignore tonight for whatever reason—never let your guard down.

I felt the warm trickle of blood from my nose. The harder I fought against him, the angrier he became. I dug my nails into the skin of his cheeks, pressing his face away from mine. He groaned in pain as I scratched his skin raw.

“Hey!” someone shouted from far off. “What the fuck is going on?”

The voice sounded familiar, but the ringing in my ears was making it difficult to discern who it belonged to.

Randy tossed me on the floor, and I fell like a brick. From under my swelling eyelids, I could barely make out an image of him, wobbling back and trying to regain his balance. He did a panicked dance looking for his hat before giving up and hopping into his truck. The engine rumbled with a deep purr and then there was the sound of tires kicking up gravel as he peeled out of the parking lot.

“What the fuck is this?”

Sal.

“Maeve?” he shouted.

I thought I caught a hint of concern in his tone. But maybe I’d been knocked around too much.

I lifted an arm in the air to signal I was still alive and conscious.

He hovered over me, his round face flush with exertion. “Holy shit,” he said out of breath.

With a grunt, he gently pulled me up, and I winced at the pain in my side. I leaned against his weight as the scenery spun. I could make out the soft pink neon glow of the club. I’d never been happier to see the place.

“Who did this to you?” he said, sounding like a slow-motion