Chasing Waves

Chapter Ten: between the flags

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10: The parties will not engage in provocative innuendos, nor the exchange of oral or written communication which could be interpreted as provocative innuendos.
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Honey was shaking.

Adam was seething.

He felt like someone had set his feet on fire, like the flames were quickly crawling up his calves, his legs, aiming for the inferno raging in his chest.

"Wh-who are you?" the prick in Honey's kitchen asked. Or stammered. Good. But the fact that he was only second-guessing his advances on a woman who was literally shaking now that a man two heads taller than him had shown up ...

Gross. Criminal. And it was his bad luck that Adam was ready to stoop just as low.

But ... he didn't think that introducing his fist to the male's face would soothe Honey's nerves. Adam leaned against the entry, bottling his fury as best as he could, waiting for her to answer. To lead. For the first time since he'd met her, she didn't. Pressed up against the counter, her nails curled into her palm, Honey seemed to be funnelling all of her energy into controlling the tremble settling into her body as surely as that blistering hellfire was encasing Adam's.

"Who are you?" the male asked again, his voice steadier. Like his confidence was re-threading.

Hell no.

Counting to three, Adam lifted his chin and planted his feet. He cracked the knuckles of one fist against his other palm, grinning. "I'm Honey's boyfriend."

She stopped shaking then.

Adam bared his teeth at the shrinking male. "Your turn."

The man gulped. "We were just ... I was just—"

"Leaving," Adam supplied. He kicked himself off the wall and rose to full height, clearing the way to the hall with near-comic intent. "Bye."

He watched the brown-haired suit-wearing prick say an awkward goodbye to Honey, who somehow found it within herself to offer a polite, meek smile—even if she couldn't bring herself to look either of them in the eye. Adam saw the man to Honey's front door himself. Closed it in the prick's face without uttering a goodbye. All the while, that fire was spreading, building, scorching, like a damned phantom was possessing him, bloodthirsty with one need. He envisioned going out into the hall and putting the sick bastard's face through the wall. The halls of Honey's building were littered with expensive sculptures; what was one more?

Adam made himself turn, but he cracked his knuckles again as he charged down the hall, needing to use that anger inside of him somehow. It had to be gone when he saw her again.

It wasn't.

Honey was rubbing her hands up and down her arms when he found her in the kitchen, even though she wore an all-white coat studded with gold buttons, and even though it was at least twenty-four degrees in her apartment. She wasn't cold, but she was still shivering. Adam was torn between the need to hunt the suit down after all, and sweep Honey into his arms; hug the warmth back into her.

"What happened?" His voice was low in his throat as he approached her, barely a whisper. "What did he do to you?"

"Would you like a drink?" she asked.

Adam stopped short, bewildered. He'd never seen Honey like this. Wide-eyed. Frozen solid. She was always glacial, like a gale sent straight from the Arctic, but ... but this was different. A different kind of cold.