“If Ruby’s as wild as you think—”
“I know. I have a feeling it’ll only get better.”
Ruby’s face flushed in the darkness. She wasn’t near as wild as Sean seemed to think she was, but she knew what she liked and what she was good at, and she was willing to try almost anything he wanted if it meant they’d stay together. Why, pretty soon he’d be so addicted to her he’d marry her so he wouldn’t have to go a moment without her great, unpredictable sex.
A few minutes later Nick said, “Too bad Ruby’s on the rag and had to leave or—”
On the rag? He’d actually told his brother she was on her period? She didn’t like the turn this conversation was taking.
“There’s always tomorrow,” Sean said.
“I think I’ll turn in,” Sean said after a while. “I have to work the rest of this week in Mckinleyville, so I have to get up earlier than usual, and it’s late already. ‘Night.”
Ruby shut off the radio, put it back in her glovebox, and started for home.
Helluva night.
So, in a nutshell, Sean lived with his parents, had debts, had a child, he’d been taken to the cleaners by an ex-wife he couldn’t stand up to, he had a master’s degree he didn’t use, choosing, instead, to work as a substitute teacher, he still smoked pot, and he felt the need to hide his legal drugs from his parents in his underwear drawer, and to top it all off, he’d used her for sex before making vulgar comments about her prowess to his brother, behind her back.
Maybe…maybe he wasn’t such a great catch after all.
The moment this thought crossed her mind she pushed it away. No. She hadn’t wasted nine years of her life pining after an asshole. Sean was perfect. The perfect man. Her soulmate. He was just having a tough time right now, and his brother was obviously a bad influence. He needed her to make him into the righteous, successful man he was destined to be.
She would save him from himself.
CHAPTER 29
Ruby stopped at the Flying J and bought tampons, so she didn’t get home until almost two. She felt it, yawning wide as she trudged up her front steps, weary to her very core.
Her eyes were heavy, but she was smiling as she unlocked her front door. She held the pictures she’d stolen from Sean, and she couldn’t wait to paste them into her scrapbook tomorrow.
Now, she craved sleep.
She pushed her front door open and froze. The room was dark, but she could see the outline of a man sitting on her couch watching her TV with the sound muted. The hairs stood up on the nape of her neck, and she was about to turn and run, when she recognized Jeremy in the television’s flickering light. What the fuck? She flipped on the light beside the door.
The room was torn apart. He sat on her beautiful couch’s bare frame, amid the cushions that were heaped on the floor. His hair was mussed, his eyes bloodshot, and he needed a shave. She could smell his body odor from across the room.
He didn’t take his gaze off the TV when she came in or acknowledge her presence at all. She had no idea how to handle this.
She left the door open behind her and pushed one of her keys through her fingers to use as a weapon. “Jeremy!” she bellowed. “I don’t know how you got in here, but you need to leave before I call the police!” When he didn’t move, she said, less forcefully, “I mean it!”
He didn’t answer, just used the remote to turn up the sound. She heard heavy breathing and moans. Was he watching porn?
“Ah yes. I believe this is my favorite part,” he said. Right then she heard her own voice coming from the television, “Right there! Yes, there!” followed by another moan, and suddenly she knew. He was watching her video of her and Sean making love!
She’d watched it earlier and had left it sitting out on top of the VCR. How could she have been so stupid? She knew he had keys to her place, but she’d changed out the doorknobs and had felt safe. And she’d almost destroyed it earlier. She’d found the tape cringeworthy, not sexy—she was pale and sweaty, and her faked orgasm was horrific. She’d wanted to view it one more time before making a final decision, so she’d left it out so she wouldn’t forget.
“Motherfucker!” she screamed. She threw her backpack down and rushed the VCR. “That’s mine. How dare you invade my privacy—” She turned her back on Jeremy and pushed the eject button. “Who the hell do you think you are? I’m calling the police and this time you’re going to prison—”
She didn’t hear him coming. He shoved her, hard, away from the television.
She dropped Sean’s pictures and her box of tampons. Her body hit the closet door before she could get her hands up to break her fall, and she caught the door handle in her side. She yelped before crumpling to the floor.
Jeremy stalked towards her with his fists clenched, and Ruby flipped onto her back and began kicking at him, crabbing backwards across the floor to keep him away. “Lemeealone! Help! Help!” she yelled. She kicked at him, but he relentlessly scrambled after her, shoving furniture out of the way, reaching and yanking and trying to grab hold of some part of her. She shuffled into the coffee table, and there was no place to go, so she curled into a tight ball and put an arm up to fend him off. He grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her to her feet. “You thought you could make a fool of me, huh?” he snarled, giving her a good, hard shake.
Before her brains could rattle loose, she brought the heel of her hand up to smash into his nose, but he batted it away. Instead of kneeing him, she grabbed his testicles with her left hand and squeezed hard. At the same time, she brought her right foot up and stomped his instep. He howled, let go of her arms, and throttled her. She held on for a few seconds, beating ineffectively at his hands with her right hand while he squeezed harder and harder. She couldn’t breathe and her eyes bulged, and she finally let go of his testicles and began clawing at his fingers with both hands. She was going to die…
Suddenly, he let her go and stepped back. She fell forward onto her hands and knees and drew in shuddering, painful breaths as her vision cleared. Someone was shouting but it was oddly muffled, and then he grabbed her hair, and she felt an explosion of pain in her cheek.
He’d punched her.
Jeremy shoved her away again, and she rolled into the little table in the hall.
Her eyes and nose were streaming. She crawled around blindly, patting the floor, trying to locate her backpack with her cell phone in it. Where was it? She squinted and sobbed, continuing to pat the floor fruitlessly. She finally sat, back to the wall, blinking and watching him carefully. He was hunched over, rubbing his balls and sneering.
“You fucking bitch. I better still be able to have children!”
Ruby finally saw her backpack, over near his left hand. There was no way she could get it before he did, and he was between her and the front door. Her back door required a key from the inside, and she imagined herself fumbling it as he attacked her…
She was trapped.
She’d never been hit in the face before. She couldn’t get over how hard he’d hit her and how much it hurt. Her cheek throbbed, her ear rang, and the skin on her face and earlobe was numb. She was lucky he hadn’t shattered her cheekbone or broken her nose, and what if she had permanent hearing loss? What if he punched her again? He could beat or choke her to death. …They watched each other warily while their breathing slowed, and they rubbed their respective injuries. She wondered what would set him off again.
Unfortunately, she said the wrong thing. She rubbed her cheek and croaked, “Is this about Sean?”
He rushed towards her again. Mistake! He drew back his foot and she instinctively rolled, and he kicked the wall instead. As he howled and hopped around in fury, she spied a silver bud vase that had been knocked to the floor in their struggle. She knee-walked over and chucked it at him blindly.
Amazingly, it connected with his forehead. The vase was tiny, but heavy, and it opened up a small flap of skin through his eyebrow. Blood began to pore down his face. He looked homicidal.
He put his hand
up, and it came away bloody. “My face! You cut my face!” Blood splattered her floor. “Does it look bad? Do I still look good?” He bent over and gazed at his face in her mirrored toaster.
She stood up, shakily, and sprinted full tilt for the still open front door. She’d marred his perfect face. He’d kill her now for sure.
She heard him coming but she didn’t look back. Get out the door. Where were her keys? Her hands were empty…No matter. She’d run to a neighbor’s house or flag down a car. With a cry of rage, Jeremy tackled her, and they both went flying over the downed couch cushions, before crashing, in a heap, with him on top, out on her deck. She hit her temple and cracked her elbow, and she lay, stunned and sobbing, as he shoved off her. He kicked her thigh, viciously, but she barely felt it. He was yelling, but she couldn’t make out what he was saying. He picked her up and slung her back inside before slamming the door behind them. She heard the click of the deadbolt, and the raspy sound as he chained it with the spanking new chain Hilary had just installed to keep him out. What a joke.
Everything hurt. “G-Get out of here,” she said.
He hurried by her, and she cringed away, afraid he’d kick her in the teeth. She opened her eyes and watched him yank her afghan off the floor and hold it to his eye to staunch his bleeding.
“You’ll ruin it,” she said inanely. She saw his blood droplets on the floor. He better not bleed on her beautiful couch cushions.
He pressed harder, turned, and said, “The way you ruined my relationship with Sean by telling him all those lies about me? You played me for a fool. You played us both for fools.”
She rubbed her already swollen cheek before pushing to her feet, letting out an involuntary cry of pain. Everything began to spin around her. She closed her eyes and the spinning blessedly stopped. “What relationship? You haven’t seen him in years. And you know I didn’t lie.” When she opened her eyes again, the room was still.
He took a step towards her, and she shrank back. He stopped. “Sean Chaplin was the one, count it, one good memory I had from high school, and now you’ve ruined even that for me. You used me and tossed me away like garbage before turning my friend against me.”
Ruby’s face grew hot. “I didn’t use you! You’re—” she just stopped herself from saying ‘crazy,’ and substituted, “mistaken. There was never anything between us.”
“You shut up!” He looked down, and she followed his gaze to the pictures she’d dropped when she came home. They were scattered on the floor. He bent and scooped them
up before she could stop him and tore them to bits.
“Stop it!” she screamed, limping forward. She closed her eyes as he threw the confetti in her face. “Have fun taping ‘em together.”
She looked around for the third picture but didn’t see it.
“Those pictures are almost as sweet as this little video I found,” Jeremy said. “Imagine my surprise when I saw my girlfriend fucking my best friend. How could you betray me like that?” He was on the verge of tears.
She wasn’t his girlfriend, and Sean wasn’t close to being his best friend. She felt a calculating calm take over her whole body. He was huge, he’d broken into her house, beaten her up, and was refusing to leave. She couldn’t reach the doors, couldn’t get to her cell phone, and he was obviously mentally ill. Things were very bad. She would try to placate him.
“Why don’t we talk things out?” she said in a cheerful voice. She kept her gaze on him and slowly limped behind the couch until it was between them. “Clear the air once and for all.”
He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “Oh, so now you’ll finally be reasonable? Why, because I have your sex tape?” He grabbed it quickly, before she could stop him, and hid it behind his back.
“If we’re gonna talk, you need to gimme that first. It’s private,” she said firmly, as if talking to a child. She snapped once and held her hand out for it, trying not to imagine how much he could ruin her life by making a copy of that tape and/or releasing it on the internet.
He snorted. “Oh no. You’re not getting this back. This is my little insurance policy. If you try to go to the police, I’ll sell it to the highest bidder, or…maybe I’ll just release it over the internet for free!” It was as if her thought had gone straight to his brain.
“No! You can’t!” she said, without thinking. She instantly realized her mistake. She would have been much more likely to get it back from him if he didn’t think it mattered to her. But if he released the video, Sean would know she’d filmed them making love, without his consent. He’d never forgive her, and everything she’d done to get him so far would be in vain.
Jeremy’s face lit up as he realized his power over her. “Watch me. I’ll release this tape, I really will, unless you listen! You’re not that famous, but you’re famous enough. Either do what I say, or it’s ‘Hello, sex tape!’”
She hated being at his mercy. “What do you want?” she said through gritted teeth.
He kept the tape in one hand as he walked towards her. “I want you back. But first I want a written apology. Only then will I be willing to forgive you for your horrible mistake.” He caressed her face tenderly with his free hand, and she forced herself not to flinch. “See, I’m a forgiving man. All I want is what’s best for you. I want things to be back the way they were.”
How could things go back to the way they were? They were never together! She cleared her aching throat. “In what way?”
“I want more dates. More long make out sessions on the couch, like that time I gave you that hickey. I want us to be close the way we used to be. And we can be. As soon as you’ve apologized.”
He took the bloody afghan away from his face, bent down, and grazed her lips with his. She didn’t flinch.
He opened his eyes, and his expression became concerned. “Wook at your poor wittle face! It’s swollen, and you’ve already got a bruise! You should be more careful. Here. Let me get you some ice for that.”
He crossed in front of her, taking the video tape with him into the kitchen. He found her bandages and took care of his face first. She inched backwards, watching him, as he filled a baggie with ice. When he finally looked up, she stood next to the front door and she’d worked the chain free. His face darkened. “Don’t make me hurt you, Ruby.”
She’d almost made it! She trudged back, blinking away furious tears, her mind going like lightning. When she passed the television cabinet, she grabbed the VCR, yanked it violently out of the wall, and spiked it, as hard as she could, onto the wood floor. Jeremy screamed, but Ruby jumped up and down on the machine, feeling it break underneath her weight. She kicked it into the wall with a satisfying crash. She sank down on the edge of a chair in the living room. He wouldn’t be watching that tape again on her VCR.
He smirked. “You know I can buy another VCR. They probably have fifty listed on eBay.”
Now she knew he didn’t own a VCR of his own. Good to know.
He shook his head and handed her the ice. “Silly Wabbit,” he said. She put it to her throbbing cheek and watched him put all the couch cushions back in place. He sat down and they stared at one another.
“How’d you get in here?” she finally asked, keeping the censure out of her voice. “I put on new locks to keep you out.”
“I know. I watched Hilary put them on.” He waved his hand. “It was easy. My garage door opener is on the same frequency as yours. How’s your face?”
She took the icepack away. “Numb.”
He chuckled. “God knows you’re the clumsiest woman!”
Ruby froze. Did he even remember he was the one who’d given her the swollen cheek?
There was a gun in her night table drawer.…There was a gun in her night table drawer! “It’s really late, and I’m exhausted. Can we talk another time?”
Jeremy immediately stood up. “Of course. Go get some rest. You can always write out that apology in the morning.”
He was leaving! Hallelujah. Though she might just shoot him
in the back on his way out…
“I’ll sleep out here tonight. On the couch,” he said.
“What?”
“I’m staying, and that’s final.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you of course. Because I’m worried about you. Just look how easy it is to break in here. You need me to keep you safe.”
“But…”
“Ruubbby,” he said, waggling his finger at her. “I’ll be a perfect gentleman. Promise.”
His eyes roamed over her body, and she shivered. “Though it is difficult when you come in dressed like that.” He reached out a finger to touch her but stopped himself. “No Jeremy. Down boy,” he said, giggling. “I promise nothing will happen.” He paused before continuing, “Tonight. First you need to apologize to me and break up with Sean. Then we can be together.”
“Then you’ll give me my tape back?” she asked, staring at it.
He patted it. “We’ll destroy this together the day you marry me.”
Her heart sank. She had to get it back! She was almost desperate enough to grab it from him and make a run for it through a window, but she knew she’d never make it.
He grasped her hand and helped her gently to her feet. “I hope you have sweet dreams of me,” he said, leaning down to kiss her. When she finally pulled away, she was ready to break out in hives from anxiety.
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be perfectly comfortable here,” he said, gesturing towards the couch. “You keep your extra blankets in that closet, right?” he said, pointing towards her linen closet in the hall.
How did he know that? Hell, that was the least of her problems. She nodded and began gathering her stuff. Get the gun. Get the gun. Getthegun. She grabbed her tampons and her backpack—with her cell phone!—off the floor and stood up. She wanted to gather up the pieces from the pictures he’d torn up, but she was afraid of setting him off again. She threw them a wistful glance.
“I’ll need your cell phone, of course.”
“It’s dead.”
“Then you won’t mind. I’ll give it back in the morning.”
Drawn To You: A Psychological thriller Page 27
