The one from the bar.
Jenks shot out a hand, fisted it into the man’s T-shirt, and then jerked him into the alcove. My breath caught and hitched as he slammed his prey up against the glass door. “Well, well, well…” He cocked his head and studied the man closely. “I caught myself a rat.”
Swallowing the taste of fear crowding my throat, I tucked into the shadows and wrapped my arms around myself. While Jenks glowered down at the man he outweighed and outreached, I eyed the space between them and the wall. I could squeeze through there. And now, I wasn’t being watched. I could get back to my place, lock myself inside—
“Why you following her?”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
Jenks slammed him up against the brick wall, hard enough that the guy’s teeth might have rattled around in his head. Oddly fascinated, I watched. Then, as I continued to gape, Jenks shoved his hand in the guy’s front pocket. Scowling, he did the same to the other one. This time, he came up with a wallet. “Let’s just see who we’re dealing with.” Without letting go of the guy’s shirtfront, he one-handedly flipped the wallet open. “Les Borbeck. Nice picture, Les. You lie like a dog on your license. If you’re six-one and one-eighty, then I’m Papa Smurf.”
He smacked the wallet up against Borbeck’s chest and Borbeck scrambled to catch it, and then he must have just been scrambling to breathe because in the time it took me to process what was happening, Jenks went from holding him by the front of his shirt to jamming his forearm under Borbeck’s jaw. He pushed in and up, pressing so hard that Borbeck’s face went red and he rose up on his toes just to alleviate the pressure.
“Now.” Jenks’ tone didn’t change. “You’re going to answer me this time or I’ll rip it out of you. Why are you following her? And don’t give me that shit that you’re not. I saw you down the street, on the opposite side when I started talking to her. You walked right past us, and then you show up in the same restaurant. You leave at the same time. You’re following her. Now tell me why?”
Two seconds of silence passed and I felt compelled to tell him. Somebody needed to talk. I could all but taste the violence in the air.
Then, as I fought to push the words out, Borbeck lost his struggle and the answer came ripping out. “It’s her husband—he’s paying me. Two hundred a day. It’s easy money. She never does shit and I just have to watch her. If she sees me, it’s not a big deal and he just wants to know what she does and who she talks to. It’s all legal as long as I don’t get close.” The words all but tumbled over themselves to get out of his throat and his eyes wheeled around in his head to land on my face. “Please! It ain’t like I’m hurting ya!”
I flinched as the words slammed into me. He had no idea what he was doing to me.
Rubbing my fingers over my mouth, I pushed past them both, my legs wobbling, locking my knees, trying to keep them from giving out on me.
A few minutes later, a pair of motorcycle boots appeared in my line of vision. I kept on walking. I went right past my house, seeking out the path that would lead to the beach.
I wanted my table.
The beach was all but deserted now.
It had to be close to midnight.
Sinking down on the surface of the table, I braced my elbows on my knees and stared at the night-dark water.
“Are you still married to him?” Jenks asked, his voice soft in the quiet of the night.
Looking down at my toes, I entwined my fingers and pressed my palms together. Then, closing my eyes, I lifted my hands, as though I was in prayer and pressed them to my brow. Softly, I murmured, “No. I divorced him three years ago. He still thinks I’m his, though. As long as he’s alive, he’ll never let me go.”
Warm, strong fingers closed around my hands, guided them down. “Why weren’t you surprised he had somebody following you?” Jenks asked, his voice soft, but there was a thread of steel in it.
He’d push for that answer. Even if he had to wait, and wait, he would, until he received it.
“Because he’s had me watched every day since I left the shelter,” I responded. “There was somebody on the plane when I flew out here. Somebody in the first neighborhood where I lived, and in this one. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, I can sneak out the back door and come out here and the guy who watches me doesn’t know I’ve left. But most of the time, if I leave the house, I’m watched.”
“Why don’t you report it?”
Sighing, I pressed my fingers to my eyes. “It’s not as easy as that. And I know because I tried. He’s a rich son of a bitch and unless one of the men he hires would be willing to testify against him and risk getting their own asses in trouble? It’s my word against his. His father was a lawyer—most of the family went into law. He grew up knowing the ins and outs of the law, almost went into it himself. He has done some of the most vile acts imaginable and nobody believed anything I said. He knows how to work people, how to twist things. Within five minutes, he’ll have you convinced I’m crazy and out to hurt myself and he only has people watching me so he can be there to save me the next time I try to slit my wrists or have marathon drinking sessions with bunch of pill chasers or—”
His hands came down on the table, hard.
Startled, I jerked my gaze up and met his.
“Stop,” he said. Earlier, his voice had been level and easy, no anger showing. Now he practically shook with it. “Don’t say shit like that about yourself, okay?”
“What, that I’m crazy?” I leaned back, desperate to get some room between us. I could feel the heat of him on my skin and it went licking through me, a teasing, taunting torment of all the things I’d never feel again.
In the dead of night, the silvery moonlight shining down on us, I couldn’t see him well. His eyes were like bottomless pools of pure velvet and I could just fall in and lose myself. Part of me wanted to do just that.
“Yes.” He lifted one hand, placed it on my breastbone. The heat of it was a shock and until that moment, I hadn’t realized I was cold. Now, I couldn’t stop shivering.
“Why not?” I stared at him. “It’s the truth. After what he did to me, it’s a miracle I’m not crazier than I am.”
“Stop.” He shook his head.
I laughed softly. “You know, if anybody should be upset by the fact that my sanity is somewhat questionable, it’s me. But it’s nothing more than the truth. I have PTSD, I suffer from panic attacks that almost incapacitate me, and I deal with OCD now—things I never had before he got hold of me. My fear of him still runs my life, and I know it. If that doesn’t certify me as mental, then what does it make me?”
“A survivor.” The words were delivered in a flat, hard voice. “I don’t need to know what he did to you, unless you’re ready to tell me. But I know a survivor when I see one.”
I stilled, caught off guard.
His eyes held me captive as he leaned in, his breath a soft, warm caress on my cheek. “A survivor…damaged, determined. And so damn brave. The last woman on earth I should want. But fuck it all. I still want you.”
I blinked, my lashes drooping low as I watched him through them. That concealing veil wasn’t enough to hide behind, though. His hand slid higher, curved around my neck and tangled in my hair, tugging my head back.
He stared down at me. “Tell me to stop.”
Chapter Five
Simple words.
Easy words.
And if I thought about it for even a minute, maybe that’s just what I’d do.
Tell him to stop.
Instead, I dropped my gaze and stared at his mouth.
I knew that mouth, almost intimately.
I say almost, because you can’t really know a person’s body intimately until you’ve touched that body, studied it, learned it with your hands…maybe even with your mouth. Tasted it with your own, felt it against your own.
A harsh groan ripped out of him and then his mouth covered mine and the world faded away.
For a few b
rief moments, nothing else existed. Not even fear.
It was just him and me, and that incredible kiss.
His taste—it was every bit as addictive as I’d dreamed. And more.
He tasted like pizza and beer, like summer and sunshine and man. He tasted like an obsession that I could never let myself have and I wanted to gorge on him and never let go.
Reaching for him, I curled my hands into the front of his shirt and opened for him as his tongue sought entrance. This was no gentle, seeking kiss. This wasn’t a man who was asking permission or even courting me. He wanted…and he took. He wanted…and I wanted to give him everything he wanted.
His arm hooked around the back of my neck while his free hand skimmed down my back and then gripped my hip, tugging me up against him. Nerves warred inside me and I tensed.
His mouth left mine and moved to my ear. “You’re here, with me. Remember that. And I’m not going to hurt you.”
I sucked in a breath as I fell back away from him, catching my weight on my hands as he reached for the string tie on the front of the poet-style blouse I wore. I watched his hands. He watched me. And as the lapels of the shirt fell open, blood rushed up to stain my cheeks red but it never occurred to me to make him stop.
The back of his fingers scraped roughly against my skin and sensory memory slashed at me. Times when I’d gone with nothing—
His hand tangled in my hair again.
“You’re with me.”
His teeth nipped my lip and I sucked in a breath, held it until my head spun. And then I blinked and focused on his face as he spread open the neckline of my shirt. Slowly, he straightened, staring down at me. Cool air danced along my flesh and I shivered, even though I wasn’t really cold. I just needed—
His hands cupped my breasts.
That.
I needed that.
Hands on me, flesh against my flesh.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I bit down on my lip to keep from whimpering.
“Why don’t you look at me?”
Slowly, I forced my lids open and stared up at Jenks’ shadowed face. As our gazes locked, he laid one hand on my knee and stroked upward. “You hide in these clothes. Who the fuck would have guessed you look like some kind of forties movie star under all these clothes?”
The oxygen disappeared.
He laughed a little, his thumb tracing over the skin he’d bared as he pushed the skirt higher. “All soft curves and pale skin, kept hidden away.” He slanted me a look and rasped, “I like it. You’re like a present, wrapped up and waiting to be discovered.” He pushed the skirt all the way up to my hips and then I gasped as he pulled me to the edge of the table. “I just discovered you, too. What else is there to find, Shadow?”
A whimper rose in my throat, then died as he stroked his thumb over the heat gathering between my thighs. He scraped across the bud of my clit and that light touch, just that light touch, after years of nothing, was more than I could handle.
Locked and rigid, blind to anything and everything, I started to shudder, then shake.
And Jenks, damn him, realized what was happening.
Nudging aside the simple, sturdy cotton of my panties, he found me underneath, naked and exposed…bare. And then he touched me again. Again, and again, until I shattered. Right there. On the picnic table where I’d first sighted him.
I climaxed, and as I started to whimper his name, he caught the sound of it against his mouth.
I was crying when it ended.
And sobbing, almost uncontrollably, before the tremors left me.
He didn’t ask any questions.
If nothing else, I was grateful for that.
That was one of the two thoughts on my mind as we started up the walk back to the street.
The second thought—I needed to find another beach.
I didn’t know how I’d face him after that, and I was almost positive he wasn’t going to want to see me. Talk about stripping yourself bare. I’d told him how messed up I was, and then I’d showed him. He’d brought me to climax with barely a touch, and then I’d broken down into tears before I’d even had a chance to catch my breath.
Blindly, I started to walk away from him once we reached the street but I didn’t make it far before his hands caught my shoulders. And then I was engulfed by him, his strong arms wrapping around me, his chin tucked against my shoulder while he murmured something nonsensical against my temple.
Holding still, barely able to breathe, I stood there.
Finally, I let myself breathe, let myself think. “What are you doing?” I asked woodenly.
“Waiting for you to stop panicking.” He rubbed his cheek against my hair.
“I’m not panicking.” This wasn’t panicking. Panicking was clawing against a locked door until your fingers were bloody nubs. Panicking was screaming until your throat was raw, even though you knew nobody would hear you. This wasn’t panicking. But I couldn’t tell him that.
“Then I’m waiting for you to stop trying to walk away from me, stop trying to shut me out. Where are you off to in such a hurry, sugar?” he whispered as he turned his face into my hair.
“It’s late. I want to go home.”
“Then I’ll walk you home.”
I couldn’t keep myself from stiffening up. “No.”
“I plan on doing that whether you like it or not, Shadow,” he said, and there was a thread of steel under his voice. “You’ve got some asshole following you and you’ve already told me this isn’t a new thing. I’ll make sure you get home safe, period.”
“That’s not necessary.” I tugged against his arms half-heartedly, even though the feel of him, the heat—just the touch—was such a sweet, sweet relief that I didn’t even want him to let me go.
He didn’t, either.
“Can you tell me that you know for a fact you’re safe?” he asked, his voice all too reasonable.
Safe. For some reason, just hearing that word made me laugh. It wasn’t a happy sound. It was dry and broken and brittle and I laughed until I could feel myself hovering on the edge of tears again. Tearing away from him, I paced forward, putting distance between us. “Safe?” I spat out, glaring at him. My hair fell into my face, and angrily, I shoved it back. “Safe is an illusion. There is no such thing as safe.”
“So you just let some bastard control you like that? Stalk you all the time?” he asked, his voice so reasonable I wanted to hit him.
My hand curled into a fist. The urge was that strong. “What would you know about it?”
“I know that if I had some sick fuck watching me, the last thing I would do is just ignore it.” He closed the distance between us, staring down at me. “Are you going to live this way the rest of your life? Have you called the cops? Tried to make it stop?”
“Yes!” I shouted it, the sound tearing out of me, harsh and jagged. “There was one guy, a friend of mine, who even offered to testify after my ex tried to bribe him into watching me. Seth had cops at his door two days later. He’s an ex-con and his parole officer had to go to bat for him. He could have gone back to jail, all because he was kind to me. It’s that easy for my ex to try to fuck up my friend’s life. And a week later, he showed up and he was the one watching me.”
“Get a damn restraining order!”
I laughed, shaking my head. “Are you that naïve? Really? He showed up in the coffee shop I used to like, claimed he was meeting a friend there, wanted to discuss investing in some real estate around here. And what do you know? The friend was there, claimed they’d had a meeting set up for months, decided they’d swing by that coffee shop just out of the blue, his idea, of course.” Swiping a shaking hand over my mouth, I turned away. “I can’t keep him out of South Carolina, Jenks! And of course since no charges were filed against him, I’d have a hard time even getting a damn restraining order.”
Closing my eyes, I worried the tie on my blouse.
So few had even believed me.
A man like him wouldn’t really keep a wom
an locked away in a basement room for almost a year. It couldn’t happen. People would notice. They would suspect. It couldn’t happen, right?
Except it had.
Tears clogged my throat and I held them at bay through sheer force of will alone. If I broke down here, I might never stop crying.
I’d humiliated myself in front of Jenks quite enough.
Woodenly, I said, “If you insist on following me home, fine. But don’t tell me how to handle my ex-husband. You have no idea what he put me through, what he’s still putting me through. If you haven’t been where I have, you have no idea how you would handle a damn thing.”
Then, without looking at him, I started to walk.
I was so close, I thought.
So close to taking back some small part of my life.
I could already feel it slipping away. But I couldn’t quite put my finger on just what had gone wrong.
Other than…well, everything.
Chapter Six
Time passes really fast when you don’t want it to. Most of the time was spent on the computer, checking the various beaches, trying to figure out which one would work for me. I didn’t want to leave my beach.
It felt like mine.
But I didn’t see how I could go back there and face Jenks again.
He’d given me the first orgasm I’d had since my ex had all but torn my sexuality away, then I broke down and cried.
That’s what happens when a woman is brutalized. Your sexuality is just…stolen. Things you enjoyed are taken away. My ex went a step further and took everything—light, sound, touch. There had been days when he’d left me alone down there, the food supply and the water dwindling away, and I’d wonder if I would be left alone to starve and die. Nobody would know. Nobody would care.
It hadn’t been just my sexuality he’d stripped, but my very sense of self.
I’m taking those pieces of me back, or trying to.
I don’t know how good of a job I’m doing, though, when the very first time a man brought me to climax it left me feeling so shaken, so shattered.
Pieces of Me Page 5
