Emotion crashed inside me and I wanted to sigh, wanted to sob as I tucked my head into his shoulder. There was no way to describe how it felt, pressed against him, right there. Safe. Wanted. Needed. His hand smoothed down my back, rested on my hip.
“A huge part of me wants to tell you that you should leave.”
I shivered at the words. It made something horrible and awful spread inside me. No…I wasn’t going to be controlled. Even as something inside me twisted and died at the thought of pulling away, I made myself do that, rising on the step and staring down at him.
There was a strange little smile on his face.
I curled my hand into a fist as a tight, hot little ball gathered inside my chest.
Fury. It was fury.
“You don’t get to tell me what to do, Dillian,” I said softly.
I started to turn away.
His hand shot out, tangling in the material of my skirt. “I guess I wasn’t clear in how I said that.”
I glared down at him, reaching out to jerk my skirt away.
He let go, but it was to shift his grip to my ankle instead and that touch was emotionally and physically devastating. His thumb stroked along my skin, sent heat waves pulsing through me. This was one of those times when I damned how very much my body still craved, cried out for, any sort of physical stimuli.
“I said a part of me wants to tell you that,” he said, his gaze locking on mine. That velvety brown pulsed hot, burned so intently. “You see, I know that’s the last thing you can do. You need this place. You need what’s yours. You need the home you’ve made and you need to find everything else that you’re still missing inside. All the things he stole from you. I get that. I won’t claim to understand all that you’re looking for, but I know you need it.”
The part of me that had been wilting started to warm again. Muscles that had locked tight went lax and I might have collapsed except I had a mad urge not to let him see just how much those words affected me. Just how he was starting to affect me. Trying to be casual about it, I tugged my ankle out of his grip and moved over to the opposite side of the porch, leaning against the railing and staring down the quiet street.
“I’m not leaving this place,” I said, shaking my head. This was home. Maybe if I hadn’t left it, I’d have become the woman I’d been on my way to becoming before Stefan had found me. I’d never know, but I definitely wasn’t walking away from here again.
The rustic charm of the exposed brick walls, the wide-open design of my house, the huge windows that let in all the light. The way the windows faced out over the ocean and the sparkle of the sunlight reflecting off the water. It was an older home, but nothing about it spoke of old world elegance—it was all shabby chic and I loved it.
When I’d been married to Stefan, his home had looked like something from a high-fashion magazine—polished chrome, smooth lines, high gloss and endless expanses of black, broken up here and there with bursts of brilliant peacock blue or blood red. Very fashionable, very cutting edge. Very cold.
My home was warm, welcoming…and mine.
The door opened and I saw the officer standing there with Detective Barry, who glanced from me to Jenks and then gestured to the door. “We need to get to those questions,” she said.
I nodded and looked at Jenks.
That smile of his, slow and steady, waited for me. “I’ll be right here.”
Chapter Twelve
The police were finally gone. They’d left the door unlocked and although it left my spine crawling, I hadn’t gotten up to lock it. Jenks was still outside and I couldn’t work up the energy to go get him, or even move from the spot where I had stopped after the cops had left.
Numb, I sank to the floor, my skirt puddling around me as I reached for one of the sketchbooks.
It was one of the early ones. I knew each one and this one wouldn’t have held anything too terribly risqué.
He’d destroyed them all, though.
Taken a knife to them, it looked like.
I sat there, so despondent, I didn’t even jump when I heard the knock at the door.
“Yes?”
“It’s me.” Jenks’ voice carried through the door and I sighed, touching the image of a woman’s face. She’d been at the beach, nursing a baby. I’d drawn her, the way she had the blanket over her, covering them both, the little girl’s feet poking out, her hand curled around her mother’s finger. And he’d destroyed that one, too.
Every single one.
I’d had three books with me—the three I always took when I was out of the house because I never knew when I’d see something I had to draw, but those were all I had.
“Come on in,” I said, my voice a ghost of itself.
Jenks heard me anyway.
The familiar sound of the locks sliding into place filled the room and my throat burned as he said, “The locks are set. Should I check them again?”
“No.” I shook my head. It wouldn’t do any good. I had to check them or it didn’t count.
And just then, I couldn’t make myself move.
His footsteps came my way but I still couldn’t tear my eyes off the ruined image in front of me.
Minutes ticked by and then finally Jenks reached out and I didn’t fight him as he took the portrait. Sometimes I wondered if I shouldn’t give the images I drew to the people who’d inspired them. Not all of them, of course. If I saw a couple making out on the beach, I’d just as soon keep that private, but something like this, I’d rather that mom have it than to see it ruined.
“He destroyed all of them,” I said, my voice ragged, my heart raw. My very soul felt crushed.
Jenks sat down behind me and curved his body behind mine. “The cops going to talk to him?”
Closing my eyes, I braced one elbow on my knee. “I gave them his name. The officers made the standard noises, but if I know Detective Barry, she’ll poke around. But I know him. He wouldn’t have been seen. If he was here at all. Chances are he paid somebody to come out here and do this…”
I stopped, paused.
“How did he get in?” I whispered, starting to shake. My skull felt like it was going to split apart.
He shouldn’t have been able to get inside. It shouldn’t have happened.
I had a good security system. It wouldn’t keep people out of Fort Knox, but it damn well should have done its job here. Clambering to my feet, I practically ran to the table where I had put my purse. I grabbed my phone out, scrolled through the emails and my knees just about melted when I saw that not only had I not gotten alerts about the system being disarmed today, I hadn’t gotten any last night. Not a one since I’d set the system yesterday.
Somehow, he’d figured out how to hack my system.
My work computer was set up in the little area between the living room and the kitchen. It had been intended to be a breakfast bar, but that served no purpose for me and worked a lot better as a work area. I was very, very glad it was close just then because if it had been more than four or five feet, my legs might have given out beneath me. As it was, I practically collapsed as I dropped down onto the seat.
The Mac took forever to load. Or so it seemed. It was a powerful beast, but just then, even a few seconds was a lifetime and it took too long for me to log into the website for the security system.
My password didn’t work.
I tried to reset it, panicking when the site claimed the email didn’t match.
Okay.
Okay.
“Shadow?”
I jumped when he stroked his hand down my hair. Immediately, that light touch was gone and he moved into my line of sight, staring at me, the look on his face the same one he might have given a feral cat. It didn’t help my peace of mind any.
“I can’t get into the website I use for my security system.”
The few lines around his eyes tightened, the only sign he gave that he’d even heard me. After a beat or two, he shifted his chair around and studied the website. “What’s going
on?”
“I have a security system.” I licked my lips and then gestured around the apartment. “There are…um, hidden cameras. It’s overkill, it’s paranoid and I know that, but I needed it. To feel safe.”
“Why do you need that to feel safe?”
“I…” I licked my lips, tucking my hands into my lap as I tried to find the way to explain that wouldn’t make me seem crazy. Crazier. “The weeks after I left him, I stayed in an apartment. When I was in the hospital, they put me in touch with a shelter for battered women and they worked me through what I needed to do to leave him. How to stay safe. It’s never as easy as they say and they warned me it wouldn’t be. But I had to try. I was in a nice, safe apartment. It had security guards. You couldn’t get inside unless you had a key to the main gate. But he would get in.”
Jenks brushed my hair back from my face, kept his hand curved around the back of my neck. “How do you know?”
“He used to make me do crazy shit when we were married. We had a housekeeper, a cook, but he was weird about who touched his personal things. That was my job, as his wife. He instructed me on things like folding his underwear. Aligning his socks. Ordering things by color. Once I was away from him, it was…” I stopped, blowing out a breath as I tried to find the words. “Habit. It was habit, something engrained inside me and I kept doing it for almost six weeks after I left him, while I struggled to get the divorce finalized. He fought it all, every step of the way. And the police were no help. There was no evidence, just me all black and blue. One night, after the detective in charge of my case told me they didn’t think they’d be able to prosecute, I broke down and threw everything in the cabinets out on the floor. All of my socks. All of my underwear. I was like a two-year-old having a tantrum.”
It had been one of the more freeing events of my life. The next morning, I decided I was leaving.
Maybe they couldn’t find the evidence they needed to prosecute and that wasn’t a bad thing. That meant nothing held me in Boston. So I left the apartment.
I explained all of that and then had to stop, catching my breath as that fear gathered inside me again. Fear. Terror. Rage. “I went back, felt like I was finally taking control again, and I walked inside, prepared to see that mess. I didn’t care. The food, I could throw out, or donate what wasn’t ruined. My clothes, I could just pack. But everything was had been picked up. The house was neat as pin.”
Nothing could describe that fear.
How it felt when I ran through the apartment, jerked open the drawers and saw the way my panties were folded and organized by style and color. All the briefs—I wore a lot of them in those days—in one neat area, while the bikinis were in another and everything was done in a pretty little rainbow of color.
The socks were the same, and the clothes in my closet had been organized in sections of summer and winter, casual and dress, bright color and drab.
“I was a fucking mess by the time the cops got there and they thought I’d lost my mind.”
“Did they question him?”
My laugh held no humor. “Of course.” My hands shook as I pushed my hair back from my face and the sensory memory, the feel of it on my neck, touching my skin, was more than I could handle. I clambered up from the bar, my limbs feeling too loose, my joints too tight as I headed down the hall to my bathroom. It was a disaster. The drawers had been upended, the precious little makeup I owned dumped out on the floor. One small basket remained on the shelf over my toilet. It figured that he wouldn’t touch that—it held tampons a neat little case where I liked to keep them and a few pads. There was also a hair clip on the side of the shelf and I grabbed it, gathering my hair up and securing it, using the clip to hold it tightly.
“I gave them his name, and they went and spoke with him. Imagine his embarrassment and his surprise when they came to his gallery the night he was doing a showing for an artist—one of his wife’s friends—to question him about a possible break in. Everybody was so appalled. And my friend was furious.” I closed my eyes, pressed the tips of my fingers to my lids as the headache roared inside me, a dragon breathing fire inside my skull. “She claimed he was with her all morning. He’d been with her, off and on, for months. She consoled him, comforted him, and when I turned on him, she was there for him, too. She just loved to twist that knife.”
Feeling hollow inside, I lowered my hands.
Jenks stood in the doorway, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, muscles bulging.
“He had an alibi. They let it go.” I felt like I’d aged a hundred years as I pressed my head to the cool wall, letting it seep through to chill my overheated flesh. “So I installed cameras. When I moved, I did it again. And again here. Now…”
A chill rippled across my flesh.
Strong arms came around me. He kissed my neck, bared by my upswept hair. “Come home with me.”
It seemed a simple answer.
It seemed terribly complicated.
It was both and it was neither.
“I don’t really know you all that well, do I, Jenks?” I asked him, the question coming from me on a sigh.
“I’m not asking you to move in. Just until we figure out what to do from here. Where to go.”
His hands settled on my hips and he rubbed his cheek against mine. “You know you’re safe with me, right?”
That was one thing I did know.
But going home with him…
I wasn’t so sure about that.
I couldn’t stay here, though.
Chapter Thirteen
“Damn. Shadow. He’s hot.” Marla tipped her glasses down, studying Jenks over the tops of her lenses before pushing them back into place.
“I’ll say.” A wide, wicked grin lit Seth’s face only to be replaced by a pained grimace as Marla jabbed an elbow into his ribs. “Hey, now, it’s not fair you can go scoping him out if I can’t.”
She rolled her eyes. “Life ain’t about fair, pal. Besides…” She shrugged and looked around. “It’s not like I can compete with that.”
Seth leaned in and hooked his arm around her neck, pressing a kiss to her mouth. “You don’t need to. Even if he did swing both ways, he’s not what I want. And that guy doesn’t swing both ways, baby.” Then he leaned back and shot me a wink. “Of course, if the two of you ever want to play…”
The blush was almost painful as it stained my cheeks. Focusing on my sketchbook, I propped my head on my hand. “Um…no. Whatever. No.”
Seth laughed and pulled Marla into his lap, still grinning at me.
The sound of his laughter died and a moment later, they were both staring at me.
The amusement faded from Seth’s blue eyes and he rested his chin on Marla’s shoulder. The freckles there were more abundant than they had been a few weeks ago. Absently, he stroked his hand up and down her arm and my mind took a mental snapshot. I’ll draw them like that. Maybe if it turned out, I could frame it and give it to them as a wedding gift.
I knew Seth, knew his moods, knew when something was weighing on him. And something was weighing on him. Putting my pencil down, I closed my sketchbook and reached for the rag, wiping the smudges from my fingers before glancing over to see if Jenks was still where he usually was.
He was actually farther away, leaving us alone, and he had his shades on, his T-shirt off, just staring out over the ocean. But yeah, there was no denying what Marla and Seth had said. He was hot.
Jenks lived about a half mile from there, a nice easy walk, and we’d made that nice, easy walk after he’d woken me up in bed…and he’d been inside me when I woke up.
It was a pretty decent way to start the day, even if it had caught me off guard.
My belly clenched just thinking about it and I ducked my head, hoping neither of them would notice the direction of my thoughts.
Marla laughed and I scowled. Wishful thinking.
“You went and fell hard, didn’t you, honey?”
Groaning, I rested my forehead on the heel of my hand and star
ed out at the ocean.
“It’s nothing like that,” I said, but I knew it was a lie. I didn’t know what Jenks and I were. But we were something.
“Then what’s it like?” It was Seth who asked.
I couldn’t exactly call Seth a girlfriend. He might be bisexual but he was still one of the most masculine men I’d ever met and there were some things you just can’t confess to a man. But he was the first real friend I’d made in years. He was the person I trusted above all…even above Jenks.
Nervously, I flipped through my notebook, found the first portrait I’d drawn of Jenks. “The first time I saw him, I was just…looking for people to draw.” I shrugged and flipped the spiral-bound pad of paper around, watched as they tipped their heads down to study it.
I’d let them see my work before. They were the only ones who had, aside from Jenks.
More than once, Marla had tried to convince me to take some of my portraits to a gallery run by a friend of hers. The answer was always no. It would remain no. This was mine. It would stay mine.
I watched as Marla reached up and stroked the tip of her finger down Jenks’ back. He’d been sitting on the beach. That snarling wolf was the first thing I’d seen and it had caught my interest, captured it, held it.
“I’ve been drawing him for months.” I shrugged and told them about the football, the terse conversation that followed, how I’d left my notebook.
And then, I waited. Part of me thought Marla was going to try to high-five me.
Instead, she dropped her head into her hands. “Fuck, Shadow. You…shit, I’m glad you two are getting along and all, but don’t you think you should be more careful?”
I blinked.
Carefully, I reached for my sketches, extricating them out from under her elbows and then, pausing to study that first portrait of Jenks, I closed it, looked away. “Careful?”
“Some hot guy sees kinky pictures of you and you just go handing out your name. How do you know he’s not a freak?”
The words hung there.
I looked down at my sketchpad, full of images that many, many people would describe as not quite normal. I thought of the way I checked my locks, once, twice, three times, thought of how I snuck out the back door to go to the beach, hoping my shadow wouldn’t follow me.
Pieces of Me Page 12
