Impressions of Me (Impressions Series Book 2)

by Christopher Harlan

  We talk for a few minutes like everything is normal - a little expected chit chat about the honeymoon, of course, then the boys catching up on a little business. Before too long I decide to tackle the elephant in the room, and instead of waiting for the subject to come up, I decide to broach it myself. "Sooo, how are we gonna keep me alive?" I do have a way with words, don't I? Everyone stops and looks at me, and the faces in the room turn serious. Subtlety has never been a strong suit of mine, plus I just wanna get to it already.

  “Wait, wait,” Mia interrupts, “I can’t discuss survival strategies on an empty stomach, it just won’t work. I need food.” She’s right. We all make a surprisingly quick decision to order Italian food. Kane and Wesley know a place and Wesley orders for everyone while the rest of us sit around the living room talking. When he comes back we get down to strategizing. Kane speaks first.

  “Is there anything about Derrick that we need to know that we don’t know already?” he asks me.

  “You mean, besides that he’s dangerous and crazy?” I respond.

  “Yes, besides that,” Wesley interjects, “I think we’re all know that already, but I think what Kane is asking is about him – outside of the crazy and dangerous, if you can even separate the two. Tell me about him. Anything that may help us.”

  I think about it for a second. It’s hard to reflect back on that time without thinking of all his terrible behavior. I’m racking my brain trying to remember normal things; going to the movies, a dinner, anything that may help in this situation, but it’s difficult. “Nothing’s jumping out at me, I’m sorry. Anything I’d say would be kind of obvious.”

  “It’s okay, tell me anyway.”

  “Well, when I think back there is nothing that was really normal about him, but I didn’t see it at the time. I was in a bad place when we met, and I just wanted to be with someone – anyone – and my spider-sense wasn’t working that well, because if it was I think I would have noticed little things I remember now.”

  “Like what?” Kane asks.

  “Like that he was always very controlling, but not in obvious ways. It wasn’t like he locked me in the house and chained me up in a closet; it wasn’t that dramatic. It was small things, little things that are easy to mistake for a guy being sweet or taking charge. Then after he did those type of things he would escalate to more obvious kinds of control.”

  “What were some of the little things?” Mia asks. It’s odd because she was around for this whole thing, but back then I never saw Derrick’s behavior like I see it now, so a lot of this is news to her.

  “There was this TV show I loved to watch. I watched it for five seasons, and when Derrick and I started getting serious, he used to tell me that I shouldn’t really like that show anymore; that it was kind of dumb, and I was too smart to watch a show like that, then he’s suggest a show that he liked. He was good at that – at masking control inside of a compliment or something else that seemed sweet. At the time I couldn’t see it that way, but I have some perspective now.”

  “So he’s good at presenting himself as normal?” Kane asks me.

  “Very. That’s a specialty of his – of all guys like him, I guess. They’re not like the bad guys in the movies – they’re not waiting in an alley looking crazy. In real life the bad guys know how to hide in plain sight. Derrick was a master at that.”

  We talk for a few more minutes and then the food arrives. It’s a nice respite from all the stalker-talk, but after a couple of slices we get right back into it, only this time we’re trying to think of solutions as a group. Mia suggests hiring a private investigator and possibly private security; Kane suggests using contacts he has to find out more information; and Wesley is mostly just listening and thinking. I’m listening also, and it’s surreal to hear a table full of people talking about your life and your safety, and you’re just kind of sitting there, observing it all like a spectator. I love that everyone is trying to help; that all of our collective energy is going into this process, but nothing I’m hearing is particularly reassuring. I can’t walk around with a small army surrounding me at all times, and I can’t live in Kane’s house forever. After listening to all these ideas (and eating way too much pizza – I’m such a pig) I can see that Kane wants to say something that he isn’t saying. I put my hand on his leg and furrow my eyebrows when he looks over at me. He leans into me and says “I’ll tell you later, okay?” I nod, and now I’m curious what he’s thinking of that he doesn’t want to say in front of everyone else.

  I listen some more, and we keep brainstorming, but after a while it gets exhausting, and I thank everyone for their ideas, and then change the topic. It’s been a few hours now of sitting and talking, and the last thing I want to be is rude, but the non-stop discussion of everything is starting to get overwhelming and stress me out. It’s not my house, so I can’t ask anyone to leave, so instead I decide to excuse myself and step outside with Jordan. She needs a walk anyway, and it gives me a good excuse to leave for a minute or two without being rude. It’s still light outside, and I could use a few breaths of fresh air to clear my head. And, based on the little pee-pee dance she’s doing, I think Jordan could use some time outside also. “Excuse me for a minute, guys, I don’t want Jordan to pee on your floor.”

  “You okay?” Mia asks as I get up abruptly.

  “Fine, just need some air.” I loop Jordan’s leash around her thick neck which is angled upwards towards me, and we go outside together. Marsden Mansion backs up against the woods, and it’s a long distance between houses, so I don’t need to walk but a few feet around the back before I’m surrounded by trees. The wealthy sure love their privacy; I can’t see a single thing on the horizon in any direction except lots of tress. Jordan’s ears are perked up and she goes into full prey-drive mode as all the little squirrels and birds flutter around. “We’re not here to hunt squirrels,” I say to her, giving a light tug on the leash, “get to your business.” She goes right away, but I don’t feel like going back in just yet. I know the evening is winding down, but I’d do almost anything not to talk about Derrick and my safety anymore. So instead of going back around to the front and joining everyone back inside, I decide to take a few steps deeper into the woods, along a path that looks like it was cleared years ago. Jordan’s being a good girl, as always, staying right by my side and not pulling on the leash at all, even though I know she wants to go chase down small furry creatures. I can still see the house, but it’s a little off in the distance. I decide not to go any further for obvious reasons, and I find a huge boulder sitting in the middle of a clearing. I’m so out of shape! I sit my but down on the edge and take a few deep breaths of the air.

  I’m not sure how long I’m sitting here, but in the distance I can see a figure approaching wearing a black tee shirt. After a few steps towards me I can see that it’s Kane, and he’s alone. When finally makes it over to where I’m still sitting on the giant rock I just take him in with my eyes; in the fog of all this craziness I stopped noticing how beautiful Kane is. I guess that part of my brain has mostly been shut off; or at least it’s been preoccupied with other things. But I feel safe here, and seeing him approach from so far away gives me an opportunity to really see him for the first time in a while. His height, his beautiful eyes, the bulge of his chest underneath his tight shirt – all of together makes the man approaching me the most attractive man I’ve ever seen.

  “You’ve been out here a whiel, I was starting to worry.”

  “No need,” I say back, holding up the leash, “I’ve got my own private security team right here.”

  “Does your security team always poop in the woods?”

  “Only when there’s no toilets available, yes, for your information.” We both smile, and it feels really nice. “You left Mia and Wesley alone in there with the last few slices of pizza?”

  “No,” he answers, “I sent them home.”

  “How come?” I ask, more relieved than disappointed.

  “Because I could te
ll that you had enough, which is understandable, so I told them that we’d catch up with them tomorrow, and that you probably needed some rest from all the death talk.”

  “Yeah, death talk is surprisingly tiring.” I smile again, and take another deep breath. The air fills my lungs, and its exhalation makes me feel alive.

  “That was a big breath,” Kane observes.

  “It helps with stress. I used to mediate and do yoga all the time, but like everything else good in my life, I have to start the sentence with the phrase, ‘I used to.’ I should really get back into some of that stuff; it made everything else in life bearable.”

  “Life shouldn’t have to be bearable, Dacia, it should be enjoyable. Not everything, of course, but most things. Yoga and meditation are great, but they should add to your life, not distract you from it.”

  “You sound like my therapist – something else I used to do. But you’re right. I need this to be over so I can start from scratch. Start everything new again.”

  “Well, I hope not to start everything new again.” That’s the closest Kane’s come to saying how he feels about me. He might be more guarded than I am when it comes to his emotions, but I’ve gotten used to it. I know I should be thinking a million other things that are more practical: about Derrick, about my safety, about how I’m going to put my life back in order when this is all over. But none of that will allow itself into my mind or my heart right now. There’s only Kane and I, alone in the woods behind his home. With the newly discovered fire in my belly, I feel like being direct. I’m tired of sitting around as life happens to me.

  “No, not everything,” I answer, “I’ll hold onto the things that matter the most, but I need to know what those are, Kane, do you understand?” I’m looking right at him, and he’s staring back, understanding my implication. I need to know if we are what I think we are, and I need him to say the words to me. “So where are we going with all of this?”

  “All of what?” he asks.

  “This,” I say thrusting my index finger back and forth between him and I, “Us. Where are we going with us?” He looks at me again and doesn’t say anything, so I decide to frame it a different way. “Forget that question, it’s too vague. I’ll be more specific – what do you want me to be to you? Am I some charity case that you feel sorry for? A girl you kinda like who happens to be in trouble, and you feel like you need to be a man and save me? Some chick you slept with and can’t wait to get rid of after you’ve done the responsible thing and helped me? What?”

  He looks back at me intensely, and I can see that my words are having some impact on him. “No,” he says, “no to all of that. You’re absolutely none of those things to me. And I’m not helping you out of some sense of responsibility, or because I feel like I have to. I’m helping you because. . .” He stops short of finishing his sentence.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m helping you because. . .” I can see he’s getting frustrated. He’s not used to being pushed, and he doesn’t want to say what I know he is capable of saying.

  “Just say what you mean, Kane.”

  “Because I love you! I’m helping you because I love you, and the idea of anyone taking you away from me makes me stop breathing.” He’s got a tear in his eye, and so do I. As much as I was prompting him, I didn’t really expect him to say that right now, but my heart’s swelling at the fact that he did.

  “I love you too, Kane, as weird as it is to think that I’d ever say those words. But it’s true. And not just for all your help, I love you for you, and all the qualities that lie just beneath that rough exterior.”

  “I’ve never said that to anyone before,” he says quietly, taking a few steps closer to me as he does. “At least not to a woman outside of my own family.” We both smile, and I think about what a milestone it must be for him to admit his true feelings towards me.

  “I’ve said it a couple of times,” I reply, “But if I’m being honest, it was always out of obligation because someone said it to me – I’ve never had anything quite as. . . unique as we have right now.” It’s true, this relationship of ours was forged in a series of chance encounters and dangerous situations, but inside all of those external factors we’ve found something together, something that transcends the circumstances – something that’s uniquely ours.

  I’m still sitting on the rock, my new hair ever so slightly moving with the passing wind. Kane doesn’t say another word, he just walks up to me, and puts his body between my legs. My hand goes to his waist, and he leans in and kisses me more passionately than he ever has, cupping my face as he does. It’s the perfect moment – not only because of everything else that’s happened today, but because it’s the kiss I’ve been waiting for since I first ran into him (literally) at my job. It’s the kiss that we were meant to have, and it seems to last forever, frozen in time.

  When he pulls back I look deep into his eyes, and all I can say is, “Wow.” He smiles, and pulls me in again, whispering in my ear:

  “You haven’t seen anything yet.” Then he picks me up and starts to carry me back to the house. Jordan follows, even though I dropped her leash a while ago. When we get to the front door he puts me down, and I’m painfully aware how much I want him.

  In the distance I swear that I hear something like footsteps, but when I turn I don’t see anything. Stop being paranoid, I tell myself, then turn back to the house. Before I close the door I look back just one more time, and even though my eyes don’t pick up anything unusual, I have a terrible feeling in my stomach.

  Chapter 19

  SEX SCENE II (writing on notepad on phone)

  After we’re finished I’m exhausted – in the best way a person can be. It’s like that feeling after a great workout, where you feel like you don’t have the energy to do anything else, but you still feel great anyway. Sex with Kane is like a good workout, and as I lay on the bed recovering and breathing heavy I try to allow myself all the happiness of the moment that I can take in. “Wow,” I whisper to Kane as he lies next to me, his chest rising and falling to take in all the oxygen he can, the sweat of our little workout still causing his chest and face to glisten like a Greek God.

  “Ditto,” he says back, “and, actually, ‘wow’ doesn’t do it any justice. That was so. . . different than the first time.”

  “It was, wasn’t it? I thought it was just me.”

  “It was not just you. That was so much better and more intense than I remember.”

  “Oh, so you’re saying the first time sucked, huh?”

  “Yeah, exactly,” he jokes, “and it’s good to see that you’re getting better at this, I was worried you never would.”

  I take my pillow and throw it against his face, and when his head pops back out from behind he grabs me by the back of the head and kisses me again, his fingers intertwined in the strands of my hair, caressing my head and neck. “I need to take a shower.”

  “You’re so used to one-night-stands, aren’t you?”

  “I plead the Fifth on that one, but just out of curiosity, why do you ask?”

  “Because jumping out of bed after sex to shower is one night stands 101 – I used to teach a Master’s level course on it. Need to shower the dirty off of you.”

  “I see,” he says with a grin on his face, “but that’s actually not what I was doing. This may sound gross but I didn’t shower yesterday either. It’s been a few long days at work, and I just feel like taking a shower. It has nothing to do with getting the smell of you off, trust me. If I could bottle the scent of you I’d make it into cologne and douse myself in it, Euro-trash style.”

  “That might be the cutest and weirdest compliment I’ve ever received, Kane Marsden. No one’s ever offered to wear my sweat as a fragrance before.”

  “I like to keep my compliments unique. Every guy says the same thing to women – ‘you’re so beautiful, so irresistible’, blah, blah, blah. I’ll go with my sweat one.”

  “I appreciate that, but just so you know those other ones ar
e just fine.”

  “Got it. What are you gonna do while I shower?”

  “I’m kind of still hungry, is there any of that pizza left over?” I ask.

  “I swear, you have the biggest appetite for someone so small,” Kane jokes, “but yeah, I think Mia put the rest of it in the fridge.”

  “So take your time in the shower, I’ll be pigging out in the kitchen, drowning my sorrows in red wine and pizza crust.”

  “Go for it,” he says, “maybe I’ll join you after. Save me a slice.”

  “I make no promises at all, but I’ll try.”

  Kane grabs some towels from the hallway closet and struts naked into the bathroom. “See you in a few.”

  I put on a long tee shirt of Kane’s (well, long on me, anyway) and make my way to the kitchen. I really am starving even though I have no real reason to be. I take out the leftovers Mia left in the fridge and turn the over on to heat up. It’ll be at least five minutes, so I leave the kitchen and stroll around a little bit. That’s weird. We must have left the front door open when we were coming inside before. I don’t remember but we weren’t really paying attention. Still, though, I really thought I had closed it. And where’s Jordan?

  Chapter 21

  Derrick

  Fucking whore!

  I saw you, Dacia. I saw what you did with him, and how you’re in the kitchen eating . . . work up an appetite, did you? Of course you did, you filthy little slut. You probably think I forgot about what you did when we were together, don’t you? Well you’re wrong! I remember you being a slut back then – smiling at other guys when we were in public, flirting with that stupid friend of yours, Kevin. You think I didn’t see, but I saw. I saw and I took notes on what a liar and a cheat you are. And here you are again, cheating on me with him.