by Abbie Roads
The scream burst out of her mouth in a rush of peppermint from her toothpaste. “Mom! Mom! Help me.”
By now, she should know—her mom wanted them together.
Lathan opened his mouth, diffusing the amount of air going to his nose, and then pulled his attention away from Junior’s memory before he saw something he’d regret forever. With hardly any effort, the SM retreated to his preconscious. Complete vision returned to his left eye faster than ever before. But the urge—oh God, Junior’s urge—to ram his dick into her was overwhelming.
Nausea gyrated in Lathan’s gut.
Not his urge. Junior’s urge. Not his urge. Junior’s urge.
No amount of telling himself it was someone else’s memory eliminated the feeling that he’d done that to her. Why couldn’t the SMs be like watching a TV show? Something he could walk away from. Easily forget.
“What’re you—” Junior’s expression froze halfway between a snarl and a sneer. The scent of burning cinnamon choked the air around him—rage at not getting what he wanted. Her. That amount of anger led down a road named Violence and ended in town called Body Dump.
“Take the car and leave.” Lathan nodded toward the Miata. The car would have to placate the asshole. If it didn’t—he flexed his free hand—Junior would be leaving with a fractured face and his ’nads shoved so far up his chest cavity he’d need open-heart surgery to extract them.
He heard odd sounds. No, female sounds. The woman was talking, but he couldn’t link a meaning to the noises his ears picked up.
She tugged his hand but didn’t let go. Probably protesting him giving her car away.
Lathan spoke over his shoulder, but never let his gaze stray from Junior. “Give him your car. I’ll help you figure things out after he leaves.”
She leaned full-body against him, letting him take her weight, support her like a crutch. Her head rested on the wing of his shoulder, and she nodded her agreement against his back.
Soothing coolness spiraled through his insides. It was just a silly nod, but the gesture symbolized more. Trust. Her trust in him to make this decision for her and to keep her safe from Junior.
And he would keep her safe. It made him gut-sick that the same girl who was such a fighter in the SM was now a frightened woman. And why shouldn’t she be? Get knocked down enough times, it becomes harder and harder to get up swinging.
Junior smiled, a malicious upturn of the lips, the kind of smile a bully has right before he wallops on someone weaker. “Darlin’, I’ll see you soon.”
“No.” Lathan said. “You won’t call her. You won’t look at her. You won’t touch her. You fucking try it, and I’ll hand you your balls on plate. Then I’ll stuff them down your throat and enjoy every second of watching you choke to death.” He meant every goddamned word.
It was only after Junior hooked up her car and drove out of sight that she stepped out from behind Lathan, her gaze locked on the narrow place where the road disappeared from sight. And still she didn’t let go of his hand. Not that he minded. Not one bit.
Dusk had begun to settle around them, sucking away the light. In a few minutes, it’d be too dark to read her speech. He should tell her he had trouble hearing. But he wasn’t going to. For this one moment in his life, he was going to be normal. Just an ordinary man.
He shifted to face her, to see her mouth. “There’s no place for him to double back, so you don’t need to worry about round two. Do you want me to call the police?”
She closed her eyes and shook her head with an anguished expression. The scent of her fear had begun to dissipate, but he still smelled her blood.
Where was she hurt?
Her ebony hair was pulled up in one of those artfully messy hairstyles that showed off the contour of her neck and an expanse of pale skin leading all the way down to the hollow between her breasts. He forced his gaze away, searching for blood. Along the side of her left arm, streaks of red meandered to her wrist.
“You’re gonna need a Band-Aid at minimum, stitches at max.”
She looked down at her arm. Even in the dim light, he could see the color rinse out of her face. She’d better not pass out, not here, with only his bike for transportation.
“You don’t do well with blood, do you? Look at me.” He waited until her gaze shifted away from her arm. “Don’t look at it anymore. It’ll only make you feel bad.”
She didn’t look away from him. Pass-out crisis averted.
“Is there someplace you want me to take you?” Why was he all of a sudden a Chatty Chucky? Because she was being too quiet. He clamped his lips closed, forcing himself to wait for her response.
She didn’t move, didn’t look away from his eyes. Most people never met his gaze during a conversation; they ogled the tattoo on his cheek. The black feather started on his cheekbone and angled downward toward his chin, the spine of it torn apart with jagged edges that dripped blood down his jaw and neck. How could she not stare at it?
After a full thirty seconds where her lips didn’t so much as twitch, he concluded she was in shock—in no condition to make decisions. After the sick shit he’d seen in Junior’s SM, she had a right to take a mental time-out.
“I live a few miles from here. I’ll take you to my house and help you figure out what you want to do next.”
“Okay.”
She’d finally spoken. Maybe she wasn’t as far gone as he’d assumed.
He started toward his bike lying in the ditch. Whoa. He didn’t remember dropping his Fat Bob so carelessly.
She trailed behind him, still attached to his gloved hand. Not once in his life had he ever held a woman’s hand. He’d never known how intimate cradling a smaller palm against his could be, or how protective it’d make him feel, or how strongly he’d desire to rip off the glove and touch her, skin to skin. Not going to happen. Ever.
He tried to release her, but she remained fastened to him. A selfish corner of his mind reveled in her desire to cling to him. He raised their hands between them to catch her eye. “I need to get the bike out of the ditch.”
Her brows rose an infinitesimal degree. Embarrassment flashed in her eyes at the same time the spoiled dairy scent of it hit his nose. She dropped his hand and stepped back.
“Hey, no worries.” You have no idea how much I’d sacrifice to keep hold of you. He clenched his empty fist a few times to eliminate his hand’s memory of what it felt like to hold hers.
While he hauled his machine onto the road, he didn’t look away from her. She stood bereft in the middle of the pavement, staring out over the pasture. Emotions infused the air around her. Shame. Hate. Embarrassment. Sadness. Fear. Desperation.
He recognized that tangled combination of scents. Knew them intimately. Knew the feeling of being hurt and vulnerable and powerless to stop the pain. Knew how memories, like the one he witnessed, had left wounds on her soul and Junior had just ripped off all the scabs.
She was raw, bleeding emotionally in front of him, and yet holding it together by a spider’s thread. He could see the effort in the way she stood straight and stiff.
Fury simmered low in his gut. After he got her squared away, maybe he’d pay a visit to Junior. Show the asshole what it felt like to be the victim.
He walked the bike to her. After he straddled the seat, he held out his hand to her. She grabbed him, her grip hungry.
“Climb on up.”
She tossed her leg over the seat, using his hand to balance her weight.
He sat at the same time she did, her body settling against his back.
Holy Jesus. He couldn’t activate the ability to think. His brain short-circuited from her nearness. Everything disappeared but the feeling of her open thighs wrapped around his ass with nothing but a tiny pair of black shorts and his jeans between them.
Her sweet, musky scent, almost like honey, but better—way better—folded
around him like a celestial pair of wings. The scent of her entered his nose and flowed into his lungs, then out to his extremities, spreading a cooling wave of solace that he wanted to savor but couldn’t. Not with her perched behind him, waiting for him to drive down the road.
He placed her hand against his stomach, pressed it tightly to him. His abdominal muscles twitched under her touch.
“Hold on.” He let go of her hand, and she slid her other arm around his waist. She pressed her front to his back, holding as tightly to his body as she’d held his hand. She was a clingy little thing. Not that he minded. Her touch felt like—what was the word he wanted to use—kismet. Exactly as he’d always imagined a lover’s touch. Two pieces fitting together perfectly.
He kicked the machine into gear, trying to ease it forward instead of moving with his normal burst of speed. She rested her head on his spine, nestling her cheek across the fabric of his shirt before settling.
His heart grew, straining against his chest wall, threatening to come up his throat in a shout of absolute ecstasy.
* * *
Lathan eased the Fat Bob next to his back porch steps and cut the engine. The woman’s tenacious grip around his waist had never faltered. He felt another bout of shivers roll over her. Those sinful shorts of hers pushed the boundaries of decency and definitely weren’t seasonal for November in Ohio, especially not for riding on the back of a motorcycle.
He waited for her to loosen her hold. She didn’t. “Honey.” He didn’t know her name, but the endearment belonged to her better than any name he could imagine. “You can get off now.”
Immediately, she released him and climbed off the bike. That was good, but a woolly mammoth–sized problem remained—how to snap her out of her emotional free fall. He set the kickstand and got off the bike. She hovered close like she expected Junior to materialize at any moment.
Anger at Junior—at what he’d done to her, at what he had wanted to do to her again—heated Lathan’s blood, singeing his veins and arteries. He clenched his fists tight, popped each of his knuckles, and wished his hands were wrapped around Junior’s throat. “You don’t have to worry about Junior. You’re safe with me.”
She latched onto his hand again, squirming her fingers between his gloved ones.
He squeezed her hand to reinforce his words.
She squeezed back, and some of the anxiety in her eyes eased.
Damn. He liked her touching him.
“So…” Jesus, what was he supposed to say? His mind tornadoed around in his skull, looking for words. He walked up the steps and turned to see her. The back-porch light cast a warm glow across her skin, giving her a heartier color than she naturally possessed. The mass of her hair, so perfect before the ride, now sagged precariously close to her ear. Wispy tendrils had escaped, shooting out at awkward angles around her head. She didn’t look one millimeter less beautiful. “I built the place myself. It’s not fancy, but it’s mine.”
She didn’t say anything, but her gaze darted around, taking in the wide porch spanning the entire length of his house and the small yard that ended abruptly in a thick screen of trees and underbrush.
He led her into his home. With no hesitation, she followed him across the threshold. She had to be way the fuck out of it to have no anxiety about this situation. Not only was he a stranger to her, but he was a big man. His size alone intimated most people. Add on his face tattoo, and most everyone avoided him. He guided her through the wide-open kitchen to the living room.
“I don’t normally have company.” He sniffed the air, making certain Little Man hadn’t found a dead animal in the woods and dragged it through the dog door. Again. “You sit and rest. I’ll get a bandage for your elbow, and then we’ll figure things out.”
She let go of him and sat on his sofa. Stared at her lap.
He immediately missed her touch. Her mouth moved, but the angle was wrong for him to see her lips. He picked up the erratic sounds of speech.
She looked up. Desperation lit her eyes. “…I sleep.”
What could she have possibly said that ended in I sleep? Her emotional scents were all over the universe—no help at all. Without the context of the entire sentence, he couldn’t even be sure he’d read I sleep correctly. He knelt at eye level with her and covered her hands with his.
“Honey.”
She stared into his eyes—his eyes, not the image on his cheek. Heat flared up his neck and onto his face. She looked at him—saw him, the real him. How did she do it?
“I’ve got a favor to ask. When you talk to me, look me in the face.” He should explain, but he wasn’t going to. “Please.”
“I’ll be better after I sleep. I always am.”
The sounds and sight of her speech matched perfectly, but he still wasn’t certain what she meant. “You want to take a nap?”
“I have to.”
The seriousness of her gaze worried him. “You have to?”
“I’ll be better after… I promise.”
Huh? Maybe she knocked her head when she fell. No, she had landed on her ass and elbows. “Ohh-kaay…” He drew the word out, showing his confusion.
She shifted her legs up onto the couch, laid her head on the arm, and heaved a deep breath. Her eyelids fluttered shut. He waited for them to open again, but they didn’t. The tangled scent of her emotions faded, and her honeyed scent signature intensified, enveloping him in a vaporous caress. Only one thing magnified a person’s scent signature. Sleep. She’d been trying to tell him she felt the adrenaline crash coming on. Damn. It had hit her hard.
He should go into the kitchen, make himself a peanut butter sandwich, a steaming pot of coffee, a large helping of rational behavior. Instead, he ass-planted on the opposite end of the couch, submitting to the urge to watch over her, to make sure nothing bad happened to her.
She frowned in her sleep. Shifted. Straightened out her legs until her feet ran into his thigh. She inhaled a slow breath, her expression settling, as if touching him soothed her. It sure as hell felt good to him.
He memorized the length and width of the lines across her Achilles tendon and the rise and hollow of her anklebones. Shiny new skin, raw patches, and dry scabs covered her toes, the back of her heel. Her feet were a map of misery.
Stop staring at her feet like Little Man drooling over a bone. Touch her—skin to skin.
Fear plunged into his heart, sharp as a scalpel. No. He couldn’t allow his bare skin to make contact with another human’s flesh. He refused to regress to his childhood—lost in a blur of other people’s memories, not being able to find his reality. Touch amplified his ability. Touch incapacitated him. When he’d started wearing the gloves, he’d gained a critical piece of control.
And yet, he yanked off his gloves. His heart rate, his breath rate jacked up to an almost unbearable level.
What the fuck was he doing?
Not listening to logic. He pressed one finger to her ankle. A wave of calm crested over him, quieting his racing heart, dowsing his ragged breathing, and abating the fear of losing control. No SMs. Millimeter by millimeter he settled his entire hand over her, circling her ankle, thumb meeting middle finger. Her skin was cold over the sharp bones.
No SMs. None. How was that possible?
He didn’t believe in God, but maybe, just maybe, she was created for him. An Eve to his Adam.
What was he thinking? Crazy, crazy, crazy thoughts.
She probably had a brain defect that prevented scents from linking to memories. His olfactory region was overdeveloped. Maybe hers was underdeveloped.
He pulled his hand off her ankle.
Distance. He needed distance between them. He grabbed his gloves and headed for the back door. He glanced at her only once, to make certain she still slept, then left the house.
* * *
An endless plateau of white surrounded Evanee. No s
ky, no walls. Just white trailing off to infinity.
The White Place. Such a childish name, but she’d named it when she was a child.
She opened her arms wide, tilted her face skyward, letting the tranquility of the space cradle her body. The silence settled her mind. The color calmed her soul. The aloneness healed her heart.
Over the past few months, she’d longed for this escape. But the White Place chose when to admit her. It was a gift granted only in the worst of times.
Growing up, she came here every time she slept. This place rejuvenated her fragmented emotions, granted her the strength to fight, and gave her the will to live when the easier option was suicide.
It’d been a decade since her last visit. Too long.
A sound. She caged the breath in her lungs to listen. Sound had never existed in the White Place.
Fear whispered over the back of her neck, the backs of her arms, the backs of her legs. She was in the presence of a predator. She could sense its malicious energy, its malevolent intent.
The sound—clearer this time.
Humming. The sweet, dulcet tones clashed with the suffocating terror coursing through her.
She lowered her arms to her sides, cinched her hands into fists, and turned.
A child, a little girl, her body in profile. Her pink shirt, her hands, her baby-doll blond tresses matted with reddish mud. The glare of color against the pristine white was repulsive. Wrong.
Adrenaline squirted into Evanee’s system. Every muscle mobilized, ready to fight. Or run.
Why was she afraid of a dirty kid?
She could only see the side of the girl’s face, but that was enough to see her beauty. She was the kind of child women were jealous of because they knew how stunning she’d be when she matured. The kind of child every father feared having because the boys wouldn’t leave her alone. The kind of child parents couldn’t help spoiling.
The girl extended her arm, hiding something in her fist. “Take this.” The girl’s petulant tone raised goose bumps over Evanee’s skin.
