Love Me (Trust Series #2)

by Mayer, Kristin

  “You will make love to me if you’re not pregnant.”

  He might as well kill me now. “No! You can beat me to a bloody pulp, but I will never let you touch me like that.”

  He puts his lips to mine, forcing his way into my mouth. It’s the most wretched feeling I have ever had, having someone force himself on me. All I can think about is getting his tongue out of my mouth. He’s holding my face so hard that I can’t move it to dislodge his locked lips. I do the only other thing I can think of and bite down—hard.

  It does the trick, and he’s shouting, “Fuck!” over and over again.

  I start to thrash as he comes toward me, his intent obvious with his raised hand. I’m not stopping this time because I would rather be dead than have him touch me.

  “You’re going to have to kill me before you touch me. You hear me? I’d rather be dead.” I’m whipping my body so hard that my hand might fall off from how tight the rope is on my wrist.

  “Alli! Alli, baby, wake up. You’re safe. Oh, baby, please wake up.”

  My eyes shoot open as my body simultaneously jolts forward. Holy hell, the pain that goes up my side has my vision going blurry for a second. My chest is heaving, and I’m damp with sweat. I’m trying to get as much air into my system as I come down from my adrenaline rush.

  Damien is right there, holding me delicately. He’s trying to continue to calm me down with his steady voice and loving touch. “Easy, Alli. You’re in the hospital in Atlanta.”

  I let out one big breath.

  “Lie back down, baby. You’re hurting yourself.”

  The pain continues to shoot up my side, causing me to grunt.

  I’m still tired, and I just don’t feel right in the head, but at least I feel like I can keep my eyes open for more than just a few moments.

  “Let me call a doctor to check on you first.”

  He’s more of a wreck than he was at the hospital after the Brad incident. The bags under his eyes look like he hasn’t slept for days. He’s still wearing the last thing I saw him in, khakis and a button-up blue dress shirt.

  “Damien, please.”

  He ignores my feeble protest as expected. He signals and hits the call button at the top of my bed. “My wife is awake. Please come immediately.”

  My eyes start glancing around, trying to take in my surroundings now that some of the pain has subsided. The room looks similar to the time I was here before. Well, I think all hospital rooms look the same—white, sterile, bleach smells, and unfriendly.

  He’s touching me in some way the entire time. Knowing he’s right there keeps me calm after what I’ve just been through.

  It’s over. I’m safe.

  Dr. Ferguson comes into the room. “Good evening, Allison. How are you feeling?”

  It’s the same doctor that attended to me when I was in here after being drugged at Sam’s sorority party. I smile at the familiar face. The years of what I assume is stress wear clearly on his wrinkled face. His graying hair adds to my assumption.

  It’s hard to even narrow down where the pain begins and ends. “I hurt all over, and my head is really fuzzy.”

  He nods. “That is to be expected. You have a mild concussion, a couple of cracked ribs, mild to severe bruising, and a deep laceration on your right wrist.”

  Damien flinches beside me and rubs his forehead with his free hand. Looking at my wrist, I see it’s bandaged. I hadn’t even noticed the bandage until the doctor was basically roll-calling all the things that are wrong with me.

  A nurse walks in and hands the doctor a file. “Dr. Ferguson, here are the results of the rape kit.”

  My anxiety accelerates as I watch the blood drain from Damien’s face.

  Does he look at me differently now? I’ve been in a room with two different men, Brad and Ben, and Damien has no idea what happened with either of them.

  Dr. Ferguson opens it and reads it. Closing it, he says, “The results from the rape kit are negative.”

  Damien closes his eyes and lightly squeezes my hand. “Thank God.”

  When he opens them, the relief in his deep blue depths is apparent. My eyes are starting to get heavy as the doctor starts telling Damien about things to watch for. I can’t focus on what he’s saying.

  A needle comes to my arm, and I jump.

  The nurse responds, “Mrs. Wales, it’s a mild sedative to help with the pain and sleep.”

  “No, I don’t want it.” My voice is so weak. It barely has any bite to it, but I continue to pull away.

  Damien lays his hand on my arm. “Alli, it’s safe. You need to rest. Let them do what they think is best for you.”

  He would never let someone harm me. Numbly, I respond, “Okay.”

  Damien gives me a small smile. I’m tired of being injected with things. It makes me feel as if my body isn’t my own right now, like the foreign substance is violating me.

  The doctor excuses himself, and I lay my head back and momentarily close my eyes.

  “Baby, do you want to go back to sleep?”

  Hearing the pain in his voice, I want so badly to reach out and comfort him, but my limbs are becoming heavy.

  My body protests as I try to stay awake, but I have one pressing question I need to have answered. “I’m so tired. I just need to know…how long was I gone?”

  He gently rubs the side of my face, and my head involuntarily leans into the touch. It’s warm and comforting.

  “Just a few hours. It’s early evening.”

  It feels like it’s been days. As he continues to stroke my face with a velvet touch, I murmur, “I knew you would find me.”

  The world starts to drift away as I hear Damien say, “I will always find you, Alli. There is nothing in this world that would keep me from finding you.”

  What is that noise? I can hear some low heated arguing in the distance.

  Before I open my eyes, I take stock of my body from head to toe, not wanting to have to be in a confrontation with anyone at this point. I still hurt like hell. Ben did a number on me. I never imagined such violence from him. Rebecca never had a chance. I wouldn’t have had a chance if Damien didn’t find me when he did. Ben would have killed me. I know it. I would have been dead within a few days at how violent Ben got with me so quickly.

  The pain meds are still fogging my brain, but they are slowly burning away. There’s a low, dull ache, but it’s manageable.

  The voices sound like Damien and Sam.

  I don’t want to deal with this stress right now as I feel like I’m barely hanging on by a thread myself. They are just going to have to work out their problems without me for the time being.

  Barely opening my eyes, I see Damien is dealing with the little ticking time bomb otherwise known as my best friend. She is seething. I imagine her green eyes could turn someone to stone on the spot. From here, I can see her profile, and her arms are flailing as she is giving my husband a piece of her mind.

  Closing my eyes, I pretend to still be asleep before she looks my way. I feel guilty for avoiding her, but I’m so overwhelmed at the memories of what I’ve just been through. Later, I’ll deal with that emotional fallout. I’m sure I look fake, trying to breathe in and out like I’m asleep, but if it’s enough to keep her at bay for now, I’ll live with the humiliation.

  After what seems like a millennium, I hear the door slowly creak shut followed by someone’s soft thump of footsteps toward my bed. I’m going to take a chance that it’s Damien because I can’t imagine him leaving me for a second. I open my eyes to see he’s watching me intently. Fear and worry are etched over my beautiful man’s face.

  I croak, “Hey.”

  “Hey, baby. Do you need some water?”

  I move my head a few inches downward for yes. Moving, period, does not feel good and causes some kind of pain to shoot from muscles I didn’t even know I had. He has the cup and straw to my lips before I can even process what he’s doing. I take a pull, and I am rewarded with refreshing, ice-cold water that slides down
my throat.

  “Thank you. Is Sam still here?”

  “No, I’m sorry we woke you. I couldn’t leave you for a second. She’ll be back after a while. I let her know that I needed some time with you first. She doesn’t have any details, and she is furious as hell.” He puts the cup back on the table.

  I try to lighten the tension I feel from Damien. “I’m glad you survived it. She’ll be fine as soon as we talk.” At least, I hope she will be.

  His lips quirk up only halfway, and it doesn’t reach his eyes.

  “Damien, I’m okay. You found me.”

  Soon, I’m sure I’ll be able to get a handle on how violated I feel. I just need to fake it until I make it, so Damien and Sam will stop worrying.

  I’ll be okay. It’ll pass. To me, being kidnapped by Ben is affecting me differently than the incident with Brad because I remember everything with Ben. I know they were both horrible, but this one is impacting me deeper to the core. It’s like a fissure has opened up within me, and I can’t close it right now. I feel exposed and hollow, similar to how I did when my parents died.

  Damien bends down, and he gives me a kiss while touching both sides of my face. His lips, his hands, the way he is breathing are so soft that it’s as if a feather is touching me. I can feel the intensity of his emotions zinging with the small bit of contact.

  Because of my stupidity, we could have been torn apart…forever. The truth of the situation causes my chest to tighten, and a heavy feeling presses down on me. Tears start to form in my eyes as he continues to kiss me, like I’m going to disappear at any moment.

  I need to stay strong.

  His eyes are closed, and I close mine, too, to surrender myself to the moment. I need the intimacy of this, regardless of how he feels about another man kidnapping me. One by one, the tears begin to fall down my cheeks. He’s gently stopping them in their tracks with his thumbs, but they start coming faster and faster.

  “Please don’t cry, baby.”

  I sniff and take a staggering breath in. “Damien, I was so stupid. I caused all this. I just left, and you told me to wait. I almost…he almost…he wanted…”

  I can’t even finish as I break down into a complete sobbing mess. My shoulders shake as I let it all out. I wish I could stop because each time my body moves, it feels like a sharp knife is cutting me somewhere. The medicine Ben gave me must be out of my system because my emotions are not numbed like they were last night. Each emotion that passes through me is raw and sharp.

  Damien pulls back, searching me and trying to figure out what to do. His eyes are darting back and forth across my stricken features, but he’s at a loss. “Alli, listen to me.”

  I don’t stop. I can’t stop crying.

  “Alli, this was not your fault. I had enough security on you that it shouldn’t have mattered what you did. He lured them out and used his relationships with them to tranquilize them.”

  I’m still breathing in those fast rapid breaths, trying to get control over my emotions. I just need to detach myself from everything. That should work. It worked after my parents died.

  “I know. He told me. Did you find him?” I can barely form the words in between breaths as I try to calm myself down.

  Apparently though, I was clear enough because the veins in Damien’s forearms start to throb as his muscles become taut underneath his skin. With how he’s reacting, I’m sure Ben is still alive one way or another. I’ve never wished anyone dead in my life, but he’s killed someone, and eventually, he would have killed me, too.

  Losing hold on my emotions again, tears start to come down my face as the terror begins to take hold. What if he gets to me again?

  I’m almost hysterical as I say, “He’s never going to stop. He did the same to Rebecca until he killed her. He’s never going to stop, Damien. He said he’d rather me be dead than be with you.”

  “Hey, hey, hey, baby.”

  My emotions are fully out of control at this point. Damien has climbed into bed with me, barely jostling me, and he has me in an embrace that is so fragile it causes no pain.

  He lets me sob until my tear ducts are as dry as the Mohave Desert. Even if I wanted to cry, I wouldn’t be able to.

  I’m nuzzled into his chest as I say, “He took my wedding ring.”

  If I could cry more, I would because it feels as if my marriage could just evaporate, and it would all be a dream. I feel broken and not worthy.

  He’s stroking my back. “What’d you say, baby?”

  I move my head away, trying to calm down, as I make those embarrassing hiccup noises after my emotional breakdown. “He took my wedding ring.”

  Gently, he takes my chin, his blue eyes piercing mine. “Baby, we’ll try to find it, but as long as I’ve got you back safely, nothing else matters. Alli, having you is all that matters to me.”

  It matters to me. It feels like Damien could leave me so much easier for some reason. I need to explain what happened, so Damien doesn’t think it was my fault.

  “He took it after he shot me with the tranquilizer gun in the car. I woke up without it on. I told him my sapphire ring belonged to my mother, so he’d let me keep it. He said I could keep it because of how special she was to me. Damien, he knew so much about me. He had so much made up in his head, and I swear I did nothing to lead him on. I have always only just loved you and did nothing—”

  He puts his fingers to my lips. “Alli, you did nothing wrong, baby. I’ve never doubted your love for me one second.” He waits for a moment, ensuring he has my full attention. “Baby, he’s a sick fuck who made this imaginary relationship out of nothing. Do not blame yourself, and before you think it, I don’t blame you for anything that happened. I love you.”

  I just continue on, needing to purge myself from all these thoughts, “He said it started in Miami, outside the hotel. When I was at the pool, he said our gazes connected, and he knew I wanted him. I was reading. I don’t even remember him.” I just can’t get a handle on things mentally. Ben is so messed up.

  The lies.

  The deceit.

  The violence.

  He squeezes his eyes closed and takes a deep breath. “I died a million times in the few hours you were gone.”

  My voice is still shaky, and my body is still trembling from the aftershocks of the entire situation. “Where did he take me?”

  My mental timetable is completely off.

  “It was just outside of Nashville, Tennessee in the hills. When he took off in the plane, the signal from your ring disappeared. We had to wait until he landed before we could be on our way.”

  When I think about it, I was hardly awake through most of the ordeal, but it feels like I was there for an eternity.

  “When did you put a tracking device in my ring?” That just seems so odd and convenient.

  Damien rubs the sapphire ring with his fingers as he answers my question, “It was put in before I gave it to you on our wedding day. With all that we had going against us, it was a safety precaution Bane suggested.”

  Damien moves his hand to my palm and starts rubbing those soothing circles.

  I focus on the contact and keep going, “He told me all about what happened with Rebecca. He had another way to get me, Damien. He didn’t tell me how, but if he’s not caught, he has a backup plan.” The panic is starting to rise all over again as I think about Ben getting me again. My breaths become shallow and fast. I clutch the sapphire ring with my other hand.

  “Alli.”

  He’s going to get me. He’s going to find me. He’s—

  “Alli.”

  I shake my thoughts at Damien’s commanding tone. He waits until he has my full attention.

  “Alli, you are safe. I won’t leave you for one second until this motherfucker is caught. Not one second. I was foolish for letting you go to that place. I should have had the damn parlor come to our home. Sam be damned. Alli, I will never be so careless with you again.”

  “Damien, you’ve never been careless with me.�
� I’m the one who has been careless, not taking my safety seriously, and now, I might have messed everything up, including my happiness with the love of my life.

  He strokes my cheek gently with his thumb. “Alli, never again. I came so close to losing you again because of this asshole. I was careless with Rebecca, and then I almost repeated it again.” He closes his eyes and takes a deep, steadying breath.

  “Damien, he had been after Rebecca for years. With how he spins everything, I think she was either drunk or drugged the night they slept together. She didn’t remember it, and he got mad, saying you were driving them apart. Ben thinks you knew about the baby and wanted Rebecca to abort it. He’s had a vendetta against you all these years. He came to the party you had at the pool house to talk some sense into you. Before Ben was able to see you, he ran into Rebecca, who was upset for what happened in the pool house. She hit her head, and he took her. He’s beyond psychotic with how he thinks things happen.”

  I want to forget everything Ben and I talked about, but I need to tell Damien everything while it’s fresh. I know I’ll be rehashing this multiple times to the police, but I want him to have all the important things first. I don’t want him hearing it for the first time in a room full of strangers.

  “Baby, we don’t have to talk about this right now. You’re still recovering.”

  I just sit there and relish in those soothing circles he’s drawing on my hips now. Just being back in his presence is healing even if it’s temporary because I know he’s going to want to leave with how tainted I am now.

  Laying my head on his shoulder, wanting the pain to disappear, I say, “Damien, I want to tell you first, anything you want to know, when it’s just me and you. I know I’m going to have to retell what happened a million different times, but I need it to be just us the first time.”

  Regardless of what he says, I’m still going to tell him because it’s eating me like an acid eats a rope, one fiber at a time.

  The fear in his eyes is palpable. He’s speaking barely above a whisper as he strokes my arm, and his gaze looks me over once again, ensuring no one missed anything from before. “Did he touch you anywhere else? Just know that I will love you no matter what happened. It will never change how I feel about you. You have no reason to feel ashamed or—”