‘Reuben,’ Hayley whispered behind him. She couldn’t believe he was here. She couldn’t imagine why he had come by again after everything. All she knew was that when she needed him most, he was there. And she was so very, very grateful.
Reuben did not take his narrowed eyes off Solar.
Perhaps he still couldn’t bear to look at her. She thought back to the last time she had seen him. Looking at her through the glass of the office door as he left, disappointed beyond measure at what he had discovered about her. She suddenly felt very small and helpless.
‘Reuben.’ She repeated his name. She felt the waves of sheer fury that flowed off his body. She wanted to throw her arms around him. She wanted his arms around her. She stood uselessly to one side. Overcome. Naked. Exposed. Vulnerable.
‘Have you got any rope?’ It was all Reuben could bear to say to her. He was not going to forgive her for destroying his trust.
She recalled the film recording Reuben had overheard last time he was here. Of her having sex with Tony Stanton. And she remembered the name Solar had just called her. Whore. Reuben believed it.
‘Any rope?’ His repeated request lurched her back to the present.
Hayley turned her back and showed him her tied arms. ‘Here.’ She wished she wasn’t naked.
Reuben kept his eyes on Solar as he untied her bonds. He used the rope to lash Solar’s arms to the office chair and was merciless in the strength he used to tighten it as Solar winced. The man was quiet and dazed from the punching he’d received. Reuben hadn’t held back.
It seemed to Hayley that no one knew what to say.
Despite the condition Solar was in, Reuben caught sight of him looking over at Hayley’s body and landed another two swift punches over his eye, which was already swelling and blackening dramatically. The second pounding he’d received in a few weeks.
‘Cover yourself up,’ Reuben ordered her quietly.
Hayley remained silent. She found her T-shirt and folded the cut edges of it over her upper body. She couldn’t seem to work out what to do next. The shock was beginning to set in. Shock from being attacked by Solar. From what had nearly happened to her at his hands. From Reuben turning up so unexpectedly. That was perhaps the most shocking thing of all. She just couldn’t get her head around it. He had saved her.
Reuben finally glanced across at her. He ripped his own T-shirt over his head and pulled it over hers, down to her thighs. It had his blood on it, Hayley noticed. She hugged it to her, taking strength from his life and warmth, from his smell. Fretting over what might have happened to him if Solar’s knife had cut an artery.
‘Do you want to call the police or do you want me to take care of him?’ he asked.
Hayley wasn’t fooled by the calm manner of Reuben’s question. She knew that Reuben could kill the man and she didn’t want that on her conscience. It was not for Solar’s sake either. Perhaps she should let someone cut his balls off.
‘Call Marty. He’ll take care of it.’ Suddenly, Hayley just needed to be away from here. ‘There’s another guy out back.’ She couldn’t think straight enough to realise Reuben must have met him and dealt with him already, having come successfully the back route into the office.
‘He’ll be going nowhere anytime soon.’ Reuben checked the security of Solar’s bindings as the man groaned in a half-conscious daze. Then he yanked the wheeled office chair with its sorry burden into the large stationery cupboard and shoved him inside, locking the door and removing the key.
A quick call to Marty’s mobile and the whole gang would be there in under 30 minutes.
Hayley began trembling uncontrollably. She couldn’t seem to stop herself. Reuben, who had made a point of looking anywhere but at her as he dealt with the phone call, noticed. He hung up and stepped towards her.
‘You’re bleeding,’ she whispered, touching his arm. It sounded pathetic after what they had both been through. ‘I’ll get the first aid box.’
She took a pace, suddenly realising it was locked in the cupboard with Solar and stopped. She felt her face drain of blood, her head went light and the next thing she knew, she was up off her feet and cradled in Reuben’s arms as he walked.
Chapter Fourteen
Submitting to his protection, Hayley curled up, liquid soft in Reuben’s arms as he carried her from the carnage, down the deserted street, and into his gym.
Somehow she couldn’t stop the trembling that vibrated through her body into his. He absorbed it readily as he trod the stairs and nudged through into the bathroom of his private apartment, placing her gently on the oak planked floor.
‘You’re angry with me,’ she whispered.
‘I’m not.’ His curt reply told Hayley that he most definitely was.
Hayley clung to him. ‘I’m sorry.’ She wasn’t quite sure what she was sorry for. ‘Don’t leave me.’
He held her, careful and tight, close to his warm, naked torso as she shook. ‘I’m going to help you, Hayley.’
The warmth of the under-floor heating penetrated the soles of her feet as he reached down and removed first one shoe and then the other. Hayley couldn’t prevent the shudders which racked through her entire body, making her teeth tap together. She felt cold. Reuben pulled the oversized T-shirt, stained with his own dried blood, over her head, bundling it up into a tight ball and throwing it straight into the chrome trash can. The lid swung with the force of his pitch.
‘It’s ruined,’ she murmured. She wasn’t sure if she was talking about his garment, their relationship, or her entire messed-up, sorry life.
‘I’m going to make it better,’ he told her. He pulled gently at her cut clothing.
Standing still, Hayley let him work on her as the encounter flashed back into her mind. ‘You came for me.’ If he hadn’t, she would still have been there. Still at the mercy of that psychopath Solar. She began to tremble violently again.
Reuben pulled her to him, bolting a strong forearm around her waist. ‘I’ll always come if you need me. Even if –’
Hayley looked up into his eyes. What couldn’t he say to her? He held her gaze for a second in his, then broke contact quickly. He worked off his own jeans and edged her backwards into the shower cubicle, reaching up past her shoulder to turn on the hot flow.
Reuben couldn’t even look at her. She had destroyed something precious between them. And the fear of what she had done would not leave her mind. Everything was confused. The fear of having lost Reuben mixed up with the fear of her last moments spent with Solar and the pain of the past.
‘He wanted to kill me.’
‘Not while I’m alive.’ Reuben’s face was set in a rigid mask.
Was he angry with her? She knew what he must be thinking. He had heard the recording of her with Tony Stanton. Heard what Solar had called her. Whore. Did he think the title suited?
Hot water cascaded through her hair. Reuben squeezed shampoo into his hand and turned her away from him. She braced her hands against the tiled cubicle and his gentle action made her feel like crying as he caressed the lather softly through the strands. Shutting her eyes, Hayley submitted to the sensation of being cared for, cherished. Even if it was just a fantasy.
His fingers moulded to her scalp and she pressed her head back into them; succumbed slowly to the feeling of Reuben’s capable hands on her, carefully washing away the stench of the past hour.
She glanced down, observing the foam as it was rinsed away and disappeared in a swirl down the drain. Like her torment. Reuben held up her wet hair as he massaged the taut muscles in her neck and shoulder.
Her quaking gradually subsided under the heat of the water and the warmth of his touch, leaving only an occasional tremor which rumbled through her body.
‘It’s the adrenaline. And shock.’
‘How did you know I was in trouble?’ Hayley turned around to face him.
‘I didn’t.’ His words were clipped. Maybe he didn’t want to talk about it. About her. She could hardly blame him.
Her fingers reached out tentatively and touched the place on his chest where Solar’s knife had scored a mean, red line in his golden skin. The bleeding had stopped. She leant in and kissed the wound.
Reuben took her gently by the shoulders and held her away from him. It nearly broke her heart. She was trying to submit to him but he didn’t want her now.
‘But you got there in time.’ If she didn’t talk, she’d cry and she didn’t want to cry with Reuben. ‘If you hadn’t –‘
The violent trembling seized her again. It came and went intermittently as she steadily began to realise that she might not have got out of there alive. The thought of Alice arriving on Monday morning to find her body cold and white, in a pool of her own darkly congealed blood, swam to the surface of her imagination. ‘Hold me, please, Reuben,’ she stuttered.
Reuben gathered her in his arms again. He spoke quietly, soothingly, but she could feel the tension beneath his words. In his touch. ‘I saw your car on the street. And the other car in front of it. I hadn’t seen that one before. I thought –’
She knew he didn’t want to tell her what he thought. She could imagine. ‘The office was closed up for the holiday and you thought –’ She couldn’t give words to what he must have thought either. Her. Some other guy. Together.
But he was braver than that. ‘I needed to see who you were kicking me over for. To make it finally sink in. So I walked past.’
Hayley pictured the scene. ‘Solar made his guy close the blinds.’
‘There was a gap.’ Reuben almost sounded sheepish, like he’d been caught out spying through a girl’s window.
Hayley recalled Solar shouting to the big guy to come and help him to hold her down when she struggled. Somehow the image of Reuben peering through the gap in the blinds, trying to see what was going on inside, struck her as funny. She laughed. ‘You peeked in on me?’
Reuben couldn’t keep the hurt look on his face any longer. He softened imperceptibly. ‘Yeah,’ he admitted.
It was a glimpse of the old Reuben again. She needed that. She needed him back. At least for now. Hayley raised an eyebrow. She liked it when they teased each other. ‘And just what were you expecting to see?’ She tensed. Hoped she hadn’t blurted out the wrong thing.
‘Not that, anyway.’
They both stood silent again. Shocked. Disturbed.
‘No.’ Recreating the scenario over in her mind’s eye, picturing herself half naked lying beneath Solar on her desk, Hayley wondered if Reuben had misinterpreted what he’d seen, even then. ‘Did you think –?’
‘Yeah. I did. Just for a minute.’ They understood each other.
‘Then?’ She wanted the whole story.
‘When I saw the look on your face, then I knew. When I saw the knife I nearly came through the plate glass.’
Reuben looked so intense, towering over her. His muscles bunched beneath his skin. Anger came off him in waves. Water tumbled down his chest, rolling off his hard thighs. Hayley followed its course with her fingers. She stroked his cock and cupped his balls. He hardened immediately.
‘I want to forget,’ she said. ‘Make me forget.’
He removed her hands from his body. ‘It’s just the shock talking. Tomorrow you’ll want something else.’ He sounded tense. Unhappy. Betrayed.
He looked like he was fighting an ancient battle in his mind. His stiff cock wanted her body. His head was done going there.
Devastation deluged her. ‘I’m sorry I hurt you, Reuben.’ She was. She truly was.
‘You made me no promises.’ By his gruff tone he sounded as if she’d broken them anyway.
‘I want to.’ Her voice was a whisper. She realised it was too little, too late. In her futile attempt to evade the past, she had all but destroyed Reuben’s trust.
Her words seemed to make him angrier. He reminded her of a raging bull in the deadly still moment before it charged. Tied down but straining until the ropes snapped.
‘You need to sleep it off. You don’t know what you’re saying right now.’ He slammed off the water and turned away from her and out of the shower.
A large towel appeared through the opening and Hayley took it, wrapping it around herself. Her hands felt too shaky to fix it securely so, when Reuben returned with a towel draped around his hips and noticed her struggle, he tied it for her.
He towelled her hair briskly, took her hand, and led her through to his bedroom. He manoeuvred her until she lay down on top of the cover. ‘I want you,’ she told him. She didn’t know how to make this better.
Reuben stood beside the bed and looked down at her. His internal war surfaced in the shadows of his eyes. ‘I don’t know if I can be what you want me to be.’
Hayley propped herself up on one elbow. Everything had changed for him too. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Let’s not pretend I didn’t hear the kind of –’ He paused.
Her heart stopped. He was referring to the recording of her submission sex games with Stanton. How could she even begin to explain? She wasn’t so certain herself. She attempted to fill in the gaps for both of them. ‘Men? Sex?’
‘Yes.’ He was trying not to get heated. He wasn’t succeeding.
‘You’re just the kind of man, the kind of sex, I need.’ Hayley stretched out her hand, took his in hers, and kissed the backs of his fingers. ‘I know that now.’
He pulled his hand away. ‘Sure. I can do hot sex. Rough sex. That may be what you want but that’s not what I want from you. Not any more.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I want you to get some sleep.’ He wasn’t going there. He pulled the cover back and tucked her underneath. ‘We can talk about this when we’re less –’
‘Sensitive?’
‘Yeah, less sensitive.’
Suddenly she felt bone weary. She lay back and flipped back the edge of the cover, inviting him to lie beside her. ‘Please stay with me, Reuben. I don’t want to be alone.’
Reuben only hesitated for a second, before he climbed in beside her. He tucked the covers around her but kept himself apart, throwing his hands up behind his head and staring at the ceiling.
Hayley curled up onto her side, facing away from him. What had she done? She couldn’t bear the distance she’d created between them. It seemed to take a silent forever until the merciful dark oblivion of sleep descended, numbing all her pain.
A heavy weight pinned Hayley down and she struggled to right herself, panicking. She woke with a start, wondering where she was.
‘Sshh. It’s OK. I’m here.’ Reuben was lying close beside her in his bed with his arm curled languidly around her waist and a heavy thigh trapping her legs firmly to the mattress. He had been sleeping too. Her slightly damp towel lay unravelled in a bunched-up heap beside her, parted from her body. Restless movement? Reuben?
Relaxing, she remembered who she was with. And why she was here. ‘Have I been here all night?’
Reuben laughed gruffly. He removed his limbs from hers and stretched. ‘It’s been a few hours. Feeling better?’
She snuggled back down. Safe. Even if the conscious Reuben would not hold her like the unconscious one did. ‘Mmm.’ Reuben had showered her and put her into his bed. She smiled. He had instinctively washed all traces of that deviant, Solar, off her skin, just the way she would have done, if she had been alone. He understood her.
She wasn’t alone now. After all these years, not being alone felt good.
Reuben pushed up onto one elbow and looked down at her, scrubbing the sleep from his face. He seemed serious and hesitant. ‘Did he – hurt you?’
She knew what he was asking her. ‘No.’ He didn’t look convinced. ‘No. He planned to, but you got there before he had time.’
He nodded. She could see the relief in the line of his shoulders and loved him for it. Her hand reached up and swept the hair back from his forehead.
‘I want to kiss you,’ she said. It felt right. She was certain now. Some men she could trus
t.
It was his turn to look hesitant. Thoughtful, like he was still working things out. ‘I want you to kiss me too.’
It sounded strange. Reuben lowered his mouth slowly over hers, like he was putting her to some sort of test. Gentle at first, he worked his lips across hers, awaiting a response, warming her desires. As she stirred beneath him he increased the pressure, moving his top lip between hers and nuzzling at her full bottom lip. She parted softly and he sucked her lip into his mouth, tonguing it firmly.
Hayley pushed her head off the bed, pressing him upwards, backwards, levering back on her elbows for support. The tip of her tongue slid along the crease of his mouth, teasing the breath from him, insistent.
He jerked instantly backwards, pushing her down again, breaking contact.
‘What did you do that for?’ She was confused. She had initiated the kiss. He said he wanted it.
‘Is that how he kissed you?’ Reuben sounded harsh. He scowled at her.
She felt as if he’d slapped her. ‘Solar?’
‘I’m not talking about that scum.’ He spat the words out.
‘Then what –? Who?’ Hayley had no idea what he was talking about. All she knew was he had turned her warm feelings of summer into deepest winter in an instant.
‘I heard you call his name. I heard how much you wanted to come for him while he was – torturing you. ’
Everything became clear. She couldn’t pretend it didn’t matter any longer. Reuben had heard everything on that stupid tape with Tony Stanton. He had heard her enthralled in a spiral of sexual lust, submitting to another man. He had heard what no lover ever wanted to hear. His woman thrilling to orgasm with another man dominating her responses, instead of him.
The expression on Reuben’s face was unmistakable. He felt betrayed. Punished. Destroyed. She knew in the same instant that she realised she loved him, that she had plunged a vicious, deadly spike deep into his heart.
She couldn’t run from it this time. Wouldn’t. Suddenly it mattered. She must face up to what she was. ‘It wasn’t like that.’ How was she ever going to explain what he had heard? She only knew she had to make him listen. To understand.
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