by Dani Wyatt
“Finish up the schedule for next week, then come and show it to me. I’ll be in the office.” He licks his lips and leans close enough I can smell the cigarette he’d just smoked outside, as strong as if he still had it in his mouth.
His lips are cracked and I have to fight back the urge to gag. Another lip lick and then he’s gone.
I let out an audible breath. It’s just us here at the moment. The store doesn’t officially open for another few days and the thought of being here, alone, with Eddie... it’s raising the hairs on my arms.
When I’ve got the employee schedule set, I grudgingly trudge back toward the office. It’s near the back employee entrance and I can smell tobacco as I approach. Eddie’s outside again, smoking another cigarette. Figures. We’ve left the door propped open a few inches with a brick because the safety keeps locking us in. He called the door guys, because it should be locked from the outside, but instead it seems to be locking from the inside. So, for not, it’s the brick and the scent of his cigarette breaks.
I sit down in the seat in front of the desk and stare at the second hand on the wall clock until Eddie steps in a minute later, knocking the office door closed behind him. There is no one else here, so I’m not sure why we would need a closed door but my heart immediately sets to racing.
The inside of my lip is raw where I’ve been biting into it all morning. When he steps by me, brushing my knee as he goes, I try to sound confident. “Here, I think I’ve got it all covered. Even added a couple extra staff for the day before and day after we open, just in case.” I hand him the iPad, showing him the electronic scheduling program all filled out.
Instead of taking a seat behind the desk, he steps to the front and half sits on the edge front of me, crossing his arms and spreading his legs farther apart than would seem comfortable.
He smacks his lips and gives me a grin that only crowds my breath in my throat. When he stares at me without another word, I set the iPad down on the edge of the desk, next to where he’s leaning, and cross my ankles, pulling my knees tight.
“So...” I just want him to start talking and move us along to whatever is next.
“So. I saved your ass the other day, didn’t I?” He nods down at me.
The cut of his words and the way his nostrils flare does nothing to settle my nerves. Being in such a closed space with him isn’t my idea of a good time.
“Sorry?” I squeak, the confidence I’d mustered a second ago evaporates.
“With Julie. Covering for you. You could be more gracious you know.” He brings one hand to his mouth and circles his lips with two fingers.
“Thank you. I was in a bad situation; I didn’t think it through. I appreciate you not telling her.” I want to say fuck off and die because I’d already thanked him like a hundred times that day, but I keep it to myself.
“I’d think you would show me how grateful you were.”
I don’t want to know, but I know what he’s saying. Everything slows down. My body feels like stone, frozen in place. I can’t move. Then his hands go to his belt buckle and the bile in my throat is threatening to spill all over him.
“Uh...” I still can’t believe this is real. This doesn’t really happen, does it?
“You have a choice, honey. Keep your job, or I’ll get those pictures I took while you were sleeping over to Julie. I’ll admit that I tried to help you, that I didn’t want you to get in trouble, but I just couldn’t in good conscience let it go. Not when I found you here in the office on the computer downloading some highly inappropriate material. Naughty girl.” He smiles, and my stomach turns on itself.
I hear the click of the metal buckle, the rasp of the zipper.
“You’ve sucked a cock before, right? Of course you have, sweet face like yours.” His lips fall open and I see his tongue dance around in his wet mouth.
My power of speech leaves me and I desperately try to force the words to come out but they are stuck in my closing throat.
“No? Well, well, this will be fun for both of us. I’ll show you what to do, teach you how this works, because this is your new job security. When you’re done, maybe I’ll buy you lunch.”
Eddie wipes his tongue over his teeth with a sucking sound. I can’t feel my hands but I see they’re shaking, clutched in my lap. Sweat breaks on my forehead and under my arms. I can’t understand why I can’t move.
The image of my mother’s face comes to me. My father coming home drunk and needy. How she fought him off more times than a little girl should remember.
Then, for some crazy reason, I think of Magnus.
Eddie’s words smash around inside my head.
You’ve sucked a cock before.
No, I’ve never done anything like this before. I’ve never been touched by a man before. The only person that ever made me think I wanted to was Magnus, and in that second as I think of him and my mom, I shoot out of the chair, my back ram-rod straight. Not away from Eddie but toward him, the heels of both my palms smashing him in the center of his chest with all my might.
It’s exactly the opposite of anything he’d been expecting, and it catches him off guard. He’s stunned, off balance, his hands still down at the front of his pants. He struggles to right himself but the force of my unexpected assault topples him flat back onto the desk.
“Fucking bitch.” He spits as his arms flail around to re-gain his balance, spilling his coffee mug and the iPad onto the floor.
“You’re a jerk!” I scream, stomping my foot as hard as I can on top of his black loafer. “Suck your own stupid self!”
Even as the words come out, I realize I’m bad at this. I can’t even insult someone properly.
I throw myself at the door of the office tugging it open and break into a half run down the short hallway toward the back door, my eyes burning as the first angry, desperate tear burns its way down my cheek. I hate feeling so alone. Being an adult sucks more and more as time goes on.
Outside the back door a cold gust catches me. My skirt flies up, my hair tangles in my face spinning it into my gaping mouth. I scratch at it, trying open it in front of my eyes. I need to see where to go, and then it dawns on me I have nowhere to go.
Nowhere to go.
I start to laugh and cry at the same time, my body shaking with cold and fear and desperation. This is my life; this is all I have left. Eddie knows he can screw me any way he wants and there isn’t a thing I can do about it.
I can’t even get a bus back to the roach motel. My purse is still inside and I have no money on me. Not that there is much more in my purse anyway. Seven dollars and sixteen cents, and that’s only if you count the penny I found outside the motel this morning.
“Somebody help me.” I choke out the words as I stand in the back parking lot, spitting my hair out of my mouth while my brain spins inside my head. “I have no job, nowhere to live, no car, no family. Nothing.” I scream toward the sky no longer caring if anyone is watching or listening.
I’m still pinching the hair out of my eyes and off my wet cheeks when I hear the hum of a car engine moving closer. I’m standing, looking stupid in the middle of the parking lot. Whoever it is can go around me and leave me to my misery.
When I finally get my hair under control, the car engine is right behind me, it’s more a rumble than a hum now and I’m ready to spit nails and tell whomever happened across my path they picked the wrong gosh darn day to mess with me. I’ve got nothing to lose.
I’ve got nothing.
I flip my head around to see a black, vintage Charger, no more than a foot from me. The engine is vibrating the asphalt under my feet and I the heat is billowing from the chrome grill.
“You’ve got the whole parking lot!” I wave my hands around in an arc like a mad woman. “Go around me!” I yell and stomp, indicating all the empty space as I square my shoulders, my hands turning to fists at my sides. I know I look ridiculous, my righteous fury offset by my pink sweater and ruffled skirt not to mention the lime green ribbon that,
Any second I expect to hear Eddie’s voice as he comes out of the back door to taunt me. I know that somehow I have to get back in there to retrieve my purse if I want to ever leave this parking lot.
My madness turns inward and I spin away from the automobile, my right shoulder tightening up to meet my ear, my throat closing. The silent tears that stained my cheeks take a turn.
Biting my tongue, I do what I can to hold back the sobs that start somewhere in my toes and wrack my body until I can no longer fight them. The sounds that burst out of me here in the open air sound like every painful moment in my life balled into a fist and punched into my gut, the sound of it all coming out of me like a trapped animal.
I’m at the mercy of the clutching sobs and my vision is so blurred I put my hands out in front of me as I walk back toward the rear entrance of the store. Somehow I have to get my purse; I have to be strong enough to at least walk back in there.
If I have to fight him off again, so be it.
Chapter Seven
_______________________________________________
MAGNUS
I’ve been on the road for three hours to get here, and when I see her it’s not what I’d hoped. I swear to God whoever made her cry is going to die.
I never want to see this again.
Never.
Fuck, my hands feel like they’re going to tear the steering wheel apart like it’s someone’s throat.
She looks so lost, so alone standing out here in a parking lot in the cold, sobbing and shouting and scared. She looks scared. My heart is trying to burst out of my chest.
Something about touching her, whispering those words I’ve wanted to say to her for so long set me on a path that can’t be stopped. I don’t just want her.
I need her.
And as much as everyone would tell me I’m crazy, I know she needs me.
If I didn’t know what my purpose in life was before, I do now.
To never let anyone make her cry again.
I spin the Charger into a parking spot, and try to calm myself for a second by revving the engine and twisting the wheel back and forth. I don’t want her to see me when I’m this angry, don’t want her to be afraid of me. But someone is going to be afraid.
Someone is going to breathe their last breath if I have anything to do with it.
Nearly every day since I laid my eyes on her I’ve followed her. Shadowed her like some criminal. I had to have her in my life, even in such a distant manner. She didn’t know I watched her, walked the perimeter around her apartment making sure no one was lurking.
She almost always looked content, coming and going, but deep inside my own self-loathing pounded. I called myself a coward because I couldn’t step forward in her life. But I told myself it was for the best.
I mean, look at her. She’s so small, so delicate; I want to care for her like the little girl that she is, want to be her Daddy, and keep her safe and loved. And then there’s the other side of it – my gnawing need to consume her, my ideas of fucking her. The filth that plays over and over in my dreams with her at the center of every one.
None of this can be what she would want. Lurking is for the best because this obsession is dangerous, the dreams I have of her can’t be normal.
A need like mine would surely only end up harming her. And I could not take that chance. I’d miscalculated on an important decision once before and look what happened. The loss of half my lower leg is nothing.
My mistake took the life of an innocent woman, and that is something no one could forgive. Least of all me. For a year I didn’t know what would become of me. If at any moment I would be arrested. Branded a criminal. A murderer even. Yes, they say it was a mistake, but in my mind, a killer is a killer and I didn’t want my shame to ever touch her.
But, something shook loose in me yesterday and I branded her with the name I’ve had for her for far too long. The name I call out every time I jerk off and cum with her in my every fantasy.
Angel.
I drove like a mad man, making it here in under three hours, and thank Christ I pulled up now. I throw myself out of the Charger, the metal that replaces my foot scrapes on the ashphalt of the parking lot as I lunch forward, getting to the door just as her desperate hands find the handle.
She’s shaking, and a fury bubbles up inside of me in an emotional intensity I’ve never experienced. I know now how a man can lose himself and kill with his bare hands.
“Who did this to you?” I force calm into my voice, but it still bursts out at a volume that startles her. She gasps and flips her head in my direction. I’m on her, my hands brushing her wind-blown hair from her face, my thumbs rubbing to erase the tears, because it hurts me too much to see them there.
“What are you doing here?” She makes no effort to remove my hands, not that she could.
My brow draws tight, the muscles in shoulders and back twitch and tighten uncomfortably. The sight of her sweet face in this much turmoil is hurting me.
“I’m here for you. Tell me. Tell me right fucking now. Who made you cry?”
She brings one hand to flutter over her mouth and nose, and a new torrent of tears seep from her eyes. They’re tears of relief. I feel it. She needed someone to be here for her. Well I’m here now, and I’m going to make someone pay.
“Are they in there?” I look toward the door, and I instinctively know I’m right. Whoever hurt her, they are inside that building, because I feel her resistance in the slight tightening of her lips. “Stay behind me.” It’s an order and when she follows my command without question, I fall in love with her even more.
I blink once at the word that just hit me in the chest like a canon shot.
Love. Is that what this is? I lock my jaw tight and shake it off, my inner conflicts need not be solved this moment.
I swing the door open and secure her hand in mine reaching behind me; it’s like a doll’s hand in mine. I want to pick her up and carry her wherever she needs to go. I want her sweetness to cover me and my mark to cover her.
I want to see her sweet lips dripping with my semen, and my cock clenched in those tiny hands while she looks up at me with awe in her eyes.
And the name she will come to know as her everything. Daddy.
“Where?” I ask on a growl as I turn to look over my shoulder. “Where?” I repeat, louder and that one word booms off the walls in the back hallway as we step in from the outer door.
“He was in the office.” The words are barely audible from her shaking lips but I see a spark in her eye and it only makes my need to be her champion more furious.
My chest constricts, rises and falls like a tidal wave as I try to soften my expression, arranging her gently against the wall just inside the back entrance.
“Listen to me.” I bite my bottom lip and put both my hands on her face. “What happened?” I lower my voice, my ears picking up any errant noise from down the hall.
I search her expression for clues. Her green eyes sparkle and dilate, and she looks down at her feet.
“I want to protect you. I want to help you. Please, let me. I have to do that.” My voice turns to a growl. “I need to know what happened here so that I can fix it.” The words grate as they come out. “You don’t understand. I have to fix it.” Her eyes widen at the desperation in my voice.
“My boss. He sort of...” I watch her eyelids close for a moment too long and I already know what she’s going to say. I can feel it pushing at my temples, and everything turns red. “He wanted me to suck —”
I push two fingers over her lips, because I can’t hear the next words. A shockwave of pain reverberates through me and if she says anything more right now I think I would die.
“Don’t move.” I grit the words out between my teeth.
I lean down, my hands gripping the sides of her head harder than I should, willing my strength to make everything in her life better. I bring my mouth down, kiss the crown of her head and turn on my heel toward the shuffling I hear coming from the office a few feet away.
“Chastity?” An irritated male voice barks and the grizzly roars to life between my ears. Four more steps and I meet him inside the office doorway. “Is that you—” Those are the last words the fucker gets out before his jaw and my knuckles are introduced.
My other hand juts forward and clutches his windpipe. My nerves sizzle and my jaw aches as I grind my teeth. The thought of anyone else touching her, anyone else expecting her to touch them, turns off any parts of the civilized Magnus.
I want to see blood, hear bones cracking; I want to hear him beg for his life.
I want to hear him apologize for hurting her. I want him to realize she is forever out of his reach. Because she belongs to me. And no one will ever get through me.
My gaze sharpens, I know this asshole from the other store. His eyes are bulging from his skull and his hands slap with a feeble attempt to pull mine from around his throat.
I shift my shoulders, pulling him around me to slam him into the wall, his feet barely touching the ground. My hatred for this man is matched by my hatred for myself.
Why did I wait?
Why didn’t I take care of her sooner?
I let this happen, and that is going to haunt me. Because she’s my responsibility. I’ve known that since the moment I saw her, and I hate that I was so self obsessed. My own turmoil and past kept me from her and led to her getting hurt.
“I could kill you.” I spit the words into his face, tightening my grip and turning his head to the left against the wall with a thud.
“Magnus—” Angel’s voice cuts through my rage. “Don’t, please, just take me away from here. If you do this, you can’t be here for me.”
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