The Damaged Heroes Collection [Box Set #1: The Damaged Heroes Collection] (BookStrand Publishing Mainstream)

by James, Sandy

  A loud knock on the door forced a groan of frustration as Joy jerked her shirt back on. Then a sudden spark wound a path from her heart to her head. Maybe Lucas had found a way to sneak back into Gypsy to see her. “Coming!”

  The disappointment when she flung open the door and found Tamas standing there was almost more than she could bear. She’d had enough nonsense today to last her a very, very long time. Evidently Tamas was the finale of the trying evening.

  “What do you want? I finished the clean up. Everyone’s gone.” She allowed herself a weary sigh. “I’m really tired, Tamas. Oh, and by the way, thanks for all the help with the Remington party. Don’t be too disappointed if I keep the whole tip.”

  “Your father sent me. We need to talk. Now.” She threw him a scowl in response to his stupid command. “Now, Jozsa. I mean it.” He didn’t sound like himself. Bossy and serious, she was used to, but angry and rude, she was not.

  Joy rolled her eyes. He pushed his way inside. “Gee, come right in.” A stale waft of alcohol followed him into the room. “Have you been drinking?” Tamas didn’t drink, and thinking that he’d felt it necessary to fortify himself with liquid courage before he came to see her made her uneasy.

  “I’ve come to some...decisions,” he replied without bothering to answer her question. Tamas’s gaze scanned Joy from head to toe, making her feel like a side of beef he was judging for the restaurant. She had to suppress the shudder that wanted to tear through her. “Some important decisions.”

  “And I suppose you’re here to tell me about your...decisions.” Joy shook her head, knowing what was to come. She just didn’t have the energy to fight with him again tonight, especially if he was as drunk as he appeared. “It’s late, and, like I told you, I’m tired. I don’t want to hear about your silly decisions. They don’t concern me anyway.”

  “Ah, but they do concern you.” He took a small step toward her, and she desperately wanted to take a step back but figured the reaction would only make him angry. His blood-shot eyes appeared a bit wild, and Joy tried not to feel any fear. Not of Tamas. While he had a knack for irritating her beyond rational thought, Tamas would never hurt her. Never.

  “Your father and I have decided it’s time to stop these foolish games. We’re to be married as soon as Andras’s wedding is over, and he’s giving us Gypsy as a wedding present. I offered a bride price, but he wouldn’t take anything from me. He wants us together, to marry. It’s all been properly arranged, just like in the old country. We’re betrothed now, so I expect you to stop seeing that...that...man. In a month’s time, you’ll be my wife.”

  She had no idea how to respond to such a ridiculous statement. She wanted to berate him for presuming to make plans for her life as if she had no say, as if they were living in Hungary a century ago. Joy finally settled for responding to him with a heavy sigh of annoyance. “I’m not going to marry you, Tamas. Sweet Jesus, haven’t we had this same, stupid conversation at least a million times?”

  “But your father—”

  “Stop!” Joy could feel her anger rising now, bubbling to the surface like the first bursts in a pot of water beginning to boil. The notion was no longer flattering. Now it was condescending. How dare they treat me like a child! “My father doesn’t run my life. You don’t run my life. This isn’t the old country.”

  Tamas reached out to put his hands on her shoulders and gave her a caress that made Joy’s skin crawl. She shrugged his hands away. His eyes narrowed in response. “I’m going to marry you, Jozsa. Soon. I want to make a life with you. I want us to have children and raise them in our ways.”

  “You don’t want me. You want Gypsy.”

  His hands balled into fists, and for the first time in her life, Joy was frightened of Tamas, of what she saw in his dark eyes. Her childhood friend had vanished. She felt trapped like an animal in a snare, and she suddenly wanted to run as far away from Gypsy as she could. She wanted to run away from Tamas, away from the ridiculous demands of her father and her people. She wanted to run to Lucas.

  I need Lucas.

  Lucas was her mate, and Joy realized it didn’t matter that she’d only known him a few weeks or that he wasn’t Romungro. And it didn’t matter that he didn’t recognize what was destined between them yet. She had already fallen desperately in love with him. Just as her nagymama had told her, the lightning had hit, and there was no use denying it to others or keeping it a secret.

  Joy looked at Tamas and shook her head. “No, Tamas. My answer is no. The same answer I’ve always given you. I can’t marry you. I love Lucas.”

  His enraged bellow shook the room. “No! You’re mine!” He whirled from her and his right fist slammed into the wall, leaving a dent in the sheetrock and sending gray dust flying around him in tiny wisps. “Mine!”

  Joy took a step away, but she stubbornly refused to let him intimidate her more than that one tiny step. “I’m not yours. I don’t belong to you. I’m not some...thing you can own. You need to leave. Now.”

  Tamas suddenly turned to face her, jerked her roughly into his arms, and covered her mouth with his. No. This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening.

  The smell and taste of sour alcohol almost made her retch. Joy twisted as she put her hands against his chest and tried desperately to push him away, but he was much stronger than she thought. He ground his lips against hers and tried to shove his tongue past her clenched teeth.

  She squealed a tight-lipped shriek into his mouth, but he only pulled her closer then pinned her to the wall. Her heart hammered in her chest as her legs trembled, threatening to give at any moment. This isn’t happening. Tamas wouldn’t do this to her. Tamas had been her friend since she was a little girl, for as long as she could remember.

  His body pressed her flat to the wall, and his hand rose to cover her breast. Drawing on the strength from her enraged panic to fight him, she tried to bring her knee up to connect with his groin, but his muscular legs pinned her thighs firmly in place. She clawed at his back with her free hand, but he subdued her struggles with his heavy shoulder. He pressed his groin hard into hers in what she assumed was some disgusting display of misplaced affection.

  This can’t be happening. He was obviously intent on rape, as if the act would finally cause her submission, her compliance. She knew she should scream, but she also knew the staff would be long gone. Janos would be at his home with her parents. No one would hear her.

  “Jozsa,” he growled in her face with the sickening smell of stale booze and the unwelcome weight of his hand on her breast overwhelming her senses. “Let me love you, like you did before. I want you, Jozsa.” He pushed his hips against her again and groaned.

  Tamas tried to kiss her. Joy bit his bottom lip. Hard.

  He squealed in pain and pushed away from her as he smeared the blood from his lip with his fingers. She wiped away the blood he’d left on her lips with the back of her sleeve. Tasting the sickening thick moisture in her mouth, she fought back the urge to gag.

  Tamas stumbled to the kitchen, grabbed a towel from the counter, and held it to his injury. His angry eyes bored holes through her, making his words sound trite. “I’m sorry, Jozsa. I shouldn’t have... I pushed you too hard. I didn’t mean... I’m sorry. I wouldn’t hurt you. Ever.”

  “But you did hurt me. You had no right.” She inched away from him.

  He gave her an insolent nod. She wanted to slap him.

  “I’ll have the right,” he mumbled as he continued to dab at his injured and bloody lip with the dishtowel between words. “Your father gave you to me. We’re going to be married.”

  “The hell we are!” Righteous anger replaced her fear, giving her strength. “Neither of you get to decide my future. I get to decide.” She thumped her chest with her index finger. “Do you hear me? I get to decide. If you ever touch me again, I’ll... I’ll...” She wanted to threaten him, to make him feel the fear he’d sent rippling through her. She wanted to hit him. This wasn’t real. It was just a bad dream. H
er friend wouldn’t have done this. Not Tamas. “Just stay away from me.”

  Suddenly Joy knew what she needed to do. Throwing Tamas an enraged glare meant to keep him at a distance, she marched into her bedroom and grabbed a duffle bag. She gathered clothes together and shoved them inside the tote.

  Tamas came to stare at her, leaning his shoulder against the doorframe as if they were doing nothing more than having a casual conversation, as if he hadn’t attacked her. “You can’t leave. This place is yours. It’s ours. Or at least it will be soon.”

  Joy shook her head when what she really wanted to do was scream. She retrieved a few things from the small bathroom and threw them in the duffle bag. She wasn’t going to say a word to him. Not a single word. She owed no one an explanation for what she wanted to do with her own life. I should call the police. But her family would be horribly angry if she did. They would consider it a betrayal of her kind. Problems were always kept inside the circle. Knowing how her father felt, he would surely side with Tamas.

  “I’m going for your father,” Tamas said as he turned, obviously intending to leave.

  “No!” Grabbing the closest thing to her fingers, Joy threw a bottle of perfume at him. It exploded against the wall next to his head as he ducked the flying bits of glass. The smell was overpowering, making her nose and eyes burn. “I’m leaving, and you and Papa can’t stop me.”

  Joy zipped the bag, pushed past a clearly infuriated Tamas, and grabbed her car keys from the table. “Don’t ever touch me again. Ever.”

  Slamming the door behind her, Joy left her apartment and headed to the only person who had ever made her feel good for just being herself. The only person who didn’t have her life planned for her and who didn’t believe her fate was sealed because of her race.

  I need you, Lucas. I need you, Szivem.

  * * * *

  The sound of the explosion forced him awake. Lucas let his gaze dart around the room as he tried to stop the frantic pounding of his heart. Not in Iraq. Not back in Iraq. But his body wouldn’t listen to his mind.

  Rolling over so he could stare at Joy’s painting, at least as much of it as he could see in the dim moonlight filtering through his bedroom window, he tried to relax. Just looking at her work gave him comfort as he let thoughts of her flood his mind and brush aside the frightening images of destruction and death.

  As sanity returned, he remembered everything that had happened at Gypsy. He’d mucked things up royal. The fight had surely caused Joy more than little trouble and heartache with her family. Lucas realized he’d set his cause back a great deal with his rash actions. But he just hadn’t been able to grasp any type of control where Tamas and his insults were concerned. Jealous. I was jealous.

  Lucas wanted to blame the letter for the horrible things that had happened in the restaurant. It was obvious that the letter from Brad’s mother had made him react without thought, but he knew that notion was a lie. Tamas would have been able to push Lucas’s buttons regardless of what Karen had written. Simply knowing how much her family favored Tamas was enough to cause the anger that Lucas had allowed to take control of his actions.

  Of course, the letter didn’t help. At least he could blame the nightmare on the blasted letter. Brad’s mother had been so kind. Too kind. While she hadn’t come out and said she’d forgiven him, her words were sympathetic and compassionate. She’d asked Lucas to come visit. As if he could ever face that cemetery. As if he could ever face seeing Brad’s name carved in some damned piece of granite. No, that would make it real.

  Staring at the painting, Lucas realized what he had been doing for far too long was pretending Brad was still alive. Maybe by thinking that Brad was out there somewhere living a nice middle-class life, Lucas could fool himself into thinking he wasn’t responsible for Brad’s death.

  Lucas shuddered from the cold chill that ran through him when he pictured Brad lying in some coffin buried deep in the Georgia clay. His friend in the cold, damp ground. The image wouldn’t leave.

  I need you, Jozsa. I need you, Sweetheart.

  How could he ever confess to Joy what he had done? How could Joy ever forgive him? Hell, how could he ever forgive himself?

  Damn, how he wanted to hold her. Right now. Right here. He wanted to forget everything about his pathetic excuse of a life by losing himself in her arms, in her warmth and kindness, and in his love for her. Joy would take the pain away. Joy would take the nightmares away, just as she had done before.

  Lucas fell asleep with her face in his thoughts and her name on his lips.

  Chapter 18

  Lucas startled awake at the sound of movement downstairs. Every nerve in his body tingled as he recognized the noise was not one of the normal sounds of the ancient house’s creaks and shifts. Throwing his legs over the side of his bed, he reached under the frame to pull out the shotgun and the flashlight he always kept handy. What in the hell did someone think he could steal from this old place? He scolded himself for seldom locking the back door.

  Making his way silently through the maze of half-repaired floorboards, Lucas reached the stairs. The noises were coming from the kitchen. He could hear the quiet, shuffling footsteps as he crept down the stairs, trying to miss the spots that tended to squeak. He breathed slowly, keeping his pulse low and his muscles steady.

  Step by careful step, Lucas moved. Suddenly the intruder’s faint shadow cast by the moonlight through the kitchen windows crossed Lucas’s path. Holding his breath, he held the shotgun ready, braced against his right shoulder as he raised the flashlight with his left hand. Two long strides put him in the kitchen. With a quick flip of his thumb, light bathed the intruder who froze on the spot.

  Lucas thought his eyes were playing tricks as they adjusted to the change in light. Or perhaps he was just wishful thinking. “Jozsa?”

  Eyes opened almost too wide, she was obviously terrified. Lucas realized he was still pointing the shotgun at her and immediately dropped it to his side as he extinguished the light. He set the weapon on the table and dropped the flashlight next to it. “You scared the hell out of me. I... I could have...” He didn’t even want to think about the implications.

  She ran into his arms so fast and hard that she knocked him off balance. He tumbled to the floor, dragging her along for the ride.

  Lucas shifted beneath her until she straddled him as her skirt billowed around their hips like a tent. Suddenly he was drowning in the feel of her against him, drowning in her scent and her touch as her hands moved to stroke his bare chest. Through the thin material of his boxers, he could feel her, the heat almost more than he could bear. A tear slipped from her cheek and landed on his chest, but he had no idea why she was crying. He reached up to brush another away, but before he could ask what was wrong, she kissed him.

  Joy needed to feel his hands on her body. She needed Lucas to wipe away the stain Tamas’s touch had left behind on her skin and her lips. Feeling as if she’d been branded, she desperately wanted Lucas to remove the scar. Take away the pain, Lucas.

  As his mouth hungrily slanted across hers, a shiver raced through her. After a long, lingering caress of his tongue against hers, he sat up enough to bury his face against the sensitive place where her neck met her shoulder.

  Joy released a shuddering sigh and felt the angry tension lingering from the attack begin to leave her. “Szivem,” she whispered as she put her hand to the back of his head to hold him close. “Love me. Please love me.” She didn’t care if he misunderstood her true meaning, didn’t even care if he wasn’t ready to love her as she loved him. Right now, she would simply take his passion and be satisfied.

  Lucas chuckled against Joy’s long, delicate neck. “Oh, I will, Sweetheart. I will love you.” Kissing his way from one soft side of her throat to the other, he savored each of her shivers, each of her sweet little sighs. Joy was all he ever wanted, all he would ever need. She might not love him yet. Not the way he loved her. But she would.

  Threading his fingers through tha
t thick hair he loved so much, he again settled his lips on hers. When her tongue suddenly swept inside his mouth, he growled his approval.

  She knew the significance of leaving her old life behind, and in her mind, this demanding kiss forever sealed her fate. She had made a choice. For better or for worse, she was choosing Lucas. One part of her life was ending, the only life she’d ever known, but another was just beginning. Joy welcomed the metamorphosis, reveling in the feel of his mouth on hers, the feel of his tongue caressing hers, and the feel of his arousal pressing intimately against her.

  The urgency was unbearable. She needed him to take the memories of the horrifying assault away and replace them with new ones, happy ones. She wanted him to help her forget her family and their ridiculous demands, yearning only for this time where it was just her and Lucas and the passion they shared. “Oh, Lucas. I need you. Now.” Joy tugged her shirt over her head and threw it aside.

  Lucas’s hands slipped up her soft stomach before his fingers brushed her ribcage. There was still too much material separating him from her, but he resisted the urge to tug at her garments like some frantic teenager. Reaching around her back, letting his fingers brush gently across her silken skin, he popped the clasp of her bra. She shrugged out of the confining lingerie and dropped it on top of her shirt. Sitting up, he leaned forward to kiss her collarbone, one sweet kiss for each side. Tracing her scar with his fingertips, his lips quickly followed.

  His palms covered her breasts. She arched into his touch as a soft moan fell from her lips. Lucas had to fight to keep a cocky chuckle from escaping, but damn, he loved how she reacted so marvelously to his touch. His hand was replaced with his mouth. He feasted on one of her breasts for a few moments before worshipping the other.