Christmas Cowboy (A Standalone Holiday Romance Novel)

by Claire Adams

  As I’d begun telling my story, Brian had backed up and given me some space. He now sat with his back against the headboard, his arm resting on his bent knee while his other leg hung off the side of the bed. It was a constructed pose that was designed to look very casual and relaxed, but the tension in his jaw told me otherwise.

  “It started small; he’d joke about summoning me home and I’d show up at his apartment.” I cringed as I began telling the story of the slow and steady descent into the darkness of our relationship. “But if I didn’t show up quickly, he’d pepper me with texts and phone calls asking where I’d been and who I’d been with. He said it was because he was worried about me and he wanted to make sure I was safe.”

  Brian nodded as he connected the dots between his presence and my resistance to the whole safety routine. I wasn’t sure how much of the rest of the story I wanted to tell him, but when I looked up at him he said, “Tell the truth, Ava. Just tell the truth.”

  “I was flattered by his attention. My whole life I had felt like an inconvenience to my parents. They’d shipped me off to boarding school in third grade, and I hadn’t lived in any house for more than a month at a time; often times, my parents weren’t even there. It was just me and the staff, and maybe a friend or two if they weren’t traveling with their own families,” I explained as the sadness crept up and wound itself around me. “Dominic was always there. He’d call me in the middle of the night just to tell me he missed me or he’d drop by my classroom to give me flowers or tell me a story about his day. There wasn’t anything menacing about it at all. He looked out for me and took care of me in a way that my parents had never done, and I felt…loved. I know that sounds ridiculous to someone who grew up with parents who loved them, probably like yours did, right?”

  I looked over at Brian as he nodded slowly and then shifted his gaze away from my face. There was something going on, but I was too deep into my story to stop and find out, so I continued.

  “Halfway through our second semester, I moved out of the dorm and into his apartment,” I shifted my body so that my knees were drawn up to my chest with my arms tightly wrapped around them. I felt as if I were standing on the edge of a terrifying abyss, as I had never told anyone what I was about to tell Brian. “Dominic was so sweet when I moved in. He took me shopping for all our household items and we picked out new bedding and sheets and towels. It was like we were married. And he was so attentive and kind in those first new days that I didn’t notice the change. Have you ever been to a lobster boil, Brian?”

  “No?” he replied with a perplexed look on his face. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “If you really want to boil a lobster the right way, do you know how you do it?” I asked quietly.

  “I really hadn’t thought about it,” he said.

  “You put the heat on low, put the lobsters in the pot, and then gradually raise the temperature until the water boils,” I explained in a soft voice. “That way they don’t know what’s happening until it’s too late.”

  Surprise and recognition flashed across Brian’s face as he processed the story I was telling, then he nodded and said, “I imagine it’s more humane for the lobsters, right?”

  “Maybe, but I’ve always thought it was tremendously sad to betray them that way; to use what they are familiar with to end their lives,” I sighed. “It feels horribly sad.”

  “Yes, I imagine when you look at it that way, it is sad,” he echoed.

  “As time went on, he got more and more possessive, but I was too blind to see that it was because the temperature was being turned up all around me,” my voice broke a little. “I would come home and find him pacing the apartment, worried to death that something had happened to me, so I’d comfort him and make sure he was okay, and that usually meant having sex. I got to be an expert at knowing exactly what kind of mood he’d be in depending on the text or phone call, and then I’d know precisely what I’d have to do when I got home. In some ways it was really easy because he was so predictable, but that also made him so much more dangerous. About three months after I’d moved in was the first time he hit me.”

  “He hit you?” Brian’s voice was calm, but his jaw was tight and tense.

  “He did, but he always made it seem like it was my fault. He would explain it as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and I’d find myself agreeing with him,” I said. “The memory of that first night is the most painful one because, in retrospect, I can see where it was all headed, but at the time, I was too naive and trusting. He’d followed me around campus that day, and he found me in the quad talking with a guy from my Chem class. He wasn’t someone I’d ever talked to before, and we had been double-checking our study guides because we had an exam coming up. Dominic showed up on the quad and ‘caught’ us. I introduced him and told him what we were doing, and he was so incredibly charming and funny that I didn’t give it another thought. In fact, I remember thinking how lucky I was to have a boyfriend who was so friendly and warm. What a fool I was.”

  “So, he shows up and acts all nice to the guy, and then what?” Brian probed.

  “When I got home later that afternoon, all hell broke loose,” I looked down, dropped one arm, and began picking at the bedspread. “He was in a rage. He interrogated me about the guy on the quad—Dave? Doug? I can’t even remember his name now. Anyway, he accused me of sneaking around behind his back and seeing other guys. I was shocked because that had never even occurred to me. Not once. I was happy with him, and happy in our home together, and I told him that, but he refused to believe me. He went on and on about how I was betraying him while I tried my best to show him all the ways in which I wasn’t. That’s when I started to get mad and tell him that if he didn’t believe me, then maybe I should leave. Big mistake.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  “The minute I said I was going to leave, he lunged at me, grabbed my arm, and gripped me so tightly that I had an imprint of his hand on my bicep for a week. He shook me and told me never ever to tell him that I was leaving again. He said that I couldn’t leave him, that he was the only one in the world who would ever love me this much and that no one else would want a girl whose father didn’t love her because it meant that she was damaged and worthless.” My voice was shaking as I repeated the words that had played over and over in my head for the past year. I’d never told anyone what Dominic had said, but I’d played his voice back again and again, wondering if he had been right about me. “When I started crying, he yelled at me to shut up and stop being such a stupid baby, and when I didn’t, he…”

  “He what, Ava?” Brian’s voice was low and gentle. “What did he do?”

  “He slapped me across the face and then told me to go wash my face and get dinner started or there would be hell to pay.” My breath was coming fast and rapid as I remembered. “It was the first time Dominic had shown his ugly side, but it was far from the last. And it got worse; so much worse, but after every episode, he’d cry and apologize and tell me he only got jealous because he loved me so much and was so afraid of losing me. He would shower me with gifts and flowers, and we’d take a trip together or go shopping for something new for the apartment. He was always so incredibly kind and sweet after one of his outbursts, and I was confused. I couldn’t understand what I was doing wrong because I wasn’t doing anything. It got to the point where I didn’t even want to go to classes anymore because I was afraid of what would happen if someone tried to talk to me in class. I was scared and paranoid and totally dependent on him.”

  “What a total asshole,” Brian quietly fumed. “He blamed his own insecurity on you and used it to keep you prisoner.”

  “You know, this morning we were talking about Stockholm Syndrome in my Psych class, and I felt this cold wave of fear wash over me. That was me. I totally identified with him and felt sorry for him because he’d had such an awful upbringing,” I explained. “He’d been raised by a father who was practically a drill sergeant, and who had terr
orized his kids with exercises at dawn and long runs in the middle of the hot California summer. It was brutal, and he had been totally traumatized by it, so I felt bad for him.”

  “Lots of people are traumatized by jerks like his father,” Brian grumbled. “But they don’t become psychopathic abusers.”

  “Look, I’m not excusing him, I’m just saying that he had problems to begin with, and I made the perfect target for his rage,” I continued. “It got worse, to the point that there was a period of about month when I didn’t leave the apartment at all. I curled up in the bedroom and ignored everyone except Dominic, who would call or text every 15 minutes just to make sure I hadn’t gone anywhere with anyone.”

  “Jesus, he kept you a prisoner!” Brian shouted as he jumped off the bed and began pacing the room.

  I wrapped my arms tightly around my legs and pressed my forehead against my knees as I squeezed my eyes shut and gently rocked. Brian immediately noticed the change, stopped his pacing, and said, “I’m sorry, Ava. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  “I’m not scared of you, Brian,” I mumbled. “I’m scared of what Dominic might be capable of, and I have no idea what that is.”

  “How did you get away from him?” he asked as he sat down on the edge of the bed and gently patted my foot.

  “I walked out,” I laughed bitterly. “He cheated on me, and I found out, so I walked out the door and never looked back. How cliché is that? I mean, the guy belittles me, hits me, and basically breaks down every part of me, but I don’t get mad enough to leave until he cheats on me with another woman? What a fool I was.”

  “You’re not a fool, Ava,” Brian consoled. “Lots of people go through what you did and never find it in themselves to leave. But you left. You found a way to make yourself safe and you left him.”

  I looked up at him with tears running down my face and shook my head as I spoke in a small voice, “But he’s never going to let me get away. Don’t you see? He’s obsessed with me, and I’m never ever going to be free of him.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “No, no, I’m not,” I whispered. “If he can’t have me, he’s going to kill me.”

  Brian swiftly climbed on to the bed and wrapped his strong arms around my weeping frame and said, “No, he’s most definitely not going to do that.”

  “How do you know?” I cried.

  “Because if he harms even one hair on your head, I will make sure it’s the last thing he ever does,” he promised in a tense voice as he tightened his arms around me, and for the first time in more than a year, I took a deep breath and relaxed.

  *****

  We stayed that way for a long time. Brian’s arms felt so strong and warm wrapped around me, and when he rested his chin on the top of my head, I’d never felt safer in my entire life. I felt stiff from having been tensed up for so long, and as Brian ran one hand down my back, I began to relax a little. I didn’t know what to say now; I felt like I’d just put myself through the ringer by telling the story, but Brian had been right, it had felt good to get it out. Somehow, sharing my experience with him had made me feel so much less alone, and all of the awful things that Dominic had done started to belong to him, not me. I wasn’t responsible for his horrible behavior or his violent need to control me. He, and he alone, was responsible for that. Thinking about Dominic sent a shiver up my spine.

  “It’s okay,” Brian murmured. “You’re safe, I promise. You’re safe with me.”

  I exhaled slowly as I lifted my head and tried to stretch my legs. They’d been crushed up against my chest for so long that they’d fallen asleep, and I couldn’t unbend them. Brian let go of me, leaned back, and gently pulled one leg and then the other out, so that for the first time in hours, I was sitting up straight as he lightly ran his hands up and down my legs, stimulating the circulation. When the pins and needles feeling ran up my legs, I let out a howl as I began kicking my feet, trying to drive it out quickly.

  “Stay still!” he laughed. “You’re not going to do anything but make it worse if you kick like that.”

  “But it hurts!” I cried as I continued ignoring his advice and kicking my legs. “Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!”

  “You are one stubborn woman,” he laughed. “You really ought to listen to me.”

  “I know, but I can’t help it!” I laughed along with him as the pain in my legs began to subside. I leaned forward and stretched a little, then sat back up and looked intently at Brian. “Can you do that again?”

  “Do what again?” he asked, genuinely confused.

  “Make me feel safe like you did a little while ago?” I quietly requested. He looked at me for a long moment, then stood up, leaned over and scooped me up off of the end of the bed, and plopped down with his back against the headboard and me across his lap. He wrapped one arm around my lower back, and brought his other hand up and gently ran it through my hair as he pulled my head to his shoulder. Enveloped in his arms, I sighed quietly as I let go and enjoyed the feeling of his hard, warm body pressed against mine. He rested his chin on my head again as his finger played with my hair, gently brushing it away from my face. I studied the vein that was pulsing at the base of his neck as I felt the warmth of his arms wrapped around me, and without thinking, I leaned forward and kissed the spot where his neck met his collarbone.

  “Ava…” His surprise was evident, but he didn’t pull away. “I’m not sure if this is…”

  “I am,” I whispered, as I leaned in and ran a string of light kisses down his jawline. Brian inhaled deeply and then exhaled slowly as he fought to keep things under control. I, on the other hand, continued to work to upset the balance, and as I continued kissing his jaw, I lifted my hand to stroke his cheek. That elicited a quiet groan from his lips as he brought his hand to my face and tipped my chin up so we were looking into each other’s eyes.

  He stroked my cheek with his thumb as he gazed at me, and then murmured, “So beautiful,” before dipping his head and lightly brushing my lips with his. I hadn’t been with anyone—or even wanted to be with anyone—in the year since I’d left Dominic, and the sensation of his lips against mine awakened my desire in a way I hadn’t anticipated.

  Brian must have felt the change, and he pulled back and asked, “Are you sure?” I was more than sure, and I nodded as I reached up and pulled his lips back down to mine. His were soft as he traced the edge of my mouth with his tongue, gently parting my lips so our tongues could find each other. He teased me as he began gliding his hands down my body, roaming over my curves and then returning to caress my face as our kiss deepened.

  Soon, he reached down and tugged the edge of my T-shirt and pulled it up over my head. My bra joined the T-shirt on the floor in quick order as he slipped out from under me and lowered me onto my back. I looked up at him as he unzipped his hoodie, tossed it to the floor, and then stripped the standard white T-shirt from his body. I inhaled sharply as I took in his broad, muscled chest and strong arms, and moments later, he was pressing them against my bare skin as he leaned down and continued kissing me. I ran my hands down his arms and felt the muscles bulging under my fingertips, and moaned softly as his hands found my sensitive nipples and began circling them with his fingers. He pulled back and watched me closely as he teased them into erect points before dipping his head down and capturing one between his lips. The sensation was unlike anything I’d ever felt before, and I cried out as I buried my fingers in his thick hair and pulled him against my breasts. He continued licking and sucking as one hand moved lower and found the waistband of my pants, and moments later, he pushed himself up off my body so that he could strip me bare.

  I lay on the bed as he ran his eyes and his hands over my now-naked body. He kept murmuring, “So beautiful” as he touched me, and he kept looking back up at my face as if to ask if I was alright. I nodded and pulled him back down against me, kissing him deeply and urging him to continue as I unzipped his pants and tried to push them off of him. I was pinned under him, and we both laughed a little as he
was forced to pull his own pants off.

  Now both naked, the urgency of our need took over, and we began grinding against one another; skin on skin as we kissed and touched, exploring each other’s bodies. I could feel Brian’s hardness pressing against my leg and I braced myself for what I thought would come next, but he felt the slight shift and stopped to look at me for a moment. “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I looked away. “Bad memory of another lifetime, sorry.”

  “You never have to be sorry with me, Ava,” he vowed as his hand traced a slow path down my body until he was parting my thighs and stroking the soft skin of my outer lips. He kissed me softly as his fingers spread me open, and then he sighed into my lips as he began stroking the velvety softness of my already slick inner lips. A desperate moan escaped my lips as he spent long minutes stroking me until I was so wet I could feel the moisture dripping out of me and soaking the bed. He watched me intently as he slid his fingers to the edge of my tight entry, and then teased it until I raised my hips to try and push his fingers inside me.

  “You want it, don’t you?” he murmured.

  “Oh yes, I need it! I need it!” I cried as my hips chased his fingers.

  Brian smiled as he continued the erotic torture, bending down to kiss me again and again. Slowly, he positioned himself on top of me, sliding his thick shaft between my legs, coating it in my wetness before spreading my lips and holding the tip on the edge of my tight, wet pussy. He held my gaze as he slowly pushed forward, burying himself inside me. I moaned loudly and gripped his arms as I tried to pull him deeper inside my body. I wanted to feel all of him. I needed him.