by Anna Brooks
I pull back, sucking his lip. He rests his head on my shoulder and a bead of sweat drips down my arm.
My feet rest on the ground, and his eyes gloss over for a brief second. He looks away and blinks rapidly before pulling me close again and burying his face in my hair.
“God, I missed you. I just wanted to hear you say it. I feel like you’re still so far away but I’m afraid to push you too fast.” He lifts his head and smooths my hair with one hand while the other maintains firm on my hip. “I like that you came to me. I need to know what I feel isn't one sided.”
“It’s only ever been you,” I whisper.
He kisses my forehead and backs away, running his hands through his sweaty hair “Are you gonna feed me or what?”
We’re sitting on a bench under a large oak tree on the same side of the building as before. He gave me a tour of the station and introduced me to all the other guys. He only growled a couple times, but I think the guys were purposely messing with him.
“It’s just sandwiches, nothing fancy.”
“Sweetheart, it could be tuna out of a can, and I wouldn’t complain. The fact that you brought it is all that counts.”
I laugh and hand him a soda. “I would never bring you canned tuna.”
“Well, if you did, I’d eat it.”
The slight breeze from the trees cools my skin perfectly, and we both finish our food. He pulls me over to him, and I mentally curse him for putting his t-shirt back on.
“I know we haven’t talked about it, but I’ve been dying to find out how you know Mary,” I ask him.
When we came back the night I ran away, details seemed to have gotten lost in the shuffle. I know there’s more to her story than what she told me. I explained how I ended up at the hotel. I was amazed by his support, only getting angry that I put myself in danger. In all of the discussion, I forgot to ask how he knows Mary.
“Mary was Brandon’s best friend growing up.”
“Just a friend?”
“I thought so. But by the looks of their reunion, there must be more.” He rubs his chin. “Brandon is being tight lipped about her. I’ve asked him, but he won’t tell me shit.”
“That’s weird.”
“I guess. She had a shitty childhood and was at our house all the time. I was younger than them, so there were things hidden from me.”
“What kind of things?” I sit up and cross my legs, eager to hear more.
“I don’t really know. I do remember my dad and Brandon arguing about her one time. Brandon was yelling at Dad to do something about her parents, but when I walked in the room, they stopped talking.”
“Hmm. I think I’m gonna go see her again.”
“No,” he responds quickly, leaving no room for argument.
“Why not?”
“That hotel is in a shitty part of the city, and I don’t want you there alone.”
“Oh.” I’m not used to this, and I need to remember there are people who care about me. I’m not alone anymore.
My brows scrunch together when I think about all I’ve missed the past few years. Instead of being with Todd, I could have been here, wrapped in Travis’ embrace, feeling like I matter. Being a part of a family. Not only my own, but Travis’, too.
“Hey,” he says softly, “what’s with the long face?”
“Nothing.” I smile, but he shakes his head.
“It’s not nothing.”
“I was just thinking how I missed out on three years of happiness with you.”
“It sucks, doesn’t it? I think about that, too, but we’re together now. That’s all that matters. Our future is going to kick ass, sweetheart. We’re indestructible together; Romeo and Juliet ain’t got shit on us.”
* * *
Travis’ family is coming up for Sunday dinner. We’re meeting them in about a half hour, and I’m still in my robe. When my buzzer sounds, I unlock the entry door for Travis; he must have forgotten the set of keys I gave him.
Every night he’s not working, we’re at each other’s places. It’s perfectly normal; some might say boring, even. Meara fixed my schedule so I work when Travis does, and we pretty much just spend every other waking moment together. It’s like the summer we met all over again, and it’s absolutely amazing.
We decided to take things slow, and as much as we both want to, we still haven’t had sex yet. I’m ready, God, I’m ready. I fixed my hair wavy how he likes and am wearing a skimpy black lace bra and panty set. I’ve decided tonight will be the night, even if he doesn’t know it yet. Nothing could ruin my happiness right now, and I refuse to let the past hold me back anymore.
During the past two months, I’ve gotten a flat tire, my water heater broke, and I locked myself out of my condo in the rain.
All those things would have usually caused me stress, but not anymore. I have a man who helps me fix them, and a family to laugh with for not knowing how to change a tire. It couldn’t get more perfect. I’ve been seeing a new therapist and feel wonderfully and completely happy, finally.
Why then, when I open my door for Travis, is Todd staring back at me?
“No.” I push the door, but he sticks his loafer in and shoves it open. “No, I don’t want you here.” My heart is racing, and my palms become sweaty as he’s barging in. I back up and have to hold onto the kitchen counter. The knife block is across from me, and there’s no way I could reach it without going past him. I’m shaking so bad I’m about to fall over.
I panic, struggling to breathe as tears blur my eyes. “No. No. No. Leave. You’ve ruined enough of my life.”
He looks like shit. His hair is longer than usual, and his cheeks are sunken in. The suit jacket hangs off his shoulders, and his stubble is unkempt. The way his eyes glass over and squint petrify me.
“I just want to talk to you. I’ve been waiting, following you from that bar you told me your family owned.” He shuts the door and puts the chain on. “I’ve missed you.”
“No. Get out!” I scream. “I don’t want to talk to you.”
“I left her,” he whispers. “I left her to be with you.” He removes his jacket and tosses it on the floor.
My cell phone is on the coffee table. He’s taking slow purposeful steps toward me.
Tears fall over when his voice changes and he puts his hand on his belt. “Get over here.” He’s trying to manipulate me, using the voice that I used to submit to, but it won’t work this time.
“No,” I cry. “No.”
“I said, get over here.”
When I still don’t move, he rushes at me, and I bolt away. I grab my cell from the table, but he tackles me to the ground, pinning my arms underneath me. The phone flies across the room, and his tall body straddles me. My breasts are crushed to the floor painfully, and I can no longer move the upper half of my body. I scream, and he slaps a hand over my mouth, before he replaces it with his tie, muffling my cries.
I kick as much as I can, trying to do something, anything. He tries to pull my arms out from under me, but I grip my fingers to each other, because I know he wants to tie them together. My muscles burn from the struggle, and he eventually gives up and lifts me, kicking and hitting.
I’m tossed on the couch, and he rips his belt off.
“No. No.” I push off but am not fast enough. He grabs me by the hair and pulls me back against his chest.
“Stop fighting me. You know I don’t like to hurt you. But you’re being a very, very naughty girl right now.” His voice makes me want to vomit, and I swallow deeply to keep it down.
“Todd, please. Don’t do this.” I beg around the gag, not sure if he can understand what I’m saying.
“Oh, Charlotte. Do you know how much I’ve given up for you?” He pushes me facedown on the couch and ties my hands behind my back with his belt.
“Everything. I gave up everything for you. And you just left.”
He flips me back around and straddles me. I can’t move, and my fight or flight response is vacant. Instead, I give u
p. I become lax, empty, and shut down.
“She found out about you and divorced me. I lost my job, my fucking license, because of the bills I wrote off for you.” He grips my face in his hands and squeezes my cheeks together. I don’t even wince at the pain. “Then you left me.”
His hand trails down my face, and when his finger rubs between my breasts, I choke.
“You look amazing tonight. Did you dress up for me?”
I shake my head back and forth so hard the tie loosens and I’m able to push it out with my tongue. “No, you sick fuck. I didn’t wear it for you.”
He backhands me across the face and metallic warmth fills my mouth. I slowly turn my head back and spit on him. No. I’m not doing this. I’ll fight until I die.
He wipes his face and shakes his finger at me. “That was a mistake.”
I blink the tears away, and with strength I didn’t know I possessed, I get him off me and run. I’m inches from the door when the force of his body slams me into it, knocking my head on the frame. Blood drips into my eye, and I become lightheaded and heavy, no longer able to fight.
“Why did you do that, baby?”
He drags me under my restrained arms back to the couch and tosses me like a doll. Black dots blur my vision, and I know I’m about to pass out.
He reaches for his pants button and just as he’s lowering the zipper, the door knob turns and there’s a knock at the door. My head is packed with sand, and I can only turn my eyes to will it to open.
“Travis.” Sandpaper is lodged in my throat, making it difficult to speak.
“Char, sweetheart? I forgot my key.”
“Travis,” I rasp louder. My limbs are weighed down, and if I’m going to die tonight, I want to see his face again.
“Charlotte, open the door.” Frantic, the pounding on the door echoes in my head.
Todd puts his hand over my mouth and nose, cutting off my oxygen. “Shut up,” he whispers, squeezing my bruised and bloody face.
With one last attempt, I lift my foot up and kick him between the legs, making him holler. His hand flies off my mouth and cups his hopefully broken penis. “Fuck!”
The door splinters open, a welcome vibration through the buzzing in my head, and Travis barges in. I’ve never been as thankful for how strong he is until this moment.
“What the fuck?”
Menacing and cold, he doesn’t hesitate before grabbing Todd and throwing him across the room. The difference in size is undeniable. Todd may be a little taller, but Travis is twice as wide. Travis looks at me and fury swims in his eyes, dark blue and vengeful. His closed fists shake, and I’ve never seen the muscles in his jaw so tight. He picks Todd up by the shirt collar and slams him on the ground.
“You’re dead, motherfucker.”
I should turn away, or at least feel remorse, but an evil smile forms on my lips, causing a searing pain through my skull. Blood flies and bones break, but it’s the primal growl from Travis that sets me back into reality. He’ll kill him. I can’t let him do that, he’s already done so much for me.
Gingerly, I push myself up and sway before my lips part. The wall steadies me and once the dizziness stops, I call for him, “Travis, stop.”
He freezes, fist mid-air, and whips his head around. In a daze, he drops Todd’s limp body. I cringe when his head lands on the ground and bounces a couple of times before stilling.
Chapter 21
Travis
“IT’S BEEN TWO WEEKS, Ma. She’s hardly said five words to me.”
Charlotte has been staying at my apartment since the night Todd broke in and attacked her, the night the walls permanently encompassed her heart. ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘thank you’ are the only words she’s spoken since. Her therapist has come here a few times. Char’s talked to her, but stays closed off to anyone else. With her tucked safely in my bed, I join my mom on the couch.
“I understand how worried you are, but Charlotte is a very strong young woman, she just needs some time. Post-traumatic stress can come in lots of different forms. She’s talking to someone, that’s a good thing.” Her sympathetic eyes plead. “You’ve done everything you can; now it’s up to her.”
“If I would have—”
“Stop.” Her small fingers wrap around mine. “It’s not your fault.”
“But if I would have gotten there sooner…” Every time I think about what he was doing to her, the blood dripping down her perfect face, fire burns through my veins.
“If you would have gotten there sooner, he probably would have come back another time when you wouldn’t have been able to save her at all.” Logically, I know my mom is right, but the fact that I didn't get there five minutes earlier weighs me down with guilt.
Along with breaking and entering, attempted rape, and battery, Todd had a warrant out for fraud and theft of narcotics from the hospital. The fucker isn't getting out of jail anytime soon.
“She’ll come around. Did Dr. Stevens come by today?” …
“Yeah. She talked to her.” Heavy with concern, my head falls and the throbbing between my temples returns. “I don't know what to do for her, and it’s fucking breaking me to be so helpless.”
* * *
Terror. Charlotte’s shrill cry slices through the midnight silence, and my feet can’t get me to her fast enough. I catch a glimpse of her thrashing body through the crack in the door, and I die a little more inside when I get closer. Her eyelids are clamped together, yet tears pour out of them while she screams incoherently. I make out ‘no’ and ‘stop’, but everything else is muffled through her sobs.
I scoop her up and cradle her against my chest, resting my lips by her ear, gently murmuring reassuring words. She’s lost weight. Her cheekbones are more prominent, and her hip bones dominate the space that used to be filled with soft curves.
She welcomes my embrace, pulling closer to me. When the shaking and sobbing stop, she wipes her eyes and begins apologizing. The same thing she’s done at least twice a night for the past two weeks.
“Stop apologizing, sweetheart.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers and climbs off my lap. Her small frame curls in a ball beside me, not touching, but the heat radiates, and I itch to hold her more.
Since I brought her here after that night, I’ve been sleeping on the couch. I don’t stay with her in bed because she tells me with her body she wants to be alone by rolling away and shaking her head when I touch her. She only allows me to comfort her when she has a nightmare, then I leave. It’s better than nothing, yet is not good enough. I want to be everything to her.
My hands run down my unshaven face in frustration.
“He kept saying he did it for me.”
Stunned, I wait.
“It’s my fault. I ruined a marriage. He has a daughter.”
“No. It’s not. He’s seriously fucked up in the head, Charlotte. He exploited and manipulated you.” I rest my head on the wall above the pillows and calm myself with deep breaths through my nose. She blames herself. That’s what this is all about.
“He used to hit me during sex.”
I should have killed him. Fuck. I’ll beat the shit out of a bag later, but right now, I need to stay calm for her. I can’t fly off the handle every time she tells me something I don’t want to hear.
She turns on her back and stares at the ceiling. Emptiness fills her eyes. “It started out as a spanking here and there. It reminded me of you.”
My throat constricts and turmoil washes through me.
“You always grabbed my butt or slapped it. And, in my imagination, that’s what you would have done if we would have been together. I missed that, and in my mind, it made me feel connected to you. I know it’s sick.”
“I never did it to be threatening, Char. I love your body, especially your ass. And if I touch it, it’s because I can’t keep my hands off you, not because I want to hurt you.”
“I know. And that’s why I would pretend with him. I missed you so fucking much, and I thought I h
ad no chance at happiness, ever again.” She reaches over and turns on the lamp. Her arms cross in front of her chest, and she lifts the shirt off.
Her naked chest sits before me and my cock inappropriately twitches. Rising on her knees, she takes my hands and runs them down her sides, then turns around.
Her fingers graze her lower back. “Here,” she says. I glide my hand across her soft skin and when they land on slightly raised bumps, she continues, “These are from the whip he used on me the day after my mom died.”
Jesus. Fuck. If I had known this before, I would have killed him.
I lean forward and gently kiss each of the scars I never noticed before. They’re small, barely visible. “Never again.”
“I was so scared, Travis. He said it was my fault.” She climbs onto my lap and wraps her arms around my neck, resting her head on my shoulder.
“He won't hurt you ever again, sweetheart.”
“I’m so sorry.” She kisses my neck and moves up, until she’s sucking on my tongue and her nipples rub against my bare chest.
Now is not the time, but it’s impossible not to think about sinking into her wet heat and reassuring myself that she’s still mine.
I roll us over so we’re lying on our sides, and she’s tucked in my arms, with her back to my chest.
She wiggles her backside against my throbbing dick, and I bite back a groan.
“Please,” she begs.
“Sweetheart, I don't think it’s a good idea.” I can’t let her do something she’s going to regret.
“I need you.” She grabs my hands and places them on her breasts, squeezing so I have no choice but to caress them.
“Ahh, baby, you’re making it really difficult to be honorable.” One hand trails south, slipping under her sleep shorts. When my fingers graze her slit, we both moan.
I find her clit and apply pressure, rubbing in small circles. Her breathing becomes erratic, and I slide my index finger up and down, through her soaked folds, over and over and over.
