by Bourne, Lena
He shakes his head. “I don’t think so, Anne. You need to be taught a lesson, and I’m sure you’ll see it that way in time. I’ll give you the afternoon to consider. If you don’t call me by eight o’clock tonight, I will find you and I will arrest you.” He stands up and looks down at her. “I’m certain we can work things out. And I know you know it too.”
She’s practically cowering in her seat now, and if he stood over her for a split second longer, I would have physically removed him, but he smiles that unnaturally sweet smile again and walks away, giving me a long, contemptuous look before he leaves the restaurant.
He knows who I am, and he knows why I’m here. But that doesn’t matter.
As soon as the door closes behind him, I go sit down across from Anne in the seat he just vacated. She seems frozen, a mixture of fear, pain and regret on her face, and her usually sparkling eyes are as dead as ice.
“This was a bad idea,” she says, and I couldn’t agree more, but I don’t say it, just take her shaking hands and squeeze.
“He’s never gonna let me go, is he?” she asks in a trembling voice.
“Guys like that don’t usually let go of things they think belong to them,” I say. “But you’re free of him, and once you get your new name, he won’t be able to touch you.”
“He knows where I am, he has the FBI behind him, and he’ll never stop coming after me,” she says, her hands still trembling.
“Then we’ll have to deal with him another way,” I say savagely, too savagely, since it makes her gasp and look at me with wide, fearful eyes.
“What do you mean?” she asks.
I just shake my head, release her hands and stand up. “Come on, let’s get out of here. I know a better place where we can eat lunch.”
None of us ordered anything, and the waitress is giving me a very black look as I lead Anne out into the sunshine.
I’m pretty sure her husband is sitting in the black SUV parked across the street and means to follow us. He can do that if he likes, but it’ll be a wasted afternoon for him, while I mean for us to make the most of ours.
“Where are we going?” she asks as I pull onto the highway a few minutes later, eyeing the black SUV that does the same three cars behind us.
“I think it’s a perfect day to visit the beach, don’t you?” I say and smile at her. “You’re always saying how much you love the ocean.”
Her eyes brighten. “But I don’t have a bathing suit with me.”
I lean over and give her a quick kiss. “We’ll figure something out.”
Just the love and gratitude in her eyes right now is enough to get me through the rest of this life. I could make it on the memory of it alone, but I hope to Christ that’s not how this plays out.
19
Doc
The beach was packed so we lost Anne’s husband there as I expected we would. His black SUV was nowhere in sight when we returned to the parking lot in the late afternoon. She had a couple of missed calls from him on her prepaid phone, but we didn’t find that out until we got back to the truck either.
By that time, the fear was out of her eyes and mostly out of her mind too, I’m sure. Hell, the sight of her in the skimpy bikini, which was the only kind of bathing suit they sold at the beach, drove everything else but just how perfect she is, inside and out, from my mind too. Everything, but taking that bikini off, that is.
I took a very convoluted way back to the cabin just in case he was following us in a different car, and even drove part of the way by moonlight with the headlights off. But I think that precaution was unneeded, since no one followed us. We’re quite alone in these woods now, the fire crackling in the fireplace, and her skin and hair still smelling of saltwater and ocean breeze.
She trembles as I kiss her neck, not from fear, but pleasure. That’s the only kind of trembles I ever want to see in her again. She tastes like the sea too, and freedom, and open air, peace and pureness, everything I searched for and never found. Until her.
We’re sitting on the hearthrug by the fire now, and I finally have her perfect body and her perfect soul all to myself. I hope that I’m worthy of all that perfection, and I want to make her even more mine. I kiss her, and I try to put all that into that kiss, because I’ll never be able to explain it to her more perfectly than that.
I pull her all the way into my lap, so her enticing pussy is resting against my cock, which is as hard as a board already.
But I’m happy just kissing for now, enjoying her small tongue as it wars with mine, and her soft lips molding to me. Her scent is all around us, her wetness and her warmth engulfing me even though we’re not joined yet.
I’ve never been this close to a woman. Never even knew it was possible to be this close to another human being. But her breaths are my own, her sighs and moans are my own too, and there’s nothing separating us. Not even air.
She gyrates her hips, her wet pussy sliding on my cock, and she smiles into the kiss as I grunt. I feel her smile, not just against my face but in my chest too. Yet I’m happy just kissing her, just drinking my fill of our closeness. Once I enter her, we’ll be even closer, but we’ll also be closer to the end. And it’s not the end I’m searching for, lusting for, or wishing for. Not with her.
So I kiss her neck again, her moaning sigh tickling my lips as it travels up to exit her mouth. I kiss her breasts next. Her hard, sweet nipples that taste like the ocean and her. She’s grazing my scalp with her fingernails, as she makes fists in my hair, staking her claim on me too, marking me as hers. I need no markings. I’m already hers. And she is mine.
It’s time to make us one now, and she needs no urging to let me enter her. My cock slides in as though her pussy was made for it.
Her warm softness goes straight into my brain, and it’s only her hungry kiss that brings my awareness back from the orgasm that would end this before it even truly starts.
She begins rolling her hips on my cock, the rhythm allowing for perfectly timed waves of mind-blowing sensation to hit me, spaced apart just enough so none of them drowns me. She’s kissing me hard, nipping my lip when the pleasure grows too great.
We’re moving as one, breathing as one, sharing this pleasure as one, no longer two separate entities, and this dance we’re dancing is all there is. I start to buck my hips to join in the dance she’s leading for us. Her sighs and moans turn to whimpers before long, interlaced with my groans, creating the song to our dance.
She shudders in my arms, her pussy clenching tight on my cock, her moan stuck in her throat as she comes, harder than ever, so hard I feel it too, right before I join her in the ecstasy only the two of us can bring to life.
This isn’t the end. It’s only the beginning.
* * *
The sunlight outside blinds me as I open my eyes, but that’s not what woke me. The loud banging on the cabin door did that.
“Who is it?” Anne asks, her eyes wide with fright. She’s sitting up, clutching the covers to her chest like it’s armor.
I smile and slide out of bed. “I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.”
But I’m not sure about that at all. No one ever comes banging on my door unless something’s wrong.
“It’s him, he’s found me,” she whispers.
That’s what I’m worried about too, and I hope she doesn’t see it in my face as I cross the room to look out the window. Her ex didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who’d announce his presence quite this loudly without knowing what to expect on the other side of the door he’s banging on. He can expect me. And whatever else I am, I’m also a killer.
But it’s not her ex, it’s Ace. He’s alone, the engine of the SUV he drove up here idling. He looks up at the upstairs windows like he’s about to start throwing rocks at them to wake me.
“Get down here, Doc,” he yells as our eyes lock. “You’re needed.”
“I’ll be right there,” I tell him, already looking around for my clothes.
“Who is it?” Anne asks.<
br />
“Not your husband, don’t worry,” I tell her, cupping her cheek with one hand as I pull my pants on with the other. “It’s one of my associates.”
“What does he want?”
I shrug. “I’m about to find out.”
I’m surprised at how even and pleasant I’m able to keep my voice. I’m wanted to prevent a death, I’m pretty sure of that—a death I might already be too late in preventing—and the thought of it makes me feel like something very heavy is sitting on my chest.
Ace is standing by the front door when I open it.
“Cross sent me,” he says, slightly apologetically as soon as I open the door.
“What is it? Is someone hurt?” I ask, already looking around for my medicine bag. But I only have the first aid kit here, my real bag is at Sanctuary.
Ace shakes his head. “No. But apparently shit might go down tonight, and we need you on call.”
“In Vegas?”
He nods. “Come on, get dressed. I’m driving.”
I can hear Anne coming down the stairs behind me. “Wait in the car. And we’ll have to stop by Sanctuary first.”
“Hurry, we’re running late as it is,” he says, but I hear it through closed doors.
Anne is wrapped in just the sheet from our bed, and a huge, too huge, part of my mind wants to ignore the summons, unwrap that sheet and spend the day alone with her naked. Nothing’s happened yet and it might not. Maybe it’s not vital that I’m there at all.
But I’ve ignored my duties for long enough, and a nagging black cloud in my mind won’t stop badgering me with the idea that it’s been too long. Irreparably too long. As in, bad shit is about to happen, and I’ll be too late to fix it. That’s an old fear of mine though, and the subject of my most often repeated nightmare. So it’s not a premonition. Just anxiety.
“I have to go to Vegas,” I tell her. “But you’ll be safe here. I’ll leave you the car and some money.”
“How long will you be gone for?” she asks in a shaky voice.
I shrug, wishing I had an answer to give her. “I don’t know. I could be back by tomorrow morning, or it might take longer. I’ll call to let you know, as soon as I know. And you can call me anytime.”
I add that last to get rid of the sad fear in her eyes.
“Can I come with you?” she asks in a small voice.
I shake my head and really wish I didn’t have to. “No, I’ll be working. But I’ll take you the next time I go. We’ll go together.”
I know a trip to Vegas isn’t really what she’s asking for, but it’s the best I can offer right now. I have no idea what I’ll be walking into when I get there, but I’m willing to bet I won’t have the time to put her up in a hotel before meeting up with the guys. Cross said to keep her away from the MC until her husband is long gone from the picture, and I intend to obey that order.
I kiss and hug her before she can ask any more questions. “You’ll be fine. You’re strong and smart, and you know you have nothing to be afraid of up here. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Then I run up the stairs to finish getting dressed, already dreading the moment I’ll come back down and have to leave her here alone for real.
20
Anne
His departure was so abrupt that loneliness crashed against me with all it’s weight and force the moment the door closed behind him, and my only companion was the singing of birds, and the whistling wind in the tree branches. I made myself breakfast, but couldn’t eat it, showered and dressed, and still the minutes dragged like hours. I wish I had more to clean around here, but everything is sparkling, and redoing it all at this point would be manic.
I thought about opening that box of pictures from Sunnyvale he once offered me, but I still want us to do that together and besides, I figured that doing it right now, when I feel so alone, would only make me feel worse. Just thinking about it brought back memories from that happier time. One of them was of Matt with his messed-up blonde hair, riding over to our house on his horse, the afternoon sky alight in all shades of yellow behind him. Mary, his horse was called, and seeing it in my mind made me wish for him to come back with such intensity I couldn’t breathe for a few minutes. It took me longer than that to erase the vision, and my wish to hear him riding his bike up here right now from my mind completely. That wish can’t come true anyway, since he left his bike here.
When the phone rang, I tripped over one of the kitchen table chairs trying to get to it faster than I was able. It was him, assuring me he’ll be back soon, but unable to give me a time. Hearing his voice and his assurance calmed me, but not enough to chase away the weight of loneliness that once again closed in after we said goodbye. I wanted to call him back right away, but there was no sense in that wish, only need.
I failed trying to get Benji to let me go. Utterly and completely. I didn’t think about that at all after we left the Chinese restaurant, but that knowledge is closing in on me along with the loneliness now, so heavy and smothering I’m having trouble breathing again.
What am I going to do?
I don’t have my name, I don’t have any money of my own, I don’t even have my car.
Matt can get me two of those things. As for money, I don’t want handouts. Not ever again. I didn’t steal anything from Benji’s house, but him saying everything in it belonged to him, since he paid for it is true. After I quit my job, I had no money of my own, only what he gave me. He bought all my clothes and shoes, paid for all the food and took care of all the bills. I will never live like that again, not even with Matt. But I doubt I could ever get a job in this town or any of the ones around here, not now that Benji knows where I am. His talk of how much he still loves me, and how much he wants me to return to him made me nauseous, filled me with ice until I felt like I was freezing from the inside. I could hardly speak and it took hours in the sun on the beach for that to fade completely. But it did fade.
Only it’s back now and I’m all alone. With nowhere to run to and no one to lean on.
I’m stronger than that!
But am I really?
I let that man abuse me for years. Kept returning to him after each episode, searching for the crumbs of the love that he showed me in the beginning, the love that made me believe I was the most special woman on earth. All that was just a lie, just a well rehearsed play, and nothing compared to how Matt makes me feel. The love Benji faked couldn’t hold a candle to the love blossoming between Matt and me.
But I’ll never be free to love Matt until Benji frees me. He’s still clutching my freedom in his monster hands even now that I’m no longer his to torment.
I need to get it back.
The day is waning, the sunlight dark yellow, when I dial Benji’s number.
I have to meet him again. This time I’ll demand my life and my freedom back. And I need to do it without Matt there, listening to every word. I know he just wants to protect me, but this is my mess to fix. And if I can’t do it, no one can.
“I expected your call yesterday evening, honey,” Benji says, with all the cloying sweetness of his nickname for me thick in his voice. But I hear the rotting darkness underneath it loud and clear.
“I would like my things and my money back, Benji,” I say. “And I want a divorce.”
The silence that follows is so complete I begin to think the call dropped.
“Meet me, Anne,” he says. “I’m sure I can change your mind.”
“I will only meet you to collect my things, and get your assurances that you will let me go for good,” I say.
It’s pointless talking to him like this, I do know that. But I have to try. I have to try and get my freedom back from him.
“You love me, Anne, you know you do,” he says. “And you know I love you. I’ve made mistakes, I know I have, and I will try very hard not to make them again in the future. But please come home, I want you to and you know you do too. Otherwise you wouldn’t be calling me.”
The more he speaks the fogg
ier my brain gets, but not foggy enough to believe his bullshit. I’ve been blind to that bullshit for a long time, but not anymore. Now I can see the monster he is crystal clear at all times.
“You don’t want everyone in your office to know what kind of a man you really are,” I say. “But they will find out about all you did to me over the years, if you don’t give me what I want now.”
“Don’t threaten me, Anne,” he interrupts. “You’re in no position to do it, and you’re no good at it.”
His voice is no longer sweet, it’s all rotting blackness now. And so very menacing my stomach is clenching painfully. But my freedom lies on the other side of dealing with this, and it’s shining bright.
“I have my medical records and several recordings of your threats and beatings. You want me to go to the police for official questioning? Fine, I’ll drive to the police station right now, turn myself in, tell them the whole story, and show them the proof of your abuse. I’ll ask them for protection against you too. Your brilliant career won’t shine so bright after that.”
I have no idea how the fire to say all that managed to burn through the icy, wet fog of my brain, but it did—it erupted like a bonfire, and it’s still burning strong now, while I breathlessly wait for his wrath I know is coming.
“What do you really want, Anne?” he finally asks, and he sounds breathless too.
“I want my purse and everything in it back. I want you to clear my name with the police, and I want your promise that you will never contact me again,” I say. “I also want you to sign the divorce papers when the time comes, without argument. You can keep everything. I just want our marriage to be over.”
The silence that follows is even longer than the one after I made my original threat.
“You say you have evidence?” he finally asks. “I don’t believe you.”
“I do have it, and I don’t care what you believe anymore,” I say.
“And you think a sob story about getting abused by me will save you from getting arrested for theft?” he asks.