Blind Passion

by Bronwyn Stuart

  Neither of them moved for what felt like an eternity, their heavy breathing like thunder in her ears. Neither noticed the movements of the car, gently rocking under them as it came to a stop. Sophie closed her eyes wondering what he felt, what his remaining senses told him.

  Somewhere in the back of her mind she heard a car door close but she was too lost in the moment to worry or to care. He reached up and found the tie at the back of her neck and gently pulled on the ribbons until the fabric drooped open. She threw her head back, calling out his name as he plunged into her, sucking hard on her nipple, lifting her only to bring her back down twice as hard, penetrating deeper every time, biting her gently, bringing her to a shattering ecstasy.

  She’d died. It was the only explanation for what just happened. Her toes and fingertips tingled from the force of one orgasm on top of another. Guys like Brandan McAllister just didn’t exist in her world. Anyone’s world. She was dead and he was an angel. The angel of orgasms.

  She leaned forward and rested her forehead against his, resisting the urge to giggle while their breathing began to return to normal.

  “I seem to be apologising a lot to you,” he started to say until she interrupted him.

  “Don’t you dare,” she warned, leaning back to stare into his eyes. Well, his face.

  “I don’t know what came over me. It’s like I’m seventeen again and can’t keep it in my pants.” He chuckled and shook his head. That’s exactly how he felt when he was with her. He wanted to have her naked day and night so he could have her when and where he wanted.

  “Sophie…”

  “Mmm,” she replied with a sigh.

  “Are you going to sleep?”

  “Mmm.” It had been a long day.

  He helped her put her dress back to rights and then Brandan was glad when she drifted off. It gave him time to think. His body had been about to do it again. Ask her something that his brain hadn’t yet caught up with. It was on the tip of tongue to ask her to marry him. That would be a romantic story to tell the kids…

  “Where were you when you proposed to mummy?” His imaginary children would ask to which he would stammer, blush and then lie. Yes. It was a good thing he had a slight reprieve.

  He wondered if she would ever want to get married again? They hadn’t talked about it. He wondered if he really wanted to be married again? He already knew the answer to that question.

  He couldn’t imagine spending his life with someone like Olivia now that he’d spent this time with Sophie. The two were like night and day.

  Olivia had been deceitful and conniving but Sophie didn’t seem to have a hurtful, dishonest bone in her body. He didn’t really, truly know her but he knew she was a good woman, kind and caring. She would never hurt him like his ex-wife had and he would never hurt her like Max had. They would spend every day for the rest of their lives making love, making babies, making laughter. That was the kind of marriage he wanted.

  He gently slid her off his lap onto the seat next to him. She sighed in her sleep and then she was still, peaceful. She didn’t even twitch when he opened the door and stepped out of the car.

  “Where are we?” he said into the dark. He knew Mick wouldn’t be far away.

  “Just somewhere private,” Mick answered, followed by the unmistakable sounds of a jet roaring over their heads. “But not so peaceful.”

  “She’s asleep,” Brandan told his driver, gesturing back to the car that he was leaning against.

  “It’s been a long day,” Mick replied obviously uncomfortable having this discussion with him.

  “It has been a long week,” Brandan said, scratching the edges of his bandages as he leaned against the limo’s hood.

  “Is it annoying you?” Mick asked.

  “Not so much. You know when you’re looking forward to something at a certain time and then that time passes and you didn’t get it? It makes you more frustrated.”

  Mick agreed with a nod of his head. “Is she still in danger?”

  “How do you know about that?” Brandan’s head snapped around.

  “I was taking her to her hotel when the call came to say that her ex had escaped.”

  “What did she do when she got the call?” Brandan asked, his fists clenched tight, angry he hadn’t been there.

  “She cried a bit and then she asked me to take her back to you.”

  “Why wouldn’t she have gone to her hotel anyway?” Brandan asked the question out loud.

  “She was told not to use her credit cards or bank cards just in case the bastard tracked her down.”

  It hit him like an engine falling off one of the jets above his head. All of a sudden her earlier remarks and the way she got quiet when he teased her about paying for dinner, it all fell into place. She was completely and utterly reliant on him and his money yet she hadn’t once asked for a dime. For days he’d thought she just wasn’t a materialistic person. When they went out she didn’t ask for anything, to stop and get something to eat or drink other than the main meals.

  In fact she only ate when he suggested it or asked if she wanted anything or got room service. She hadn’t asked him for cash so she could do her own thing. She knew he was rich, why wouldn’t she just ask for the money?

  “She is one strong lady, what she has been through would have killed my wife,” Mick commented in the awkward silence.

  “She certainly is that,” Brandan agreed. Had he finally found someone who would love him for him regardless of the money? She probably didn’t even know how much he was worth if she didn’t read those filthy magazines.

  Amazing. Never in his life, especially not on this trip, had he expected to find what he’d searched for his whole adult life. A kindred spirit. Whenever he met women it was on their terms. At this function or that where they always knew he was coming. It gave them time to Google him and find out as much as they could about his dislikes and his likes. He could never be sure if they were being sincere when they said they liked water skiing or snowboarding. In his world you got used to the fake smiles not quite reaching all the way to the eyes, the empty words, the feigned interest. With Sophie, it was like he’d found the one rare diamond amongst the plastic imitations.

  Tomorrow. He promised himself that tomorrow after he saw the doctor, regardless if his sight was damaged or not, he would ask her to marry him. He had to. His happiness depended on her staying in his life.

  Forever.

  ~

  “That’s funny,” Sophie commented, as they stepped out of the elevator into their suite some time later.

  “What is?” Brandan asked taking a few steps into the room. There was nothing funny about the way his body was reacting to her. To the promise of what the night had in store for them both. A nice long hot spa bath with Sophie was first on his list.

  “Did you turn out the lights before we left?” she asked.

  “Probably the maid service,” he shrugged.

  “Can you please turn them on?”

  “I don’t need them on,” he teased. Finally something she needed him to do. He was beginning to feel as though he couldn’t do much at all for himself.

  “Please? I don’t like the dark.”

  “All right, sweetheart, just give me a minute.” Brandan shrugged out of his dinner jacket, all rumpled from their exertions in the car, and loosened his buttoned cuffs. He knew this room by now, the layout, where he could step without breaking his toe or shin but tonight something seemed different. The hair on his nape stood on end as a prickle of unease stabbed at him. Perhaps it was just nerves, anxiety, anticipation.

  Brandan turned his bedroom light on with a snap intending to make a rather rude joke about her dependence on modern technology when he heard her gasp followed by a blood curdling scream.

  He turned back to the lounge area but the shatter of china smashing and pain exploding in the back of his head drove him to his knees. He tried to fight the darkness that sought for the second time in a week to claim him. Noises blurred into one
. Sophie screaming his name, the hysterical laughter of a lunatic, the roar of blood rushing in his ears.

  Brandan slumped to the floor as waves of dizziness washed over him. He tried to say something, tried to reassure her that everything was going to be okay but his tongue lay like lead in his mouth. As he stopped struggling, he thought to himself that maybe this time everything was not going to be all right. Even if he wasn’t lying barely conscious on the floor what could he possibly do when he couldn’t see a God damned thing anyway?

  He slowed his breathing, relaxed against the carpet playing dead, and concentrated hard on the sound of his heart beating. He had to fight. He had to do something. He couldn’t let the woman he loved be at the mercy of her ex. Hell, he couldn’t let her be at the mercy of anyone intent on hurting her. Somewhere in the distance he heard the slam of a door followed by the click of a lock and then near silence enveloped the suite.

  Dread filled him.

  Max must have taken her out to the balcony.

  ~

  Sophie hit the bed hard, bouncing a few times. She scrambled to get out of his reach but Max grabbed a chunk of her hair and pulled her back to look into his madness filled eyes. The sense of déjà vu was terrifying.

  “So, wife, have you any last words?”

  “Why are you doing this?” she shrieked, trying to beat his hands away.

  “You know why, you killed my little girl so now I’ve decided to kill you.” His laughter bordered on a precipice between hysterical and pure evil.

  He would kill her no matter what she said or did but before she died she had to know if Brandan was alive.

  “Did you kill him?”

  “I don’t think so. That bastard can wait until I’m done with you. Let him live with the fact he couldn’t save his slut.”

  “I am not a slut,” Sophie said adamantly. She might be a murderer but she was no slut.

  “You’re not wearing undies. I can smell you from here,” he said with a sneer, moving purposefully towards her.

  “Wh-what are you doing?” She tried to scramble away from him but he caught her and threw her once again on the bed.

  “You don’t have to worry about me touching you like that. I wouldn’t want to risk planting another seed into your tainted womb but perhaps your prince charming already has? I didn’t see any condoms in this brothel.”

  That’s when Sophie noticed her things had been tipped out of her suitcase and onto the floor.

  “What were you looking for?”

  “I’m a little low on cash at the moment and I was hoping you or your prince out there would have some. I won’t be hanging around long after your dead.” He spat the word prince with such vehemence that Sophie worried what Max would do to him once Brandan came to. If he came to.

  “You won’t find any money,” she told him.

  “I realise that, thank you. So, were they your last words?” he asked, hands on his hips as he swayed like a crowing rooster.

  “Would it matter if I told you how sorry I am?” She didn’t sound apologetic, she certainly wasn’t about to beg for her life. If she had to die she would do it with her head held high, not clawing and scratching at him like a shrew. She’d known this day was coming and now that it finally had, she was ready for it. She was ready for the guilt and the worry to just drain away with her blood.

  “Sorry? Sorry? You think that helps our daughter that you’re sorry?” he yelled, spittle flying from his mouth as he took a few steps away from the bed.

  “You still think that I wanted her to die?” Sophie asked in disbelief.

  “You didn’t want her,” he screamed.

  “I didn’t want her to die. Did you not meet me while we were married?”

  “You never wanted her. You never wanted a baby.”

  “I did want a baby. I just wanted the choice to be mine, to be ours, not just yours.”

  “It would never have been the right time for you. You would never have left your precious job.”

  “We were so young. There was plenty of time to start a family. Why were you so set on it? You never told me why, Max. Why did it have to be right then?”

  “We were married. We had to start a family. How long do you think it would have been just the two of us before it all fell apart? Before I got bored? I wanted to have a son to carry on my name. I wanted to feel you heavy with my child, feel the kicks in my back in the night, hold your hand while you delivered him into the world.”

  “But it was a girl.”

  “No matter, we would have had a boy next. It still would have been my child.”

  “OUR CHILD!” she shouted, rising up off the bed to stand on her feet. To finally confront this monster she once loved more than anything else in the whole world. More than her friends, more than her own family, more than her freedom. “She was our child. Not yours, not mine. Ours! And I did feel the kicks, the hiccups, the rolls as she resettled in my stomach. I felt her every day as a piece of me, as a living piece of me and then she was gone. I still don’t know what I did, what happened, but does it ever occur to you that I lost more than you did? Does it?”

  “You never told me you could feel her,” he said softly.

  Sophie wasn’t fooled. There was disbelief in his words but there was also anger. She almost wished she could take back her secret. She’d never told him because she’d wanted to enjoy the moment as her own. She hadn’t wanted him forever rubbing her stomach, touching her. After he’d betrayed her she would have been happy if he’d never touched her again. Never looked at her, spoke to her, but she’d been willing to give their marriage another shot for the baby’s sake.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he suddenly screamed. She didn’t see his fist coming for her until sharp, familiar pain rocketed through her cheek, the force sending her to the floor next to the sliding door leading out to the balcony.

  Holding a hand to her burning face, Sophie looked him squarely in the eyes and got to her feet again. He could kill her, he was a lot stronger than she was, but she would kill herself before she let him beat her the way he had last time.

  She didn’t want a prolonged agonising death. She would finish it quickly. A plan started to form in her mind. If only she could get to the balcony. Her one last defiance would rob him of the satisfaction of ending her life but what would he do in his fit of rage that would surely follow? Would he take it out on Brandan? It was one thing to let Max punish her but Brandan didn’t deserve to be caught up in all of this. He’d already been injured and may even be dead for all she knew, she had to try to make a break for the balcony.

  “Sophie?” Finally, she heard Brandan’s voice through the locked door and felt relief wash through her. He was all right. If he was on his feet that meant he had a chance to defend himself... after.

  “Brandan, I’m in the bedroom.”

  “Not for much longer.”

  Sophie watched in horror as Max drew a wicked looking blade from a hidden sheath strapped to his leg.

  “Not for much longer.”

  Chapter Twenty

  By the time Brandan regained full consciousness he had no idea how much time had passed.

  He strained to hear, tried so hard to listen to the sounds around him, but he still couldn’t hear anything over the thumping in his head. Fighting waves of nausea that made him almost vomit, he got to his hands and knees, breathing deep, sweating buckets.

  He had to find his phone to call the police, then he would try to find her.

  He nearly did vomit at the thought of what he would find.

  Crawling over to his nightstand, he pulled the phone into his lap, his fingers automatically finding the button that would link him to the concierge desk.

  “It’s Brandan McAllister, I need police and paramedics, something’s happened-” He stopped talking when he heard the roar of a male voice coming from Sophie’s bedroom. Hope surged anew. Max wouldn’t be talking to himself like that.

  She had to be still alive.

  He ign
ored the questions from the person on the line. “Hurry,” he whispered and then dropped the phone.

  His hope soon turned to despair as he cursed his sight, and himself, for a fool. Sophie had wanted to change hotels and he’d talked her out of it.

  What could he do? He certainly wasn’t going to sit down and wait like a dog. He had to do something to help her. His hands went to the bandages on his head and with trembling fingers he loosened the dressing until it fell in a pile on his thighs. He gingerly opened his eyes, scared at what he was doing to his perhaps already damaged eyesight, but more terrified for Sophie’s life.

  He would rather be blind for ever as long as she was safe.

  At first everything was a blur of colours and light, he blinked and rubbed gently a few times trying to work his unused lids to clear his eyes. After a few seconds he could see his bathroom door and beyond.

  Standing up, he braced himself against the wall as the room spun violently around him. It took another few seconds for his vertigo to subside, precious seconds that he may have wasted. He took a few more steps but then stumbled when his legs hit a small table pushed against the wall. He almost swore but he had to keep absolutely silent, both of their lives depended on it.

  Brandan closed his eyes and let his senses lead him back out into the lounge room, to her closed bedroom door.

  Sophie and Max argued. He heard Max roar and then the sickening sound of flesh against flesh. He couldn’t contain his fear as he called out her name.

  “Brandan,” she screamed.

  “Come to beat me with your stick?” Max laughed.

  Brandan’s heart stopped as he remembered the sick bastard’s words from the telephone call that morning.

  What are you going to do? Beat me to death with your blind stick?

  He’d seen the newspaper already. Before he’d called. It wouldn’t have taken long to track them down if he’d been close.