Now was different. She had decided that she was not going to let her heart become a piece of stone anymore. She was tired of planning out every little detail of her life. There was no passion to anything when you did that. It was like everything became emotionless and void of any sort of joy. She could not live like that anymore.
“He will be ok. He’s a big boy,” Alex said.
“I know, but you have to wonder what he is going to do now,” Jess said.
“I’m not so sure he will do anything other than get raging drunk and boink about twenty college girls from that Crow Bar place, where they all hang out. “
“Really? He goes there? He doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb?”
“Apparently not. I guess he still has the cool factor left over from his law school days. He used to go there all the time, but then he chilled a bit with it. Now he may start back again. Or he might find some other place entirely.”
“Well, good luck to him.”
Alex pulled her close in his arms. He felt strong and warmly inviting wrapped around her.
“So, why did you pick me?” Alex asked.
“I’m not exactly sure, but it just felt right. Sometimes you have to follow your heart.”
Jess was feeling pretty good when she drove up to her house. The day of work had flown by and it had ended up being a pretty productive day in court. She was actually starting to think that she might get Dr. Jones' sentence reduced from fifteen years to five by having him take a full psych evaluation that would declare him to be a pervert essentially and that he was incapable of helping himself. He had a problem and a need that screamed out for him to satisfy it. He was a sex addict. She was pretty sure that at least one of those things was true and it was going to become apparent in court. The man had issues; there was no doubt about it.
Jess was looking forward to just relaxing and enjoying a nice evening of quiet television and a few glasses of wine. She and Alex had made plans to go out the following night. He was going to take her to some new fancy restaurant he had heard about that was supposed to be all the rage. Jess was never up on any of these types of things. She just didn’t pay attention to where all of the cool kids hung out these days. But Alex seemed really excited about it. After dinner he was taking her to the opera, which she had never really been to before. It sounded boring and weird, but she was willing to give it a shot.
She walked into her quiet, dark house, instantly poured herself some wine and sat down on the couch without even bothering to remove her work clothes. Somewhere between leaving her office and the twenty minute drive home the exhaustion had set in.
Even though the day had been good the overall week had been brutally stressful. She sipped her wine slowly, enjoying the flavors swirling around in her mouth and then swallowed it. She felt like she needed a vacation - a real vacation without any drama or anybody. In fact, thinking of it right then she decided that the perfect vacation for her would be to coop herself up inside her house for a month and never step foot outside. If she didn’t have to see or talk to anybody for a while that would be just fine with her.
That included Alex, even though she really liked him. It was just one of those times that she just wanted to be alone. It would pass. She knew herself too well. If she were away from people and away from her job for more than a few days she would be tearing her hair out by the roots.
She was in the middle of her third episode of Breaking Bad when the email came in to her phone. She thought about ignoring it because something really intense was about to happen with the show. She had never watched that show when it had aired originally but she had heard so much hype about it on Facebook and at work that she decided she just had to check it out.
Her phone buzzed again as she continued to ignore it. She was tired of people having so much access to her and she was tired of feeling chained to the world by a piece of electronics. She had wanted to throw her iPhone against the wall so many times. Jess had actually stopped herself a few times while in the middle of the act. The anger issues were something that she was working on. She wondered how Alex might react to the first time she lost her shit and weirded out on him. Well, if he really loved her he would find it endearing and give her a sweet kiss to let her know that everything was ok. She smiled at the thought.
Her phone buzzed again. It seemed that she was popular all of a sudden and she was already wishing she could take back every wish she had ever made to any magic genie she had ever seen.
Jess grabbed her phone after putting Breaking Bad on hold. She finished off her glass of wine, enjoying the buzz begin to kick in and checked her email on her phone. She noticed she had three messages from the same sender, but she didn’t recognize the name. At first she just imagined it was some scammer looking to trick her into giving out her credit card number or trying to hack her email. Or it could be a virus or some other piece of malware that was trying to accomplish all of the same things.
She figured it was probably nothing and opened it up anyway. It was a message that said “Stay away from him, Bitch!”
Jess felt her heart skip a beat as she leapt up off of her couch. She suddenly felt very much alone and very much afraid. Jess was not the type of girl who felt fear that often. She was always in control and she had a firm idea of who she wanted to be in the world and nothing would ever stand in the way of that. She had decided that a long time ago.
But she was very afraid now.
She had dropped her phone on the floor when she leapt up, almost knocking over the bottle of wine that had about one glass left in it.
She began racking her brain for possible subjects of whom could have sent this email to her. Who had access to her email address? Who knew about her and Alex? Was it Dean? She figured that he might not take this type of humiliation lying down; she didn’t share Alex’s cavalier attitude about the whole thing. She was a bit more cautious and now it was turning out that she had been right. Dean was going to demand that they not be together.
It had to be him, right? Unless… it might have been that woman from the bar that night when she had first gone out with Alex. Who’s to say she was going to give up so easily? Or it might have even been any number of scorned lovers that Alex Mathers was hiding in his past. What had she gotten herself into?
She poured the last bit of wine and drank it down swiftly. She picked up her phone and dialed Alex. It rang several times before going to his voice mail. She dialed him again and the voicemail picked up again.
Damn! Where was he? She was starting to feel like the type of woman she had always swore she wouldn’t be. She wasn’t about to start defining herself by a man and she wasn’t going to get clingy or weird and demand to know where he was every second. That was not going to happen. She was going to remain the strong and independent woman she had always been.
But right now she really wished she could hear his voice. She needed to talk to him about this. She was not a nervous person, but she had a strong feeling that all of this was going to end up going south in some way.
Her breathing was coming in short gasps as the tears streamed down her face.
Was this message only the beginning? She was going to be damned if she gave in and left Alex alone. The more she thought about their relationship, and she had been thinking about it often, the more she realized how much she was actually falling for Alex. She saw the way he looked at her and knew that the feeling was well reciprocated and every time she looked into his eyes she felt like she was on top of the world. There was no way in hell she was going to be intimidated by a faceless voice.
But she needed to talk to Alex.
They needed to find out what they were dealing with.
Before things got worse.
End of Part 2
Chapter Nine
Jessica Bilson felt her sides begin to split in two pieces. Her body was trying to force her to double over in pain, while her lungs gasped for just one ounce of sweet air, but she was denied this luxury. Her head began to spin a
nd she truly felt dizzy on a scale that she had never known before. Her head pounded down the back of her skull, rocking from the base of her neck to the very top of her cranium, pinging out like laser beams to her temples. She felt nausea rocking through her stomach, turning to sharp pains as it reached her chest and dissipated to a dull ache in her jaw.
Still she would not let up.
Her feet pounded the pavement harder as she pushed her legs further. The morning sunrise was just coming up over the horizon and she was trying to fixate on that to take her mind away from the sheer misery that she was putting her body through. This was the third day of her new fitness regime that she had committed to and she hated every single second of it, still, but she had to admit that she was starting to find parts of it exhilarating—addictive even. It was a weird thing to explain. How had she become addicted to something she loathed?
Maybe it was the way she felt afterwards. It was like her body finally felt truly awake. She had found her mind was sharper and her energy levels were through the roof. She slept better and she found her body craving healthier foods. The sight and smell of greasy and disgusting fake foods were no longer nearly as appetizing as they had been. She found herself craving the crunch of leafy greens and the natural sweetness of fresh fruit over the refined carbohydrates that had been her staple diet for so many years.
She knew that the workouts would get easier, even though right now she was so sore she could hardly stand it. While her energy levels were great, her muscle aches were still nonstop. They were rebelling against her and the newfound work out she was putting them through.
The idea to start working out had come after she had seen that message warning her to stay away from Alex. Jess wasn’t sure why that was the catalyst for her newfound health obsession, but she had been all consumed with getting fit and healthy. She didn’t give a damn about being thin or having a rocking body—her body was already pretty damn sexy, she felt—but she did want to get stronger and feel better.
It was mostly due to the stress she had been under both at work and in her personal life. She had never had a problem handling the stress load at work. That was something she loved and craved even. She had always been a workaholic and she was damn proud of it, but her personal life had always been a non-issue because she didn’t really have one. Now with the past few weeks of juggling two budding relationships it had become rather difficult to deal with.
And with the threats she had been receiving it was getting to be a bit of a bear to deal with now. There had been two more since the first group (they always came in threes for some reason, but each message was always the same as the first one) and each one was making her more nervous, but she would not allow herself to be pushed around and to be pushed away from Alex. She had started to develop very strong feelings for him and he was also experiencing strong feelings for her. She knew it. She could see it in the way he looked at her, the way that he touched her, and the romantic lovemaking they shared. It wasn’t just sex; it was lovemaking. Of course there had been a time or two when they had done nothing more than hardcore, quick, passionate sex, but for the most part they took their time and made sweet love. She knew it was cheesy as hell to think of it that way and she almost wanted to smack herself upside the head because of it, but she was enjoying the whole experience way more than she wanted to admit to herself.
Each email she received had been more detailed than the one before. The first message had read “Stay away from him bitch!” The second one said “I’m going to cut you into little pieces if you don’t get away from Alex Mathers!” and the last one had been a direct threat that involved a plan. It was no longer a warning. It was a threat. “I’m going to kill you.”
Jess came to a stop at the finish line of the track as the visual of that last email swam in her mind. Someone was going to kill her. She felt very alone and very afraid, but she would not admit it to anyone. Alex was very worried about her and had basically refused to let her even live by herself until this person was apprehended. He had told her that she was going to be living at his place and that was that, but Jess had refused his offer. That would be too much like hiding and she was not going to let that happen. It was not in her nature to hide from anyone, no matter how scared she was.
And she was terrified. She felt it in every molecule of her body, but she was not a quitter and she did not allow anyone to scare her into submission. That was just not going to happen to her.
Even as she felt the tears welling up in her eyes right then she shook herself out of it and choked the tears back. If that psycho was watching her right now she would never give them the satisfaction of knowing that she was crying in fear. Jess grabbed her water bottle from her gym bag sitting on the ground beside the finish line and took a big gulp. It helped to snap her out of her temporary breakdown. She took a few deep breaths and picked up her bag.
She looked over at the man sitting in the bleachers. He was watching her intently and she thought she felt his gaze lingering on her in ways that was not quite professional. But she couldn’t blame him. She was wearing a very sexy, tight spandex gym outfit. Why work out if you weren’t going to look good doing it, right?
“Good run?” the man spoke as she came closer.
“It was. I really felt it today.”
The man’s name was Detective Tim Packard. Jess had contacted the police about the threats and she had noticed how the detective had taken an interest in her right away. She wasn’t sure Alex had picked up on it, but she was certain that the detective wanted her in ways that weren’t exactly professional. He had assigned himself as her primary bodyguard and protector instead of stationing this task to a rookie officer as was customary when someone was placed under police protection.
Jess had not been immune to his charms entirely, but she would never act on her desires. Tim was the quintessential sexy cop that you found on all of those detective shows on television. He looked like a male model, with his chiseled good looks, perfect hair, and piercing gaze. He embodied the body language and demeanor of an alpha male twice his age, all wrapped up in the body of a thirty-five year old.
Jess had found herself fantasizing about him more than a few times. She couldn’t help but feel a strong attraction to the man, but she was also very good at compartmentalizing her feelings. She knew that she would never betray what she had with Alex and the deep feelings she felt for him. Tim was just eye candy and there was nothing wrong with that. As long as she didn’t begin to entertain the notion of Tim being more than just a casual flirtation. That was where things could get messy, and she was determined to not let that happen.
“It’s a great discipline to get into,” Tim said as he rose from the bleachers to follow behind Jess.
Jess looked at the local college football field that was being lit up by the emerging sunshine. She loved it at this time of day. It was the best time to get a good workout in because the world was still asleep and the pressure of the day had not yet started to pin on your shoulders. She was just thankful that the school left the field open to the public at night. It was a nice gesture, and as far as she could tell no one really used it at night except her. It was almost as if the universe had aligned so that she could have the use of this track all to herself every day.
She knew that she could have achieved the same workout by going to the gym and running on a treadmill, but she hated being around a bunch of other people when she was working out and she hated smelling the sweaty, stale air of a gym. It was like being in a nasty sardine can. She loved the fresh air and she loved communing with nature.
Tim quickened his speed so that he was now matching her stride for stride. She thought it was funny and cute how he almost seemed to be chasing after her at times, but other times he seemed very reserved and almost like he was annoyed that he had to spend time with her. He did have other cases and other things on his plate, so occasionally Jess found herself under the direct care of Jimmy Woods, a rookie cop. He was cute, but had the personality of a st
ick. She found that when Tim wasn’t there she actually missed him a bit.
Jess reached her car and said goodbye to Tim. She was going to work, so she didn’t really require his protection there, but she knew that he would ask Jimmy or another officer to sit across the street and park on the curb so they could watch the parking lot of the law firm of Mathers and Clark for any suspicious activity. There was nothing to report so far, of course. Jess had told the cops how silly and what a waste of time it was. She did not leave the office for most of the day or most of the night most days. The only time she did leave the office at a relatively normal time was when she went out with Alex. Then she was with him all evening, usually spending the night at his place.
But when she came out to get in her car to leave to go running, she would see Tim sitting there again. He seemed to prefer the early shift. She wondered when he slept.
Jess had to admit that having Tim around made her feel safer than she had been feeling. She felt fine with Alex, but knowing that Tim was a trained police officer and he was looking out for her really increased her feelings of well-being. She would never tell Alex this, because she knew it would emasculate him. She knew enough about men to know that they all wanted to feel like providers and protectors. It was in their DNA and if you were to threaten that then they could get very paranoid and breakdown emotionally. As much fun as that sounded-- Jess didn’t really want to mess with it. She had a great thing going with Alex.
Jess swung by her house, showered, and changed really quickly. In the shower she had found herself briefly thinking about what it would be like for Detective Tim to come inside and wash her back for her. She imagined he would be more than happy to lend a hand. She laughed at her musings and then chastised herself for mentally cheating on Alex. It was a harmless thought, but she noticed how turned on she was becoming thinking about it.
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