Wicked Fascination

by J. M. Brister

  She wrapped a towel around herself and tucked it into itself so that it would fall from her breasts. Wiping the mirror, she stared at herself in dismay. Even with a few good meals under her belt from Brian, her body still looked awful. The scars around her wrist didn't help either. They were so ugly that she couldn't stand looking at them. She couldn't even figure out why a man like Brian was even interested in her. Maybe because she had hidden her secrets so well from him? If he really knew about her, she did not doubt that he wouldn't want her. No one wants something damaged.

  Choosing to ignore her wrists for a moment, she took out a comb to try and tame her long, curly hair. Picking the tangles out with a comb, she turned slightly to see her back. It wasn't something that she looked at often. A lot of times, she wouldn't dress in front of mirrors just so she wouldn't have to see her back. The message on her back was clear as day. She had hoped that it would be obscured once the knife wounds on her back had healed, but she had been disappointed to find out that the word was very clear to read: SLUT. Freya quickly turned forward so that she didn't have to see it for the moment.

  It was at that time that the lights suddenly turned off, and she was plunged into darkness. Trying not to panic, she tried to feel her way around the room so she could let herself out into the bedroom. She was pretty sure there was a flashlight in the nightstand drawer by her bed. Using a flash of lightning to coordinate her movements, she attempted to leave the bathroom.

  She had confidently walked a couple of steps to the bathroom door when she felt something catch her right foot. Losing her balance, she began to fall, her foot still stuck to whatever had its grip on her.

  At first, the fall had just stunned her, but after a moment, she realized that her foot was throbbing. Crying in pain, she clutched at her injured foot. She looked over at what had caught her in the first place, and after another flash of lightning, she realized what it was: the strap of one of her unpacked pieces of luggage. Freya didn't curse often, but she let out a few choice words. If she had unpacked her luggage, she probably wouldn't be in this situation.

  Freya was wondering exactly what she should do when she heard a noise coming from outside of the small guesthouse. Even through the wind and the rain and the thunder, she could hear something, possibly the front door opening. She moved back from the door of the bathroom, clutching the towel that was still tied around her body. Her foot was throbbing in pain.

  Her mind was running wild. What if James was coming for her? Had he found her hiding place? Had he chosen this stormy night to finally finish her off?

  More sounds came, only closer this time. She could hear someone in her bedroom. She slid her body as far away from the bathroom door as she could, the cold tile uncomfortable. Tears streamed down her face, partly from fear, partly from the pain from her foot. When the door opened, she whimpered and sobbed. A bright flashlight beamed down on her. Then a familiar voice sounded in her ears, although not one that she had been expecting.

  “Fuck,” Brian cursed as he knelt in front of her.

  Fear was replaced by shame and humiliation once Freya realized who it was.

  No, no, no, no, she thought. He wasn't supposed to see me like this.

  Brian knelt in front of her, setting the flashlight beside her. He didn't speak; he just stared at the scars on her wrists. His hands gently touched along her wrists. She was too embarrassed to snatch them away from him, so instead, she looked away. She couldn't bear to look at him now that he had seen her. His touch felt odd against one of the places that she had hidden from everyone for so long.

  It was only a few torturous moments before he found the secret that she had been hiding on her back. She could hear a low growl coming from Brian. His hands wiped away her hair from where it had been hiding the majority of the scars on her back. All she could do was whimper and shut her eyes. Brian growled a few more inaudible words as his hands traced over the messaged that James Walker had carved into her back.

  “Freya...” He murmured, trailing off, his voice hoarse.

  “Please,” Freya begged, her eyes still shut.

  She couldn't find the strength to look at him. She was too ashamed.

  There was a crack of thunder that hit heavily overhead. Then there was a sound of hail starting to fall on the guesthouse roof.

  Although Freya could still feel the pure male rage that was radiating off Brian, he took his hands off her back and told her, “There's a tornado watch in the area. I need to take you to the main house.”

  He stood up as if beckoning for her to do the same.

  “My foot,” she whispered. “It's hurt.”

  He took the light and shined it at her legs, revealing the swelling that had already started from her right foot.

  “Shit,” he cursed. “Then I guess I'm carrying you. You can't stay here.”

  She didn't reply; she just allowed him to scoop her up, though he was careful about making sure to keep the towel covering her. With flashlight gripped precariously in one hand, and Freya sitting in his arms, hands wrapped around his neck, he made his way out of the house and into the storm.

  9:01 PM

  Brian was now pacing back and forth in the basement of his house. Freya was on the couch, bundled in a bunch of blankets, shivering. His basement contained, as well as the gun range and a workout room on the right side, an entertainment center with several cream-colored couches and a large flat-panel TV and a full bathroom along the other side. The basement could have been a walk-out if it didn't already overlook a mountainous cliff. Instead, a large window met the back wall. Currently, lightning was flashing from beyond it, and hail was smacking against it. Brian could care less how nice the set up was. His blood was boiling with rage.

  Freya wouldn't even fucking look at him. She kept her head turned away from him, her eyes full of tears. He couldn't help but think about the fact that she was pretty much naked under those blankets and what that exactly entailed. He couldn't keep the images of those scars on her wrists and the scars on her back out of his mind.

  Lord, the scars on her back, he thought as he continued pacing.

  At first in the dark, they had looked like more scars. Then, he had studied them longer and saw that they were letters. And those letters formed a word. And the word they formed made him fucking pissed. SLUT was the brand that was scarred into Freya's back. It made Brian hot for blood, but he had to keep it together for Freya's sake. She was obviously scared and ashamed of what he had seen. It had been a secret that she had been hiding from him. It explained the super long-sleeved shirts that hid her wrists and back. It also confirmed to him that she had been hurt, badly.

  As much as he was ready to tear into the ghosts that haunted her, he knew he had to keep it together for her. She was not only emotionally hurt and scarred, but the injury to her foot didn't look great. It had swollen up quite a bit. There was a small wet bar to the side of the entertainment center. Brian had found some ice for her foot and, as gently as he could, had lifted her right leg from underneath the blankets and had attached the ice to it. She hadn't protested while he had helped her, but she still hadn't looked him in the eye.

  The wind was howling, and the rain and hail were slapping against the sided window of the lower level. The storm was getting worse, and he was at least grateful for the generator and the lower level of the house.

  Studying Freya, he realized she was still shaking. In fact, she was pale white. He wasn't sure it was her injury, or the storm, or the fact that he had seen her at her worst. Walking to the wet bar, he got out a bottle of whiskey and poured two glasses. Gulping down one of them and letting the alcohol burn down his throat, he went over to Freya and offered her the other one. Instead of looking at him, she stared down at the glass of whiskey, unsure of what to do with it.

  “Drink it,” he commanded.

  She finally took it from his hands, her arms buried in blankets, although he could now see the scars on her wrists when she pulled out of her hands to accept the glass. The s
cars went all the way around on both hands like she had been shackled for an extended period. They were thick and seemed somewhat recent. Perhaps in the last year or so?

  When Freya accepted the drink, she made sure to snatch her arms and wrists back under the thick blankets as best as possible. She knew that he had been staring. He didn't have time to feel guilty though. He had other things to worry about.

  “Drink it,” he repeated when he saw her look at the glass reluctantly.

  It took her a couple of sips and a couple of coughs to get the whole glass down. She obviously wasn't the hard liquor type. All the while, he waited patiently until she drank it down and then retrieved the glass.

  “Okay, now we talk,” he told her, setting the glass down on the floor and kneeling in front of her. His hair and shirt were still wet from bringing her in from the rain.

  “Please,” she whimpered. “I can't...”

  “Yes, you can,” he interrupted her. “I need to know, Freya. What happened to you?”

  Tears streamed down her face as she sobbed quietly. She was a mess, and she was fucking beautiful, scars and all.

  “Baby, you know I won't think any differently of you,” he reassured her softly. “Please, look at me.”

  It was then that he cupped her face and turned her head toward him. Wiping the stray tears away with his thumbs, he pulled her in for a gentle kiss.

  It was better than the first time. It was better than he could have imagined. Her lips were so soft, so amazing that he almost lost himself in her for the moment. Heated lust coiled through his body. He had to stop himself before he got any further along. The kiss was meant to be a reassurance, not anything more.

  When he pulled away, she finally looked at him with those soulful brown eyes of hers. There was pain behind them. Brian couldn't imagine how much pain she had gone through.

  “You can tell me,” he reassured her, keeping his voice as soft as possible.

  It took her a long time to start, but when she did, her story made his skin crawl. Between sobs, she told him about a man named James Walker and what he had done to her.

  Rape, the word echoed into Brian's mind. She was raped.

  But it went beyond just the sexual violation. Walker had taken it upon himself to carve up her back as well. Brian couldn't believe that a human being could brutalize a woman in that way. And why that word? Freya was the absolute opposite of the word that had been carved into her back. It made him see red. How had she survived those days of torture? Her strength amazed him.

  She then told him about her slow recovery, the medication, the depression. Her father had taken care of her for months. When she told Brian that Walker was still after her after completely alluding the police, Brian realized that she was still in a lot of danger.

  “That's why you're here, isn't it?” He asked quietly.

  He had to control himself in front of Freya. He was so angry that he could have torn up the whole basement. But he kept himself calm for her sake.

  She nodded slowly and said, “After James called my father's condo, my father decided it wasn't safe for me there.” There was another choking sob. “I'm so sorry that you got involved in this. I'll call my father, and we'll find another place.”

  “No,” Brian said firmly. “You're not leaving my sight from now on.” She looked shocked at the statement. “I wouldn't be able to bear it if something else happened to you...” He trailed off.

  “But James is dangerous,” she told him, her voice now raw from crying.

  “Yeah, and if he comes after you here, I'm going to put a bullet through his head,” Brian promised.

  Freya's eyes widened, but she said nothing.

  It was at that point that the wind changed its tone from howling to a roaring sound like a freight train. Freya whimpered and pulled the blankets over her head like a hood. Brian got up and shut the curtains to the window just in case there was glass breakage. He didn't want to alarm her, but he had heard that type of sound from the wind before over twenty years prior when he was a teen, and it had belonged to the sound of a tornado.

  He sat down on the couch next to Freya, who now looked like a shaking bundle underneath the blankets. Putting his arm around Freya's blanketed body, he sat and waited the storm out with her. There were moments where the lights flickered, which was a little disturbing, considering that it was the back-up generator giving them power.

  After a while, the sound died down and so did the rain and the wind. Freya may have even dosed for a little bit. Brian was wide awake the whole night, running through his mind again and again what she had told him. He had decided that he would personally make sure that Walker guy would never get close to Freya again. And if he did, well, then that bastard was going down.

  Chapter 14

  Saturday, June 6

  5:25 AM

  Brian had left Freya sleeping on the couch and had decided to make his way up to the main floor of the house to assess the damage. The generator was still holding up; the main power was not back up yet. Judging by how violent the storm had sounded that night, it might not be up for a while.

  When he got up to the main level, everything at least on the inside seemed intact. But when he looked outside...

  Lord, he thought as he ran outside.

  Even in the dark of the early morning, it was easy to see the destruction. The guesthouse had been destroyed, crushed by a few large trees that had been ripped out of the ground and flung onto the small house. The main house itself fared much better. The roof looked a little mangled, and it would need to be replaced, but it was at least livable. There were some siding issues as well but nothing like the crushed guesthouse. If Freya had been in there, she would have been dead. Brian shuddered at the thought.

  Walking back up in the main house, he made a few phone calls with his cellphone, figuring the mainline wasn't working. The first was to the physician he used in town. Brian was well-known around the area, and he had donated money in various places that made him a force to be reckoned with. First apologizing for the earliness of the call, Brian explained the situation with Freya's foot. Fortunately, the man had been up assessing storm damage as well and had agreed to come out later in the day to look at her injury. Brian didn't necessarily want her up and around town with the threat James Walker posed to her.

  The second call was to the insurance company. They'd send out someone about the damage. Brian didn't exactly care when the guesthouse got rebuilt, but he did want to make sure that the main house was safe and taken care of.

  The last person Brian contacted was Joe Morgan. He decided to text him instead, and he kept it as cryptic as possible. From what Freya had told him, Walker was capable of tracking technology, and Brian didn't want to tip the creep off.

  So, he had texted: Had some weather issues last night but ok. Book going great.

  Freya mentioned to him that Joe would be driving down on Sunday, and Brian didn't want him to freak out when he drove up the drive to see the guesthouse in shambles.

  Brian made his way back into the main house and down to the basement to check on Freya. She was asleep on the couch, some of the blankets splayed off her. She was still only wearing a towel, her body, though very thin, was gorgeous. However, as much as he enjoyed looking at her half-naked body, he did realize that he was going to have to find her some clothes. Obviously, her things had been destroyed in the guesthouse.

  Pulling a blanket over her, so that she was covered, he gently rubbed her shoulder to wake her up. She slowly opened her eyes. Brian still couldn't get over how fucking beautiful she was. And it didn't matter that she had been through so much. It made her more attractive that she was so brave and so strong, even if sometimes she didn't think she was.

  “Hi,” was all that he could say.

  “Hi,” she replied as well.

  She looked drowsy and sensual, and she seemed comfortable with him now. It had been a long night, but it had also seemed to change things between them. Between her telling him about h
er ordeal and the storm, there was a new understanding between them. She knew now that he wouldn't hurt her and that he would protect her.

  “It's okay to come upstairs,” he told her cautiously.

  He didn't want to freak her out with the fact that if she hadn't gotten out of the guesthouse in time, she would have been dead.

  She pulled the blankets closer to her body and asked, “Is it okay to go back to the guesthouse? I need some clothes...”

  “Freya,” he started, trying to figure out a way to tell her gently. “The guesthouse...it's destroyed. A couple of large trees were uprooted onto it. Crushed the whole structure.”

  She gasped, bringing her hands to her face. The color seemed to drain from it.

  “It's okay,” Brian reassured her, gently massaging her shoulder. “You're okay. You're safe...And I'll get you new clothes. Don't worry about it.”

  She still looked upset. “My medication...my cellphone,” she stammered. “I need them.”

  “Your father's coming up tomorrow. We can get you a new one,” he reassured her. “And I have a doctor coming by today. He can write you new ones, or we can have your father send a refill up. Baby, you'll be okay.”

  She didn't look happy, but she had stopped panicking. Helping her to her feet, still making sure that she was covered by the blankets, Brian scooped her up and carried her upstairs to a spare bedroom directly across the hall from his own. With everything that was happening, he wanted Freya as close as possible.

  6:54 AM

  Freya lay on a large, soft bed on the upstairs level of Brian's house. He had carried her upstairs and gave her some time alone to change. Of course, all he had available were men's clothes, so she had put on a pair of over-sized sweatpants and a large, soft white t-shirt. She was swimming in his clothes, but they were comfy. And even though they were freshly washed, they smelled like Brian: clean and male. She felt better just being out of the towel, even though her foot throbbed.