“The thing is, I can’t imagine having someone that I don’t know do this. You know? I can barely imagine Dean giving me a hug, and I know and like the guy. So how can I be comfortable with some stranger having sex with me? It’s – I just can’t.”
He was breathing a bit more easily now.
“So.” She bit her lip. “So… I wanted to ask you.”
“Ask me what?” he said.
“I wanted to ask if you’d be my sex surrogate.”
Chris stared at her, completely stunned. “You – you what?”
“I know it’s crazy,” she blurted, starting to lose her cool now; her words came faster, as she decided to just say it all while she had the courage.
“I mean, you’re not trained and it’s a lot to ask, and you can say no if you want to, of course, but I trust you and sometimes I even want you to touch me – like give me a hug – so I know I’m not afraid of your body. And we’d take it really, really slow… and I’m not even sure I’d be able to have sex, to be honest, maybe all I’d ever be able to do is let you hold me. Maybe I’m really that broken, after what happened. But I have to try, you see. I have to ask. I have to see if you’ll – if you can. Help me.”
Chris was frozen with shock. “You – you’d want me to… touch you? Even though it scares you?”
She nodded, her throat too tight to speak.
“And if things went OK, then we’d move forward? Like… make love? Eventually?”
Jenny looked down, her eyes welling with tears. “God, Chris. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. It was wrong of me to put you on the spot like this.” She stood up. “I’ll go.”
Chris got to his feet too, his hands facing palms-up in a gesture of supplication. “OK, whoa. Sweetheart, sit down again. Let’s – let’s just talk this through a bit more. Alright?”
She nodded and sat down. She wiped the tears from her eyes.
“So, what you’re asking is for me to help you get used to being touched by a man again,” he said softly. “So you can remember that not all male touch is scary. Right?”
“Right.”
“And you’d want us to take this as far as possible, depending on how much you can handle. I’d have to be prepared to – to go all the way. If it got to that.”
“Yes.”
He took a deep breath. “I don’t know, Jenny. What happens when you’re scared? How can I – what would I do to calm you down, make you feel safe again?” He ran his hands through his hair. “I’m not a therapist, I’m not a doctor. Fuck, I’m just a mechanic. I’d be sure to screw it all up, somehow. Make it worse.”
“We’d have to talk all that through.” Her eyes were huge in her pale face. “I’d tell you what I’d need you to do if I panicked.”
“And what if I scared you?” he asked. “What if you thought you were ready and you weren’t? I wouldn’t be able to live with that, baby. I can’t imagine being with you and you being so afraid of me… ”
“I wouldn’t be afraid of you,” Jenny said. “I’d be afraid, sure. But when I was feeling that way, I’d trust you to help me through it, to do what had to be done to calm me down. I’d know that I was safe with you, no matter what I was experiencing. You’d give me that security, Chris.”
He was silent, thinking.
“Look.” She twisted her fingers in her lap. “Take some time, OK? Think it over. Talk to the guys, if you need to. Talk to Emma.”
“Emma?”
“Yeah, she knows all about this. She’s had several patients work with sex surrogates, and she knows that I’ve been thinking about asking you.”
“She does?” He blinked in astonishment. “What does she think about it?”
“She thinks you’d be perfect for me.” Jenny managed a smile. “She said that you’re a great guy, and she’d trust you to take care of me. But if you need to talk to her, she said she’s happy to help you.”
“OK,” he said slowly. “Let me think it through. It’s Christmas in a few days, and I’m going home to my family for the holidays. Can we talk when I get back?”
“Yes,” she said. “Take all the time you need, Chris. And if you really can’t do it, then tell me. I promise I’ll understand.”
“And if I say no?” he asked. “What would you do then?”
Jenny shrugged. “Zoe and I will find another way, something that I can be comfortable with.”
She’d have some stranger do all the things that she’s asking me to do. Goddammit, I can’t let that happen. But can I do this, with the way that I feel about her? Christ, I’ve wanted to touch her and kiss her for months – but not like this.
“Let me think about it,” he said. “I promise to give you an answer when I get back, OK?”
“OK.” She stood up. “Thanks, Chris. I know what I’m asking.”
No, baby. You don’t. You’re asking a man who’s in love with you to hurt you, to scare you. You’re asking me to go against every single fucking instinct I have where you’re concerned – and you say it’s to help you.
Fuck. What am I going to do?
Chapter Two
“So, what are you going to do?” Dean Jessop handed Chris another beer. “You think you can help Jenny this way?”
Chris shook his head. “I have no fucking idea, man. Not a clue.”
“But what are you even up against?” Jim Alden asked. “I mean, you still don’t know what happened to her, right?”
“No. She said she’ll tell me, but right now… I don’t know.”
Dallas Foreman was silent. He knew exactly what had happened to Jenny. When his security firm had taken over protecting Olivia Jameson from her stalker, Dallas had looked in to all her friends, to see if there was any connection between them and Liv’s stalker. He was a hard man, a trained professional ex-sniper, and he’d still been horrified by what Jenny had gone through.
Chris saw the look on Dallas’ face, a kind of watchful stillness. “What?”
“Nothing.” Dallas took a sip of beer.
Chris, Dean and Jim studied him. The four of them had been through hell on earth together in Afghanistan and after almost five years together in combat and life-and-death situations, they knew each other like the back of their hands. They knew Dallas was holding out on them.
“No, man, really,” Dean said. “What?”
“Well… when I was protecting Olivia, I did some digging in to Emma and Jenny and Kat. Just to make sure her stalker wasn’t getting information about Olivia through her friends without their knowing.”
“Yeah?” Chris said.
Dallas sighed. “And I found out what happened to Jenny. I got the police and medical reports.”
“Medical?” Chris said softly.
“Yeah. Photos too.”
The other men looked at him, waiting.
“It’s – it’s bad, Chris. Really fucking bad.” Dallas looked away from Chris’ gray stare. “She was hurt in ways that I can’t believe she got through. You’d be trying to undo a hell of a lot of damage.”
Chris clenched his hands. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe you should say no,” Jim said tentatively. “This sounds like it’s way beyond you, man, all your good intentions aside. Jenny may be better off with this professional sex surrogate, in the end.”
“I don’t think so,” Dallas said, taking them all by surprise. “I think she’d be better off with Chris.”
“How come?” Dean asked.
“Because despite it all, she trusts Chris not to hurt her,” Dallas said. “She asked him for help, she asked him to be the one to change her mind and feelings about men. She’s not going to do that with everyone. If she believes that she’s safe with you, then that’s really something. That says a hell of a lot about how she sees you – about what kind of man you are to her.” He shrugged. “Y
eah, a surrogate may have the experience and education, but she’ll never, ever be able to look at him the way she looks at Chris. That kind of faith in men is rare, even if we’re talking about women who haven’t been hurt the way Jenny has.”
The men thought about that.
“But…” Chris paused. “But what if I scare her? Make it worse?”
“First, there’s no way you can do anything to her that’s worse than what she’s been through, believe me,” Dallas said. “Second, she already told you about that: she knows it wouldn’t be you scaring her. She’s made that distinction, and I think you need to as well. Third, you two would have do a hell of a lot of talking about what was going on in her head. If she got scared, you’d have to stop and talk about it. It sounds like she knows that – she seems totally open to communicating with you. If you’re open too, then I think it would all be OK, in the end.”
“And the fact is that you’ve dealt with damaged and frightened women before,” Jim said. “More so than the rest of us.”
Chris was quiet as he thought about that statement. It was indeed true that while they were in Afghanistan, Chris had been the one man in their unit who had been called in to talk to local women who had been raped or brutalized, but who knew information helpful to the Americans. None of these women had been willing or able to let a man near her – let alone a huge, fierce Ranger – but Chris had always been able to get in to the room with the women, and get them to relax enough to tell him what they knew.
He had no idea what it was, but something about him was soothing, calming. He’d learned how to talk to terrified women, how to make himself non-threatening. Jim was right, he realized; of the four of them, he did have the most experience with women who had no reason at all to trust men. He just wasn’t sure that applied in this case.
“Yeah, but I didn’t touch those women,” Chris said. “And I certainly didn’t get in to bed with them. Big fucking difference, man.”
Dean shrugged. “It all starts with trust, Chris. Without that, nothing goes anywhere. Jenny trusts you, and she doesn’t trust anyone else. I’d say that’s a pretty damn good point of departure, huh?”
Chris shook his head. “I still don’t know.”
“Look, talk to Emma,” Dean said. “If she’s already in the loop, and she’s worked with sex surrogates before, then she knows what may happen better than you do. I know before she got sick, she worked with lots of women who’d been raped or sexually abused. She can tell you what to expect, I bet.”
“Yeah, OK,” Chris said. “I’ll talk to Emma. Is she feeling up to a visitor?”
Dean nodded. “She had her last round of chemo almost two weeks ago, and she isn’t scheduled for another one until the New Year, after we get back from California. She’s good.”
“She’s doing better since the stem cell transplant?” Jim asked.
“Oh, yeah.” Dean smiled. “Way better. She’s stronger, and her recovery time from the chemo since the transplant was much faster. I’ll take her in for some tests in early March, see how she’s responding to chemo now. With a bit of luck…”
His voice trailed off, but the other men knew what he was thinking. The hope was that the transplant Emma had received almost two months earlier would push her leukemia in to remission. It was still a long shot, but all four of them believed in beating the odds. They’d done it over and over again by surviving their time overseas, and God knows Emma had done it too, by fighting an aggressive form of cancer.
“Glad to hear it,” Dallas said. “That woman deserves a fucking break, man.”
“And Liv?” Dean asked. “How’s she doing now?”
Dallas looked down. “Still reeling.”
“She hasn’t shown you her scars?” Chris asked softly.
Dallas shook his head. “No. She isn’t ready yet.”
They were quiet again, remembering how many times she’d been cut up. They’d witnessed the whole thing via hidden camera, and the sight of Olivia being pinned down under her stalker as he sliced her with a knife had haunted them since.
“Well, she trusts you,” Chris said. “She’ll show you when she’s ready.”
“Yeah.” Dallas drank some more beer. “And Jenny trusts you… if you can get past your own fears, Chris, I think you’d be able to help her.”
Chris looked at the others, saw that they were nodding.
“In fact,” Dallas said. “I think you may well be the only person who can help her.”
“Yeah,” Chris said. “Yeah. I know. I just want to make sure I would actually help her… I need to know just what the hell I’d be getting in to.”
“Ask Emma,” Dean said gently. “Go away for Christmas, think it all through. Then decide.”
Chris nodded. “OK. That’s what I’ll do.”
**
The next day, Chris drove over to Dean’s house. He pulled up and took a deep breath.
OK, just talk to Emma, man. Just ask a few questions, let her help you. You don’t have to decide anything today.
Emma answered his knock and she gave him a big smile. “Morning, Chris. You here to see Dean? Because he’s out running a few errands right now.”
“No,” he said, stepping in to the warmth. “You, actually.”
She looked up at him and he saw awareness pass over her beautiful face. “OK. Come on in, sit down. You want some coffee?”
“Yes, please.” He took off his winter boots and hung up his heavy coat, then sat and watched Emma in Dean’s small kitchen. She did look much better, he saw now: her hair was growing in a bit, and she looked like she’d maybe put on a few pounds. Her face had some color, just for a change, and those gorgeous dark blue eyes were bright and well-rested.
Emma brought him his coffee, then settled in to the chair opposite him. She studied him for a few seconds, took in his tense shoulders and the lines around his mouth. She’d always thought of Chris as the steadiest of the four guys, somehow, with a solidity about him that never seemed to waver or falter. But he was thrown now, she saw.
So Jenny asked him. Wow. And if he’s here now, that means he’s considering it. God, I hope he says yes. She needs him; she needs him more than he understands yet.
Chris looked up and met her eyes. “You know why I came to see you?”
She nodded. “Jenny.”
He let out a long breath. “Yeah. Jenny.”
Emma waited.
“I want to help her, Emma,” he said softly. “I do. But what she’s asking me… it’s not like anything I ever imagined being asked in my life. You know?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s asking me to touch her. Kiss her. Take her clothes off, take my clothes off. Maybe make love to her.” He swallowed. “That’s – that’s terrifying.”
Emma sat back. “Why?”
“Why?” Chris exclaimed. “Because I have no idea how she might react! What if she freaks out?”
“Then you comfort her.”
Chris paused. “What if I can’t?”
“Then you wait for it to pass. It will, you know.”
“But what if I – I damage her more?”
Emma shook her head. “You won’t. I promise you.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because you’re a good, gentle man, Chris, and I know that you’d never do anything to hurt Jenny.” She cocked her head. “Can we talk openly? Keep it all between us?”
“Yeah.”
“You care about her, Chris. And I don’t mean just as a friend.”
He felt his face flush. “Emma…”
“No, hold on, let me finish. You care about Jenny, and I know you have strong feelings for her. Right?”
He was silent.
“You won’t damage her more because you’d never let anything happen to her. I know that, you know that, and that’s not what�
�s really on your mind. No, I think what you’re really worried about is that it’ll all be too much for you to handle.”
Anger sparked in his gray eyes. “You think I’m that selfish, that I care more about how I feel than how she does?”
“No.” Emma smiled. “No, I think that you’ll always put her first. But the fact is, you’re made of flesh and blood, and you have feelings too. And seeing the woman that you care about hurting and scared would be damn hard.”
“Yeah,” he agreed quietly.
“Look at Dean, what he’s been through with me and my illness,” Emma said. “Look at Dallas, what he’s going through now with Liv. You guys are all so used to being able to help someone who needs it, you’ve been trained to take control of a situation and get everyone out alive. Right?”
“Right.”
“But sometimes you can’t fix it, you can’t make it better, you can’t get everyone out in one piece. All you can do is be there. No magic solutions, no guarantees, no way your Ranger training and military experience changes a damn thing. You have to be helpless, you have to just stand there while the woman you care about goes through it. And for men like you guys? That’s just about the hardest thing in the world.”
He nodded, seeing where she was going with this now.
“So, can you do that?” Emma asked. “Can you be there for Jenny and have almost no control over what happens? Just hold her and take things at her pace? Can you?”
“I – I don’t know. I want to.”
“Well, that’s a good start,” she said. “But that’s the real question, you know, the one that you’re really struggling with. Can you watch her go through all of this, and stand outside of it a lot of the time? If you can, then you’ll help her, I promise you. But if you can’t, then it’s better for you to say no.”
He sighed.
“It’s a tough one,” she said. “It’s not a decision to be made quickly. Take some more time.”
“You know what happened to her, don’t you?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He met her eyes. “What am I up against, Emma?”
She bit her lip. “I can’t say too much…it’s not my place.”
Enemy Mine (Unseen Enemy Book 3) Page 2