by Unknown
“I’m not giving you a million dollars, Jeff!” When Annalise said that, he struck her hard in the face.
“You’ll give me money or I’ll kill you deader than a hammer.” There was not a doubt in her mind he meant exactly what he said. He was crazy; he would not suffer one qualm when he killed her. “What are these men to you? I know there’s no way in hell you’re sleeping with one of them. Who would ever willingly have sex with you?”
He drew back to strike her again, but this time, his fist was caught in mid-air. Ethan pulled him off her with one swift, smooth movement. He threw Jeff Ramsey to the side like so much garbage. He bent down and picked Annalise up, tenderly touching her bruised cheek and torn lip. “Oh, sweetheart. What did he do to you?”
But Jeff got up. In her pain, Annalise had forgotten about the gun until she saw him reach for it. “Ethan, he has a gun!” she yelled.
Jeff Ramsey didn’t have a chance. Setting her gently aside, Ethan nearly broke Jeff’s arm wrenching the gun from his grasp. “Just what is a piece of filth like you doing on my property, anyway?”
“I’ve come for my wife. She owes me,” Jeff ground out over the pain Ethan was inflicting upon him.
“My woman is not your wife and she owes you absolutely nothing,” Ethan told him flatly.
“What’s it to you, Mister? You can’t interfere between a man and his wife.” To hear this despicable man call himself Lise’s husband infuriated Ethan.
“You are not her husband and she is the woman I love.” Lise watched as Ethan stood over the much smaller man, every muscle in his body tensed.
“I married this pretty package in good faith, Mister. But I didn’t get what I paid for, so don’t be fooled.” Annalise saw Ethan’s fist clench. Jeff just kept talking, “Wait, a minute, this can’t be right. Have you had sex with her? I mean, you’ve actually had sex with her?” He laughed a slightly shrill mean laugh. “How could you stomach it? Haven’t you seen that mass of scars? She is damaged goods, disgusting and ugly. How could you keep it up long enough to do her? I know I couldn’t. She was so repulsive I puked my guts out on our wedding night!” With those horrid words, Ethan hauled Jeff to his feet and dragged him outside. He manhandled him to the main house and yelled at Alex to call the police. Despite everything within them wanting to punish him, the two big men didn’t lay a hand on Jeff, but they did put the fear of God in him.
When the cops came, Alex explained everything and Jeff Ramsey was arrested for assault. That would have been all, but on the way to the cop car, he confessed to attempted murder. “I tried to kill her, you know. But I didn’t hit her quite hard enough. Down at the Maples State Park. I would have been successful if it hadn’t been for those damn devil dogs with their evil red eyes. They were mad. One of them even bit me, right in the throat. I was leaning down to see if I could find a pulse and they latched on to me.” He was rambling and it was obvious he was deranged. “I want you dead, Annalise.” He called out loudly. He wanted to make sure she heard him. “You see, if you were dead I’d get it all. You owe me!” With that, Jeff Ramsey was gone.
Ethan went back to the cabin where he had left her, but she wasn’t there. He hadn’t seen or heard her go by. Frantically, he began looking for her. Then it dawned on him, she would go where she felt the safest. To their room.
But when he got there, she was packing. Ethan could barely breathe. “Lise, where are you going?”
“It’s time for me to go, Ethan.” She spoke in the smallest, tightest voice imaginable. She refused to meet his gaze; she didn’t think she could stand to see the pity in his eyes.
“Why?”
“Do you really have to ask, Ethan? I was going to tell you, don’t think I wasn’t. It hurt me so bad to hide this from you. I didn’t mean to deceive you, but I just wanted to be with you so much. In fact, I was going to tell you last night when we came home from the football game. But it is so hard! But I don’t have to now. You’ve heard it from Jeff’s lips in a way that outdoes any explanation I could ever give you. Now I need you to let me go.” All of this was said with her head down, tears streaming from her eyes, her voice cracking with every word.
Ethan came a step closer to her. She had cleaned the blood from her face, but the swelling was getting worse and the bruising was becoming more evident. Reluctantly, she looked up at him, he was so beautiful. So perfect. But when she looked in his eyes, she was surprised to find they were full of fear. “Don’t ask this of me, Lise. I told you I’d give you the world, but this is one thing I cannot give you. Don’t ask me to give you up. The last time you walked away from me, you were gone six years. I won’t survive if you leave again.” Never had she heard a man speak so passionately. She didn’t know it was possible.
His words broke her heart and she wanted to rush to him and hold him and assure him she wasn’t going anywhere. But there was so much…
“Just tell me, Lise. You can tell me anything. Tell me and free yourself from this thing haunting you,” he begged.
He started to walk to her, but she stopped him. “Ethan, stay there. I will tell you, but you must stay over there. I can’t think if you touch me.”
“All right, I’ll stand right here. Just tell me. Please.”
“I told you some of it, Ethan. I told you about spring break, I just didn’t tell you all of it.” Her voice had the slightest of breaks in it. “The men that attacked me, they did not intend to rob me.” He moved closer, she held up her hand and stopped his approach. “They held me down, they tore my clothes. One of them, the youngest one, he was supposed to rape me to prove he was worthy to be in their gang.”
“Oh, God, babe!” Annalise backed up and put the bed in between them.
“Wait, Ethan! That’s still not the worst. He couldn’t do it. The young man was too drunk, the rape would have been horrible, terrible…but it wouldn’t have ripped me up. I don’t know, maybe I would feel different, unclean, dirty, but I felt those things anyway.”
“What did they do to you, sweetheart?” Ethan’s voice was just a whisper and tears were rolling down his cheeks.
“He took a glass whiskey bottle and broke the end off of it.” A sob escaped from her throat. “He raped me with the broken bottle…over and over again. Then he cut me everywhere.” She turned her back on him, she couldn’t look at him. “Jeff was right, the scars are ugly and disgusting and horrid. How can I stay with you? I have been living a lie with you! I hide in the dark, I shut the blinds, I pull the curtains, I try to keep your hands and your lips from feeling the ridges, your eyes from seeing the thick, red, puckered skin that used to be smooth—the way it was back at Pace Bend.”
He came up behind her, close but not quite touching. “Is that all? Is that what you’ve been afraid to tell me?” His voice was so soft and loving. He was crooning to her. “I’m not making light of the rape. I am in anguish thinking how you must have suffered. But do you think that would change how I feel about you? Lise, if I had a scar, would it make a difference in how you feel about me?”
“Of course not, a scar would only make you more ruggedly handsome, not less. But it’s different for men.”
He laid a hand on her shoulder, seeking to draw her back against him. She still held herself stiff. “So…do you think a few little scars are going to change how I feel about you? I have worshipped you for years. And now, my love for you is a thousand times stronger than it was when you left me six years ago.”
Turning around, she looked up at him. “But can you make love to me now, knowing that the scars are there?”
“Babe, I saw the scars the first night.”
She didn’t understand. “Then…how could you…Ethan…how could you look, touch, kiss, how could you stand to…”
He picked her up and kissed her full on the mouth, then softly kissed the bruises and the cuts on her face. “Do you really think that little pale pink, lace-like pattern on the inside of your beautiful thighs, next to the place I adore, could possibly turn me off? Babe, I am so turned
on by you that just thinking about you makes me hard.”
She threw her arms around him. “So, you knew the scars were there all the time, every time we made love, even when you kissed me there?”
“Sweetheart, after the first time…I didn’t see them, didn’t notice them, didn’t think about them. I adore you; I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
She held him, treasuring the fact he was hers. She would spend the rest of her life making sure he knew how much he was loved.
Then she remembered.
There was something else.
It had to come out now, there was no going back. No more hiding. She hid her head in his shoulder as she told him the rest.
“Ethan, the damage was extensive. The doctors fixed what they could—but the thing they couldn’t fix was my ovaries. Dr. Rollins said there was so much scar tissue that there is very little chance I will ever be able to have children.”
She held her breath, her body tense. If he stiffened, if he pulled away—she would understand. Instead, he tightened his hold on her. He kissed the side of her neck. “I’m so sorry, Lise. I would love to see you pregnant with my child, but there are millions of babies in this world that we can love. Let me tell you something I bet you didn’t realize. Bobby is adopted and you know how much we love him. As long as I have you, I will be happy. Anything else—babies, success, money—would just be a blessing. But you…you are absolutely essential to me. You, I can’t live without.”
He carried her to the bed. The sun was shining brighter than it ever had. There were no shadows anywhere in the room and there was no reason to hide. He pulled off his shirt, her eyes ate him up, muscles rippling as he shed his jeans and briefs. He was magnificently aroused. With blue eyes locked to hers, he began to undress her. She shivered with anticipation. She reached for the covers of the bed, old habits dying hard. He covered her hand, unwilling for her to attempt to seek cover.
“No, no more hiding.”
He pulled her cotton camisole over her head, pulled her to her feet and removed her bra. He knelt before her and pulled her pants down, allowing her to hold on to his shoulder while she stepped out of them. Then he pulled down her panties and laid them beside the jeans. Rising to stand in front of her, he picked her up and carried her to the mirror, the full-length mirror on the back of his bedroom door. “Now let me show you what I see every time I look at you.”
“Ethan, please…” she protested.
He held her there, firmly, standing behind her. “Look at this face—exquisite features, perfect plump lips, luscious brown eyes. And your hair, long, silky, rich brown—good for tangling my fingers in when I kiss you. And your body, babe, your body; graceful neck, breasts that make my mouth go dry, perfect curves, long beautiful legs. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen or will ever see. Then he knelt by her and separated her legs, lifting one out so the mirror reflected the inside of her thigh. “Now look—not through eyes clouded by memories—look and see what I see.”
Annalise looked. She saw herself standing there. She saw him—gorgeous, beautiful Ethan. Then she forced herself to look down at the part of her body causing her so much shame. She really looked and what she saw was a webbing of pale pink scars, still visible, perhaps, but not as prominent or repulsive as she had always thought. While this was important, the true revelation, and what she couldn’t miss seeing reflected in the mirror, was the look of love on the face of the man who knelt at her feet.
“Come to bed with me, Ethan.” She led him back to their bed. Lying down together, she kissed him with all the love in her heart. He returned the favor, raining kisses from her face, down over her breasts, arriving finally at her perceived imperfections. He healed her with his kiss, pressing his lips on the scars residing as much on her heart as they ever had on her body.
“Will you do something for me, love?” he asked as he rose over her, a hungry look in his eyes.
He entered her slowly, making her gasp at the pleasure. “Anything,” she whispered. The act of his possession symbolized the strength of their love, the fulfillment of their dreams and the joy of belonging to someone who also belongs to you.
“Marry me.” He didn’t wait for her answer. Passion swept them past the point of coherent thought. For the first time since Pace Bend, Annalise could respond without trepidation, without fear. Bringing himself to his knees, he sat back on his legs, drawing her up into his lap. With the full force of his passion, he moved her up and down on his shaft. Her long dark hair flowed back like a waterfall of silk. Gasps and groans of pleasure escaped from her trembling lips. He leaned over and suckled at her breast, devouring her nipple and moaning his pleasure. Holding on to his shoulders, she rode him. She bucked and bounced, completely comfortable in his love. He laughed out loud with the sheer elation of finally, at last, coming home. This was his woman and he was never going to let her go. Their climaxes, when they came, were tremendous, simultaneous eruptions of their devotion. And when it was over, when she was lying in his arms, close to his heart she gave him her answer to his question.
“Yes, of course, I will marry you. I never stopped loving you. All the time we were apart, I never let you out of my heart. I wrote those love stories so I would remember. Despite the dark days, I never let go of you. The memories I had were so precious and so sweet that I refused to give in to the despair. So I wrote books keeping my dreams alive. I always prayed someday I would find love with you, my hero. I never gave up on a happy ending.”
Epilogue
“Scarlet, I’m getting married.”
“What? Oh, Annalise, that’s wonderful. When? But, most importantly, who?”
“In six weeks. And Ethan, of course. Who else?”
Annalise heard the sigh on the other end of the phone. “Oh, you found Ethan. Honey, I’m so happy for you. You’ve never stopped loving him, have you?”
“I can’t talk long, but soon, I’ll explain everything. I promise. Anyway, is six weeks enough time?”
“Are you hinting you still want me to make your wedding dress?”
“You made me a promise and I’m holding you to it. And by the way, there’s someone I want you to meet.”
“Don’t go there, Annalise. You know I don’t date.” Even with three hundred miles between them Annalise could hear Scarlet’s pain.
“You’re a beautiful woman, Scarlet. There is nothing in the world wrong with you. And this man is incredibly special. It’s Alex, Ethan’s brother. I’ve told him about you and he can’t wait to meet you.”
“I wish you hadn’t done that.” It was a good thing Annalise couldn’t see the pain on her sister’s face or the utter hopelessness. “I’ll start the dress immediately, and I’ll come early enough to make sure it fits.” Annalise heard what almost sounded like a sob, but then her sister’s voice righted itself. “I am so happy for you, Lise. I love you so much.”
Annalise closed the top of her cell and leaned back into Ethan’s arms. “Are you matchmaking, sweetheart?” He nuzzled the side of her neck, his hands moving up to cup her breasts. He never tired of the precious privilege of touching her whenever and however he wanted.
“Shamelessly,” she giggled, “they’re perfect for each other.” She pressed her hips back into the hard evidence of his arousal.
“I tell you who’s perfect for each other. We are.” He let his hips buck forward, nudging his powerful erection into her, pressing and rubbing until she had no doubt they fit together to perfection. Lifting both of her arms, she clasped his head and then turned to meet his kiss.
“I love you,” she moaned.
“Oh, my love.” Ethan whispered. “My darling. I hungered for you for so long. I was so terribly lonely without you. Every day away from you was an eternity and my soul felt like it was dying every moment we were apart. I need your love. I need you, babe. Thank God, you came back to me.” Ethan buried his face in her neck. Grateful.
Like a song finally sung.
Like a symphony finall
y finished.
Ethan and Annalise’s unchained melody—their perfect romance—their sweet love story—had just begun.
*The End*
About The AuthorSable Hunter writes erotic romances that run the gamut from cowboys to New Orleans witches to Texas good old boys that play football one day and ride bulls the next. She grew up in south Louisiana along the mysterious bayous where the Spanish moss hangs thick over the dark waters. The culture of Louisiana has shaped her outlook on life and has made its way into her paranormal romances where the supernatural is entirely normal. Presently, Sable lives in Texas and spends most of her time in wild and wonderful Austin. In the spring, her home sits in a field of bluebonnets.
While writing takes up a lot of her time, Sable also loves to cook Cajun, Creole and Tex-Mex. She is passionate about animals and has been known to charm creatures from a one ton bull to a family of raccoons. For fun, Sable has been known to haunt cemeteries and battlefields armed with night vision cameras and digital recorders hunting proof that love survives beyond the grave.
She writes for Secret Cravings Publishing and has several books coming out in the next year.
Contact: [email protected]
URL: www.sablehunter.com
Other books by Sable Hunter
T-R-O-U-B-L-E (Texas Heat 1)
A Wishing Moon (Moon Magick 1)
Secret Cravings Publishing
www.secretcravingspublishing.com