by S. E. Rose
I’m completely lost in thought when I notice Jack slowing down. We aren’t at the gate yet so I look up in confusion. There’s a dark car parked out in front of the gate, pulled over on the side of the road. Jack is staring at it intently as we start to approach, then he suddenly puts his hand behind my back and starts pushing down.
“Get down,” he hisses.
I do as I am told.
“Jack?” I ask. “Jack, what’s going on?” I can tell he’s speeding up now and we are definitely not turning into the estate. I start to sit up, but his hand keeps me down.
“Laura, stay down!” he says, his voice etched with concern, worry, and a hint of fear.
“Jack, you’re scaring me! What’s going on?” I say, panic rising in me. The car is going very fast now and I feel it turn quickly and then zigzag and then turn again. Eventually, he turns quickly and it gets very dark in the car. The car comes to a complete stop. He cuts the engine and turns the headlights off and we sit in silence. I can hear another car approach and slow and then continue on, but to where I don’t know. We sit in silence for what seems like forever and then he takes in a breath. I am fairly certain neither of us has breathed in the last few minutes. I let out the air I was holding in my lungs as he releases his hand from my back. I start to sit up trying to orient myself with where we are at, but it’s very dark. I can make out that we are nestled in a very heavily wooded area. We are surrounded by a thick forest of pine trees of all different sizes. I don’t see a drive. We have somehow pulled neatly into a small clearing amongst a thicket of trees that had an opening just large enough for a car to squeeze into it.
My eyes scan to Jack, he puts his hands on my face and then my body as though he’s checking to make sure I’m OK. He touches me all over and there is sheer terror on his face.
“Are you OK?” he asks. His voice shakes.
“I’m OK. What the hell was that about?” I finally say as my adrenaline slows and I begin to shake. He unbuckles me and pulls me into him, holding me as though I was a life preserver in the middle of the ocean.
“Laura, I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry!” he says loudly and then lets me go and pounds his fists on his dashboard. “SHIT!! FUCK!!” he yells and I jump.
“Jack, cut the crap! What the hell is going on?” I yell, now that my shaking is slowing, I’m starting to get angry. He sits staring at me for the longest moment, sucking in a breath. The cogs in my head start to turn and suddenly I just know.
“London…,” I breathe. “Your ‘business,’” is all I can manage to squeak out before he starts to open his mouth and then promptly closes it. He nods and closes his eyes for a moment.
“I’ve made some bad decisions,” he starts. “Before and then again recently. I didn’t think they’d come here. I never thought…,” he trails off and looks out the window.
I pull myself together and stare at him. I’m suddenly very calm, maybe too calm. He looks like a frightened child and all my years of mothering two frightened little children come tumbling into my brain. I clasp his hand in mine. “We’ll go back to the cottage. OK? We’ll figure it out.”
He looks at me in shock. I think my calmness and my offer of shelter were the last words he expected to hear out of my mouth. “OK,” he whispers and starts the engine.
We take a different way back to the cottage, a long way that I’ve never been. We cut through fields and farms, not even on real roads, just paths carved through properties meant for farm equipment. By midnight, we are back where we started, Jack pulls in and lets me out. He opens the door for me, but doesn’t pick me up, instead letting me hobble. He pulls his car into a clearing in the wooded area in front of the house. I can barely see it once he has it wedged in there. He cuts the lights and turns off the car and slowly makes his way to the front door.
Chapter 20
Laura’s Playlist: “Demons” by Imagine Dragons
Once inside, he bolts the door and makes it his mission to secure every window and door in the cottage. He closes the curtains where there are curtains, and he turns off all unnecessary lights.
We sit in the darkness of the living room. The only light is coming in from the moonlight beyond the French doors which have no curtains. The room is cast into hues of gray. We sit facing each other on the sofa, my hands in his.
“I think it’s time you shared some things with me, Jack,” I coax softly as I try to quell my anger. “I think you owe me that.”
He nods. “I know,” he says and then says nothing for the longest minute.
He sucks in a sharp breath as if breathing in more air will give him the strength or the courage to tell me. “I met Simon when I was at uni,” he starts. “He became my closest mate and we spent so much time together. I knew he dabbled in drugs a bit, but we were at uni and we were young and so I…,” he shrugs, “I had my fair share of marijuana as a teenager, but that was it. One night, Simon and I were completely knackered and we’d been out partying all night. He lined up some cocaine and told me to give it a go. I was so bloody fucked up that I just did it. I liked it and so I started hitting him up for some here and there when we were going out. I could just forget everything and live in the moment. I had so much pressure. I knew my father was counting on me to do well at school and take on the family affairs after graduation. I never wanted any of this. My father believed so much in all this family allegiance crap and carrying on the family legacy, but I didn’t. I loved my dad and I wanted so badly to make him proud of me. I felt like the whole world was on my shoulders; a world I didn’t want. I started doing more cocaine and then someone gave me some heroin one night and I started getting into that too. I was spending a lot of money and my parents started to question me. Simon heard a conversation with them and offered to help me out and that’s when he introduced me to his boss. Simon turned out to be a dealer, small stuff mostly to students. His boss, Leo, liked me and after giving me a little to sell and seeing how fast I could sell it, well, we struck up a deal. For every certain amount I sold, I’d get a certain amount. I didn’t need any money so this arrangement worked well for him. He used to laugh that he wished he could pay all his dealers in the product.”
I shiver as I listen to his story. This, I did not expect, not from Jack. I lean back, removing my hands from his and I close my eyes taking in a deep breath as he continues.
“I got more and more fucked up and more deep into the drug world. Leo’s bosses started to take notice of me and I was doing more and more business for them. But then I got too fucked up one night, I OD’d and ended up in hospital. My parents were so angry. I can’t blame them. They pulled me out of school and sent me to some program for six months. I got clean and got back out and, for a while, things were OK. I came back here and after a few more months they got me transferred to St. Andrews to finish school. I did. But I barely finished. It took me several more years to do it. I think my parents were still holding out hope. My drug friends eventually found me and tried to talk me back into their world, but then I met Abigail. Abby was a student at St. Andrews and knew Mal who was by then dating Oliver. She was amazing and beautiful and so confident. We fell in love. My dad saw that her influence on me was good and he started to ready me to take over things. Abby came from another wealthy, old money family and I’m sure my father thought we’d get married, take on the family affairs, and live happily ever after in ‘upper classdom.’ By then, Oliver was out of school and starting to practice law. He had gotten married to Mal and within a year they had Rose. It finally seemed like things were falling into place.” He stops and stares out the window for a long while. I almost start to speak, but then he continues.
“It was November and it was cold and snowy. Mal and Oliver had decided they needed an adult night out, so Abby and I took them up on an offer to meet up at a pub for dinner. We had a great night. Mal got a call from the nanny that Rose had a fever. So, Abby said why don’t they head back home, and she could just walk home from their house. They had a home here in town and Ab
by had a flat down the street. Abby said she was fine and it was only a few miles away. Abby didn’t even finish her drink and Mal had only had two or three. They seemed OK and so I let them go while Oliver was in the facilities. When he came out he was angry with me and tried to go after them, but he was clearly pissed drunk and I stopped him. I got us a taxi and we found them…,” he trails off blinking back tears as he stares off at the moon. “The car was wrapped around a tree just a mile and a half from their home. I called 999 and we ran to them. There was so much blood. I tried to get Abby out of the car. I couldn’t find a pulse. I tried to find where the blood was coming from, but there was just so much. Oliver pulled Mal out and she was breathing. She’d hit her head on the window. The ambulance came and the police and they made us stay back. The police took us to the hospital. Abby never woke up, and Mal, she was in hospital for several months.” He pauses again, looking at me with pain-filled eyes. I’m a bit in shock. The pain in his eyes is so great, I find my hands reaching for his before I know what I am doing.
He takes a breath, I think trying to ward off the tears I can see in his eyes. “I couldn’t cope. It was all my fault, all of it. Mal and Oliver split shortly after and I just…I was broken. My heart, my head, my soul were…well, I was in a very, very dark place. I just up and left one night and drove to London. Our family had a flat there and I stayed and went on a giant bender. I met up with Simon and Leo and that whole crew and I got myself deep into it then. By then the blokes they were working for had branched out into human trafficking, stolen goods, and other underworld criminal activity. I ended back up in the hospital. My parents sent me back to rehab both times, but I had just lost my will to move on, I couldn’t do it.” He looks at me. Tears stream down my cheeks and reaching out he brushes a tear from my cheek in a slow, loving manner. “It was about two months after my last rehab stint. My parents had announced that I was officially cut off and Oliver was taking on things for my dad who at that point wasn’t doing well. I didn’t care anymore. I wanted to feel nothing. Leo kept trying to get me involved in the organization more deeply, but I only wanted to deal with the drugs, not the other stuff. He introduced me to the big bosses and they were starting to push me into the darker corners as well. I started to realize that I might be in deep shit and I was beginning to panic a bit. It wasn’t long after that we were out partying it up one night. The big bosses had sent Leo to try to sweet-talk me. They knew I didn’t give a shit about anything. My dad was on his way out, my mum had recently been sick and Oliver and I weren’t talking. He’d split from Mal by then and she had Rose with her and wouldn’t talk with me either. I had no one and so they couldn’t force my hand with anything. Wining and dining was their last manipulation card they had to play. They were doing a half-decent job of it, but this one night I’m at a club with them and I go to the loo. I’m in there not thirty seconds when a big guy walks in and locks the door. I’m so fucked up at this point, I figure he’s here to kill me and I think ‘thank God’ and so I turn ready to die.”
“But it’s the cops,” I whisper, knowing where this is going.
“Yes, more like spies really. I can’t really divulge too much about who they work for, but this very persuasive agent lays it out for me. I’m basically given an ultimatum. I go work for them or I end up rotting in prison. I actually half-contemplated the prison option. I think the guy saw that and he showed me some really fucked-up shit about the sex slave part of the organization and it’s then that I decided maybe it was time I did something good instead of continuing to fuck my life up and bring others down with me. I don’t know if I was thinking of Rose ending up like those girls or if the last shred of humanity I had finally bubbled to the surface, but something in me snapped and I wanted out. So I took him up on his offer and started working as an informant. I did my duties for them for about a year or two. They were getting close to having enough on the big guys to make some arrests, but then I started to notice changes in behaviors with Leo and Simon even and I got spooked. I told the government guys that I was done. I had paid my debts to society and if they wanted to arrest me so be it, but I felt like I was compromised and couldn’t be of use to them any longer. They agreed and cut me loose. Then I told Leo and Simon that I was done. I couldn’t live like this anymore and I was just going to go and start over somewhere. They sort of laughed me off and said sure, sure. They thought for sure I’d be back in a matter of weeks, having done this before, but this time I was serious. I’d watched Rose through the schoolyard fence on an impromptu visit shortly before that and something about her innocence had stirred me. I wanted to change for her, to be her uncle and make her proud and right my wrongs. And so I left. I sailed around the Indian Ocean on a yacht as a crew member for a bit and I worked in some posh resorts on some various islands. I finally made my way back to here after being gone for nearly two more years. Dad had died and Mum was very sick. I made amends with everyone as best I could. Oliver offered the gatehouse to me and I moved in and started helping out with some local properties and I slowly built my life to where I am now.”
He stops and watches me. I can tell he’s checking to see how all of this is sitting with me. I can honestly say that I am in a bit of shock.
“So, that car…that car was Leo or Simon?” I ask, suddenly I feel even more confused.
“No, I don’t think it was them,” he sighs, running his thumb over the back of my hand. “The past few months, the organization has been trying to break into the market up here. They found out that I was here and have been trying to get me to come back in and work for them. I’ve turned them down twice, but they are starting to get annoyed with me and I’m afraid they aren’t going to take no for an answer.”
“Jesus, Jack,” I murmur, my eyes are now wide. This is the shit I write about, this is not the shit I live in, ever.
“I know. I know,” he says, shaking his head. “I was relieved a bit when you left. I knew you’d be safe and I needed to know that. And then you came back and then I knew you were hurt. I saw you and I couldn’t stay away from you. I needed you. I haven’t needed someone in so long, but DAMN IT!” His fist hits the back of the couch and I jump. “I was so selfish,” he mutters and looks into my eyes. “I’m so sorry, Laura, so, so sorry! I never wanted to put you in danger.” He sighs and I’m sensing he wants to say something else, but he is just silent now, his eyes searching mine.
“I…This is…I…” For the first time in a very long time, I don’t know what to think or say. I just stare at him hoping the words will come, but nothing happens. I don’t notice that tears are falling down my cheeks until I feel his thumb wipe them away.
He puts my hands in his and looks into my eyes. “I’ll leave. I don’t want to put you in any danger. It was stupid of me to think that you would want to stay with me and I don’t even know if I can protect you. I guess I didn’t think my worlds would collide until they just did.” He bends forward kissing my hands and then rises and lets them go. They fall to my lap and I stare down at them. I’m suddenly freezing and I start to shake.
“Laura, are you alright?” he asks now visibly concerned. He sits back down and pulls me into him. I want to say no. My logical self tells me to push him away. But I can’t bring myself to do it. I need him. I never thought I’d ever need another man. I thought Sean was it. I had my chance at love and I took it and rolled the dice and got almost fifteen great years with Sean. Then Jack had to come into my life. Shit…why can’t I just let this go?
“I need to know you are OK, Laura,” he says, pulling my chin up so I have to look at him.
“I’m…” I try to say something except I’m still hopelessly lost for words.
“Jesus, you’re freezing.” He pulls a blanket around me and then moves me so that my legs are over his and his arms are wrapped around me tightly. He rubs my arms up and down under the blanket. I’m fairly certain that I am in shock. I want to say something, except I don’t even know where to begin.
He holds me close in c
omplete silence for five, ten, maybe twenty minutes. After the longest time, I feel the heat return to my body. My foggy mind starts to clear just a bit.
“Don’t leave me,” I manage to whisper. I can’t even begin to comprehend what he has just said to me, although I do know that I need him and I don’t want him leaving me because of the skeletons in his closet.
“Oh, baby,” he whispers, pulling me closer and kissing my forehead. I lean up and kiss him. At first, his lips don’t move, he is frozen, but I persist, running my tongue over his lower lip and biting at it. Eventually, he gives in and his tongue dances with mine as I straddle him, the blanket still wrapped around me. I slowly unbutton his shirt. My brain is still in a fog and I can feel my ankle throbbing from the position I have moved it to but I don’t care. I breathe a sigh of relief when my hands touch his warm chest. I need him and I need him in me right now. I pull my panties down under my skirt and kick them off and then undo his fly freeing his erection from his pants. I don’t even bother with a condom. I need him now. I grasp his bulging erection in my hand and slowly guide it into me. He closes his eyes and thrusts in deeper. The feeling of our skin together is delicious and sends goose bumps sprouting up all over my skin. He pulls my shirt over my head and undoes my bra. As he lets it fall to the floor with one hand, his other hand reaches for my breast and he bends down to take my nipple between his teeth. He flicks his tongue over it and I feel it harden and lengthen in his mouth. I cry out as his other hand reaches down and rapidly flicks my clitoris. I push my hand between us spreading myself more for him. His first two fingers scissor me, lighting up my nerve endings, and I can feel the pressure building as I move up and down on him. And then I start to come, his mouth on my breast, his fingers on my clit and his erection buried deep inside me are all too much sensation and I cry out. He pulls my mouth to his and silences my cry with his wet tongue probing inside me as he kisses me with such passion and such love. I can feel him growing inside me and he slams himself up again and again. The pressure starts to build again and I take my fingers and move them back and forth at the base of his penis as he pounds into me. He feels so good and I start to shake as I near another climax. I can feel him tensing and we both cry out together as he empties into me. I can feel the heat of his orgasm inside of me and then I feel it running down between us. Our juices mix together, causing him to become even slicker inside of me.