by Annie Buff
“Why are you here?” She asked. “We’re not open yet and even if we were, I’m not sure I’d serve you.”
That stung, but he had it coming. Ajax was surprised she hadn’t thrown something at him. “I’m sorry, I fucked up and I need to fix it.”
“Yeah, I’d say you did, but don’t worry I don’t hold much of a grudge. And it’s not like I can see you to throw my coffee mug at you.”
She was making this so hard, all he wanted to do was apologize and as Red had said ‘do his job’. “Please Tara, just let me say I’m sorry and get to work. You asked for security, so here I am.”
She shook her head vigorously. “Hell no! You made it quite clear last night that you weren’t babysitting the blind lady, so go. You don’t wanna be here and I don’t need that. I want someone who wants this job. You don’t, so go and I’ll take the heat for it. Peyton is coming for coffee so I’ll tell her I sent you on your way.”
It didn’t work that way. Ajax made his choice, so like it or not he was staying. “Tara look, Red said choose. So I did. Queen can’t change that even if she wanted to, Red gave me a job and I will do it to the best of my ability. Please don’t make this any harder.” He could see just how pissed off she was, even furious Tara was stunning. This wasn’t going to be easy no matter which way you looked at it.
“Fine!” She spat at him. “Do whatever you’re supposed to, just don’t get in my way.”
He nodded then realized she couldn’t see him. “Thank you. Do you have an alarm in the building?” Ajax watched her shake her head.
Tara stood and led him to the back to show him the exit and storeroom. There wasn’t much there, just her dry ingredients and coffee.
He motioned to a closet door, then again remembered she only saw shadows, he asked about it. “This door, another storage or what?”
“No, it leads upstairs to my apartment and I have the only keys to it. You’re gonna need them, aren’t you?” She asked reluctantly.
He was if he was going to do his job thoroughly, and Red had said not to fuck it up; so Ajax couldn’t. The look in the Queen’s eyes killed him, Peyton was his friend. She believed in him when nobody else did. “Yeah but it’s not that important now, I’ll handle down here for now. I didn’t realize you lived up there.”
Tara moved into the apartment above her bakery after the previous attack in her house. Two locked doors gave her a better sense of security. “I didn’t until last year. When you’re beaten and raped in your own home, you start jump at every little sound.”
Ajax had heard she was attacked but nobody said anything about rape. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know…”
Tara leaned against the counter top in her bakery kitchen. She had a feeling she was about to relive the second worst day of her life. “Nobody knows, that’s the one detail I left out. They already baby me, I know it. If anyone knew about that, it would be ten times worse. I deal; attend a support group for women who have been sexually assaulted, and I have friends like Peyton. Please don’t tell her, I’m really handling it.”
Ajax didn’t need to tell anyone, Peyton had come in mid conversation and heard enough.
“Tara! God girl why didn’t you tell me? You know I would have done something to help. Smoke and the idiots would have done something.” Problem was, there wasn’t anything anyone could have done. it was just dealing with the aftermath, and she was doing that.
Ajax excused himself and started working on keeping her safe. He let Red know she needed an alarm system, one that included motion detectors and window and door sensors. He planned on using her upstairs as a home base and called in a favor for outdoor cameras in the alley. He would link them to a closed-circuit video monitoring system so at least at night she could sleep peacefully.
Daytime would be more difficult, because her business was open and people came in and out all day. Tara had three girls who worked the counter and tables but she was the only one who did the baking. That meant she wasn’t always out front, and someone needed to be with her.
Ajax couldn’t get the rape out of his mind; some creep had taken something so intimate and made it ugly. He’d made her doubt every man she came in contact with, including Ajax. That pissed him off. He would find the man if it was the last thing he did. She needed closure, and he needed vengeance for a woman he shouldn’t be falling for; but he was.
Tara went about her daily routine, ignoring Ajax and telling her staff he was her new security system. Aside from keeping him in coffee they didn’t need to wait on him. She had been trying to top the Amaretto cherry cupcake to no avail. Tara just couldn’t come up with a flavor that she hadn’t done yet. She pondered most of the day, and the longer she did the madder she got. How hard could a new flavor be. The answer to her problem came from an unlikely source, Ajax.
“You look pissed and I haven’t bugged you all day so It can’t be me. Unless just being here is doing it.”
Tara let out a sigh, it wasn’t him. Well maybe a little, but not wholly. “I need a flavor I haven’t done yet, and I can’t come up with it. Peyton and that damn cupcake idea she gave me sold so many that I ran out… twice! Now I need one to top that and I’m blank. So, no it’s not you, I’m just frustrated.”
Ajax had spent some time looking in the display case at all the sweets. He didn’t see his favorite flavors, so maybe that would be what would help her. “I’m a huge fan of mango and pineapple. What if you combined them and did like a rum butter icing? Maybe I have no clue what I’m talking about, but to me that sounds fucking delicious.”
Her eyes widened and she let out a squeal as Tara all but jumped into Ajax’s arms and hugged him. That was a total reflex reaction but neither let go for a few seconds.
“Oh my God you’re a genius! It’s perfect and spring is here, so fruity is good. Thank you!” She had pulled away but her scent filled his senses. So much so his dick had taken notice once again. Anytime she got close he got a hard-on. At this rate he was going to be masturbating daily, she was killing him slowly and wasn’t even aware of it. Like Old Red said, stop thinking you’re the one.
The shop had closed for the day but Tara was still in her kitchen trying to perfect the icing. She had eleven failed batches so far trying to get the right mix of rum, butter and confectioners’ sugar. Ajax sat on a stool in the corner watching her work and staying clear from her cooking space. “It boggles my mind how you can do all this without seeing.”
Tara smiled at him for the first time all day. It wasn’t a forced smile, this was genuine and it felt good.
“I wasn’t always blind. This happened five years ago and it was either curl up in a ball and die, or get my shit together and live. Took me a few months but I decided living was a helluva lot better than being some invalid, so here I am.”
He thought about it for a few minutes then thought ‘what the hell, just ask her’. “How did it happen? Obviously, you don’t have to tell me, but I’d really like to know if you’ll share it.”
Tara stopped what she was doing and hopped up on the counter and sat down. This might be a ten second conversation but it could take an hour so why not be comfortable. “Have you ever heard of diabetic retinopathy?”
“No. What is that?”
At least he asked and just didn’t say no. He seemed like he genuinely wanted to know and wasn’t just making small talk. So, Tara gave Ajax the abridged version. “I’ve been diabetic my whole life and wasn’t very good at keeping my sugars in check. As you can see, I love sweets. Anyway, I went to a BTO concert with my Dad, Brother and then Husband.
“Seriously, who doesn’t like them right? We had a blast and probably too much alcohol so when we got home I went straight to bed. When I woke up in the morning I couldn’t see. I was absolutely terrified, but I didn’t say a word. My Husband came in some time in the early afternoon and asked if I was going to get up, I lied and said I was sick. When I did finally get out of bed, I used the wall to guide me to the bathroom and went straight back to bed after.�
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Ajax sat attentively listening to her story. He wondered about the Husband, and what had happened to him.
“So,” Tara continued, “the following day I still couldn’t see. So, I broke down and called my Dad and asked him to come over, that it was important. Dad showed up and I had to fess up about my sight. He forced me to go to the hospital and that was the end of my life as I knew it. I had twelve eye surgeries in as many days and they had to remove a piece of my eye. There’s a prosthetic type piece in my left eye. The day I lost my sight, I lost my life. At least the life I knew, do you realize how hard it is to do simple tasks when you can’t see?”
Ajax couldn’t even imagine the hell she had been through. To top that, she had been a victim of violence not once, but twice. “Damn, I am so sorry.”
She didn’t want pity, she did that enough to herself in the beginning. “Don’t be, I’m a survivor. Even after the asshole ex left, I managed to get my shit together and open this place. That took some doing. At first, I had to learn how to do simple things all over again. Just getting dressed was a chore, and let’s not forget I lost my job because I couldn’t see to do it anymore. I’m not totally blind, the surgeries gave me some light and shadows and believe me that helps more than I can tell you.” He watched her testing the icing batches over and over as if trying to figure out which one would work.
“Come here and taste this,” Tara told Ajax, “all of these. I need a palate that’s not been testing this all day.”
Ajax didn’t mind being her Guinea pig. It gave him the excuse to stand close, to take in her scent. It had to be her shampoo, the light fruity floral aroma was going to be his doom.
After eleven spoonful’s of icing he was on a sugar high, it felt like back in the day when he had a big coke habit. These days he stayed away from the hard stuff and just smoked a little marijuana once in a while. He did enjoy a drink with a Marlboro on occasion, but for the most part he was trying to be somewhat healthy. Being at the pastry shop was going to either make him fat, or rot his teeth.
“Hey, I just thought of something.” Ajax waited for her to continue as she covered her concoctions for the night. “I don’t know what you look like, not that it matters. I guess I’m curious.”
He chuckled at her. She had no clue just how sweet and perfect she was. “Just a big, ugly guy. Trust me I am nothing to see.”
His explanation of his looks didn’t satisfy Tara. He didn’t figure it would, but he had to try. She was shaking her head.
“Sorry big man, won’t work with me. Please Ajax, humor me.”
He gave in and went to sit down, he was a foot taller than her. Tara cupped his face, tracing his cheekbones and nose until she wound up at his lips. The hoop threw her. “My God! Did you fall into a tackle box?” She teased him and kept memorizing his face with her hands. “How in the name of everything holy do you kiss your girlfriend with that thing stuck in your face?”
“I’ve had no complaints, but don’t have a girlfriend, so…”
She let her hands drift to his head, realizing for the first time Ajax had no hair. “Bald on purpose?” She felt him nod as her hands kept moving.
At this point Ajax was going to lose it in his jeans like a teenager. She didn’t mean for her touch to be sensual, but with every finger stroke he became more and more aroused. He knew he should make her stop but it just felt too damn good.
“What’s the tattoo on your head of?” She asked.
“How the fuck did you know that?”
She laughed and explained how she knew. “The skin on the side is slightly raised in a pattern but I can’t tell what it is. I could tell you where you have tats and where you don’t by the way the skin feels.”
That was something he never thought about, that the skin would feel different. He had more tattoos than bare skin anymore, the first ink coming when he was fourteen. A black panther on his forearm and it just progressed from there. Tattoos were as addicting as everyone said, and Ajax liked ink.
“It’s a Chinese dragon, I always had a thing for Chinese artwork. So, I thought I’d make one permanent. My back is mostly tribal stuff, and the arms have a number of different things. Most represent points in my life both good and bad. We should get you upstairs so I can lock up and find a booth that’s somewhat comfortable.”
The look she shot him said that she had no idea what he was talking about.
“Until we got your alarm and sensors installed and working, I’ll be staying overnights. Now don’t even think about arguing with me, I’m bigger.” Ajax snorted a laugh knowing just how much bigger he was.
“You’re really going to sleep in the bakery?” She was a little surprised at how serious he was taking this job.
That was his plan, unless she offered her bed. At that point there would be no sleeping involved. In his mind he already knew how soft her skin was, what noises he could draw from her, and just how wet he could make her pussy. Ajax could almost taste her sweet juices…
“Ajax! Are you listening to me?” he hadn’t heard a word, he was off in fantasy land again. This woman was going to be the death of him. “What are you thinking about?”
That question wouldn’t be answered, not yet anyway. Maybe one day Tara would know just how badly he wanted her, but not today. He would take her upstairs, check her place and leave her to her evening. Then he could find a spot to set up camp, so to speak. He had a bag with a change of clothes and his antibiotics from Bones. His laptop was also in the bag so he would peruse the net for similar attacks to the one Tara had suffered through in her home. Ajax was determined to find the man that raped her and dish out some justice, Cleaner style.
THE CLEANER, THE BAKER
Tara showered and dressed in her favorite pajamas, wondering what Ajax was doing downstairs. He had said big, ugly guy, but his face said otherwise. He might just be the best-looking man she had ever not seen. Her hands told her what he looked like and it was damn hot, but she did her best to not let it show. Even her ramped up heartbeat was her secret. A man like him wouldn’t want a woman like her, one that had a disability. No, that man probably had women falling all over him and that irritated Tara. She wasn’t sure why but it did.
Curiosity got the best of her so she made her way downstairs to find her security and see just what he was up to. Tara forgot about the mop bucket so when she tripped over it making all kinds of noise, Ajax came flying into the kitchen; guns ready.
“Jesus Christ woman! I almost shot you! What the hell are you doing down here?” The big man stood shaking his head. Was she trying to get herself killed? Ajax picked up the mop and bucket, moving it to the side and waited to see what the problem was.
Tara knew she was in trouble, she could hear it in his voice. “It wasn’t sitting right with me you all alone down here, so I came to keep you company.”
Yep she was definitely trying to kill him, or herself. He had just cleared his mind of her and now here she was taunting his senses. “Tara,” it was gruff.
You could hear the desire dripping from his voice and that made her nervous. The last man she had been with was the ex-Husband, plus the rape had made her leery of even being touched. “This is not a good idea, I am way too attracted to you and in that nightgown, that I can see right through…”
She had no clue it was see-through. It was just her most comfortable sleeping attire, and here she was showing Ajax everything. “I’m…I’m sorry, I didn’t know I, um; I have to go.” She fled as fast as she could but fell before she got to her apartment door. Ajax was right behind her, picking her up and cradling her to his chest. Tara had started to cry but this time he didn’t run away, he held her tight and let her cry.
“Woman I’m not like that, I would never force anything on you. You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen and I want this, but not that way. If and when you’re ready to give, then I’m here waiting. Never would I take it, do you understand?” He could feel her nodding against his chest. His dampened shirt moved as her
head did. Ajax pressed his lips to her forehead and even with his reassurance she flinched. He did understand why, but that still pissed him off. This incredible creature was terrified he would force himself on her. No matter what, that wasn’t his way.
“Tara look up at me. I wish you could see my eyes, you’d know I won’t hurt you. Never will, trust me please.” Ajax carried her back upstairs and put her in bed. He still saw fear in her eyes but it was lessening. He kissed her forehead again before he turned out her light.
“I’ll be on your sofa if you need me and for the love of God please don’t think I’m going to violate you in any way. I told you I’m not like that. Tara, I didn’t want this job because you’re way too good for me, but I couldn’t stay away. I want to be whatever you need, just tell me. Okay?”
Her voice was soft and slightly meek but he heard her clearly. “Can you just hold me one more time?”
That question didn’t need an answer, Ajax had already had her in his arms and once would never be enough. He sat on the edge of her bed, letting her move in her own time. Once she climbed in his lap everything in Ajax’s world was clear and right. Tara Jo was the one, and he’d be damned if he’d fuck this up any more than he already had. In that moment he made the decision of his life, take the patch and stay in the Junction. Tara Jo was that once in a lifetime. He knew it into the recesses of his soul, and it was time. Time he put down roots and quit running. Time to be a good man. One worthy of her and one who would do anything for her, including kill if that’s what need be.
The morning came way too soon for his liking. He heard the rustle of the shower curtain and knew she was up and moving. He cracked open an eye to see the clock, yep four-forty-five was definitely too early, but he knew she had things to do downstairs.
“Tara,” he said fairly loud. “I’ll go down and get the coffee going. Be careful on the stairs woman.” He chuckled as he let himself out. She knew every inch of the place, so if anyone tripped and fell it would be him. He knew last night’s fall was from him, he scared her. Ajax didn’t mean to, she just needed to understand how he felt about her.