Harper left for work a short while after, making sure that I was tightly tucked up into bed. I was feeling a little better already but he vetoed the idea of me going to work. I guessed that the throwing up was over and done with seeing as my stomach was now entirely empty. I just felt totally drained, which in a way was just as bad as feeling sick.
I didn’t move a muscle, just like Doctor Harper had ordered. He would have been pleased that I was taking him at his word so literally. In no time, I could feel myself starting to drop off to sleep.
A noise woke me up a short time later. I still felt drowsy, like I’d been pulled out of a deep sleep, but my stomach had seemed to settle, so that was a bonus. It took me a couple of minutes to realise what had woken me up.
Footsteps.
“Harper?” I called out. I knew what he was like. He wouldn’t be able to settle without coming back to check up on me. Harper was the kind of guy to come home and make me some chicken soup for my dinner. He could be such a mother hen when he wanted to be. I smiled at the thought and sniffed at the air to see if it would give me some clue of what he was cooking up for me.
I couldn’t smell anything. Well, not anything cooking, anyway. I could smell aftershave. I jerked my head up and pulled the covers up closer to me. I knew that aftershave. It wasn’t Harper’s. I’d smelled that aftershave recently.
It was Milligan’s.
I froze. Panic wouldn’t let me move an inch. It wouldn’t let me breathe. It wasn’t like I was suddenly trying to hide and pretend that I wasn’t here. I’d already shouted out and given myself away. It was too late for that now. He knew where I was.
His footsteps continued ever slowly to get closer to my closed door and it felt like my heart had stopped when the door knob carefully started to turn.
He walked in slowly to my room, never taking his eyes off of me. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I wanted to scream out, but what was the point? No one would hear me. The building was sure to be empty this time of day.
“Carrie.” He said as he came closer. “You didn’t tell me that you were sick. I’ve been worried about you. I haven’t heard anything from you.” He smiled in apparent concern. “At least I know why. You should have told me that you were ill.” His voice curled around me like a caress, like my skin was made of velvet. I hated that he had this effect on me and I pulled the covers up more firmly, trying to shield myself.
I cleared my throat. It had gone dry the moment I realised that he was in the apartment. “What are you doing here, Milligan?” My voice sounded hoarse, like I’d had a sore throat for several days, but it was just husky through fear.
Milligan turned those soulful blue eyes back to me. He’s been scanning my room, as if looking for something. “I came to make sure that you were okay. I haven’t heard from you in a few days.”
I frowned at the genuine concern in his voice. What was wrong with him? “You know why you haven’t heard from me. Remember?” Perhaps I hadn’t been as clear as I thought the last time I’d seen him. I was sure that I had got my message across at the time.
“Well, obviously. You’ve been sick.” He smiled at me like he was indulging me and moved to the side of the bed next to me. I scooted over as far away as I could get from him. I didn’t want him anywhere near me. His voice may sound like syrup over ice-cream to me, but he was clearly bat shit crazy and I didn’t want him coming any closer.
“How did you get in here?”
“The front door was unlocked. I knocked but when you didn’t answer, I started to get worried.”
He made it all sound so normal. But, it wasn’t normal. There was no way on this earth that Harper would have left the door unlocked when he had left me here in the apartment sleeping. And, I couldn’t say for sure if it had been the knocking that woke me up, but for some reason, I didn’t believe him.
“What do you want?” I was almost afraid to ask him, but I wanted to get him out of the apartment as soon as possible. My phone was over in my jacket pocket, which was on the other side of the room. I couldn’t get to it to phone Harper. I had to get myself out of this.
“I came to see you.” Milligan smiled at me like it was a silly question.
I didn’t see it coming. If I had, I would have thrown myself out of the bed. Milligan leaned over quickly and kissed me. He suddenly had a hand on either side of my hips to effectively keep me there. The worst thing about it was that I could have happily sunk into that kiss and thoroughly enjoyed it. He was a master at the art of sex and seduction. He knew exactly where to touch me to make me moan. I didn’t even realise that my hands had snaked up under his shirt, caressing the taut muscles of his chest. It was when my fingers ran over the nipple piercing that I realised what I was doing. I jerked my hands back.
“Carrie.” He muttered my name over and over again as he nuzzled my neck, setting my skin on fire. He paused to pull his shirt over his head and his mouth was back on mine before I could take a breath.
I was starting to feel dizzy. I needed to breathe. He was too much. I didn’t want this.
What the hell was I doing? What the fuck was wrong with me? I forced my eye open, braced my hands on his chest and shoved him away from me. He didn’t exactly go far. He was ripped and at least twice my size. He didn’t have to move if he didn’t want to, but he did.
We were both breathing heavily. Milligan sat back on his heels, trapping my legs underneath his hands. “I’m sorry. You have this kind of effect on me. I just can’t seem to help myself.” He grinned like it was a good thing and he leant in to give me a quick kiss on the cheek. “But, you’re sick. I’m sorry. We should wait until you are feeling a little better.”
He moved his weight off my legs and I pulled the covers back up over my body. He stood up and pulled his discarded tee back over his head. I don’t even know when that came off.
“I’ll let you get some rest, sweetheart. Call me later?”
I just looked at him blankly. Sweetheart? Really? I was in a pure state of shock. When I didn’t say anything, he laughed and leant over to kiss me on the top of the head. “I’ll be seeing you soon, Carrie.” And he walked out of my bedroom. I heard the front door click shut seconds later.
I burst into tears. What else did you expect me to do? I’d almost willed him to have sex with me. I knew that if he had that I would have enjoyed it and wanted more. What the hell was wrong with me?
I dived out of bed and checked that the front door was well and truly locked. I sagged against it for a moment before my eyes went wild again. I hadn’t checked out the rest of the place. What if he was still here? I ran around the apartment like a mad woman. It was only me here. He really had left.
I wiped the tears from my face and took a deep breath. I couldn’t cope with this alone. I hated to call Harper while he was at work but I needed him right now. Plus, I knew that he would kill me if I didn’t call him and tell him about this.
He answered his phone on the first ring. “Carrie? How are you feeling?”
It took in another breath of courage. “Milligan’s has been here.”
Harper fell silent. “What do you mean? How? When?” He sounded confused but I couldn’t blame him. I was as confused as hell myself.
“Please, just come home.” My voice started to crack. I was scared. I couldn’t help it.
“I’m on my way.” He didn’t say anything else before he hung up the phone. I curled up in a blanket on the sofa and waited for him.
The front door banged open and I jumped out of my skin. I held my breath until Harper came barrelling into the lounge. The relief I felt at seeing him was immense. I didn’t know what I would have done if it had been Milligan returning. Fight him or fuck him? Who knew?
“Are you okay? What happened? What did he do? Did he hurt you? What did he say?” Harper ran to where I was sitting and grabbed hold of my hands. His eyes scanned over me, checking to make sure that I hadn’t been hurt.
“I’m fine.” I insisted.
�
�What did he want?”
I looked away for a moment. I didn’t know exactly what to say to him, how much to tell him. He was my very best friend and I knew that I could tell him anything. He wouldn’t judge me for my actions. But, the problem was, I was judging myself.
“Carrie? What did he want with you?” he demanded.
“To sleep with me, I think.”
“What?” he jumped up and began pacing around the room. “Did he touch you?”
“Harper.” I put my head in my hands. How was I supposed to explain this to him?
“Carrie. Just tell me what happened?” I knew that he was trying to be patient with me, but I knew him too well. He was seething inside.
I told him everything. Everything. Every little gory detail. Even the ones that made me blush. But, I had to tell him it all. I needed him to understand what was happening to me. I needed someone to talk to about it. Even if she had been well and awake, Destiny wouldn’t have really understood this. Not from my point of view, anyway. She would have just seen Milligan as a fine piece of ass and told me to overlook his faults and have some fun. I couldn’t do that. There was something about him that made me lose control when I was around him, pushing all good sense out of my head. I couldn’t let that happen again. He was crazy. I couldn’t let myself forget that. I couldn’t let myself forget who I was and what I wanted.
Harper was quiet. That got me even more worried. I was much more comfortable when he was ranting and raving, even if that was out of character for my mild mannered friend. When Harper was quiet, that was when you knew that shit was about to hit the fan.
“I have a feeling that I already know the answer to this question, but are you going to go to the police about this?”
I shook my head at him. “He didn’t force himself on me. He didn’t even break in.”
Harper huffed and started his pacing again. “So, do you have any idea what you are going to do next?”
I laughed ruefully. “Nope. Not a clue.”
I really didn’t know how I was supposed to handle this. I honestly didn’t think that telling the police was going to help matters. They would think that I was the crazy one. I had no idea what Milligan was going to do next. He clearly wasn’t in a sane mind. Plus, how was I supposed to convince him that I didn’t want him when the moment that I touched him, I did want him? Was I the crazy one?
“Do you want a drink?” Harper suddenly strode out of the lounge and I heard the coffee machine click on in the kitchen. I didn’t bother saying anything to him. His way of coping with thing was to keep busy. I couldn’t say that I blamed him really. I felt totally useless. Sitting here and doing nothing wasn’t exactly productive. But, I had no clue how to get Milligan out of my life once and for all.
He walked back in with a steaming cup of coffee. He resumed his pacing.
“Harper, please sit down.”
“I can’t.”
“This isn’t helping.”
“No!” Harper spun around and shouted. “The only thing that would help me at the moment would be to go out and find that bastard and beat the living shit out of him.” The look in his eyes screamed danger.
I didn’t bother telling him not to do it. He knew that by doing that, it wouldn’t make my life any easier. I knew that it would make him feel better about it all, but not me. I was confused about the situation enough as it was without things turning violent. That was part of the reason that I didn’t want anything else to do with Milligan.
“What am I supposed to do, then? Keep you safe? Well, I failed on that one, didn’t I?”
I stood up to walk to where he was. I put a hand on his arm to stop him from walking away from me. “You really think that?”
“Carrie! I’m supposed to keep you safe.”
“Harper, that’s not your job. You’re my friend. You’re my best friend. You’re my family. You do everything you can for me. Don’t beat yourself up over this. It’s not your fault.” I hated to think that he was feeling guilty over this. It wasn’t his fault. None of it was. I was the one who had let Milligan into my life. It was my guilt to bear, not his.
“Harper, look at me.” He wouldn’t, so I gently put my hand on his cheek. “It’s not your fault. Neither of us knew that this was going to happen. He didn’t hurt me. He didn’t even mean to scare me. I think that was what probably scared me the most. He seemed genuinely concerned for me.”
“Carrie, he could have hurt you.”
“But, he didn’t.”
Harper didn’t say anything. I knew that he was brooding. I also knew that there was nothing that I could say to make him feel any better. All I could do was change the subject.
“Seeing as we’ve both got the rest of the day off, how do you fancy a pizza and a DVD? I’m starving!” I grinned at him temptingly. He looked at me blankly for a moment before his face softened.
“You’re feeling better now, I guess?” He smirked. That sparkle reappeared in his eyes. I knew that he was a long way from being okay about this, but at least it was a start.
“I’m starving.”
Chapter Eleven
It really was quite unnerving how one day Milligan could walk straight into my home and drive me right out of my mind with his sexual antics, and then nothing. Don’t get me wrong, I was pleased that I hadn’t heard anything else from him, but it left me walking on eggshells. Harper tried his best to get things back to normal for me, so I had to try as well. It was quite perfectly normal for him to be dropping me off at work every single morning, seeing as my office was on the way to his gym anyway. But, lunchtimes and picking me up after work? Taking me wherever I needed to go? Never letting me out of his sight? Not so normal. When I wasn’t at work, Harper was always within metres of me. I wasn’t complaining, though. I felt safer with him close by.
Dee was just the same. She hadn’t changed for the better or for the worse. She still looked like she was sleeping. We routinely called in and spent every evening with her. That was our life now. It consisted of going to work and going to the hospital. I knew that we weren’t going to be able to keep this up forever, but for the time being, it was working for us. We were making it work the best we could.
I really felt bad. The nurses and whoever they answered to had decided to take the decision out of our hands and they’d put Dee’s father into a home. He needed to be somewhere where he could get around-the-clock care. I knew that would be the very last thing that Dee would have wanted to happen, but the matter was out of our hands. We weren’t family. We didn’t have a say in the matter. We were just consulted of the outcome.
Harper had secured the apartment. He’d put in extra locks on the main door and on my bedroom door. He installed a security camera system. It made him feel better, even if I thought that it was useless. I didn’t have the heart to tell him it was like shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted.
Even work had been a bit better. Easier. Steve hadn’t thrown a bitch fit in days now. I think that the lack of dead flower deliveries had helped to improve his mood.
Then, this morning, it had all gone to hell again. Steve called me into his office and his enthusiasm had been infectious. He’d been practically bouncing off of the walls in his excitement. I had been, too, until he started explaining the details of the job.
A new client had come in with a major new deal that was going to bag the company tons of money and recognition. It had all sounded too good to be true. They’d even requested me by name, which was a huge buzz for me. They’d stated certain projects that they had seen of mine in the past that drew them to working with the company. It all sounded great, beyond our wildest dreams. That was until he told me that it was a nightclub called ‘Milligan’s’. I flipped when I heard that name. I didn’t mean to but I couldn’t help myself. Things had been so quiet in the last week or so that I had thought that Milligan really had gotten the message this time. But, no. Now he was interfering with my working life as well.
Steve had gone totally bal
listic on me when I refused to take the job. I even went as far to explain that the psycho who had sent me the dead flowers was the owner of the club. He didn’t care. He was just pleased that we already had a connection. That made me laugh. Which didn’t really help matters. But, there was no way that I was going to let Steve bully me into taking the job. I’d simply told him that he could get someone else to consult on the job.
Apparently, Milligan had told him that it was me or no deal. I told him to shove it. Steve had tried to offer me more money. I told him no way. Steve had even thrown a big girly hissy fit and told me to get out of the office and to never come back. So, I’d left.
I wasn’t going to sweat it. I knew that I would be able to find another job, but I also knew that Steve would call me soon with his tail firmly between his legs. He needed me. He needed me more than I needed him. There was no way that I was going to back down on this one.
So, that explained why I was sat at home in the middle of the day watching crappy daytime soaps that made absolutely no sense to me. Harper walked in when he finished work and found me surrounded by empty bowls of ice-cream and chocolate bars.
“Oh, so this was why you didn’t want to me come home. You didn’t want to share!” He laughed as he looked at the mess on the floor.
“Damn right. You know me. I don’t share ice-cream.” I tried to look serious, but the shit-eating grin that broke out on my face kind of spoiled the effect.
“So, have you heard anything from Steve yet?”
I’d told Harper on the phone what had happened. He’d wanted to come home when he found out I was going to be alone in the apartment, but I told him that there was no point. If he came running every single time he thought that I needed babysitting, then all the extra security stuff he’d put in was a total waste of time and money.
“Nope. He’ll be too mad to call me today. I think that he’ll call tomorrow at the very earliest. Heck, he might not call me at all. He’s too damn pig headed and he was really pissed at me.”
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