Protected by Him

by Hannah Ford

  “Um, I’m in between jobs. I was doing book keeping for this restaurant downtown, but it fell through.” It was a lie, of course, and it slipped off my tongue effortlessly, confusing me.

  You couldn’t really call Loose Cannons a restaurant, unless you counted the free buffet they offered while the girls were dancing, and the job didn’t just “fall through.” But none of that was the confusing part. The confusing part was that I was lying to Declan. I never lied to Declan. He was the one person I didn’t have to lie to, the one person who really knew everything I’d gone through.

  “What are you up to?” I asked, taking another sip of my drink and immediately turning the conversation back on him.

  “I’m working in insurance,” he said sheepishly. “I know, I know, don’t laugh.”

  “Why would I laugh?”

  “Because it’s so boring.”

  “Boring is good, Declan,” I said. “We always wanted boring, remember?”

  “I do.” He scooted his chair closer to me. His presence was so familiar, so comforting. The closest thing I’d ever had to a family, the closest thing I’d ever had to someone really caring about me, was Declan.

  Colt.

  His name flashed through my mind like a bolt of lightning, zapping and stinging my heart. I wrapped my hands tightly around my drink as images of what we’d done together flash banged against my brain. His hands on my body, my panties stuck to my pussy, his dick sliding inside of me.

  Fuck you, I thought. Fuck you for ruining this for me. But I couldn’t muster up the kind of anger I needed to in order to forget about him.

  “Olivia,” Declan said. He reached up and pushed a strand of my hair behind my ear. “God, Olivia, I missed you.” His touch sent a weird sensation coursing through my body. It wasn’t bad, exactly – it felt familiar, warm, good. I remembered the way we would cuddle sometimes at night when no one was around, putting on a silly movie and making microwave popcorn that we’d buy at the dollar store and hide from the other kids. We’d watch TV and snuggle under a blanket, and I’d rest my head against his chest. It was as far as we were willing to push it, since we knew if we got caught even doing that, we’d be in trouble.

  Back then my heart would pound in my chest so hard and my body would feel hot and flushed.

  Now, though, I didn’t feel any of those things.

  All I could think about was Colt.

  My hands gripped the glass in my hand even tighter, so tight I was afraid it would break.

  “You have no idea how much I’ve thought about you,” Declan was saying. “I wanted to find you, but I wasn’t sure how.”

  The words should have made me happy, but again, all I could think about was Colt -- how he’d said that anyone who knew how to google could have tracked me down easily.

  No! It wasn’t true! I told myself. I hardly had any presence online, no email, no facebook. It would have been nearly impossible for Declan to find me.

  I forced myself to relax as Declan took my drink out of my hands and set it down on the table.

  “Do you remember the promise we made to each other?” His green eyes were staring into mine, and his hands were on my thighs now, gripping them gently.

  “Of course.”

  He smiled. “I kept that promise all these years,” he said, and I felt the devastation roll over me. He’d stayed true to me, even as he’d moved on with his life, even as he’d gotten a good job and nice a place to live. He was gorgeous and smart and kind, and he could have any woman he wanted, and yet he’d kept his promise to me.

  He took my hand and raised it to his mouth, kissing my knuckles softly. As his lips touched my skin the sleeve of my sweater slid up a little, and the top of my bandage peeked out. Declan’s eyes slid over it, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Olivia,” he murmured, and then he was moving toward me, his lips about to brush against mine.

  I turned my head.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, pulling back. “I’m so sorry, Olivia. I shouldn’t have – ”

  “No.” I wiped my palms on my jeans again. “I just… I need to tell you something.” I needed to tell him about Colt. I couldn’t kiss Declan and not tell him what I’d done.

  It wasn’t right, and it left an uneasy feeling in my stomach.

  But that wasn’t the only reason I was feeling uneasy.

  I felt uneasy because I wasn’t feeling anything else.

  There was no rush of excitement, no thrill in my stomach, no anticipation and butterflies. Off course I was excited to see Declan, and it wasn’t that he was making me feel weird or uncomfortable.

  It was more that he wasn’t making me feel excited. I wasn’t getting a rush. It was like seeing an old friend – nice and comfortable, but not exciting.

  Not the way it was with Colt.

  Stop thinking about him!

  “Go ahead,” Declan said. “Whatever it is, Olivia, you can tell me.”

  I opened my mouth to start talking, but a second later, the front door opened and a girl appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. She had long blonde hair and a pale complexion, and she was holding two brown grocery sacks.

  “Hey!” she said happily when she saw Declan. “I got out early, so I thought I’d come over and surprise you with a home-cooked meal.” Then her eyes fell on me, and a confused look moved over her delicate features. Her gaze moved to Declan’s hands, one of them wrapped in mine, the other still on my thigh. “You have got to be kidding me. Again, Declan?”

  He stood up, quick as a flash. “Amanda,” he said. “No, it’s not…. this isn’t what it looks like. This is Olivia. She’s my sister.”

  “What?” Amanda and I both said at the same time, both of us staring incredulously at Declan.

  “I mean, she’s my foster sister. We grew up together.” He said ‘we grew up together’ the way you really would say it about a sister, and not about someone you’d made a promise to be with forever, a person you’d pretty much promised your heart to. “There’s nothing going on between us romantically. Right, Olivia?”

  His eyes met mine, and I saw that same familiar look reflected there, the one Declan and I used to give each other whenever we were sharing a secret, telegraphing to the other that something needed to be kept just between us.

  But those secrets, those lies we told back then, all of them were about survival, about keeping each other safe -- a lie about how much we’d eaten so that we wouldn’t be punished, a lie to a social worker about our living conditions so that we didn’t end up separated or in an even worse place. The lie he was asking me for now was just to be deceptive.

  I should have told the truth. But I didn’t.

  “Right,” I said, and I could taste acid burning the back of my throat. “There’s nothing going on between us.”

  “Oh,” Amanda said, sounding relieved. “I’m Amanda, Declan’s girlfriend.” She stuck her hand out to for me to shake. There was an expensive-looking watch on her wrist, with a white leather band and tiny diamonds around the oversized face that sparkled under the lights. Her nails were neatly manicured and painted a muted pink, not too bright, not too flashy.

  I took her hand.

  Her skin was cold, and when she smiled, her teeth were white and perfect.

  She was the exact kind of girl that Declan had said he’d never end up with.

  She was the exact opposite of me.

  “Are you staying for dinner?” she asked.

  “No,” Declan said quickly. His eyes flashed to mine, and I could tell immediately what he was trying to tell me – don’t say anything, we’ll talk about this later when we’re in private. I thought it was crazy how I could still read him, even after all this time.

  “No,” I said, swallowing around the lump in my throat and trying to force a casual brightness into my voice. “I’m not staying.”

  I picked up my bag, and then I was out the door, rushing down the sidewalk, Declan calling after me. When I didn’t turn around, I heard his footsteps behin
d me.

  “Hey,” he said when he got to me. I turned, watching as he ran his hands through his hair nervously. “Olivia, I’m sorry.” He shrugged. “I just… I didn’t know what to say, how to tell you.”

  “It’s fine,” I lied. It wasn’t fine. It was dishonest and horrible. He hadn’t just lied to Amanda, he’d lied to me, too. He’d told me he’d kept his promise to me. And yeah, I’d broken my promise, too, but at least I’d been willing to own it. Declan had been about to to kiss me back there, to let me believe that he’d never kissed anyone else.

  “Listen, I want to see you again,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why do you want to see me again?”

  “Because I missed you.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut tight. How could I have gotten this so wrong? This whole time, I’d been thinking about Declan, missing him, planning my life around him, pinning all my hopes on him. And meanwhile, he’d been pinning his hopes on himself, creating a job, a girlfriend, a home, a world.

  All the things I should have been doing.

  I turned.

  And I ran.

  He called after me, but when I glanced over my shoulder a few seconds later, he wasn’t following me. He was just standing there at the end of his driveway. I kept running and when I looked back again, he was gone.

  I ran all the way down the hill, back toward the end of the street, faster and faster, my legs pumping. Soon I got caught up in the momentum of the downward slope and I couldn’t control it and before I knew it I fell to the pavement, scraping my hands against the gravel.

  I caught myself before I fell to my knees, but not before the rough surface of the road burned against my skin and one of the cuts on my wrist opened up.

  “Shit,” I swore, and biter tears filled my eyes.

  And then, suddenly, a car turned onto the street and pulled up next to me, so close I could smell the rubber from the tires and the exhaust from the tailpipe, and I thought for sure it would be that FBI agent, Caleb, that he’d followed me here. I wouldn’t be able to stand up to him this time, I decided. He was catching me at my lowest moment and I wouldn’t have the strength.

  Maybe he would arrest me. I didn’t even care. I had nowhere to spend the night tonight, anyway, it might as well be in jail.

  Then someone was calling my name.

  “Olivia.”

  And then he was there, Colt, his arms encircling my waist, picking me up from where I was collapsed on the pavement.

  You’re safe. The thought burned in my brain automatically, but I rebelled against it. I wasn’t safe with him. I wasn’t safe with anyone but myself. Still. He felt so good, his chest so strong and firm, his body like rock hard granite, the kind of strength that would never, ever let anything hurt me.

  And yet he had hurt me.

  He’d slept with me and then he hadn’t even cared if I went to see Declan, and now he was back to mess with my mind some more.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, and then he was holding my hands in his, checking my wrists, handling me delicately, the way he had last night when he’d caught me cutting myself. I remembered the concern that had been on his face, the way he’d told me I wasn’t going to cut myself anymore. But it had all been for show. Last night, I’d let him in, let myself think or wish that maybe he cared about me a little bit. But he didn’t care about me. So this time, I yanked my wrists away.

  “Don’t touch me,” I snarled. I started walking back down the street.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Colt sounded exasperated and now the bastard was following me, but I kept walking. I’d get to the main road, and if he was still following me, I’d start screaming that I had a stalker.

  He was faster then me, though, and those long legs of his were able to keep up with me easily. “Where are you going?” he demanded.

  “Away from you.”

  “Olivia, would you stop for one fucking second? You’re bleeding.”

  I looked down to see he was right. There were streams of blood sliding down my wrists and staining the sleeves of my shirt.

  “I don’t care.” I yanked the fabric down, trying to press the material against my cuts to stop them from bleeding. “Do you know what you’ve done to me? My life is ruined because of you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about this!” I reached into my bag and pulled out the card that Caleb had given me. I waved it around. “The FBI, Colt.” It was fucked up, but I enjoyed watching the look of anger and confusion that began to cloud his face. “Yup, that’s right,” I said. “They’re looking into Loose Cannons. And they said if I don’t help them, they’re going to come after me.”

  The whole thing was so surreal it was ridiculous, and I began to laugh and cry at the same time, and then I was running again, running and running and Colt let me go all the way down the hill, even though I could hear him behind me, catching up to me easily, and when I got to the end of the street, I almost ran onto the main street, almost ran right into traffic.

  That’s when he grabbed me from behind, around the waist, and picked me up off the ground, lifting me easily, like I was a feather. I elbowed him in the ribs as hard as I could, but he held me steady.

  I elbowed him again, and then I started to kick him, but my kicks were ineffectual against him, he was so strong and big and he just didn’t care.

  “Olivia,” he kept saying. “Olivia. Olivia, please, Olivia.”

  He let me struggle and thrash for another minute or so and then there was no more hysterical laughing, I was just crying, the kind of crying that once you started was almost impossible to stop, and he set me down and I turned around and my head was on his chest and he was smoothing my hair with his hand. “Shhh,” he said. “Shhh, baby, you’re okay. It’s okay.”

  But I wasn’t okay.

  I was never going to be okay again.

  “Colt,” I said, and my knees were weak. “Colt, he was… he wasn’t…”

  “Shh,” he whispered soothingly, and his hands were still smoothing my hair.

  “It was all a lie,” I whispered. “Everything I thought, it was all just a big lie.”

  And then he was wiping my tears with his thumbs, and he was leaning in close to me, and then somehow his lips were on my skin, kissing my tears off my cheeks, forehead, my chin.

  The whole time I was still sad and devastated and I couldn’t believe it about Declan, couldn’t believe that this whole time everything I’d thought would save me wasn’t real.

  But underneath that crushing disappointment, the emotion that welled up and overtook it was relief.

  Relief and happiness.

  Happiness that Colt was here.

  I pushed my body into his and he pulled back and looked deep into my eyes and then he was kissing me again, this time on my lips, and his kiss was getting hotter and more insistent, and I wanted to drown myself in his touch.

  My nails dug into his back and I was pushing myself into him, and I could feel my body igniting into a flame, that’s how badly I wanted to lose myself in him.

  He pulled back and his chest was heaving.

  “Colt,” I whispered. “What am I going to do?”

  His answer was immediate. “You’re going to come home with me.”

  * * *

  The car ride back to Colt’s apartment was silent, controlled.

  I stared out the window, not crying, not laughing, not upset, not happy, not anything.

  I was numb.

  Once we arrived at his apartment, Colt closed the door and locked it behind him, then tossed his keys onto the kitchen counter.

  His eyes slid down my body to my wrists. My cuts had stopped bleeding, but the bandages hung in tatters around my wrists. Colt disappeared down the hallway and returned with a washcloth. He ran it under the warm water and then he washed the dried blood off my skin, pulling the ruined bandages off and tossing them into the garbage.

  My cuts were still r
aw, but they were already heading, the new skin already starting to form over the wounds.

  “You need to eat something.”

  I shook my head. “No, I don’t.”

  “You’ve been through a lot today.”

  “I don’t need food,” I whispered, and I raised my eyes to his, and I felt myself falling into his eyes, tumbling over and over, not caring about anything but him.

  He knew what I wanted.

  I could tell from the look on his face that was wrestling with it inside of himself.

  I wanted to fuck. I wanted him inside of me, wanted him pushing into me, taking me, making me forget.

  But he was struggling with the implications of that, of what he could give me, of what he could promise me. He didn’t want to hurt me anymore than he already had.

  What he didn’t understand was that if he didn’t take me, if he didn’t kiss me and fuck me and take over my body, then he would be hurting me even more.

  I didn’t need a promise from him.

  I needed a release.

  And he was the only one who could give it to me.

  “Fuck, Olivia,” he said, and then he was crossing the room to me and he was pushing up against me, pushing my back against the counter, the same way he’d done that morning, but this time he wasn’t teasing, he wasn’t pretending, he wasn’t doing it just to torture me.

  This time I could tell he was going to finish what he started.

  He cupped my chin in his hand and rubbed the pad of his thumb over my bottom lip. “You want to fuck, baby?” he murmured, and I loved it, loved the sexy way he was talking to me, loved the dirty words he was saying.

  They pulsed through me, his touch, his words, scorching my veins and making me feel alive in a way no one else ever had.

  I nodded.

  “Say it then.”

  “I want to fuck.”

  He licked his bottom lip and then he swallowed, and I could see his Adam’s apple bob and a his jawline hardened and then he was pushing into me again, and this time he was grinding on me, his cock already hard through his pants.