I Need You Here

by Cynthia P. O'Neill

  “So is Tony your real uncle?”

  She shook her head. “No. He’s like an uncle to me. My father had no siblings and my mother only has a sister. Tony was part of my parents’ first team. Not many people know about him, because he dropped out shortly before I was born and formed his own private security company. Have you ever heard of Olympus-Titan Security? They provide personal security and a wide variety of security systems. Their bodyguards are usually former Special Forces, and their products are among the most advanced security systems in the world.”

  I nodded, not believing what I was hearing. “We had them set up our new security features at work. They come highly recommended by Ethan. I wish you could have sent some kind of word to me through the security company.”

  Her face fell and her hand covered my heart, “I couldn’t risk any chance of losing you. If Liam had intercepted anything, he’d have had you killed and I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself.”

  I understood completely. I’d felt the same way about her. “So, you went out to lunch and?”

  “Uncle Tony took me to a nice pizzeria a few miles away. We made small talk over lunch and when the bill came, he paid the waiter, but the receipt stayed on the table. I looked at it and realized there was a note for me. I was to go into the middle stall in the ladies room.”

  She shifted back, laying on my chest and staring up into my eyes as she continued her tale. “I excused myself and went to the bathroom, taking my purse with me. I’d found a backpack, a set of clothes, a wig, and a list of instructions to follow. So I changed quickly, taking only my tablet and the remaining burner phone from my purse, before tossing it and the clothes I’d been wearing in the trash. I wiped all the makeup off my face and slipped on the short wig, pulled on the hoodie, and placed the baseball cap on backwards. I grabbed the backpack, along with the skateboard that had been left in the corner and headed for the back exit.”

  “No way. You’d dressed like a boy?” I was in awe at everything she was telling me. I knew she’d lived it and I hated that she’d gone through so much, but it felt more like a fictional story than reality.

  She nodded. “Yes. The clothes were so baggy on me, that no one was the wiser. I almost got caught when I left through the back alleyway. One of Liam’s men was waiting for me. He questioned me, and I told him I worked there as a part-time dishwasher, but needed to get to class. I’d made sure to wet the ends of my sleeves with soap and water, so it’d be convincing if I got stopped. He looked through my bag and saw a History textbook, a cell phone and a tablet, so he let me pass. I got on my skateboard and rolled on out of there. A mile down the road, I was picked up by a contact. All the information, on where to go and who to meet, had been on the inside of the back page of the textbook.”

  “But what about your uncle?”

  “He pretended to be worried, wondering why I hadn’t come out of the bathroom. According to him, he put on the show of a lifetime. He had the restaurant staff, Liam’s goons, and everyone else there, searching for me. It was only later that the goons discovered I’d fled. Tony ended up having to ask Captain Mitchell to threaten Liam’s henchmen with false imprisonment if they didn’t let my uncle leave the restaurant.”

  I knew I loved this woman, but never anticipated having someone so interesting in my life. “So, how did you finally make it to Orlando?”

  “I’d gone to a safe house where their crew made me over with a spray tan, new hair color, contacts, and a new identity––the whole nine yards. I was given just enough clothes to carry, a few dollars to spend, and a few more burner phones. I’d used the one I had to call my father and let him know I’d made it to the first location. I’d told him how Liam knew nothing about Marissa. He agreed it would be the safest place for me to go. The crew gave me a one-way ticket on the bus, Tony arranged for the cab to pick me up at the station. The rest you know.”

  I nodded. I couldn’t believe what a mess this had become all due to Liam. My head was ready to explode and the water was becoming cool. I turned her head toward mine, lifting her chin just enough until our lips met in a gentle kiss. I leaned back, admiring her for a moment. “You’re one incredible woman. I can’t believe all you’ve gone through. I’m just glad that we’re together now.”

  She seemed content in my arms and I hated to move, but we needed to get out of the tub. “I hate to do this to you, love, but we need to wash up and see if we can’t get some more food in you.” It really bothered me to see her so incredibly thin.

  I poured a dollop of her shampoo into my hand and began to wash her hair. “You have me curious, what is your natural hair color?”

  She leaned back letting my fingers caress her scalp. “A couple shades lighter than this with blonde highlights, it’s very similar to your cousin Gianna’s hair color.”

  I could easily imagine that, so could my dick, which was getting harder by the second. I took the handheld sprayer and rinsed Dawn’s hair before lathering and rinsing my own.

  She reached for the washcloth and loaded it full of her body wash, but I grabbed it out of her hands. “Please, allow me.”

  She hesitated, but let me wash her arms, her breasts, and surprisingly her back and legs without any problem. It was only when I approached abdomen and privates that she blocked my attempts to clean her.

  “If you don’t mind, I’d rather do that. I don’t want to tempt you. I can already tell you’re thinking with your other head, it keeps poking me in the backside.” She tried to smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

  She was hiding something from me. Had Liam done something else to her precious body? I wasn’t sure, but I’d be damned if I’d let her keep any more secrets from me.

  I acquiesced, and let her wash her intimate areas. While she wasn’t looking I’d grabbed hold of the hand towel and pulled it closer for what I had in mind. I started rubbing my hands up and down her arms, before sliding it forward and caressing her breasts, tweaking her nipples between my fingers. I was surprised she relaxed into me allowing me to move her hands up, before I took the towel and secured them.

  Dawn jerked and tried to turn around, but I wouldn’t let her. I used my legs to spread hers against the side of the tub and forced her wrists up and over my head, so she couldn’t move. “You asshole!”

  “I could say the same about you, Dawn. You’re hiding something from me. What else did Liam do to you? Tell me know before my hands explore every inch of your body. One way or another, I’m going to find out why you won’t let me touch you there. I don’t like you keeping secrets, especially when I’ve implied that I’m not going anywhere no matter what you tell me.”

  She relaxed in my grasp, no longer fighting me. I leaned forward and pressed one hand through her folds. Nothing felt off, other then her wiggling whenever I touched her clit or pussy. I moved up across her mound, which was still clean-shaven, and then I came across a subtle bump. Could she still be hung up about her weight?

  I leaned forward, running my lips along her neck and nipping at her earlobe. “I don’t see anything wrong with you. So you have a little extra weight here in your lower abdomen. I’d rather see you eat more and get some of your curves back.”

  I continued rubbing my hand over her skin when realization hit. The extra weight was hard underneath her skin. No, please no. Tell me she didn’t have a tumor growing in her. That would explain why she’d lost so much weight, why she was throwing up, and why she was so weak. Fear and panic shot through me, wondering what stage the cancer was, if it had metastasized, and if we’d catch things in time.

  The first question out of my mouth, “Have you seen a doctor?”

  She shook her head. “No. Liam wouldn’t allow me to go to one.”

  “He’d rather see you die of a tumor than to get you help?” I felt my blood boiling deep inside of me. Even that bastard couldn’t be that careless.

  She tried to raise her hands over my head, but I kept them where they were, wanting to feel her as close to me as possible.
“Don’t move, baby, don’t talk, just let me feel you, hold you. I need you here, with me now.”

  We sat there for a moment in silence. I couldn’t take it any longer and finally spoke. “I can’t believe the extremes he went through to keep you near him, he’d prevent you from removing this to save your life.”

  “Can you please untie my wrists, my arms are starting to cramp?”

  I pulled her arms from around my head and untied her wrists. I took each arm and rubbed it briskly to get the circulation flowing. “Is that better, mi amore?”

  She took my hand and placed it on the hardened area of her stomach. “Liam wanted to get rid of this. I wouldn’t let him. He made an appointment to have this taken care of a couple days after I’d escaped. It’s one of the reasons I was in a rush to get away from him. I couldn’t go through with it.”

  Her words left me confused, my mind spun. Why would she not want to have a tumor removed? Was it something worse? Did she know she was going to die and wanted to see her friends one last time?

  My eyes were transfixed on her, as she rose to her knees and turned toward me. “I can see you’re trying to figure things out. You always have that look about you, the one that drives me absolutely wild when your mind is going a mile a minute.”

  I knew my face showed my confusion. She placed a hand on her abdomen, moved it around and then replaced it with mine. I felt a flutter in her belly. I was puzzled at first, but then recognition hit, I’d felt this before on my sister in-law’s stomach.

  I looked up at her, a smile spreading across her face. “I couldn’t allow Liam to force me to get rid of this, to get rid of us.”

  I WATCHED, AS HIS words seem to stick in his throat. Rafe’s eyes kept jumping from my face and my abdomen and back. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he managed, “You’re pregnant?”

  I nodded. “I believe so. I was never able to buy a pregnancy test. I was afraid Liam might suspect I was pregnant”

  “But, how? We’d used condoms that night, a lot of them.”

  It was hard to believe, hell even I’d been shocked and in disbelief. “I know we did, but remember the time you shoved inside of me without one and stayed there for a while?”

  He nodded. “But I didn’t come.”

  “True, but several times throughout the night you had some pre-cum oozing from your tip before you put the condom on.”

  The next words out of his mouth felt like a slap in the face. “Are you sure it isn’t Liam’s?”

  “Damn it, Rafe. I’ve already told you that I never slept with him. Do you think he would be so hell bent on aborting this baby if it was his?” I sat back on my heels, then crossed my arms, and shot him a look daring him to challenge me, which had him cowering back into the corner.

  He dropped his chin to his chest, and I could see the wheels in his mind churning. “You’re almost five months along, right?”

  I nodded. He was finally putting two and two together.

  His head shot up, and a gleam shone in his eyes. “I’m going to be a father!”

  Gee, that was the biggest 180 I’ve ever seen. “You don’t have to be, if you don’t want to. Me being pregnant is just as much my fault as it is yours.”

  He reached for me and pulled me to him, pressing me hard against his chest. “Oh, hell no. Now that I’ve found you and know about our little bit, there’s no way in hell I’m letting you go. You are mine, Dawn, at least you are if you want to be.” His eyes looked into mine, questioning what I wanted.

  “I’m not sure what you’re saying here. Do I want to share responsibility of raising our child together? Sure.”

  He shook his head. “I’m screwing this all up. I wanted to spend time with you, figure out where things went wrong, and why. I was going to woo you and make you never want to leave me again, before asking if you’d be my wife.”

  Oh my freaking God! Those words didn’t just come out of his mouth. The very words that I’d dreamt of every night since I’d first started dating him. The same words that helped me survive, despite the pain Liam inflicted on me. It was those dreams and the hope of holding our child in my arms that kept me going, the only things that made my life worth fighting for.

  “Are you asking what I think you are?” I wasn’t quite sure; it wasn’t exactly a proposal.

  “I’m asking you to commit to me as my wife, the love of my life, the mother of my future child, and hopefully my submissive. I’m hoping you’ll let me be the love of your days and the Master of your nights. I’d planned on doing this right with either a candlelight dinner, or by tying you up and giving you orgasm after orgasm, until you agreed to be mine. I wasn’t sure what would work best, but I’ve wanted to ask you since our first date. I don’t know how, but I knew you were the one for me and no one else would ever complete me the way that you do.”

  His words melted my heart. Only one problem remained––Liam. “What about the very real danger we’re in? Liam is out there searching for me, and he’ll eventually find me. I don’t want to see either of us killed. I don’t want to go through the pain of losing you.”

  He held me in a tight embrace. “No one is guaranteed a life without pain or heartache. The love I feel for you is all consuming, and to not take a chance on what we could have would leave me empty. Kenny made a valid point, that it’s better to have loved and lost then never to experience love at all. I see what he means by that.

  “I know we have no assurance that we’ll come out of this unscathed, but I do know you hold my heart and only you can decide where our path takes us.” He reached for a towel and stood up in the tub, not even bothering to rinse himself off. “Stay right here.”

  I watched as he ran into the bedroom and searched through some drawers. When he returned he got down on one knee. “Dawn, I know this is rather sudden. I don’t know what we can expect out of life, but there is one promise that you’ll always have, that I’ll love you with all of my heart for all eternity. Please make me the luckiest bastard alive by promising that you and our little one will spend a lifetime with me. Marry me?”

  The palm of his hand cradled a light amethyst, heart shaped stone surrounded by diamonds that cascaded down each side of a platinum band. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Your eyes were the inspiration for the design. I commissioned it after you’d returned to Atlanta after Ashley’s wedding. I’d planned to propose when you’d returned. So?” His dark hair was still wet, dripping all over the floor, as the soap bubbles that still clung to his body began sliding into a puddle beneath him. He seemed to be holding his breath waiting for my answer.

  I held out my left hand, ring finger extended, and his eyes lit up with excitement. “Does this mean?”

  I nodded. “I’m not sure about the Master of my nights, we’d only started delving into the whole Dom/sub deal when things when awry. But a huge YES, to everything else; and we can negotiate the rest.”

  He stood up and picked me up from the tub, kissing me silly, until he placed me on the bathmat and began to dry me off. When he reached the area I feared he’d reject, he bent down and kissed our own little creation. “We’re going to come out of this better than ever kiddo. You’ve got my promise that I’ll do whatever it takes to save you and your mom, I love you both so much.” When he did that, I felt the biggest flutter in my stomach to date, which made me smile.

  We both dried off and put on our nightclothes. Neither one of us could sleep, so we talked about our hopes and dreams for the future. One thing that kept bothering us was why Liam was going to such extremes; and how did he have enough money to have bodyguards and the material possessions he’d amassed?

  Rafe pulled out the file he had on Liam, which didn’t include much. I went over it with a fine toothed comb. The fact that he hadn’t existed beyond seven years ago told me his identity was false, that he was using an assumed name.

  I knew my parents were already busy investigating him, thanks to Tony’s help and connections. I just prayed that one of us would
come up with some useful information and quick. The sooner Liam was taken down and out of the picture, the quicker everyone’s lives could return to normal.

  I’d decided to go to the kitchen to get a little bread and peanut butter, one of the few things that sat well on my stomach, and glanced over the report on Liam again. When I picked up a couple of the papers, a few pictures escaped from the folder. “What file do these pictures belong to?”

  Rafe picked the pictures up off the floor and laid them back on the counter, spread out where I could see them more clearly … the men seemed familiar. “I forgot to destroy that part of your family’s file. They’re supposed to be pictures of the leader of the McCavan family, his brother, and one of his henchmen.

  I looked at them a little closer, picking each one up. “I faintly remember the henchman, but this one of Mr. McCavan is sending chills down my spine.”

  Rafe came up beside me, glancing over my shoulder. “Maybe you’re remembering him from your youth?”

  That was a possibility, but I didn’t think that was it. I grabbed hold of Liam’s paperwork again, which sported computer printed copy of his picture on the same sheet as the information. I held the two together and started noticing similarities. The nose, the cheekbones, and the chin were identical; the only difference was the hair and eye color.

  I looked over at Rafe, his eyes running back and forth between the two picks.

  After a moment, I finally asked, “Are you thinking the same thing I am?”

  He nodded. “Could it be possible? Is this our answer?”

  “I can’t say much in concerns with my parent’s work, but I learned a long time ago that anything and everything is possible, no matter how simple it is.”

  Rafe turned me so we faced each other. “Exactly how did you and Liam meet? I have a hunch that it wasn’t just by accident.”

  “I was at the school’s career day, to see if I could get a couple interviews with local companies. I’d seen him sitting at his station with a couple of recruiters, but figured I didn’t know a thing about wealth management and I certainly didn’t want to move to Atlanta.”