The right thing to do would be to tell Mrs. Ching everything.
But Kat was afraid.
Bobby was a bully and she didn’t want to be his next target. The kids in her class still treated Annie like an outcast after Bobby and his gang had tripped her in PE and she’d broken her nose. Now her nose was crooked and she got teased for it all the time.
Involving herself with the Ben mess would be buying herself a two-year ticket to hell. School was bad enough without having Bobby giving her swirlies and trying to extort money from her.
Ben’s pitiable face flashed in front of her and she wavered. Why did she have a conscience? Why? Why couldn’t she be detached? Why was she always sticking her nose into everything?
Absorbed in herself, Kat was surprised when the lights came on and she saw her mother’s foreboding visage. Hiding the cookie wrapper under her pillow, she slipped under the covers.
“Why’re you up? You have school tomorrow.” Mom clicked her tongue.
Kat shoved her body deeper into the bed. “I was sleeping.”
“You weren’t.”
The weight of her mother’s body sank into the mattress.
“Go. I’m sleeping,” Kat cried, worried her mother would know she was eating junk food at night. The cookie thing was a secret between her father and her.
“What’s bothering my princess?” Pulling down the covers, her mother exposed her. Thankfully, she’d licked away all the chocolate marks from her lips.
Kat resisted the urge to blurt it out and ask for advice. No. Bad idea. Adults didn’t have a clue about middle-school politics and she didn’t have the patience to explain. “Nothing.”
“Something is.” Leaning closer, her mom searched her eyes. “A boy?”
“Do you know Ben in my class?” Kat couldn’t keep it in anymore.
“The one whose mother we met at the church last Sunday?”
“Uh-huh.” Kat moved her head like she was dribbling a football. “He’s in trouble. Someone’s been bullying him since the beginning of the year and it’s gotten really bad. I want to say something to Mrs. Ching, but I don’t want to get into trouble.”
Her mother rubbed her chin with her knuckles. “Sounds like a difficult situation.”
“Keeping my mouth shut about it shouldn’t be so hard, right?” Not doing something was supposed to be easy.
Her mom’s hair ticked her neck as she was pulled into an embrace. “I remember when I was in high school, one of my friends was in trouble because of a boy, too. She didn’t have the courage to tell anybody about what he did to her and it kept making her miserable. She started skipping school and doing… dangerous things.”
Drawing a pillow and squishing it between her crossed arms, Kat blinked. “What did you do?”
“I told her parents what had happened.”
“Then? Did they do something?”
“Yes, but more importantly, I felt better. And once the worst was over with, she felt better too.” Her mother brushed Kat’s hair behind her ears. “The thing that makes people happiest is knowing that they’re not alone. That somebody cares about them enough to stand up for them. If you stand up for someone, they’ll remember for the rest of their life.”
Goosebumps rose over Kat’s skin. Surely her mom was onto something here. “Do you think I should do something, then?”
She faced up, uncertainly.
“I can’t tell you what to do. You must always make tough decisions with your heart.” Placing one palm on her chest, her mother said, “In your heart, there is never any confusion. Everything is always clear.”
“It is.”
The next day at school, Kat blurted out everything to Mrs. Ching after class and felt a huge wave of relief. She didn’t know whether it would change anything, but what she knew for sure was that it made her feel lighter. Better.
Ben caught up with her between classes and muttered, “Thank you,” with the most grateful expression on his face and Kat felt like she’d accomplished something very great.
That night, she finally slept.
Present
Former US Representative Alex Summer exited the Northern Manhattan mayoral forum with a defeated sigh.
For two hours, he’d listened to his competitors, fielded uncomfortable questions, tried to convince the public that he was the man they needed in city hall and pasted the widest fake grin on his face. Now he could relax.
Frown. Curse. Be himself. And curse some more.
His pulse was flying in the late hundred and fifties, but returning to normal slowly. Public speaking and politics made his pulse race.
It wasn’t because he was nervous. Just the opposite. Politics excited Alex so much, he couldn’t help the rush of adrenaline that streamed through his system every time he talked about the ideas he had for New York City, the issues closest to his heart and the strategies he hoped to implement.
People who’d been in the political arena for twenty years didn’t usually have that kind of excitement and optimism. Newbies half his age were twice as jaded as him. And why wouldn’t they be? Congress’s approval rating was the lowest in recorded history. The gulf between the public and the elected was growing. The private life of his fellow politicians was the stuff tabloid dreams were made of. National politics was becoming a circus that it made Keeping Up with the Kardashians look meek in comparison.
So much was going wrong… but so much was going right.
He would always dwell on the positive. It was too easy to get sucked into the negative. If there was something his hard beginning had taught him, it was that he had no choice but to look on the brighter side.
But despite that hard-won maturity, Alex was feeling very destructive right now. And turbulent.
Today’s forum had gone badly. He’d lost his cool over an attack from one of the panelists regarding his priorities for the city. Alex never lost his temper, his composure, his armor of control, but when he did, the guilt and fear afterward wasn’t a pretty sight.
If that wasn’t enough, he’d broken up with his girlfriend of nine months after running into her giving his campaign aide a blowjob.
Not the best day of his life, really.
Raising his chin to the sky, Alex opened his mouth wide to take a gulp of air straight into his chest. It did nothing to deter the activity crowding his brain. Restless emotions lapped against his chest.
Damn it! That image of Alicia’s puffy lips sucking Antonio’s dick was so firmly lodged inside his head, shaking it off was a task.
All his youth he’d struggled to be loved and now at forty-six, he still was struggling to find a place where he could belong, somebody to whom he could belong. Somebody who would belong to him.
In his thirties, he’d given up on relationships, as many unlucky men did, but his forties had renewed his optimism. Maybe because he had so little to lose at this point.
Past eleven pm, there wasn’t much of a crowd at Broadway Junction. Homeless people, holding cardboard signs and empty Starbucks cups lined his path. He tossed them a dollar each as he passed through.
“Thanks,” one of them mumbled weakly.
Alex swiped his MetroCard, then packed himself into a train before the steel doors melded into each other.
The train rocked and screeched, turning a bend.
His phone rang. He pressed the red button to ignore the call from his campaign treasurer.
For the next hour, he needed peace.
Kat knew she should’ve taken a cab.
But no, she’d decided that today was the day she was going to save money by taking the subway. So now she was standing at an almost-deserted platform, looking around and trying to convince herself that she was safe.
The next northbound A train was due six minutes from now. Not such a long wait, but anything could happen in six minutes.
When a man appeared and walked to her with a friendly smile, Kat breathed in relief. A nice co-passenger. She could use that.
But her relief fizz
led out as he got closer.
That wasn’t friendliness twinkling in his eyes. It was lust. Goosebumps pimpled on her flesh as he reached her, flashed a blood-curdling smile, and put his hand on her shoulder.
Please let him not cause any trouble. Please let me get back home safely.
His mouth opened and released a foul smell—alcohol mixed with God knew what else. But she would even forgive his bad odor if he let go of her.
“Hey, sugar.” His fingers were grimy when they slid over her arm. Kat shivered in part fear, part revulsion. From the way he slurred, he was drunk way over his tolerance limit. “You. Such a sweet little thing you are…”
“What do you want?” she asked, hoping it was money and not something else.
When he reached down and removed the belt holding his low-slung jeans in place, Kat ended up shouting, “Take all my money! I have two hundred dollars.”
“No money. I want your sweet little cunt around my dick.” He tried to drop his pants.
She swore her heart stopped. Waves of numbness reached her brain and for a moment, she was so appalled, she could’ve cried.
But she wouldn’t panic. Panic froze reflexes. And she needed everything intact to wriggle out of this sticky situation.
Grabbing her purse, that was riding on her shoulders, Kat it and pushed it between them. He batted it away and his large hands pinned her to a pillar. Her hipbone shook at the impact. Before she could adjust to the pain, his mouth descended on her skin. Her heart jumped out of her chest.
God, how had she ended up alone with a pervert?
“Listen, I know it’s late at night.” Forming every syllable with excruciating effort, Kat kept fear from getting into her voice. “But there’s no reason to be unpleasant.”
“I swear you have the sexiest mouth I’ve seen.” His gaze let her know where he was imagining that mouth being.
Sweat dripped down her neck. The fact that the temperature was over a ninety today helped.
“Look, don’t do this. Sexual assault is a crime. I know you’re drunk, but try to use your head for a second. Do you want to go to prison because of a poor choice? No, right?”
Hunting around with her eyes, Kat tried to locate someone who could help her. Where were the police when you needed them?
He pressed her into the wall, a forceful thrust. With the buffer of her bag gone, the impact rattled her shoulder. She felt something snap. Better not be a bone, or she was screwed. Ache seized the back of her neck.
“Fuck you. Fuck everybody.” He squinted at her, then in a fit of fury, produced something that drained the blood from her face. A gun.
Anxiety rode her. Every single muscle in her body clenched when the cold barrel contacted the spot between her breasts. She could’ve cried. Actually, she would’ve, if she hadn’t been scared that it would startle him and he’d end up pulling the trigger by mistake. He didn’t look in control of himself at all.
“I know you’re a good person deep down. Please think this though...” Words died on her tongue, when he bellowed.
“Shut up!”
As if on cue, the silver body of the northbound A train chugged to a halt. The lights up front blinked and startled her assaulter. His hand fell away.
This was her chance.
Taking a risk, Kat got away from his reach.
Then, as soon as the metal doors parted, she rushed in as fast as her feet would carry her.
The bang bang of heels against the train car’s floor startled Alex and ended the meditative state that he’d fallen into.
A swish of hot air pummeled into his face and a woman scrambled in. She grabbed the metal rod to the right of the door immediately. Her shoulder showed bruising; he could see that because the neck of her blouse was wide. In her eyes, horror blinked.
Alex shouldn’t be noticing irrelevant details like how lush her eyelashes were or how plump her lips were, or how symmetrical her face shape was at a time like this, but he did. The curse of being a visually-oriented man.
“Sugar...”
She was tailed by a drink man, loosely holding a gun. Alex didn’t believe in superstitions, but meeting a drunk stranger with a gun on public transport was never a good sign. He waited and watched, not sure he wanted to witness this particular incident.
The woman attempted to hurry to a seat, but the man behind her was faster in thrusting her shoulder against the closed door.
She whimpered in pain, looking too exhausted to scream or cry when the man put his hands all over her and tugged the waistband of her jeans down.
In no time, the steel barrel was digging into her forehead. Shit just got real.
Great. The one day he’d decided to take the subway was the exact day some psycho showed up and tried to rape a woman.
The gunman’s yellowed teeth edged close to her spray of red hair. “Drop your bag.”
Alex’s eyes widened and adrenaline jumped into his bloodstream.
She dropped her bag immediately when prodded once more with a shove of the gun, but her stance remained defiant. Her eyes glowed with calmness now, not fear.
Her back descended onto a seat when the gun barrel plunged deeper into her freckled skin.
The guy leaned over her with a leery smile, his hand pinned on her shoulder, which must hurt like hell after that painful shove against the metal bar.
He reached with his calloused fingers to unbutton her jeans, then murmured close to her ear, “Spread your legs, sugar.”
The woman gulped and her eyes shifted around, stopping on Alex. It was only a brief flash, but when the lush green of her irises met his with a plea, Alex knew he was going to do something stupid.
He had two choices. Call 911 or act on his own. The first would involve talking and it would reveal his presence. The second was dangerous and the outcome unpredictable. Sure, he was a black belt in karate, but he didn’t specialize in dealing with armed combatants.
Under any other circumstances, Alex would have chosen the first option. The safe option. The sensible option. The non-violent option.
But today was not a normal day. Today, his willpower was wearing thin and frustration buzzing in his veins. When she passed him another damsel-in-distress look, an inexplicable urge to protect her, to rip away those hands that were hurting her bit him like a snake. Its venom was in his veins before he could catch himself lunging at the assailant from behind and knocking the gun from his hands.
Thrusting into his backbone with a punch, Alex waited for him to stumble and turn, then stabbed his chest with an elbow. The man didn’t retaliate.
He was weak. Not trained. Probably a first-time offender. Which was a pity, because he’d been looking for a bloodier fight tonight.
“Don’t stand there. Call the police!” he threw his voice over to the green-eyed woman.
Dazed, she pushed back a handful of hair from her forehead and rummaged around her bag for her phone, her brows furrowing when fifteen seconds later she had still not found her phone.
Why some people were stupid enough to put their phones in a bag that size was beyond him. “Hurry up!” Alex said, pushing the man face down onto the ground, twisting his arms behind his back.
“I’m trying. Ouch!” she replied, then finally found her phone and with shaky fingers pressed some buttons. As she mumbled hurried words, Alex kept his attention on the man in front of him.
Wouldn’t want the loser getting away.
Around fifteen minutes later, they got off at Ultica Avenue and NYPD officers arrived on the scene. Alex handed over the assaulter, answered questions, showed an ID proof, and gave a statement.
Then, because the officer on duty was bothered about the redhead’s health, they called an ambulance for her and suggested that he go, too, because he’d managed to get some scratches on his cheek.
And just like that, an already bad day got worse.
The ambulance ride to the hospital was supposed to be short, but it had been ten minutes and they were still not there.
> “How much longer?” Kat asked the driver, projecting her voice over the wailing siren.
“Not much,” the driver assured.
Kat’s nose twitched. ‘Not much’ was an imprecise quantity. It could mean anything from one minute to twenty minutes. What she wanted was a number, so she could count it in her head while trying to forget that she was sitting in an ambulance with Alex Summer after having been almost raped on the subway.
Shuddering at the thought, she curled her toes. Forgetting about it would be best.
Alex was quiet, trying to keep his gaze away from her, which was hard to do, when they were sitting in such a small space.
What he’d done for her had been really brave. He deserved a medal for it, in her opinion.
When she was feeling less irritable, she’d thank him. But right now, the only thing she wanted to do was cuss. Loudly.
Her head, shoulder, legs hurt like they were being plucked away from her body, piece by piece, with forceps. The gun had scratched her head, and the cut was bleeding.
But the worst was her shoulder. Definitely broken. Ugh. Yep, definitely.
Kat pushed her legs forward so her hip could get closer to the back of the seat, but her heel ended up tapping Alex’s foot.
“You okay?” Alex turned to her.
“Surviving.” Kat groaned.
His gaze dangled on her, casually, but she felt a powerful pull from their midnight depths. “What’s your name again?”
She’d seen Alex so many times before, in photos, videos, even live, but never up close.
None of the approximations lived up to him.
From a distance, he was charismatic, handsome, even magnetic, but up close he was impossible to take her eyes off.
He had an interesting face, not photogenic, but very rough and macho, which was an unusual facial structure for a politician. There were a few lines on his forehead, an indication of his age, and a gritty stubble lined his jaw.
His head was smooth and clean shaven, which served to highlight his chiseled cheekbones and chin.
But his most striking feature was his unadulterated masculinity. The usual lineup of conservative suits, shirts and trousers he opted for tried hard to disguise it, but his maleness was so powerful, so potent, nothing could cage it. When he looked into her, there was no mistaking who he was. What he was.
In my Arms Tonight (NYC Singles Book 2) Page 3