“Never mind, Reed. I’m very sleepy.” Then her eyes close.
I move her around to lie the right way on the bed, she’s still wearing my mother’s flower covered nightgown so I leave it on her as she must be exhausted.
As I go to clean myself up, I can’t help but think about how this will all play out. Rod is not one to come around and play nice.
Not ever!
Chapter 21
JENNA
My body aches as I lie in the bed and see the early morning light streaming through the white curtains of the small room Reed rented for us. I can hear him in the bathroom.
He opens the door and smiles at me as I lie in bed. “Hey there, sleepy head.” He comes and kisses my cheek. “I thought I’d let you rest while I go grab us some breakfast from the café. How about a couple of breakfast tacos?”
“Mmm. Yes, that sounds good. I could use a few more winks before I get going today.” I stretch a little and he gives me one more kiss.
“I’ll be back in about an hour so you can rest. I’ll gas up the car and get ready to go to the airport. Sleep, Angel.” He leaves and I hear the deadbolt lock and close my eyes.
Softly his hand runs over my back as I lie on my stomach. “Back already? That didn’t seem like an hour. I feel like I barely fell back asleep.”
I roll over and nearly have a heart attack. “Rod!” I have on a nightgown but I grab the blanket and pull it up to cover myself even more. “How did you get in here?”
“I know the chic at the front desk and she gave me a key. You and I need to talk,” he stands up and pulls out his wallet.
I watch him and have no idea what I need to be doing to ensure not only my safety but Reed’s too. Rod pulls a folded piece of paper out of his wallet and opens it then hands it to me. “Remember when you signed this?”
I place the contract on the bed without looking at it and look straight into his eyes. “I do. I was a dumb kid then. I’m not anymore. The fact is, you wouldn’t even like me now. So just be glad I’m not wanting you back.”
A grin covers his heavily bearded face. His hair is really short on the sides and kind of long on top. He’s covered in tattoos and his beard is thick and long.
He barely looks like the same man.
“We both know I can get you back to the way I want you.” He sits back down on the side of the bed. “That’s not a problem. Tell me why you left our home.”
I glare at him. “How was I to keep it? And tell me why I would even want to. You left me without a word. Not a note, nothing. So why would I stay? And for over two years at that.”
“Because you belong to me. I knew you went off to college, and I was okay with that. I thought you’d know to come back here and get a job until I came for you. You came back just like I knew you would. My plan was to come for you this summer and take you with me. Only you found my baby brother, didn’t you?” He reaches out to touch my face.
I pull back so he can’t. “No! You do not touch me. I’m not going to allow you to touch me. Not ever again. You hurt me. You have no idea what your leaving like that did to me. I had no idea if you were alive or anything. I had to worry for what felt like forever. Then one day it went away a little and a little more each day until I just didn’t think about you anymore.”
“Why would you do that? I never stopped thinking about you. I never stopped dreaming about the day I could come get you and take you with me. On the road with my gang.” He smiles. “You’re going to have a rough time at first. The women are tough as shit. But I know you can gain their respect. You’re tough and fearless.”
I shake my head. “What makes you think I want to be a part of a motorcycle gang? I’m going to be a kindergarten teacher, Rod. I’m not biker chic material.”
“You are my woman and as such you will be what I want you to be. So if I say you need to fit in with my new lifestyle then you will do as I say. I will train you just like I did before.” He reaches for me again and I move away from him.
“You should leave before Reed gets back.”
“You are mine. And I will show him that.” He grabs my wrist and pulls me up to him.
His face is too close to mine. I can smell the cigarettes and some kind of liquor, maybe tequila. “If you think you’re going to force yourself on me you better know I will file rape charges on your ass. I swear it. You’ll have to kill me for that not to happen. Get me?”
He lets me go and stands up with a laugh. “See, you are tough. You just need to come back to me for a little while and you’ll fall right back into place.”
“I’m marrying Reed. I’m not going to hang with you to see if I want that back because I know I don’t. To be honest that was never a life I wanted. I accepted it because I was young and dumb and I loved you for reasons now I can’t really figure out. You were wild and dangerous and a thing no grown woman wants in her life. Not this one anyway.” I shift in the bed and realize I don’t have any underwear on and that makes me feel a bit vulnerable but I try hard not to let my face show that.
Rod looks down at me. “Mom gave me the ring I gave you when I asked you to marry me and you said yes. Want to explain to me why you gave it to her?”
“Because I was done with you. I waited nearly a month at the house for you and two more months at my parents. When I decided to go away to college, I wanted to leave it all behind me. So I gave the ring to your mother. It’s a lot better than tossing the mother fucking thing that in my opinion you gave not one care about.” I pull the blanket up even tighter around me.
He pulls the ring out of his pocket. “I’m here to get that ring off your finger and this one back on it.”
“You’ll play hell doing that, Rod.” I stare right into his eyes. “You see, Reed will be back soon and he will beat your ass if he finds you here. And I will do everything I can to help him do that.” I hold my left hand up next to my face. “So jump if you feel froggy, asshole!”
His steel-blue eyes light up and his eyebrows go up high. “Wow! See, you are tough. And I made you that way. I do deserve a little appreciation don’t you think?”
“You also made me have trust issues. You also made me have nightmares about how you strung me up for hours on end and did things to my body until I was crying and asking you to stop.”
His smile goes only over half his mouth. “That was no nightmare, that did happen. More than a few times. But I recall you agreeing to that. I recall reaching into your pussy and finding it wet and throbbing after those kinds of things. I recall you begging to suck my dick after those things. What is it you recall, Jenna?”
“I recall feeling weak. I recall thinking I had to make you happy because you weren’t. I recall thinking if I could just make you feel loved you would soften up some. And for the last part of our time together you were softer. Not entirely but you weren’t exactly that hard man you were in the beginning. But those things you did to me did scar me deeper than the flesh wounds you gave me with your punishments.”
His eyes narrow and he looks down. “If things were better, and I was more like the man you wanted me to be then why did you move on?”
With a sigh, I say, “Because even the man you had become wasn’t what I wanted. When I was eighteen and started things with you, I had no idea what I wanted. All I knew is that you had wanted me for two years and that was pretty awesome in my young and naïve eyes.”
“So you never wanted me?” He looks at me with sad eyes.
And that look used to get me every time but not this time. “That would be a lie. I did want you. I did want to make you happy and so I did the things you told me you needed. And still you fucked other women. And still you left me without a word. So my heart hardened. I learned how to harden a lot of things thanks to your training, Rod. So now you will reap the rewards of a job well done. You wanted me to be hard and now I am.”
“And turned against me. Your owner. And if you think I’m going to let this go, you're very wrong. I’m going to leave so I don’t have to de
al with my little brother. But you and I are not done.” After picking up the contract off the bed, he walks toward the door then stops and turns back. “See you soon, Baby.”
As I watch him walk out the door all the strength in me fades away so quickly it’s unreal. My body begins to shake and I jump up and lock the door back and also close the latch inside so even if he uses the key, he can’t get back in.
I managed to escape that little interaction unscathed, but that was close. I think he could see in my eyes that I wouldn’t go down easy and the tiger in me showed itself, I think.
But I don’t even want to know if I could actually fend him off or not. I’d rather never find that out.
I go and pick up the phone to call the front desk and hear a friendly female answer, “Hello, how can I help you this morning?”
“Are you the bitch who gave Rod Manning a key to this room?” I ask, trying to keep my tone sharp.
“No,” she hangs up and I call the other number on the phone. The one that says if you have any problems please call.
“Good morning, Arizona Lodging Corporation. How can I help you this morning?”
“Hello, my name is Jenna Foster. My fiancé rented a room here at your Jerome location and I’d like to report that the woman who is working at the front desk this morning gave a key to another man and he entered our room. I suppose that’s frowned upon in your business. Is it not?”
“Oh my goodness! Are you okay, Mam?”
“I am. But the man she let in and I have a very bad past. He used to beat me. So I was very scared. I’d hate to see anyone else go through what I just did. I can count on you to take care of this situation without my needing to involve the authorities, can’t I?”
“Of course! I’ll have the manager there soon and that employee will be fired immediately. And your stay with us will be free of charge, of course. Please don’t go to anyone else with this issue. I’d hate it if our lodging in Jerome got bad publicity for one woman’s poor decision.”
“Me too. I will be checking in with the manager before we leave a little later today to be sure this was dealt with. Thank you. Goodbye.”
“Bye,” she says then I hang up feeling a little better about this thing.
Where Rod is concerned I will pull no punches. I will take everything illegal or bad thing he does and flip it around on him.
If he thinks I’m going to go down all easy, he has another think coming.
Reed or no Reed, I will never go down that path with Rod or any man ever again.
Not ever!
The room’s phone rings again. I answer, “Hello.”
“Hello, Miss Foster, this is Lynette Jones, the manager here. I have Trisha Steen here with me and she tells me she did not give anyone a key to your room.”
I frown and then get mad. Really mad. “So you’re taking her word over mine?”
“I don’t know what else I can do, Miss Foster.”
“Tell me how many keys you have to this particular room, Mrs. Jones.”
She seems to be thinking then she says, “We gave you and your fiancé two of them. That leaves one we keep up here in the key box. So three.”
“Look in the key box and see if that one is there, please,” I say and look my fingernails over as I wait.
I can hear her tell the woman to open the box so I add, “I need you to look. Obviously, she will say it’s there.”
“Oh, yes. Hang on then.” The phone clanks a bit as she puts it down. “I need to do that, Trisha.” I hear clicking sounds and then I hear a gasp. “Trisha, no!” Disappointment fills her voice.
Then I hear Trisha. “Aunt Lynn, I didn’t give it to him. I swear it. I don’t know where the key is!”
“Trisha, how could you? Everyone in this town knows about Rod Manning and Jenna Foster. Everyone knows about that time he pushed her all over their yard and the police had to come. How could you put her in jeopardy like that?”
Trisha is stammering and making no sense then I hear her say, “He made me. He told me he’d teach me good if I didn’t give him the key.”
Then my heart aches for her. But it doesn’t mean she should get off scot-free.
When the manager gets back on the phone she’s apologizing like crazy. I stop her. “Look, I know he’s intimidating. I heard her and I do believe her. But something has to be done to show her how she can handle something like that if it ever happens again. So please see to it that some kind of measures can be taken to teach not only her but your other employees how to handle a situation like that. Perhaps something as simple as teaching them to say there are no other keys to the rooms.”
“Yes, Mam. And your stay is on us. There will be no charges at all.”
“We were here two months,” I say as I can’t possibly imagine them comping the whole time.
“I’m aware of that and the entire stay is on us. Thank you for staying with us and when you visit again I hope you will consider staying with us again. I am very sorry and this incident will help us to form a protocol for just this kind of thing. I am so sorry and so is my niece.”
“Thank you. I’m sorry he did that to her.” I hang up and feel even more awful that he would do that to anyone just to get to me.
Does he draw no lines?
Chapter 22
REED
As I try to open the door to our room I find the inside lock is latched.
“Reed?” Jenna calls out.
“Yes, it’s me.”
She comes and opens it and nearly falls into my arms. “Thank God!”
“Are you that hungry, Jenna?” I laugh a little as she wraps her arms around me.
But then I feel her body shaking as she hugs me.
I move with her and set the drinks and bag of food down and pick her up. “What’s wrong?”
“Rod,” then the tears start again.
“Jenna, you have to get a hold of yourself. You can’t let him get to you like this.” I run my hand through her hair.
She takes her face off my chest and looks up at me. “He was here, Reed. The girl at the front desk gave him a key, and he got in here.”
My body goes instantly hot. “No fucking way! That bitch is getting fired!”
“I already took care of that and we don’t have to pay for our stay here. And the reason she did it is that he intimidated her into it. But they’re going to figure out some way to train their employees not to let that happen again,” she says then buries her face back in my chest and wraps her arms tightly around me.
“What did he do to you?” I hold her tight and fight the urge to leave to go find him.
“Nothing. He didn’t do anything to me. Just told me he wants me back. That kind of thing.” A shiver runs through her.
“Bet there’s a lot more to it than that,” I say as I hold her back and make her look at me. “I need to know it all. What happened with you two in the past? Don’t leave anything out.”
The way she looks up at me makes my heart hurt. I know it’s bad and I know she doesn’t want to relive this but I have to know.
She moves off my lap and climbs under the blanket and leans against the headboard. “Reed, I’m afraid you won’t be able to respect me if I tell you what I allowed.”
“You were young and inexperienced. I promise you there’s not a thing you can say to me that will make me lose respect for you. I respect who you are today. That young woman is not you anymore. And I wouldn’t even ask you to do this but I don’t want Rod to think he can make you stay quiet about what he’s done to you.” I move around on the bed and give her my full attention.
She bites her bottom lip then she looks down. “Not long after we moved in together Rod asked me to enter into a contract with him. A submissive/slave contract where he was the dominate. It said in the contract that he owned me.”
The way my stomach tightens and rolls makes me want to throw up. “I see.”
She keeps looking down. “I wasn’t going to sign it. I really wasn’t. But he had anoth
er woman come to the house, and she was ready to take that offer. She was ready and willing to do whatever he wanted right then and there. So I told him I’d do it. I signed it and became his property.”
“That’s not even legal. But I get what you’re saying. So this contract was for life then?” I ask and have to fight nausea.
She nods. “And it came with rules and punishments for breaking them. And conditioning my body to accept pain.”
I run my hand over the blanket where her legs are. She can’t look at me it seems. “Jenna, what did he do to you?”
“That first night right after I signed the contract he bound my hands and hung me up on a hook he’d put up on the wall in our bedroom. A hook like you’d hang a robe on. Only robes never hung there. Only me.” She has to close her eyes, and a tear runs down her cheek.
“I know this is hard.” I run my hand up her arm and over her cheek to wipe the tear away.
She opens her eyes but doesn’t look at me. “He got out his leather belt and told me to say the safe word only after the pain was enough to make me cry. I was able to take five lashes before that happened. And he was pleased with that.”
My heart is pounding and I wish that was all the fucker had done to her, but I know it couldn’t have been. “And after that?”
“He had sex with me while I was still strung up. And while I was still crying.” She closes her eyes again. “That was not the worst thing he ever did to me. It was just the first thing. It sticks out because of that, I guess.”
“So he hit you often?”
She nods. “For the first few months of the contract, it was every day. To get my body in condition he said. And when I made little infractions of his rules it got more intense. Nipple clamps, collars that were tight and large. They made me very uncomfortable, you know.”
“I can imagine. And you were incapacitated when he did those things?”
“Yes, strung up so I couldn’t get away from him. Do you remember that New Year’s Even when we all went to that bar and you left early?” she asks me as she looks into my eyes.
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