Coming In Last

by Shiloh Walker

  The money was from my parents, a trust fund that had been left for me after their deaths. He was rich himself, but the money I’d inherited once I turned twenty-five made his net worth look…paltry. He hadn’t realized that I’d only get yearly lump sums until I was twenty-five. Then I’d receive the bulk of it.

  I’d foolishly let him know about the inheritance that would be mine, but he didn’t clue into the deal about the lump sums until later.

  If I could figure out how to do it, maybe that money would buy my freedom. Sometimes I fantasized about trying to hire somebody to kill him, but I never followed through.

  Other times I thought about buying myself a new life somewhere, a new name.

  I had the money.

  I’d researched how.

  I might even work up the courage to do it.

  Nibbling on my thumbnail, I stared around the edge of the curtain at the man paid to spy on me. He sipped his coffee and stared back. It didn’t even seem to bother him that he was making my life hell.

  Turning my back on him, I shut him out of my mind. At least I tried.

  “Find something else to do,” I told myself. Find another way to get back at him—not the man on the porch. But him. My ex-husband. The man who still sought to control me.

  Almost everything I did was some sort of small, subtle rebellion.

  Coming back to Pawley’s Island, cutting my hair, even the clothes I wore.

  I was running out of new ideas, but even walking barefoot to the beach that was just beyond my porch was something that would have had him furious. That was what I would do, I decided. I’d go to the beach.

  ➅

  I’d pulled on a long flowing skirt and a tank top. Another one of my small rebellions. I looked like a modern-day hippy, my short, choppy hair already disheveled from the ever-present breeze. I’d tied a bandana around my wrist. Once I got to work, I’d need it to keep my hair back, but for now, I loved the feel of the wind.

  With my bag over my shoulder, I headed out the back door. I don’t know how long it would take my shadow to find me. Sooner or later, when I didn’t show up through a window, he’d come looking, but for a little while, I was untethered.

  There was coffee in a thermos and I munched on toast as I walked. Gulls circled overhead and a few came down to land close by, hoping I’d toss down my meager breakfast. They could hope as much as they wanted. They weren’t getting my toast.

  My phone beeped just as I reached the table at the very edge of my property, right before it gave way to sand. It wasn’t quite ten but others were already hitting the beach and as I pulled out my phone, I studied everybody, distrust as much a part of me as the color of my eyes.

  After I’d assured myself that none of them were my ex, I looked at my phone screen. Instinctively, a smile curled my lips.

  It was Seth—or rather a picture.

  He and Marla were standing by one of the kiosks that rented out movies and he was pretending to gag himself while Marla fanned herself with the chosen movie.

  I laughed and texted him back.

  Don’t watch it without me.

  The best thing that had happened since I left Boston had been meeting Seth. The hottest, most intense man I’d ever met, when he knocked on my door, he’d terrified me. He’d been with another equally hot man—his lover at the time—and I’d been so scared, I’d barely been able to vocalize two words.

  They’d known it, too.

  But Seth had refused to leave, insisting that he had something important to tell me. In the end, he’d asked if I could at least meet him at the little coffee shop in town.

  I’d agreed.

  He’d told me that I had to promise to be there, otherwise, he’d just back and knock—and sing very badly—until I agreed to talk to him.

  I’d learned over the years that Seth does sing very badly indeed.

  I also learned that his lover Tony would have been just fine if I hadn’t met them at the coffee shop.

  Seth, though, was a tattooed, tarnished knight, always looking for somebody in distress.

  He had a record, petty theft and other issues that had landed him in jail for a year, but he was trying to turn his life around, going to school, paying bills…he explained all of this upfront, while I sat there, confused and not quite following. Then he told me that my ex-husband had approached him.

  The pieces clicked and fell together as he explained that my ex had tried to bribe him into watching me.

  He lived in the house just across from mine and it would have been a perfect plan, except Seth wasn’t an asshole.

  My heart had knocked against my ribs the entire time and I’d waited, terrified of what he was going to say, even though a part of me already knew. I’d already seen one of the neighbors who was either really into fruit, or just too fixated on me, because he showed up every time I was at the fruit stand to buy more mangos for the smoothies I’d gotten addicted to.

  My ex-husband was having people watch me.

  Seth had been willing to testify. We called the cops.

  Cops came by to talk to Seth a few days later, then drove off.

  When I asked him what happened, he refused to tell me.

  But I knew it had something to do with my ex.

  I’m surprised he’s still my friend.

  Tony isn’t. They fought for weeks and less than three months after that, Tony moved out.

  He met Marla a few months later and they’ve been together ever since. I think he’s seriously in love with her. He had grinned at me when I saw them together and told me, “I never did see the point in tying myself down on anything. I go both ways.”

  It had made me laugh, even as I wished I could be more like that. I do nothing but tie myself down. To my fear, to the memories. To my husband’s controlling nature.

  All of it controls me, even now, nearly three years after a storm freed me from hell.

  I’d gone back to college, but I never did pursue being an art teacher. That was what I’d wanted…well, before. There was no way I could stand that now. People would watch me. Want to talk to me. Ask me questions.

  I went into graphic design instead and that was better. I could work from my home. I was safe there. Safe inside those walls, where he couldn’t watch me. Where he couldn’t spy.

  Where I was alone.

  But sometimes…being alone is just too much.

  Sometimes, being alone just sucks.

  Too often, I still feel like I’m trapped in some awful nightmare.

  I’m so desperately ready to wake up.

  Sighing, I settled down at my favorite table and took a sip of my coffee. The water was rough today. It matched my mood and I closed my eyes, letting the sound of the waves crashing against the beach sooth me.

  ➅

  The hours passed by too fast, yet it was a slow, almost pleasant crawl. I was blissfully aware of the sun on my back, the wind in my hair.

  And him.

  There was another reason I loved coming to the beach.

  Another reason I liked sitting here.

  I don’t know his name. He’s at the beach almost as often as I am and if he’s ever noticed me staring at him, he hasn’t given any sign. So I let myself stare and I let myself watch. I let myself wish.

  Sometimes, just looking at him makes me hurt inside. It’s a pins and needles sort of feeling, like something in me is trying to come back to life, slow, painful life.

  I watch him and I think about what it would be like if I had the courage to go up to him and say hi.

  If I had the courage.

  But he was the kind of man who was forever out of my reach.

  It was safer that way, too. He was larger than life, full of heat and energy and a raw kind of masculine beauty that just made the body go almost numb.

  He was too intense. Too big. Too there. And he had a way about him that made me think he could be cruel. He had a wolf tattooed across his back a
nd since I didn’t know his name, I called him Lobo.

  Big, dark and built, he looked like he belonged to the beach. Or maybe the beach belonged to him. His hair was so short, it looked like he buzzed it off with a razor every day he rolled out of bed. Thoughts of him and bed made my heart jump around inside my chest and needs I’d forgotten I even had stirred inside me.

  There was a tattoo over his left pectoral, a vivid starburst, although I’d never been close enough to see the details too clearly. On his back was that wolf, a massive, snarling wolf. It started low on his spine, stretched up across the elegant, ridged muscles and finished with the wolf’s muzzle around his left shoulder.

  Maybe Lobo seemed an odd name for him, but he stalked the beach like a predator and I needed to have some name for him since I couldn’t just think him every time I saw him, thought of him. Dreamed of him.

  And I did dream about Lobo.

  The dreams about him were the only respite I had from my nightmares. They were the kind of dreams I hadn’t thought I’d ever have again. Sweaty, torrid dreams that had me moaning and clenching my thighs together, longing to touch…and be touched.

  Dreams that had me waking feeling empty, filled with longing.

  Wishing I was anybody but who I was.

  Wishing I had the courage to reach out and take what I wanted, what I needed.

  And I so desperately needed.

  My skin prickled and I looked up as his gaze casually brushed over me. Our gazes collided and my breath caught in my throat before I looked back down, staring at the sketch in front of me.

  It was Lobo again.

  He was naked…again.

  My favorite way to portray men.

  It wasn’t always sexual, but lately, that was how I did it. I couldn’t find any other means of satisfaction and I didn’t see that changing. The fear inside me was too great. It wasn’t that I feared sex, exactly. After the first hellish year of my marriage, my husband had stopped wanting sex with me. He used to taunt me with it, because I think he knew I’d wanted it. Not necessarily with him, but…just sex. The connection. The intimacy. The feel of a body pressed against mine. I’d wanted to be wanted. And he’d denied me even that.

  Even as he battered me in every other way imaginable. There were nights when I’d wake up with my face shoved into the pillow while he tore into me and I’d bite my lip blood to keep from crying. When it was over, he’d tell me about the whores, his mistress, even how he had more pleasure just jacking off in the shower—all things that were better at getting him off than me.

  And to think I’d thought that was hell. That was nothing. That was easy. I hadn’t really known hell until—

  My mind shied away. I couldn’t think about the final months.

  I didn’t want to, either.

  I wanted to think about here…about now.

  The beach, the sun shining down on my back, so hot and intense, the wind teasing at my hair, the rhythmic lull of the ocean as the waves crashed into the sand. Voices…always voices. I craved the sound of people now, even if I didn’t know them.

  Just as I craved the light, the feel of the sun shining down on me, and the sight of people. Old, young, unattractive or so beautiful they made the heart sigh. It didn’t matter.

  Right now, though, I was sketching the one who made my heart sigh and my body yearn.

  Sketching out the image of the man. Lobo…the focus of all the hot and crazy dreams. The only focus. The relief from my nightmares.

  This sketch was a bad one to be doing here.

  He was standing, his back braced against a wooden post, the sand under his feet, waves washing up around him. And his hands were fisted in my hair. I was on my knees in front of him, fully dressed, while I took his cock into my mouth.

  Drawing it was the most arousing sort of foreplay, and the most frustrating, because there would be no end, no way to fulfill this aching hunger. Heat gathered in me as I imagined taking that cock inside my mouth, wondering how close I was to really capturing how he would look naked. A pulse of hunger throbbed deep inside me and I bit my lip to stifle a groan as I imagined how his hands might tighten to urge me on.

  He wouldn’t be a gentle lover.

  I didn’t need a gentle lover, I didn’t think.

  What I needed, what I craved, was a lover, period.

  Somebody who wanted me. Needed me.

  My face was flushed and hot as I finally finished the sketch. I was going to embarrass myself if I tried another one like that out here. Embarrass myself or just leave myself too shaky to make the walk back home. Unless I took a plunge into the waves crashing against the beach.

  I flipped to a fresh sheet of paper and started a new sketch.

  His hands this time. Just his hands.

  They fascinated me. Long fingers, broad palms.

  Were his hands rough? How would they feel rasping—

  “Watch out!”

  I flinched and cowered, instinctively curling in on myself and not even a second later, pain licked across my cheekbone, spreading up. Numbness hit a second later and that fear, always hidden so close under the surface, crept out.

  The football lay on the ground next to me and I stared at it, my eyes tearing as my head started to ache and pound.

  The familiar wisp-wisp-wisp of footsteps falling across the sand caught my ears and I jerked my head up, watching as two of the college boys who liked to hang out at the beach came running toward me.

  “Hey, are you okay?”

  The haze of confusion started to clear and I pieced together what had happened. He wasn’t here—my ex. He hadn’t found me. Hadn’t hit me. I wasn’t in danger. It was a football. It had hit me. I was okay. My head hurt and my face hurt, but I was okay. I’d taken so much worse.

  “Ma’am?”

  The sound of that worried voice almost shattered me and I realized it didn’t matter if my ex-husband wasn’t here. I was going to fall apart soon.

  I jerked my head around and started to gather up my supplies.

  Leave. I had to leave.

  A hand touched my shoulder and I jerked back, falling on my ass onto the sand.

  Now, the slow, hot rush of blood started to creep up my cheeks and those two boys stood over me, watching me. One had a smirk on his face and he didn’t bother to hide it. The other looked bewildered. “I just wanted to make sure you’re okay,” he said, lifting one hand and then letting it fall helplessly to his side. “You…your face is red.”

  “Leave the freak alone, Tony,” his friend said, nudging him in the shoulder. “She looks like she’s going to scream rape all because you touched her. Come on, let’s—”

  The kid turned and stopped in his tracks.

  I stopped as well, my breathing frozen, everything in me frozen as horror slammed into me.

  He was there, too,. Just a few feet away and he had a grim look on his face.

  Lobo. Whatever his name was.

  “Ah…hey, Jenks.” The long, lanky college kid guy smiled, but even despite my fear, I could see the strain on his face. “How are you?”

  Jinx? His name was Jinx? Or maybe it was short…for… for something…Staring at my knees, I tried to get my legs underneath so I could move, get to my feet, get away. But my limbs were frozen. I was frozen, all but locked in place with shock and fear and horror. Get away. Get away.

  I tried so hard to deal with the panic attacks. But sometimes, they crept out to bite me in the ass, and this one was so close, I could already feel its teeth.

  “How am I?” Lobo asked, his face drawn tight as he took a step toward the kid who’d been mocking me. “You don’t want to ask. You pull a shit thing like that and then be an asshole about it? Get the fuck out of here.”

  As they got out of the fuck out of there, the fear that had frozen me finally loosed its grip and I was able to scramble to my feet and grabbed my things. I had to move. Needed to get out of there. I felt exposed.

  So
exposed, kneeling on the sand to pick up my sketch pad, the charcoal pencils. The sketch I’d just drawn was right there and I hurriedly snapped the book shut, a blush scalding my cheeks red. I snatched up my pencils, the eraser, everything I’d dropped as fast as I could. As I reached for one of my smaller sketchbooks, a shadow fell across the sand in front of me. A bronzed hand closed around it.

  The lump in my throat was going to choke me. I couldn’t breathe around it, and I couldn’t swallow. But I couldn’t stay there, staring at my knees either. Slowly, I dragged my gaze up and met his.

  He had pretty eyes, I noticed inanely. Too pretty for that rugged face of his. The dark brown was velvety, almost soft, and spiky, curly lashes framed that velvety brown. Right now, he was watching me with an assessing stare. His gaze roamed over me before shifting to my cheek. Bluntly, he said, “That’s going to bruise if you don’t ice it.”

  I don’t know why I blurted it out. But the words came rushing up my throat and I couldn’t stop them.

  “It’s not the first time I’ve been bruised.” Absently, I reached up and touched the mark on my face, felt the tenderness of it under my questing fingers. Nothing was broken. Sadly, I knew how that felt, too.

  His mouth went tight around the corners and his eyes flattened. He carried a lot of the emotion in his eyes. I couldn’t really decipher what those emotions were, but they were there. A straight, thick black brow arched over his eyes. “Yeah? You do anything about it?”

  “Not much.” I clambered to my feet and shook the sand out of my skirt before I turned back to get the rest of my stuff off the table. “I got away from him. That’s about it.”

  “That’s more than most do.”

  I didn’t look at him as I headed off. I didn’t run. But it sure as hell felt like it.

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