by Edwina Fort
“Awww…That’s the sweetest thing anybody has ever said to me.” Yeah… I was tipsy. “But please…be afraid of him.” I pointed to my head. “He’s not right.”
And then I gathered my stuff and headed toward the terrace on the east side of the ballroom. There was another on the west side, but for some reason, it seemed my phone favored the east.
I cried out in pleasure when I saw that this terrace overlooked that beautiful rose maze. Oh…I wish you guys could see it. It was so big it had to stretch out twenty acres or more. I know it took a team of workers to keep it looking so healthy and beautiful.
I was also pleased to see that the massive balcony was practically empty. There were only two couples out here, one at the far end and one smooching on the golden bench in a dark corner. Exhaling, I took out my phone.
“One bar… yes!”
I did a little victory dance because that was far better than I had inside. Holding my phone up, I walked toward the steps that led down into the yard area in front of the entrance to the maze.
Two bars!
Excited that I was getting closer to seeing that 4G symbol, I walked down the stairs.
Three!
Phone in hand, I took a few steps out into the yard, but something shifted in the air. I looked back toward the ballroom and standing there looking like a dark angel was Tucker. He watched me with a gaze so deadly my pulse increased to the point that I could see it beating in my wrist. I couldn’t believe this is the same guy that had looked at me as if I was his rarest jewel just hours ago.
What could I have done to garner so much animosity? Or did his other personality hate me? I’d been enjoying myself so much with him over the last few weeks, I barely thought of the fact that he suffered from an undiagnosed case of Dissociative Identity Disorder, and what it meant for me if something happened to trigger him while we were together. Because he was undiagnosed, there was no way of telling what kind of danger I was in.
The guy who followed Ryan around earlier, who I assumed was head of the estate waitstaff joined him. Without taking his intense gaze away from me, Tucker spoke quietly to him. The man nodded before walking and speaking to the other two couples on the balcony. I clutched my phone so hard my knuckles turned white when the couple and the server retreated into the ballroom, pulling the balcony doors closed behind them. The manager then signaled to another waiter to step in front of them and stay.
It was clear what just happened. Tucker told the server to clear the area and to make sure no one comes out here.
My God! Was I in danger? Did I risk standing here to try and reason with the other Tucker?
So, I think now is a good time to tell you guys something that you may not know about me. Just so you’ll understand my next action. It’s true, I spent my four years of high school in a very rich neighborhood, but I was born and raised in the hood.
The moral to that story is, although reason told me I should be able to stand here and converse with the clearly aggressive man like two adults to see why he was so angry, my feet didn’t give a flying frig about what I should be able to do in this moment. And while my brain was trying to figure it out, they very carefully slid out of the beautiful golden heels.
I felt like a deer that had just been spotted by a hungry lion. I could no more stop the step I took back than I could the gathering clouds in the sky. As if nature could sense the storm brewing inside of him, a loud rumble of thunder shook the earth before lightning flashed in the night sky, highlighting the deep darkness of Naphtali’s eyes.
I took another step back and an evil grin appeared on his face as he rested his hands on the rails as if he dared me to take another step. The wind picked up just then, causing my dress to blow around my legs.
I took that step…
A cry ripped from my throat when displaying incredible strength and agility, Tucker leaped over the rail and landed on his feet like a feline.
No way he should have been able to do that!
That jump should have at the very least broken both of his legs. The railing was nearly two stories off the ground. However, I didn’t wait around to see how he’d accomplished such a feat. He was coming for me.
Fast!
Heart pounding in my chest, I turned and ran toward the only way out…unfortunately, it was the entrance to the maze. Lightning ripped across the sky again as I flew around the beautiful hedges, trying to memorize the pattern.
Red roses on the straightaway…
Peach and white roses in the curves…
Why was he chasing me? What had I done?
Short turns, yellow roses…
Long, winding turns, pink…
The really scary part is, I couldn’t hear him behind me, so I had no idea how close he was or if I’d lost him. My footsteps sounded loud to my own ears, but my prayer was that he got turned around in the maze and that his alternate personality’s mind wasn’t as brilliant as my own.
When after a while I still didn’t hear anything, I slowed my steps. The maze was softly lit with lights that had been weaved into the hedges. They highlighted the roses beautifully. I wish I wasn’t being chased by a crazy man; I think I would have enjoyed a nice stroll through them.
With hands that shook, I took my phone out of my purse. Tears burned the back of my eyes when I saw my bars had went back to zero. Thunder shook the earth again, scaring the heck out of me. But what did me in was when the lightning flashed, highlighting the shadow of a man as he jumped over the hedge, landing silently on the ground a couple of yards in front of me. Again, that was something he should not have been able to do, the hedges stood at least eight feet tall.
A scream escaped my lips as I turned around and ran the other way. The sound of his laughter followed me, taking me back to the days of me running from him in the library.
He was toying with me…
That had to be a good sign, right? He wouldn’t toy with me only to hurt me…would he?
Yeah, still not a risk I was willing to take, I continued to run, weaving in and out of the lanes, but my steps skidded to a halt when he suddenly appeared over the hedge again, causing me to turn and run in a different direction.
I had no time to process the fact that he was leaping over the hedges like freaking Superman. Something was majorly wrong with that, but if I stopped and pondered on it, I would completely lose it, so instead, I kept running.
He and I played that little game of cat and mouse for another ten minutes. It became clear to me that he was directing me. If I ran the wrong way, he appeared in my path. My brain tried to tell my panicked feet to stop, that he was leading me into a trap, but I was freaking out.
I didn’t have long to see where that trap was. I think I was in the center of the maze. My steps faltered as my breath was taken by the sheer beauty here. This place must be the in-between place because we could no longer be on earth.
The area was gently lit by the lights that had been weaved inside of the hedges. In the center was a wide stone bench that was covered in snow-white rose petals, because it sat under a beautiful arch that was laden down with a climbing vine. Spellbound by it, I took a step toward it, but right then, a twig snapped behind me. I whipped around to see Naphtali standing there watching me.
Lightning lit the sky for a moment, casting his handsome face in its glow. His dark gaze had changed. Yes, it was still hostile, but there was something else there. I know this is going to sound crazy, but it kind of felt like there were two men staring at me, my Tucker and somebody else.
I took a step back, holding up my hand as if I was warding off an angry beast.
“What did I do? Why are you chasing me?” My voice quivered as I fought off the tears that wanted to be freed.
He slowly began to stalk me. “I heard you talking to him.”
Even his voice was different. Yeah, it sounded like him, but it didn’t. It was so hard for me to explain this. It was not your classic case of Dissociative Identity Disorder.
I knew w
ho the him was he’d heard me talking to. What are the odds?
“Wait, I can explain that.”
He shook his head as he continued to stalk me. “Naw, Freebie, I don’t need an explanation.”
A squeak left my throat when the thick hedges stopped my retreating steps. My eyes rounded in fear as I watched him close the gap between us.
I reached out, putting my hand flat against his massive chest, stopping him. For a moment, he didn’t speak, he just looked down at me with nostrils flared, taking angry breaths in and out. I was trying to remember all my training on how to deal with an angry patient, but for the life of me, I could bring nothing to mind.
I opened my mouth, but no words came out as tears that didn’t fall filled my eyes.
“P-Please…” I whispered. I don’t know what I was begging for. Maybe it was for him not to hurt me. Maybe for him not to be angry with me and just hear me out.
Slowly he went down to one knee in front of me. “Yes, Free. I plan on it… I plan to please you… thoroughly. After tonight, you’ll never question who you belong to.”
I gasped when his hands came to the tie of my dress and violently ripped it open. A mixture of excitement, fear, and pleasure shot through me. My breathing became heavy as I tried to understand what was happening to me.
I was more turned on than I’ve ever been…and that was frightening. My purse slipped from my shoulder and my phone from my hands. Tucker smiled when he saw the need in my gaze.
“I’ve wanted to taste you for so long. Can I taste you, baby?”
I bit down on my bottom lip and nodded, completely under his spell. Resting my head back against the hedge, my eyes drifted closed when his hungry mouth touched my stomach, only to fly open when an angry growl left his throat at the same time thunder shook the earth. His hands came to the waistband of my panties and the sound of them ripping filled the night.
Gently he lifted my leg to rest on his shoulder. My world shattered sweetly, but as he came to his feet, there was a promise in his eyes. That would be the only sweetness I would be allowed tonight. Slowly he unbuttoned his shirt, revealing that smooth chocolate skin, needing my own taste, I leaned forward and ran my tongue over his muscled flesh.
He groaned, holding his head back, allowing me to serve him. But that only lasted a minute before his hungry mouth was taking mine in a drugging kiss. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I tried to get closer. But no matter how close I got, it didn’t feel like it was enough.
He must have felt it too, because soon after, he lifted me in his arms, bringing my legs to straddle his waist.
Mmmmm…he was so strong. Had he always been this strong?
I had no time to ponder it before he was entering me.
Ohhh, guys, there is no way I can tastefully explain to you what took place over the next two hours because there was nothing tasteful about it.
It was raunchy, wet, hot…savage. He brutally brought me to peak three more times before finding his own release. After the second time, he laid me on the bench of rose petals and continued to ruthlessly drive into me. Lost in a storm of ecstasy, my nails scrapped across his back as I screamed out his name…over and over again.
“Who do you belong to?” he growled down at me, invading my soul, reconstructing it, combining us in a way that can never be broken.
“You…” I moaned.
“Say it again, Free! Who do you belong to?”
“You!” I screamed as my world shattered. “Oh God! I belong to you.”
That didn’t appease him. He had turned completely savage on me. What sounded like a roar left his throat as he flipped me on the bench before entering me again. I think that is when the rain started, or maybe it had started hours before, I couldn’t tell. He had splintered my mind. I’d completely lost myself.
“Forever,” he said in my ear before taking my lobe in his mouth. “Say you’re mine forever.”
I was going to die from the pleasure he was causing me to feel. The tears that flowed down my cheeks had nothing to do with the rain. It was too much! My body was on fire.
“Say it, Free! Say you’re mine forever.”
Squeezing my eyes shut to try not to go up in flames, I cried out what he wanted to hear just as my world shattered for the fourth time.
“Forever! I’m yours forever! I swear… Oh God, only yours. Forever, Tucker…only you.” He wrapped me securely in his arms and moaned my name as his warm seed filled me.
And then, I think… I fainted or blacked out or something because when I came to and was once again able to recognize myself as an individual, he was carrying me out of the maze with my belongings tucked under his arm.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, burying my face in that spot just underneath his chin and whispered.
“I want to go home…”
Chapter 12
Hungry Eyes…
If She’s Amazing, She Won’t Be Easy. If She’s Easy, She Won’t Be Amazing. If She’s Worth It, You Won’t Give Up. If You Give Up, You’re Not Worthy…
--Bob Marley
Free
Ever since I was a little girl, I could remember handling trauma differently from those around me. When my mother died, I wondered if I was going to die with her. Instead, I stood at her funeral dry-eyed and evaluated my own feelings, breaking down the trauma and how it affected me. Five days later, after I had been deposited in Angie’s basement, I sat on my bed and had a panic attack all by myself when it finally registered that my mom was gone.
The walls closed in on me and I couldn’t breathe, the only thing I could do was ball up really tight and ride it out. That’s when I realized I’d been holding onto my tears. Somehow, I felt that if I didn’t cry, then it couldn’t be real. It wasn’t until I released the first tear that my attack began to subside. I lay in bed and cried that whole night and the next one after that.
You see, I have an aversion to tears. I know that sounds horrible, but it’s true. I am terrified of the pain it takes to make me cry. So, after that day, after mourning my mother, I told myself I would never mourn again. And my whole life became about me avoiding having to mourn.
When my father died, I avoided mourning by reminding myself that he was never there for me and my mom. And afterward, he never stood up for me and allowed Angie to abuse me. Although there were times Tucker caused tears to burn the back of my eyes, I avoided shedding them by reminding myself that my time with him was only temporary. That thought became a lifeline to me, ingrained in the very fiber of my being.
Yes, I am aware that my aversion to mourning is unhealthy because tears are a part of life just like laughing and anger. And yet still, it’s something that I struggle with. Seeing Dillion sitting on the couch with my sister as they announced their engagement was traumatizing and I told myself I needed to mourn; it was the healthy thing to do.
But I couldn’t…
I couldn’t shed one tear because he wasn’t Tucker.
I’ve always known that I had to avoid loving Tucker because for some reason, he was the one person on earth that I knew had the power to break me. Even then, I didn’t understand the bond between me and my bully, but it was there.
How cruel can irony be…
And now… now there was no running from my feelings. I love Tucker. I love him with my whole heart and soul. Up until the other night in the rose garden, I’d been able to lie to myself, to deny that he was a part of me and I of him.
But then he forced me to acknowledge our connection. Dear God! I cry every time the man makes love to me!
I guess if I'm honest with myself, I can admit that I've always loved him, since the very first time our eyes met in that classroom.
However, there was a very long list of problems that came with that admission, the main one being, I’m his doctor. There was no way around the fact that I was going to have to give him up as a patient. I could only imagine what Angie and the twins were doing with the information they have thus far. I’m sure I was soon to find o
ut though.
And then, there was the small fact that he may freaking be Superman! Oh guys! My mind can’t wrap around the things I saw him do. I know that he was a great athlete in high school. Folks all over Michigan still speak on his prowess. But what I saw goes beyond prowess. What I saw was supernatural.
As a psychiatrist, I was trained to believe in science, what I can touch, taste, hear, and see, but my mother always told me to search for God. She said God’s will happens around us all the time and that it took more than the eyes to see it.
I’ve been doing Tucker a disservice by trying to use science to define him. What was going on with him went beyond Dissociative Identity Disorder. Yes, there was some kind of multiple personality thing happening, but it was more like a dual personality, which is unheard of.
Two individuals can’t occupy the same space at the same time… science. Yet, I witnessed two individuals occupying the same space at the same time. Not only that, he was faster, stronger… I-I can’t wrap my head around it.
And unfortunately, because I’d played hooky and decided to go to the ball with prince charming instead of securing more employers for the job fair, I really didn’t have time to look into it. My grandmother had medical journals that dated back to the late 1800s and more than anything, I wanted to curl up on my couch and search through them to see if something like this had ever happened before, but I just didn’t have time.
There were a lot of people depending on this job fair to better themselves. And yeah, that was another reason I had to take a break from Tucker.
Hmmmm…