Chapter 19 The Phoenix #3
“I love the woods,” I remarked, keeping my eyes on the path ahead. My shoes weren’t exactly meant to be taking a trip through the rougher terrain, but being outside the confines of the unpigmented walls of the clinic made the temporary suffering worth it.
“I thought your family lived in town. Did your parents take you hiking or camping?”
“No, you’re right, I did grow up in town. My parents were too strung out most of the time. My grandmother lived in the woods, a good way off any beaten path.”
“Your dad’s mom?”
“Yeah. She’s the one they’d drop us off with most of the time. She had a small ranch house out a little farther than here. My grandfather built it for her when they first got married. It was small, but she always made it comfortable.”
“Did you make a lot of happy memories there?”
“She did her best. She was old-fashioned, though. In the warmer months, if it was nice outside, the only times we were allowed indoors were to use the bathroom or to eat, so we explored the woods around her house a lot. She didn’t have any neighbors for miles, so we had free rein, our own little mountain paradise. ”
“That sounds peaceful,” He commented, leading us farther into the deeper part of the woods.
The trail we took today was much less traveled than the one we took on our nature walk before. The overgrowth wasn’t as trimmed back, narrowing the trail in places, forcing us to walk closer beside each other to the point where we were almost touching.
“It was.” His proximity to me made it difficult for me to concentrate.
The memory of his knee brushing up against mine made me curious as to whether he would do something again, something that pushed the boundaries of what was appropriate between a patient and therapist. “I really need to go back there with Michelle sometime. Since she died, we couldn’t part with any of her belongings so we just left the house as she left it. ”
“Why didn’t either of you move into her house?” He asked as our walk started down a gentle slope.
“It didn’t seem right. She had always pushed us to be ourselves, no matter how independent we became.
We’ve maintained the property over the years, but I just can’t see the house as anything other than her house.
Maybe one day that will change, but for now it’s how we honor her memory, with a shrine to both her and our past.”
“I was just thinking if you had a different place to stay after you left here, since the situation with Craig hasn’t been solved yet.” He mused, his arm brushing against mine gently, the contact nearly making me lose my train of thought.
“He knows the house is empty. He’s been with Michelle and me a few times to do maintenance on it. The utilities are cut off, but we still try to keep the yard in check so it doesn’t get overgrown. I didn’t think the police were taking anything I said seriously about what he did, though.”
“I have a buddy that works for the police department, he’s just a deputy, but he’s been keeping me in the loop on a few things about that abusive piece of shit,” he growled.
Outside of the clinic, where we weren’t in danger of the walls talking, bits of his true personality had started to filter through the careful mask he kept in place.
His obvious distaste for men like Craig is no longer caged by professional standards.
“Has something else happened?” I felt sick asking, my first thoughts going to Michelle or Riley, fear for their safety dominating any concern I had for myself.
“He called me late last night, it should be a report on the news this morning, so I don’t see any harm in telling you. Craig's mother and sister were found murdered yesterday evening.”
Nausea filled my stomach. Not at the thought of them being deceased, they were horrible enablers of Craigs, not to mention they’d always treated me like a piece of shit.
The thought that I knew someone who wasn’t just capable of trying to kill someone, but actually following through, and that I had come close to becoming one of their victims. Despite my reservations, I still managed to ask, “Do they think he had something to do with it?”
“My friend couldn’t tell me details, but since I had spoken with him about what I suspect happened the night you almost died, he felt obligated to tell me that Craig is now missing and considered a person of interest in their deaths.”
The feeling of power that I was starting to grow back within me from being away from the toxic abuse felt like it was going to dwindle down into nothing but smoldering embers.
“What do you mean he’s missing?” My words came out barely above a whisper, my fear threatening to take hold of me as panic started to rise.
“They’ve been looking for him to question since his car was found at their house.
My friend told me it’s not confirmed that he’s the killer, but he’s not off the hook.
I already spoke with the directors of the clinic; they’ve made sure he’s completely banned from the entire campus.
He won't be getting near you here, Rae.”
I nodded even though I felt less confident in that statement than he did.
Daxton didn’t know Craig like I did. He didn’t know what all he was capable of when he didn’t get his way.
If he had murdered his mother and sister, there was no telling what he would do next.
His bond with his mother had always been strange, like a toddler who couldn’t learn to detach from his mother’s breast. If he hadn’t shown me just how far he was willing to go by attacking me, I would have said there was no way he would have hurt her.
Craig was either spiraling or finally showing the world his true face.
I made the mistake of lifting my eyes from the trail just long enough that my feet managed to trip over a larger rock. Before I could hit the ground, one of his hands was around my lower back, the other grabbed my left arm, keeping me steady and upright.
“Careful now, I would hate for something to happen to you before I get the chance to break you open and see what makes you tick,” he must have sensed my growing fear after the news he just laid on me, because he continued, “This isn’t going to be what breaks you.
You’re stronger than that man ever will be, murderer or not, he doesn’t hold a spark compared to what you have burning inside you. ”
My heart lodged itself in my throat, constricting my airway as my stomach tightened.
The words he spoke stocked the embers of my dying resolve.
His arm was a solid wall of muscle along my back, his grip firm and tight on my arm.
I lost my ability to speak for a moment, even though I had spent most of the night obsessing over his words and how to respond to them.
“What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?” I swallowed hard as I met his gaze. Daxton towered over me, his body solid against mine. Even as I gained back my footing on the trail, he didn’t let go. “What I wouldn’t give to be inside your head,” He nearly purred as he reluctantly released me.
“You’ll have to wait your turn, it’s a little full in there at the moment.” After swallowing down the lump in my throat, I was able to answer him, meeting his intense gaze as he looked down at me, wanting to rise to his challenge.
“Trust me, Raelynn, once that monster is gone from your head, I’ll be the only thing to occupy your thoughts.
Every desire from your heart, every breath from your lungs, will be the reason I climb out of bed in the morning.
Because I intend to break you down until you rebuild yourself stronger than you’ve ever been to the point you’ll be damn near unrecognizable.
” With every word, he took a step forward, slowly walking me backwards until my back hit a tree, bark pressing mercilessly against my spine.
The fear I felt before when hearing about the murders evaporated from my body as Daxton took control.
I should be terrified, though, afraid even, not at what he was doing, but at how badly I wanted it.
He had to know what type of effect he had on me, how my body seemed to crave him taking over, silencing the panic rising within me.
His arms raised, bracing themselves on either side of me against the tree, his biceps straining against the fabric of his sweater.
Tawny eyes held mine, his gaze so intense I couldn't look away.
My heart started to beat rapidly, though this time for a reason far different from fear.
A slight stubble had grown against his sharp jaw, something I hadn't noticed when we were with the group; up this close it was hard to miss.
Daxton didn't just back me into the tree; his entire body pressed against me.
Every hard part of him meets every soft part of me.
Slowly, he brought his right hand away from the tree, his thumb and forefinger gripping my chin tight enough to be bordering on being painful.
Our faces were close enough together that our breaths mingled, his steady as a drum, mine erratic and unpredictable.
An eternity seemed to pass as I let his eyes drink me in before he finally crashed his lips into mine.
Desire built from my core as his mouth moved against mine.
Heat flooded my veins as his grip moved from my chin to the back of my head, hand gripping my hair tightly at the base of my skull.
His other hand moved from the tree to grip my neck, hard enough to restrict my air but not enough to cut it off completely.
As he squeezed my neck, my pussy throbbed, aching as I felt his hard length press against my lower stomach.
I opened my mouth as a reflex to draw a deeper breath against his hold on my neck, but he took the opportunity to plunge his tongue in, silencing my ragged breathing and forcing me to open to him.
I let him press me harder against the tree, the bark digging into my back as a welcomed pain as he drew away from me, his mouth starting a descent along my jawline to my exposed neck.
A moan escaped me as he reached the sensitive spot between my neck and my shoulder, my hips pushing forward against him, desperate for any sort of friction.
It’s a good thing I was already in a mental institution, I was fucking mental, making out with my therapist in the middle of the woods like it was normal. Like any of this was normal.
With his grip still firm against my neck, he released my hair and drew back. My hands gripped his sides, fisted in his sweater, drawing him tighter against me.
“You are too strong to let him win,” he breathed, his mouth hovering over mine without making even a whisper of contact, “And I'm going to make sure I'm around to watch you beat him.” He grazed his lips gently against mine, a contrast to how harsh he was before, and I couldn't help but feel the evidence of my desire for him between my thighs.
How slick he made me when he took control and caused me the most delicious pain, I could only imagine how much more he was capable of, how much more I wanted him to take from me.