Chapter 29 #2
The start of a blood-curdling scream breaks free from my lips, but Bobby’s palm is quick to cover it.
I try to bite any piece I can get from him, but he manages to be out of reach, and I’m starting to lose hope of getting him off me to free myself.
“That money Bronte gave you is mine,” he sneers in my face. His green eyes blazing with fury and that dangerous desperation. “And you’re going to be my wife by Saturday because that’s how I want it. And you’re going to fucking do that for me.”
The tips of his fingers stab between my sensitive flesh as he continues to try to pry my legs open.
“You’re going to take my cock,” he snarls. “And you’re gonna like it. And you’re going to come on it so hard—”
His words dissipate, and so does his weight, as I blink several times to find myself staring up at my white ceiling and nothing else.
A pained grunt penetrates through the air, but I don’t move because I’m frozen still.
His words pinning me to my mattress act as a spell that give me no choice but to accept more from Bobby.
His special privileges that are evoked on me something that I have no power over.
It’s something I have to accept because I brought him into my life and agreed to his proposal of marriage.
Gentle hands touch my forearms, and I flinch, pulling them back as my focus flicks to where they came from.
Bronte.
A held exhale breaks from my lips in relief, and my body releases its tension in defense of Bobby’s assault before he begins to shake uncontrollably.
Tears well up thick in my eyes before Bronte slowly sits alongside the edge of the bed and delicately pulls me up to sit, and wraps his arms gingerly around my body.
He doesn’t say a word when I’m pressed up into his warm frame.
But my eyes scan my bedroom and find nothing out of place.
Like Bobby wasn’t even here.
“I need two words from you, Daydream,” I hear Bronte rumble, and I feel the vibration of it against my ear. “I’m okay. Or, he did.”
He did.
He did.
He raped me.
I feel Bronte’s body start to vibrate while he tries to straighten his spine a bit and settle down, but he’s upset.
He’s furious.
He’s probably blaming himself for leaving in the first place and seeing me underneath another man.
“I’m…”
I’m not okay, but I am okay.
Bobby did nothing but scare me and tousle me around a little bit, but I’ll survive.
I’ll be fine.
Bronte’s arms tighten around me, taking the one word, instead of two, to his satisfaction because he doesn’t press on it anymore.
He just holds me and slowly rocks back and forth with me in his arms.
In each minute that passes, I’m able to breathe a little lighter, but my room is tainted with Bobby, and tonight that I don’t want to stay in it anymore.
Ever.
It’s another thing Bobby ruined, and I don’t feel safe anymore.
Even with the windows locked, moving forward.
Now that I know Bobby isn’t scared of heights or above climbing emergency stairs, my sanctuary has been violated.
“Where…is he?” I ask, my voice barely audible to my own ears.
“Gone.”
“Bronte…” It suddenly hits me that I’m fully aware my husband has means. Means that could mean making someone disappear permanently.
“I wouldn’t dare kill him tonight with the possibility that someone saw him enter your building.” His fingers brush my hair. “Plus, I wouldn’t leave you. If he were to die, I’d be the one doing it.”
I pull away from him to glance up at his face in all seriousness. “Don’t say things—”
“That I don’t mean?” He stares back at me with zero inclination that he’s joking. “I do mean it, though, Daydream. However…I’d grant him a miserable existence if it meant you not looking at me with guilt like you had something to do with it.”
“I do have something to do with it.”
“How so? Did you ask him to visit?”
“No, but—”
“He does it again, I’m not apologizing, nor am I asking permission to kill him. Bobby is lucky the only things he’s going to suffer from are a black eye, a broken leg or arm, and a bruised ego.”
“You can’t—”
“He tried to rape you, Meirna,” Bronte snaps, glowering down at me now because we’ve crossed the line. Now, he’s pissed. “And he was going to do it with no remorse for what it would’ve done to you long term. What it would have done to us. You don’t think that constitutes for a bit of pain?”
What it would have done to us.
My mind races with how the aftermath of such actions would terminate revelations of what Bronte and I have become.
It would be hard.
It would…I dunno, I wouldn’t be the same. Bronte would never forgive himself for leaving my sight and…it’d be a difficult thing to maneuver and get over.
“I brought you something,” Bronte mutters through my silence, fishing in his suit jacket for something before he pulls out a small white paper bag.
Setting it on his lap, he unravels the top and pulls out a gingerbread cookie with a small flower on top of its head.
“I couldn’t make one,” he says softly. “But I thought you might like it.”
My lips heave slightly as I take the cookie from between his fingers. “I love it…thank you.”
“I’m taking you back to my hotel. I’ll help you pack.”
My lips almost roll off words about how I want to stay, but I don’t.
I need air and a new change of view.
“I only need ten minutes,” I vouch. “I just—”
“Eat your cookie,” he mutters. “And I’ll be your bitch. Just tell me yes or no with the items I pick out.”
I look down at my gingerbread woman. “It's too pretty to eat.”
I feel the faintest of kisses on top of my head before Bronte says, “So, are you. But I do it anyway because you taste so damn good. And I can’t seem to help myself when you’re always around, taunting me like a sugar high.”
I shake my head, feeling the corners of my lips lift. “You don’t like sweets, Bronte.”
“But I like you. And…you’re all I’m ever going to want, Daydream.”