Chapter Three #2
He nods and opens the door, urging me to walk ahead of him, and I’ve just stepped outside when a loud yell breaks through the air.
I’m racing down the hall before my mind can make sense of what the sound means, rushing downstairs and to the front, half expecting to see yet another woman seeking help.
That is the only thought in my head as I reach the entrance, and I am taken by surprise at the sight of a man standing outside fighting the two men restraining him.
“Where the fuck is my girlfriend? I know she’s here, goddamnit!
” he yells, kicking at the men holding him back.
“Don’t tell me she’s not here, because the tracker I put on her damn phone proves she is, and I know she sent those goons after me yesterday.
Yeah, that’s right! I heard all about the attack dogs sniffing around my place last night. ”
He’s blond with boyish looks and blue eyes that would have made him look harmless if he weren’t foaming at the mouth.
He looks like Eric.
I choke out a laugh, backing up a step as I stare at a man who could have passed as a younger version of my stepbrother.
But Eric is dead. He can’t hurt me anymore, because he’s dead!
My hand protectively closes around my left wrist, whimpering at the memory of Eric’s firm grasp on it.
He’d broken it once; it never was the same after that and still hurts now and then.
“Get Abby out here before I fucking lose it. That little bitch needs a lesson in manners.”
I should head back inside, but my feet are frozen to the ground. My chest is tightening, a vise slowly constricting and making each breath painful. Before I know it, I’m gasping, sucking in air that doesn’t seem to reach my lungs, and the world starts tilting.
Where’s my food, you little brat? Why is this place such a mess? You need a lesson in manners!
My vision tunnels, and I feel my heart hammer against my ribs, blood roaring in my head like a hurricane. God, this can’t be happening. Not now. Please, not now!
Your whore mother should have taken you along with her, spoiled little brat!
My fingers tremble and twitch uncontrollably as they claw at the collar of my shirt, grasping for something, anything to hold onto.
I feel everything. The sweat beading my forehead, my muscles locked, rigid with tension.
Colors seem to blur, and the sound around me is distorted. All but Eric’s grating voice.
When you’re older, I’ll make you earn your keep in this house!
I’m falling, I realize. Even in death, Eric can still make me suffer, it seems. And once again, I’m alone to bear the weight of his vitriol. Surrounded by people but alone, like I’ve spent every day for the last twenty-one years.
A presence, warm and solid, steps in front of me. I feel his hands on my shoulders and he urges me to bend forward. “Cara, breathe for me,” he orders in a soft but steely voice. “Look at me, baby.”
“I…I can’t!”
“Breathe with me, in and then hold.” He instructs, bringing one of my hands to his chest so I can feel it expand and contract. I choke in a gasp, forcing my lungs to hold, eyes boring trustingly into his. “Out, slowly. Yes, like that. Now I want you to do it again. In, hold, out.”
I don’t shift my eyes from his, doing as he instructs until my lungs aren’t burning anymore and my heart isn’t threatening to pound out of my chest. As everything slowly slips into place, I feel a wave of exhaustion wash over me.
I’m tempted to let myself slide to the ground when strong arms wrap around me and I’m lifted, the ground falling away beneath my feet.
I should protest this. Ask for a moment of privacy to die from mortification, but I can’t find my voice.
Instead, I let the man whose life I ruined carry me in his arms. I allow myself to be pressed against a solid chest, to drown in his scent that is a mix of leather and cedar. Inhaling his scent, I let it ground me.
He stops to say something to someone, and then he’s walking again, murmuring something low and soothing, his voice a gentle rumble against my ear, but the words are lost in the roaring in my head.
He maneuvers through a doorway and kicks the door shut behind us, then we’re in a dimly lit room.
It takes me a second to realize that we’re alone in one of the sitting rooms. There is an urge to rush upstairs to my bedroom, crawl under the covers, and turn my face into the pillow, but I can’t bring myself to pull away from James.
“I’m fine,” I whisper, silently pleading with the man to just leave me, but he simply tightens his hold on me as he moves to the couch and sits down with me in his arms.
“You’re not fine,” he says, pushing back to look at me. He runs his long fingers delicately over my forehead, brushing back my hair in a move that’s supposed to be innocent and yet feels deeply intimate. “You just suffered a panic attack, Cara.”
“No, I’m fine,” I protest, and realize I am beginning to feel better. So much so that it slowly dawning on me that I am on the man’s lap, feeling his touch….
God, something must be wrong with me. This man and I have so many unresolved issues between us, and now he’s here, in my safe place. And we’re alone. He could do anything to me in this moment, exact whatever revenge he might want.
“Stop,” he grinds out, his harsh voice pulling my focus back to his face, and I shudder at the hard expression on his face.
“I know what you’re thinking. I’m pretty good at reading people, and I can see it on your face and feel it in your body, the way you tense up when I get too close.
I understand why you’re afraid of me, but I’m not going to hurt you. Ever.”
“Won’t you?” I challenge, my voice is not as firm as I would like it to be.
“No, Cara. I’ve never considered it.”
Why not? I want to ask, even as my gaze drops from his. I ruined your life.
Long fingers grip my chin, and I look up to meet hard brown eyes, gasping at the heat I read in them. “James,” I whisper, my body reacting as much to the hand sliding along my jaw as the one rubbing my back. It’s not overtly sexual, but it makes me feel sensitive. Everywhere.
It’s almost like every one of my nerves is connected to his touch; my breasts ache, thighs tremble, and the spot between my legs pulses needily.
I feel it in my fingertips too, the urge to reach up and touch that stubble.
I long to trace my lips over his, feel them against mine, and then kiss that hard jawline.
It would be my first kiss.
The first time I have ever allowed myself to think of a man in this way, and now, I want nothing more than to forget the past and focus on this…on him.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Cara,” he growls. “What do I have to do to prove it to you?”
Touch me.
Heat prickles my cheeks at the thought, and I fight the urge to squeeze my thighs as those heated eyes send moisture pooling between my legs.
I realize with surprise that I believe him.
The fiery look in James’s eyes has nothing to do with him getting his revenge—something that I still haven’t wrapped my thoughts around—but everything to do with this strange sexual tension between us.
“Okay,” I murmur, my eyes dropping to that firm mouth. “I believe you.”
“Do you?”
“Hmm,” I hum, wetting my dry lips as I stare up at his, and I realize that I want to feel them on me with a desperation that floors me.
One that promises to wreck me to the core.
I realize a second too late that my breathing has turned shallow, and the thickening ridge under my ass tells me I’m not alone in these new feelings.
I…I shouldn’t want this.
Not with him.
I know it to my core that Doc is an honest man; if he says he won’t hurt me, I believe him.
That doesn’t change the fact that I ruined his life, though.
I should stop this, nip it in the bud before it blooms into something I can’t live without.
And somehow, I know with absolute certainty that if I let this go further, I won’t want to live without it, without him ever again.
Still, I let my thoughts wander to how his mouth would feel on mine. I’ve seen people kiss before, heard other women reminisce that it can be as sweet and seductive as the soft scent of a rose or as dark and dangerous as a summer night. Heaven above, I want both. I want it all.
Just this once.
I’ll allow myself to get lost in these feelings just this once.
“How are you feeling now? Better?” he asks, and I bite down a whimper as those long fingers move down to the back of my knees and then back up, traveling up my inner thighs, those dark eyes daring me to protest his touch. “Your breathing is still a little off.”
“I’m fine, I…” My mouth parts with a gasp when his fingertips brush over my jean-clad sex. My eyes blur for a second at the delicious heat that shoots up my tummy. “James—”
“I haven’t heard that name in so many years,” he rasps, slowly rubbing his middle finger over the dampening spot. “No one calls me that anymore.”
My breathing is ragged when he slides his hand up and pops the button of my jeans, slowly sliding the zipper down. Every inch of me is aching when he eases my jeans and panties down my thighs, and then his hand is between my legs.
“D-Doc?” I cry out when his middle finger brushes over my damp slit. My cheeks are flushed with both arousal and mortification. Christ, what the heck am I doing—allowing to be done to me?
“I don’t want you to call me that,” he growls, moving his middle finger back and forth my slit, sending little sparks of pleasure all over my body.
My head falls back, mouth parting as harsh tremors roll through my body.
“I’m Loxley to people who knew me before, Doc to the MC and everyone else, but not to you.
” I feel his lips on my neck, causing my eyes to flutter closed.
The harsh beating of my heart makes me dizzy, a feeling that intensifies when he kisses my sensitive skin, trailing his mouth up my throat, the hand between my legs stroking my clit in slow circles as the rest of the world falls away.
He becomes everything.
My senses tune to those sinful hands, that maddening brush of lips over skin, and a closeness that floods my nose with his intoxicating scent. He’s everywhere, engulfing me completely.
“Daddy!” I cry out, as he presses a thick finger to my entrance.
I have no idea where that came from or why I said it, but I’m too far gone to feel embarrassed, though I’m sure that I will later.
He goes still for a beat, and I manage to pull in a ragged breath, preparing to take it back, to apologize, when he interrupts.
“That’s it,” he growls. “Call me Daddy.”
Then his lips are on mine.
We both moan into the kiss, his body shuddering against mine as his mouth parts, slanting slightly, and then he’s moving.
I open up for him, a tremor rocking through me when his tongue grazes mine.
My hand flies to his neck, and I press against him, whimpering as his tongue strokes into my mouth in a kiss that sends pleasure rolling down my body to the tips of my toes.
Is this it? The soft and seductive feel of a rose petal?
“James,” tumbles past my lips, and it seems to have an effect on him as the hand between my legs stills, but only for a second before he strokes my sensitive bud harder, faster. “Oh God, Daddy!”
“Say it again,” he growls against my lips. “I want to hear you say again.”
I didn’t mean to say it the first time. I shouldn’t repeat the word, but I can barely grasp onto my thoughts to dig into all the reasons why this is a bad idea.
“Daddy,” I sob, my body writhing and lifting to meet his fingers, chasing the promise of a nirvana I’ve never experienced. “Faster, oh God…”
Every muscle in my body stiffens a second before they lose tension with a rough shudder.
My eyes go blind for a second and my mouth parts on a sob.
I cry out, thrashing about as an intense storm crashes through my body.
His mouth closes over mine again, swallowing my cries as his thumb strums my clit until I’m too sensitive and can’t handle more.
There is a knocking in my head, harsh and insistent that remains even when I’m nothing but a trembling mess in his arms. I’m still panting when he pulls back to look at me, and I realize a little too late that the knocking is not in my head but on the sitting room door.
“Cara, are you in there?” Samantha’s voice barely penetrates my lagging brain, and when it does, I suddenly push against James’s arms, blushing fiercely when I realize I’m on the man’s lap with my jeans around my thighs. “Cara?”
“I’m here. I just needed a minute to…regroup. I’ll be right there,” I choke out, climbing off James and turning away from the man to tug up my jeans.
Oh God, what did I just do?
I hear him climb to his feet behind me, but I don’t turn around as I force my trembling fingers to work so I can button the darn jeans. A shudder runs down my back when his hand brushes my hair to the side and he leans in, “You’re not panicking after I worked so hard to calm you down, are you?”
Calm me down?
There is nothing calm about me right now, but I don’t tell him that. “I…no, I’m fine.”
“Good,” he says, turning me around to face him.
His mouth is on mine before I can react, moving softly and firing up that red ball of heat in my tummy that was only just beginning to cool.
There is a wicked look on his face when he pulls away, humor dancing in those intense brown eyes. “I’ll see you later, Cara.”
And with that, he’s gone.