Chapter Twenty-One
SLOANE
WITH EVERYONE stuck in the house, tensions are high and the cattiness of the three sisters, well, mainly Kinley and Breanna, has started to grab everyone’s notice.
My constant companion these past few days when I’m in the kitchen is the one they call Spits, because of the huge amounts of sunflower seeds he eats, but he doesn’t talk much.
Even though his personality is practically non-existent because he is so wrapped up in his computer screens to notice anything around him, he’s a good-looking guy.
He’s tall and his brown hair is cut short like a military cut, his broad shoulders and large chest leave no question as to whether he stays in shape.
His attention is almost always on his computers, if he’s not tapping away on a keyboard he’s tacking info and pictures to a board he set up against the wall behind him. This morning is no different.
As I walk into the kitchen, the sun isn’t even up and I can hear the cracking of sunflower seeds and I mumble, “Good morning.”
The sound of an empty shell being spit in a cup reaches my ears and my stomach turns, he mumbles back, “Morning.”
Blue screen lights are illuminating the entire corner of the breakfast nook on the other end of the kitchen, but no overhead lights are on. I use the soft glow of the computer lights to guide me to the coffee maker and I pour a cup, “You want a cup of coffee?” I ask him.
“Uh Uh, that shit will eat your gut up.” He looks up like he just realized where he is and his eyes snap up to mine before he says, “Sorry, I should have said ‘that stuff’.”
Chuckling at him, I pour in the obligatory half a cup of cinnamon roll-flavored creamer, take that first sip of goodness to start my day, and lean against the counter to enjoy it for a minute.
I walk over to the light switch and flick the lights on so I can get started on breakfast when my eyes land on a face that I’d hoped never to see again.
The coffee cup in my hand falls to the floor and shatters as I cover the lower half of my face with both hands.
Spits shoots out of his chair and it falls over behind him, pulls a gun from thin air, and looks around the room before he follows the direction of my gaze to a picture on the wall behind him.
My heart is beating like it was that day when that disgusting man was standing between my legs with his fingers in me, looking at me like I was nothing but a piece of meat for him to enjoy. My stomach starts to roil, and I run to the sink to vomit up the little bit of coffee I just drank.
“What happened?” I hear Mason’s boss ask, he’s been sleeping on the couch in the family room.
“I don’t know, she saw that picture on the wall and,” Spits pauses, “there she is.”
“Take it down.” I hear Mason command and then his hand is on my back, warm and soothing as he slides his palm up and down my spine.
A rag appears out of nowhere next to my face and I take it after I wash my mouth out under the tap and splash cold water on my face, my breaths coming fast and short.
“Take a deep breath.” He says in my ear.
“What happened?” I hear Kinley and Marley’s panicked voices almost at the same time.
“It was him,” I whisper into the sink and take another deep breath. “The man that touched me, the man I stabbed.”
“Did you say ‘stabbed’?” The high pitch of Kinley’s voice cuts across the room like a smoke alarm.
“Kinley.” Mason throws out her name like he would if he were talking to an errant child.
Standing up, I turn around to see the audience of the entire house crowded around the two doors that lead to the hallway and the dining room. Everyone looks like they jumped out of bed and ran downstairs, some are in housecoats, and some are in bedclothes.
I lean against the counter in front of the sink, but Mason’s arm is around my waist to make sure I don’t fall.
I glance at him and see he threw on his sweatpants, the ones I took off him last night, and nothing else.
The cut muscles of his chest and abs are on display and his short hair is standing up in a perfect halo of bedhead.
He tapped on my door after midnight last night and when I opened the door, he scooped me up in his arms and his mouth was on mine. He kissed me like a favorite meal he hadn’t had in a while, and then he kept me up for hours.
Something felt different, though, like he was taking his time; every touch and kiss was slow and deliberate. Not like when we were at the hotel and every move and touch was only about pleasure.
Forcing myself to look away from the smorgasbord of man on display next to me, I look at the other pictures tacked on the board and see the guy who told him to leave me alone because they didn’t have time. The only thing that saved me from being raped was that they were short on time.
I point at the other picture that wasn’t there yesterday, “That guy was with him, he was driving.”
All heads turn to look at where I’m pointing, and Spits pulls it down to set it on the table with the picture of the other guy.
“This is good.” His head is bowed, and he is looking at the pictures but when he looks up at all the eyes on him, he says, “Oh, uh, I meant that it’s good that we have a face to go with,” he pauses again and looks at me with a pained expression, “the terrible thing that happened.”
“Man, you need to stop looking at the screens so much and maybe socialize or something,” Jax says and steps between Marley and Breanna to get to the table where Spits is.
I don’t miss the way he looks at Marley as he turns toward her to squeeze between them. She keeps her gaze on me and leans away from him, her arms crossed over her chest.
“Let me clean up my mess and brush my teeth and I’ll start breakfast,” I say and move away from the warmth of Mason next to me.
“No, you go brush your teeth, I’ll clean this up for you,” Marley says and points to the back stairs that lead to my room.
The towel I dab on my mouth after I brush is soft and fluffy and I stare at my reflection in the mirror. How in the world has my life come to this? It feels like it’s been a hundred years since I was a normal girl with a normal life and dreams. A tear slides down my cheek and soaks into the towel.
I miss my mom. I miss the safety of my parents and the warmth that I knew I could have any time I felt like it, whether it was a hug or just a conversation. I miss the normalcy of walking into the safe cocoon of my lifelong home not knowing the things I know now.
Kinley walks into the bathroom and I quickly dab the towel under both eyes. She has her hands behind her back.
“You okay?” Her Oklahoma accent seems more pronounced in the question.
Turning away from the mirror, I nod my head, “Yeah, just trying to figure out who I pissed off in another life to get here.”
I’m only half joking.
She shuffles her feet as she cuts her eyes to the shower area, she looks uncomfortable, and I pull my eyebrows together. With an eye roll, she steps toward me and holds her hand out, “Here.”
I look down to see a pregnancy test box in her hand. My eyes go wide and snap up to meet hers, “Where did you get that?” I shake my head, “I don’t need that.”
She rolls her eyes again, “I had a close call after last New Year’s and I ended up buying like five boxes to be sure.” Her eyes volley between mine, “I’ve seen you nauseous several times and you’ve thrown up twice - that I’ve seen,” she shrugs her shoulders, “just rule it out.”
Doing a mental tally of my cycle, I realize I’m a week late.
Shit!
But we always use protection. It would have to be from when we were at the hotel. I think about every time we did it that night, he used a condom each time.
My hand flies to my mouth and I suck in a sharp breath. The shower.
“Fuck, that’s why you feel so good, I forgot the condom,” Mason mumbled into my ear as he held me against the wall under the stream of steamy water.
He rested his forehead on the tile wall behind me and pumped into me a few more times before he pulled out to go get a condom.
My eyes lock on Kinley’s.
She tilts her head to the side, eyebrow cocked, with a look of ‘I told you so’ and lifts the box higher, jutting it at me to take.
“Oh no,” I whisper and step backward shaking my head. “This can’t be right. No. We’ve just been fooling around, he’ll think I’m trying to trap him!” I step forward and grab Kinley’s arms, the box shaking and rattling in her hand, “You can’t tell him, he’ll hate me!”
She sets the box on the counter and grabs my shoulders, “You don’t know for sure yet, find out and we’ll go from there.” Her fingers squeeze my shoulders, and she nods her head in the direction of the box before she turns and walks out.
Someone in the ethos is for sure mad at me, how can this get any worse?
All I wanted was a little bit of good in this shit show of my life.
I don’t have time to do anything about this right now, I look at my watch, I’m really late and I need to make breakfast so everyone can get to the stables to take care of the horses.
Tossing the towel on the counter, I take one last look at the box that represents whether my life will go from bad to worse. I opt for ignorance for the time being and go downstairs.
After everyone has eaten breakfast and gone their separate ways, I start my regular day after cleaning the kitchen. Since Mason’s teammates have been here, there seems to be stuff everywhere, especially weapons.
Trying not to let the extra clutter bother me, I set out to straighten and dust Mr. Harlow’s office. The large desk looks like all its pieces were carved by hand and handcrafted with love, if I had to guess, I would say that it’s maybe a hundred years old.
There is a heavy, round crystal paperweight with feminine etchings that looks out of place on the masculine desk, everything around the sparkling orb is stained dark or is of dark leather.
In the center of the weight is a felt disc with a picture of three dancing women stamped onto the middle.
I’ve always wondered who it belonged to.
It fits snugly in my palm and is big enough that I can’t close my hand around it, it would make a good weapon if one was needed in a pinch. I open my palm and toss it in the air a couple of times, the weight and shape of it fits nicely each time it lands in my hand.
“Planning on hurtin’ someone with that?” Mason’s voice is nearly next to my ear, and I almost drop the weight as I jump and turn around.
“Freakin’ Mason, how do you sneak up on me every time?”
His smile spreads across his face, his ballcap is on backward which makes him look even more gorgeous, and his hands rest on my hips. “Part of the job, darlin’.”
Oh yeah, his job. He’ll be leaving soon. My eyes fall to the button of his henley between his pecs and I push the panic down that’s tried to swallow me all day when I think of the box that Kinley left in my bathroom.
The knuckle of his finger touches my chin and tilts my head back to bring my eyes back up to his, “What just happened? What were you thinking?”
Forcing a smile, I try to be casual and say the first thing that comes to mind, “When do you think you’ll be leaving to go back to work?”
His eyes move between mine and his expression turns serious, he opens his hand to cup my chin, and his thumb moves over my cheek.
“I won’t be leaving before we settle this issue with you,” he pauses and pushes a tendril of hair that has broken loose from my ponytail behind my ear, “You won’t have to worry about this anymore when we leave. ”
That’s not what I’m worried about.
Just as I am about to respond, his gaze moves over my shoulder and fixes on something outside the large window behind the desk. His eyes narrow as his brows come together and I turn to see what he’s looking at.
His whole demeanor turns from relaxed into warrior mode and I feel the muscles in his arms turn hard as steel.
Down the hill is Marley’s stables, she is out in one of the paddocks with a horse and a strange man is walking in her direction. Her back is to him, so she hasn’t noticed him yet. Before I can turn around to ask Mason if he knows that man, he has turned and is out the door.