Chapter 10 #2
Chloe sidestepped and Tall Guy grabbed her upper arm in a strong, unbreakable grip, pulling her toward him.
She was instantly paralyzed, seized by a fear so great she couldn’t breathe. Her oldest nightmare now made flesh.
There was a metallic click and suddenly a sharp blade was brandished under her nose, the wickedly sharp point right under her left eye. It was long, a lusterless black, razor sharp and terrifying.
“We need for you to pay attention to what we’re going to say. Are you paying attention?”
Terror gripped her lungs. She couldn’t speak, she couldn’t breathe.
Tall Guy shook her, put his face right next to hers, so close she could see the broken blood vessels in his eyes, so close she could see glints of gold where his shaver had missed sections of beard.
Above all, so close she could smell the terrifying cold, steely scent of violence.
His voice lowered, became even more frightening. “I said—are you paying attention?” His shake hurt, his grip around her arm cutting off circulation.
She couldn’t speak. Her throat was paralyzed. She nodded.
The other man had circled around to her other side. His right hand snaked out and, shockingly, cupped her breast. “Pretty,” he said, pinching her hard. He looked at his partner, a quick reptilian glance. “Maybe she needs help in staying awake while you talk to her, eh?”
The tall man’s painful grip tightened even more as he lifted her up.
She stood on tiptoe to ease the pain. She’d broken that arm twice.
The shorter man’s big hand left her breast, but before she could even breathe a sigh of relief, with his forearm he cleared the desk top of the clothes she’d been folding and the tall man threw her down onto the desktop, driving all the air out of her lungs.
They spoke to each other in a language she didn’t understand, short sharp words. Finally, the taller man gave a gesture of irritation—okay have it your way—and stood to one side.
The shorter man unbuckled his belt and opened his pants, hands working fast. A huge, dark red erect penis jutted out from the dark blond hair of his groin.
Panic sang in Chloe’s head as she gasped for breath, legs uselessly kicking at him.
“Pretty,” he grinned, sliding big hands up under her dress, stepping between her legs.
Oh God, this was happening so fast! Every move she made was countered by one man or the other.
They were so strong, there was nothing she could do.
She tried to bring her knee up to kick the man between her legs and he laughed, exchanging a narrow-eyed glance of amusement at his partner.
She couldn’t breathe yet. Mewling sounds came out of her throat, the strangled sounds of panic and pain.
They were enjoying this. Loving it. Loving her attempts to defend herself, knowing she could never, ever win.
A flush of rage flashed through her, like a nuclear blast, clearing her lungs. She drew in a full breath that broke the bonds of her panic and screamed as loud as she could, the sound echoing in the room.
She’d startled them. The shorter man between her legs loosened his grip on her thighs and she landed a foot straight in his crotch, reveling in the feel of his testicles crunching beneath her shoe. He doubled over in pain and she screamed again, loud and constant.
She wasn’t submitting without a fight.
The tall man shouted something, raised his fist, then turned his head with a frown.
Wood shattered and something large, moving fast, tackled the man assaulting her. They disappeared from view, dropping to the floor with a heavy shudder.
Terrible animal sounds came from the floor as the two men grappled, thudding against the desk, shaking her. Chloe scrambled upright, she had to move, she had to get to—
Suddenly a massive blow struck her and she flew across the room, bouncing off a pillar and landing painfully on the floor. A man, face bloodied, stood with a terrible roar and jumped the tall man. She had an electric moment of awareness—Mike!—and lost consciousness.
Fuck this, Mike thought, hand hovering over the wood-panel door at the shelter where Chloe volunteered.
Men really weren’t supposed to be here. It was a law of the shelter and he understood it, completely.
Everyone in this building, including Chloe, especially Chloe, had suffered at the hands of a violent man.
For the women in this building, men were the enemy.
A different race from them, sworn to destroy them.
Many of the women would never recover their self-confidence after what had been done to them. Would never breathe easy in the same room with a man. Would never have a relationship with a man again.
Chloe had been young enough that she could still function in the world, though she still had problems.
He shouldn’t be here, he should be out in the parking lot, waiting for her outside the building, as he always did. He knew that.
What the fuck was he doing here, then? Why come here to talk to Chloe when he’d be driving her home, or would be seeing her at Harry’s for supper tonight?
Or tomorrow morning in the building’s gym where he’d run her through her weight cycle?
Or at lunch tomorrow when she’d come in to consult with Marisa about one of the Lost Ones whose disappearance RBK was engineering?
He was here because he couldn’t stand it anymore. Not for one fucking second more. The situation was driving him batshit crazy, and he was almost unable to function.
He couldn’t eat. Just couldn’t do it. Food tasted like wool in his mouth.
He was forgetting things on the job, which was unheard of. Mike was intensely detail-oriented. He didn’t forget things, just didn’t happen. Until now, because the situation with Chloe was eating up his hard disk.
This morning he had a contract with a bank to go over and he’d spent two hours staring at a picture of Chloe, taken at a family barbecue a couple of weeks ago.
He hadn’t even noticed the time passing.
He just stared at the fucking picture and there had been wetness in his eyes.
Not tears, Mike didn’t do tears, but there’d been definite wetness. That’s when he knew he had to see her.
Right now.
He needed to see Chloe right fucking now.
He’d butted his head against the iron wall of his word to Harry and it was breaking him. It was either Harry or his heart and after holding out for six fucking months, his heart won out. He’d spent the past freaking six months in a hell of penance and enough was enough
The first thing was to ask Chloe out for that date they were supposed to have had at the Del before his shit hit the fan. They were going out on a date like normal people and Harry could go jump in the fucking lake. Or the Pacific, which was right outside his door.
And then maybe Mike could start eating and sleeping like normal people did. Maybe this raw buzzing in his head would stop. Maybe this burning pain in his chest would go away.
First Chloe, then he’d bite the bullet and talk to Harry.
He’d…what? Ask Harry permission to date his sister?
Not just permission to be around her and carry her groceries in, and be her personal trainer, but be with her, date her.
Because surely six long nookieless months was enough to earn him points with Harry?
He’d tell Chloe everything, how he felt about her, how he couldn’t even conceive of being with anyone but her, even though that still astounded him.
If you’d asked him six months ago if he could go six months without sex and without a specific woman, he’d have laughed in your face. Mike Keillor didn’t do abstinence. Mike Keillor needed no one, let alone a woman.
And here he might as well have been living in the seminary for all the sex he’d had these last six months. And even without the sex, he’d walk barefoot across hot coals to watch Chloe walk, talk, hell, even breathe.
Other women? He couldn’t do it. Couldn’t go to other women.
He’d tried a couple of times and it just…
didn’t work. In the sense his dick simply wouldn’t respond, like some contrary member of the board vetoing some proposal.
When he tried, when some woman in a bar come on to him, he’d felt a form of repulsion, his dick a piece of dead meat between his legs.
Once he’d actually felt his dick shrink in disgust.
If it wasn’t for the fact that he had to hide his hard on or will it back down whenever Chloe was near and that he woke up hard as a rock after dreaming of her, he’d have thought he’d suddenly turned impotent. A eunuch. Game over.
It was pathetic. He’d rather spend the evening with Chloe helping babysit Gracie and Merry, watching the three thousandth rerun of Frozen, than going out and finally getting laid.
More than pathetic. Lame.
And not only that. Every fucking time he saw her, his heart did this…thing in his chest. Like a heart attack, only not.
Every morning he’d tell himself sternly, enough is enough. He was driving himself crazy honoring his promise to Harry. Even though Harry was 100% right. There was something wrong with him, inside. He could recognize that now.
Mike functioned just fine in other areas of his life. He’d been a great Marine, made Force Recon, had headed up the local SWAT team, was a good businessman. In those areas he was okay, more than okay. But in everything else he was damaged goods.
Maybe success as a soldier, cop and businessman was all he’d be allowed in life, because sure as hell he wasn’t good at human relations.
Particularly relations with women. It was only now, when his goddamned feelings for Chloe threatened to slosh over and drown him, that he realized he’d never had any relationship at all with any of the women he’d fucked. Never. How terrible was that?
He’d perfected the art of the quick in and out fuck. In after sundown, out before dawn. One woman used to call him The Bat.
Women had never been a problem for him, ever. And here he was, freaking out over a woman.