Cupid’s Surprises (A Valentine’s Day Romance Anthology Book 2), page 63
He barely looks like the same man.
“We both know I can get you back to the way I want you.” He sits back down on the side of the bed. “That’s not a problem. Tell me why you left our home.”
I glare at him. “How was I to keep it? And tell me why I would even want to? You left me without a word. Not a note, nothing. So why would I stay? And for over two years, at that.”
“Because you belong to me. I knew you went off to college, and I was okay with that. I thought you’d know to come back here and get a job until I came for you. You came back just like I knew you would. My plan was to come for you this summer and take you with me. Only you found my baby brother, didn’t you?” He reaches out to touch my face.
I pull back so he can’t. “No! You do not touch me. I’m not going to allow you to touch me. Not ever again. You hurt me. You have no idea what your leaving like that did to me. I had no idea if you were alive or anything. I had to worry for what felt like forever. Then one day it went away, a little and a little more each day, until I just didn’t think about you anymore.”
“Why would you do that? I never stopped thinking about you. I never stopped dreaming about the day I could come get you and take you with me on the road with my gang.” He smiles. “You’re going to have a rough time at first. The women are tough as shit. But I know you can gain their respect. You’re tough and fearless.”
I shake my head. “What makes you think I want to be a part of a motorcycle gang? I’m going to be a kindergarten teacher, Rod. I’m not biker chick material.”
“You are my woman and, as such, you will be what I want you to be. So if I say you need to fit in with my new lifestyle, then you will do as I say. I will train you just like I did before.” He reaches for me again and I move away from him.
“You should leave before Reed gets back.”
“You are mine. And I will show him that.” He grabs my wrist and pulls me up to him.
His face is too close to mine. I can smell the cigarettes and some kind of liquor, maybe tequila. “If you think you’re going to force yourself on me, you better know I will file rape charges on your ass. I swear it. You’ll have to kill me for that not to happen. Get me?”
He lets me go and stands up with a laugh. “See, you are tough. You just need to come back to me for a little while and you’ll fall right back into place.”
“I’m marrying Reed. I’m not going to hang with you to see if I want that back, because I know I don’t. To be honest, that was never a life I wanted. I accepted it because I was young and dumb and I loved you for reasons now I can’t really figure out. You were wild and dangerous and a thing no grown woman wants in her life. Not this one, anyway.” I shift in the bed and realize I don’t have any underwear on. That makes me feel a bit vulnerable, but I try hard not to let my face show that.
Rod looks down at me. “Mom gave me the ring I gave you when I asked you to marry me and you said yes. Want to explain to me why you gave it to her?”
“Because I was done with you. I waited nearly a month at the house for you and two more months at my parents’. When I decided to go away to college, I wanted to leave it all behind me. So I gave the ring to your mother. It’s a lot better than tossing the motherfucking thing that, in my opinion, you didn’t care at all about.” I pull the blanket up even tighter around me.
He pulls the ring out of his pocket. “I’m here to get that ring off your finger and this one back on it.”
“You’ll play hell doing that, Rod.” I stare right into his eyes. “You see, Reed will be back soon, and he will beat your ass if he finds you here. And I will do everything I can to help him do that.” I hold my left hand up next to my face. “So jump if you feel froggy, asshole!”
His steel-blue eyes light up and his eyebrows go up high. “Wow! See, you are tough. And I made you that way. I do deserve a little appreciation, don’t you think?”
“You also made me have trust issues. You also made me have nightmares about how you strung me up for hours on end and did things to my body until I was crying and asking you to stop.”
His smile goes only over half his mouth. “That was no nightmare; that did happen. More than a few times. But I recall you agreeing to that. I recall reaching into your pussy and finding it wet and throbbing after those kinds of things. I recall you begging to suck my dick after those things. What is it you recall, Jenna?”
“I recall feeling weak. I recall thinking I had to make you happy, because you weren’t. I recall thinking that, if I could just make you feel loved, you would soften up some. And for the last part of our time together, you were softer. Not entirely, but you weren’t exactly that hard man you were in the beginning. But those things you did to me did scarred me deeper than the flesh wounds you gave me with your punishments.”
His eyes narrow and he looks down. “If things were better, and I was more like the man you wanted me to be, then why did you move on?”
With a sigh, I say, “Because even the man you had become wasn’t what I wanted. When I was eighteen and started things with you, I had no idea what I wanted. All I knew was that you had wanted me for two years, and that was pretty awesome in my young and naïve eyes.”
“So you never wanted me?” He looks at me with sad eyes.
That look used to get me every time, but not this time. “That would be a lie. I did want you. I did want to make you happy, and so I did the things you told me you needed. And still you fucked other women. And still you left me without a word. So my heart hardened. I learned how to harden a lot of things thanks to your training, Rod. So now you will reap the rewards of a job well done. You wanted me to be hard, and now I am.”
“And turned against me. Your owner. And if you think I’m going to let this go, you're very wrong. I’m going to leave, so I don’t have to deal with my little brother. But you and I are not done.” After picking up the contract off the bed, he walks toward the door, then stops and turns back. “See you soon, baby.”
As I watch him walk out the door, all the strength in me fades away so quickly, it’s unreal. My body begins to shake and I jump up and lock the door again. I also close the latch inside so even if he uses the key, he can’t get back in.
I managed to escape that little interaction unscathed, but that was close. I think he could see in my eyes that I wouldn’t go down easy. The tiger in me showed itself, I think.
But I don’t even want to know if I could actually fend him off or not. I’d rather never find that out.
I go and pick up the phone to call the front desk and hear a friendly female answer, “Hello. How can I help you this morning?”
“Are you the bitch who gave Rod Manning a key to this room?” I ask, trying to keep my tone sharp.
“No.” She hangs up and I call the other number on the phone. The one that says if you have any problems, please call.
“Good morning, Arizona Lodging Corporation. How can I help you this morning?”
“Hello, my name is Jenna Foster. My fiancé rented a room here at your Jerome location and I’d like to report that the woman who is working at the front desk this morning gave a key to another man and he entered our room. I suppose that’s frowned upon in your business. Is it not?”
“Oh my goodness! Are you okay, ma’am?”
“I am. But the man she let in and I have a very bad past. He used to beat me. So I was very scared. I’d hate to see anyone else go through what I just did. I can count on you to take care of this situation without my needing to involve the authorities, can’t I?”
“Of course! I’ll have the manager there soon and that employee will be fired immediately. Your stay with us will be free of charge, of course. Please don’t go to anyone else with this issue. I’d hate it if our lodging in Jerome got bad publicity for one woman’s poor decision.”
“Me too. I will be checking in with the manager before we leave a little later today, to be sure this was dealt with. Thank you. Goodbye.”
“Bye,” she says. Then I hang up feeling a little better about this thing.
Where Rod is concerned, I will pull no punches. I will take everything illegal or bad thing he does and flip it around on him.
If he thinks I’m going to go down all easy, he has another think coming.
Reed or no Reed, I will never go down that path with Rod or any man ever again.
Not ever!
The room’s phone rings again. I answer. “Hello.”
“Hello, Miss Foster. This is Lynette Jones, the manager here. I have Trisha Steen here with me and she tells me she did not give anyone a key to your room.”
I frown and then get mad. Really mad. “So you’re taking her word over mine?”
“I don’t know what else I can do, Miss Foster.”
“Tell me how many keys you have to this particular room, Mrs. Jones.”
She seems to be thinking. Then she says, “We gave you and your fiancé two of them. That leaves one we keep up here in the key box. So, three.”
“Look in the key box and see if that one is there, please,” I say and look my fingernails over as I wait.
I can hear her tell the woman to open the box, so I add, “I need you to look. Obviously, she will say it’s there.”
“Oh, yes. Hang on, then.” The phone clanks a bit as she puts it down. “I need to do that, Trisha.” I hear clicking sounds and then I hear a gasp. “Trisha, no!” Disappointment fills her voice.
Then I hear Trisha. “Aunt Lynn, I didn’t give it to him. I swear it. I don’t know where the key is!”
“Trisha, how could you? Everyone in this town knows about Rod Manning and Jenna Foster. Everyone knows about that time he pushed her all over their yard and the police had to come. How could you put her in jeopardy like that?”
Trisha is stammering and making no sense. Then I hear her say, “He made me. He told me he’d teach me good if I didn’t give him the key.”
Then my heart aches for her. But it doesn’t mean she should get off scot-free.
When the manager gets back on the phone, she’s apologizing like crazy. I stop her. “Look, I know he’s intimidating. I heard her, and I do believe her. But something has to be done to show her how she can handle something like that if it ever happens again. So please see to it that some kind of measures can be taken to teach not only her, but your other employees, how to handle a situation like that. Perhaps something as simple as teaching them to say there are no other keys to the rooms.”
“Yes, ma’am. And your stay is on us. There will be no charges at all.”
“We were here two months,” I say, as I can’t possibly imagine them comping the whole time.
“I’m aware of that, and the entire stay is on us. Thank you for staying with us. When you visit again, I hope you will consider staying with us again. I am very sorry, and this incident will help us to form a protocol for just this kind of thing. I am so sorry, and so is my niece.”
“Thank you. I’m sorry he did that to her.” I hang up and feel even more awful that he would do that to anyone just to get to me.
Does he draw no lines?
Chapter 22
REED
As I try to open the door to our room, I find the inside lock is latched.
“Reed?” Jenna calls out.
“Yes, it’s me.”
She comes and opens it and nearly falls into my arms. “Thank God!”
“Are you that hungry, Jenna?” I laugh a little as she wraps her arms around me.
But then I feel her body shaking as she hugs me.
I move with her, set the drinks and bag of food down, and pick her up. “What’s wrong?”
“Rod.” Then the tears start again.
“Jenna, you have to get a hold of yourself. You can’t let him get to you like this.” I run my hand through her hair.
She takes her face off my chest and looks up at me. “He was here, Reed. The girl at the front desk gave him a key, and he got in here.”
My body goes instantly hot. “No fucking way! That bitch is getting fired!”
“I already took care of that, and we don’t have to pay for our stay here. And the reason she did it is that he intimidated her into it. But they’re going to figure out some way to train their employees not to let that happen again,” she says, then buries her face back in my chest and wraps her arms tightly around me.
“What did he do to you?” I hold her tight and fight the urge to leave to go find him.
“Nothing. He didn’t do anything to me. Just told me he wants me back. That kind of thing.” A shiver runs through her.
“Bet there’s a lot more to it than that,” I say as I hold her back and make her look at me. “I need to know it all. What happened with you two in the past? Don’t leave anything out.”
The way she looks up at me makes my heart hurt. I know it’s bad, and I know she doesn’t want to relive this, but I have to know.
She moves off my lap and climbs under the blanket and leans against the headboard. “Reed, I’m afraid you won’t be able to respect me if I tell you what I allowed.”
“You were young and inexperienced. I promise you there’s not a thing you can say to me that will make me lose respect for you. I respect who you are today. That young woman is not you anymore. I wouldn’t even ask you to do this, but I don’t want Rod to think he can make you stay quiet about what he’s done to you.” I move around on the bed and give her my full attention.
She bites her bottom lip. Then she looks down. “Not long after we moved in together, Rod asked me to enter into a contract with him. A submissive/slave contract, where he was the dominant. It said in the contract that he owned me.”
The way my stomach tightens and rolls makes me want to throw up. “I see.”
She keeps looking down. “I wasn’t going to sign it. I really wasn’t. But he had another woman come to the house, and she was ready to take that offer. She was ready and willing to do whatever he wanted, right then and there. So I told him I’d do it. I signed it and became his property.”
“That’s not even legal. But I get what you’re saying. So this contract was for life, then?” I ask, and have to fight nausea.
She nods. “And it came with rules and punishments for breaking them. And conditioning my body to accept pain.”
I run my hand over the blanket where her legs are. She can’t look at me, it seems. “Jenna, what did he do to you?”
“That first night, right after I signed the contract, he bound my hands and hung me up on a hook he’d put up on the wall in our bedroom. A hook like you’d hang a robe on. Only robes never hung there. Only me.” She has to close her eyes, and a tear runs down her cheek.
“I know this is hard.” I run my hand up her arm and over her cheek to wipe the tear away.
She opens her eyes, but doesn’t look at me. “He got out his leather belt and told me to say the safe word only after the pain was enough to make me cry. I was able to take five lashes before that happened. And he was pleased with that.”
My heart is pounding, and I wish that was all the fucker had done to her, but I know it couldn’t have been. “And after that?”
“He had sex with me while I was still strung up. And while I was still crying.” She closes her eyes again. “That was not the worst thing he ever did to me. It was just the first thing. It sticks out because of that, I guess.”
“So he hit you often?”
She nods. “For the first few months of the contract, it was every day. To get my body in condition, he said. And when I made little infractions of his rules, it got more intense. Nipple clamps, collars that were tight and large. They made me very uncomfortable, you know.”
“I can imagine. And you were incapacitated when he did those things?”
“Yes, strung up, so I couldn’t get away from him. Do you remember that New Year’s Eve when we all went to that bar and you left early?” she asks me as she looks into my eyes.
“I do.” I take her hand in mine and lace our fingers together.
“After you left, he made me go into the bathroom when that woman he was playing pool with went in. I had to beat her up. I busted her head against the sink and never felt worse about anything in my life. Not anything made me feel as bad as that did. But he was so proud of me for doing it. He told me he was making me strong and fearless. The kind of woman he needed.” She looks away.
“What else has he made you do?”
“Sex in places that were semi-public. Your family’s bathroom, the men’s room where he worked. The café where everyone in town eats. Behind the grocery store in the alley. I couldn’t work so he could call me to come to him when he wanted or come home to have sex or get a blowjob whenever he felt the need. If I wasn’t available for him then he said he’d get it from another woman and I didn’t want that. That’s why I made myself available for him.”
“He’s a very fucked up individual.”
She nods. “After that fight in the front yard when the cops came, and I told the cop not to take him to jail, he changed a lot. He threw away the belts, the bonds, and the other things he used to hurt me. He stopped making me cater to him. And he let me do my online classes. Then he asked me to marry him, and everything was great.” Her eyes cut up to mine. “Nowhere near as great as one single moment you and I have shared. But great for me and Rod. But then he disappeared and left a hole in my soul. I was a slave with no master. The contract was still there, always lingering in the background of our relationship.”
“You belonged to him in your mind, didn’t you?” I run my hands up and down her arms.
“In my mind, I did. And with each day that passed after he left, that idea of belonging to him faded away. The reality of what life really is about started seeping in. Going off to college was the best thing I ever did for myself. I met this guy there, Cam. He helped me come to see that I had secluded myself. I pushed people away. I had no trust in anyone. With his help I came out of the shell I had allowed Rod to put me in.”
“Was he your boyfriend, Jenna?” I feel pangs of jealousy.
