Chapter One
I had no warning as his lips crashed against mine with a sudden intensity that would have taken my breath away if he had allowed me to breathe. He had forced me up against the wall while his friends were looking on. Each one had the same hungry expression in their eyes, the same one that matched his.
They laughed as they heard my cries of pain as he dug his fingernails into my skin at my shoulder and slowly dragged them down my arms, all the while kissing my lips and forcing his tongue down my throat.
I looked around trying to find something with which to hit him with trying to make an escape.
"Oh no you don't!" He growled in my ear as he grabbed my wrists, squeezed them tightly and slammed my arms into the wall, forcing me to lay flat against the wall.
His friends laughed at me as I cried out again. It didn't matter where I looked I saw their sneering faces, anticipating their enjoyment of my torture. I tried to stifle my cries knowing that would only increase their pleasure.
I was wondering where my father was, he should have heard my cries and their laugher by now.
It was then that I remembered that no one was there. They were all out to lunch. No one was going to come and save me. I was going to be beaten, multiple times, and possibly murdered and the only witnesses was the man who had his whole body pressed up against mine and the four onlookers that were waiting for their turn.
In the same instance I also realized that I was nothing to him. All of those weeks thinking that he loved me and cared about me were just a joke to him. I was just his possession, his toy that he could use as he wished and share with his friends. I couldn't stop my cry of pain as this realization hit. He misunderstood it.
"Do you like that Baby?" He whispered in my ear, his teeth nearly piercing the skin of my ear lobe.
He didn't give me a chance to respond as he brought his lips back to mine.
I gave up then, I shut down, not allowing myself to feel anymore, and yes it still hurt, every bruise, every gash from his nails or teeth, every scratch that I got from him pounding me against the wall and where the cinderblock rubbed my bare skin.
But I never made another sound. He seemed to notice the difference.
"Don't be like that Baby." He sighed slightly. He released me, taking a few steps away from me, I collapsed onto the floor.
He started slowly removing every piece of clothing that I had on, like we were playing strip poker and I was loosing. He exaggerated each motion like he wanted a reason to touch me a little while longer. I didn't care how long he took. It kept the pain at bay for a couple of minutes. I was down to my undergarments and shoes when he took a step back and started to unbutton his shirt.
He stopped as we heard a noise coming from the door of the shop.
"Is anyone in here?"
I couldn't see him, my view was blocked by a car, but I knew who he was by the sound of his voice. It was the new custodian that my daddy had hired to help around the shop, Emmett McCarty. Apparently he had come back from lunch early.
"What the –?" he trailed off as he, I assumed, looked at the four men standing there looking at him. My boyfriend, Royce King, rose slowly. "I thought you guys were on lunch break."
"We are." Royce replied, and then amended. "Sort of."
I stiffened on the floor as they started laughing again. I dared not breathe nor draw attention to myself fearing that Emmett might notice me and want to join in. I had no idea how he would react to seeing me. He was only hired just the other day. I didn't know anything about him. As long as the men's attention was otherwise drawn, I was spared for a few more moments.
"I don't know what that was for." Emmett said in reference to their laughter. "But I know the boss is not going to be happy if he finds out that you guys were in here eating in here, and that you brought in your friends."
"Oh, my apologies Mr. Suck-up-to-the-boss man." Royce sneered as he waked away from me and towards the door. One of his friends dared a glance down at me and then followed the rest behind Royce. "We left a mess over there, would you mind cleaning it up, since that is your job?" I could barely hear his whispered comment. His friends' laughter roared behind him.
I listened as their footsteps went outside and went out of my range of hearing. I also listened for Emmett. What was he going to do? Check to see what kind of 'mess' they had made, or leave and go on his lunch break.
As much as I hoped it was the latter, hope disappeared as I heard him approach.
I could see him now through the windows of the car, though his eyes were turned away from mine, looking back at the door, after Royce, wondering what had happened before he came in.
I could see his top half; he was wearing his work shirt, unbuttoned completely to reveal a white tank top that stuck to his profound musculature due to the exertion of a long morning's work in the 90 degree weather. His face, having well defined angles, still looked babyish though I knew he was 20 years old. His dark brown hair was matted on top of his head in curly patterns from the sweat that seemed to cover him from head to toe.
Though he was so imposing in the physical sense of the word, he still had an innocent quality to him that I had found endearing this morning. I remember him smiling at me as he greeted my daddy and me, seeing the dimples form in his cheeks, watching the way his bright blue eyes sparkled when he addressed me.
After what Royce had done, I found nothing innocent in him. He was just like them, all men were the same, they only thought of women as possessions, something to be had and to be used at their disposal.
I lost control of my silence as a shocked cry left my lips and was carried through the air into his ears. He turned to me finally where I lay on the floor with my clothes arranged haphazardly around me. I didn't like the intensity of his stare. His blue eyes were no longer sparkling. They were hard like gemstones and bored into mine.
I heard him mutter something under his breath with his slight southern accent as he ran to the other side of the car.
I started shaking uncontrollably as my tears flowed freely down my face and my cries ripped through my body. I searched desperately for my clothes through my blurry vision impaired by tears. Each piece I was able to retrieve I held to my self shielding me from him, however pointless it may have been.
I was searching for my work shirt when I noticed he had taken a few steps forward to kneel and grab my shirt off the floor to hand it to me. I cringed away from his offering hand and scrambled farther away from him.
"I was only going to give this back to you." I could tell that he was trying not to scare me again by using a small calming tone, but I didn't dare look at him. I could see that he dropped my shirt and then stood up. "I'll give you a sec to put your clothes back on." I saw his boots turn away from me and walk over to the other side of the car. The car slumped toward me as he leaned up against it.
I waited for a few moment's wondering if he was going to leave or just stand there, trying to look at me through the side mirrors. After a few seconds of him just sitting there, breathing in and out calmly and steadily, I figured he wasn't going to leave.
I quickly went to drag my Bermuda shorts back on, wincing as the fabric hit sensitive areas. I held my breath as I pulled my tank top over my head so as not to cry out again. My arms were sore and I had one really bad gash on my right shoulder from where Royce slammed me against the wall the first time. I quickly scurried over to where Emmett had dropped my work shirt and pulled my arms through the short sleeves.
Not knowing what else to do I just sat there, afraid to move to stand thinking my legs wouldn't support me.
I hadn't heard Emmett come back around the car. I gasped in surprise as I saw his hand outstretched, palm up, towards me. I scooted farther away from him as I finally looked into his eyes. They were no longer hard and intense, but soft and sparkling again, looking ashamed as well as concerned at the same time.
"I'm sorry." He slowly pulled his hand back. "I was only going to offer to help you stand up. But I can understand your reaction after what you just went through." He dropped his head down to my level. "I promise you, I will never hurt you like that, ever."
His eyes burned with a different type of intensity, one that I wasn't scared of but had a seal of a promise in it.
He offered me his hand again, not just in offering me help but asking me to trust him. I looked at him for a long moment, biting my lip. Should I trust just his word, or not? He seemed to have reverted back to the innocent looking boy that I saw not just three hours previously. He just sat there, hand still extended towards me while I sat in an internal debate.
He finally sighed. "Look, whether or not you trust me, your father, my boss, is going to come back from lunch in an hour. I'm sure you don't want him to see you like this and I don't want him to see you like this with me here alone with you." He paused. "I really need this job."
I couldn't understand his little speech but saw the fear in his eyes as he said the last line. Surely he didn't think Daddy was going to fire him if he caught us here together all alone, well that is if I have anything to say about it.
I saw my hand shake as I forced it to rise up to his waiting hand. He grasped it lightly in his strong hand trying not to harm me anymore than I was already.
I was right about my legs. I fell into him as my legs betrayed me. I stiffened, wary of his reaction. He simply drew my arm over his shoulder and helped me wobble over to the bathroom. I swiftly closed the door and locked it into place. At least I knew that he couldn't come and get me and if Royce showed back up he couldn't get me either.
I looked at my shocked and scared face in the mirror. The dim light cast shadows over my face but I turned to see which shadow's stayed in place, they were the bruises. I also noticed a shallow gash on my right cheek that matched the one on my shoulder. I saw my mirror self reach up and touch her cheek making me wince in discomfort. She pulled her hand away from her face and I looked down to see my fingers were stained with blood. The right shoulder of my shirt was turning dark with blood as well from my shoulder.
Other than those places, I wasn't bleeding anywhere else. It was just bruises that I had to figure out how to hide in an hour's time when my daddy and the other mechanics would come back from lunch.
"Oh no!" I groaned as the realization hit me.
"Is everything ok in there?" I could here Emmett on the other side of the door. I didn't answer him; I had almost forgotten that he was there. I grasped the sink for support. My will was the only thing that was keeping me upright.
"Are you ok?" He asked trying to open the door. He twisted it several times before he gave up. "I swear if you don't open this door right now I'll bust it down."
My eyes were wide at his threat. "It will come out of your pay." I could here myself whisper. From his reaction earlier I thought that was the only thing that would stop him.
"I don't care." I couldn't believe he said that, if he truly meant it when he said he needed this job. I must have misunderstood him. "I'm giving you to the count of three to open this door. One… two…"
"Alright, alright!" I yelled as my hands fumbled for the door lock and I cracked the door slightly so he could see that I was fine, sort of.
"Come on out." He said, trying not to sound threatening anymore. "I'm not going to hurt you I just want to clean up your face so you won't look so… bad." He hesitated, looking to find a word that would describe how I looked. I noticed that he was holding the small white first aid kit that Daddy kept behind the desk.
"It doesn't matter." I said as I came out and closed the door behind my back not wanting to have my back to him "The blood is already soaked into my clothes."
He reached over onto the hood of the car he was leaning against. He then presented me with a three-quarter length sleeved purple shirt and Capri pants that would cover most of the bruses. "I had these in my car. I thought they might fit you." He put them back on the hood of the car so he could offer me his hand.
My back was pressed up against the bathroom door as far away from him as I could get, trying to ignore the pain and the memories. I still was unsure of his intentions, was he really trying to help me, or was he trying to make sure I wouldn't tell Daddy that there had been five witnesses.
As if he could read my mind, he said. "I just want to help you." He smiled a little, his dimple's barely peaking out.
At that I had to laugh nervously a little. It was so strange that this huge, intimidating man could have such a boyish face. I tried to stop as he stared at me like I had lost it.
"I'm sorry." I said between my fingers. "I don't mean to make fun of you."
"It's ok, you've had a bad day I'm sure." He smiled at me reassuringly. "I just want to help you and keep you away from those lowlifes." He growled. I shifted further away from him. "I'm sorry I didn't mean to scare you again." He looked like he wanted to take a step towards me but then thought better of it knowing how terrified I was.
I looked at him then and finally decided that I could trust him and that he didn't want to harm me, at the time. He just wanted to help me, just like he said.
I took slow, deliberate steps towards him. I noticed the relief on his face when I reached out to touch his hand.
"I'm not going to hurt you," Emmett clarified, again. "I'm just going to pick you up and set you on top of the hood so I can take better care of you." He was talking to me like I was a four year old child rather than an 18 year old girl, but at the moment I didn't care.
I nodded and tried not to cry out as he put his strong hands on my waist and hoisted me up onto the hood. He muttered apologies as he let go of me. I held onto his broad shoulders while my breathing tried to return to normal.
He didn't look at me as he rummaged through the contents of the first aid kit.
"Can you sit there for a sec?" He asked me "I need to go grab a clean towel."
I nodded, releasing my grip on his shoulders and allowing them to rest on the cold metal of the car. It didn't hit me until he disappeared into the back of the shop that it was the first time that he had left me since he found me, though he had obviously left me in the bathroom to go get the kit and the spare clothes. But I had locked myself in, I wasn't afraid then.
It scared me to be alone in the shop, every sound, whether he made them in the back or if it was just the store's usual sounds, made me jump.
I looked at the clothes, trying to keep my mind away from such thoughts, and realized that I was going to put on some other woman's clothes and I had no idea where they came from. For all I knew they belong to his sister, or girlfriend. It would be rude to ask him out right, and did I really want to know more about someone who in one minute can be kind and trustworthy and the next have me up against the wall hurting me and frightening me.
I pushed the clothes away from me, it seemed like anything I thought about would turn down that dark road that I didn't want to go back down.
I closed my eyes and tried not to think. So I was startled when I heard the radio being turned on. Elvis Presley's unique voice filled the air with my favorite song: Can't Help Falling in Love With You. It was calming and was the distraction I wanted. I opened my eyes to see him walking out of the back room with a towel in his hand.
"I just can't stop scaring you can I?" He noted as he smiled at me apologetically.
"You didn't scare me." I told him with a small smile. "I was just surprised that's all." I closed my eyes again and let the lyrics lull me back into a simpler time, when I didn't fear men, when they had doted upon me because I was pretty. My mother told me to cherish my beauty every night she combed my long blonde hair. When she told me to cherish my beauty while it lasted because it was a fickle thing. It could betray you at any moment and you had to find someone to marry quickly before it fades away, or you might end up alone.
Wise men say only fools rush in. The words were poetic enough. I had been a fool to fall in love with the first man who offered himself to me. He would leave roses in the seat of my car every day before he left work and never missed an opportunity to tell me I was pretty and force other's to tell me that I was pretty. I remembered loving the attention and being loved by someone other than my family, and being the envy of all the other girls at school.
I shoved away those thoughts as he came to where I was sitting. I made my hands relax where I had formed tight fists. I could feel my nails pressing into my skin.
"Are you ok?" He asked with concern. My face must have betrayed my thoughts.
"It's alright. I really don't want to talk about it right now." I looked away from him.
"Oh, ok." He seemed to know where my thoughts were, or at least he guessed. He turned back to his work. I saw him pull out a small bottle. The smell hit me hard as he opened the bottle. "Sorry, it smells really horrible." He wrinkled his nose as he dabbed the end of the cloth in the bottle. "This is gonna sting, but it's going to make it feel better."
"What is it?" I asked as I watched him bring the towel up to my face and lightly pressed it to my face. I tried not to make a face as the liquid stung my skin.
"It's hydrogen peroxide." He said pulling the towel away to examine my wound. "It helps kill infection, if it bubbles the wound is infected, but it wont burn for long." He used the dry end of the towel to clean the wound and then repeated the action with the end that had the peroxide on it.
I watched his face as he went to work. He seemed calm, almost happy to be taking care of me. It was odd to see a man that looked as he did physically to be doing something so domestic. It reminded me of how my mother would treat me when I was young. My cheek seemed to be burning more now than it was when he started so I tried to distract myself by making conversation with him.
"Since when does a custodian know how to treat wounds?" I hoped my question wouldn't offend him.
It didn't, he laughed and answered my question. "My little sister used to get into a lot of trouble when she was younger. Not a day went by that she didn't come back in the house with a scrape or a bruise or something worse." He laughed at some memory. Apparently he doted on his sister like a parent would. But it made no sense that he would have to take care of his sister. I was almost hesitant to ask but he had just taken pressure off of my face and it stung as the air hit it.
"Where were your parents when she came home?"
He stopped moving, I was pretty sure he stopped breathing as well. I knew that it was information that he didn't want to share, least of all to a girl that he just met.
"I'm sorry." I whispered as I lowered my eyes, regretting asking the stupid question. "I shouldn't have asked you such a personal question." I tried to get down but he stopped me.
"It's ok, I know you didn't mean anything by it. It's just a not subject I like to think about. And I'm not done taking care of you." He smiled a little to show me I was forgiven, at least that's what I thought he meant.
"So do you have any other siblings?" I asked trying to get the sad look out of his eyes.
"I have my little sister, Alice and a little brother, Edward." He said with an air of affection. "Alice is 9 and Edward is 15."
I didn't ask about his parents and he didn't offer any information about them.
"What about you? Do you have any siblings?"
"I have a younger brother, Jasper, he's 9, and Bella she's 14."
"They sound nice." He commented simply.
"Yes they are nice." Jasper and Bella don't spend time with each other. Jasper mostly stayed in his room listening to music, and Bella stayed in her room reading. They had always been this way since the accident.
He laughed and then sighed. "Alice and Edward get into fights all the time. I have to referee a lot of times when their arguments get a little out of hand."
He was finally done with the peroxide and smoothed an extra large bandage onto my cheek. He had to remind himself to be gentle with me. Even though he was skilled in healing others his large strong hands still weren't made for the task.
"Is there any other places that are bleeding?" He asked me, about to put the cap back on the peroxide.
"Just my right shoulder." I touched the spot lightly, the blood was starting to dry on my shirt. "I think I hit the wall a little too hard."
"Hummm….." he thought as he watched me taking off my work shirt to show him the wound. "That's another thing we have to think about. What are we going to tell your father?"
I hadn't really thought about it after being in the bathroom. "I guess I can tell him that I fell and hit the ground. It seems to make the most sense and Daddy doesn't pay much attention to things like that." The only thing that he would do is yell at me for being in the shop when no one else was around but I could live with that.
"Ok, I'll go along with that. I'm not sure I can get through the rest of the day seeing that… monster though." His frown looked wrong on his boyish face.
I repressed a shudder as I remembered that forgotten detail. I glanced at the clock, in fifteen minutes the mechanics would come back to work, along with Royce, Daddy's most prized mechanic.
"I may have to go home sick." He admitted sheepishly.
"I don't want you to leave!" My voice betrayed how frightened I was. "I'm scared of what might happen to me if you leave!" I grabbed his arm with more force then I should have but I didn't care. As much as I was scared of him, I was equally afraid of him not being around to protect me.
"Then I'll stay if that's what you want." He tried to hide his smile as he repeated the process that he did with my face onto my shoulder.
He wasn't able to give my shoulder as much attention as my face because we heard the sounds of mechanics returning to work.
"Here." He handed me the clothes. "Go change in the bathroom. Can you put this bandage on your arm?"
"I think so." I smiled at him.
"Ok, I won't be out here when you come out, so no one can come up with any wrong conclusions. But as soon as he comes in I'll be where you can see me, and he can." he flexed his muscle's to emphasize the statement.
I nodded, trying to stifle the fear I felt. He moved to walk away from me but I stopped him by grabbing his hand. He turned back to me with a hesitant expression.
"I forgot to tell you something." I smiled. "Thank you, for everything."
He smiled back at me. "You're welcome." Then he looked unsure as to what to do next, but then the sounds of someone coming through the front of the shop had him nearly running away from me.
I quickly ran into the bathroom and put the bandage on my shoulder. I didn't look as gory as I did the last time I came in here and I quickly changed clothes. When I looked back in the mirror I could tell that Daddy wouldn't notice the few bruses that were visible.
I peaked out the door before coming out all the way. I walked out into the back room where all the cleaning supplies were, no one was there. I deposited my clothes in my trunk. When I walked around to the left side of my car, I froze in place when I looked over into my car and saw the single red rose sitting in the driver's seat.
I shivered in the 90 degree weather and ran for the front door.
So here's my new story, I hope you guys like it! :) Comments and reviews are appreciated! I have about three or four chapters written already so updates should be coming sooner than I usually do! Maybe if I can write two or three chapters before I update then I could update more often! (Or at least thats what I'm hoping for!) So if you took the time to read this, I would really love to hear from you! :)
~STP