Hear Me
Chapter Two
Kinana knew she'd made a horrible mistake as Erik pulled into a small motel five hundred something miles from the city in some tiny town she couldn't even name.
He reached in the backseat and pulled out his backpack.
"We're staying here?" She asked.
He nodded. "Of course. I wouldn't expect you to sleep in my car. It's not as comfortable for much longer than a couple hours as you'll remember."
She remembered. She had taken a couple hour nap when they left the city.
Anything to calm her nerves. Now they were acting up again.
She watched him pull her duffel bag out and slung the collection of clothes and several books over his shoulder.
He grunted when it slammed into his back.
"Erik?" She hurried around the car at the look of pain on his face for a second.
"It's nothing. Corner of a book." He said.
She started to follow him as he headed for the office.
This motel, like a lot of the ones she'd stayed in when she had run from John, was open all the time.
She tried to take her bag as he shifted it, but he merely turned so she couldn't as he asked the man at the counter for a room.
The young man had him write in some information on a paper, then filed it away and handed over the key welded to a gaudy dangle.
It was horrendous in its bright color. Kinana figured that was a deterrent to thievery.
Erik pocketed it and said goodnight to the younger man.
She caught the leering look the man gave her as Erik turned away from him.
Her hands reached out as she moved closer to Erik.
She wrapped her fingers around his arm as he led her out the door.
He started for a door along the long line of them.
As he tried to reach in his pocket for the keys, she didn't let his arm go.
"Darling, I do need to move my arm."
She finally pulled away. "Sorry."
He started to unlock the door.
"I'm not bothered, but why did you grab me?" He asked.
"I...that man, he...was looking at me so...nasty." She said as he closed and locked the door behind them.
Erik turned to face her as he set their bags on the desk.
It was one of only three things in the room.
A bed, a desk, and a chair.
Very sparsely furnished. Even the apartment at Fairy Tail had been more furnished when she had moved into it.
"Define nasty?" Erik frowned.
"Just...like..." She couldn't find words to explain it. The look had made her skin crawl.
"This?"
She actually tensed as Erik mimicked the same look.
"Like you're stripping me in your mind." She looked at the floor as she wrapped her arms around her waist.
She flinched very slightly when he reached out to touch her.
"It's alright Kinana, I'll never let anyone hurt you."
She looked up at his face.
He looked honest. And he didn't have that nasty look in his eyes anymore.
"To be completely honest with you, yes, I do think you are sexy and there were several moments when driving today that I looked over at you sleeping and could just imagine things much more revealed than that dress shows." He admitted.
She stepped back from him, the back of her legs hitting the bed.
It caused her to fall back with her momentum in the quick action.
xXx
Erik looked at her.
He hadn't meant to scare her, but that is exactly what had happened.
How badly had her ex hurt her?
No, he knew the answer to that.
Her brother had given him enough information to work with and Mira just as much.
Before she had managed to run away, her ex husband had been physically abusing her for little more than fifteen months.
He had raped her repeatedly, beaten her so badly she wouldn't leave the house for weeks, and when she had gotten pregnant from one of his rapes, forced her to miscarry by beating her even worse than normal.
He knew from the pictures and the dress she wore that she carried no scars from it. Not on the outside.
Obviously they were all on the inside.
He moved closer, dropping to one knee to kneel in front of her.
He wrapped her smaller hands in his.
"It's alright baby, I'm never going to hurt you." She had looked at him with such fear. His inner Dragon rumbled at him to make things right before she ran.
It could never stand to watch her run from it.
He realized he was acting like his father had acted with his mother. A Mate relationship.
His parents had died shortly after he turned fourteen and he'd been left with Gerald, but his father had taught him that his Dragon would identify his Mate at first meet.
It would act certain ways: the rumbling, the sense of protection without any obvious reasons, the feeling of comfort in her presence.
"Baby?" Her voice was soft, but he saw her confusion mix into the unease.
"Look, there is something I need to talk to you about."
"You called me baby. Like I mean something to you."
He nodded. "There is a reason I'm such a good tracker for missing person cases. I'm not like most men."
She visibly relaxed as he spoke.
"You're one of them." She said quietly.
"Them?"
"Gajeel and Laxus and Natsu." She said.
"They are different too?" He asked.
"I wasn't supposed to know, but I found out about Gajeel when Levy found him passed out on their living room floor. He had been poisoned. It had been such a menial thing to me at the time, I hadn't even thought about it. I had burned incense for months."
She seemed like telling the story would relax her, so he settled in cross-legged on the floor, still holding her hands. "I found a new brand that was cheaper, and he dropped after an hour. Levy had caught the scent when she came to me. She had been so angry at me, claiming I was poisoning her husband. I hadn't known."
She looked at her lap sadly. "I put it out and threw it away and helped her get him up again. That's when I found out about him being...not like normal men."
"Gajeel Redfox is a Dragon?" Erik asked. Kinana nodded.
"A very old one. He's the Metal Dragon Levy kept telling me. And I almost killed him by burning dragon's bane incense. It had smelled sweet to me, deadly to him."
Erik sighed. "So you know about the relationship he has with Levy Redfox?"
"Being his Mate or whatever?" She frowned. "Yeah. Lucy is to Natsu and Mira is with Laxus. They let me know. Mira said something about me being like them, but I thought it just meant I was a runaway like them." She looked at him with big scared eyes. "But that's not right, is it?"
"I'm sorry baby, it isn't. You are my Mate. I didn't notice at first and I'm sorry. But I swear I'll keep you safe and happy forever."
She tried to pull away from him.
xXx
She just wasn't ready for this.
Not after John.
Granted Erik hadn't hurt her yet, and didn't seem likely to, but John hadn't either to begin with.
Erik let go of her hands.
"It'll be alright Kinana. I'll never do more than you want. We can go however you want. Hell, if you want to ditch me and live off with someone else, I'll do it." But he wouldn't like it. The way he fisted his hands on the bed beside her told her that. "So long as you are happy."
"I...need slow."
"Very." He nodded. "For you, I'll go slow and gentle." He stood up. "Now, get some sleep. You need it."
She watched him head for the chair and turned it to face the bed.
He pulled his jacket off and she watched him start to settle in the chair and sleep.
She collected up her bag and pulled out her nightshirt.
As she changed in the bathroom, she fiddled with the hem.
It was short, maybe too short. But this would definitely be the tell on his behavior. Most men couldn't resist a woman in a short outfit. She walked out.
His eyes were closed and his boots kicked off with his legs stretched out on the bottom of the bed.
She crawled under the covers and shut the lamp off.
As she had changed, he'd switched the lights.
She stared at the faint silhouette of him against the window behind him.
"Goodnight." She whispered very quietly.
"Night." He mumbled.
She buried her head in the pillow. How had he heard her speak so softly?
xXx
Erik groaned as he filled the tank of his car at the station.
Two nights now he'd been forced to see her in that skimpy shirt she slept in.
Obviously she trusted him to not break his word, but damn. Did she have to push it so far?
As he pulled into the parking lot of another hotel, this one not a cheap motel like the first place, he reached to nudge her shoulder.
"Hmm?"
"Here." He said.
She nodded.
She collected her bag from the back as he grabbed his and followed him inside.
He held the door for her and sighed.
She had gotten used his chivalry it seemed.
The first few times, she had almost felt uneasy with him getting the door, even the car door most times.
It was just how he was though.
This was his mate, a priceless gem to treasure. And everyone knew how Dragons were with their gems.
She was lucky he had the restraint he had inherited from his father. His mother had been all kinds of impulsive.
He checked them into a single room and collected the card to lead her up.
As she started to pull out her shirt to sleep in, he finally snapped.
He yanked one of his old but clean shirts from his bag.
"If you're going to sleep in a damn mens shirt, it can at least be mine." He shoved it at her.
She took it as he let go.
He turned to leave the room.
"I'm going to go get something from the vending machine. Want anything?"
He glanced back enough to see her shake her head.
He pulled the door back open and headed down the hall.
xXx
She held the material in her fingers.
Ever since telling her that first night that he wasn't normal, she had been only treated with care and respect.
Like Laxus showed Mira, and just a bit less than the obvious adoration Gajeel showed his wife.
Erik hadn't hurt her in any way. Until now, he hadn't even done anything showing he saw her as more than a client he was traveling with.
Obviously that was wrong. The shirt she normally wore was indeed a mens shirt, but not the buttoned kind Erik wore.
As she fingered the small pale silvery blue buttons, she realized they were metal.
He had given her a casual silk shirt with decorative metal buttons. Did he even know the value of his shirt?
The quality of this silk and the genuine silver were worth more than her entire bag of clothes.
She raised it to her nose. It smelled like him.
That slight bit of musk mixed with the smokey cologne he wore. It was nice.
Kinana headed for the bathroom to change into the silk.
It was the closest she'd ever been to it since she had married John.
Her ex had told her she wasn't worth the fancy things she'd once been used to.
As she did up the buttons, she actually felt a bit like she had before meeting her ex.
Just the feel of Erik's shirt made her feel wanted.
She collected her clothes and put them in the plastic bag inside her duffle bag. Erik had given it to her for her dirty clothes the first day.
She looked at the single bed in the room and sighed.
The door creaked open and she jolted as she turned.
"I got you one of those bags of pretzels if you want. Or there's anything else I guess." She stared as he carried in half a dozen snack bags in one hand and a couple bottles of water in the other. "I notice you like pretzels and crackers and stuff, so I figured if you got hungry you could-" his voice stopped as he looked at her.
"I...thank you." She held her arms around her waist.
xXx
Erik could barely think as he stared at her. Seeing her in his shirt just made the possessive feelings stronger.
She was far too damn sexy. Her long hair was just mussed enough from pulling it out of the braid she'd put it in that morning that it tumbled just past her shoulders in waves.
He had seen the first picture of her after she had run away when her hair had been brutally butchered and had to admit, he preferred the longer look. Part of him also wanted to see her with her hair down to her rear. That image had been in his mind since he'd been old enough to know what his erections were.
Maybe he was just a long hair guy. And silky skin and big eyes and soft lips and just about everything to do with Kinana.
"Erik?" He jolted his mind at her voice.
"Hmm?"
"You're doing that weird look."
"Which one?"
"The one where you strip me by sight."
He sighed and turned back to organize his offerings to her as he laid them out neatly on the desk in front of her duffle bag.
He felt her hands on his arm as she came closer.
"I...don't mind it so much...when you do it."
He turned to look down at her as she tugged on his arm.
Erik felt his mind go blank again as she tugged him down enough to kiss his open mouth.
He immediately and instinctively returned it, turning to pull her close and into his arms.
As he took her feet off the ground, her arms went around his neck, her tiny hands tangling in his hair and tucking under the collar of his shirt each.
He forced himself to lean her over the bed and pry her away.
"Look baby, you are my mate, but I don't want you to feel pressured into being with me." He said as her hands slid to the front of his torso.
"I'm not. I know I said slow, but you've proven you're like Gajeel and Laxus." She smiled at him.
He gave her a faint smile in return. "Last I'd heard, neither of them were good guys to begin with. I like to think I am."
"My point is that you're perfect Erik." She frowned.
"Really? I hog the bed." He teased. "I wont let you drive my car. I sometimes forget to feed you for a couple hours."
"I'm a big girl, I can feed myself. And I don't like driving, so that's fine by me, I get a chauffeur. And you've never slept in a bed with me, maybe I'll out-hog you."
He sighed as he still pushed away from her. "You're really sure you want to try being with me?"
She nodded.
He stood up. "Well, first, let me feed you, to make sure you're not going to starve before morning."
She smiled as she sat up.
She scooted over on the bed as he brought his collection of snacks to the king sized bed they were obviously going to be sharing tonight. He had planned on crashing in the chair again, even though that hurt.
xXx
Kinana stared out the window as he came back around the car.
Tonight they'd be at her fathers house.
The past four nights had been pretty nice.
He was different from John by a mile.
Erik had shown her nothing but gentleness and care. And quite a bit of passion.
She smiled faintly as she saw the red mark on his shoulder, just peeking from under his shirt.
Her nails had done that last night.
No more sleeping in chairs for him.
Obviously she didn't hog the bed, nor did he. In fact, waking up with him curled around her was something special. As was waking up yesterday pressed to his side with her hand over his heart and her leg looped over his, like he was a big stuffed bear to hug.
As he opened his door to get in, tucking the gas receipt in a clip with the rest, she suddenly found her thoughts not so pleasant.
"Baby?" He asked as he turned the engine.
"Erik..." He glanced at her as he pulled back towards the road. "I...I'm scared."
He reached to take her hand and kissed her palm. "I'll keep you safe from anyone."
"What about...safe from you?"
He frowned. "I would never hurt you intentionally."
"I know, but," She sighed as she used both hands to hold his and rub her fingers over his. "What about when your case is done? I'm still just a client, you'll have to go on to other cases."
"Kinana, you're my mate. I'll never leave you behind. I was thinking on that actually last night, before you distracted me with that beautiful body." She blushed, but kept holding his hand even as he twined the fingers of her left with his right. An intimate hold. "I don't have to base from this region. I just know it well. This was home. I can find plenty of cases in Fiore. I'm sure Fairy Tail will be willing to put up with my crazy ass for a while. Until I can find a nice house nearby us."
"You want a long term relationship?" She looked at him.
He grinned. "I want forever love. Dragons and their mates are immortal for the most part, and I want you for it all."
"But...you said your parents were dead." She looked down. "Sorry."
"It's not like we can't die. A wreck would kill us the same, it'd just be harder."
She nodded.
She turned slightly to curl up on the seat, still holding his hand.
Forever huh? She could live with that. So long as he never hit her.
But this hand just didn't feel violent.
Strong, definitely pleasurable, but not the least violent.