Jenna knew she shouldn’t have pushed, but with Alex’s track record it was only natural for her to be apprehensive, especially after coming into such a large amount of money. The last time he’d had nearly this much money, it’d been borrowed from a few unscrupulous people who hadn’t been shy in detailing exactly how easy it would be to not only break Alex’s body, but take a piece of Jenna’s ass in the process. She’d spent nearly two months on her back getting the loan sharks their money back, and Jenna wasn’t about to go through that shit again. So she’d posed the question when he’d returned from clubbing with “the guys”. She’d ignored the pussy and liquor cologne that oozed off him like noxious fumes and instead got straight to the point. His reply had been a brusque shove that sent her stumbling back. She’d returned with a slap to his face, and he’d countered with a punch to hers, the sort of punch a guy would throw during a fight with another guy. It’d hurt like a motherfucker, and despite the fact that she’d taken more than her fair share of his love taps, this one hadn’t hurt any less. He hadn’t stopped there; one punch was never enough for him.
To minimize the damage, Jenna had assumed the fetal position, one she’d become accustomed to over the course of their relationship. She didn’t know how long it lasted, but when he’d finally grown tired, she was a mass of burning agony. Every inch of her being throbbed mercilessly, and she knew he’d broken a few things. Blood coated the inside of her mouth, nearly gagging her. Breathing was agony, moving was sheer hell. So she’d lain there, praying for the darkness at the fringes of her vision to consume her. But her body refused to shut down, refused to give in, and when he’d began to disrobe her, carelessly tugging her jeans down her hips and further down her legs, Jenna had dared to attempt an escape.
“This is the only thing you’re good for, Jen,” ’he’d grunted in her ear, “and you can’t even give good pussy right.” He’d been short of breath as he’d carelessly flipped her onto her stomach. His weight had fallen on her again, and he’d raised her hips to brutally thrust into her. Jenna had closed her eyes and prayed it would be over. When he’d finished, he’d gone out again, leaving her exactly where she was now, prone on the hardwood floor. In an attempt to assuage the pain, she allowed her mind to wander.
She can’t remember her parents because she never had any. Well, she did technically because two people did fuck to conceive her, but she’d never known who they were. She’d grown up in the foster system, bounced around from home to home, and had no stability whatsoever. Puberty hit her all in the right places far too early, and one too many men who were supposed to nurture her took notice and took advantage. Jenna grew up too fucking quick. Her first time was with the high school quarterback. She could barely remember his name now, but he’d been a senior and she’d had a thing for older men and muscle cars. In the backseat of his Mustang behind the football field, her popularity had been forged in virgin blood. She became known as the quick and dirty girl. She’d met Alex when she’d been sixteen and he got her a job at the Crazy Pussy. He said she’d be his girl, and they’d been together since.
What Jenna had begun to realize a very long time ago was that being Alex’s girl was like being fucked in the ass without lube, and she was getting tired of limping her ass everywhere. Getting off the floor was a huge challenge, and it took nearly all she had, but she managed the feat. She was a ball of agony, and propped up against the loveseat, she felt like the loneliest person on the face of the earth. Raising a hand up she felt around for the bag she’d left on the loveseat when she’d arrived home earlier. She looked at the phone in her hand, tears pooling in her eyes. She shouldn’t call. They’d promised each other to have as little contact as possible to maintain Eden’s whereabouts and to keep Jenna safe. But Jenna needed her best friend. She was the only family she had.
* * *
“Hello?” Eden answered tucking her phone between her ear and her shoulder while she rummaged for her keys.
“Eden?”
Eden’s heart lurched for a second in a desperate attempt to come up her throat at the sound of that voice. She stopped her search and took the phone in hand. “Jenna, what’s wrong?”
“I know you said not to call, but Alex and I had a fight…” she trailed off, but Eden instantly knew the implication of that. Alex had laid into her again. For the life of her, Eden still could not understand why Jenna stayed with the scumbag when he treated her no better than a punching bag with a convenient hole to stick his dick in when the mood struck him. Alex was a piece of shit boyfriend and each and every time he laid a hand on Jenna, Eden wanted to gut him.
“How bad is it?” she asked, stepping inside her apartment.
Eden heard her sigh, the sound coming from a place that was familiar to her, too. It was a broken sound, a tired sound that came from living a tumultuous life that never seemed to end. “It’s not too bad, but it hurts to breathe…my face is pretty banged up, too.”
Eden swore under her breath. Promising Jenna that she was on her way, she hung up the phone. Eden didn’t go into much detail with the Amy, her sitter, simply that there was emergency she needed to tend to and would pay double her regular fee if she stayed with Liam for a few more hours. Ami readily agreed, and with a kiss on a sleeping Liam’s cheek, Eden was out the door again.
The two hour trip was mercifully brief, with the late hour the interstate was quiet, making it easy for Eden to get where she needed to be quickly. She hurried up the concrete stairs, paying no mind to the stench of urine or the loud arguing coming from the closed doors.
“Jen!” She knocked on the door, hoping desperately that in her two hour trip over, Alex hadn’t returned to finish what he’d started. “Jenna, it’s Eden.” She raised her fisted hand to knock again, but the door opened before her hand made contact. The sight of Jenna’s face broke her heart.
“Jesus.” Eden followed her inside the dark apartment, closing the door behind her. “Let me see.” She put a hand on Jenna’s arm stopping the other woman from picking up an overturned chair.
Eden had never actually seen Jenna’s injuries without the passage of time or the added effect of makeup to conceal them. Seeing them now, in the raw, was something else. Her ordinarily pale face was a patchwork of bruises; her left eye was swollen shut, blackness haloing the perimeter; and there was a big purpling gash on her cheek that had congealed with blood. She tried smiling at Eden, undoubtedly attempting to alleviate the horror she saw in honey eyes, but her smile came out as a wince.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” she said instead of smiling, the effort it took to talk was even worse than when she tried smiling.
“You need to leave him.” It was an old song, one Eden had been singing since they’d met. Jenna was probably the only person Eden would consider her friend. Hell, she was practically family. Their instant friendship at the strip club hadn’t been a fluke; there’d been a kindred spirit in each other that had been hard to resist and still it persisted, making it hard for them to turn their backs on each other. Eden could no more ignore Jenna than if she were her own blood. “Come live with me,” she said suddenly. “I have an extra room that I won’t need until Liam is older. You and I can live together, at least for a little while. Take a break from, Alex.”
“I don’t know…”
Sighting her opportunity, Eden jumped on it. “Rent free, you can just watch Liam as payment.”
Jenna’s eyes lit up at the mention of Eden’s baby. “I can watch over the little porker?”
Eden laughed. “Yeah.”
Jenna looked over at the woman who she’d known for such a short time, yet treated her like a sister, and the tears in her eyes began anew. Eden was offering her the change she so desperately needed, and she was doing it simply because she wanted to. It wasn’t the way of her world to have someone do something for nothing. But Jenna knew there was no ulterior motive here. There rarely ever was when Eden was concerned. She’d done so much for Jenna so far, more than she could even begin to say. She sniffled and reached out to embrace Eden mindful of her injuries. “Thank you, Ede,” she uttered through the tears. “Thank you for this.”
Eden drew away slightly. “Thank me by not packing anything. Let’s just get out of here before Alex gets back.” When Eden headed for the entrance, Jenna stopped her.
“Wait…” She left Eden’s side and hastened to the bedroom just around the corner from the living room and returned a few minutes later. She held up a roll of cash. “My tips from CP.”
“I taught you well. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
* * *
With a heavy sigh Eden fell back on her large bed, the down comforter breaking her fall. She was drowning in it all, drowning in clouds impersonating pillows. Heaven was royal blue Egyptian cotton sheets against her naked skin. With a long, body deflating sigh, her eyes fluttered close, and the events of the last forty-eight hours bled out of her. It’d been a hell of a few days. It had begun with one of her biggest clients failing to close on a commercial property because the financers decided to back out at the last minute. The agency was looking into litigation, but all Eden saw was failure. This would’ve been huge for her had she been able to pull it off and regardless of her best efforts, everything just fell apart. This was supposed to be cake. It should’ve been an easy commission for her, with both sides getting what they wanted. It just didn’t make sense that they would simply walk away, even with the threat of a lawsuit for breach of contract. Eden knew that these investors were going to get a good deal. She just couldn’t figure out what could’ve possibly made them change their minds.
And then, as though that hadn’t been bad enough, Eden had been called home by a frantic Jenna while in the middle of an emergency meeting with Annie Banks, telling her she needed to hurry home because she hadn’t been able to get Liam’s fever down. With her heart in her throat, Eden had instructed Jenna to call an ambulance and would meet her at the local hospital. It’d taken her twenty minutes to get to Amesbury General and another two hours sitting with Liam while they ran tests.
By then, Eden had been hysterical, with Jenna doing all she could to keep her from wearing a hole through the waiting room carpet. It’d taken a variety of blood tests before the ER pediatrician informed Eden that he had an infection that they could to treat with IV antibiotics. It wasn’t until late the following day that Eden was allowed to take Liam home. He’d thankfully returned to normal and had eaten more than usual much to Eden’s delight. She’d just settled him down for the night, and after eating her own well cooked meal, compliments of Jenna’s excellent culinary skills, Eden had been ready to crash. She turned on her side, teetering between slumber and wakefulness as a dream lured her deeper into sleep. With a furrowed brow, she tossed and turned, consumed now by the lurid nightmare.
From the shadows of the candlelit room, she stood spectator to her own debauchment. On a bed that was meant for more than the two people it had been purchased for, Eden saw herself splayed out like some Dionysian offering, naked and aching for something. That something had yet to make itself known, but one didn’t need much thought to decipher exactly what that something was. The air in the dimly lit room crackled with passion so potent that one need only inhale to taste it. Eden watched herself, hoisted by a bevy of pillows while smooth caramel legs fell akimbo, golden eyes riveted by something between those parted legs, something—or rather someone—holding her complete attention.
“Are you ready, my sweet?” Dominic inquired silkily from the shadows, his voice like sex with the right bit of growl that made dream Eden jump.
“Yes,” came out on an exhale, like it needed to be said.
“Then fuck yourself for me.”
Dream Eden eagerly pleasured herself for him. Without pause, without even a single thought, one hand crept down of its own accord, eager fingers sliding a path down her neck to find and gently cup her breast.
Eden gasped inaudibly, eyes widening marginally upon the realization that she felt everything that dream Eden did. She was suddenly there, no longer a spectator, but a participant in every way possible. She saw him behind her lids, descending upon her, mastering her with large hands that knew nearly every supple inch of her body. Between her middle finger and thumb, Eden tugged and twisted her nipples to tender peaks, imagining it was him playing with her.
It was so real, so pronounced. It was as though Dominic was there, on the bed with his solid frame looming over hers, surrounding her. He was gloriously naked, his physique something of legends, while his long, thick cock enticed her mouth and her cunt. The emotions running through her were carnal, and Eden submitted as her fantasy intensified. Wetness pooled between her thighs, dampening her panties. Her body was on fire, scalding hot, and there was only one man who could temper the fever, assuage the inferno.
With her right hand on her breasts, the left slid down the flat of her belly, the goal the honeyed sex between her trembling thighs. Breathy moans filled the room as she inserted first one finger and then another, lifting her hips off the bed to meet the stroking motion of her hand. It was inadequate, but Eden’s imagination was remarkable in making it feel like the real thing. It was Dominic fucking her, and she melted around his generous cock.
She panted, her fingers delving deeper while she arched and fell, writhing and moaning with the sweetest abandon, entangling her limbs in her sheets. Her orgasm hit her hard, and Eden rode the delicious tremors that rocked her entire body.
She came awake with a gasp, rising up in bed with wide eyes staring into the dark. She scrambled for the night light and frantically searched the room. Dear Lord, it had felt like he was here! Like he’d been in her bedroom with her, touching her...fucking her. With her heart beating too fast out of her chest, Eden felt like she was going to faint. She brought a hand to chest, while sweeping another through her hair. How is it that he could affect her after a year apart? Why did he continue to haunt and plague her dreams when all she wanted was to be rid of him? What sort of freak…what sort of woman was she to want a man who’d lived to degrade her? Eden was beginning to suspect that she wasn’t quite normal. She’d fought so hard to escape him, had done all she could to elude him, yet she continued to have these dreams—nightmares—about him and his depraved sexual appetite. What did that say about her? For goodness sakes, she’d practically performed for him! All that had been missing was a big top and a whip. Even now she could feel the evidence of her arousal between her legs. She sighed in disgust. She needed a shower if for nothing else than to at least wash away her shame.
Saturday proved to be far better than the past two days, and she and Jenna decided that with the weather being so warm, they would make a day of it and take Liam out. They journeyed around the small rural town that was more village than anything else, and Eden showed Jenna around. Though she’d kept mostly to herself in the last year since moving to Amesbury, the openness of the locals had made it hard for Eden not to make a few acquaintances. Like Wendi from the bakery who’d been an accomplice in contributing to Eden’s extra weight gain with a tempting treat here and there when she’d been pregnant. Wendi was nice, a primary example of the sort of people that lived in Amesbury. They stopped by her bakery to pick up a few fruit tarts for desert later tonight before continuing on their way.
“That’s like the twentieth time you’ve done that since we’ve been out,” Jenna remarked quietly, pushing Liam’s stroller.
Eden kept pace although the slight faltering of her step did not go unnoticed by the other woman. “Done what?” she asked with a frown, tossing a cursory look over her shoulder.
“That, you just did it again!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Jenna abruptly stopped and turned to her best friend. “You’ve been a little jumpy all day. And you probably don’t even realize you’re doing it, but you keep looking over your shoulder like you’re waiting for something to jump out at you.”
“Not something,” Eden murmured distractedly, peering over her shoulder again. That ominous feeling she’d had since earlier this morning continued to gnaw at her.
“What?”
Eden blinked and met Jenna’s gaze. “I said not something. I don’t know, maybe I’m just being paranoid, but I have this feeling we’re being watched.”
Jenna’s eyes widened as she too began to look around anxiously, blue eyes clouding over with fear. “Alex…?” Eden could hear the dread in her voice. Since having moved in a month ago, Jenna had been recuperating, thriving even, watching Liam had given her a sense of purpose. Eden refused to allow her scumbag boyfriend to come in and wreck it all. Besides, Alex wasn’t nearly so clever. There was no way he even knew where to begin looking for them.
Eden feared a far more sinister enemy: her husband.
Eden looped her arm through Jenna’s and encouraged her to continue walking. “It’s not, Alex, Jen.” No, not Alex. “I don’t want to draw further attention, let’s just keep walking.” Eden could swear the man walking a few paces behind them had been following them since they began their outing. She’d had the feeling of being watched but she hadn’t noticed him immediately. It wasn’t until they’d left Wendi’s Bakery that she’d seen him. He was a wiry man, small in stature, with a beige windbreaker, dark Dickies and a blue cap that concealed the upper half of his face. “Whatever you do, don’t turn around. Let’s get Liam in the car and drive.” If this were any other time she would realize how insane she was being right now, but something in Eden told her that this wasn’t just paranoia. Her gut was screaming at her to take flight. She needed to keep a level head, she needed to remain rational, and she had both Liam and Jenna to protect now. If Dominic really had found them, they needed to move fast because it would only be a matter of time before he caught up to her, and Eden would be damned if she allowed that to happen.
As a precautionary measure, they waited an extra half hour in the car to make sure they hadn’t been followed before hurrying inside the condo. Eden was at war with herself. She wanted so badly to pack, pack everything and run. But where would she run to with an infant in tow? How long would she continue to run from him? She’d built a life for herself in Amesbury. She had a job now, she had place of her own, and apart from Jenna she had friends here. She couldn’t allow her fear of Dominic be the reason to uproot herself. She’d dealt with him for three years, had endured his humiliation and enmity, and had not uttered a word. She needed to face him now, needed to ask for a divorce so she could finally be free of him. It all sounded good in theory, it all seemed so perfect in her head, including his acquiescence for a mutual separation. But Eden knew it wouldn’t be so simple in reality, not even close. She needed to prepare herself for the mudslinging she undoubtedly knew Dominic would toss at her.
“Do you really think he found you, Eden?” Jenna asked from her seated position at the window, her gaze looking out into the dark courtyard.
“It’s a feeling. I’ve always had this horrible ability to feel when he’s close. It’s like all the air’s being sucked out of the room, and I’m left gasping for breath.” She’d had that feeling on and off again, all day long. “Any sign of our friend?”
Jenna shook her head. “Not since we saw him in town. Do you think maybe you’re wrong?” she asked hopefully.
Eden sighed, drawing Liam gently away from her breast. She came to her feet and maneuvered him over her shoulder with all the expertise of a mother and soothingly rubbed his back to get him to burp. “I hope I am, but I’ve learned when it comes to Dominic, nothing is impossible.” He was as relentless as he was ruthless. Eden would put nothing pass him.