Chapter Thirty-Three

 

 

 

 

 

Tori

 

 

 

 

 

The days following my abduction were hard. My body was so confused and torn. It remembered the way the drugs felt in my system after that initial injection. It remembered the high that I would probably never achieve again. I’d ache for it some moments, want that feeling of exhilaration more than anything else in the world, but then I’d remember the way I felt once the high began to wear off. The aches, the exhaustion, the disgust.

I was a mess.

The only person in my life who might have had an inkling of understanding was my twin. Although he obviously hadn’t had the drugs in his own veins, he had felt some of what I did. When I’d woken up in the hospital, he was by my side with Evan and Dad.

Vincent looked like shit, though. His face was flushed, his eyes were bloodshot, and he moved like he was in pain. He just stepped to the bed and wrapped his arms around me, holding me tight for a really long time. When he finally let me go, he kissed the top of my head and left the room without saying anything.

I rolled over in my bed the Tuesday morning after everything happened and found Evan propped up against the headboard, shirtless and reading something on his phone. It was obvious that he’d been awake for a while but like every other morning since I’d been discharged from the hospital, he didn’t leave the bed. He didn’t want me to be alone.

A smile curled along the edges of his lips when he saw that I was awake. “Hey, baby.”

“Morning,” I replied, moving closer until my head was in his lap. “You been awake long?”

“About an hour.” He put his phone down and reached out to push some hair off my cheek. “How’d you sleep?”

The stilted, polite conversation had become our new normal. His touches with me were tender, although completely safe. He watched me like a hawk, as if he was waiting for me to have a breakdown. The kid gloves were firmly in place and it was driving me nuts.

“Ev?”

“Yeah?”

I turned my head in his lap and stared up at his handsome face. He had bags under his eyes that told me he wasn’t sleeping. The stubble on his face was thick because he hadn’t shaved it since the morning I’d gone missing four days before. Everything was still tormenting him just as much as it was me.

“Will you make love to me?”

The hand that was on my shoulder tightened and his whole body went tense, but he immediately shook his head. Before he could vocalize his protests, I sat up so we were face to face.

“Please. I need you. I need to feel that connection, that rush that I can only get with you.”

He looked so damn torn. I knew he missed it just as much as I did- the intimacy, not the sex- but he was so afraid of hurting me or doing too much too soon.

“Tor,” his voice was almost a plea but I could tell he was only holding on by a thin thread.

I smiled at him and sat up. Reaching for the hem of the oversized t-shirt I was wearing, I pulled it over my head in one swift move. He maintained eye contact with me for about ten seconds before sweeping his hot gaze lower. The appreciation he had for my naked body was written all over his face.

Wearing nothing but my underwear, I moved so I was straddling his lap, feeling the proof of how much he wanted me against my thigh. I ran my hands up his firm, sculpted chest and didn’t stop until my palms were cupping his scruffy cheeks. My forehead pressed to his and his bright blue eyes were almost on fire as he stared into my own.

“I love you, Coleman.”

One of his large, warm hands ran up my bare back and stopped once it was on the base of my neck. The other hand wrapped around my lower back and brought my chest flush against his.

“I love you, too,” was all he said before his mouth captured mine in a gentle but urgent kiss. My hands moved from his cheeks to the back of his head and I parted my lips, inviting him in. He took the invitation and I moaned at the contact.

He maneuvered us until I was flat on my back with his body hovering over mine. He trailed his lips down my chin, my throat, across my chest, and only stopped once he was at my breasts. His tongue lavished one nipple while his fingers did the same, making my back arch with pleasure

My fingers gripped his hair and my breathing quickened when he continued his descent. His tongue dipped in my belly button momentarily before his fingers gripped my underwear and slowly pulled them down.

He tossed the material over his shoulder with a wicked grin and slowly spread my legs. With a groan, he buried his face between my thighs and I gasped at the feeling of his wet tongue against my sensitive flesh.

I didn’t need drugs to make me feel euphoria. Evan Coleman did that all on his own.

He used his tongue, his fingers, even the scratchiness of his would-be beard to bring me to the edge quicker than I thought possible. I climbed higher and higher and when the pleasure hit its peak, I remembered what pure, real bliss was.

The orgasm felt like it went on forever and Evan didn’t pull back until my body was wrung dry. He kissed the inside of my thighs and grinned up at me as he used the back of his hand to wipe his face.

“You good?”

“Never better,” I managed to choke out, causing him to laugh softly.

I felt completely exhausted in that moment but the exhaustion quickly faded away when Evan rid himself of his boxers. Desire roared back to life and I welcomed his weight when he settled back on top of me. He reached over to the nightstand to grab a condom and I shook my head, grabbing his wrist to stop him.

“We don’t need them anymore. It’s been seven days.”

He stared at me for a moment, absorbing my words, and then his lips curled up into a smile. “Right.”

Our mouth came together in another kiss but it was different, raw with passion. When Evan slid his hot, hard flesh inside of me, we both moaned.

The sex was desperate, sloppy, and out of control.

In other words, it was perfect.

Sounds of our bodies connecting, our heavy breathing, and moans filled the room and I knew Evan was close by how tense his muscles were. He shifted his hips, situating himself in a way he knew set my body off, and dropped his forehead to mine.

“Love you so much,” he said through grit teeth and I just nodded, unable to speak as the second orgasm took over my body. He groaned and buried his face in my neck, letting himself go.

I closed my eyes as I tried to catch my breath, wrapping my arms around his back to keep him close. A smile teased at my lips and I don’t know how long we laid there like that before Evan shifted so he could brush his lips against mine.

“It’s good to see your face so relaxed. Even in your sleep you’ve just looked so stressed.”

The dreams, which felt so real earlier, suddenly felt like nothing. And I had Evan to thank for reminding of that.

I cuddled up against his side when he rolled us. It was about two minutes before I made my confession.

“I keep dreaming about it.”

“About what, baby?”

“About how it felt to have those drugs running through my veins,” I admitted in a whisper. “I keep dreaming that I’m trying to feel that good again but nothing works. At some point in my dream, Widener appears and tells me that it’s no use, I’ll have to give in and take the drugs.”

“Jesus,” he croaked, increasing his hold on me. “I’m so sorry.”

“No, don’t you understand, Evan?” I moved so I was draped across him, cupping his cheeks again. “You just proved that dream wrong. You reminded me that nothing, no drug in the world, gets me as high in the clouds as what we just did. I feel like a queen, like I can do anything, after we make love.”

We kissed again and it wasn’t long before I was climbing on top of him, riding back up to the clouds.

I never wanted to come down.

–––

Despite my protests that I didn’t need it, I ended up in therapy again. Every person I loved in my life insisted on it but it wasn’t until Captain Stevenson held my job over my head that I gave in.

So I went once a week for a whole month and continued going regularly at less frequent intervals after that.

My new therapist was a nice woman named Alba and she helped me come to terms completely with the assault and the drugs. And even though I thought I was over everything with Tristan, Alba allowed me to see that I hadn’t really let it go. I finally got to a point where I was good with what happened all those years ago and she helped me to see that I could be myself without guilt.

Tristan didn’t end up in jail again since he didn’t physically send the video but he did get sentenced to another few years on probation. He was also forced to serve court mandated anger management and to do a thousand hours of community service. The court awarded me a large amount of reparations but I didn’t want it. I donated every penny to a women’s coalition without blinking.

Just as Keith and Ruby were moving back in to their newly constructed home, Evan was leaving his. He packed up all of his stuff and we merged lives just six months after we found each other. We weren’t ready for babies and marriage hadn’t been brought up, but I couldn’t imagine doing the mundane, daily stuff without him.

“Evan?” I walked through the garage door early one morning in February, a few weeks after he officially moved in and three months after the abduction, and dropped my work bag down onto the table.

It was a Friday so I knew he’d be awake since he was had to be at the station by nine. When he didn’t reply to me calling him, I figured he was out for a morning run so I poured myself a glass of orange juice and headed up to our bedroom.

His missing sneakers told me my hunch about the run was right. I sat down on the bed, still in the yoga pants and long-sleeved shirt I’d put on when I left the station. If he was out for a run, he’d need a shower when he got back and we could save water by showering together.

Logic.

I scrolled through my phone while I waited, catching myself up on the local news. When a headline caught my attention, I froze.

Man serving lifelong drug sentence killed during prison riot.

A booking photo of Clayton Jarvis accompanied the article, which detailed how he’d been stabbed the night before. By the time the riot had been broken up, he had already bled to death and they had no idea who was responsible.

I had a hard time finding any sympathy for Jarvis. It wasn’t even because of what he did to me, either. So many lives had been irreparably changed or ended thanks to the drugs he and Widener peddled around the city.

Jarvis had pled guilty and testified against Widener for a life sentence that gave him a chance of eventual parole.

Widener, on the other hand, was given a sentence of more than two-hundred years in prison. The trial had been shortly after Christmas and I’d testified, telling my story in front of a jury. Because his crimes included violence, Widener would never be released on parole.

Both Evan and Dominic were awarded several accolades in their part to take down a major drug ring. Between the information they managed to get out of my two tormentors and the leads they found after knowing Widener was Zero, all the roads to Sludge had been completely demolished.

It wasn’t to say it would never show up again but our local high school hadn’t seen any of that horrific drug on its campus since Widener’s arrest.

My nightmares were gone and the feeling of being on the drugs had faded away into a dull memory, making me wonder why it’d plagued me so much at the time. For the first time in my adult life, I was completely happy.

Not content. Not comfortable. But really and truly happy.

“Victoria?”

Evan’s loud voice from downstairs startled me and I closed out of the article I was reading so I could drop my phone onto the bed next to me. The anticipation of seeing him never got old.

My boyfriend appeared in the doorway a minute later, sweat soaking the long-sleeve shirt he was wearing. He grinned at me and immediately toed off his sneakers.

“I was hoping you’d make it home in time to shower with me. I missed you last night.”

This was our thing when I got off shift. Even though I usually showered at the station, I gladly showered again when I got home for the chance to be with Evan. Sometimes our showers were sexy and mind-blowing but more often than not they were full of intimacy without the sex.

“I missed you, too.” And I did. The nights spent without him were always long. “Get naked, Coleman.”

He leaned down and gave me a long kiss before pulling back and stripping out of his sweaty shirt. I watched as he threw it into the hamper and rid him of everything else until he was gloriously naked.

Holy hell, my man was fucking hot. I never got tired of looking at him.

“Your turn to get naked. I’ll start the shower.” He disappeared into the bathroom and I watched his muscled ass go as he did.

Thirty minutes later, I was sitting on the edge of the bed in my bathrobe, feeling thoroughly worked over in the very best way. That morning’s shower had definitely been one of the sexy and mind-blowing ones.

I watched Evan tuck his cream colored dress shirt into his suit pants and smiled when he sat next to me to put on his shoes and socks.

“What time’s the game tonight?” I asked as he unrolled the black socks he’d taken from the drawer.

We were going to our second hockey game that night except instead of alone, we were bringing our friends. Dominic and Becca were leaving the kids with Ruby and Keith, Owens was bringing his very pregnant wife, Christos and Kelly were going to be there, and even Ty and Vincent were joining us.

I was super excited. Watching hockey games on TV had kind of become our thing and I loved it.

“Seven,” he replied just as something fell out of his sock and hit the ground. When I bent down to grab it, Evan quickly shook his head. “Shit. No, Tor. Wait!”

His protests were too late, though. I grabbed the small object and sat back up slowly as I inspected it.

It was a ring. Not an overly fancy one, but one I recognized instantly. The gold band was studded with diamonds and a large, round one sat in the middle. It was beautiful.

I turned my head and looked at Evan in confusion. “This is my mother’s ring.”

“I know,” he replied with a sigh. “We’re just meant to be unconventional, aren’t we?”

“What do you mean?”

He shifted off the bed and sank down so he was on one knee in front of where I was still sitting. He gently took the ring from me but kept my hand in his, kissing the top of it as he did.

“I was going to do this tonight, in front of all of our friends, but I think I like this better, just you and me. Your dad gave this to me a few weeks ago when I asked for his blessing. I thought I tucked it in the navy socks.” He sucked in a long breath and I just stared at him, completely frozen with the realization of what he was about to do.

“Victoria Rose,” he started, still keeping my hand in one of his. “You’re my best friend and the love of my life. I can’t imagine not having you by my side as my partner. Nothing would make me happier than if you’d become my wife.” He opened his other hand so I could see the ring again. “Will you marry me?”

It was kind of funny. At that very moment a year before, I’d decided that I probably wasn’t going to end up married. The thought of opening up to someone, to trusting them enough to have a relationship, had been scary and unappealing. Now? Well, let’s just say I was really glad things had changed so drastically.

I swallowed back the emotion and nodded my head rapidly. “Yeah, Ev. I’ll marry you.”

“Good.” He slipped the ring onto my finger and we both stared at it for a moment. Suddenly, we were surging together, meeting for a kiss that blew every kiss before it out of the water.

“I’m glad you didn’t do it in front of everyone else,” I mumbled against his lips as my fingers started undoing the buttons on his shirt. “I want my fiancé to make love to me right this second and that could have been awkward in the middle of the hockey rink. You’re going to be late for work, Coleman.”

He chuckled and let me push the shirt off of his shoulders before doing the same with my robe. “I can’t think of a better reason for being late.”

Yeah, neither could I.