Chapter 3

 

 

 

Chloe managed to crack her eyes open just enough to let a little light in.

Who in the hell kept bringing a sledgehammer down on the back of her skull? Must have been the same bastard who filled her mouth with sour sand. Ugh.

She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths through her nose, waiting for a momentary bout of nausea to pass. Then she opened her mouth and moved her tongue around, grimacing at the taste in her mouth. Stale bourbon after a drunken sleep. Sadly, she was all too familiar with waking up after too much alcohol, but this was probably the worst hangover she’d ever had.

Even visualizing herself sitting up gave her enough vertigo to set her stomach bubbling.

She opened her eyes fully this time and stared at the ceiling, willing her insides to stop trembling. Maybe she’d force herself to get up and hurry to the bathroom, and that fast movement would bring on the nausea hard enough that she could throw up and get it over with. Chloe had no doubt she’d feel better if she did, once the brain-pounding subsided.

And then she realized how warm her right side was. And how someone lay next to her, breathing softly and steadily.

Oh, God, Chloe! You didn’t.

She carefully turned her head to see the tousled blond hair, straight nose, and full, moist lips. It was the man from the night before who said he’d take care of her. The naked man from the night before, judging from the bare shoulder. At that moment, Chloe realized the sheet was cool against her breasts, her stomach, and thighs. She was naked, too.

Oh God, Chloe. You did.

She clamped her mouth shut against a wave of nausea as she turned her head too quickly. Then she looked around the room and realized she didn’t recognize it. Looked like a motel room, and a cheap one, at that.

At least I didn’t take him home?

Carefully, she lifted the sheet so she could try to slide out of the bed without waking him. She couldn’t even remember his name, but she remembered him calling her goddess and some other crazy things. And she remembered kissing him, outside. Well after she’d determined she absolutely wasn’t going anywhere with him.

So much for that.

As she lifted the sheet and shifted to sit on the edge of the bed, and yeah, she was buck-ass naked head to toe, he made a groaning sound in his sleep and rolled onto his back. Chloe stood and glanced back at him as she looked around for her clothes. He’d pulled the sheet with him as he moved, caught under his hip, and was now bare from head to mid-thigh.

Even in the throes of the worst hangover of her life, Chloe had to stop and admire him. He was lean but muscular, and despite the boyish look of his hair, he was clearly all man.

Well, well. What is this?

Oh, hello there, fella.

His cock was thick and long, and she guessed that erect he must be impressive. She almost wished she could remember. But his was the biggest, prettiest cock she’d ever seen. She wasn’t even slightly raw or sore, which she might have expected after going as long as she had without sex. Her last encounter had been at least a couple of years ago.

And there was none of that unpleasant stickiness she’d always felt the next morning after sex. She felt clean and normal. With relief, she thought that must mean they’d at least used condoms.

With one last long look at the beautiful body, she turned to find her clothes neatly folded on the bathroom countertop. Quietly she dressed, grabbed her purse, and left the room. Maybe she should have left him a thank-you note, or something. He had been kind to her, from what she remembered.

But the longer she stayed there, the more likely it was that he’d wake. And she simply couldn’t deal with facing her one-night stand, not when she had to figure out what the hell she was going to do. She called a cab at the front desk after she remembered stomping her phone to death, and thought about what she really needed to take with her, and how quickly she could pack.

She couldn’t be here when Norman got out of prison in just a few days. She had to run and hope like hell he and his father would lose the scent of her trail.

She couldn’t go back to being with that man. She wouldn’t. She’d taken his abuse for too long already by the time she decided to leave him. Chloe could still feel the pain of that first time he’d hit her, a smack across the face only three days after—

She choked as she tried to swallow and wiped her eyes.

“You okay, Miss?” The cab driver stared at her in the rear-view mirror.

“I’m fine, thank you.” He surely knew that a pick-up early in the morning at a motel, smelling like old bourbon and looking as rattled she did, was the equivalent of a walk of shame. She probably wasn’t the first woman to cry in the back of his cab after a wild night out.

She put a hand on her stomach as a bout of nausea made her worry she wasn’t going to make it home. And the thought came at how different this was than the nausea she’d experienced during her short pregnancy. Every morning, for at least a few hours, even the thought of nibbling dry crackers was enough to make her heave.

Norman had been pleased every time she’d dropped to her knees in front of the toilet, like the more nauseous she was, the stronger his baby would be. He’d been odd the entire time, one minute stroking her shoulders and holding her hair back, the next berating her for not taking good enough care of herself and saying it couldn’t be normal for a woman to be so ill during something so natural. Her doctor, one of the best that Senator Greyson had hand-picked and paid privately so no HMO got in the way of her care, had assured them that some women have pretty consistent morning sickness, and as long as she could get something down during the day and stay hydrated, it was within the range of normal.

He still accused her of eating things that made her throw up, or not doing exactly what the doctor recommended for her condition, which was really just living normally, eating right and taking pre-natal vitamins. He’d even acted as if she was trying to harm the baby, which is when she realized there was more to Norman’s odd behavior than nerves. Something wasn’t right about him. It took her pregnancy to make her see that.

And it took a miscarriage to make her see that Norman’s problems went beyond possessiveness, vindictiveness, and selfishness. He was cruel and abusive. Norman was a tyrant.

She rested her forehead against the cool glass of the cab window and tried to push thoughts of Norman out of her mind, thoughts of how his face had screwed up, not in worry or sympathy or fear, but in rage when she’d woken up one morning with a pool of her own blood gathering between her legs.