Chapter 6

 

 

 

 

“Riley!”

I didn’t realize that Dawson was not on the bed with me anymore, nor did I comprehend that I was touching myself or crying.

I sat up in one frantic motion. He sat on the edge of the bed and stared at me with an expression of revulsion.

“Are you okay?”

“What did I say?” I asked, but wasn’t sure I wanted to know. I was more humiliated than I may have been in my life.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter, Dawson. Please tell me what I said.”

He ran his fingers through his short hair, and I had to coax him again to tell me.

“You wanted me to spank you. You wanted me to stick my finger in your ass, and you said you needed me to fuck your pussy,” he told me the things that I would say to Drew, unable to look at me while he did.

“I warned you. I told you I was fucked up,” I knew that he was seconds away from storming out of my house and my life, which was fine by me. I should have known a normal relationship wasn’t plausible for me.

“Why, Ry?”

I rolled over and lay back down, facing away from him. “You’re off the hook, Dawson. You can go.”

He kissed my hair. I was surprised when I felt him snuggle up to me and wrap me in his arms.

“I don’t want to be off the hook. You invited me to spend the night.”

I smiled, not used to the affection but relished being in his arms. He never tried to finish what I had started and we fell asleep in each other’s arms. I woke at the beginning of a nightmare, glad that I roused before I said anything else that would make him think I was crazy, not that I wasn’t. I slid out of bed and walked out onto the deck.

I didn’t hear him walk up behind me because I had left the door open. I am not sure what I was thinking at the time or even if I was thinking. As soon as he spoke, asking me if I was okay, I jumped, startled. I turned to look at him and could only see his black silhouette in the night. I covered my face with my arm as he stepped closer to me.

“Ry?” he quietly said, stopping in his tracks.

I moved my arm and breathed a sigh of relief when I realized where I was or who he was.

“I’m sorry, Dawson,” I spoke.

He held me in his arms, and I wanted to cry. Nobody had ever held me. Nobody had ever cared. I didn’t know how to be with someone who cared.

“What the hell happened to you?” he asked, rubbing my back in a comforting fashion.

I couldn’t tell him anything. I couldn’t tell him how I was raised in the poorest parts of West Virginia by two parents that never should have had kids. I couldn’t tell him that my dad had sold me to a rich, twisted sex pervert. I could never tell him anything about my past.

“Let’s go back to bed,” I said, pulling away from him, taking his hand to follow me.

He pulled me close to him, and I lay in his arms. I felt soothed and calm, nestled close to his chest. I had never lain in Drew’s arms like that. If he did spend the night in my bed, it was because he planned on taking care of his sick needs again before morning. I had never stayed in his bed at all and only had sex in his bed a handful of times.

***

The dream that I woke from earlier in the night returned. I was back in the trailer, and it was once again winter. My mom was working the night shift at the truck stop. My dad was, of course, at the bar. I was fifteen and Justin was three. I told him to sit on the couch and not move while I went out to get wood. He decided that he wanted to help and opened the wood burner door with his bare hand. I dropped the armful of wood and ran into the house to his terrified screams. The skin on his hand dripped off onto the floor. I didn’t know what to do. We didn’t have a phone, and the only place I knew to go was about half a mile down the road to my Grandma Joyce’s. I was afraid to go there too. She was sick. My dad warned me to leave her alone and not bug her.

I picked him up and ran his little hand under cold water. He screamed to the top of his lungs. The only kind of salve that I could find was Vaseline that I had found beside my parent’s bed. I rubbed the greasy ointment on his hand and wrapped the burn with a torn white sheet. I didn’t know much, but I knew enough to know that he needed to go to the doctor.

We were sitting on the couch when both my parents came home together, drunk. I was rocking him back and forth as he slept in my arms sucking in short puffs of air from all the crying.

“I thought you had to work,” I scolded my mother. I was there taking care of her kid while she was out getting drunk.

“What happened to him?” she asked, ignoring my statement.

“He touched the wood burner,” I said.

“Stupid kid,” my dad said and grabbed the container of Vaseline from the stand. “We might need this,” he said, pulling my mom back toward their room, laughing.

“He needs to go to the doctor,” I yelled.

“I’m sure he’s fine. I’ll look at it tomorrow,” my mother said without one care about her son hurting.

I carried Justin to bed with me and held his little body close as he whimpered the entire night.

***

Dawson sat up in bed.

“I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry, Justin,” I called over and over.

“Riley,” Dawson said softly four times before I hysterically sat up in bed.

“Shhh,” he said, pulling me back into his arms. “You’re okay, you’re right here with me,” he whispered into my hair. He pulled me tight, wishing I would tell him what I had lived through, or anything that told him why I was like this.

“Who’s Justin?” he asked, kissing the back of my head.

“My little brother,” I answered, sadly with a heavy heart.

“Where is he?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“How old is Justin,” Dawson asked, trying to keep me talking.

“He was only five the last time that I saw him, but he is twelve now.”

“Why haven’t you been able to see him?”

“Children’s services took him away,” I replied, gloomily.

“In West Virginia?”

I sat up and looked at him.

“I didn’t say anything about West Virginia,” I demanded.

“You said it in your sleep. Come here. I’m not your enemy, Ry.”

I lay back down and was glad that he stopped with the questions.

What else did I say?

We dozed off for the third time that night. I was sound asleep when Dawson woke me by kissing my lips. I always slept the best in the morning. My nights seemed to be full of demons that kept me awake until the exhaustion took over early in the morning.

“Good morning, beautiful,” he said, and I had to smile. Him calling me beautiful had an entirely different meaning behind it than when I heard it from Drew. When Drew gave me compliments it was always in the bedroom, usually when he was close to shooting his load.

“You mean I didn’t scare you away last night?” I asked as he kissed my lips again.

“Not a chance.” He smiled.

 

<><><> 

 

Things were going extremely well. I couldn’t believe that my new life was working out. I may have just pulled off the biggest disappearing act in history. Dawson continued to come around; we spent a lot of time together. He spent the night on several occasions, but neither of us tried to take that next step. He did a lot of comforting during my long nights when he was there and tried to get me to talk to him. I didn’t and didn’t plan on ever revealing my dark skeletons to him or anyone else.

Summer Fest was extremely busy at the shop. I was happy that we were closing at four rather than six and were planning to join in the festivities. Lauren was singing on stage; she and Levi were D-jaying for the street fair later that evening.

Dawson stopped by in uniform around three. I thought he seemed preoccupied but assumed he probably had a pretty busy day himself with all of the commotion going on in town. He told me he was going home to change. After I also went home and changed, we would meet up in the streets somewhere.

I dressed in a long skirt and tank top with psychedelic sandals that I had ordered from one of our suppliers. For once, I wore my hair down and was excited to spend the evening with Dawson, Lauren, Star, Joel, and even Levi.

Dawson was already there, wearing khaki shorts with a nice red shirt and brown leather flip-flops. He stood from the picnic table and kissed my cheek.

“You look very pretty,” he offered, causing me to smile. He always made me smile.

I was in such a happy mood and laughed at Starlight being the center of attention, dancing in the street all by herself. She had tried to get everyone to join her, and when nobody would, she went alone. It was only a matter of time before more and more people joined her, all waiting for someone else to do it first. Lauren and Levi were hilarious on stage and argued back and forth about funny issues. I was laughing at them talking about how Lauren steals his food at work when I looked across the table to Dawson. He was staring intently at me with a serious expression.

“Are you okay? You have been out of it all day,” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Do you want to dance?” he asked.

I smiled and gave him a peculiar look. “I am not sure I can dance to this music,” I admitted. I could dance. I loved my dance classes in Las Vegas. I just didn’t think that ballroom dancing would correspond with the country music.

 “You need to dance the waltz or something?” he teased.

“Something like that,” I laughed.

I wondered what he was doing when he walked up to Levi and whispered in his ear. Levi smiled and nodded his head. Dawson came back with a smile and took my hand.

“What are you doing, Sheriff?” I asked, taking his hand.

He didn’t reply, and Levi came across the speakers, saying he had a request for some ballroom dancing. Some song called the Tennessee Waltz started playing, and I laughed.

“That was as close as he had,” Dawson smiled down at me.

It was close enough to a slow song that would allow me to be in his arms as we danced across the blacktop dance floor.

“You seem to be a little distracted today,” I said, looking up to him.

“I guess I kind of am, but we’ll talk about it later.” He smiled down at me and kissed the end of my nose.

“Talk about what?” I asked, curious as to what could be on his mind.

“We’ll talk about it later,” he said with a reassuring smile.

We sat at the table and watched the people dancing. I too was distracted, wondering what Dawson wanted to talk about. I stared blankly toward the dancers as my mind wandered back to Drew and my own dancing coach.

***

Drew wanted me to learn to dance. He wanted me to be as graceful as him when he thought I was ready to be in public and wouldn’t embarrass him. I worked with Jaymas Wellington, a retired Broadway star. I was on my third week with him, and we were in the open end of the gym. I didn’t know that Drew had returned. He’d been gone for nearly three weeks.

Jaymas and I were doing a spin, laughing hard, and really doing more goofing off than anything. I liked him a lot, probably more than I should have. It was nice to have someone to talk to. We didn’t talk about anything personal. I knew everything I said could be heard by Drew anytime he wanted. I had just slid down Jaymas’s body after the spin, and we were both laughing when I lost my balance and fell to the floor. We stopped dead in our tracks when Drew entered with a look of pure anger.

“Leave!” he demanded through gritted teeth to Jaymas.

Jaymas left, telling me that he would see me later. He didn’t see me later, and I never saw him again. Drew walked up to me, took me in his arms, and started dancing with me around the floor.

“You like flirting with other men?”

“I wasn’t flirting with anyone.”

“That’s not how I saw it. It looked to me like you were enjoying being in another man’s arms.”

“We were dancing. You’re the one who made me take lessons,” I reminded him.

“Do you like him rubbing his dick all over you?”

“You’re impossible,” I replied and took the blow to the same cheek that he seemed to always go for. He grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the gym. I looked at Rebecca as I was being forced into his office. She gave me a warm encouraging smile, but it wasn’t reassuring to me. In the five months I’d lived there, I had only been in Drew’s office once and that was on our wedding day. I wasn’t allowed in that room. It was kept locked unless he was in there.

“Get out!”  Drew said to the two guys with folders and some sort of brochures in their hands.

“Drew, you have to make a decision on this ad,” Derik argued.

“That one,” he decided, pulling one of the pamphlets from his hand without looking at it.

Drew locked the door, and I was scared, more than I ever had been with him. He was angry, and I didn’t know what he was going to do to me. That day was the beginning of my allowed office visits.

“Take your clothes off,” he demanded, and then yelled, “NOW!” when I hesitated.

I removed my practice shorts and shirt as he watched with crossed arms. He nodded when I didn’t move, beckoning me to take off my bra and panties as well.

“You know that I’m about to beat your ass like I never have before, don’t you?”

“Why?” I asked. I hadn’t done anything wrong.

He was in my face in a split second. “You do not ask the questions, got it?” he asked, squeezing my nipple so hard that it burned. “Bend over my desk.”

 

I did. I had to. I panicked when I heard the belt being pulled through his belt loops. It reminded me of when my dad used to whip me with his belt, and I remembered how bad it hurt.

I couldn’t hold still after the first crack across my bare cheeks. It hurt way worse than I remembered from my dad. He shoved me back to the desk and delivered four more blows before he finally quit, only because his desk phone wouldn’t stop ringing.

He pulled me to him and bent me over the other side while he talked business with someone on the other end. I was sobbing, and although I knew there was no blood, it sure as hell felt like it. He rubbed the inflamed welts on my ass, and it was soothing as he sat in his chair, conversing as if I wasn’t bent bare butt over his desk.

I flinched a little when I felt him slide his finger into my vagina. He swatted me lightly across my backside with a warning. I didn’t understand my body at all. How could I go from sobbing to wanting to press into him deeper? I could tell that I was building and so could he.

He put the phone to his chest and bent to my ear. “Don’t you dare come,” he demanded through gritted teeth.

He was going to make sure I came. No matter how hard I tried to think about everything else, his penetrating fingers on my clit were causing me to lose control. I was hoping I could get off and hide it. If I closed my eyes and didn’t move, maybe he wouldn’t realize that I had come. I tried my best to control my breathing and uncontrollably let go. His fingers stilled inside of me, and I knew he could feel my quivering orgasm. I could see the smirk on his face without even looking at him.

I didn’t move as he removed his hand from my body and walked to a locked cabinet. I heard him cutting plastic or something and messing around with something as he continued to talk on the phone. I tried to turn my eyes enough to see what he was doing, but I couldn’t tell.

He finally hung up the phone and told me to stand up. He was holding the biggest dildo that I had ever seen. Well, I had never really seen any, just the ones that I had seen in my dad’s magazines. He took my hand and wrapped it around the massive shaft. My fingers barely reached around its girth.

“You didn’t listen again, Morgan,” he smirked.

I wanted to ask him how I was supposed to listen when he was trying his damnedest to make me come, but I didn’t. I knew I wasn’t allowed to ask the questions.

“What are you going to do with that?” I couldn’t help it. I had to ask. I had a right to know; after all I knew it was going to be used on me.

“Oh I’m not going to do anything with it,” he assured me. I watched as he lubed it up and slid it up and down in my hand. He pulled a small table in front of his chair and sat down, placing the large tool on the table in front of him.

“Have a seat, Mrs. Kelley,” he dictated.

You have got to be kidding me. Was this guy serious?

I could only stare from him to the object that he was holding in place with his hand.

“Turn around, Morgan,” he demanded. I did. He was going to make me do it, and I knew it could either be the easy way or the hard way, not that either would have been the easiest in my book.

I was hoping that it was going in my vagina, but of course he had other plans and when I squatted he moved it to the hole that I was dreading. I felt him open my ass cheeks as my weight held it in an upright position.

“Ah, yeah baby, take it all,” he said in a lustful hiss.

“I can’t,” I begged. I was sure that I didn’t even have the head in yet.

“Just sit back a little more,” he coached, and I felt it go in a little more as I did.

Once I was uncomfortably sitting on the table, he came around to the front of me and stood with his front right in my face. He crossed his arms and waited. I knew what he wanted. I just didn’t know if I was going to be able to handle it with what was going on in my behind. He jolted his hips toward me once, telling me what to do.

I unbuttoned his dress pants and freed his erection right into my mouth.

“Rock back and forth,” he coached.

I couldn’t do that either. It was all I could do to be still. He moved my shoulders with his hands willing me to listen. I did, and he brought his fingers to my clit. Between his fingers and the pressure from the foreign object in my ass, I felt another orgasm building, and hoped that he was going to let me finish.

“Do you want come?” he asked, and I nodded with a moan.

He moved his hand around to my behind and pulled out of my mouth. He kept the object right where he wanted it and told me to lie on his desk. I did. He placed my legs on his shoulders as he moved into me. Every time he thrust, he pushed the foreign entity in and out, as well. He moved my legs and spread me as far as he could, holding down on both legs until I felt the pull in my groin. I was spent and couldn’t take it much longer. He had only asked me if I wanted to come, he didn’t say that I could. It didn’t matter because as soon as he started circling my clitoris with his thumb, I couldn’t control it and called out in ecstasy. This was the first time that we had sex, and he released deep inside of me instead of in my mouth.

***

I jumped, startled when Dawson touched my arm with a cold bottle of root beer, pulling me from my thoughts.

“Sorry,” he apologized, not realizing that I was lost again. “You okay?” he asked. I wondered what expressions came across my face when I traveled back in time.

I smiled and took his hand. “Yes, but I’m ready to get out of here.”

“Really? It’s only eight o’clock. Summer Fest runs all night long.”

“You haven’t been here with me all night,” I accused, and he smiled, not denying it.

“Do you want to stay at my house tonight?” he asked.

I had stayed there a couple of times already, but for some reason, whatever he needed to discuss with me had me a little apprehensive so I wanted to be home.

Lauren and Starlight both threw a fit when I went to tell them goodbye. I lied and told them that I didn’t feel well. Dawson followed me home.

I was unlocking my door when he got out of his truck with a manila envelope.

I put water on to boil while Dawson sat on the couch, slipped out of his shoes, and dropped the envelope to the table.

What the hell was going on?

I brought us both a cup of tea and sat beside him, eyeing the envelope.

“You have to talk to me, Sheriff. I can’t stand it a second longer.”

He took a deep breath, looking nervous as hell.

“Ry, I don’t want you to think that I’m out to get you in any way,” he started.

“Dawson, you’re starting to scare me,” I admitted, and my heart was beating at a more rapid pace than it should have been.

“I wanted to do this to surprise you, I didn’t know that I was going to find out what I did,” he explained. I was scared shitless. I was sure he knew who I was. Would he call Drew? Would he send me back to Las Vegas?

“What the hell are you talking about, Dawson?”

He handed me the envelope, and I opened it, pulling out its contents.

My heart instantly dropped to my stomach. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I looked over at Dawson and couldn’t speak. I didn’t know what to say. I turned my attention back to the photographs. I would have known those dimples anywhere. It was Justin, and he was so handsome. He looked so happy. I flipped to the next photo. He was dressed in a baseball uniform and was standing on the pitcher’s mound.

“Where did you get these, Dawson?” I asked, touching my beautiful little brother’s face.

“Remember when I said I had to go out of town for a family matter last weekend?”

I nodded.

“I met with the social worker who managed his case.”

“Why?” I asked, not understanding.

“I wanted to see if he was still in foster care. If he was, I was going to somehow get him back with you. He’s not, Ry. He’s in a good home with a family that loves him very much. He does well in school and plays four different sports.”

“Where is he?” I asked, staring down at his image in front of me.

“He lives in a very prestigious part of Las Vegas.”

My head snapped, uncontrollably to him, but I played it off fairly well. What the hell would he be doing in Las Vegas? Who had him? How does a rich family in Las Vegas even know about a little boy in the welfare system from West Virginia? I would never know. I was too chicken to do any investigating on my own. I was too afraid of somebody finding me because of it. No. I would let it go. I had to. He was in a loving home and looked happy. That was all that mattered.

I didn’t realize how much I loved and missed him until I saw what a handsome young man he had become. My heart ached for him. I still had a million questions. I didn’t understand how Dawson found him. What did he know about me? I answered myself when I flipped to the report obtained from the social worker. It had Justin Michael Willow at the top of the page. I read through the report on how we lived; our trailer that should have been condemned, how there was no food in the house, and how they had left a seventeen-year-old sister, Morgan Willow, behind.

I turned to Dawson. He knew my name. He knew where I grew up. What else did he know?

“You were out playing private investigator?” I asked, not believing him.

“No, Ry. I was not. I told you. I wanted to find your brother for you. You talk about him in your sleep… a lot. You told me your maiden name was Murphy and that was where I hit my roadblock. There wasn’t a Justin Murphy in the system anywhere in West Virginia. You were scolding him one night in your sleep and called out Justin Michael Willow. It was simple after that. I don’t know how you went from Morgan Willow to Riley Murphy. I need some answers from you that I can’t get, and you won’t tell me.

“Did you go to my home town?” I asked. My heart was ready to explode.

“Yes, I know how you lived, and it breaks my heart, Ry. I don’t blame you for leaving there, but you need to tell me why the name change. Why is your past such a secret? I found five Riley Murphy’s in the whole country. One was a seven-year-old girl, two of them were men, one was killed in an automobile accident, and one was an eighty-three-year-old woman who lived in a nursing home. You don’t exist. You disappeared on your eighteenth birthday as Morgan Willow and hadn’t been heard from since. What is going on, Ry?”

I ignored his probing questions. I was too freaked out.

“I can’t believe you did this, Dawson. You have no idea what you’ve done.”

I stood and paced the floor. My instincts went right to the window. If he did this last week, chances were Drew had already found me. He would have used Justin from the start, hoping that I would try and contact him. Dawson had just led him right to me.

“I can’t stay here,” I said and turned back to Dawson.

“What the hell are you talking about, Riley?”

I was in panic mode. I didn’t want to speak, afraid that my house was wired with cameras and bugs. I didn’t want to go to his house because his house was probably wired too. I walked out to the deck, breathing crazy breaths, trying to get air into my collapsed lungs.

Dawson followed me out. “Riley, please tell me what is going on. I didn’t mean to upset you. I only wanted you to know that your little brother was more than fine: healthy and happy. Tell me what has you so freaked out.”

“You shouldn’t have gone there. He’s going to find me. He will kill me.”

“Who is going to find you? Nobody is going to kill you.”

“You don’t know him, Dawson. You ruined everything. You just led him right to me by going there. I assure you he followed your trail right back here.”

“Who? For God’s sake, Riley!”

I looked at him with tears in my eyes but didn’t speak.

“Are you afraid of Drew?” he asked.

I nodded, not sure how much I was willing to disclose. I didn’t even freak out about how he knew his name. I already knew that one of my many nightmares had unveiled the information.

“Who is he, Ry?”

“I can’t, Dawson. I do have to leave. I can’t stay here.”

“Nobody is looking for you here,” he tried, but I wasn’t buying it. I couldn’t.

He took his phone from his pocket which was probably bugged too. He dialed a number as I waited and listened.

“Hi, this is the Dawson Bade. I spoke to you last week about an adoption.”

I listened to the one sided conversation as he talked.

“I need to know if anyone else knows about me being there or the information that you gave me.”

“Yes.”

“I see.”

“Thank you. That would be great.”

Dawson said goodbye and I looked at him waiting for something, anything to ease my mind.

“I’m the only one she has ever given any information to. There was an attorney there for some big company five months ago asking for information. The guy flashed five hundred dollars for any information about anyone asking about Justin Willow. She told the guy to go to hell and had him escorted out. Nobody has been back until me, and she promised that she would not tell anyone that she gave me the information. She said she could get into a lot of trouble for sharing it with me. She only did it because she knew you were his sister, and I told her how much it haunted you not knowing where he was.

“Do you really think nobody knows you were there?” I asked, feeling just a little better.

“Yes, Ry. I do.”

I breathed a deep long breath, and Dawson wrapped me in his arms. I wrapped my arms around his waist and rested my head on his chest. He kissed the top of my head and squeezed me tighter.

“You have to talk to me, Ry.”

I looked up to him, and he kissed my lips softly.

“I’m scared, Dawson,” I admitted. I couldn’t tell him who I was or where I came from. I needed him in my life, and I didn’t want him to leave me.

“You’re safe with me. I’m not going to let anything happen to you, Ry,” he promised. I truly wanted to believe him.

Dawson made love to me for the first time that night, and it was like nothing I had ever experienced. It was hard for me at first. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to act; I wasn’t used to having someone put my needs first. He was so gentle and loving toward me. My emotions were on overload.

He kissed me passionately, something else I wasn’t used to. We were standing in my bedroom, and when he moved his hands up my shirt, I thought it was the most comforting thing I had ever felt in my life. His hands were gentle and warm on my back and sides. I was trying to be with him in the moment. I really was, but I felt almost like I was doing something wrong. When he moved his lips down my neck, kissing and sucking seductively on my neck, I found myself leaving him.

I opened my eyes and caught myself looking around for the camera. I just knew that Drew was watching me with Dawson. What I didn’t know was that Dawson was more in tune with me than I was myself. 

“Stay with me,” he whispered just below my ear. His warm breath quickly brought me back to him.

What the hell was I supposed to do? I knew that laying spread eagle on my bed for him wasn’t what he wanted, but what did he want? I didn’t know how to be in a relationship, not a real one anyway. I didn’t know how to make love. I knew how to do what I was told and please my man. Dawson wasn’t interested in me pleasing him. He wanted to please me.

I was terrified. I didn’t know if I was supposed to touch him or wait for him to tell me what to do. Yes, I know. A twenty-five-year-old woman should know these things. I didn’t. I swear I didn’t. I didn’t have a clue. How could I? I never had an orgasm until I was sixteen. I was afraid to, and that went back years to my fucked up life.

My dad had come into the bathroom once when I was seven. Seven, for God’s sake. I didn’t know what I was doing then either. I was bent over curiously, looking at myself sitting on the toilet. He came unglued. He whipped me so hard, and demanded that I wasn’t going to be a slut like my mother. I didn’t even know what a slut was. He had told me that he would know if I touched myself because my fingers would start turning black. He would make me show him my fingers every so often after that. I remembered how I would freak out if the toilet paper ripped and I accidentally touched myself. I would wash my hands over and over, afraid that they really would turn black.

My grandmother had set in stone when she told me too that my fingers would turn black. I never found out the truth until I was over sixteen years old. We were at my aunt’s house one evening, and she and my other aunt were laughing and joking about my grandmother telling them the same thing when they were little girls.

“Where’d you go, Ry?” Dawson asked once again, pulling me from my thoughts.

“Seven.”

“Uh?” he asked, backing away briefly.

I didn’t answer. I kissed him instead, trying to make myself focus on him.

He sensed every part of my trepidation and would stop to kiss me lightly until I was calm and back with him and not Drew. I didn’t talk to him about Drew that night. I was not ready to share that part of my life just yet. I didn’t know if I ever would be.

After a couple of weeks of looking at every new face that came into the shop as if they were there to spy on me, constantly staring out my windows at night for a strange car, and jumping at every little noise, I started to relax. I began to realize that nobody was looking for me. Nobody was taking me back to that place.

 

I had been in Misty Bay for almost nine months. My life was good. I had good friends, and was madly in love with my sheriff. Yes. Me. In love. It made me as giddy as a bunch of teenaged girls at a slumber party. I loved my job and my boss, Starlight. We had grown the shop into a lively and striving business.

The months passed while I happily settled into my life. I still had hang ups, but the dreams of a crying, starving, and cold Justin were replaced with happy ones of him playing baseball and sitting at a table with a real family. The nightmares of Drew still haunted my sleep. I was grateful for Dawson, who woke with me and soothed me back to reality.

One morning I opened the shop and Starlight was already there, sitting at her desk in her office. She was wearing the biggest smile ever.

“Good morning,” I said, depositing my purse on its rightful hook.

 “Guess where you and I are going?” she asked, holding an envelope in her hand.

“Where?” I asked.

“Vegas, baby,” she exclaimed, pulling two plane tickets from the envelope.

Like hell, I am…

“Why?” I asked as my heart plummeted to the bottom of my stomach.

“Remember I told you about the trade show they have there. You have done so much with this place, and I want you to come with me. I wouldn’t feel right going without you.”

“We can’t just close the shop,” I tried, knowing it wouldn’t work. I knew she just wanted to reward me for my charitable work, but I didn’t want to go anywhere near Las Vegas.

“Yes, we can. It’s for four days, and we would only really be closing for three. We will fly out after closing on Thursday, close up on Friday, Saturday, and Monday, and be back for business on Tuesday.”

“When?” I asked. Chances were Drew wouldn’t even be home, but that didn’t mean that I wouldn’t be recognized. I had no idea what he’d told people. Was I supposed to be missing? Did he tell them that I left him? I had no desire to go to Las Vegas. I had never even typed so much as the word Las Vegas in a search engine. I was tempted a few times, curious as to whether or not he was looking for me or what was being said, but I didn’t. I was afraid he could somehow find out what I had searched, like he did when I was there.

“Next month, and don’t you try to get out of it either. We’ll have a blast, and we could use a couple new vendors.”

<><><> 

 

“Why wouldn’t you want to go to Vegas?” Dawson asked later that evening as we both made spaghetti in my kitchen.

I still hadn’t disclosed any more information than I had to, and he still didn’t know that Drew was there. I knew it was crazy. Las Vegas was populated with almost two million people, but I still didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to disappoint Starlight either.

“Because I can’t stand the thought of being away from you for four whole days,” I replied, it wasn’t a lie. We spent every waking moment that we weren’t working together. He had even stopped working the night shift on the weekends after he discovered that I was scared out of my wits, worrying that someone would come for me.

He kissed me. “Have I told you that I loved you today?” he asked.

“Maybe, but you can tell me again if you want,” I replied, kissing him back.

My mind drifted back to Drew a lot that night. Even while standing there in the kitchen, chopping onions, I thought about Dawson telling me that he loved me several times a day.

***

Drew never once told me he loved me, not in six years. The closest time that he did was late one night when he just got home from someplace I didn’t know. I never asked. I wasn’t allowed to know because it didn’t concern me. The one time that I did ask, he had told me that my business was to please him, and that was it.

I was already in my bed asleep when he crawled in beside me. It was the only time I could ever remember him being somewhat gentle with me. He kissed me a lot. He hardly ever kissed me when we had sex, but that night he kissed me deep and passionate. He didn’t ask me to do anything and caressed me like he never had.

He didn’t tell me not to come, and when I was ready he was ready with me. He stared down at me attentively when we were finished, and brushed my cheek with the back of his hand. I kissed him softly and spoke.

“I could have loved you,” I said honestly.

“This isn’t about love,” he replied, then got off of me and left me there alone with my thoughts and fears.

The following morning he was back to being Drew, demanding that I sit naked in his office, spread eagle on his sofa while he worked. I had to give him a blowjob under his desk when he did a video conference, and endure one of his spankings because he had masturbated me to orgasm and told me not to come. I spent seven hours in his office that day, and he wouldn’t even let me dress when Rebecca brought in our lunch. He said she’d seen me naked before and I sat there humiliated, waiting for her to leave.

After lunch, he decided that the sofa was too far away and made me sit on his desk with one foot on the floor and one on his desk. He worked the mouse on his computer, made phone calls, and even did a conference call about margin in a store in Los Angeles, all while I sat there and let him penetrate me first with his fingers than an ink pen, a letter opener, and when he would get bored he would go back to his job for a while. He would just nonchalantly pick something up, anything that he could push in and out of me while I sat quietly, letting him do what he wanted, waiting for the moment that I could go.

***

My first dream that night was about Justin. He was around one-year-old. It was the middle of summer and extremely hot. He was sleeping beside me on my mattress on the floor. I had the windows rolled out and kept him covered with a sheet so the mosquitos wouldn’t eat him during the night. I was awakened when my parents came home fighting. They always fought. I knew my dad hit my mom and could hear that she crashed into the table. She never backed down though. She always gave it right back to him.

Justin had sat up, scared. I rubbed his back while humming a soothing tune, letting him know that I was there, and he was okay. I listened to my dad scream at my mom. He called her a slut, a whore and said how no other man would do what he was doing: raise some other man’s kid. I knew it after they came and took Justin away from me that day. That was why it was so easy for my dad to let him go. He had a different dad than I did, but I was still confused. I remembered how happy my dad was to have a boy when Justin was born.

***

I sat up in bed with tears in my eyes, missing my lost little brother. I did do a lot better; the dreams were less frequent. Finding out that he had a nice home and parents who adored him made it easier, but they still crept up every now and then. I looked over at Dawson. I hadn’t awakened him. Normally, I would wake to him holding and caressing me. Talking to me calmly to let me know that he was there. I was safe there with him, wrapped in his arms. I touched his cheek with my hand. I was so blessed to have him. Any other man would have probably deemed me crazy and got the hell away from me as fast as he could. Dawson didn’t. He was always right there, and for the life of me I didn’t know why. He turned and kissed my wrist.

“You okay?” he asked with closed eyes. I lay back down as he pulled me close to him.