Body (31 page)

“I don’t intend to. Now if you will excuse me.” I enter the elevator and the doors shut with him staring me down. I put my right thumb into the LED box and the red light scans my thumb. Once scanned the light turns green and the elevator rises to the Penthouse. Modern technology…incredible.

I can’t for the life of me figure Jack out. One minute he’s tough as nails and just as pointy. The next he’s fatherly and protective. As I mull the conversation with Chase’s linebacker my stomach drops. I really don’t know what to expect from Chase now. I left him in the dust after he did what he thought was right. After I promised him in the safety of his arms just last night that I wouldn’t run again. I wish he didn’t use his influence to devalue the hard work that I’ve put into my career and the time I’ve spent at the Safe Haven Foundation. I owe them so much. I’ve worked damn hard to prove myself. But I also don’t want this to ruin what we have together.

The elevator doors open, and I exit. I’m still wearing the same clothing I had on for the meeting today. I skim my hands down my skirt. Rumpled clothing and puffy eyes are what’s available this evening. If there’s a stitch of makeup left, it has to be smudged. I probably look like I’ve tied one on. I’m surprised to find his door unlocked. I enter the dark entry and look around. Music is playing in the distance and I walk toward it.

In the main living room, a fire is roaring and I see Chase sitting with his back to me on the plush sectional. He’s sipping a glass of wine, listening to the music on surround sound. Christina Perri’s haunting voice sings “The Lonely” and tears well up. The song brings painful memories to mind. I played that exact song so many times after Justin beat me, trying to figure out why I couldn’t escape. Why love was so brutal when really, it wasn’t love at all. It kills me knowing that Chase is feeling that way because of me.

The chorus disturbs me and I stop to listen.

Dancing slowly in an empty room
Can the lonely take the place of you
I sing myself a quiet lullaby
Let you go and let the lonely in
To take my heart again

No more. I can’t take it. Sadness overwhelms me. I enter the room making my way to the couch. He looks up over his glass of wine. His face is tortured and seeing it destroys me. His eyes are hooded but a tiny spark lights those glassy blues as they land on me.

“You’re not alone,” I whisper. He picks up the remote and turns the music off with the push of a button. He sets down his wineglass.

“Aren’t I?” His face is stoic and pale, void of emotion.

I shake my head. Walking over to him, I stop between his outstretched legs. He grips my hips fiercely and brings his head to rest against my stomach. He nuzzles me in silence. The need to purge this ache welling deep inside is unbearable.

“I’m in love with you.” It comes out a whisper but he hears it. His grip intensifies. I’m scared shitless and I can’t back away or hide from my feelings any longer. If he doesn’t feel the same then I’ll move on. I won’t like it. It will hurt like hell, but at least I’ll know I said it and meant it.

His grip tightens until it almost hurts and he looks up at me, his eyes searching my face, his gaze open, and broken at the same time. I can barely breathe with the honest fear and heartbreak staring back at me. It’s almost too much to bear. He assesses me, trying to discern the truth of my statement. “Say it again.” His voice sounds rough, as if his esophagus was rubbed with sandpaper. Thick and gritty.

“I’m in love with you, Chase.” The words spill out as if in prayer. His eyes close and his fingers push my shirt up. His eager mouth plants soft kisses all over the bare flesh before trailing kiss after kiss up my torso over my shirt until he’s standing in front of me, eyes piercing my soul.

“Again,” he whispers against my lips.

“I love you, Ch…” Before I can say his name, his lips are on mine, devouring me. His hands cup my cheeks holding me to him. His kiss is long and deep. I’m not sure who’s leading who and it doesn’t matter. He turns my head delving in, sliding his tongue in, tasting, drinking, sipping from my mouth as if it’s the last time. It’s not. Never will be again. I’m lost to him and will take whatever he can give me.

He pulls away then smashes our chests together in a harsh embrace, one that you give someone you never plan to let go. I close my eyes and relish the beauty of being his. Warm and safe. “I was so afraid you were done with me,” he says against my ear. I shake my head and kiss the side of his neck reaffirming the connection to this man, my man. “Where do we go from here, Baby?” 

“That depends on whether or not you feel the same about me?” My confidence wanes. I need to know I mean as much to him as he does to me. It’s the only way we can move forward.

“Are you kidding?” He searches my eyes. His mouth twists in surprise. “You don’t know, do you?” 

“Know what?” My chest constricts and I’m uncertain what he’ll say next.

“I knew you were the one when the hospital called me in Chicago. Everything went utterly black when they told me you’d been attacked. I was crazy with worry. I had only known you a short time, but that phone call wrecked me.” His face contorts as he tells me his experience. I understand the feeling. “God, Gillian, I’d do anything for you. Saying I love you doesn’t seem like enough to quantify what I feel for you.” The smile across my face is so big it hurts my cheeks.

“Say it anyway,” I urge.

He caresses my cheeks and kisses me softly. He pulls back and his glorious blue stare owns mine. “Gillian Callahan, I love you. So much it scares the hell out of me.”

I nod and tears fill my eyes. He kisses each cheek. “Please, please stop running from this. This is new for me. I know I won’t always make the best decisions when it comes to you. You bring out the control freak in me. I want you safe, I want to protect you and provide for you. I want to give you everything your heart desires.”

I put two fingers over his lips. “I only want you.”

His eyes close as he kisses my fingers.

He leads me to his bedroom, his hand clasping mine. “We will discuss this further but right now, all I can focus on is my need to feel you and bury myself so deep inside the woman I love, you won’t know where you begin and I end.”

It’s not poetry, but it’s real. It’s Chase. I couldn’t agree with him more.

***

It’s late and Chase is caressing my bare arm while spooning me from behind. “Who’s Justin Durham?”

My entire body tenses. Alarm bells ring loudly in the quiet room. “How do you know about Justin?” The mention of his name sends a pick axe to my gut.

“You have a restraining order against him. It came up when Jack did your background check. There were several different police reports against him with charges ultimately dropped. They all related to domestic violence.”

Oh God in Heaven. He knows.

He traces a scar on my hip. It’s four inches long. The puckered skin is a physical reminder of something I’d prefer to forget.

“Justin was one of my ex-boyfriends.”

“Why do you have a restraining order against him?” His fingers continue to soothe, a direct contrast to the swirling shame and fear spiraling through my mind.

“You really don’t want to hear about this, especially now. It’s not a conversation to have after a night of incredible love-making--with emphasis on the love part.” I grin. He hugs me then places sweet kisses on my bare shoulder. It’s become one of his favorite places to kiss me.

“Tell me,” he urges.

I know he won’t let it go and the more I hide it and try to make it go away, the more those skeletons get brought to the surface. It’s time I bring them out in the light myself without the halo of doom. I’m stronger now. It’s been years. Even if it still affects me, I can’t let it take residence in my thoughts and dredge up old wounds. I think for a few moments as Chase snuggles into my side.

“Nothing you can tell me is going to make me love you less, Gillian.”

I carry a great deal of baggage when it comes to Justin. He may regret that comment. I’m at war with the fact that to have an honest relationship I’m going to have to share this part of me. It’s an unfortunate part of my past but it defines who I am today, how I deal with relationships, how I respond to him, even now, years later. Chase deserves to be privy to the things that trigger pain.

“Who is he?” he asks again.

“He was a mistake.” I grip his hand and rub my head into his chest. I need the connection if I’m going to make it through this. “I met him when I was eighteen. He was five years older. I felt so mature shacking up with a man a few years my senior.” Chase laughs. That’s exactly what I’ve done again. I’m twenty four and he’s almost thirty. “Guess it’s a pattern with me.” I grin.

“Continue,” he kisses my shoulder.

“In the beginning Justin was everything I thought I wanted in a man. Handsome. Smart. Strong. We moved in together within a few months of dating when I started college. My grades in high-school were stellar, and I was lucky to secure a full scholarship to Sacramento State. So I went to school and he paid the bills.”

“As he should have.”

I roll my eyes, knowing there is no chance in hell I’m ever going to pay a tab or buy myself anything in this man’s presence. He’s old fashioned in that way. I ruffle his hair and peck his lips.

“Don’t stop on my account. I want to know everything there is to know about you.”

I sit up and pull the sheet over my naked chest. “Chase, you see me as this strong, independent woman because that’s what I’ve wanted you to see.” The tears well again. He’ll think I’m weak. I don’t want to be that woman again and I don’t want him knowing her. Regardless, it’s important I get it over with. He needs to know the truth. “Justin spent years beating me to a bloody pulp. Worse…I allowed it!”

His eyes go wide, his nostrils flare and that sexy jaw clenches. “He put his hands on you?” He sounds calm but intense, holding back whatever reply he wants to make. I am immensely thankful.

I sigh. “Chase, he beat me so often it became the norm. Broken bones, bruised ribs, black eyes. Those were regular occurrences in my world. The scar you’ve been tracing on my hip. That was from being thrown through a glass coffee table.” He recoils in disgust. “At the time, I believed I deserved every beating. He made sure I believed it.”

Chase’s hands ball into fists and he presses them into his eye sockets. This is upsetting him, but I have to finish. Rip the Band-Aid off fast. “For years it was really bad. But it was nothing compared to the last time.” I take a deep breath and he twines our fingers together. I close my eyes and continue.

“One night, he thought I was cheating on him. He always thought I was cheating on him…” I take a deep breath. “But this time was different. I…” Tears stream down my cheeks. Chase cups my cheeks and swipes away my tears with his thumbs. I feel his tenderness, his strength, his love.

“Baby, it’s okay. Tell me everything. I need to know,” he says softly.

I clutch his hands in my lap, holding them so tight my knuckles have turned white.

“I told him I was pregnant.”

Chase gasps. His eyes are the size of two full moons. “He didn’t believe it was his. We always used condoms, but there was this one time he was drunk and didn’t. It was after a particularly rough beating. I barely recalled him having sex with me; I was in so much pain. I let him do his business. At least when he was getting off, he wasn’t hitting me.”

Chase cringes. “Jesus Christ, Gillian…” He clings to my hips, his touch grounding.

I continue. If I don’t get this out now, I never will. “He said the baby wasn’t his. He called me a whore.” I shrug as the tears fall, wetting Chase’s forearms as he holds my hips. He brings his forehead to mine. It’s the strength I need. “He always called me a whore.” Chase physically shakes but doesn’t say anything. “He beat me within an inch of my life that night. He kicked my stomach over and over, strangled me and slammed my head repeatedly into the wood floor. I passed out. He probably thought I was dead, because he left me lying on the ground in a pool of my own blood. When I came to he was gone.”

“It took a while, but I crawled to a phone and dialed Safe Haven. I had programed it on the speed dial. It’s all I could think of in my haze. That one button was my entire focus. The cops had been called so many times over the years I honestly thought it was possible I’d die before they arrived.” Chase trails his hands up and down my biceps. “Safe Haven sent one of their trauma volunteers.”

Chase nods, knowing exactly what those volunteers did. He probably had a hand in making that part of the protocol.

“It was a husband and wife team. The man carried me to the car; I could barely walk after so many kicks to the ribs and stomach. The wife grabbed clothes to last me a couple weeks and all the cash I had stashed around the house when Justin wasn’t paying attention. Then they stayed at the hospital with me and held my hand while the doctors set my bones and stitched my wounds.” Without realizing it I had started rocking back and forth. Chase stops the movement, pulls me out of my protective ball and wraps my limbs around him, setting me in his lap like a Gillian blanket. He hugs me to him, surrounding me with his warmth.

I set my head on his shoulder and keep going. “Then I was told that I miscarried the baby.” The tears drip down his bare back. Eventually I wipe the tears with my arm. “After I was patched up, they took me to one of Safe Haven’s shelters. They took me in, gave me a room, and the counselors helped me get my mind straight. I grieved for my loss and they helped me realize what Justin did to me was wrong. They showed me I was worth more than that. That’s where I met Maria. She was a victim too.”

Chase’s eyes are closed when I pull my face away from the solace I seem to always find in the crook of his neck. He takes a deep breath. “Gillian, God…” He pulls me into a fierce embrace, holding me against his chest. “You will never be hurt again. I’m so sorry you had to endure all that pain.”

“I’m okay now. I don’t want your pity, but you need to know what and who I am. Trusting men with my heart has only hurt me. My only defense is to run.”