Hazel St. James - Fighting For You (Redemption#1)[ (6 page)

Tristan took a step closer to Valerie, wanting to punish her. In his nightmare, the speed of the whip slicing through the delicate skin on his submissive’s back happened at a snail’s pace, like a zipper splitting apart the skin on her back. Blood oozed down her flesh, mingling with the bright colors on the tribal tattoo that covered her lower back. Tristan’s heart started to pound as the small gash poured blood like a cascading waterfall.

The blood ran down her back, pooling on the floor and he realized what he’d just done.

“Help me!” Tristan yelled, as he tried to reach Valerie to get her down from her restraints. His body was frozen, unable to move even the slightest bit, to reach her before it was too late.

“Help me!!” Tristan screamed again. This time, someone was holding on to his arm as he tried to pull away. He had to get to Valerie…had to get her down. She was going to bleed to death and it was all his fault. He furtively tried moving his numb legs again, but he was rewarded this time with a soft voice, “Tristan, it’s all right. You’re having a nightmare.”

Soft hands rested against his forehead, and pushed the damp hair out of his eyes. Still in the clutches of the nightmare, he knew his mind would have brought the image of Valerie’s bloodied body to his bedroom. It wasn’t unusual for his nightmares to follow through into the real world, if only momentarily. If he opened his eyes, he would see the beautiful girl’s mangled flesh instead of his empty bedroom.

Again the voice said, “Tristan, you need to take your medicine. Please wake up.”

His brain then conjured up the face of one of the nurses at the psychiatric stress unit, waking him to take his medicine. That meant he was lying in that bed again, devoid of all his liberties, back at square one. He tried to focus on the voice, but had no idea who it belonged to. Plus, if he was back in the stress unit, then something serious must have gone down. Because right now, he had no fucking clue what was going on. The thought of being imprisoned again was enough to pull Tristan out of his haze, and he eased into reality and back into his own bed in his apartment.

Tristan could feel the ever-present ache in his bones, but his body was slow to respond. With a deliberate motion, he sat up in his bed, but his forehead slammed into something hard. He fell back against the pillows with the plop.

“Owww,” a voice whined.

Tristan sometimes felt like his mind was locked in a prison, and there was no way out. But now he had to add imaginary people and obnoxious vacuum cleaners to his list of woes. He felt like his head could explode any second from the pressure building inside it. Not every day was like this anymore, but today just happened to be another craptastic day. He audibly groaned as his foggy brain inventoried his problems in life, and he added a goose egg on his head to the list.

“Yeah, oww,” Tristan mimicked as he rubbed his aching forehead, keeping his eyes closed tight. He sat for a minute, wondering if whoever was there was going to keep on talking, or if they would just disappear.

“Sorry about that. I was trying to wake you up, but I didn’t think that you would sit up and clobber me in the head,” the voice teased, and chuckled.

Preparing himself for who he assumed would be Nurse Ratched in his room, he cracked his eyes open just enough to peek out. There, sitting on the edge of his bed, with the light from the window glowing behind her, wasn’t Satan’s lap dog, but an angel of mercy. Dark hair framed a soft face with great big green eyes, and she was smiling a lazy smile as she rubbed her own forehead again and laughed.

Tristan used his elbows to prop himself back up on the bed, and realized too late he’d fallen asleep completely naked and was only covered with just a simple sheet. He scrambled to pull the thin covering over himself, and held his hands over his dick.

“Yeah, sorry about smacking you in the head. Who are you, sweetie?”

“My name is Peyton. Peyton Bauer. I was hired by Chris Lake to be your nurse’s aide for a few hours every day. He didn’t tell you?”

Tristan remembered getting a text message from Chris a few days ago, right after he tried to come and visit him. There was no way that Tristan wanted to deal with the
I told you so’s
that would come from a visit from the uber Dom right now, so he never even answered the door. He was sure that Chris just wanted to lay into him about his behavior at Club Red, or worst case scenario, look at him with pity in his eyes and ask him if he needed help with something.

“No, but not because he didn’t try, I’m sure. I haven’t been answering his phone calls or the door lately. How did you get in, anyway?”

“The guy that owns the house let me in. Morgan, I think his name was? Creepy dude, whoever he was. Kept licking his lips while he looked at me. Eww.”

Peyton bent down and picked up the discarded comforter off the floor and tossed it over him. She then sat even closer to the head of the bed, and handed him a glass of water from the nightstand along with his medication. Tristan scrubbed his hands through his hair a few times before he reluctantly took the medication from her hand, and swallowed it down with the glass of water.

“Yeah, that’s Uncle Morgan, for ya,” Tristan grimaced and then continued, “Thanks for that, but you can go. I don’t need any help. I got this.”

Peyton stood from the bed, and walked about his room, picking up the stray clothes that were lying on the floor. “Yeah, I can see that,” she said as she mockingly looked around the only bedroom in the apartment that had just a bed on the floor, and a few boxes sitting around.

“Chris said he didn’t know you real well, but he needed to do this…said he would talk with you when you’re ready. I don’t completely understand the motivation behind all this, but the bit Chris did explain, he knew for certain that you would be too stubborn to accept help. I agreed, and added that I thought it would be best to just give it a shot and see if you wouldn’t be amenable.”

Peyton turned around, with a sweet smile on her face, and arms laden with his dirty clothes. She finished, “So he made my next two car payments without me knowing it. That way I’m obligated by my honor to do my damndest to help you, and you will take pity on me and just shut up and let me.”

Tristan was sitting there, mouth gaping open at her, completely at a loss for words. Peyton gave him another breathtaking smile that made it damn near impossible for him to think. She batted her eyelashes a few times, and spotted something on the other side of the room.

“Oh hell, you have dirty clothes laying everywhere,” she said as she made her way back around the bed to the last of his clothes that were left here from the last time he’d lived with his uncle. Peyton already had an armful and when she knelt down, her black yoga pants stretched over her ass, showing off its full, curvy shape.

After what had happened at Club Red, Tristan wasn’t sure that he would ever be able to look at women the same again. Especially after the terrible way he’d abused Valerie and treated her like an object.

Before his fateful time at the club, Tristan had never taken time for more than just a quick fuck, and at the time, had no desire to change. He was focused on his job at J-View Plastics, and honestly had no time or energy to devote to more than just bedding a woman.

There had been a few of his residual fuck friends that had stopped by over the last month and taken care of his primal needs, but they knew the score, and didn’t stay long enough to ask any questions or to see how he was doing. Which was just fine with him.

This woman however wasn’t here to be objectified, or treated callously. He was in unfamiliar territory with Peyton here. It was a bit scary for him, but yet she was so casual about everything, and he actually didn’t mind her being here. It was actually kind of nice to have someone around, and hell, if she wanted to clean up his rat’s nest, then so be it. That seemed like a win-win right now.

She rose up with all his clothes in her arms, and thankfully couldn’t see in front of her very well. Oblivious to his growing problem, she meandered out the door. “I’m going to take these to the Laundromat down the street. I should be back in a couple of hours. That gives you enough time to take a shower, get dressed, and take care of your little problem, there.”

She didn’t wait for him to respond, and was closing the door before he could. Tristan wasn’t one hundred percent positive, but he thought he could hear Peyton laughing on her way down the steps outside.

Chapter Seven

T
ristan stumbled into the kitchen/living area of his apartment after another hour of lounging in his bed and then a quick shower and was shocked at what he found. The kitchen was not only cleaned, and all the stray take-out containers were gone, but the few pieces of furniture that were here were arranged in the small open area to form a haphazard living room.

The apartment in his uncle’s garage was a rat hole, but it was still livable. The carpet was beat to hell by the last guy that lived here years ago, and there were burn holes all over the place. The walls were defaced as well, so his uncle had torn them down. Tristan had worked to put them back up when he lived here the first time, but they were still unfinished.

There was a small bathroom next to the bedroom with a corner shower, a small vanity unit, and potty, but that was it. There wasn’t any room for anything else in the small square footage, but it was a perfect fit for what he needed right now. A place to hide from the outside world; at least until he was ready to face it again.

Peyton startled him when she threw open the front door without knocking and sauntered into the kitchen. “Here is a pizza for your supper. I’ll have to get you some groceries tomorrow. I won’t have any more time to do it tonight. I gotta get to work.”

Peyton set a cardboard box on the kitchen counter from Bill’s Pizza Shop down the street and set the basket of clean clothes that she was resting on her hip to the floor. She started to speak again, and Tristan stopped her with his own question, “Where do you work? I mean besides…here.”

“I’m a nursing assistant at a handicapped facility here in town. I work nights from seven to seven.”

Tristan just nodded, but didn’t make any facial expressions to indicate he was anything other than concerned. He didn’t like that she had to help him, as well as working a full-time job, but wasn’t sure what he could do about it, if there was anything. She’d already made her case about working for him, and he’d agreed. He didn’t know Peyton hardly at all, but didn’t want to see a young woman working two jobs, especially one during the night. Chauvinistic wasn’t a good term to describe his feelings towards the situation. Tristan couldn’t really even pinpoint what brought out his unusual concern for her, but it was certainly something new for him.

Peyton wasn’t phased in the least, and continued, “I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon around three, if you could make a grocery list for me. And you only have three pills left, so if you call it in to the pharmacy, I should be able to pick it up for you. Unless, of course, you want to go out and get it yourself. But by the looks of things in here, you haven’t left the apartment in the entire four weeks since you left the hospital.”

Tristan should have been more embarrassed that she knew all about the past few months of his life, but he was actually beyond hungry, and the smell of the pizza passing under his nose was getting to be a bit much for him to handle. Actually, he couldn’t find it in himself to care at all.

Tristan didn’t hesitate in flipping open the lid and animatedly inhaling the heavenly aroma that was making his stomach growl. Without pause, he pulled out a piece and shoveled it in as quickly as possible. Speaking when he swallowed the last bit, he mumbled, “Oh fuck, that’s good. Aren’t you going to have some?”

Tristan’s life and his apartment may lead people to believe that he was a complete slob right now, but he has a sense of hospitality that was ingrained in him by his grandmother. Plus, Peyton had been nothing but nice to him, didn’t look at him with pity in her eyes, and didn’t hesitate around him even once. Those were things that he valued in other people, and even more someone he considered a friend.

Most of his so-called “friends” hadn’t even attempted to stop by for a visit, or even call him. The only people he’d seen in the last month or so was the occasional fuck buddy. Tristan wasn’t sure he would have answered the door for most of them, but there were a few people in his past life that would have been good to see.

He wanted to believe that people were just trying to give him space, but Tristan quickly realized that most all of his previous friends were never even friends at all. They were superficial suck ups and only hung around with him because of his status…or that is what he assumed since they were all nowhere to be found. Now that he was no longer one of the kingpins for J-View Plastics, and obviously was labeled a head case, his friendship list went to nil. So, for Peyton to be standing here, acting nonchalant like everything was hunky dory, made her damn near his best friend right now.

“Have some pizza?” Peyton scoffed. “No. There’s food at work I can snack on, and that,” she pointed at the piece of pizza in his hand, “would go straight to my ass, anyway. That’s gonna be your breakfast and lunch, too,” she laughed.