Sudden Devotion (16 page)

“Oh, I don’t know. He seemed to be quite impressed with what he saw,” he teased her.

“Mitch. It’s not funny!” She slapped him in the arm.

He grabbed her close and hugged her to him. “Well, what do you think of my box haven?”

Sara looked around, taking in her surroundings. There were boxes stacked everywhere. A couch stood against the far wall and a small T.V. was propped on a card table across from it. The kitchen didn’t have a table and a glance down the hall showed that there was a pile of laundry that looked as though it might at any moment take on a life of its own.

“Geez, I can’t imagine why you haven’t asked me over before now. Your place is…”

Mitch squeezed her harder. “Be nice.”

“Simplistic. Yeah, that’s definitely a word that would fit such a decorating technique.”

“Ha ha. You try moving to a new place and getting thrown into a bunch of cases that no one had really prepared for.” Rolling his eyes, he continued, as he led her down the hall, “Not to mention my new girlfriend. She’s very demanding.” He leaned closer to her and whispered, “You know, sexually.”

“Now who’s trying to be funny? I wasn’t the one who invited a poor, defenseless secretary into my office and forced her to do all sorts of lewd and illicit things.” She held her hand to her chest to emphasize her innocence.

“Okay, touché. So, are you saying that you’d rather we sleep at your place?” He asked her as he pulled some briefs from his dresser drawer.

“I’m more concerned about how you were able to sleep in this mess before you started staying at my place. I mean, look at this. The apartments are the exact same layout, but I could swear that my apartment has a floor, where as, yours seems to be missing.” She gestured with her hands, indicating the mess.

Mitch grabbed her and threw her on the bed as he began tickling her. He had her pinned and begging for mercy in sixty seconds flat. After their laughter had subsided, he bent down to kiss her. Pulling her closer, her body heated under his touch.

“Why can’t I get enough of you.” Mitch wondered out loud. It wasn’t a question. It was a statement acknowledging the fact that she had become such an integral part of his life.

“Because, I have hypnotized you to fall hopelessly in love with me.” She winked and gave him a wet, sloppy kiss on his cheek.

“Then you’re damn good because I do love you.” His voice turned serious. “So much. Honey, I think we should move in together.”

“What?” She wasn’t shocked by the statement. They had spent most of their free time together, anyway. But she was surprised by his willingness to jump into such a huge commitment. “Don’t you think we should wait a while? I mean…”

“I thought you loved having me around.” He stated with obvious disappointment.

“I do.” Touching her hands to his face, she kissed him. “I love having you over. And I don’t mind if you spend every night over there. I just don’t want you to make a commitment that you’re not ready for, or that you might regret.”

“Look, Sara, if I’m rushing you, I’ll back down. But regardless of the speed at which our relationship has happened, I want it all. I want the house, the white picket fence. Kids, dogs, and cats. The works.”

Mitch was still staring at her when she pulled away from him, disconnecting from their closeness.

Sara shimmied her way out from underneath him and got up from the bed. More out of nerves than the need to clean, she began picking up his dirty clothes and sorting them into piles. “We really need to do something about this laundry, Mitch. Pretty soon you’re not going to have any…” She quieted her rambling when she felt his hands on her shoulders. She took a deep breath and let her head fall back against his chest.

“Tell me.” He said in a soft voice.

Mitch’s quiet words sounded like a demand. It was not an option and she knew it. He expected her to be honest with him no matter what she felt.

“I’m scared. But not of you. I’m scared that I’ll agree to live with you. I’m scared that I’ll have it all with you, and then one day you’ll get bored with me. I…I know that there are no guarantees in life. But as hard as it would be for me to lose you. It would be twenty times harder if I lost you, and we were married and had children.” She turned her head to the side to rest her cheek against his chest. “I look at some of those assholes at the firm, the ones that cheat on their wives constantly, and it just makes me a little jaded.”

Mitch brought his hands up to her neck and gently massaged it. “I’m not like those other men, Sara.”

“I know. I just...what if we have kids, and then you don’t want me anymore, or you get bored with me, or…”

“Sara, do you believe me when I tell you I love you?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Good. Then shut up.” He smiled at her and kissed her passionately.

“I want it all, Sara. I finally found the woman I love. I’m not going to wait for you to find more reasons why it might
not
work. Because, believe me, the odds are definitely in our favor that it
will
work. So, unless you don’t want the same things I do, or you do, but you just need time, then I’ll understand. Otherwise, tell me you agree with me. Tell me you want exactly what I want.”

She shook her head lightly and stared into his eyes. “Mitch, are you sure?”

Groaning and looking up, he muttered something under his breath, “Yes, woman. I love you. Now stop making me suffer, and tell me what I want to hear.”

With a twinkle in her eye, she grinned. “Okay. Then I would love it if we lived together.” She looked around the apartment. “But you’re moving over there.” She motioned across the courtyard.

“Actually, my place only looks like this because I only have a month to month lease. I was supposed to look for houses, but I’ve been too busy. Feel like doing a little shopping with me?”

“A house? Mitch, I don’t know. Don’t give me a pouty face. You look ridiculous. Fine.” She rolled her eyes at him. “We’ll look for a house, you big baby. I swear, do you notice that you either pester or beg until you get your way?”

He shrugged as he headed for the bathroom to grab some of his toiletries. “It’s a gift. It works pretty well, though.” He walked into the bathroom and came back out carrying a small black bag.

She went back to sorting his laundry as she began to see just a bit of her future with him. Clearly, the man didn’t do laundry. “Mitch, you never told me why you left the last firm you were at and moved away.”

Sara kept sorting the clothes and hadn’t realized that Mitch had stopped what he was doing. Nor did she realize that his body had tensed and became rigid at the question. “Mitch?” She turned to face him. He had gotten so quiet, she thought for a second he had left the room, making her think she was talking to herself.

“Mitch, what’s wrong?” Sara asked as she dropped a black shirt in the wrong pile and walked toward him.

Damn it! He didn’t want to tell her. Would she even believe him? No matter how much he loved her, he knew because she was younger, she tended to be more sensitive than the average cynical person. Damn, just when things were going so damn good.

“Sara, sit down. There’s something I should tell you.” Mitch placed his toiletry bag on the dresser, seeing her reflection stare back at him in the mirror.

“Remember I told you I had relationships with people I worked with before?”

“I remember.”

Shit. Where did he even begin? He blew out a breath of air. “Well, it was really just one girl. It was at the last firm I worked at in San Francisco.” He paced a few steps, feeling his heart race as he continued, “We went out a couple of times. She was new to the office, and she seemed sweet. Anyway, after a few dates, she started emailing me a lot about sex. We hadn’t slept together. I really hadn’t gotten the vibe that she was interested. As a matter of fact, after the third time we had dinner together, I figured it would be the last date. I mean, she couldn’t have acted more disinterested in me if she tried. But the day after that dinner, she began sending me graphic messages about things she wanted me to do to her. At first, I thought maybe she was just one of those bad girls who liked to act like the good girl.”

Sara’s face blushed as he told her the story.

“We started exchanging graphic emails over the next few days. She would send one, and then I would, and so on and so on. One thing led to another and…Sara, are you sure you want to hear all of this?”

“I think I need to, Mitch. It sounds important.” And with a mature strength he hadn’t been aware Sara possessed, she smiled at him and said, “And if it’s important to you, than it matters to me.”

He looked at her a moment and marveled in the complexities that made her who she was. “We agreed to meet at her place. She had outlined a fantasy she had. She wanted me to…shit, honey, this sounds horrible. But she had a fantasy that I would break into her place in the middle of the night and take her.” He hesitated for a moment. “Forcefully, if necessary.” Mitch cringed when he saw the look of disgust come across Sara’s face.

“She wanted you to rape her?”

Mitch shrugged. “Apparently. I was too stupid to realize it, though. I thought it was just like role playing or something. I didn’t think about…well, I didn’t see what was coming.”

“It’s okay, Mitch. Go on.” Sara still sat on the bed, waiting patiently for him to explain.

“I showed up at her place and entered through the sliding glass patio door she had left unlocked. Then I walked though her house until I got to her bedroom. She was lying there in a skimpy little number. It seemed just like a game. But when I got a little, ah, forceful, I could tell there was something off.” He sat on the bed next to her before he continued with his story.

“I mean it was her fantasy. She should have been enjoying it. But she wasn’t. She was shaking, and it was more than obvious she wasn’t turned on. I started to pull back and become gentle. I thought maybe I was being too rough without realizing it. Hell, I don’t know what I thought.”

Sara placed a hand on Mitch’s and squeezed. “I’m right here Mitch. You can tell me anything. Rule number, two remember?”

“Yeah.” He squeezed her hand and got up from the bed to pace some more. “She got angry after I slowed things down. She began hitting me and kicking me. She screamed at me and told me to rape her.” He let out a bitter sounding laugh then. “I remember it clear as day. She had used a lot of different ways to describe it in the emails, but not once had she referred to it as ‘rape,’ so it took me by surprise. I knew. I knew it then. Something was very wrong. I mean, I’ve got this girl wearing practically nothing, beating the crap out of me, and demanding that I rape her.”

Mitch walked over, placed his hands on the dresser, and hung his head down. He shook his head a couple of times and expelled a breath. He brought his eyes up to meet hers in the mirror’s reflection. “I didn’t, you know.”

Sara got up from the bed and went to him. Placing her arms around him, she squeezed into him, resting her face against his back. “I know.”

“Thank you.” Mitch held her hands that were on his stomach. “It means a lot to me that you believe me, honey.”

“I do. What happened next, Mitch?” she asked him as she ran her fingers up and down his stomach in a soothing fashion.

“She had been screaming so loud that one of the neighbors called the cops. When they got there, they couldn’t hear everything that she was screaming, but they heard the word rape loud and clear. Needless to say, they arrested me and threw me in jail for the night. She was hysterical, and the police couldn’t make head or tail out of what she was saying.

“After a long night in jail, everything came to light the next morning. The hospital called her sister after she was admitted. She wasn’t hurt, but emotionally, she was a wreck. It turns out, she moved to the area and started that new job in an attempt to start over. She had been brutally raped a year before and had never gotten over it.” Mitch shook his head at the memory of what he learned. “She became obsessed with taking her life back. Apparently, her attacker had worn a mask, so he was never caught. She believed in some strange way that if she was put back into the situation again and she escaped, then she would be free of the stain the rape had left on her.”

Sara spoke softly. “I don’t understand. If she really believed that, how did she think she would be able to fight you off? I mean, what if her plan backfired? What if she was raped again?”

“She didn’t see that as a possibility. Her emails were very specific. I was to use a small knife to cut her negligee loose, and then take her in a rough and forceful manner.” Mitch turned to face her. “She didn’t plan on it getting that far. She had a loaded gun under her pillow.”

With a look of sheer mortification, Sara asked, “She was going to shoot you?”

“Yeah. Her attacker took everything away from her. She thought that this was the only way she could get her life back. She believed killing someone while attacking her would take away the pain. Look honey, she wasn’t stable. Looking at it now, I feel kind of sorry for her.”

“What? She planned on killing you. She set you up.” Sara asked. What if she had? Mitch, what if I had never met you? What if…?”

“You don’t understand, honey. Even when shown the emails that she sent, she looked so confused. She was so caught up in her own twisted form of retribution that at some point, she lost touch with reality. She did set me up. Her mind was so lost by that time, completely unaware of what she was doing. She’s in a mental institution right now. They’ve diagnosed her with schizophrenia. I know she almost killed me, but she died the day of the rape.”