Dreaming of You, page 14
"You do too. Whatever cologne you're wearing, I love it."
16
The dark emboldened Clarissa, made her nearly brave enough to admit his cologne smelled so good she wanted to lick his pulse points until she found the source of the scent. Her core throbbed with frustrated desire. Normally, if she felt this way, she’d have a quick session with her vibrator and sleep it off, but she could hardly do that with Mark here, so she endured it. The fact his body was encasing hers didn’t help.
Despite the lust heating her blood, she enjoyed the novelty of a man in her bed. She’d been afraid she’d panic when he touched her, but his embrace brought comfort. Security. The last time she’d been this close to a man, it had been the worst day of her life, hands down, but Mark was different. Safe. She snuggled closer, and his hand curved around her ribs and dragged her firmly against him, so close she heard the steady beat of his heart.
“This is nice,” she whispered into the dark.
“Mmm,” he murmured, the vibration rumbling up his throat and tickling the back of her neck. “I could hold you here forever.”
She was okay with that. In the warmth of his embrace, she fell asleep in a matter of minutes.
Mark awoke with a start as something solid thumped him in the gut. Wheezing, he curled protectively around his stomach just in time for another blow to hit him in the shoulder.
“Whoa!” he gasped, raising his hands to block the strikes. Unfortunately, the next whack came from below. A knee thrust into his balls, squishing them so high he’d be singing soprano for a week.
“Ugh.” He groaned, rolled out of the way, and fell off the edge of the bed. Above him, Clarissa continued to thrash. Breathing heavily, he cupped his abused balls and waited for her to run out of steam. But when she stopped lashing out, she began whimpering. Heartbreaking whimpers of fear, with a few decipherable words dispersed between them.
“No. Please, no. Stop.”
Mark had heard enough. He clambered to his feet, perched on the end of the bed, out of reach of her flailing limbs, and crooned, “Easy, love, it’s only a dream. You’re safe. I’m here, and I won’t let anything hurt you. Wake up now. You’re safe. It’s only a dream.”
The whimpers died away, but she didn’t wake and her breath echoed harshly off the walls. Damn, he needed to do more for her. Girding his loins, he inched toward her, then reached over and flattened his palm over hers, interlocking their fingers.
“It’s all right, sweetie.”
His thumb stroked rhythmically back and forth, feeling a tremor in her hand that spread up her arms. Within seconds, her entire body was convulsing. He eased his hand from hers and the shaking slowed. Leaning over, he kissed her forehead.
“Wake up, love.” He spoke full volume, and it had the desired effect. Her eyes flew open and her pupils contracted as she focused on him.
“Mark?” she croaked. “What’s going on?”
“You had a nightmare,” he told her, reclaiming her hand now that she didn’t seem to wish him bodily harm. “It was intense. How do you feel?”
“A bit shaky,” she admitted.
His heart squeezed. After what he’d witnessed, he couldn’t blame her. What he’d seen and heard made him suspect she’d understated things when she’d said she had a sketchy history with men.
“Poor darling,” he murmured. “You stay here. I’ll make you a hot chocolate.”
She looked like she might argue, but he ducked out before she could. He searched the kitchen for what he needed and, as a bonus, discovered a dark chocolate bar stashed in the cupboard. He returned to her, drink in one hand and chocolate in the other. Setting the cup on the stool beside the bed, he handed her the chocolate. She eyed it dubiously.
“It will help,” he said. He didn’t know that for certain, but it couldn’t hurt, and given the bar had been hidden out of sight, it was probably her guilty pleasure.
She chewed slowly, then lifted the mug. Her hands trembled, so he helped steady them while she sipped. When the drink was done, she rolled over and faced the wall.
“Can I hold you again?” he asked. He ached to comfort her, but she may not welcome him, especially if he’d triggered her nightmare. He touched her shoulder. Like lightning, she spun around and shoved his hand away.
“No,” she muttered. “Please, just go away.”
Her rejection was like a knife to the heart. He swallowed the metallic taste in his mouth and tried not to take it personally. She was upset and her emotions were running high, but she’d come around in the morning. He fetched the duvet she’d left folded on the floor and paused in the doorway.
“I’ll be right out here if you need me. Don’t hesitate to wake me up. I’m here for you.”
Then he lay on the sofa in the empty living room, his mind a whirl of questions and turmoil, until sleep finally claimed him.
The second time Clarissa woke, it came upon her slowly. First, she became aware of the unusual scent of cologne on her bedsheets. Then she registered soft snoring coming through the door.
Oh, God.
All in a rush, she remembered: the nightmare, Mark's face puckered with concern, the way she’d shoved him.
"Shit," she muttered, burrowing beneath the blankets. If she just stayed here, could she pretend none of it had happened? Perhaps if she waited long enough, he’d pack his bags and leave so she wouldn't have to see him.
She cringed at the thought of explaining herself. He'd treated her with care and respect, and in return, she'd assaulted him during his sleep and told him to take a hike. What was wrong with her? Shame burned low in her gut. Why couldn't she be normal, just once? Why had she never been able to do the right thing? She hated being this way, but couldn't seem to stop.
Lifting the blankets, she peered out. The bedroom door was ajar. He must have left it that way when she chased him out. She listened to his snoring, wishing she could see his face. Did he sleep with his mouth open? Drool? Knowing him, he'd be as adorable asleep as he was awake. The man couldn't be less than perfect if he tried.
Maybe she could slip outside, leave him a note, and come back after his flight.
No. She refused to take the coward's way out. Screwing up her courage, she threw back the blankets, pulled a brush through her hair, and tied a bathrobe on. Tiptoeing through the living room, she discovered Mark did indeed sleep with his mouth open, hair curling over his forehead.
His lips wiggled as he made a soft snuffling sound, and she stifled a nervous giggle. Then she hurried past and started the coffee brewing. She heated croissants in the oven and assembled breakfast on a platter. It was the least she could do to start his day off well, considering the episode in the early hours of the morning.
Mark sat up straight when she came over and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. "Is that coffee I smell?"
"Sure is." She lowered the platter onto his lap and sat at his feet. "And croissants, fruit salad, and yogurt. I didn't know what you preferred."
His eyebrows shot toward his hairline. "Do all of your guests get this treatment, or am I special?"
She nibbled her lip and fiddled with the end of the belt cinched around her waist. "I'm sorry," she said, battling an overwhelming surge of humiliation. "This is an apology for last night."
Breath hissed between his teeth, and he gripped her hand. "Don't you dare apologize for that. Not to anyone, ever, okay?" His tone was vehement, and he held her hand tightly. "It's obvious that something awful happened to you. You had a nightmare. You were frightened.” Releasing her, he sat back. “Can you trust me enough to tell me what it was about?"
She battled down a surge of terror at the prospect. He wanted an explanation, and she owed him that much. The thing was, she’d only verbalized the events of that night once, to Avery. She hadn't even come clean to the rest of her friends, and as far as she was aware, Avery was still the only person who knew the truth.
It was long overdue for her to stop holding her fear so close to her chest, but she was afraid that if she acknowledged it at all, she’d break down. So she recited the facts as unemotionally as possible, like she was reading last week’s grocery list.
"First, you need to understand something about my parents. They're very religious and conservative. I was raised to be a good God-fearing girl."
He nodded encouragingly.
"Actually, calling them only ‘religious’ is an insult to open-minded, loving people of faith. They were zealots. I constantly disappointed them. I was too rebellious, too flirty, too much like the other girls at school. The ones who were destined for Hell."
Mark scoffed, but he didn't interrupt.
"During my senior year of high school, I dated a guy named Heath Shaw. You might be able to guess that my parents didn't want me to have a boyfriend, so I saw him in secret. I thought sneaking around with him was sooo romantic.” She rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t even very good at it. One of my parents’ friends saw us kissing and told them. They grounded me for a month and forbid me from seeing him again.”
“I can’t imagine you took that well.”
“I didn’t.” She sighed. “I was supposed to be going to the school dance with him that month, and they weren’t going to let me.”
He rubbed the back of her hand soothingly with his thumb. “Let me guess, you snuck out?”
She nodded. “I picked a fight with Jen so it wouldn’t look suspicious when I locked myself in my room. Then I climbed out the window, and Sophie and Evie picked me up and dropped me off at Heath’s place. In the end, we only went to the dance for a while. We left early because he wanted to go for a moonlight stroll by the lake, and I was stupid enough to go with him.”
When he simply watched her, no sign of judgment in his expression, she continued, "We went down by the water and started kissing. We hadn’t gone very far before then, and I hadn’t planned to change that.” She shrugged helplessly, remembering the silly girl she’d been. “All I wanted was to have a little fun, free from my parents. Apparently those weren’t the vibes I was giving out. Maybe it was because I agreed to leave the dance with him, or maybe I was just naïve about how things worked between girlfriends and boyfriends, but—”
“No.” For the first time, Mark interrupted. “Don’t you dare blame yourself for anything. I’m getting the impression that if there’s anyone to blame in this situation, it was your boyfriend. What happened next?”
She took a deep breath, because the next part was the hardest to tell. “He started groping me. Kept trying to get my clothes off. I asked him to stop, but he didn’t. He thought I was playing hard to get or some shit like that. Anyway, I started to fight him, but he pinned me to the ground and pulled down his pants. He was so much bigger than me. I—" She hiccupped back a sob. "I knew he wasn’t going to stop."
“What did you do?” Mark asked, deceptively calm. But she saw his white knuckles where he clenched the duvet in one fist.
“I headbutted him. I just about knocked myself out, but it got the message across.”
“He stopped?”
“He was furious. He punched me in the face, got in his car, and left.”
Mark’s eyes narrowed to slits. “He just abandoned you there?”
“Yeah.” She nodded and struggled to keep her breathing even, wanting to get the full story out before she broke down. “We’d been miles out of town, around the side of the lake, and it was a cold night. My nose was bleeding, and I thought it might be broken. I didn’t know what to do. So I called Mum.”
The same mother who’d supported her father in grounding her. For some reason, she’d thought her disobedience wouldn’t matter when her parents learned of the situation she’d landed in.
“She came and got you?” Mark asked quietly.
“No, that’s just it. She wouldn’t even listen to me. She gave the phone to Dad.” He'd been livid, and she'd thought he would direct his anger at Heath, but he'd screamed at her.
"Please tell me he tracked the bastard down and shot him."
"Uh, no." Facts, she reminded herself. It's ancient history. But God, it hurt. "Dad told me it was my fault. That I’d been asking for it by sneaking out to see a boy and by dressing the way I did.” The words spilled from her lips like she’d been storing them up behind a dam and the floodgate had opened. “My clothes had been a bone of contention between us for ages. He’d long since stopped giving me money to buy them, but I just made my own. It infuriated him. He told me I wasn’t the daughter he’d raised. That I had the devil in me and he wouldn't harbor me under his roof anymore. He said I wasn’t welcome in his house. That I wasn’t any blood of his."
She'd been left in the middle of nowhere on a cold July night in her ripped party dress, without anything except her purse and her phone. She’d sat there for fifteen minutes, waiting, honestly believing he’d change his mind, that he couldn’t be so mad he’d cast her aside. Who would do that to their child?
She’d been wrong.
17
Mark had never wanted to wring someone’s neck so badly in his life. “Your dad”—he emphasized the noun for the man who was supposed to protect her and love her—“just left you there after you called him for help? He actually kicked you out after your boyfriend”—the other male who should protect her—“attempted to rape you.”
“Yes.”
The distant tone of her voice didn’t fool him for a minute. She was hurting. She’d been hurting for years, and no wonder. The most important men in her life had betrayed her and let her down. The fact she’d welcomed Mark into her bed showed the strength of her character.
She amazed him.
But that didn’t stop him from wanting to hunt down her ex-boyfriend, shut him in a concrete box, and throw away the key. It didn’t stop him wanting to drive to Itirangi, knock on her father’s door and shove a Bible down his throat.
He needed to hear more. All of it. The full story. “And then?”
She shrugged. “I called Avery. She left the dance and came to get me. Gave up her own night of fun because I’d made a hideous mistake. She took me to hospital, and I moved in with her until the end of the year.”
His mouth dropped open. “Your parents didn’t change their minds?”
She shook her head. “I never heard from either of them. I saw them in the street a few times, but they’d leave as soon as they saw me. Although....”
“Yeah?”
“You remember that night you walked me to Aria’s place? I’d just run into my sister. A few days later, she and I talked. She wants to reconnect, but I’m not there yet. She never called or texted or emailed after Dad kicked me out. Sometimes, I think that’s what hurts most of all. Knowing that even with how close we were, she believed whatever rubbish Dad told her.”
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “I hate your family.”
To his surprise, she laughed, though the sound was bitter. “Join the club.”
“But I think I love Avery. She really came through for you.” He noticed her twist the blue ring on her finger, and his brow furrowed as things fell into place. “That’s why she gave you the ring. To help you cope.”
“She did. I had panic attacks, and having something physical to focus on really helped.” She took a shuddering breath. “Avery was there when I needed her, and I’ll never forget that. When Gareth broke her heart, I was a little relieved, to tell the truth, because it gave me an opportunity to support her at least a fraction of the way she supported me.”
He drew her close and kissed the top of her head. “Please tell me you don’t believe that bullshit line your dad fed you about it being your fault.”
“It was,” she whispered into his chest. “At least a bit. There must have been signs that Heath wasn’t a good guy, but I ignored them. I liked feeling special. But I shouldn’t have defied my parents. Yeah, their rules were stricter than most, but they were there for a reason. I put myself in a vulnerable position. I was an easy target, and that’s on me.”
“Shh, shh, shh,” he soothed. “I don’t want to hear any more of that, okay? All you’re guilty of is being a teenager with an infatuation and bad taste in men.” She sniffled. “You didn’t do anything to make that asshole attack you. That’s on him. Maybe you broke your father’s rules, but what kid doesn’t? Most don’t get disowned for it. That’s child abuse and neglect. I could have both of them arrested. Would that make you feel better?”
She shook her head, her face still buried in his chest. He ran his hands up and down her back, reminding himself that she was here. She’d survived. Everything was fine. Or at least, as fine as it could be. She sucked in another shuddering breath.
“Let it out, love,” he murmured against her hair. “Let it all out. It’s all right. I’m not going anywhere.”
Her chest heaved, and then she was weeping. He held her until she calmed, glad he could provide a shoulder to cry on, but feeling utterly useless that he couldn’t do more. He couldn’t go back in time and fix everything for her, and that just plain sucked, because for once, he cared enough about someone to want to conquer the world for her.
And all he could do was mop up her tears.
"There's an improv comedy based on Pride and Prejudice showing at the university today," Mark said from behind his laptop. He sat cross-legged on the end of Clarissa's bed, looking perfectly at home, while she was propped at the head, drinking tea. They'd rescued breakfast after she'd finished her explanation; then he'd suggested they move somewhere more comfortable.
Perhaps he pitied her—she couldn't tell—but he'd taken the whole sordid story well. Now, sneaking glances at his handsome face, creased with concentration as he read something on the screen, he didn't seem bothered at all.
"What's an improv comedy?" she asked. She'd never gone to any of the shows at the university, even as a student, unless Aria had dragged her along. She'd been too busy proving to her parents that she could make something of herself without them.
