After the Storm (8 page)

Lexi squealed as she was hauled up and thrown over a naked shoulder, her camera dangling from her hand. “Noah, what the hell are you doing?”

“What the hell am I doing? The question is, what the hell are
you
doing? Do you not see the storm is about to come in?” He bounced her on his shoulder and was satisfied when he heard her grunt. “Ever heard of lightning?” He grumbled as he marched angrily up the stairs towards his house.

“I was just about to go inside. I just needed a few more minutes. You can put me down now, I get the picture.”

“I don’t think so, I kind of like this.” He added an extra bounce in his step so that she would wiggle against him.

“Come on, Noah, put me down. I’ve got to get Pepper in the house before it starts raining!” She sighed against his back.

“Nope, mine’s closer.” He was enjoying having his hands on her. This could go on all night for all he cared. He felt so much lighter after talking to her last night and sharing things he didn’t talk to anyone about.

“You know Pepper won’t set a paw in your garden, I’ve trained her well.”

Noah whistled and said, “Come on, Pepper. Come on, girl.”

Lexi couldn’t believe her eyes as Pepper trotted up to Noah and nuzzled his hand with her head. “Traitor. No treats for you later.” She could feel the deep rumble of his laughter as her chest rubbed against his back. She closed her eyes asking for strength. “You know, I am perfectly capable of walking.”

“I know, but you’ll just want to stop and argue.” He smiled. He knew that would get her going.

Before she could reply, there was a sharp crack of thunder, a bright flash and the smell of sulfur. Lightning had struck the beach near where she’d been. “Don’t say it. Just don’t say it.” She rested her elbows on his back and put her chin in her hands.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said with a grin spreading across his face.

“Okay, Neanderthal, your point has been made. You. Can. Put. Me. Down. Now.”

“I don’t think you realize how lucky you are that I’m not a Neanderthal, Lexi.” His voice sounded low and dangerous. If he was, then he’d be taking her right now in the garden, lightning storm or not.

“Don’t make me hurt you. You know I can.” His body had started to glisten with sweat from the humidity as he carried her up the stairs. She watched in fascination as a bead of sweat slowly rolled down his spine and soaked into his shorts

“Ha! My sweet little Lexi, I don’t think so.” He was curious to see how far he could push her before she let loose on him. It didn’t take long. She started wiggling and moved her hands around to the front of his waist. Before she could do anything he grabbed one of her hands with the hand that was holding her legs. Now she was down to one hand.

“Nice try, sweetheart. Why don’t you just enjoy the ride? We’re almost inside.” He laughed as he felt her try to free her hand and figure out what she could do with only one. All of a sudden, he felt her breath on his skin. If she put her mouth on him, it would all be over. “Don’t do it, I can’t be held responsible for taking you right here and now, which is what I have wanted to do since I first saw you crawling around my garden.” The growl in his voice warned her that he was serious.

He felt her breathing stop as she held it. The next thing he knew he felt her tongue dart out and softly licked his skin. Pulling her roughly over his shoulder, he backed her up against the wall, and devoured her lips. The heavens opened up and it started raining. They moaned as she moved her hands over his rain-slicked shoulders. He grabbed her, pulling her up and closer to him.

He started kissing her jaw, moving down her neck as he said, “What is it about you? I can’t get you out of my head. I stare out of my windows hoping to catch a glimpse of you like some lovesick teenager.” He lifted her arm and kissed down to her elbow, his tongue licked at the sweet saltiness. Noah smiled as she moaned.

“I would do anything, give anything, to see your smile. I want to know everything about you. I want to know every curve of your body, to taste every inch of you.” He nibbled on her neck while his hand glided down the length of her body. “Take you places you’ve never been before. Protect you. Cherish you. Make love to you. No one has ever had this effect on me before.”

He sighed and rested his forehead on hers. “You already matter too much to me. I’m going to take care when it comes to you. I won’t use you and throw you away like I’ve done in the past.” He framed her face with his hands. “I’m going to prove to you that I am more than just some rocker who used to party too hard and didn’t care for anyone but himself.” He lightly kissed her on the lips. “If I have to spend the next eighty years proving to you how much you mean to me, I will do it every single day.”

Closing her eyes she said, “Let’s go inside and get dry. If you really are serious, there are things you need to know.”

~*~

As the storm raged around his house, she changed into dry shorts and a t-shirt Noah had given her. They were large on her, but they worked. Lexi tried to calm herself down. She hadn’t talked to someone who mattered to her about what had happened in a long time. Noah’s room was huge, of course, and faced the ocean like hers did. It was on the side of the house closest to hers. She shivered as the lightning continued to flash across the sky. It was now or never. She went downstairs and joined him in the family room at the back of the house.

“My clothes look much sexier on you.”

“Noah, you would think a burlap sack looked sexy on me.” She smoothed out the imaginary wrinkles in the shirt.

“True, but you could pull it off.” He stood up from where he had started a fire in the fireplace and moved over to her to put an arm around her shoulders.

“Do you have any wine?” She desperately needed a little extra something to give her courage to tell her story to Noah. He meant so much to her and she wasn’t sure how he would react.

“Um, yeah, but isn’t it kind of early?” He looked at the clock. “It’s not even lunchtime yet.”

“I know, but it feels later, it’s so gloomy outside, and what I have to tell you is dark.”

“Do you have a preference?”

“Anything will do. I’m just going to have a glass or two in order to get through this all.”

He paused and looked back at her on the way to get the wine. “Is it that bad?”

“Yes.” She looked him in the eye and did not blink.

She watched as his eyes closed at the one simple word. “I’ll get a big glass.” He walked out of the room and took a moment to gather himself. He had a feeling what was coming wasn’t going to be pretty and he wanted to be what she needed to get through this.

Lexi paced back and forth waiting for Noah to return. She tried to mentally gear herself up to tell him everything because he mattered to her, which made this more difficult than talking about it to a group of strangers in group counseling. When he returned and handed her the glass, she drank half of it in one big gulp.

“Easy there, love. The wine’s not going anywhere.”

“I know. I just needed a big hit to get started.” She let out a deep breath.

He rubbed her shoulders. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

“Noah, if I had my choice, I would never tell anyone this ever again. But that’s not healthy for me. Besides, I might be able to help someone. I have told my story countless times to other women. It’s hard for me to tell, but not impossible. It’s just different with you. This matters,
you
matter.” She moved away from him and stood looking down at the fire.

“How do the old scary stories start?
It was a night not so unlike this one
… Well, not the very beginning, but the night that changed me forever. There was a wicked thunderstorm storm, the worst the city had seen in years. About seven years ago, I was working in an interior design office. We got a new client, an international businessman, Anthony Maldono. He’d just purchased a home and was redecorating it. It was a huge deal. He was very attractive and charming so when he asked me out I said yes.” Her voice grew steadier as she talked.

She paused, lost in thought, and closed her eyes to continue. “The first couple of dates were what fairytales are made of. He had money and nothing was too expensive but we just didn’t click. It was almost as if he was too much. Too much of everything. While my family wasn’t poor, we weren’t rich, either, and I wasn’t used to that. I’ve always been more of a casual beer-and-pizza kind of girl, not caviar and champagne.” She looked over at Noah. “Do you know what I mean?” When Noah nodded, she continued. “We met for coffee and I told him we should just be friends.”

“What did he say to that?” Noah said from where he was leaning up against the piano his fingers griping the edge of it so she was able to see his knuckles were white.

“He seemed fine with it. In fact, he said I reminded him of someone he used to know and he was hoping for that connection he’d lost all those years ago. We parted ways and I thought that was it.” She paced over to the couch and sat down. “For a few weeks nothing was out of the ordinary, but I would see him everywhere I went. Sometimes in the same store, the same restaurant, across the street from where I lived. Then things started disappearing from my house or things were moved. I’d get hang-up calls all the time from blocked numbers. Or sometimes the person would say vile things on the other end of the phone.” She shook her head to get the words out.

“Did you go to the police?” He tried to keep his voice calm to mask the rage that was building in him.

“Yes, but there wasn’t much that they could do. They didn’t have enough to go on. He never threatened me face to face. Then one night it all changed. My parents had called me at work to invite me to dinner that night and I went home to change.” Standing up she started pacing around the room. “I had just come out of my bathroom when I felt something prick on my arm. I turned around and before everything went black I saw
him
. When I came to, I was tied to the bed and completely naked.” Pausing knowing the worst was to come; she looked up at Noah who had his hands clenched at his sides. Lexi turned back around to the fireplace and stared into the flames while she finished. She couldn’t look at him.

“It was very disorienting waking up and seeing him there with rage burning in his eyes. I started to panic, I couldn’t move. I wanted to scream but he was quick. He covered my mouth with his hand and brought the knife up so that I could see it. It was like he was trying to see if he could be quick enough to stop my scream. I didn’t want his naked body touching mine, but I couldn’t get away from it. My mind started to clear and I thought if I could somehow talk to him or at least not make him angrier, maybe I could somehow get out.” She spun the glass around and around in her hand while she talked.

“He told me that I was his, his to do with whatever he wanted. He couldn’t believe that I didn’t want him. That someone had actually walked away from him. He said I couldn’t leave him. He got angrier. He started to tell me everything he was going to do to me. He was going to make sure every inch of my body hurt and bled from the inside out. He showed me what he was going to use on me. The more he told me, the more excited he got. I tried to keep him talking, but it was useless. I tried to keep the images out of my head of what he said, but I couldn’t. I was so scared of the pain I knew was coming.” She felt the tears start and tried to hold them back.

She closed her eyes when she heard Noah growl deep in his throat.

“Then he raped me. It seemed the more I hurt, the more excited he got. I tried to just lay there with no reaction but nothing stopped his single-minded obsession with beating and raping me.” This time she didn’t stop them when the tears started falling down her checks.

“At some point, I thought I heard banging. It was probably only minutes after he started raping me, but it felt like hours. It was actually my parents at the door. I’d never showed up for dinner and they were worried. I cannot begin to tell you how lucky I am that they arrived when they did. It would have been much worse. He punched me and I blacked out.” She tried to tell the story like she had over and over to the police, counselors and other rape victims. It helped to think of telling other people and not Noah, someone whom she’d come to care for, but still the tears flowed.

“Oh my god, Lexi.” He said taking a step towards her then stopped. “I just… I don’t ….”

She still couldn’t turn around to face him. “It’s okay, Noah, you’re listening. That’s all I can ask for. I woke up in the hospital with a severe concussion and soft tissue damage. Some things healed in days, others took longer. Obviously, I was able to tell the police who did it. I don’t know how he did it, but there was no DNA on me or the bed. I started to see someone to help me heal mentally.” She laughed without humor. “In the beginning, I saw them daily. I did everything they told me to do. Sometimes willingly, sometimes not. I had my family for support. It took a long time, but for the most part I’m fine. There are still times when I have nightmares but they are few and far between. Especially since I moved here away from where it all happened.”

“Then the trial started.” She paused again and Noah came over and filled her glass back up. “Thank you.”

“No, thank you for sharing this with me.” He put his fingers under her chin and lifted her face so she would look at him. “I know it’s tough, but I am here for you. If you need anything, just let me know.” Noah’s voice was calm. “I’m amazed at the person you are. To have something like that happen to you and to continue on like you have, it’s beyond words.” He wrapped his arms around her.