Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (9 page)

The thought was loud
in her head—almost a scream.
 
Caelyn felt her self-control slipping away.
 
Images from last night were flooding
back in now, as if stripping off her clothes had also stripped away the final
layers of armor that had protected her from the worst of the memories.

She saw Jason’s face
close up, leering at her as he forced her down on the couch.
 
“Don’t fight it,” he warned, his voice
hot in her ear.

Caelyn stepped into
the scalding shower and began furiously lathering a washcloth with soap, and
then scrubbing her body from head to toe.
 
She spent a lot of time on her face because of the makeup, but she spent
even more time on her breasts and between her legs.

It only occurred to
her that she was sobbing when she came out of the fog of memory and heard
herself, as if from a distance.

I’m crying,
she thought, and stopped instantly.

The memories faded,
like a signal going dead.
 
Somehow,
she pushed it back.
 
Pushed
everything down again.

The water had begun
cooling, as she’d been standing in the shower scrubbing for quite awhile.
 
She wasn’t even sure how long she’d been
in there, but it must have been long enough to concern Elijah.

There was a knock on
the bathroom door and then his voice, muffled, speaking.
 
“…okay in there…?”

She turned away from
the cooling spray of water from the showerhead.
 
“I’m fine, I’ll be out in a sec!”

“…making sure…”

She couldn’t hear the
rest of what he said.

Smiling a little at
his concern, Caelyn turned off the shower and stood dripping into the tub.
 
Some of the worst of the anxiety and
panic had passed.
 
She felt a little
better now that she had cleaned her body entirely.
 
Her skin was red and raw, as though
she’d scraped the top layer off.

She liked that
idea.
 
Shedding her old skin.

It was only when she
put the towel around her torso and stepped out of the tub that she realized, in
her haste, she’d forgotten to bring her little travel bag with her clothes into
the bathroom.

“Elijah?” she
called.
 
He didn’t respond.
 
The television was on out there, and
he’d turned up the volume loud enough to not be able to hear her very easily.

Screw it, she
thought.
 
I’ll just run out there in
my towel, grab my bag really quickly, and run back in.

Somehow, the idea of
running out in her towel in front of Elijah didn’t really scare her the way it
should have.
 
After what had
happened with Jayson, she’d have assumed that the mere idea of showing a flash
of skin to Elijah would have totally freaked her out.
 
But it didn’t.
 

Elijah could be
trusted.
 
Somehow, he was safe.
 
Of course, she knew that he wasn’t
really safe at all—in fact, she sensed that in many ways Elijah was more
dangerous than Jayson—just not to her.
 
Elijah wouldn’t ever hurt her.
 
She knew it in a deep way, a sense that
she couldn’t even begin to explain.

So she opened the
bathroom door and ran to get her bag—and bumped directly into Elijah, and
her towel started to fall off, so she grabbed it to keep it from exposing
everything.

Elijah caught her as
she stumbled forward, his strong hands around her waist as she held up the top
of her towel.

“Hey, hey, easy
there,” he laughed.
 
“It’s not the
Indie 500.
 
Chill.”

“I just needed to get
my bag,” she said, her cheeks aflame.

“Why didn’t you just
open the door and ask me to get it for you?”

“Will you just let me
go so I can get it already?” she asked, flustered by his nearness and his
questions.

He was still looking
at her though, not moving away.
 
His
expression had changed from good-natured and amused to one of worry.
 
“What the hell…” he said, as he looked
down at her legs and then her arms and shoulders.
 
“You’re all fucking bruised and shit.”

“Don’t look at me
like that,” she said.
 
Her voice was
raspy and choked.
 
She pushed past
him and quickly grabbed her bag.

“Caelyn—” he
started.

“Stop looking at me!”
she said, and then ran into the bathroom, shutting the door.
 
She was breathing heavily.
 
Why hadn’t she realized that he might
see her and the bruises and scrapes?
 
Of course he would wonder what had happened to her.

She opened her bag
and looked for the most non-revealing outfit she could find.
 
Granted, there wasn’t much to choose
from, because she’d been frantic at the time that she’d packed it.

There were mostly
shorts, some panties and bras, t-shirts, one sweatshirt and one pair of
jeans.
 
She really didn’t want to
have to wear jeans right then, so Caelyn put on a pair of shorts a t-shirt and
then the sweatshirt on top of it.
 
Most of the bruises and scrapes on her body were now covered up.

After another few
seconds trying to compose herself, Caelyn walked out of the bathroom again.

Elijah was sitting on
the edge of one of the beds, watching TV.
 
He glanced at her.
 
“You
okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said,
not really feeling fine at all.
 
She
climbed into the opposite bed and got under the covers.
 
She was too hot in her sweatshirt but
didn’t feel comfortable taking it off.

“Listen, you don’t
have to tell me anything if you don’t want to,” he said softly.

“I’m aware of that.”

“What’s your problem?”
he said.
 
“Why are you treating me
like the enemy?”

“Because, you should
mind your own business.”

Elijah looked
straight at her.
 
“Hey, I’m not the
guy who gave you those bruises.
 
And
if I ever meet that guy, I’m going to rip his fucking head off.”

Caelyn stared back at
him, feeling a surge of conflicting emotions.
 
She was angry at him for making
assumptions and talking so bluntly about what had happened to her.
 
But she was also grateful to him.
 
He actually cared enough to be enraged
on her behalf.
 

And then, without
warning, the tears came.

Once they came, she
couldn’t stop them so she buried her face in her hands and just let herself
cry.
 
She was totally embarrassed,
feeling like a complete psycho.

She wondered if
Elijah was starting to regret his decision to travel with her after all the
hysterics and dramatics.

He wasn’t saying a
word.
 
He was probably just sitting
there and wondering what the hell he did to deserve this crazy girl in his
life.

But then,
surprisingly, she felt his hand on her back.
 
“It’s all right,” he said, and she felt
the weight of his body sinking into the mattress next to her.
 
His hand slowly rubbed her back, and she
was amazed that Elijah’s touch wasn’t threatening.

Instead, he was
soothing.
 
The warmth from his hand
as he softly rubbed her back seemed to relax all the muscles in her
shoulders.
 
Caelyn slowly lifted her
face from her hands.

He was sitting on the
edge of the bed, right next to her.
 
He was looking at her with softness and caring.
 
His eyes, she realized, were incredibly
kind.
 
How was it that she’d never
noticed that before?

“I don’t want you to
feel like you have to take care of me,” she told him.
 
“I’m going to be fine.”

“I know that,” he
said.

“I just need time to
figure out what the hell happened to me.”

“You don’t know?”
Elijah said.

She sighed.
 
“I do know.
 
But…it’s confusing.
 
You’re not a girl so you can’t possibly
understand what I mean.”

“You think because
I’m not a girl, I can’t imagine being confused about my life?” he laughed.
 
“Shit, I’m confused every fucking day,
Caelyn.”

“This is different,
though.”

“How so?”

And then, for some
reason, she just blurted it out.
 
The truth.

“Because I was raped
by my boyfriend, okay?”

Elijah was staring at
her as if she’d slapped him.
 
He
licked his lips.
 
“Okay,” he said,
slowly.
 
“What part of it’s
confusing?”

She ran her hands
through her still wet, tangled hair.
 
“All of it.
 
Jayson—that’s his name…he was so nice to me the whole time up
until last night.”
 
She thought
about everything and shook her head, still completely stunned at how quickly it
had all changed.
 
“I was a freshman
and Jayson is a junior.
 
He
approached me in the cafeteria on my second day of school and was
just…nice.
 
A total gentleman.
 
He was sweet and funny and totally
mature, and I was kind of in awe of him.”

Elijah looked
sick.
 
“Yeah, I know the type.”

“I know, I
know—you think he’s that typical rich kid that you hate.”

“That’s not what I
meant, Caelyn.”

“Well, maybe that’s
what I meant.
 
Because, looking back
on it, I suppose I’m mad at myself for falling for his act.
 
And it was an act.
 
He was from a good family, a rich family
and people on campus knew their names.
 
When I was seen with him, I have to admit that I liked feeling
important.
 
I got off on feeling
special, like I’d gotten into some exclusive club.”

Elijah smiled a
little.
 
“There’s nothing wrong with
that.
 
We all want to be special.”

“Maybe.”
 
She sighed.
 
“He took everything slow.
 
We didn’t go out on our first real date
for a couple of weeks, and then he asked me to dinner.
 
And he took me to a really nice
restaurant in the South End of Boston, and I felt like a princess.
 
At the end of the night, he just dropped
me back at the dorms with a little kiss.
 
Nothing crazy, he didn’t even ask me to go back to his place—although
I would have if he had.”

“The guy knew what he
was doing, Caelyn.
 
He was grooming
you.”

“Grooming me?”

Elijah’s eyes turned
hard and flinty.
 
She could tell he
wasn’t angry with her, though.
 
But
she could feel his rage, could feel the tension coming off him in waves as he
sat there, looking into the distance.
 
“This is a pattern that he set up, and he was just playing out the
script with you.
 
I’m sorry to say
it, but there’s no way this is the first time he did this to a girl.”

That put things in a
new light.
 
But Caelyn didn’t know
what to make of Elijah’s theory, or what she would do if it was true.
 
All she knew was what had happened to
her.

“Anyway, we had a few
more dates.
 
Each time, he took me
somewhere nice, treated me wonderfully, was a total gentleman.”

“And then?”

“And then it
changed.
 
I wasn’t even supposed to
have a date with him last night,” she said, remembering how she’d been planning
on staying in and studying.
 
“But
then, at like nine o’clock, I get a text from Jayson asking me if I want to
come over his apartment.
 
I hadn’t
even been there yet.
 
At the time, I
thought it was pretty strange.
 
He’d
said he was going to a party with some of his friends from the debate
team—“

“Debate team?” Elijah
scoffed.
 
He seemed to catch
himself.
 
“Forget I said anything.”

She glared at him,
but she wasn’t really mad.
 
It
almost made her smile, how Elijah could so easily let his prejudice against
rich kids get to him.