Brand Me (Imagine Ink Book 2) (21 page)

That thought brought on an unexpected sadness and a surge of
fuck nos.
He couldn’t let her go, couldn’t give her that choice. Michael couldn’t survive it if she didn’t choose to stay with him or come back to him. That old saying if you love something set it free…well fuck that shit. Panic started tearing his soul in two at the possibility. Screw doing the right thing, screw sparing those around her. Like he told her earlier, they were adults, they could handle their own shit. Why should he deny the one thing that quieted his demons and fed his soul because of where they lived or what
might
happen?

No fucking way, Tori was his and she would stay his. If she wanted her freedom, she’d have to ask for it. He wouldn’t manipulate her to keep her against her will, but he was through being a good guy.
What has that ever gotten me anyway?
When had doing the right thing not rewarded him with a metric ass ton of bullshit? Never, that’s when, and he was tired of it.

He was wrenched from his thoughts by the blissful sound of her chanting his name and the contractions of her sweet wet heat—home—beckoning him to follow her into that space in between—in between one second and the next, between pain and pleasure, between wanting it to happen and wanting it to last, in between…everything.

The “in between” time is so brief, it can’t be counted as a whole, but a fraction. So instant, you blink and it’s in the past. Even though all that is true, there are times when it seems to span hours, and not always in a good way.

This was one of times.

As her body pulled his pleasure from him and she chanted his name, her voice went from the lyrical velvet of Tori’s, to the high, nasally pitch of Wendy’s. The pleasure, the homecoming he found in her body shifted to the violation he felt in Wendy’s. His demons started screeching, louder and with more venom than they ever had before, because now, they had won. They had stolen the only thing that could defeat them.

His hands fell to her hips to throw her off his body. His heart knew it was Tori, but his head was shouting it was Wendy. “No. I said no! Get the fuck off of me.” With the words came the strength he needed to forcibly remove her. The strength he should have been able to muster in that hotel room that night,
before
he came, but couldn’t.

From her new place on the edge of the bed, she looked up at him with such immense pain and confusion. Michael could barely comprehend what had happened. He rose to his feet and jerked on a pair of sweats. He loomed over her, knowing he must be presenting a rather intimidating manifestation by the tears spilling down her cheeks and her trembling lips, but he couldn’t pull back from that place.

“Don’t. Ever. Touch. Me. Again.” The voice was not his, not even close. It was demonic and threatening. The widening of her eyes broke his heart, but his mind was still lashing out at Wendy. He turned away from her and tried to reconcile the two. When the mind and the heart were at odds, neither could function. If he thought he was broken before, he was gravely mistaken.

With every word, there was a relief; every flinch at his posture was a victory over his attacker, but then, his heart would exert control for a flicker, and the pain he was causing to the woman he loved was immeasurable. The harder he tried to gather some semblance of control, the louder the voices became. One was screaming, “
Stand up for yourself you fucking pussy!”
While another was shouting, “
Stop, this is the person you love, she is home.”

“Michael, I…I don’t understand and you’re terrifying me.” He turned on her in a snap and he knew by the fear on her face and her scrambling off the bed to land in the corner clutching the cover to hide her nudity that he must look pretty damn frightening. Being out of control of his actions and thoughts was a horrible feeling. It was like that bitch continued her assault by ruining the only good thing in his life.

Turning away once more, he dropped his face to his hands, in disgust, or fear, or mourning, he didn’t know which. The only thing he knew for sure was that Tori had to leave. Not only could he not see her the way he longed to, he couldn’t digest the fear in her eyes, or the pity that would replace it when he told her what was going on in his head.

He chanced a glance at her as he grasped the other sheet off the bed and threw it around his shoulders before making his way to the back door. “I need you to leave, Tori. I need you to get dressed, take your things, and leave. Go to the main cabin. I’ll drop the Simpkins’ snowmobile off in the morning and you can go to town. Call John and he’ll see you home. I’m sorry.” The last two words were barely spoken aloud.

Before he could make his exit, he heard her voice, steadier now, but still braided with fear. “Why Michael, what did I do. I…want to make it right, but…”

Spinning on his heels, he shouted, “It’s not you, Tori!” In a defeated whisper he added, “It’s not you.” He gave her his back again, his hand on the knob, and he heard her noises of confusion. He couldn’t bear to look at her, partially because he still didn’t see only Tori, but mostly, her pain was flaying him alive. Knowing he caused it was beyond agony.

“It’s her. She was the one on top of me, not you. She was the one I was just with, and as much as I wished it was you, it wasn’t. I don’t know if it ever will be you again, but I know who it is tonight. There, are you happy now? Don’t be here when I get back, if you are, I can’t be responsible for what I might do or say. I’m sorry, but there it is.”

As he made his way through the door, he mumbled something he wished he’d kept to himself, “Right now, you’re not the woman I love, you’re a broken blood feather and if you stay, I’ll continue to bleed.”

Walking out onto the ice-covered porch didn’t seem to faze him as much as what he just said. Pacing back and forth, barefoot in the snow and ice gathered on the wooden planks didn’t bother him. Wendy was haunting him, right up until he put that look on Tori’s face; now,
that
is what would haunt him and stalk him in the dark when he’s alone and hurt. A new demon of torture had been formed tonight, a two-headed demon. One head was a sneering Wendy who morphed into a terrified Tori; the other was him.

C
omparing
her to a blood feather was perhaps the worst thing he could have said. All she wanted to do was help him, love him, not hurt him, but it was beyond that. He felt her presence was so torturous it could slowly kill him, like a broken blood feather in a young bird will bleed until stopped.

Now, she wished she had never looked that up when she first heard the song—blissfully ignorant would be a blessing right now. Add the fact that he said he loved her before that comment and well, the new fragility of the feather applied. It was worse than a backhanded insult to hear the words she craved followed by how bad it was for him to feel it.

Especially since it was the first time she was positive he said it. She’d thought, hoped, he’d said it once before, but she couldn’t be sure and didn’t want to get her hopes up. This time, even with the low tone it was spoken in, there was no doubt, it was a declaration of love, just not the way she’d imagined. Nor did she want one that was clearly painful to give.

Watching him pace back and forth like a caged animal along the narrow porch wearing nothing but sweats and wrapped in a sheet was a hellish sight. He was so fucked up right now, she would probably do more harm than good if she tried to help. Not to mention she was scared of
this
Michael. Even with all Richard’s posturing and verbal volleys, she had never actually been physically scared of him, not until he choked her that day; maybe she was a chronic bad judge of character.

Richard’s tactic was to break her with words, beat her down by making her think less of herself, so until he got really angry, she wasn’t smart enough to be scared. This man who kept passing past the window in the door? He was terrifying, especially if he saw her and his attacker as one in the same.

No amount of talking tonight would pull him back from that dark place. A place where his dance card was full, and every demon he’d ever known had signed it—from the earliest to the most recent. He wasn’t capable of reason, even to help himself. Tori realized this might very well be their end—an end that was shitty, at best; shitty because she wasn’t the one he hated, yet she was.

The human brain is fascinating and mysterious, but sometimes, predictable. Once it assigns extreme emotions to a person or object, it kind of melds them together. That person becomes that emotion or that thing or event triggers it. Even if you can prove definitely that a particular person is not whom they think, they still have difficulty, if it’s even possible, to thoroughly detach that emotion.

Tori remembered a similar case she consulted on with Dr. Beckett and it filled her chest with a hollow hopelessness. A masked man had assaulted this patient. The police arrested him, brought him to trial, and the evidence was staggering. He was convicted handily. Eight years later, everything changed. A definitive DNA test, a confession from the actual attacker, and a stack of pictures of her after he assaulted her—kept as a trophy—all proved the wrong man was in prison. The innocent man was freed.

The problem was, the face of her nightmare for eight long years was the man wrongly convicted and sent to prison. Even though her rational mind knew he was not her attacker, when she closed her eyes, it was his face she saw. Dr. Beckett was a miracle worker and was able to lessen her nightmares and confusion, but she still couldn’t look at the innocent man without terror coursing through her veins.

Selfishly, Tori wondered if this was how Michael saw her now or if it was just a one-time thing brought on by circumstances she didn’t understand. Not so selfishly, she worried about his mental health and, to be honest, every other aspect, too. Knowing she had to leave didn’t make it easier. She was terrified he might be in such a dark place he could hurt himself. But, staying wasn’t an option, he didn’t want her there and her presence might be too much.

With a heavy heart, she dressed and gathered her things and left a note that quite simply said,
“I care
.” Looking back through the small space between the curtains on the door, she watched him pass a few more times, committed his face to memory, and turned to leave. She took a quick mental snapshot of the cabin and everything in it, especially the memories and then began her trek to the main cabin.

Tori had to leave a bag behind; she was strong, but she wasn’t that strong. Two full-sized, packed to the top luggage bags was beyond her limit. The things she left, she didn’t need, or want back, so it was all good. Holding her head high, she kept walking as if it was easy-peasy. Michael wasn’t the type of man to send a woman away on foot to a place where the last time she was there someone tried to kill her. If he thought about it, it would rip him to shreds, so she put on a good game face until she was out of sight of the cabin, just in case he was watching, but she doubted it.

To admit she had to drop one bag a bit away, and come back for it, dinged her pride a touch more. She thought herself tougher than that. When she broke the seal of the door on the main cabin, her memories smacked her in the face, along with the condition of the downstairs. Richard hadn’t cleaned or picked up a single thing. He was snowed in for weeks and he didn’t do shit.

Dried rust-color smears and drops decorated the wood floor and throw rugs. Some of her things that flew from the suitcases when he tossed them downstairs were still sprinkled around. She picked up a tube of lipstick and compression undies and realized she never noticed they were missing.
Packing in such haste after almost being murdered by someone you’ve slept with can mush the brain pretty good
.

The kitchen was worse. Old dishes, food containers, and the wrappers from the protein bars they’d left him were strewn about. It looked and smelled like a frat house. The most disturbing discovery so far was blue-wrapped papers—like the legal kind, wills and stuff—stuck to the wall with a kitchen knife. Yanking it free was no easy task. It was embedded in the wall a good two inches.

Tori opened it just enough to ascertain its ownership without invading privacy and discovered it was a copy of a legal agreement and it belonged to Michael. The parental non-disclosure would be her guess, but she wouldn’t violate him any more than he felt she had already. Folding the paper neatly, she set it on top of the refrigerator until she could clean a place on the counter to leave it for Michael. She wouldn’t risk his mental health to take it to him, and she damn sure wasn’t prepared to risk the fragments of her heart.

Scrubbing the kitchen gave her a sense of peace, so she didn’t stop there. Running through the downstairs like a female Mr. Clean on meth, she didn’t cease until every drop of blood, every speck of dust, and every crumb was eradicated. It’s what she did when she was super stressed; she cleaned. And not just any level of clean, but some anal type shit. Brain surgery could be performed on the living room floor with zero chance of contamination or infection.