Cherry Crush (4 page)

When Chan started after him, the cops rounded the corner, and a frantic Laney flew into Chan’s arms.

“Are you hurt?” she demanded, running her fingers over his face, her hands patting down his chest and arms. “Did those animals hurt you?”

Chan removed his lightweight jacket and wrapped it around her shivering body very much exposed by the long rents in her dress.

“It was you who was hurt.”

Blood dripped down her leg, and bruises had begun to form on her face.

“I will never forgive myself for this,” he growled, his whole body shaking with anger.

Knowing he had to be gentle with her, Chan took a deep, cleansing breath and did his best to call on his Reiki teachings. Slowly, he began releasing his anger.

The cops now had the two men in custody and asked about the third that had got away. Back-up arrived. They provided a blanket to cover her torn clothes, and a shaky Laney and a coldly quiet Chan left in a patrol car.

After filling out mountains of paperwork and declining a trip to the emergency room, they left the authorities with assurances that the two would be charged and the third would probably show up in a hospital trying to get treatment for his wounds. Chan was certain he’d broken the guy’s wrist with his kick. When the police caught up with him, they would have him on aggravated assault, assault with a deadly weapon, assault with intent to do bodily harm, and a slew of other charges. The police stressed that even though her bag was missing and presumed taken by her assailant, along with her ID and house keys, most likely Bryan would fly the coop. But the cops stressed that she change her locks as soon as possible. Just in case.

The clock read almost three in the morning when Chan half dragged an exhausted Laney into his apartment over both the dojo and her own abode.

“You shouldn’t be alone tonight,” he informed her, removing both of their shoes and carrying her through the scant-furnished rooms to his bedroom.

Laney looked to be beyond caring as he covered her with a thick down comforter before retrieving a warm wet flannel to wash her face and hands.

“Thank you, Chan,” she got out before closing her eyes and giving in to the sweet oblivion of sleep, his presence seeming to offer her some security.

Chan gave a terse nod before exiting on silent feet.

Chan’s apartment was comfortable in appearance, with a low table used for eating in the dining room and a breakfast bar in the kitchen. The black leather couches in his living room piled high with large fluffy pillows in muted shads of red — lucky colors. In fact, more pillows than anything lay strewn throughout his place. The only exception in scarcity was in the master bath.

His bathroom contained a whirlpool bath on one side and a double-headed shower on the other. The tile was black stone marbleized in gold, and hothouse plants thrived everywhere. The black toilet and sink gleamed with cleanliness, and the brass fixtures glinted in the light from the elaborate fixture overhead.

Instead of hardwood floor, the bedroom possessed a carpet so thick that your feet massaged with luxury with every step. The gold dragons cavorting across a midnight sky appeared almost too beautiful to step on. The bed itself was one huge marble pedestal topped by a super-king-sized mattress. Mountains of pillows in black, gold, red, and white topped the bed, while mounds of pillows faced the fireplace built into one corner of the room.

On the walls hung several ancient-looking katanas and blades. Directly on the wall behind the bed resided a fan made with five of the most unusual and beautiful feathers of black, red, and gold.

Even an ornithologist would be hard-pressed to identify the creature the feathers came from, and then, not too many people would even recognize them as being natural.
           

Chan left her in this room and headed for the kitchen for some tea and contemplation.

If only he hadn’t stopped to counsel one of the women in his class. If only he had called instead of thinking he could catch her before she left the restaurant. If only those punks had left her alone. If only, if only, if only.

He went through the motions and prepared his tea in the style of his father’s people, steeped in a cast-iron pot with just a little lemongrass, and stalked to his living room.

Guilt was tearing him up inside. His Shinto philosophy preached that all things must be accepted as they came, but his heart whispered he could have arrived sooner and done...something. He fell asleep on his couch, his tea long forgotten, with the “if onlys” bouncing around in his brain.

The sound of low sobbing overlaid by the soft roar of falling water awoke him much later.

Chapter Two

Laney floated in a deep sleep when she suddenly felt cold metal and the sharp edge of honed metal. The knife! It was at her throat. Before she could do no more than react, a sinister voice whispered, “I’m gonna kill you, bitch.”

Screaming, she lurched up and out of bed before she realized that she had been dreaming. With the memory the filthy hands and the feel of the knife blade biting into her skin, Laney fled to the only open doorway in the room, the bathroom, to get violently ill over Chan’s shiny black toilet.

After losing her earlier dinner, Laney hung over the toilet. The heaving sounds of her retching echoed in her mind. She shuddered, wiped away the tears that ran down her face, spat one last time, and rose to flush the toilet.

She took a few steps to the sink and glared at the mirror that hung above it.

She looked like hell.

A huge green-blue bruise marred her face and various cuts on her arms and back stung. Butterfly sutures held together a shallow cut on her upper thigh, and it burned like mad now that the painkillers the hospital staff had given her were wearing off.

She smelled of the antiseptic the paramedics had slathered onto her…and garbage juice. She needed a shower.

Gingerly, she stripped off the remainder of her clothing, wincing at the thought of the condition of Chan’s sheets. She tossed her ruined garments over by the garbage can. She never wanted to set eyes on any of the clothing again—all dumpster bound as far as she was concerned.

She hoped that Chan wouldn’t mind her using his shower, but right now she had a need to get very clean in the worst way possible.

There were already several types of soft soap in the shower, and an odd showerhead attached to a pole ran from the floor to the ceiling in the large stall. The shower also contained a small padded stool that sat over against the far wall along with a wild array of small stoppered bottles.

She lifted one and opened it, sniffing the oily substance inside.

Instantly, she was surrounded by the scents of wind and rain, good cleansing things that reminded her of Chan’s hair. She had gotten very up close and personal with his scent, as he spent several hours tossing her around in his dojo. The smell also permeated the gee he wore while practicing his specialty, Kendo.

Chan didn’t allow Laney to participate in these classes, not that she held any interest in swordsmanship other than an observational capacity. She loved watching the fluid movements of Chan and his advanced classes; they seemed to dance on air, chopping at each other with deadly skill and accuracy.

After these classes, she often assisted Chan with clean up, gathering bits and pieces of his own personal equipment while he saw to the repair and cleaning of his students. This rain-washed smell infused into the martial of his headgear. So logically she deduced that the substance was some type of shampoo or soap.

Why else would these bottles be in a shower?

The stool she figured was for washing when too tired to stand, and it looked comfortable despite its height. She pulled it over, positioned it before the showerhead, and discovered that the head was adjustable. It slid smoothly down the pole until bathing-stool height.

Laney started the water, adjusted the temperature until stinging hot, plopped her butt on the stool, and drenched herself with the water.

Blindly, she reached for a bottle, not caring which scent it was, opened it, and doused her body in the slick substance.

The thought of getting clean was worth more than anything she could immediately name.

As she sat there, her mind recalled those hands on her body, those leering voices, and the feel of that knife.

She had never felt so helpless in her life!

She fought back the overwhelming need to scream to the heavens as helplessness and frustration threatened to choke her.

Instead, she reached out for a small rough sponge and scrubbed away the hands, the taint of their liquor-scented breaths, and the press of the wet concrete against her back.

After four soapings, she still felt those hands holding her in their rough grip. A low sob escaped her, and she slid down off the shower stool, the sponge and the oil soap falling beside her on the slippery tiles.

Those men had intended to steal the most precious thing that she possessed. Those men intended to hurt her, to rape her, take away her humanity, leaving her nothing more than an object to be used, abused, and discarded.

If they had managed to succeed…if they had violated her, she would be little more than the trash they’d laid her in.

The feeling that it had somehow been her fault filled her, and she dropped her head to her knees and began to cry.

She was the one walking out at night instead of waiting for Chan. She was the one in the provocative clothing, never mind the fact that they couldn’t see through her overcoat. She was the one lost in her fantasies of Chan, not paying attention to what was going on, of where to run, or of how loud to scream.

She bet she even smelled of lust and want; that she had sent out a ready and horny signal that they could pick up on.
  

And that knowledge made her sob even more.

That was how Chan found her.