Enemy Mine (Unseen Enemy Book 3) (7 page)

“OK,” he said, his voice soothing. “We don’t have to, baby. Only as much as you want, when you want. Right?”

She nodded, trying to calm her breathing.

They sat for a few minutes, Chris watching her struggle to stay where she was. She was shaking a bit, and her hands were clenched up in to fists. He stayed silent, knowing that she’d relax eventually. Finally, she lowered his hand away from her face and held on to it tightly.

“I was wondering…” Her voice trailed off.

“What?”

“Can I – touch you?”

His heart jumped. “Of course.”

Jenny reached out and he closed his eyes when her cool hands cupped his face. She ran her fingers over his cheekbones, his jaw, his closed eyelids. She was delicate, gentle, her touch light as breaths. He fought to keep his hands on the sofa, but it was hell. All he wanted to do was pull her close.

Jenny couldn’t believe how it felt to touch Chris. His skin was smooth, his stubble was rough, and she imagined how it would feel to have those two opposing sensations on her skin, on her lips. She thought it would feel good.

Now she traced his full mouth, felt his warm breath against her fingers. His lips were slightly parted, and she slipped her index finger between them. His eyes opened now and she stared at the smoky gray heat in them. Something in her responded, and without even a thought about what she was doing, she pushed her finger in to his mouth, withdrew it, pushed it in again.

Chris almost groaned. He longed to suck on her finger, and he struggled to stop himself from doing it. He stayed still, his huge body tense.

Jenny felt heat moving through her body. It wasn’t fear or panic, though; this was a sticky heat, a slow, languid wave. It pulsed in her ears, and made her stomach tighten and curl. She was shocked to remember what this was.

Oh, my God. This is arousal
.
I’m turned on.

“Chris.” Her voice was hoarse.

“Yeah, baby?”

“Is this OK?”

“For me it is. You?”

She nodded. “Can you… suck on my finger?”

He closed his eyes again, feeling his cock harden immediately.

OK, stay calm. Careful now. Don’t scare her.

Gently, he closed his lips around her fingertip, his tongue pressing against it slightly. She jolted but didn’t pull back. He parted his lips, released her finger, then sucked it back in again. His tongue darted out, circled her finger. She gasped.

“Oh, God,” she said. “That feels so good.” She picked up his hand and placed it on her cheek again. “Touch me.”

He stroked her cheek and sucked on her finger, his eyes holding hers. Her face was alight with pleasure and he felt emotion well up in his chest. She trusted him, and he was moved and amazed at her surrender to him.

She’s so fucking beautiful. So sweet
.

Jenny felt breathless, in a good way for a change. Her body wanted to move closer to Chris’, but she held back, knowing that it was too soon. Instead, she stayed where she was, enjoying his touch. God, his hand was so tender – she couldn’t understand how those huge hands could touch her the way that they did. And his lips were perfect: warm and soft, teasing her and tantalizing her.

I wonder what it would be like to kiss those lips? To be wrapped in those arms?

That was when things changed. Chris knew it before she did – he saw it flash across her face – and he immediately dropped his hand. She yanked her finger out of his mouth and shoved herself back, away from him. He grasped her hands in his and held her in place.

“Jenny. It’s OK, you’re OK.” His voice was low and gentle. “I’ve got you, and I’m not going to let go.”

The panic attack hit then, hard. Her body shook wildly and tears streamed down her cheeks as she sobbed, trying to twist away from him. He held her tightly, and she fought him, everything in her wanting to get away, off the sofa, up the stairs, behind the locked bedroom door. She panted, unable to get anywhere near enough air.

OK, man. Just make her feel safe. Just show her that you’re not going to hurt her. That’s all you can do; that’s what she needs the most right now
.

“Sweetheart, it’s me. You’re safe. Right here, baby. I’m right here.” Over and over again, he murmured comforting words, trying to stay calm himself as she gasped for breath and fell to pieces right in front of him.

Minutes passed and her head started to ache from the lack of oxygen. Her chest hurt, her throat hurt. She
hated
this, hated being so afraid of a man’s touch, especially
this
man. But slowly, she regained control: her breath slowed, her shaking stopped. And when she came back to herself, she felt her hands in Chris’ and she almost started crying again at how good it felt.

She looked up at him. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” he said, his voice gravelly. “Never, ever say that to me. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

She nodded.

“You OK?”

“Yeah.” She wiped her eyes. “I’m just tired now.”

“I can imagine… it must be hard on your body.”

“It is.” Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. “It’s exhausting when I have a panic attack.”

“It’s OK now, Jenny. You got through it. You want to lie down?”

“Yes.”

He stood up then and she swung her feet on to the sofa. He grabbed the blanket from the back of the sofa and he handed it to her. She threw it over her body and curled up, her head on the sofa cushion. She exhaled, and his heart twisted to see how small and vulnerable she looked.

“Sleep, baby. I’ll be right here.”

Her eyes were already fluttering shut but she forced them open again. “Thank you, Chris.”

“For what?” he asked.

“For touching me. For letting me touch you. It felt good… at least for a while.”

“For me too. We’ll work on it, OK?” He sat down in the armchair across from the sofa. “No rush.”

“Yeah.” Her eyes closed. “No rush.”

He sat and watched her as she slept, marvelling at what had just happened between them: he’d looked in to those clear blue eyes and he’d seen the fire of arousal. That was when he knew that whatever she’d been through, she could still feel desire, and his relief was huge.

You’re not broken, baby. Damaged, yeah, a bit beaten around. But broken beyond repair? No way. We’ll get there. I know it.

Chapter Five

“I want to tell you,” Jenny said. “What happened to me. I want you to know.”

Chris looked up, totally shocked.

Wow. This Saturday morning has taken an unexpected turn
.

“You do?” he asked cautiously.

“Yes.” Her face was tight and pale, but she had a determined set to her lips and eyes. “I want you to understand. I want you to know why I panicked the other night.”

He leaned back, his hand clutching his cup of coffee. “You can tell me as much as you want, or as little. I’m listening.”

She nodded, took a deep breath. She fucking hated talking about this, and no matter how many times she’d been over it with Zoe – and they’d discussed it
ad nauseam
over the previous six years, to the point that it was almost like pushing ‘rewind’ and then ‘repeat’ – parts of it still made her physically weak and ill.

Chris was feeling pretty weak and ill himself. He knew that she’d promised to tell him the whole horrible story, but he was sure it would be later, maybe when they were moving closer to the bedroom. The panic attack had clearly motivated her to say something, though, and so he held on and braced himself.

Whatever it is, you can help her get past it.

“It was six years ago this past summer,” she said. “I had worked late at the restaurant and I was walking out to my car. I never saw them coming… they hit me from behind.”

“They?” Chris asked, his voice thick.

Holy fuck… there was more than one guy who did this to her. I don’t want to hear this; I don’t want to hear this at all.

“Yes.” She looked down at her hands. “There were four of them.”

“Oh, my God. Jenny.”

“I woke up tied to a bed. Blindfolded and naked.” She stopped. “One of them was inside me.”

Chris stopped breathing.

“When he finished, another one climbed on top of me, then another, then another. Or maybe the same ones, I don’t know. It went on like that for two days – I was raped between being beaten. Or maybe I was beaten between being raped. I’m not sure. I was bound and blind the whole time… I never saw any of their faces. I never knew when it was coming, or what was coming.”

She dared to glance up at Chris and she was shocked at the look on his face. She knew that Chris had killed people in Afghanistan, she knew that he’d been trained to do exactly that. She didn’t know much about Ranger training, but she’d seen movies about it, and she assumed it was brutal and torturous. This man had gotten through it all, though, and he’d been shipped off to one of the most dangerous places on the planet and he’d done his job. He’d killed people. But she’d never actually
seen
him as a killer. Not really. Not until this second.

The expression on his face now, though. My God. He’d kill them if they were in front of him, without a second of hesitation, without a moment of regret.

“Chris?”

“Please tell me that they went to jail for a long, long time.” His voice was coiled, quiet. Almost a hiss.

She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to keep her body from shaking apart. “No. They didn’t.”

“Why not?”

She exhaled, hard. “A few reasons. First, one of them – the youngest guy, he was only sixteen – started to freak out and he called the cops himself, gave them very clear directions to the cabin up in the Rockies where they were holding me. So he got credit for being so helpful, and also for being a minor.”

Chris clenched his hands.

“Second, they always wore condoms, so there was no physical evidence of any of them raping me. I mean, it was obvious what had happened, from a medical point of view, but there was no way to prove who actually did it.”

“But you told the cops, right? I mean, you’d have heard their voices…”

“Yeah, well. The DA decided that I wasn’t the most reliable witness,” she said. “I was blind, so I had no way to confirm anything visually. And…”

“What? Jenny, what?”

“… I drifted in and out of consciousness the whole time.” She swallowed hard around the lump forming in her throat. “I was badly beaten, and I had head injuries, and that made it… difficult to remember things. I was confused about lots of details, and the DA knew that any defense attorney could rip me to shreds on the stand. I had no concept of time, or sequence of events. I remembered voices, laughing. But I didn’t always know for sure who – who did what and when. What was real and what was a nightmare when I passed out.”

Chris was silent.

“They didn’t get away with it scot-free, but it was pretty damn close. The one guy got three years, and only because his friends kind of turned on him. The others got two each, and the youngest guy got sent to a juvenile detention school. They were out in a year, and the first guy was out in eighteen months.”

“Where are they now?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” She wiped at the tears running down her cheeks. “I was informed when they were released from prison and juvie, but that’s the last I heard.”

“Jenny?” He fought to stay in control of his rage, to be there for her. “You want me to hold your hand?”

“No.” She shuddered. “Not now. Please.” She stood up. “I want to go and have a shower, actually. I always – I need to wash after I tell this story. Every time.”

“OK, baby.” He took a breath. “I was supposed to go to Jim’s for a couple of hours to see the boys. You want me to cancel, stay home?”

“No. I’ll be upstairs for the rest of the day anyway. Go out… it’s OK.”

He watched her head up the stairs, listened as the water started to run in the bathroom. Mechanically, numb and cold, he put on his coat and boots, found his car keys. And he stayed numb and cold until he got to Jim’s house. That was when he lost it.

**

Chris slammed in to Jim’s apartment. “I need a fucking drink. And something to beat the hell out of.”

The three men looked up at him, looked at each other. Without a word, Jim got up and went to his kitchen. He poured out a shot of whiskey and handed it to Chris, who threw it back.

“Another one. And where’s that thing for me to punch?”

Dallas was already over in the far corner of the room, hanging Jim’s punching bag from the hook in the ceiling. Dean went to the closet and took out the boxing gloves, but Chris tossed back his second shot and waved the gloves away.

The guys watched silently as Chris laid in to the bag with a ferocity that they knew he possessed, but which they hadn’t seen in a long time. Not since Tiegert had been killed, actually. After five minutes, Chris yanked off his sweaty t-shirt and returned to the bag. Every muscle in his back and arms strained as he punched, kicked, punched again. The only sounds in the apartment were Chris’ hands and feet making contact with the leather and his harsh breathing.

Finally, exhausted, he held on to the bag. He gasped, panted, his head down. His hands were bruised and bloody, but he didn’t feel a thing. The other men sat and waited for him to turn around. They needed to see his eyes, to make sure that he was back.

“She told me what happened.” He still had his back to his friends, not wanting them to see his tears.

Jim got to his feet again and retrieved the whiskey bottle. He refilled Chris’ shot glass, then filled three more. Dean and Dallas took one each, and the men went over to Chris. He took his drink without comment and they all threw them back together, then they shot a second one. That was when Chris finally turned around.

“You weren’t fucking kidding, man,” he said to Dallas. “It was a fucking nightmare for her.”

“I know,” Dallas said quietly.

“How can she trust me to do this? After what happened?” Chris said helplessly. “I can’t – it’s too much. It’s too big. I’ll fuck it all up, scare her. I just – what am I supposed to do?”

“Keep doing what you’re doing now,” Dean said gently.

Chris shook his head. “I’m not the right person for this… I should have said no. I’m going to have to pull out of this.”

“Like hell you will,” Jim said, his golden eyes narrowing. “Now you know what happened, what she was working against when she looked at you and decided to trust you, to open up to you. If you fucking back out now, I’ll beat the living shit out of you myself, man, I swear to Christ. You are
not
going to leave her out there alone and vulnerable. You promised to have her back. You see this through.”

Chris flexed his hands and winced.

“Starting to feel that now, huh?” Dallas asked.

“Yeah.”

Jim went back to the kitchen and took an ice pack from the freezer. He tossed it over to Chris, who set it against his knuckles with a sigh. “Dammit. Work’s gonna be hell next week.”

“Come on, man. Sit.” Dean steered him over to the closest chair. “Talk to us.”

Chris collapsed in to the chair. “I want to know something.” He looked at Dallas. “You told us that you checked in to Jenny, found out what happened to her six years ago.”

“Yeah.”

“Where are the four fuckers who raped and beat her for two days up in that cabin?”

“They what?” Dean asked, his green eyes cold.

“Yeah. Four guys. Two days. They took turns so it never stopped, not that whole time. And she was tied up and blindfolded, so the whole thing happened for her in complete and total darkness.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Jim looked nauseated.

“You want to punch the bag?” Chris asked, as some of his humor resurfaced. “It helps a little.”

“So does whiskey.” Jim poured out another round and they all drank. They watched Chris relax a bit, settle deeper in to the chair.

“So.” Chris wiped his face on his t-shirt, switched the ice pack to his other hand. “Where are these fuckers?”

“Three of them are dead,” Dallas said. “The last one’s in prison for murder. He’ll be there for another fifteen years, at least.”

“Damn.” Chris sighed. “I guess that’s something.”

“Yeah.”

The four men sat in silence for a few seconds, not making eye contact. They were trying hard to stay on top of their anger, and they knew if they saw even a spark of it in each other, they’d lose it. Best to pull back and shut down for a few minutes, regain control of the situation, then make contact anew. Regroup and reengage.

“You know, it makes me have a whole new appreciation for that first time we all met,” Dean said.

“In the hospital waiting room?” Chris asked.

“Yeah. Think about it from Jenny’s perspective: four huge guys show up out of the blue, refusing to leave. We just… just stormed them, you know. And there were
four
of us… Jesus.” Dean ran his hands through his scruffy blond hair. “No wonder she looked like she was about to pass out on the spot.”

“It also explains why Kat and Liv got between us and her,” Jim said quietly. “They’d know exactly where her mind must have gone.”

The men nodded.

Chris sighed. “There are just so many ways for me to scare her, guys. So many ways for me to fuck this up.”

“You go as far as she asks, and not one inch beyond,” Dallas said. “And if she panics, you tell her she’s safe now. That’s it, man. You take it one inch at a time.”

“Yeah,” Chris looked down at his hands, finally saw the blood and bruises blossoming across the knuckles. “How the hell am I going to explain
this
?”

“Tell her the truth,” Jim said. “Tell her you got angry, that you’re angry for her. That you hate what happened to her.”

“OK.” Chris took his first deep breath since Jenny had laid her truth down at his feet. “OK. That’s what I’ll do.”

**

Chris unlocked the front door of Jenny’s house, his hands fumbling a bit with the keys. He had the beginning of a headache pounding in his temples. Not a hangover exactly – though downing five shots of whiskey in as many minutes at eleven o’clock in the morning wasn’t the smartest thing he’d ever done, to be sure. His hands hurt; his chest felt tight. He needed to get eyes on Jenny. He had to make sure she was still in one piece.

He was surprised to see Emma in the kitchen pouring boiling water in to a mug.

“Hey,” he said. “Is she OK?”

“So-so.” Emma looked up at him, gauging his body language. “She called me about two hours ago. She needed to talk.”

“Yeah, I bet.” Chris leaned in the doorway. “Is she still upstairs?”

Emma nodded. “In bed. I told her I’d bring her a cup of tea.”

“Is it OK if I take it up? I want to see how she’s doing.”

“Sure.” Emma smiled. “And how are
you
doing?”

He stuck his wrecked hands in his jeans pockets. “OK.”

“Uh-huh,” she said. “So why do you look like you’ve been pounding on brick walls bare-knuckled?”

Dammit. Nothing gets past this woman.

He took his hands out again. “Yeah, well. I went at Jim’s punching bag pretty hard.”

She waited.

“I wasn’t totally prepared, Emma,” he admitted. “I mean – I knew that it had to be something sexual. An assault, a beating, probably both. But I didn’t expect…
that
.”

“I know.”

“You still think I can do this? That I can help her?”

She studied him. “What do
you
think?”

“I – I wanted to quit.” He stared at his feet, ashamed. “I told the guys that it was too much for me, and I wanted out.”

“And what did the guys say?”

Chris grinned. “Jim said he’d beat the crap out of me if I abandoned Jenny now.”

“Well, Jim wouldn’t be the only one.”

They shared a smile, then Emma sighed.

“Chris, listen. You’re allowed to have feelings about what happened to Jenny, you know. It’s OK for you to be furious and feel helpless and in over your head. It’s huge, what she’s facing down, and you’re right there with her, in the thick of it. Of course you’re going to feel overwhelmed. I’d expect nothing different.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She walked closer to him. “You asked me if I still think you can help her. The answer is, yes, I do. You already have.”

“You mean touching her?”

“Exactly. Just three weeks ago, she hadn’t been touched by a man since those four assholes degraded and tortured her. Even at the hospital while she was recovering, she only ever dealt with female doctors and nurses. Now, she holds your hand and feels comfortable. She asked you to stroke her cheek. She touched you. Believe me, if you’d told me even one month ago that she’d be able to handle any of that, I’d have said you were dreaming. But it’s happening, Chris. Together, you and Jenny have come this far.”