Intimate Strangers (5 page)

“Okay. I see what you’re trying to do and I appreciate it. You want us to be civil, for Ruan’s sake.”

Astutely clever girl.

“And I agree that it is important for a child to have the equal love of his mother and father, should they both wish to be a part of said child’s life. In fact, despite my reservations, I welcome it. But please, don’t try and make it seem like I was anything more than a casual thing. Over the past year, I made my peace with the fact that men like you never look for more than what they want at that moment, especially with women like me.”

Just like that, he pulled away, steeling himself. “Men like me?” Tiaan spat, taking a few steps back to control the rage building up. “You know bloody well nothing about
me
, so don’t you dare put me into a little box with others you might have been with. And don’t go around pretending as if you know me or anything about me!”

Spinning on the balls of his feet, Tiaan stalked off to Mac’s vehicle. In the passenger seat, before she arrived, he vented. “Fucking Christ, Mac. I don’t think I can stay in the same building as that…that bit–”

“Shh.” He motioned to the slumbering little one in a car seat behind him. “And I don’t think you should be using words like that to describe the mother of your child.”

Tiaan dropped his face into his hands. Too much pressure, too much…everything. His head ached like some sadistic bastard shoved it into a vice and cranked it tighter a little at a time, just to see his brains explode.

Yes, what he did in the name of peace, in the name of the country he gave his life to, it was bloody unconscionable. But if the orders hadn’t been given to him, he would not have carried them out and maybe, just maybe he wouldn’t be a broken shell of a man with a pot of fucked up soup for brains and a damaged body.

I feel like a child,
he wanted to tell someone, hell, anyone who would listen.
I feel like I’ve been abandoned on the side of the road and I’m standing there alone, watching the taillights of my parents’ car as they drive away. Their carefree laughter is ringing inside my head, stabbing, searing my brain. I can’t do anything right, I can’t even feel emotions the way a human being is supposed to.

One part of me wants to grab Chelsea and tease the hell out of her until she begs me to bring her to release and yet, at the same time, I want to scream at her for being so goddamned careless. But most of all, I want to be normal again. God, how I want to be the man who came to visit one year ago. I don’t want to be broken anymore.

He hadn’t heard the door behind him open or close. The only thing that alerted him to her presence was that familiar milk and honey fragrance she possessed, torturing his senses. What would she think if she saw him, saw what he knew to be an agonized expression and eyes filled with confused tears? The day Tiaan broke down in front of Reynolds’ men, bawling, begging… They bloody well laughed at him. Quite literally kicked him while he was down. Would Chelsea do the same? He didn’t think he’d be able to bear it if she did.

Thankfully Mac turned the radio on as he drove, something loud enough to cover the sounds of his gasping sobs. He knew exactly what Tiaan was going through at that moment because he had been in this position once before.

Except the people who tortured him were not his fellow Americans, fellow soldiers. Mac wasn’t tried for treason after doing nothing more than following his orders but left for dead and hunted by his own government when he failed to roll over and take his last breath.

Hell, Mac knew just what was happening inside his head. If he could count on anyone to get him through this, it was Mac.

Six

There, she felt it again.

Chelsea opened her eyes and looked around her small room as the eerie impression of being watched swept over her a countless number of times over the past two nights – since Tiaan arrived.

Just as she had previously, Chelsea expected to see nothing, to find that no one had entered her room while she slept in short intervals between feeding Ruan when he woke and putting him back to sleep. But this time, her eyes caught a dark shadow huddled in the rocking chair opposite her bed. The chair moved.

“Don’t be afraid,” a voice whispered.

Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Chelsea carefully pushed back the covers and shimmied to the side of her bed. In the dark, she couldn’t see much of anything but that voice, the accent, she knew who it belonged to.

“If you want me to go…” Tiaan paused his slow back and forth motion, waiting.

Between the elevator and the car, she witnessed too many facets of one man and the way he spoke to her, the ferocity in his voice and anger in his eyes…it was all quite frightening. But the drive home, during which he openly cried about something she would never understand, it gave her cause to wonder what could possibly be going on inside his head.

Mac said it was up to Tiaan to elucidate his experience with her if he chose to, but he did inform her that the man who fathered her child had been through something truly horrendous and he had to face it alone. Whatever he went through, it obviously affected his mind.

Chelsea made her peace with the fact that she may never know the man that seduced her that night again, and they may never experience anything like the night they shared in the future, but she had a connection with him. They had created a human being together and whatever he was going through, he didn’t need to do it by himself.

Tentatively, she rose on exhausted legs, pulling her nightdress down to her knees, and walked soundlessly over to where he sat. In a show of peace, of good faith and solidarity, she offered her hand and waited to see what he would do. She wanted him to take it, to stand up and come to her arms, to let her comfort him. She wanted to hold him and tell him everything was going to be alright, even though Chelsea didn’t know if that was the truth.

Tiaan swallowed, the sound loud enough for her to discern. Then he reached out uncertainly and slipped his hand into hers. Despite the summer heat, his flesh was cold to the touch. “You’re freezing,” she whispered.

“It hurts,” his meek voice admitted.

He offered no further explanation.

Chelsea wet her lips. “What hurts?”

Silent seconds ticked by, sliding into minutes, punctuated by Ruan’s sleepy murmurs and breathing. She wondered if Tiaan heard her, and if he had, if he planned on responding. One step, just the one, and she stood close enough to feel the chill emanating from his thigh. Why was he so cold? Had he been down in the unfinished basement because his bedroom felt too warm?

He still hadn’t replied so Chelsea repeated herself. “What hurts, Christiaan?”

At the use of his name, he looked at her, stunned, like he didn’t know how he’d gotten into her bedroom. “Everything,” he finally confessed. “Everything hurts.”

What did he mean by that?

The next door neighbour pulled into their driveway and the headlights illuminated the room in a soft glow. Her eyes widened in reaction to the horror spread out over his body, a body that she recalled in her mind as nothing short of perfection. Now his comment made sense, how everything could hurt. His shorts fit loosely over thick, long, and all too recent welts and burn marks. They criss-crossed over his entire upper body, his chest, shoulders, arms and abdomen, in a twisted mass of scar tissue that dipped below the waistband of his shorts.

The father of her child had been tortured.

Brutally.

Chelsea choked back a pained cry, covering her mouth so she wouldn’t wake Ruan.

Shrouded in darkness again once the neighbour shut off their headlights, she gripped his hand firmly to let him know she wasn’t going to let go of it. Suddenly, as if their roles were reversed, he became the frightened one while she turned into the protector. Regardless of their undefined relationship, Tiaan needed her and nothing, not exhaustion, fear or anything else was going to deter her from the part she was offering to play.

With strength she didn’t know she possessed until that moment, Chelsea tugged at his hand, telling him to get up from the chair to stand before her. He followed the non-verbal command timidly, rising until his dark eyes looked down upon her expectantly. Though she didn’t know for sure if it might hurt, she needed to hold him.

First, she rested her cheek against the crook of his neck, something she did once before. This time the experience felt much different. The knots of healing scar tissue were rough against her skin. But she didn’t recoil. This was the only way she could think of to help him and she wouldn’t allow him to see or sense any fear on her part.

Next, Chelsea offered the solace of her arms, gently slipping them around his torso, underneath his own. With the sensitive skin on the undersides of her forearms she felt the torn flesh of his back and gasped when he flinched at her touch. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, beginning to pull away.

Tiaan used his arms to anchor hers in place. “No. Please.” He held her firmly, resting his head on her shoulder.

Don’t go
.

She heard his unspoken plea and offered a tangible promise to him. “I won’t.”

They stood as one, unmoving, while the house around them filled with the usual sounds of night. Exactly how long she remained there, holding him, Chelsea didn’t know for sure. She simply enjoyed these moments, savouring them, him… The very last person she ever expected to meet again, let alone touch in such a profound manner. It confused her to no end, especially after the awful things he said over the past two days, but Mac helped her to understand that it was more a defence mechanism than insults meant to offend her.

When Ruan woke, his little whimpering cries interrupting the silence, Tiaan stiffened and tightened his hold on her.

“I need to feed him,” she whispered. “You don’t have to leave, i-if you don’t want to.”

Shaking his head, Tiaan extricated himself from her arms and slipped from the room without producing a sound.

How much more confusing can my life become?
Chelsea wondered, changing Ruan’s diaper.

Once he’d been fed, he settled again and she attempted to get back to sleep herself. It refused to come and she spent the night attempting to find that moment between sleeplessness and slumber.

Dawn finally broke, casting bright rays of sunlight through the curtains. Her head pounded from lack of rest, but she didn’t have the luxury of remaining in bed all day. While Ruan still slept, she hopped in the shower and thoughts of Tiaan assaulted her beneath the hot spray.

Chelsea recalled every moment of their time together that night. She mimicked the long and languid swipes of his hands caressing her from the hips up to her breasts and shivered. Resisting her own release had been easy up until now, but with Tiaan here, Chelsea couldn’t stop herself.

One hand massaged a taut nipple, tugging and pinching, while the other glided down her belly to the slick folds at the apex of her thighs. She moaned a little too loudly at the initial contact on the engorged nub. A third hand came from nowhere, kneading her backside. Chelsea screamed, the sound muffled by a fourth hand clamped over her mouth.

“It’s only me,” Tiaan’s sultry whisper reached her ear. Heat from his breath aroused her further.

Frozen where she stood, Chelsea considered his reason for entering her bathroom. Then she realised he probably wanted sex. Just like before.

“I-I can’t…” Her words wouldn’t come out the way she planned.

“Can’t what?” The hardened length of him pressed against her.

“Do this.”

His hand replaced hers, fumbling slightly at the feel of her pebbled nipple. Tiaan released a rough sigh, taking both of the heavy globes in his palms, testing their weight. He cursed beneath his breath.

Chelsea struggled to turn in his arms, but he held her firmly in place. A moment of dread passed through her, wondering what he might do. The man may have been tortured, but his strength still surpassed hers. Should he wish it, Tiaan could very well do whatever he pleased.

He wouldn’t
, she tried to tell herself. Mac would never allow someone like that under his roof.

Would he?

“Just let me touch you, Chelsea.” She noted the edge of desperation in his voice. “Don’t care about myself. But I need to touch you.”

His words evoked such a powerful response from her. Where, just seconds ago she was terrified of what he might do, now all she wanted was whatever pleasure he was prepared to give. She nodded and he kissed the nape of her neck.

Her memories of him always showed someone skilled and talented, capable of bringing her to places she had never dreamed of going. This man behind her felt like a completely different person. Someone unsure, doubting his capabilities as a lover.

Tiaan hissed, skimming his trembling hands down the same path she’d taken the reverse of before he interrupted. His fingers lingered over the puffy flesh covering her lower abdomen. She cringed at what he must think of her now.

Teeth grazed her shoulder. His movements grew rushed, frantic even, as he searched for the center of her need. Too roughly, he pinched and pulled, grunting and prodding against her backside until he was nestled between her cheeks.

“Jesus, Chelsea,” he spoke between panted breaths.

Careful not to embarrass him, she gently took his hands in hers and enticed a softer touch from him.
Ah, there
, she thought, relaxing her head against his chest. Slow burning heat built up inside her.

“You’re too damned perfect, love.”

Her breath stumbled at his sweet words. Chelsea reached back and held his neck, arching hers to tempt him with a kiss beneath the warm spray of the shower. Those deep chocolaty eyes searched her face for a fleeting moment. Hesitantly, he brought his mouth down on hers. It was she who sought entrance past his closed lips with her tongue. Coaxing, and then begging with a whimper.

Finally he gave her access, and seemed to find his rhythm too. Then she was the powerless one, desperate for him to grant her the release she needed. The fire blossomed out of control, sending sparks shooting down to her toes. They curled on the rubber mat stuck into the bottom of the tub, swimming in the steamy water that pooled there.

Mercifully, Tiaan thrust one long finger inside her aching core to press on the extremely sensitive bundle of nerves. She came apart, her cries swallowed by his mouth, slanting hungrily on hers. A moment of stillness from him coupled with the sticky warmth dripping down the backs of her thighs told her he’d enjoyed himself as well.

He released his hold on her and she turned to embrace him, but Tiaan was suddenly gone. Vanished like a thief, a pirate who had taken his spoils, slipping silently away. Again.

Feeling used and unable to swallow down the hurt fisting at her throat, Chelsea finished in the shower and wrapped herself in her towel. She sunk to the bathmat on the floor, dripping wet strands of her hair sticking to her skin. One minute, Tiaan made her feel special. Saying the most wonderful things. The next, she felt worthless again.

Time to erect that barrier around her heart once more. Tortured or not, Christiaan Carstens had to learn that he couldn’t simply use her whenever he so desired. She had to think of herself, her sanity, her health.

And that of her son.

As long as Tiaan stayed in this house, Chelsea couldn’t be here. The Dunlop’s would have to understand.

Then she recalled a conversation with Mrs. Fournier, Hannah’s friend. The older woman’s daughter had moved out months ago with her fiancé, and she mentioned a spare room, saying if Chelsea ever needed a place to stay she should look no further.

Why hadn’t she thought of that sooner? It was perfect!

The shrill cry of a hungry baby demanded her attention. Chelsea quickly dried off, slipped into her robe, and went back into the bedroom. Having a plan in mind made her feel so much better, even if the thought of never seeing Tiaan again pained her more than she was ready to admit.

It was for the best.

~~~

This kind of mission always bored him. The watching, hanging around and waiting. As a man of action, he preferred to be
in
action, as opposed to sitting in an unmarked vehicle on a quiet residential street, a pair of binoculars and a bunch of ration packs as his only companions.

His muscles were stiff. Felt like they were going into atrophy from disuse, even though it had only been a few days. He massaged his thighs and calves, promising himself some exercise soon. He just needed one thing, some good intel to offer the man with the money.

Motion at the house of interest demanded his attention. He glanced through the lenses to see a sexy little thing rushing from the front door towards a rust-bucket. She had a baby with her.

He took a second look at the photograph he’d memorised since the day he was assigned to this job and his eyes widened. Back through the binoculars, he got the perfect view of the baby before she tucked him – car seat and all – into the back seat.