Into the Flames (Out of the Ashes #2) (13 page)

“Sweetheart, stay with me.”  My body is shaking uncontrollably; Ian carries me down the hall to our room, settling me into the middle of the bed.  He takes both sides of the duvet and wraps it around me before doing the same with his arms.  “Lauren
, it’s okay, love.  Please, talk to me.”  My mind feels like it is collapsing in on itself.  A warm sensation floods me and I want to give in; let it take me, take all the pain away.  Struggling out of the blanket and Ian’s hold, I rush to the bathroom and dry heave into the toilet.  Anything that was in my stomach earlier is all over Dean’s shoes and the elevator floor now.   Ian shouts to someone as he comes into the bathroom.  Though there is nothing left, my stomach continues to revolt against my body; painfully I heave up nothing but air and bile. 

Ian’s hands are on my back rubbing in soothing circles as he tries to quiet my thoughts with soft words.  “Shh, it’s over.  He can’t hurt you anymore.”  He reaches up to touch my cheek and I flinch away in pain
.  “That bastard.”  Suddenly I’m alone on the cold marble floor.  I hear shouts in the office and a few minutes later Ian is back at my side with an ice pack.  “Lauren do you think you are well enough for me to move you to the bedroom to lie down?”  Unable to form words, I simply nod my head.  He picks me up off the bathroom floor and carries me back to bed.  Once I’m wrapped up again in the blanket and him, he places the ice pack on my already swollen and bruised cheek.  This will look nice at Thanksgiving.  I can’t help but smile at my random thought.  Now I know I’m losing my fucking mind.  I don’t feel like crying but laughter is bubbling up inside me.  If I let it out, Ian will know just how crazy I am.  This whole situation is a giant comedy of errors.  Everything perfectly laid out to get us to this point and my mind is mush.  I was powerless to stop it; I could have run before, tried to stop loving Ian, left everything behind.  I could have stopped being selfish and gone back to face Dean myself but I had done none of those things.  Instead I stayed and fooled myself into thinking that everything would be fine, that we could stop him. 

There was no stopping the laughter this time.  It came rolling out.  There was no stopping him; we are kidding ourselves if we think we can.  Maybe I should have just let Ian kill him in there instead of stopping h
im.  When Ian was punching Dean all I could think was that if he kills him, I will lose Ian.  So being selfish once again I pleaded with him to stop.

“You
want to know something funny.”  Ian is startled by my voice; a voice I don’t even recognize.  “I almost thought I would get away.  The bastard had his tongue down my throat and I saw it all play out.  I would get away and we would be okay again.”  The laughter has subsided only to be replaced by convulsive sobs and tears that stream down my face soaking Ian’s shirt as he holds me to him.  “Pretty fucking funny huh?  I should have just gone with him.  I should’ve just given up.  He’s never going to stop until he kills me and he will kill of you in the process to get to me.”

“Stop!”  I’
m surprised to hear Ian shouting at me.  “Stop fucking saying that.  I don’t want to hear another word.  You’re going to lay right here and I am going to go deal with this.  You don’t move.  Do you understand me?”  Shocked at his outburst, I can only nod in response to him.  I must drift off because when I feel the bed dip behind me again I see through the curtains that it’s dark outside.  “Lauren, sweetheart,” Ian’s voice is soft in my ear.  “I’m going to lift you up now.  I need to get you down to the car and to the hospital.   I’m sorry it took so long to deal with all that.  I wanted to take you earlier but the police had so many questions and I didn’t want you to go without me.  Put your arms around my neck.”  He lifts me off the bed, blankets and all and holds me close to his chest.  As we step into the elevator the faint smell of disinfectant hits my nose. 

“Ian,” my voice is barely a whisper, “what happened to Dean?”

“Shh, love.  We’ll talk about all that later.  Just relax and let me take care of you.”

When we arrive
at the emergency room, I’m immediately whisked away for some tests.  When the doctor asks about a rape kit, I try to tell him that I don’t need one, but all I can do is shake my head.  “Miss, please. If he did we need to collect the evidence.”  Ian storms into the room. 

“
Stop. He didn’t rape her.  But he beat her up pretty badly.  How is she?”  He continues to talk to the doctor as if I’m not even here.  I retreat into my mind so I don’t have to listen to their conversation.  Bits of it filter through anyway.  “No broken bones in the cheek... Will have considerable swelling and bruising to deal with for several days…  May have a couple cracked ribs…  Observation for a couple days to make sure the hit did not aggravate the concussion from before.”  I let the looming darkness take me.  I know what I will find on the other side is no better than here but at least there no one can really hurt me. 

In the dark recesses of my mind, Dean waits just like I knew he would.  Here I get to be both participant and observer.  Dean relentlessly pounds into me.  “You like that don’t you, whore?  Let your man know how much you like my cock in you.  Let him hear you.  Let him hear how much pleasure I bring you.  Pleasure he will never bring you.”  His hand connects with my face as he continues to punish me between the thighs.  “Open up.  Lick me clean and swallow my cum.  That’s a good whore.”  He leans in close to my ear so only I can hear while he plunges into my mouth.  “He’s as good as dead anyway.  This is the icing on the cake as it were.  He gets to watch part of your punishment before you get to watch him die.  They’re all dead now.  Yo
u only have me left.  I’m all you’ve got.”  My screams erupt around his cock and suddenly the room is filled with light.

“Lauren, we’re here sweetheart.  Lauren, wake up!  Come back to me.  He’s not here; he c
an’t hurt you anymore.”  I hear Ian’s voice pleading with me even as I hear Dean screaming at me about being a whore.  “Please Lauren, please, I need you.”  I move my mind towards Ian’s voice and away from Dean, hoping to leave him behind in the dark forever.  A blurry Ian comes into view.  The smile on his face could light up the Empire State building.  “There’s my girl.  You really had me scared there for a minute.”  He sits me up in bed and wraps his arms around me, fervently kissing me all over my face. 

“Sir
please, she needs to rest.  Please let her lay back down.”  The nurse runs frantically into the room trying to stop Ian from kissing me to death. 

“Sorry, I’
m just happy that she is back with me.”  His smile melts the nurse just as it does every other female. 

“Of course, sir.  But please try to let her get some rest.”  She finishes checking my vitals and switches out my IV fluids before leaving the room still swooning over Ian’s smile. 

“You’ve got to be careful how you use that smile of yours.  I thought she was going to melt into a puddle at your feet for a moment.”  I say to him playfully. 

“Oh
, now I know my Lauren is back.  Teasing me about my effect on women but the only one I want to affect is laying in that bed.”  He sits gently on the edge of the bed.  “I called my mother, Claire and Gavin.   Well, actually Gavin was blowing up your phone since we never showed at the club but he rushed out of there as soon as I told him what happened.  They should be here in a few minutes.  I also called Dr. Reeves.  I hope that’s okay.”

“Why wouldn’t it be?  I’m glad you thought of all that.”

“God, Lauren when I saw you…  After dealing with the police… I thought you were one step from comatose and then when you passed out at the hospital…  Sweetheart, I seriously thought I was going to lose you.  The doctor said that your vitals all looked good and your scans were clear but you wouldn’t wake up.  You wouldn’t respond and then your heart rate became so erratic that alarms started going off.  They made me leave the room until you were stable again but even then you wouldn’t wake up.”  He has a death grip on my hand as he brings his lips to mine.  “I’m so sorry about all this Lauren.  I’m so sorry.”

“Ian, what do you have to be sorry about?  Aren’t you the one always telling me that I have no control over what other people do?  So why do you have control over how Dean behaves then?  You didn’t make him do any of this; he did it all on his own.  There is no one to blame but him.”  The truth of those words rings in my mind as they fall from my lips.  “I guess I should have listened to you all along and stopped blaming myself
.  There’s nothing I did that led to his behavior; the decisions were all his.”  Ian smiles at me but doesn’t say anything for a moment.

“Sweetheart, I’m glad that you finally understand that.  I’m sorry that it took all this for you to come to that truth but glad you got there.  However, this is partially my fault.  I should have checked the security detail more thoroughly.  Connor is beside himself with worry and grief.  He already fired the guy that was supposed to be watching you this afternoon…”

“No Ian,” I shout practically jumping out of bed, “he can’t do that.  It’s not his fault.  Dean threatened his girlfriend, his pregnant girlfriend.  He only took the money and did what Dean wanted to protect her.  You can’t tell me you wouldn’t have done the same thing.”

“Actually, I can.
I’m not saying that I wouldn’t have done what he did to save you but he had another option.  He could have come to Connor and told him what Dean was threatening.  There is so much that could’ve been done.  I do understand his motivation though, at least now I do.”

“Ian, stop and think about this for a second.  Dean approaches him first with just the offer of money to leave his post for a few minutes.  When he declines, Dean comes back with an offer of money and a not so veiled threat on his girlfriend’s life.  You cannot tell you would
n’t do exactly what Dean told him not to do and run to Connor.  That is not the Ian I know.  You would have done what you needed to do to protect me.  Please don’t take this out on him.”

“Lauren, I understand; I really do.  And you’re right but still I can’t have someone in the detail who’s not loyal.  I will talk to Connor though
, maybe there’s something else that he can do but he will NOT be in your private security any longer.”  His tone has an air of finality and I know not to push the subject any further.  I press a gentle kiss to his lips savoring the taste.  There is an elephant in the room with us and we need to talk about it but I’m not sure if I’m ready to hear it, or if he is ready to tell me. 

There’
s no sense in putting off the inevitable so I simply ask, “What happened with Dean?”

Ian sighs and rakes his hands through his hair.  I worry what this means.  Is he free?
When he begins to speak his words are slow, calculated, as if he is trying to not to say too much.  “I wanted to kill that bastard.  Nothing would have given me greater pleasure than beating him until he knew the pain he caused you.”  He takes another breath but I know better than to interrupt at this point.  He needs to tell this in his own way, his own time.  “I don’t know why you stopped me.  For a moment, I was angry with you for stopping me but as I held you I realized if I had my way I probably wouldn’t have you anymore.  Though rotting in a jail cell for a few years would certainly be worth having that asshole in the ground.”

“Please Ian
, don’t say that.”  I have to interrupt now; I can’t stay silent at his words.  “I saw you killing him with your bare hands.  Self defense, my defense or not; you would have gone to prison.  I can’t bear the thought of losing you; I couldn’t have you spend time behind bars for him.  I know it’s selfish but I can’t let you go.”

“It’s not selfish at all.  I’m glad you stopped me.  Connor had Danielle call the police right after she called up to the office and when I carried you to the apartment Connor cuffed and held Dean until they arrived.  I did leave you for a few minutes to make sure he was secure.  I won’t lie; I took a few more shots at him.  Not the most gentlemanly thing since he couldn’t fight back.  I guess I figured since he abused you, someone who clearly was no match against him and couldn’t fight back, he could use a little of his own medicine.”  My mind drifted back to m
y nightmare; the pain that I endured, still endure.  I should have fought harder for myself from the beginning, I should have walked away the very first time he was rough with me.  Something kept me there.  Was it love?  Did I ever really love Dean?  I think in a way I did; at least I thought that was love then.  Looking at Ian sitting stoically in front of me, I know now that I had no idea then what love was; the feelings that I have for this man far outweigh anything I’ve ever experienced before.  And I know that I will never feel this way about anyone else.

“What happens now?  What will happen to Dean?”  My voice is hoarse; I barely choke out the words.

“The police took him into custody and tomorrow he’ll be arraigned but until then we won’t know anything else.  You’ll have to go down and give a statement.  I tried to get you out of it but since you are the victim, it’s up to you to press charges.”

“Ian, what if I can’t?  What if I can’t do it?  I know he deserves to spend his life behind bars for everything he’s done but I’m just not sure I’m strong enough.”

“Lauren, I’ll be there for you every step of the way.  But there’s no way he’s going to stop pushing unless you push back.”  I think about his words for a long time, letting them sink in.  I spent months preparing for Dean to come back, always knew that it was never a matter of if but when.  I thought I could be strong; I thought I knew how to handle seeing him.  Then when it actually happened, when I was face to face with the monster, all I wanted to do was give up.  I want to scream at myself, to yell that this isn’t what I worked so hard to overcome.  How can one man paralyze me so?  How does he hold this power over me?  My fear is making me a victim and I don’t want to be a victim any more.  Tyler trained me in the basics; I can defend myself if need be but more importantly he taught me that getting out of the situation doesn’t make me weak.  Even Ian on more than one occasion has told me that running doesn’t make me weak.  But to back down now would only be another mistake.