Falling into Exposure (10 page)

“I do mean it,” I cry out. “I only want you, Gabriel. You’re the only man that can satisfy me.”

With my words, he bottoms out, gripping my hips as he releases himself inside of me.

He didn’t let me come, and it stings because I need it. I need my lover right now, not this angry, feral man. I sink into the seat below, feeling like I’m on the brink of an emotional overload.

He pulls off his pants, sitting down beside me.

“Prove it,” he says, gesturing to his cock.

“Prove what?”

“That you only want me,” he says simply.

I can see the challenge in his expression, but I still don’t get why he’s doing this. I sink down onto the floor before him, pushing my head between his legs. The storm is raging within his cloudy gray eyes as he watches me.

I take his semi-hard cock into my mouth, sucking softly and slowly.

“That’s not good enough,” he grunts. “I want you to show me.”

He grabs a handful of my hair and pumps into my mouth. I lick and suck him furiously as he growls above me. It only seems to piss him off more, and it makes all the emotion well up inside of me. A sob heaves from my chest and hot tears stream down my cheeks as I try my best to give him what he needs.

Gabriel stiffens inside of me, staring down at me in confusion.

“Victoria!”

He pulls out and brings me up into his lap. I curl into him, sobbing uncontrollably like a baby. This day has just been too much. The thought of losing him, the thought of leaving New York, seeing him in the bar, and now this.

“I’ve hurt you,” he rasps, panic rising on his face. “God, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me…”

I shake my head softly, trying to control my sobs. “No, you didn’t hurt me.  But you were so angry with me… really angry. I don’t like that. That’s different than you being rough with me.”

He wraps his arms around me, kissing my tear stained cheeks.

“I’m so sorry, beautiful. I’m so, so sorry. For everything. I just can’t stand the thought of you wanting someone else.”

I look up at him wearily, exhausted by this conversation. I don’t understand how he could possibly think that.

“Gabriel, I don’t want anyone else,” I say. “I can’t tell you any other way. I’m in love with you, only you.”

His features soften as his squeezes me in his arms.

“Do you really mean that?”

“Of course I do,” I snap. “I would never say that to someone if I don’t mean it.”

“I just thought after everything that happened…”

“Gabriel.” I roll my eyes. “You don’t stop loving someone just because you’re upset with them.”

He bows his head to mine, pressing his forehead against my wet cheek.

“I love you too, Victoria,” he whispers. “So much. I wanted to tell you this weekend, but I was afraid.”

His words make my heart swell with emotion, and I’m crying for a different reason now.

“I already knew you did,” I whisper. “But it feels good to hear you say it.”

He smiles down at me, stroking my cheek gently.

“I don’t want to run from you,” I say in an anguished voice. “But I feel like I have no choice.”

“I know.” He nods.

“You do?”

“I know you’re running from something,” he says. “And I want you to tell me what it is. I want you to trust me enough to do that, no matter how bad you think it is. You need to know that I would do anything in my power to help you. But you can’t run from me, Victoria. You just can’t.”

I nod stiffly, mulling over his words. He’s asking something impossible from me, but in this moment, I’m too tired to fight.

We arrive back at the apartment, and Gabriel drapes his coat around me, carrying me to the elevator in his arms.

“I can walk,” I protest weakly.

I don’t want to admit I like being in his arms. My sweet, fucked up, insecure, ridiculously possessive Gabriel. He’s mine, and I love him.

“Shhh,” he soothes. “I want to carry you.”

When he opens the door to his apartment, I gasp.

“Has someone broken into your place?”

His jaw tightens, and he keeps walking down the hall in silence. And then I understand. He really went berserk. Because of me.
Crap.
I feel awful for making it worse at the bar.

We pass the door to the sex room and I see everything in tatters. Gabriel continues to his room in silence. He sets me down gingerly on the bed and walks to his closet. He returns with a pair of gray sweat pants and a clean shirt, handing them both to me.

“You can sleep in that,” he says softly.

“Are we sleeping in here again?” I ask.

His expression is flat, serious. “You will always sleep in here with me, Victoria.”

I stand up and change into the clothes he gave me while he watches.

“You destroyed the sex room,” I say.

“I don’t need it anymore,” he states. “I just want you. And if I can’t have you, I don’t want anybody else.”

“You have me, Gabriel,” I reassure him.

He lays down beside me and pulls the covers over us, spooning into me as he closes his eyes.

I stare up at the ceiling, feeling unsure of myself. I want his touch. I want to know he still desires me.

“Gabriel, make love to me. Please.”

His eyes blink open and he shakes his head sadly.

“I hurt you,” he rasps, a wounded look in his eye.

“No, you didn’t,” I protest. “Don’t leave it like this, please. I need to know you still want me. I need you inside of me.”

He stares at me, and I can tell he’s torn. He doesn’t know what to do.

“Please,” I beg.

He rolls over and climbs on top of me, pressing his hips to mine. He leans down and kisses me softly, gently, as if he thinks I might break. I reach down and tug on his pants, freeing the already growing erection from beneath. He kicks them off the rest of the way, never taking his eyes from mine.

“You are so perfect,” he whispers, trailing his fingers along my cheek. “How could you ever think I’d stop wanting you?”

I close my eyes, soaking up his sweet words.

“Make love to me,” I breathe.

He reaches down and parts my legs as he presses into me gradually. He takes his time, watching my every reaction. When he eases his hips down, I wrap my legs around him, moaning as he gives me what I need. He moves slow and deliberate, taking his time.

He kisses me on my lips, my neck, and then pulls up my shirt to suckle on my breasts. I gasp at the sweet contact of his mouth on my sensitive flesh. This is the gentlest he’s ever been with me.

I feel the pressure building with every soft thrust as his hand caresses my body. And then all at once, I melt around him, my whole body relaxing underneath his. He pumps into me again, groaning as he comes undone inside me.

“I love you,” he rasps.

Chapter Sixteen

Victoria

He’s on me again, hard and impossibly heavy as he holds me down. I struggle against him, screaming, but no one can hear my cries. His breath smells like cigarettes and beer as he puts his disgusting lips on my body. The tears are falling down my face, and he tells me to shut my fucking trap. I sob and scream and writhe beneath him, desperately wishing to escape. 

“Victoria!”

My body is shaking, and I know he’s going to get angry with me, but I can’t stop it.

“Victoria.”

I kick at the heaviness above me, trying to get free.

“Get off me, please! I promise I won’t tell anyone. Please!”

More shaking. Hands on my shoulders, and then light.

Gabriel.
I open my unfocused eyes, covered in the heavy blankets of a room I don’t recognize at first.
His room.
I’m safe. I’m here with him. He stares down at me with panic etched into his face, and I reach up for him like a child, begging him to hold me.

He sits down beside me and pulls me into his lap, stroking my hair softly as I lean my head against his chest. He waits until my frantic heartbeat steadies before he speaks.

“Victoria,” he says, his voice calm but firm. “I’m not letting you leave here until you tell me your secrets. I need you to tell me.”

I shake my head meekly. “I can’t.”

“Enough!” he growls. “I can’t live like this, wondering what’s happened to you. I have to know. No more lies.”

I glance up at him, surprised by the unyielding expression on his face. He didn’t push me before, but I can tell he isn’t kidding now. And I understand why, but I don’t even know where to begin… how to let these demons loose on him like it’s no big deal.

“Tell me what that nightmare was about,” he says softly.

“I have them sometimes,” I say. “They are memories, but broken fragments mostly. I don’t remember them vividly, just small things. Bits and pieces.”

“What are they about?” he persists, concern furrowing his brow.

“I’m afraid that if I tell you the truth…” I choke back a sob. “You won’t want me anymore.”

“Victoria, that is absurd. There is nothing you could tell me that will change the way I feel about you.”

I look up at him, searching his eyes for reassurance.

“No more lies?” I ask hesitantly.

He nods and squeezes my hand in his.

“Do you remember when I told you about Eleanore?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“Well, I already told you that she hated me,” I begin, “but, it was worse than what I told you.”

“How much worse?” he asks.

“I was a child when she met me, and she… tormented me. She was jealous of my relationship with my father, so she started doing things to get back at me.  Breaking my toys, punishing me for things I couldn’t control, calling me names, that sort of thing. But over time, the punishments got worse. She started getting more and more violent with every punishment. I hated it, but I so badly wanted to please her. I really thought it was my fault that’s what she made me believe.”

Gabriel’s entire body tenses beneath me, and I can tell he’s upset, but he just waits patiently for me to finish. And it feels good to share this with him. To just let the words spill from my mouth without thinking about the repercussions.

“One day,” I continue, “when I was eight, Eleanore told me she found a new friend for me. She told me her name was Emma, and that she would be taking me to her house to play. I was so excited, I brought all of my toys with me the first day she took me there.”

“She walked me to the door, and a stinky older man answered. I still remember that first smell, I don’t think it’s something I’ll ever forget… it’s like it’s burned into my brain. He was so grubby and dirty and when he leaned down to say hello, I wanted to puke. He told me to come inside to meet Emma, and I remember looking back at Eleanore as I went in. She had this evil smile plastered across her face, and I knew then that something wasn’t right.”

“It turned out, there was no Emma. And I guess you can probably guess what happened next. Every week, three times a week, Eleanore would take me to his house. The stinky man told me he would kill me if I ever told anyone, and I believed him. This went on for two years. And then, I guess I must have gotten too old for him or something because Eleanore just stopped taking me.”

I begin to shake violently in Gabriel’s arms as I recall the broken memory, and he pulls me closer, trying in vain to comfort me. When I finally peek up at him, he looks like a raging bull, ready to destroy. There’s a vein throbbing in his neck, and he’s grinding his teeth together.

“Tell me his name, Victoria,” he says with a deadly calm. “I swear I’ll fucking kill him.”

I shake my head and plaster myself against his chest.

“No, you won’t. He isn’t worth it, and I doubt you’d find him. He skipped town when my dad found out.”

He takes a long, deep breath, trying to remain calm. “How did your dad find out?”

“Well, obviously what happened to me affected me, I guess. I don’t know. Like I said I only remember bits and pieces of it now. But while I was still young, I learned quickly that the best way to avoid Eleanore’s wrath was to avoid my Dad. That was the only thing that ever made her happy. So I withdrew, and our relationship suffered for years.”

“I guess he was too happy to really notice, he never picked up on those sorts of things. But once I was no longer really an issue, other people started to become an issue. Eleanore was obsessed with my Dad and insanely jealous. She started to imagine things between him and other women when there was nothing going on at all. She would even drive through the night to where he was working to try to catch him with someone else. But she never did. Their marriage started to fall apart, and they fought a lot. Eleanore got violent with him too. She started hitting him and making death threats. The cops were at our house all the time, and the whole town thought we were all crazy.”

“Jesus,” Gabriel mutters.

“Yea, but my Dad was hopeless. He still held out hope that they could work things out because he didn’t want to be alone. He took Eleanore to a Psychologist who told us she had Borderline Personality Disorder. We found out that her mom left her when she was young, and that she had an intense fear of abandonment. They prescribed her some medication, but she stopped taking it after a couple months.”

“When my Dad went back to the Psychologist begging for his advice, he tried to warn him how dangerous Eleanore was. He said people like her were extremely volatile and unpredictable, and even though they were self-destructive, they could really hurt others too.”

I stop to stretch out my legs and move to the head of the bed to lean against the headboard. Gabriel follows suit, sitting close beside me.

“So then what happened?” he urges me on.

“Well, my Dad tried to stay with Eleanore, but the fighting just got worse. And then she started doing some really bizarre things. She disappeared for weeks at a time, having affairs and then coming back like nothing had ever happened. And every time she came back they would have a huge fight.”

“In the end, he finally decided he wanted her to leave. But she’d just keep coming back. We’d call the cops, but she was always gone by the time they got there. She started stalking both of us… at work, at home, anywhere we went. She hacked into our phone records, financial records, everything. She was smart, too smart. That’s when we started filing restraining orders. The police tried to charge her with stalking several times, but the charges always fell through because the judge said there wasn’t enough evidence. The restraining orders were just useless pieces of paper, and I swear it just made her more determined to get to us.”

“You must have been so scared,” Gabriel says quietly, massaging my shoulders as I speak.

“I guess I was scared sometimes, but it was the only life I knew, so it wasn’t really scary so much as frustrating.”

“So what ended up happening to Eleanore, then?” he asks.

“Well, after my Dad filed for divorce, she got really violent with both of us. One day, he was at work and she showed up at the house when I was alone. She cut the phone lines and smashed out the windows to break inside. I tried to run, but she pushed me down the stairs.”

Gabriel closes his eyes, cursing under his breath. I know he doesn’t like hearing it, but he asked, and I’m afraid he’s opened Pandora’s Box.

“When I woke up,” I continue, “I was in the hospital. And I didn’t even remember anything after falling down. I had a broken arm and a bad concussion. The police tried to charge Eleanore, but since there were no witnesses they dropped the charges again. When my Dad came and found me there, he was a nervous wreck. He couldn’t believe she’d hurt me that bad. And I was so tired of pretending that everything was okay, I finally broke down and told him. All of the torment, the abuse I’d endured over the years. It broke his heart, and he swore he’d never let her hurt me again.”

My throat constricts as I try to explain what happened after that.

“That night, while he stood vigil by my bed… he died from a massive heart attack. The Doctors said it was too much stress. I always thought maybe if I hadn’t told him the truth, things would have been different.”

Gabriel takes me into his arms, soothing me as he rubs my back. “No, Victoria,” he says firmly. “You can’t blame yourself for what happened. If it’s anyone’s fault it’s that evil fucking bitch. You didn’t deserve this, any of this. And I’m sure your father would have wanted to know the truth, no matter how much it hurt.”

I nod slightly, knowing he’s right. My father said as much before he died.

“I’ve tried so hard to forget,” I say regretfully, closing my eyes. “But it haunts me. I’ll be fine, and then something triggers that one memory or emotion. And it just hits me like a freight train.”

Gabriel reaches down and cups my chin, bringing my eyes back to his. “Victoria, you deserve nothing but the best. After everything you’ve been through, to be the kind of woman that you are today, you deserve so much more. And I have every intention of giving you that.”

I smile weakly. “I wish I could agree with you, but you still haven’t heard the worst part.”

“What is it?” he frowns.

“Well, to put it simply, it’s still happening. I can never get away from her. I’ve tried, God, believe me, I have tried. But she’s always one step behind me, waiting for me to screw up somehow.”

I slump my shoulders and rub my exhausted eyes.

“What do you mean?” he asks in disbelief. “She’s still stalking you… that’s who you’ve been running from?”

“Yes,” I reply. “She’ll never stop. I’ve learned that the hard way.”

“The fire?” he asks. “Was that her too?”

“Yes.” I nod. “After my Dad died, she disappeared for a while. I thought foolishly that everything would be okay, somehow. He left all his life insurance and estate to me, so I didn’t have to worry about money. I was still living in my childhood home, and things were sad… but there was finally peace. And then one night, she came back. She was having a complete psychotic break when she confronted me. She blamed me for my father’s death, and for making him hate her. She started pulling her usual shit, calling me names, putting me down, expecting me to cower or run like I always did. But I was just so fucking sick of it. So I stood up for myself.”

I laugh as I recall my foolish bravery. “I don’t know what I was thinking because I didn’t stand a chance against her. I tried to hit her, and she snapped. The next thing I knew she was on top of me, beating me unconscious. I swear the woman is superhuman when she’s having an episode, it’s like nothing can stop her.”

Gabriel grunts from beneath me. “I’m sure a fucking bullet to the head might.”

“Well, when I woke up that night, I smelled gasoline. And it took me a minute to realize it was all over me. The house was on fire. I don’t know how I made it out of there, but I did. I spent the next couple days in the hospital, and Eleanore had already skipped town, so they didn’t catch her. But the day I got out, she called me. She told me it wasn’t over, and I knew she meant it. She was never going to stop.”

“One of my Dad’s friends, Officer Wright, came to visit me in the hospital after the investigation. He was the one who broke the news to me that she’d got away. And then he gave me some advice. He told me to leave town, and he said he would help me. He told me how to stay under the radar, paying cash for everything and never using my real name, ever. He said hopefully, after a few years, Eleanore might forget all about me. But I think we both knew it wasn’t true.”

Gabriel interrupts me with a stone-faced expression. “What about your other relatives? Surely they would have taken you in?”

“I had some Aunts and Uncles, but I never really knew them. They didn’t live in the same state, and they never reached out to me, even after Dad’s funeral. My paternal grandparents were both dead, and my mother’s parents were in Italy somewhere. I’ve never even met them.”

He nods in understanding, allowing me to continue.

“So Officer Wright helped me get out of town. He drove me four hours to a bus station and tried to prepare me mentally for what I needed to do. But it was a lot harder than I thought, and I had to toughen up, real quick.”