Safe With Him (20 page)

“Bree,” he breathed as he moved his hand to the back of her head, bringing her lips to his and kissing her. He wanted nothing more than to kiss it all away. He wanted to kiss every bad memory gone…forever.

When she broke the kiss she again smiled that cute as hell side smile at him, then laid back down, head on his chest. “Since no one was home, and I felt like a normal girl, I wanted to pretend just for a little while that I was normal. So I went out the front door, instead of my window. I think I was pretending I was going to the store.” She gave a little sad laugh that damn near broke his heart. “Silly, huh?”

“No…baby, not silly at all.” He managed to say around his constricted throat.

“I was…preoccupied, so at first I didn’t hear the car when it turned in our driveway. Not until the car door slammed shut did I even know anyone had been watching me. When I heard it I turned and saw one of the cops, one of the meaner ones. One of them that was meaner to my mother and to me. He was standing by his car, just standing there looking at me. Staring with this…this look that I hadn’t seen before. Mostly he just always looked mad, but that time he looked…almost predatory? I’m not sure, but I know I didn’t like it, so I took off running. I think he started chasing me but if he did, he stopped shortly after, but I just kept running and running until I had run all the way to where Storm was working at the time. Then I remembered what I had on, knew Storm would get mad if he saw me, so I stayed hidden until it was almost time for him to be home. I went back, this time I went in through the window, changed my clothes and never told Storm what had happened.”

He wondered if she could hear the fear in her voice as she told him about the way that bastard was looking at her or when she said she was running. “How old were you…then?” He hoarsely asked, trying like hell to stifle the anger that was bubbling up in his gut and the sting in his eyes.

“Fifteen. Well, almost sixteen.”

Still a damn child
, he thought. An innocent child. How she managed to stay innocent was a miracle. But he knew there was more to this story, even if for the moment she wasn’t saying a word. He would give her the time that she needed. Hell, he’d give her all the time in the world. And if it was too hard for her to continue, fuck it, he would give that to her too. But now he knew why she distrusted cops so damn much. Could anyone blame her? Could he blame her? Hell no, he couldn’t. Wouldn’t. But thank fuck for whatever it was that made her see past his badge, at least enough for her to give him herself. He would work at it, continue to build that trust that she was giving to him. And so help him, he would do everything in his power to keep that trust.

After long minutes she finally spoke again. “A few weeks later, my mother was passed out, or at least I thought she was passed out, on the sofa. I went into her room, can’t remember why. To this day I can’t remember why I would ever go in her room. For one, I wasn’t allowed, and two, there was nothing in there that I could possible want or need. But for whatever reason, that day I was, and then I heard her yelling at somebody. She was yelling something about if she didn’t get what she wanted then he wasn’t getting anything from her. Then I heard
his
voice and they were moving around in the house, kinda like from room to room. Then they sounded like they were closer to her room, so I hid in the closet. I had just pulled the door closed when they were in the room, and he was yelling he didn’t want anything from her, he wanted the girl. At first I don’t even think my mother knew what or who he was talking about. They started yelling back and forth. I tried to tune it out, covered my ears trying not to hear. But I heard. I heard my mother tell him for five thousand dollars he could have the brat as many times as he wanted.” She fell quiet again. He wanted to say something, do something to make it all go away for her, but he was too shocked, too stunned, to even move. Her own mother was going to sell her for five thousand dollars. He would have paid a hundred times that, just to have gotten her the hell out of that.

“He slapped her,” she whispered, bringing him out of his murderous thoughts. “He called her a crazy bitch if she thought he would pay for some slut that he was going to get anyway.” He felt her arm wrap around his side, her hand slide under his back, then tighten like she was trying to hold on to him for dear life. He tightened his arms around her in return, silently letting her know that she was safe, that he wouldn’t let anything happen to her.

“He started beating her and beating her. I tried…I tried so hard not to hear, but I heard every punch, every slap then he…he…started ripping her clothes, and I could hear her screaming, crying, “no, no,” over and over, but he just kept on. Then for a second everything was quiet. So quiet. At first I thought they knew I was there and he would find me, then she screamed. The kind of scream that makes your blood run cold. I was so scared, scared to move, scared to even breathe. The last thing I heard was him saying ‘the girl or you,’ then nothing but my mother’s quiet sobs. I don’t know how long I stayed there, hidden in the closet. It felt like hours or days. When I didn’t hear my mother crying any longer or any other sounds I slowly crept out of the closet and crawled out of her room. I was at the bedroom door before I stood back up and turned to look at her. She was beaten so bad, blood everywhere, her clothes in pieces barley hanging on at all. I thought she was dead. I called to her. She stirred just a little at first, so I knew she wasn’t dead. I was just going to leave her, wait till Storm got home, but she said something. I didn’t hear her, so I think I said ‘what’ or something like that. She opened her eyes and for a second she just stared at me. I always knew she hated me, she told me enough times, but I had never seen such loathing, so much enmity in someone’s eyes before. Then, before I even knew it, she was right in front of me. She hit me so hard I fell backward and before I hit the floor she was on top of me hitting and hitting. It’s like the hate she felt for me was giving her strength, because even beaten as badly as she was, she was still stronger than she had ever been before. She blamed me for what he did to her. She blamed me. She said if I had been there he would have come after me and left her alone. She kept repeating over and over,
should’ve been you
…
it should’ve been you
, as she continued to hit me. I think she would have beaten me to death if Storm hadn’t come home when he did. He got me away from her and took me to the hospital.”

“Fuck, baby I…I’m…so sorry. I…I don’t know what to say. I would take that from you, if I could. Swear to you, baby, I would’ve gotten you outta there if I had known,” he whispered to her as he kissed the top of her head over and over. “If I had known.” He held her tight to him.

“It got better. I spent a week or so in the hospital healing from broken this, fractured that, and cracked something or other. Then when I was released we…I mean I…well…it got better,” she finished, but he knew she was again holding something back. The how ‘it got better’ she was keeping from him, and he didn’t know why. Why now, after everything she had told him, why wouldn’t she tell him the rest?
Storm.
It had to have something to do with her brother. She was not quite sixteen, still a minor, and Storm would have been…nineteen, or twenty, not a minor. It had something to do with Storm, and she was protecting Storm from…who, him?
Fuck, she’s seeing my badge again
. In all the years he had been a cop, not once had he ever regretted it or wished he was something else. Until now.

“How did it get better?” he asked softly as he again tried to give her a reassuring squeeze.

“I…I left,” she stuttered and that was when he realized, she might try to evade, but she wouldn’t lie. He was determined to make her forget once and for all his damn badge.

“You left? Left where? Where did you go?”

“I left home, ran away, from the hospital, when they were releasing me.”

“You were fifteen, where’d you go? How’d you manage with broken this and fractured that all by yourself?” He kept his voice soft, his concern light. Let her think he was just being curious.

“I was almost sixteen. In fact, I turned sixteen just a week later. And I wasn’t by myself. I had…help.”

Yeah, he thought, help from a twenty-year-old adult, who if anyone wanted to, could cause him a whole helluva lot of problems. He would bet his life that that bastard of a cop would have handed that trouble to Storm if it meant him getting his grimy hands on Bree. “Baby, who helped you, how’d you finally get away from that hellhole you lived in for fifteen, almost sixteen years?” He gently tried to coax her while
trying his best to control his rage. Rage for a little girl. Rage at that son of a bitch that called himself a cop. And rage at himself for not knowing how or what to say to make his Breezie understand that there was nothing she could tell him in confidence that would ever be used against her or anyone who had helped her when she was a helpless, hurt, broken child. What kind of man would he be if he did? What kind of man did she think he was?

“Just…” she whispered, then took a breath. “Just somebody, it’s…” she shook her head, “nothing, nobody…”

Nobody?
he deliberated.
Nobody!
She had just lied to him. She had just fuckin’ lied to him.

Bree lay on Draco’s chest. She could hear his heartbeat, so strong, so sure. Could she trust him? Could she really tell the part of him that was a man, and not have the part of him that was a cop react? She was contemplating her answer when she heard him growl low. “Fuckin’ hell, Breezie.” Right before she was suddenly flipped on her back with Draco’s pissed off face glowering down at her. “Look at me,” he demanded, then jumped up, stood beside the bed completely naked, arms stretched out wide. “Look at me, damn it! Do you see a badge on me?”

She looked at him, and then past him to his dresser where his badge lay shining in the flickering candles that had yet to burn all the way out. She looked back at him in time to see his head jerk in the direction of his dresser. He went to it, grabbed his badge, stalked to the door, opened it, and threw his badge hard. She thought she heard it start to bounce off the steps, just before he slammed the door back and stalked back to her. Right before he made it to her side of the bed where she still lay, too shocked to move, he stopped. With hands on his hips he took a breath, blew it out, then started pacing around the room, mumbling inaudibly, until he stopped abruptly. He looked at her, scrubbed his face in his hands, through his hair, growled, then he started pacing and mumbling again.

This went on for a while. So long in fact she started to think she might like watching him. She sat up in the bed, propped the pillows against the headboard, and sat back to watch this incredible man move around his room completely, one hundred percent, naked.
Oh yes
, she smiled to herself, she most certainly did like watching this fascinating male in all his glory.

“Dang, you’re exquisite,” she voiced out loud before she even realized what she was saying.

He stopped. “Breezie,” he groaned out, sounding pained. “See me,” he took a step to her, “trust me,” he took another step, “believe in me.” He was pleading as he made his way to her side of the bed, sat on the edge by her hip, reached out, and cupped her face in both his hands. “Me, baby, just the man. Know I would never betray anythin’ you ever share with me.” He leaned over and kissed her softly. “Promise you,” he whispered faithfully.

She sat staring into his eyes, searching…could she, could she unconditionally trust…anyone? No, not anyone. Him. Draco. She closed her eyes, searching inside herself. Was it possible to confide in him unequivocally and not live to regret it?

Draco sat holding his breath.
Please, baby, please
, he mentally begged. When she opened her eyes, he knew she had made her decision and nothing he could ever do would change that. He didn’t know what choice she had made or how he even knew that it would be unchangeable other than the look in her eyes, the resolve, and the sense of her settling that reflected back at him.

“Storm,” she whispered quietly, and the turmoil that was swirling inside him stopped as he let the breath he had been holding, out on a quiet sigh. “He told them at the hospital that he found me in the woods near our house, and for me to tell them I didn’t remember anything, that someone hit me from behind and I blacked out. So that’s what I did and when I was released I left the hospital on my own, met up with him about a half a block. He took me away. I didn’t even know where. I just knew he drove for what felt like a very long time. When we finally stopped it was late, really late, and he carried me into an apartment that was mostly empty except for an old recliner that sat in the middle of the living room and a small twin size mattress, covered with blankets on the floor of the bedroom. That’s where he took me, the bedroom. He laid me down on the mattress and told me to sleep. When I woke up the next day, I don’t even know what time it was. There was a note from Storm lying beside the mattress. He told me there was plenty of food in the kitchen and my medications were also in the kitchen on the counter. I was not to go outside or open the door for any reason whatsoever, that he would be back in a few days to explain. Until then, he begged me not to let anyone at all know I was there.” She looked away from him, down at the bed. “He had, ‘by law,’ kidnapped me, taken me across state lines. At the time, I didn’t know this. I mean, he’s my brother. How can a brother be charged with kidnapping his own sister to protect her?” She looked back up at him, and he saw the tears in her eyes. “How?” she asked hoarsely. He thought, because she was a minor, and because Storm was an adult. He wouldn’t tell her that, although he was pretty sure she knew all of that now.