Slave World 2 - The Ties That Bind (36 page)

“Shut that hole in your face and listen up. Look at you,” James snarled. “Moping about like a cry-baby. I’ve seen Girl Scouts with more balls than you. Guess I was wrong when I thought you’d graduated to wearing a pair of big-girl panties.”

“What did you say?”

“You heard me, you know as well as I that life isn’t easy, it never has been for people like us, and just because you’re ready to give up and take the easy way out doesn’t mean that I am. Like it or not this is your life and you’re stuck with it, and me, and I’m not about to let you do something stupid at this point in the game. Got it, Snake?”

“You don’t want me. Just go. Just leave me alone and go away. Why are you doing this?”

“Why?” James stabbed her breastbone with his index fingers hard enough to knock her off balance. “Because it’s high time that you faced the truth and accepted the fact of what happened so you and I can get on with living. And who the hell are you to tell me what I want or don’t want? Let me make something perfectly clear, for the first time in my life I do know what I want and it’s my choice to stay, not yours. I don’t leave any one behind, especially someone I love. Ever. Is that clear?”

Sandy’s face went slack, and she cocked her head staring up at his glaring expression for several heart-pounding moments. Somewhere in the depths of her self-made hell, a beacon of warmth flickered to life.

“Did you just say you loved me?”

“Yeah, I did. If you have a problem with that, you better speak up right now, or I might just start thinking of you as my main squeeze.”

“Do you always have to be such a crude chauvinist? And I hate how you’re always joking around, I can never tell if you’re serious or not.”

Sandy turned away, fighting back the tears again. Her head was spinning, she couldn’t think clearly, too many conflicting emotions. The moment of truth… James had actually admitted the dream growing within her, the very thing she was afraid of happening, yet wanted more than anything else in the world. She’d been alone for so many years now, tarnished and heartless, hardly caring what happened to herself, let alone another person. Was she ready for it? Was she ready to accept the reality of her life, and not just a silly fantasy to hold on to in hopes of what could be? Would he really be able to look beyond the shameful truth of her past and accept her for who she was? Could she, for that matter? Words were one thing, but in time…

She felt James’ presence drawing near, the warmth of his chest molding against her back, shivering when his arms wrapped protectively around her mid-section. She melted, leaning into his embrace.

“Do you really hate my joking? It’s who I am, and you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

“No, I don’t. It’s one of the things about you I do like, and somehow it fits you. If it was any other man, I’d knock their teeth down their throat, but from you… I don’t know. Like you said; it’s just who you are. I bet you used to get beat up a lot as a kid.”

“Funny you should mention that.”

James began telling some silly story about getting in a fight with a dog when he was a kid, but she really wasn’t listening. Sandy closed her eyes, absorbing the rumble of speech through her back. It had a calming sensation that made her think of their times together, so tender and peaceful while she laid in his arms with the steady rise and fall of his breathing, and the muted thumping of his heart lulling her to sleep. It was one of the most comforting things she’d ever experienced. Maybe it was in one of those silent moments of bliss that she realized how good life could be, if she could ever come to love herself again, and in turn, love another.

“And so that damn dog goes high-tailing it down the road, yelping his head off, leaving me standing there waving its ear over my head like a trophy! You should have seen my mom- she comes running out of the house and darn near has a heart attack at the sight of me covered in blood and jumping around, raving like a maniac! Needless to say, the other kids left me alone after that.”

“I don’t have a clue what it means to be in a relationship, any relationship, and I don’t know if I can ‘just get over’ what happened to me. I don’t see how you can either.”

James’ jovial mood and laughter subsided, as he was shocked back to the present.

“It’s not going to be easy, but nothing worth having ever is. I would hope you know me better than that, and see that I’m in this for the long haul.”

“I do know you, and that’s why I said it. I know your reputation with women, and I’m far from perfect, you get tired of them, and just move on to something new, something better.”

“That was a low blow.”

“Look at my arms, you fossil!” Sandy angrily pushed herself away from James, exposing her recent scars. “Look at them! The only reason I’m not dead right now is because... I don’t even want to think of how many women you’ve been with over the years, comparing me to them, putting my name on some chart in your head with a score beside it, knowing damn well that I’m in the lower bracket. Oh, and let’s not forget the extent of my experience,” Sandy barked sarcastically, staring at the ceiling while tapping a finger on her chin in mock thought. “I lost my virginity to six men in the span of several hours, I was so bruised and sore I could hardly walk afterwards. Stop your crying, you bitch! Its blood on my cock or blood on my knife, so shut up and move your ass,” Sandy rambled, returning to the past. “You like that, you little slut? Open that fucking mouth… wider! Suck it! Do you know how many times I just wanted to bite down on them? Every single fucking time! My jaw hurt so badly afterwards, and I can still taste them. At some point I threw up a belly full of cum and was laughed at for it. They didn’t care, they never did. Bitch, you better swallow it… You spit it out and I’ll kill you!”

“Sandy, don’t do this to yourself.” Even as James said it, he knew she had to; she had to get it all out in the open, even her insecurities regarding him.

“Shut up! This is the truth beneath these scars, so deal with it!” The tears had already started to flow, and all James could do was stand there and listen, helpless, while she vented her pain. “Imagine that going on for months, James, months! I never woke up from the nightmare; two, three or even four of them at the same time defiling my body in ways you can’t imagine. I was their whore; a pretty little redheaded toy, their good girl, because if I didn’t… One of them always played a game with an old style revolver pistol, he shoved the barrel inside me and I never knew if it was empty or not, as he slowly began pulling the trigger. Do you have any idea what it’s like to experience that kind of fear as a kid? So terrified of dying that you piss yourself, and even more terrified to do anything to stop it? That was how I learned to stop caring, James, that was how I learned to stop feeling anything for anyone. Anyone!”

“I know what you’re trying to do, and it won’t work. I know you love me, too.” James reached for her hand and this time she didn’t pull away. “Let me help you, we can get through this together.”

“Oh, please… I can already see the difference in how you look at me. Don’t you get it? I can feel it again, all the shame and humiliation.” Her free hand slowly gravitated to her stomach. “I remember every detail of the four trips to the clinic in secret to have an abortion so no one would find out what was going on. I can feel the gnawing emptiness inside again, but I had to rid myself of the filth they put in my body. The doctor just thought I was a stupid girl who kept getting knocked up by a local boy while preaching safe sex information to me over and over. That’s my sexual experiences, that’s my idea of love. That was my introduction to what a relationship is, so you tell me how in the hell we’re ever going to have anything together that slightly resembles normal?”

“You know what I think?”

“And what’s that,” Sandy sniffled, wiping the pain from her cheek.

“Sometimes you talk too much.”

James yanked her into his arms again against her initial resistance. She felt stiff when his hands slipped into the small of her back, pulling her even tighter against him, holding her firmly in place.

“No… I can’t.”

She tried to push him away, it was a half-hearted attempt to stop something she needed, they both knew it. James silenced her feeble protests with a gentle touch of his lips, and their eyes met, his warm and understanding, hers soulful and tear-filled.

“Quiet,” he whispered into her mouth. “Don’t speak. Don’t think. Let your mind go. Nothing else exists but the two of us, here and now.”

Sandy closed her eyes, and she took a ragged breath, shivering as if chill resonated up and down her spine. Her trembling hands encompassed his waist in turn, fiercely gripping his shirt, clinging to the only safe refuge in a violent storm.

“Help me, please.” Her lips answered his, slow at first, growing hungry and desperate. “Help me forget so things can go back to the way they were. Help me feel again without hurting. That’s all I want.”

“I know, kiddo, and I will. It’s you and me together now, I promise.”

James bent at the waist and deftly scooped her into his arms with a slight cry of surprise on her part.

“Ever been swept off your feet by a charming man before?”

“When it happens, I’ll let you know.”

It was the first sign of an honest smile on her part that he’d seen since this mess started, not to mention a glimpse of the old Sandy beginning to re-exert itself again.

“Anyone ever tell you before, that you have no respect for your elders?”

“Just some crotchety old fart that has more heart than common sense.”

James awkwardly used the toe of his boot to activate the bed controls. It slid out from its enclosure and Sandy gave way before him when he laid her down on her back, crawling up between her legs. Time seemed to stand still for a few silent moments while he hovered above her, gazing into one another’s eyes. She broke the spell between them by coiling her arms about his neck, stroking the back of his head.

“Well… The next time you see that old bastard, you tell him—”

“You know something, old man?”

“And what’s that?”

“You talk too much.”

Sandy suddenly pulled his lips to hers, parting to accept the delicate probing of his tongue. Their kiss quickly grew passionate, needy and uncaged, as James ran his hand along her side, stopping at the peak of her breast. He gave it a mild squeeze, grinding gently against the soft, accepting flesh between her thighs. Sandy moaned into his mouth before latching on to his lower lip with her teeth, and a he gave rapid intake of breath.

James struggled franticly to undo his pants between them, while trying not to do a face plant into Sandy, she still had a firm, biting hold on his lip, and the evil gleam in her eyes that said that she had no intention of letting go any time soon. He might have been imagining it, but it sounded like she even growled seductively at him once or twice. Maybe she was right, he thought, in the process of kicking his boots off, sinking completely into her with the resistance of liquid tight euphoria. Maybe we both talk too much.

Chapter Eighteen

The Burke Ranch

A light morning breeze stirred the hem of Donna’s nightgown while she stood on the third floor veranda of the main house, scrutinizing the ongoing construction a quarter mile away. Heavy construction bots with their human supervisors had been working around the clock for the last two weeks to ensure the facility would be fully operational by the time the new ranch administrator arrived. Her impassive stare turned smoldering, so much had changed during her sixteen-year long chemically induced amnesia, and none of it was for the better. Some say that ignorance is bliss, and in Donna’s case perhaps they’d be correct. Her life had become nothing but the punch line of a practical joke, played on her by a malevolent god.

She had a newborn son that she didn’t want, fathered by an ignorant artificially grown slave, no less. Her parents were dead, murdered, and long gone. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Donovan was behind their deaths, despite his repeated denial of involvement, why he had spared her life for all these years still remained a mystery. She finally concluded it was nothing but a cruel and calculated slap in the face on his part to teach her a lesson. Twisted benevolence at its best. To add insult to injury, he’d legally seized control of all of her assets and holdings, making her an impotent figurehead trapped in a gilded cage, forced to bide her time and wait for his final judgment. A more immediate concern was Nathan; he was God knows where, long overdue for his expected return. She hadn’t even received a communiqué from him, and Nathan had always been very punctual with that sort of thing. Maybe that was the most troubling part of all.

Donna had managed to correct one minor issue in her small world of influence, only to have it stripped away shortly thereafter, the situation with the slaves. They were her property despite Donovan’s recent legal claim, and Nathan had no right to free them in either case. Every last one of them had been returned to their proper place of servitude, to include her joke of a ‘husband’, not long after she’d awoken from her delirium of childbirth four months ago. Donovan couldn’t even give her that small condolence, as was her right. All of them except a customary, token handful had been taken away under armed guard and placed in secluded custody when his people assumed control of the ranch. Damn him, and that spineless bastard Michael, for what they’d done to her.