Blurred Lines (Behind Closed Doors Book 2) (16 page)

It's a really beautiful kiss. He pours all his love for me into this kiss and I feel how important not only me, but our future children are to him. Who knew my husband was such an optimist? He's so gentle and time seems to be suspended as our lips meet.

“Will you try for me, Julia?” Slowly, my head starts to nod. I will. Because I'd do anything for him. He kisses me again. His fingertips caress my jaw line and he tilts my face up to meet his more passionate demand. This time he kisses me longer and harder. My nose and cheeks sting from the contact. But ... oh I do love him when he’s like this. He makes my body feel all glittery inside.

He wants more. Even though it's harder to breathe I let him take more. His lips claim full possession of my mouth with quick powerful kisses. I suck in each breath every time we part. I think he misunderstands because his lips press firmer each time. I can't get enough air as the pressure increases around my sinuses. I'm suffocating.

His free hand runs up the length of my inner thigh, under the hem of my vest top. His hands are cool as they touch my bare skin. The combination of the pleasure and the chill from his touch makes me shiver, makes my skin rise with goose bumps. My whole body tingles with the anticipation of his cold touch as he moves towards my breast, cupping me through my lace bra. I break from the kiss. I gasp for air, fall back against the pillows as his lips crash into mine. He's too strong, too intense, all of my pleasure starts to seep away. I can't breathe.

I make a noise; a deep guttural sound I know I sometimes make when we're together. But it was meant as a protest so I place my hands flat against his chest and try pushing against him. I want him to stop. But he's too strong and I can't breathe properly. I start to panic because I'm pinned beneath him. “Wayne.”

“I know, baby,” he growls.

“Wayne.” I gasp for air again. “Please.”

“Patience.” He chuckles and then his lips capture mine again.

What? No! His hand sweeps the length of my thigh bunching up my ruined skirt. He slips inside my lace panties and touches, strokes. Without warning his fingers plunge deep inside. And I gasp, move against the unexpected intrusion as my core contracts around him.

“Precious.”

“Wayne.” I try again to push him away.

He moves away just a little, hooks his fingers into the lace and pulls them away. “I—”

“I know, baby.” His mouth is hot and heavy against mine. I realize I don't want this. He doesn't wait and my protest is barely audible as he enters me.

Water gathers in my eyes, blurs my vision, and he turns into a fuzzy mess of shapes and colors above me. This is awful. I don't understand why he can't see my tears as they fall from my eyes. Why can't he feel the wet streaks when he kisses me? He doesn't hear me cry out his name. All I can taste is blood when he kisses me. All I can feel is pain, from his hot and heavy kisses against my tender face, at my hips where his fingers dig into my skin the higher he climbs inside me because he's taken me before I was ready. He's fast and hard and rough as hell. I just want this to be over but it doesn't come soon enough.

“I love you,” he whispers into my ear as he collapses on top of me. He presses soft kisses on my cheeks. “Precious.”

That word will never sound the same to me ever again.

Chapter Sixteen

Things always seem better after a walk, don't they?

So I'll just walk for a little while.

Maybe I'm overreacting. I fell downstairs and probably broke my nose. I've had quite a shock. That didn't really happen the way my head says it did. I mean, every wife must say no and give in to their husband's demands at some point, mustn't they? And that's what really happened, isn't it? He wanted to have sex and I didn't.

I get to the end of our street and I don't want to go home just yet. I wonder if Sean's home. It's not really late. But even if it were he'd probably be out. He's really settled into the routine of partying all night and sleeping in until noon. He says it's just the kind of life newly divorced men like him need. I keep meaning to remind him that he isn't newly divorced anymore. His ex-wife has remarried and has another child. He really should move on with his life instead of being the perpetual bachelor, but I have a feeling I'd be wasting my breath.

When I do call, I can't hear him. He's working and the background noise is too much for me while I feel so… so out of it really. I’m not myself at all. So I’ll just continue walking and thinking about my husband raping me— I shake my head and correct myself. He didn't rape me. I've been raped before. And yes, I was unconscious and I have no idea what really happened, only what I've been told. But I know there is a huge difference between the monster who left me fighting for my life and what's happened tonight with my husband. I really need to disconnect those two events because Wayne didn’t rape me.

Maybe he just couldn't hear me? Things had been very tense and wasn't this my fault? Hadn't I sent him the wrong signals by saying I want children when I don’t think we’re ready for them? I mean, we did decide to start a family tonight. Isn’t that what most couples do when they decide now is the right time? Don’t they practice making babies to celebrate their love and commitment to one another? So maybe I’m just being too sensitive about this.

Water gathers in my eyes and blurs my vision. It doesn’t matter how much I tell myself its okay—in fact it’s more than okay, it's perfectly normal—I have this deep sinking feeling that it's not. That my husband crossed some invisible line tonight and because of it I really don't want to go home.

I dial Ashleigh's cell phone number. I know she's supposed to have been at a public engagement, but I can't remember what it was right now. I know she'll send a car for me and I'll go to her house for a little while, think things through, or maybe I’ll do some work and try to forget about the whole thing. When she picks up I can hardly hear her. The background noise is unbelievable. “Hang on, sweetie,” she sings into the phone.

“No, you don’t have to,” I mumble into the handset. She’s busy and I don’t want to inconvenience her while she’s working. Behind me I hear an announcement and look up. My random wanderings brought me to the bus station and I pause. Maybe I’ll go see Mom and Dad instead. “Don’t worry. It's not important.”

The background noise all but disappears as she asks much more clearly, “Julia, where are you?”

“We, um, we're out for dinner.”

“Wayne’s on nights, Jules,” she says in that tone of voice that parents use when they’ve caught their kids trying to lie and I wish I hadn’t seen her this morning or scurried home before Wayne woke up in a bad mood. “Now seriously, Jules, you’re not okay so where are you? I’m coming to get you.”

That makes me want to both laugh and cry at the same time. My best friend can see straight through me. I’ll be gone before she gets here. “Don't bother.” I hang up.

I'm going to get on a bus and go to Mom and Dad's. It'll take days but to hell with it! I need time to think this through properly because the fact that I want to be so far away means something is seriously wrong with my marriage.

I spend five minutes in the queue and as I turn to walk to where the bus is due to depart from, a stretch limousine pulls up beside me.

Without waiting for the chauffeur Ashleigh leaps from the back. She's wearing a shimmering emerald floor length gown with a slit right up to the top of her left thigh. It's by some designer I can't recall the name of right this second. As always she makes the simplest of outfits absolutely stunning and my job is so easy, except she's ruining it with that God awful expression on her face. Do I really look that bad?

“That bastard's hit you, hasn't he?” She’s so angry she bites each word through her teeth. “I warned him I'd fucking kill him with my bare hands if he’d touched you again.”

She'd done what? When? Why would she do that? What give her such a revolting idea? “No!” I stammer. “I fell downstairs.”

“Stop making excuses for him, Julia!” She shouts and attracts the attention of onlookers. “I swear to God, Jules, I'll have his balls served to you by breakfast. Just say the word.”

“I swear! I fell.”

“I spent months with women like you, Julia. And you try. God, I know how hard you try, but you can't hide it from me.”

“There's nothing to hide,” I insist. “He's never hit me.”

“I don’t believe you.” Ashleigh's gaze locks with mine. I’m about to protest and step away when she says, “Come on. I want you to meet Caleb.”

#

As soon as her car pulls up outside The McKenzie Center for Victims of Domestic Abuse, I ask her to take me home and I'm more than annoyed when she refuses. She insists I need medical care and there's a doctor at the clinic.

“There’s a doctor at the hospital too,” I tell her, but she just raises a brow at me as though she’s daring me to go to hospital after the amount of times I’ve refused to go to the ER when she’s insisted I need to. This time is no different. I don’t need a doctor.

“Ashleigh?” A very tall and very handsome guy opens the door to the center. If he wasn't so enthusiastic in the way he takes Ashleigh into his arms and squeezes her like a bear, and the fact she lets him, I'd be intimidated by him. But without hesitation he crosses the perpetual keep-at-arm’s-length barrier Ashleigh subjects everyone to and hugs her before he turns to me with a big smile. “You must be Julia?”

I only have to scowl at Ashleigh before she tells me Caleb is the son of Faith McKenzie, the woman Ashleigh played in the movie that earned her all those awards a couple of years ago. Faith’s life story changed Ashleigh’s life and mine. But still, I hiss my annoyance at her again. “I know what you're doing.”

She looks all innocent at me as she repeats I need medical care, but I remember who Faith McKenzie is. So now that she's acted the life of an abused wife, she thinks I am one? I don't like this. I really don't like this at all. But I don’t seem to have a choice in this matter. Ashleigh pulls me reluctantly into the center, down a corridor and into a medical examining room where the doctor is waiting. Ashleigh pushes me deeper inside and says she’ll be with Caleb when we’re finished. She has no idea how much I hate her right now.

The doctor introduces herself as Soraya and asks if I'd like her to examine my nose. I hesitate. Actually, I would like to have it checked out but… I know an ambush when I see one.

“My husband didn't do this,” I tell the doctor. “I fell downstairs.”

“Even so,” Soraya smiles at me, “there's no reason I can't check you over.” I don't think she believes me. “Unless, you've already seen someone? In that case you can tell me what they said and I'll tell Krystal and Caleb that.”

Krystal? So this doctor isn't inside Ashleigh's circle of trust? And she's giving me an out. An opportunity to tell her whatever I want to get Ashleigh off my back about Wayne. I open my mouth to come up with a plausible fib... nothing... my brain has shut down. I have no choice but to shake my head and summit myself to the humiliation of this doctor's examination.

She’s methodical in her assessment of my face, the latex covered fingertips gently prod and poke at my tender face and she says, “It's broken. But I don't think it will heal naturally.” She winces and suggests I have it x-rayed. “You say you fell downstairs?” I pull away. I knew she didn't believe me either. “I just meant you probably hurt in other places too.”

Suddenly, the numb sensation I've felt since I realized Wayne wasn't going to stop begins to lift and I do hurt. I hurt all over. “My hip,” I tell her with my right hand going to the place where my hip bone is throbbing. “And my ribs, and my left shoulder.” I feel mildly more comfortable with her now that I know this is just shop talk.

She prods at my shoulder, asks me to remove my shirt, and when I have she begins giving a set of random instructions, rotating my arm and shoulder, to wiggle my fingers. “It’s bruised. It's going to be stiff and sore for a couple of days, and again you should have it x-rayed too, just to be sure. Do you mind removing your pants? I need to do this same thing with your legs to check your hip.” She hands me my shirt and waits until I stand up. “Julia.” She gasps. I turn quickly at the shock in her voice. It hurts. “Did you get those bruises on your back in the fall too?”

“What bruises?” I'd checked my body everywhere when I'd showered before I left the house. The doctor grabs her cell and takes two quick snaps of my back. “What are you doing?” I shriek. But she hands the phone to me. I stare at the miniature screen and remember the way Wayne's fingers dug into my hips as he drove himself deeper and harder as his pleasure climbed higher. I wonder if Wayne knew he'd done this to me.

“They look like finger prints.”

“They ... they aren't what you think,” I tell Soraya. Again, I get the feeling she doesn't believe me. “We ... we were.” I feel the heat creeping into my cheeks. I'm torn between protecting my husband from the accusations in the doctor's eyes and my inability to talk about our sex life. “I... like it... that way.” I lie, knowing I'm blushing.

“Really?” Soraya looks a little surprised. “That must have been one hell of a session for your husband to have bruised you like that.”

“What are you suggesting?” I snap at the unprofessional remark.

“Nothing.”

“Are you done?” I demand, and without waiting for a reply I right myself and gather up my bag. “I'd appreciate if you'd delete those photographs I didn't say you could take.” I walk out. March past the reception where Ashleigh is sitting with Caleb. “I'm done with this bullshit, Ash, and if you’re not, then I’m done with you.”

She shouts after me but I keep on marching away. I don't get in the waiting car. I just keep walking down the street. I have no idea where I am or where I'm going.

“Julia, wait!” I can hear her heels clip-clopping faster than my own footsteps. They're growing louder as she's gaining ground on me. It’s not fair that she can move faster than me in that dress and those heels. “Julia, please.” She grabs my arm and turns me to face her. I wince at the sharp jagged pains in my shoulder, back... well, all over really. “Please wait,” she begs.