Jordan’s Deliverance (6 page)

Chapter Nine

 

 

Jordan knew that feeling, when hard muscle was heavy on her torso, keeping her softer, smaller, twelve-year-old form still. When the demon’s heavy breath blasted her ear and cussin’ would pierce through her brain like pins through her scalp.
Don’t move
, she repeated silently to herself, over and over.
If I don’t do anything to make him mad, this will stop. Please, Mommy, wake up and make him stop.

“Every time I come home, this place is a pigsty and your useless mother is passed out on the damn sofa. I’m not gonna tell you again that this is not a flophouse. Earn your keep or I’m kicking you both out on your ass. You wanna be a homeless whore like your mother was when I found her? Do ya?”

Jordan’s large eyes widened at the threat. No, she didn’t want to go back out on the street again, walking all night to find safe shelter to lay her head. She hated having to choose to stay with her mother on the street after she’d finally passed out or having to physically drag her through the doors of a shelter. She didn’t like being teased at school for being dirty or hungry but at least she was able to attend after a social worker accompanied her mother and her to enrollment earlier in the year.

Before her grandma died and they were on their own she had always said, “Education will get you outta here, chil’. Beg, borrow and steal for it if you have to. It will give you freedom.” Jordan shook her head no, afraid to speak in case the demon would be set off.

The demon had pinned her to the wall and was lying heavy on her legs and tummy, keeping her much shorter form at eye level. He let go abruptly, letting her fall in a sobbing heap on the cheap, linoleum kitchen floor. He walked with purpose over to her mother’s prone form, knocking her rum and vodka bottles over in his wake. Fist held high, he brought it down on her temple, knocking her off of the sofa and onto the floor.  Then gripping her mother’s arm, he dragged her toward the bathroom. Following on wobbly legs out of the kitchen, Jordan made a motion to reach for her mother’s other arm and their eyes met in that moment. Even in the midst of her surprise assault and drunken stupor, Amanda Anderson shook her head no, waving her child away. She would take her licks in the bathroom, get thrown in the shower to sober up, and if she was able to still stand, clean up the chaos left in the demon’s wake.

Jordan knew the drill; she knew what was coming, and she couldn’t bear to hear the wet sound of skin striking skin again, so she scrambled to her feet and ran to her favorite hiding spot. There she huddled in the back of her mother’s closet, hoping the demon never found her and one day she could find freedom.

 

Riordan woke up to covers being ripped from his body. He had rolled over and was sleeping peacefully with his arm and leg weighing down Jordan’s luscious curves. What he didn’t expect was for her to come out of her restless sleep, swinging.

He reared back, sliding off the bed, his tall, tanned form a dark shadow against the back drop of his dimly lit, en suite bathroom.  Jordan, still locked in her memory, cowered from the dark, looming giant hovering over her and let out a silent scream. Scrambling off the bed, she fell to the floor and scurried for the nearest corner. Curling up as tight as her long legs would allow, she shut her eyes and began to rock.

 

***

 

Jordan rocked in fear, her mind hazy and confused. She looked down at her manicured hands and naked form and the confusion quickly dissipated.
Damn, another one
, she thought,
and this one put me in the corner.

“Baby...?” Riordan whispered, keeping his voice as non-threatening as possible. “Baby, it’s Riordan… It’s safe here. It’s okay… I’m coming toward you, okay? You’re safe, sweetheart.”

Jordan’s eyes squinted in recognition and then she sighed loudly, leaning her head back against the wall.

“Oh, God, please tell me I’m not naked, on the floor, huddled in the corner. Just tell me I didn’t embarrass myself,” she said wearily, holding her face in her hands.

 

Abruptly, she swiped her tear-stained face as if to wipe away the episode and shakily grabbed the wall and Riordan’s outstretched hand. He pulled her up and into his arms, and she let the tremors coursing through her body melt into his protective embrace. He tilted her head back by her chin and stared directly into her chocolate eyes, searching for answers. He spoke quietly again.

“Oh, Lovely Viper, you will never need to feel embarrassment in front of me. We are no strangers to night terrors in my line of work. I know what they look like. Do you want to talk about this now or get back in bed and talk about it in the morning?”

“The morning, definitely,” lied Jordan, letting Riordan lead her back to the king size bed that dominated his bedroom. She wasn’t going to explain a damn thing in the morning. She’d tried to face this demon head- on and be normal. She’d tried to have a lovely, intimate night with her new guy, like every other single, dating woman in the world, but that just wasn’t in the cards for her anymore. Normal romantic relationships were not going to happen with her, and she needed to accept that. By the time Riordan woke up, Jordan planned to be gone and out of his hair.

No one wanted a broken girlfriend, especially someone in his line of work. He needed stability just as much as she did, if not more. She wasn’t going to subject him to her craziness, and more importantly she was going to avoid a seriously broken heart by leaving him before he left her.

She curled up under the comforter and stared at their clasped hands. His paler, thicker fingers wrapped securely around her darker, smaller ones. This was the best she could do. Hold hands. She bit her bottom lip as the tears begin to slip down her cheeks again. It was too late for her knight in shining armor to come save her. This was not a storybook, and her real-life demons had won.

 

***

 

Riordan stood in the middle of his living room sans clothes and sans lover. The last twenty-four hours had been a series of first for him all around. He had never had a woman run in fear from his bed, and he had never
ever
had a woman sneak out in the middle of the night without letting him know she was leaving. Whatever had spooked his Lovely Viper was a frightening thing indeed, and it was breaking her heart and he would not stand for it. He intended to get to the bottom of this. If she wouldn’t come clean, he was going to find out another way.

After a quick shower and a change into his favorite jeans and fitted tee, Riordan did what he would normally do in a crisis. He called Sin.

“Sorry to wake you up, man. She’s gone. I need her, dammit…and she ran. I’m taking you up on your offer. Get me the damn file. I can’t fight an enemy I don’t know. Yeah...yeah...I’ll stop and get ice cream. Audra wants what? Harlequin? What the hell flavor is that? Whatever. I’ll be there in thirty with every flavor in the damn store.”

 

***

 

Michael fell back against his pillows, sweat falling from his dark curls.
This is unreal,
he thought.
I can’t do this again. I can’t believe this woman. What kind of vitamins are the doctors giving her?

“Baby?” whispered Audra, running her leg over his thigh. “Ya good? You look good. Hmm, as a matter of fact, you look good enough to eat.”

Her hands slid softly over his flexing abdominals and gently cupped his cock. Sliding slowly down his torso, she breathed warm gusts of air along his stomach and nibbled on the soft skin there. He began to shiver and felt every nerve ending firing off in his over-sensitized body. There was no way he could get hard again. Audra had been a sexual Olympian for the last week. If she used that magic tongue on him again he was going to pass out. Pass. The. Fuck. Out!

“Sweetheart, aren’t you tired? The baby…rest, you need rest… Shiiiiiit.” Michael groaned through clenched teeth.

Oh, God, it’s working
. He was getting hard again.
Go ahead without me, buddy. I can’t do it…
His legs and thighs burned, his jaw ached, and his woman was still fresh as a hormonal daisy.

Suddenly, the sharp buzz of a cell phone vibrating on the side table startled Michael from his energy-depleted stupor. Swinging his arm in the general direction of his phone, he grasped the noisy interruption and brought it to his ear.

“Sin,” he croaked, his throat dry and parched. “Right now, Riordan…? Yeah. Yeah. Thirty minutes.”

Audra released her favorite treat with a loud pop of her lips. “Work?” she inquired, her brow raised, watching him slide from the bed.

“Nope, Riordan has just done something I thought he would never do,” he answered, throwing on his boxers and searching for his jeans. “He’s just admitted defeat. Be back in a few hours, baby, then you can try your best to kill me again.”

“But what a way to go… Love you, baby!” she yelled, falling back heavily onto the down pillows.

Michael turned in the hall and walked swiftly back into the bedroom. He swept down on Audra, grasping the back of her head, and brought her lips to his for a slow, thorough kiss.

“Love you more, princess. Now rest up. I’ve got a friend to help.”

Chapter Ten

 

 

Jordan was a lead-foot naturally. Going eighty on the highway was pretty much her norm. Today she was blowing past people like they were standing still.

She inhaled deeply on her cigarette and flicked the filter out the window. She was on her way to her beautiful shop, from her beautiful apartment, the beautiful sun was shining, the beautiful birds were singing, and she was downright miserable. All she wanted to do was live a normal life but no, she had to have a screaming case of PTSD, night terrors, and intimacy issues. She was so angry with herself for messing up something so amazing with Riordan she began to talk aloud, berating herself and beating her steering wheel.
Freak, failure,
she repeated to herself over and over. The litany was like an off key song on replay in her mind.
Homeless, dirty whore
…whispered underneath like an eerie harmony.

Tears began to fall again. Her eyes blurred, and she wiped every few seconds, trying to keep her vision clear. She saw her exit ahead and slowed down to change lanes. She couldn’t let those thoughts keep going.
Breathe in deeply, breathe out slowly.

She slid over the two highway lanes and exited.
Nothing like a good ole breakdown in the morning to get things off on the right foot
, she thought. Pulling into her parking lot at the rear of her shop, she breathed out a long, slow sigh, trying to release her tension. She reapplied her beeswax lip-tint, collected her purse, and exited the car. Popping on her wide, tortoise-shell sunglasses, she rounded the corner of her building. She’d opened the door to her shop and let the calming aroma’s waft over her anxiety. Walking to her store landline, she picked up the phone and dialed the one woman who could walk her through this fire. One. Last. Time.

 

***

 

Jordan ran her sweaty palms down the front of her wide-legged pants. The navy and white print, cotton, one-piece jumper was cinched at the waist with a navy patent belt and accented with gold disk earrings and a series of gold bangles that she was twisting nervously back and forth. She looked crisp and lovely and felt like a torn-down mess of an emotional demolition site. If she wanted this relationship with Riordan to work, she would need to address her scars head-on. Let the air and the light of day dry the open wounds.

Dr. Annabelle Winston walked into her office and smiled reassuringly at the woman she looked upon as a friend. She and Jordan had been keeping her night terrors at bay for close to ten years, since back when Annabelle was a just trauma counselor. Jordan would come in for a six to eight months at a time, get a tenuous grasp on her fears, and then disappear off of the map for long stretches of time. This time Annabelle was going to frame up this process from the jump and see if they could finally shut this revolving door on Annabelle’s office and repair Jordan’s fissured psyche permanently. Annabelle dropped Jordan’s file on her desk and pulled her office chair out.

“Welcome back, Jordan. It’s been a while since your last appointment. What’s been going on?” asked Annabelle.

Jordan sighed deeply. “Well, AB, I’ve been pretty good. Using my relaxation techniques, keeping my space free of clutter and calming, removed every toxic person and substance out of my life…” Annabelle glanced at Jordan’s open purse and spied the brightly colored cigarette pack in the pocket.

“Even smoking?” Annabelle said, jotting down a note in her file.

“Umm… Every once in a while…” started Jordan.

“You mean like
now
?” asked Annabelle, pinning Jordan with a stare.

Jordan looked up at Annabelle under her lashes. Despite being one year her senior, Doc AB had always seemed like that big sister/mother figure that Jordan had needed so desperately growing up. She was the first person Jordan had told about her father’s abuse and her mother’s neglect. The first person she had told about blacking out in the bathroom from booze and pills. The first person to understand it was all a cover to be accepted and, for a small moment in time, loved. This also laid the groundwork for some pretty honest and gritty sessions that kept Jordan in her head for weeks on end.

Jordan studied AB for a moment. She was statuesque and dark, her skin the color of hazelnut shells. She had crossed over into the overweight zone long ago and was bordering on brick shithouse. Her fire-engine-red pencil skirt and her crisp, white, ruffled blouse accentuated every abundant curve and brought focus to her black, cat-eye glasses and bob-cut micro braids. AB was no joke and, right now, she was leaning back expectantly, ready to strike down the first line of bullshit Jordan was looking to send her way.

Jordan answered honestly. “Doc, I’m on my last nerve. It’s been nicotine or a padded cell. I’m just being real.”

Annabelle laid her pen down. “That’s what I need to hear, Jordan, and what you need to be this go around. Be real. What is it you are looking to get out of your sessions with me? Do you want to repair the damage or merely keep it at bay? Can I count on you to stop the disappearing acts?”

Jordan straightened quickly—she’d been called out. “Repair…of…of course! And yes, I’m here for the duration,” she sputtered.

“Very well. I am setting you up with a sleep study, my friend. This will be exactly the same as the previous studies we’ve done on you, only now you will have an observer. Preferably a close friend or significant other. This must be someone who has been present while you have slept. This must be someone who you feel safe with in your most vulnerable state. The experiment controller and I will document your physical and mental functioning from a separate observation area immediately after a night terror. You will recount every second you can remember to your partner, it will be recorded, and it will be played back to facilitate conscious recognition. When I feel we have a complete picture of the dream, you will then ‘speak’ to this night terror. Confront this demon that keeps haunting you, and then we will begin to finally bury it.”

Annabelle rose from her chair and leaned one hip on the corner of her mahogany desk. She was silent until Jordan raised her head and met Annabelle’s dark, steady gaze. “Do you have someone you can trust to pull you from the depths of your own hell, Jordan?”

Jordan closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. Riordan’s image immediately came to the forefront.

“I think I do, AB.”