Need You Tonight (32 page)

“I didn’t have a chance. It was just a mistake,” she said softly. “It doesn’t have
to be a big deal.”

“When a guy tries to put his fucking hands on you, it is a big deal,” he said, his
voice rattling Kaden’s ears. He nailed Kaden with a glare. “I always knew you were
a freak. Goddamned rapist in training.”

Kaden clenched his jaw, and Tessa didn’t say anything to defend him.

“Tessa, go back to the house with these guys and find a ride home. Kaden and I need
to have a chat.”

“No,” she said, her voice rising. “Don’t hurt him, Doug. He didn’t hurt me. It wasn’t
like that. Just let it go.”

Doug grinned, but it had no humor in it. “Don’t worry, babe. I’m not going to hurt
him. We’re just going to have a talk to make sure he’s never going to come near you
again.”

Tessa looked to Kaden, her frightened rabbit expression tugging at him, but he couldn’t
bear to meet her eyes. She wasn’t standing up and telling the truth. She was letting
all these people think he’d tried to take advantage of her. She wasn’t going to come
with him to Dallas. She never had planned to. That kiss was going to be her kiss good-bye.

“Just go, Tess,” he said quietly. “I’ll be f-f-fine.”

“Kaden—”

He lifted his gaze to hers. “Go b-b-back and be with your friends,
homecoming queen
. Your court awaits.”

She winced like he’d backhanded her. And he immediately regretted the snark in his
voice. But he couldn’t stop the emotions from spilling out. He’d pinned everything
on tonight, had hoped that if he could really make things different, he could change
the path for them both. But it’d been stupid to hope.

Things never changed. People were who they were. He was the freak and she was the
future debutante. Their worlds would never fit together.

He would never fit.

And it probably wouldn’t matter because based on how Doug was staring at him, he may
not make it through the night.

Tessa left with the group, peering back over her shoulder one last time, and Kaden
waited for her to be out of sight. Then he did the only thing he could do. He ran.
Like a coward. He knew Doug had no interest in talking. This was going to be a conversation
of fists. He wasn’t stronger than Doug. The dude lifted weights daily for football.
But he hoped he might be faster.

However, when he ran into the woods behind the high school, he could hear Doug calling
his name from not far behind. Branches cut at Kaden’s face as he raced through the
trees in the dark. He figured if he could make it home he could lock himself inside
and call the cops. His house wouldn’t be far once he made it to the main road. But
his Vans were no match for the gnarled roots and slippery ground of the forest floor.
His foot caught a raised root, turning his ankle, and he went sprawling face-first
to the ground. All his air left him as he hit.

He did his best to scramble upward, but before he could, a foot planted against his
spine and shoved him back to the ground. He landed with an
oof
and pain shot up his back.

“Where you going, freak? Think you could outrun me. That proves you’re not just a
freak but stupid.”

“Fuck off,” he ground out.

“Excuse me?” His booted foot swung into Kaden’s ribs with a painful crack. “Someone
needs to teach you manners, son.”

Kaden’s knees pulled up and he rolled into the fetal position, the pain blinding him
for a second. He tried to curl tight, protecting his midsection from another blow.

“You trying to take advantage of my girl?” Doug asked, his voice disconcertingly calm.
“Think she could ever want a piece of shit like you when she has someone like me?”

“I’m n-n-not t-t-trying to take advantage of her,” he said, hoping to placate him,
willing to suck up the humiliation if it meant he wouldn’t get kicked again. He needed
to get up, get away, but his body wouldn’t cooperate. Knives of agony were stabbing
his lungs.

“You’re n-n-not?” Doug mocked and kicked him again. Harder. “Then why is she kissing
the guy who’s supposed to be her tutor?”

Kaden yelped even though he hated letting Doug know he’d hurt him. But that time he
knew a rib had been broken. Tears sprung to his eyes, the sheer pain making it impossible
to breathe.

“Yeah, I knew about that. I let it go because her parents are riding her about her
grades. And I figured you weren’t worth worrying about. But Tessa’s weak. I realize
that now. She buys into your
poor me
crap. She pities you and is mistaking that for feelings.” He shoved him in the side
with his heel, flipping him onto his stomach and sending agony through his ribcage.
Doug wrenched Kaden’s arms behind him and looped his belt around his wrists. Kaden
tried to fight back but every movement made him want to weep. The pain made his head
spin. “But you have nothing to offer her. You’re a fucking pussy, Fowler. You can’t
even protect yourself, how would you take care of her?”

The toe of Doug’s boot made contact with his side and Kaden tasted blood. He tried
to crawl away but it was near impossible without the use of his hands. He was going
to die out here. Doug loomed over him and pulled him onto his knees.

“At least be man enough to look me in the eye and apologize.”

Kaden refused to lift his head and Doug started in with his fists. When knuckles crashed
into his jaw, Kaden knew he was close to losing consciousness.

Doug crouched low, getting in his face. “Apologize, you pathetic piece of shit.”

Kaden spat blood in his face and Doug roared, backhanding him.

Kaden choked, his chest wheezing with effort. Black edged his vision. He forced words
out through gasping breaths. “I’m sorry. Please. Just stop. Can’t breathe.”

“Oh, what was that? I couldn’t hear you,” he mocked.

Kaden swayed on his knees, half-hoping that if he passed out Doug would stop and go
away, the fun gone, but he didn’t put it past the guy to kill him in cold blood. He
swallowed down any pride he had left, hoping to survive the night. “I’m s-s-sorry,
Doug. Please, just stop. I’ll leave her alone. I’ll do whatever you want. Just. Stop.”

Doug grinned and his teeth seemed to glow and sharpen in the dark. “Is that right?
You’ll do whatever I want.”

Kaden’s vision blurred, two versions of Doug dancing before him. He closed his eyes,
pleading. “Yes. Please. Stop.”

But Doug wasn’t going to be appeased that easily. The humiliation wasn’t complete.
The sound of a zipper brought Kaden back from the edge of consciousness. His eyelids
snapped open, though one was already starting to swell, and he watched in abject horror
as Doug pulled his dick out of his pants.

Pure panic seized Kaden, and he tried to scramble to his feet, the pain in his ribs
like daggers slicing through his organs. But Doug just shoved him back down and laughed.
“Where you going, asshole? I’m not done with you. Ready to show me what a pussy you
are? Or maybe I should say cocksucker. I know that’s why you stutter. All that dick
you suck.”

Kaden gagged both on blood and fear, choking out his words. “You’ll have to kill me
first.”

“A valid option,” Doug said with a sneer. “But you’re not worth jail time.”

Kaden spit blood at him again, using the last shred of energy he had and Doug hit
him in the side of the head, knocking him to the ground. He couldn’t move. He’d been
beaten until his ribs had cracked and he could barely breathe. He wasn’t going to
make it out of these woods. And that end would’ve been welcome because the next thing
that happened was worse than death. Doug grabbed Kaden by the hair, took his dick
in his hand, and forced it down Kaden’s throat. It was sweaty and hard and disgusting.
Doug laughed at him, calling him a bitch, and telling him to act like a good one.
Kaden tried to bite down but Doug yanked on his hair and told him if he used teeth,
he’d put him in the dirt and fuck him with one of the fallen tree branches. Kaden
gagged and choked, fighting for breath and the urge to upchuck, but Doug was enjoying
it all, getting off on Kaden’s ultimate humiliation. When Doug came, Kaden did vomit,
then he blacked out.

When he woke up, he was naked, tied up, and bleeding under the bleachers of the school’s
football field. And he’d had no idea how he’d gotten there, where his clothes had
gone, or what Doug had done after he’d passed out. He refused to talk to the groundskeeper
who’d found him. Everyone would already know who’d beaten him. Nobody would tell.
Including him. There were some things you never wanted to relive, things you never
wanted anyone to know, things you didn’t even want to acknowledge in your own mind
had happened. And that morning as they patched him up in the hospital and asked him
a hundred questions, he’d slammed the vault shut on that night. His secret would stay
in those woods. Buried. Along with that boy who was bullied. He would never let anyone
have that kind of control over him again. He would never be weak or vulnerable. He
would become someone else.

Kaden Fowler died that day.

Doug Barrett had killed him.

THIRTY-ONE

Tessa lay in the bed in the guest room of her former house, trying not to make a sound
so that she could hear any little noise in the place. She hadn’t heard anything in
a solid hour. Her heartbeat had finally slowed when she realized that if Doug planned
to make some sort of move on her, it wouldn’t be tonight. Not that she would’ve let
him. She loosened her grip on the chef’s knife she’d tucked under the pillow. Kade
had informed her that first night that an expensive one was sharp enough to cut off
fingers. And God knows she’d never used this one when she lived here, so it was as
sharp as the day it was honed. But thankfully, it didn’t look like she was going to
need it to protect herself.

The chilling text message Kade had sent her earlier was still burning in her mind.
I’m coming to get you. Don’t stay in the house with him. He’s a sociopath and a rapist.

Rapist.
The word made what little she’d eaten in the last twenty-four hours want to come
up. At first the accusation hadn’t made sense. Kade hadn’t seen Doug since high school.
How would he know that? But then the answer had come crashing down on her. Because
Doug had done something more than beat up Kade that awful night. The thought had almost
been too much to take in.

No one had seen Kaden afterward. Rumors had spread that he’d been beaten badly, but
she hadn’t known what to believe. She’d tried to go to his house, but his stepdad
had told her he wasn’t there, that he was moving in with his real dad. She’d wanted
to tell Kaden she was sorry and make sure he was okay. She’d wanted to tell him she’d
go with him to Dallas. But he’d left town before she’d gotten a chance.

Then over time, Doug had convinced her that nothing bad had really happened that night.
That it was all just rumors. He’d said that he’d told Kaden not to come back to school
or he would beat him down. That’s all. He said he didn’t want Kaden around her and
did it to keep her safe. And she’d wanted to believe him because she didn’t feel like
she had any other options. Her eggs were in Doug’s basket, and she’d wanted to believe
the good parts about him. He’d lavished her with attention and made her feel like
he was being overprotective because he loved her. She’d been stupid to let herself
believe it. Stupid and too scared to do anything on her own.

Doug had been across the room when she’d received the message from Kade, and she’d
had the instant urge to take the very knife under her pillow and
damage
him, make him pay for every sick and cruel thing he’d ever done to anyone. But she’d
held back, bided her time. She needed a plan. She needed him to think she was cooperating.

And now she was lying here, counting on three things she knew about Doug for sure.

One: He always took a sleeping pill before bed.

Two: He obsessively documented everything down to how many minutes he ran on the treadmill.

Three: He always underestimated her.

He would regret all three of those things tonight. Once she was sure he was asleep,
she slipped out of bed and put her tennis shoes on. She quietly made her way downstairs
and put in the code to turn off the alarm. She held her breath at the beep signaling
the disarmed state, but the walls were heavily insulated and she knew it was hard
to hear what was going on downstairs when you were upstairs. After waiting a few minutes
to make sure Doug didn’t come down the stairs, she went to the sliding glass door
at the back and opened it.

The crickets and other night bugs greeted her, but she knew they weren’t the only
ones out there. She gave a little all-clear signal, and Kade melted out of the darkness
at the side of the yard. Stress had morphed his features into a hard mask, but the
instant his arms were around her, she saw the relief there. “You’re okay?”

“I’m fine.”

He kissed the top of her head, whispering thanks to God. “You should’ve never left
with him. You had me out of my mind with worry. Why would you do that?”

“I was trying to protect you. He had charges against you and a witness, he has pictures
of us from the other night—ones that would ruin things for your case. I needed to
do what he wanted and come with him. But I have a plan. You didn’t need to come here
and be around him again.” She shook her head, tears gathering in her throat. “I can’t
imagine what it must be like to be anywhere near him.”

“Hey,” he said, cupping her face and forcing her gaze to his. “Don’t do that. Don’t
pity me.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I couldn’t tell anyone, Tess. Seventeen-year-old boys aren’t supposed to get raped.
You know what people would’ve said? That I wanted it. That I should’ve been able to
fight him off otherwise. I just wanted to forget it ever happened. I needed to bury
that person I was that night in order to move on with my life.”

Tears fell and she pressed her face into his shoulder. “I’m so sorry. It was my fault.
If I’d have stood up for you that night, he wouldn’t have gotten you alone. Everything
would’ve been different.”

“Don’t do that to yourself, baby,” he said softly. “It wasn’t your fault. We were
young and neither of us could’ve guessed he would’ve taken it that far. And it’s truly
in my past. My dad saw the state I was in when I showed up. He didn’t know exactly
what had happened to me, but he saw enough of the depression to know I needed therapy.
I worked through it. The only other time it came up was when I started realizing I
had dominant urges. I thought at first it was because of what had happened, my need
for control in all things, but then I started looking back and seeing all the signs
that were there way before that night. Maybe that night fast-forwarded my desire to
be in charge, but it would’ve shown up eventually anyway. I truly hadn’t thought about
Doug in years until you showed up in my life again.”

“And, of course, I bring all that bad stuff back up.”

“Baby.” He grabbed her shoulders and leaned back to look at her. “You coming back
to me has been the best thing that’s happened in my life since Rosalie was born. I
feel like all this time I’ve been cycling through relationships, I was just waiting
for what I really wanted. Who I always needed. You.”

“Kade—” Her chest squeezed, words leaving her.

“And I don’t care what the fuck Doug has on us, I’m not letting you do anything for
him. I will figure out the custody situation. Reid just found out that my ex’s husband
plays tennis with the judge who ruled on our case. So he’s petitioning for a different
judge based on conflict of interest.”

“Maybe we won’t have to get faux engaged after all.”

“No, we won’t. I’m not going to allow it anyway.”

She blinked. “What?”

He took her hand and kissed her left ring finger. “When I put a ring on this, it will
be for real or not at all. I’m done hiding it. I love you, Tess. I did then. And I
do even more now. You’re it for me.”

She lowered her head, the weight of the words making her want to slide down to the
ground.
Love.
It’d been said to her before. But somehow this felt like the first time anyone had
truly meant it.

“I’m willing to give you the time you need to figure out what you want because I know
this has happened quickly and that I come with a lot of fine print. I’m dominant and
that’s not going to change, so being with me would mean being my submissive. And I
have a little girl who will hopefully be a big part of my life. Plus, I’m in the public
eye, so people would scrutinize us. I realize it’s a lot. But I need you to know that
this hasn’t been a fling for me. This hasn’t been about fantasy. This has been me
falling in love with you all over again. Day by day. Moment by moment.” He laced his
fingers with hers. “You walked into my restaurant that first night, and before I even
realized who you were, it was like the world shifted beneath my feet. Nothing has
looked the same since.”

She was crying now, full, heavy tears. And not in that pretty Demi Moore kind of way.
It was all so overwhelming, so much.

He brushed her tears away as they fell. “You don’t have to say anything back right
now. I just needed you to hear how I felt. When I got out of that jail and realized
you’d left town with him, I hated how much I’d held back and left unsaid. I can’t
believe you had the nerve to think I’d be okay without you.”

She smiled and swiped at her runny nose. “How dare me.”

“Exactly. So now you know, and I’m here to help however you need.” He bowed his head.
“I’m in your service, ma’am. Give me my orders. And please tell me it’s to beat that
fucker Doug until he weeps.”

“All I need you to do is to be a lookout and make sure he doesn’t come downstairs.
I grabbed the key to his office off his key ring while he was showering, and I know
he just rotates the same passwords and changes the first number. So I’m going to go
search through his computer.”

“What are you looking for?”

She wet her lips and looked toward the house. “I’ve been digging through Bluebonnet’s
older reports, and I noticed some transactions that were strange. The balances also
didn’t add up the way they should. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong and thought
I must be reading them wrong, so I asked Gibson if I could take him up on that offer
to work with Marcy in accounting for a few days. She helped me understand what I was
looking at and what else to search for. Doug had been accessing the accounts under
my name, pulling donation money earmarked for services for the kids into his personal
account, then charging the charity for services rendered. No one thought to question
it since I owned the charity.”

“So he’s stealing money from foster kids,” Kade said with disgust.

“And it’s not a huge amount because that would’ve been questioned. And even if it
was, I would’ve looked like the culprit. But I’m thinking that if he’s doing it with
Bluebonnet, he’s probably doing the same thing with the church. You should see how
full the donation box is every Sunday. A lot of church members take the notion of
tithes very seriously, donating even when they can’t really spare it. People assume
he lives this good because he still has his hands in his father’s real estate company,
but I can tell you his dad doesn’t have the kind of money Doug does. His father gambled
most of their family fortune away.”

“And you think you can find proof?”

“Doug is anal retentive about documentation. He keeps a record of everything. I know
something’s got to be there if I delve deep enough.”

“And when you find it, you won’t just have a little blackmail, you’ll have a way to
take down everything he’s ever built.” Kade smiled and gave her a quick, firm kiss.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re brilliant?”

She laughed. “I can honestly say no.”

“Well, you are,” he said, giving her another peck. “Brilliant and brave as shit for
coming up with this plan.”

The compliment wrapped around her like a warm blanket. Brilliant? Maybe not. But for
the first time in her life, she felt smart and capable, like even if Kade hadn’t insisted
on showing up, she could’ve accomplished this on her own. She hadn’t looked for someone
else to save her or fix it for her. But she also wasn’t going to be too proud to accept
his help now.

“Come on,” she said, taking his hand. “Let’s get what we need and get out of here.
I’ve got a life to get back to in Texas.”