Reese (7 page)

             
“Well I will be with you the whole time, kid.” Mel assures me with what I think is pride in her voice. “And
if
at any time during the fight you want to leave, or you just want me to kick some old man ass, just let me know.”

             
I laugh
ed
. “Will do.”

             
“Oh.
Guess what
.”

             
“What, Mel?”

             
“Those biker guys, Scarface and Lefty? They did a really good j
ob scrubbing the bar yesterday. So good that I told them they had to scrub it again next Sunday or I was going to press charges myself.”

When the two had come back to Safe Haven Saturday night they had attempted to cause trouble again. They had been twice as pissed when I had kicked their asses for the second time. But it was Mel who had really changed their attitude about wanting to come back to Safe Haven. She had stepped on top of Scarface, as she liked to refer to him, or as I preferred, Biker
One
. There she was, stepping on the guy who was flat on his back with
yet another
bloody nose in as many days
,
calmly inform
ing
him that if he didn’t make restitution for harassing me I would file charges against him and Biker
Two,
or Lefty as she like to call the guy with the broken arm.

             
Restitution included cleaning every inch on the bar until Mel was satisfied. Mel was like a drill sergeant when it came to cleaning.

             
My face hurt from laughing and grinning by the time I got off the phone. I hadn’t laughed so much in five years…And it was all because Kieran Stone had opened something up deep inside of me
…

             
()

             
“Chinese?” I sniffed the cartons, my mouth watering at the aroma of honey chicken, noodles, fried rice, sweet and sour chicken, and pepper steak. Stone had found my weakness without even trying.

             
He laughed as he dropped down beside me on the floor in
front of my television, t
he coffee table act
ing
as our dinner table. I groaned, lost in the flavors of my favorite dishes with the first bite. “Wow, to look at you, someone would never know that you like to eat so heartily.”

             
I dropped my chopsticks into the carton of noodles and wiped my mouth on a napkin. “I’m usually a health freak when it comes to what I eat.” I admitted. “But Chinese is my kryptonite.”

             
Those steel gray eyes darkened in a way that had my heart stuttering. “I will remember that.” He murmured as he picked up his own chopsticks and stuck a dumpling in his mouth. “This is a nice place you have here.” He commented as he glanced around. “It
has
a
warm, welcoming feel to it…Just like you, once you get through those walls you keep up and under heavy guard.”

             
“I have my reasons.” I mumble as I gra
bbed the remote and began channel
surfing. “What do you like to watch?”

             
“Anything is fine with me
a
s long as it doesn’t have to do with MMA. I’m a little fried right now.” He was really digging into his food, eating like he hadn’t had a meal in days. But I had noticed the night before that that was how he normally ate. When a guy was as big as Stone, burned as many calories as he did with his workouts and training regimens, then
he
w
as
always hungry. It was kind of adorable, actually. And he wasn’t a pig about it either. Some guys would be making noises, slurping their noodles, and talking with their mouths full. I had seen it plenty of times at the gym, or at restaurants.

             
“What?” He asked when he realized I was staring at him.

             
I smiled and just shook my h
ead. “You are really cute.” I told
him honestly.

             
“
I try, babe.” He gave me a wink before turning back to his food. The next hour was filled with us enjoying our dinner and each other’s company. We watched an old Cary Grant movie, because I was
a
geek when it came to
old
black and white movies, especially ones with Cary in them.

             
Kieran Stone had me laughing and more at ease than I had been in what felt like a lifetime. He sat close without crowding me, which touched something deep inside. He was really going to take things slow with me, just as he had promised
the night before
. My trust in him grew with that knowledge.

             
“As much as I like the makeup, I have to admit that the you underneath it really
is more
beautiful
than words can describe.
” He murmured giving my
makeup free
face a close appraisal. “And I love it when you smile. That dimple is such a tease.”

             
I found that I was sitting closer to him than I had been earlier in the evening. Only an inch or so separated us and I
was leaning toward him. “The makeup is my shield.” I reached out without thinking about it and brushed a piece of fuzz off his black shirt. “It keeps people out…”

             
“And you
locked up
deep inside.” He finished for me. “I understand that. I just wondered why you felt you needed to keep everyone out.”

             
“Because I have trust issues.”
He rolled his eyes at the obvious and I sighed. “It isn’t a pretty story, Stone. I didn’t hav
e the happy family that you do
…My parents weren’t like yours.”

             
His eyes narrowed, but he reached over and gently skimmed those magical fingers down my cheek. For once I didn’t flinch at the first contact. “Tell me.” He murmured and my heart clenched…And that freshly awaken muscle deep down ached.

             
I was trapped in his gaze and I found comfort in them as I opened my mouth. “My father died when I was young. I don’t remember much about him. Only that he would sometimes read me a story on the rare occasions that he was home
in time to tuck me in
. Like Greg, he was a manic workaholic. So when he died I don’t really remember crying all that much…It’s hard to miss something that wasn’t really in your life anyway.
”

             
“How old where you when he died?”

             
“Seven.” I shrugged. “When he died Greg promised to take care of me and my mother. He managed my inheritance, and gave my mother a monthly allowance for herself and another as a kind of child support for me.” My body temperature dropped a little at the thought of my mother. “My mother sent me away to boarding school when I was nine. Switzerland.”

             
“What?”

             
I gave him a small smile. “By t
hat time
I was more than happy to be as far away from her as possible. She had started using drugs and drinking heavily by then. Nothing too hard at first. But I can remember the prescription bottles laying half empty on the dining room table. Her room smelling of pot. The discarded liquor bottles littering the floor all through the house.” I shrugged. “Our housekeeper tried to clean it up so that I wasn’t exposed to it. But Sharon worked faster at dirtying everything up, than poor Petra could clean it.”

             
“Did you like boarding school?” His tone was a little hoarse, as if he was finding it hard to take in my story.

             
“I excelled at boarding school. I was top of my class.
If I had continued on there I could have graduated a year early. A few prestigious universities were already trying to entice me to attend.” I shook my head, thinking of what my life could have been
like
if I had continued on at boarding school.

             
“Why didn’t you?”

             
My body temperature dropped a few more degrees and I wrapped my arms around myself to keep what little heat I still had locked in. “My mother got married. Stephen Thorne…I’m sure you have heard of him?” He nodded, because everyone knew who Stephen Thorne was. The man I had dubbed ‘The Pervert’ was a hot shot in the financial word. He was known for having the golden touch when it came to deciding what to buy, when to sell, and when to buy more, more, more. I happened to know that he just had a lot o
f
inside
information;
otherwise he would just be like any other stock broker.

             
“Sharon married him and he convinced her that I was better off going to some private prep school in New York.”

             
Stone raised a brow. “You don’t like your stepfather? He has been very generous over the last few years with donations to
Make-A-Wish and Feed-America.”

             
I laughed, although it held very little humor. “Yes, well it
is hard to like the man who was
attempt
ing
to rape me on an almost daily basis…Generous contributor to charity or not.”

             
I watched the emotions crossing Stone’s face. Shock, disbelief…Followed by anger, white hot rage, and something else…

             
I should have been frightened, but something told me that I was safer with Kieran Stone than I had ever been
with anyone else
in my life. Even though he made a career out of pulverizing men on a regular basis, I knew that he would never raise a hand to me. He reached for me and I went willingly into his arms.

             
He was trembling as he held me against his chest. “He
touched
you?” His voice was dark, and raspy, full of his need to damage something, but still
his touch was
so gentle
on
me.

             
The images of The Pervert with his hands on me…In me…Touching, squeezing…My gag reflex wanted to make me retch, and I swallowed a few times before I had it under control again. “Yes.” I whispered.

             
Another tremble, this time so strong that it made me shiver. “Did he…?” His voice caught on the next words and I spared him from having to
speak them out loud, even if they were rolling around in his brain
.

             
“
He never raped me…Not like you think.” I buried my face in his chest, getting lost in the feel of all of his muscles surrounding me, making me feel safe and protected. “But he did…I’m still a virgin, except that there isn’t anything there to prove it.”

             
His arms tightened around me. “So that’s why you ran away?”

             
I took a few deep breaths to calm my nerves, getting used to being so close was
hard; it was
still a little panic
in
ducing for me. “At first I tried to tell my mother what was going on.
” I told him.
“
But she was so lost in her drugs, which had moved on from prescriptions to coke, that she could have cared less. Then I reached out to Greg…But I just kept getting his secretary
, who said that he would call me back as soon as he had a free minute
. Once I tried to tell a teacher, but Stephen convinced her that I was just emotionally unstable from the changes going on in my life. Then
by chance
I found out that he was scared of the Goth kids…So that’s when I started wearing the makeup. It kept him at arms-length for a while.”

             
I pulled back a little; the images from that last week at home were to
o
emotionally disturbing for me to be so close to Stone. “Then one night I had forgotten to lock my bedroom door. I fell asleep studying and the next thing I kn
e
w he was in bed with me. Touching me…” I gagged at the memory and pushed
away from him
, needing distance to keep the panic attack at bay. “I screamed, and screamed. I screamed so loud that my throat ached for days. The housekeeper, Petra, she came running
from the other side of the house. She
saw what was going on…But she was fired the next day.” I raked my fingers through my
hair. “And I knew then and there that I had to go.
”

I stood and faced him
,
a small smile touching my lips.
“
Eventually I ended up here and Mel took me in. She helped me get my GED and gave me a job…And when she finally coaxed the reasons for my running away out of me, she took me to my first self-defense class so that I would never have to feel
so helpless
again.”