Skin (15 page)

When the door opened, several people stepped off. She stepped on.

Just as the door closed, another man raced in.

The drunk.

Tania stumbled to the front corner of the elevator. She’d already pressed the close door button and wished she could open it again. She pressed it again several times. She’d take the stairs over an altercation any day, but the drunk zeroed in on her.

He stared at her, anger growing deep in his murky gaze. “Bitch. Think you’re too good for me.”

His fingers flexed. Tania risked a quick glance at the light above the moving elevator. It was almost time to get off, but she had to get around him. If there were other guests waiting to get on, that would be helpful.

Just then, the floor dinged and the double doors opened. She raced out, but he grabbed her shirt as she made her escape and dragged her backwards. She spun around and jammed her elbow into his throat. He roared and released her.

She desperately wanted the safety of her room, but she didn’t want him to know where she was staying.

“Goddamn it. Get the fuck back here.” She was already racing down the hallway, only he was faster and caught her just outside her room. He grabbed her and slammed her up against the wall. She cried out but kept her head. She rammed her elbow into his gut, stomped on his instep, then turned and shoved both fists upward into his chin before she brought them both down on the back of his head as he doubled over. She spun around and bolted.

Into a mountain of spitting fury.

Kane.

*

Kane thought he’d
heard Tania’s cry outside the door. He’d raced into the hallway in time to see Tinkerbelle slam, stomp, and then give a doozy of a double-fisted blow to some guy’s nose.

Blood was spurting between the guy’s fingers even as he swayed to stay on his feet.

Then Tinkerbelle slammed into him. He grabbed her by the waist and lifted her to his eye level. She kicked out wildly, crying out in panic until she realized who held her. She hung suspended in his arms, gasping for breath. Then groaned, closed her eyes, and sagged in place.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She opened her eyes to stare at him, stunned.

He gave her a little shake. “Damn it, Tania, talk to me. Did this asshole hurt you?”

She gasped and shook her head. “No. No, he tried…I hit him. I think I hit him.” She kept shaking her head, only now the shakes were working their way down her tiny frame.

He lowered her to the floor, shoved her behind him, and eyed the asshole standing in front of him.

Some of the alcoholic haze was leaving his eyes as pain replaced it. He had both hands clasped over his face. He looked at Kane, then at Tania, then back at Kane. “I think she broke my nose.” He blinked at the two of them, and then said to Tania, “Why did you break my nose?”

Kane snorted. “You think I’m going to let you get away with blaming her? You’re twice Tinkerbelle’s size. Do you think you can attack a woman and get away with it?”

The drunk looked at him. “She attacked me,” he said in a nasal voice. “She broke my nose.”

“I defended myself. You attacked me,” Tania cried. “At the pub verbally, then when I didn’t like your suggestion, in the elevator.”

Kane’s fists clenched. Tinkerbelle was tiny. She was always going to have to watch out for predators. At least she’d taken some self-defense training. The world was full of assholes like this one.

Hotel security came running up the stairs, then quickly surrounded the two men. “What’s the problem here?”

Kane pointed at the drunk looking closer to collapsing now, but whether that was from the drinking or the blood loss, he didn’t know. Or care. “This guy attacked a woman.”

“Did not.”

Kane was surprised that Tania didn’t immediately pipe up with ‘did, too’, as that was what he’d have expected. But she stayed quiet.

“I was minding my own business,” he squeaked out, “when Tinkerbelle attacked me.”

The hotel security guys looked at him and sighed. “Tinkerbelle?”

The drunk nodded rapidly. “She broke my nose.” One security guard led the drunk to the elevator. “Let’s get that nose taken care of.”

“She broke it. Tinkerbelle broke it.”

“Right, buddy. Sure she did. And how much have you had to drink tonight?”

The second security guard spoke through a device on his shoulder strap, letting the others know what was going on and preparing for the drunk to be received on the main floor. He turned to Kane. “Sir, did you hit him?”

Kane snorted and gave a hard smirk. “Nah, do you think I’d have broken his nose? I’d have cracked that asshole’s head wide open if I had the chance. Still will if he comes back.”

“And his story about Tinkerbelle?” The security guard shook his head as if to say he’d seen it all.

Kane laughed and stepped to one side. “Meet Tania, also known as Tinkerbelle.”

Tania lifted her hand in a small finger wave. “Hi.”

T
ania had tried
to brush off the incident as minor, but neither the hotel security nor Kane would allow her to.

“He’s made trouble here before. We have to take an incident report and contact the police. If we don’t, he’ll just come back and do it again.”

The security man looked at her. “Consider if he were to do that next time to a girl who didn’t know any self-defense techniques.”

She sat back because of course, that had been her twelve years ago. Her attack hadn’t been his first offense, either. He’d told her at the time that he’d done this before, but he preferred children; they couldn’t get their stories listened to anyhow.

The reminder hurt, plus it made her responsibilities clear. She had to do this for the next woman’s sake.

With Kane at her side, they went down to the lobby and she made a statement before she repeated the process with the police. Talk about overkill, but the men were adamant.

When it was over, she was drained.

They’d been drinking coffee during the whole ordeal, and now she was so wired she wasn’t sure she could sleep.

After the day she had, she just wanted to not dream.

Hours later, alone, Kane had left her at her doorway after making sure she was okay. With a gentle but distant kiss goodnight, she made her way to her bed.

The nightmares hit a couple of hours later. Tania woke in a cold sweat, whimpering in her sleep as she felt the rough hand over her mouth, the ripping of her clothing, the male body swamping her, overwhelming her, and the never-to-be-forgotten feeling of being raped.

She lay there dry-eyed for a long time. When the memories faded back slightly, she got up and filled a glass with water. She walked around her room sipping the cold drink. She pulled her nightdress away from her clammy skin, hating that after so long, the memories could still overwhelm her. Still ruin a good night’s sleep, take this rational, balanced woman and turn her into a bag of nerves.

She understood that the drunkard’s attack had precipitated the nightmares always lurking behind the scenes to destroy her calm. Even though she understood, it didn’t change the fact that it still happened, that nothing she did stopped the nightmares for good.

It had been months, if not years, since her last really bad nightmare. She couldn’t remember what had set those off. Exhausted, she sat back down on her bed and flopped backwards. She didn’t know how to go back to sleep. She’d brought melatonin with her, but taking it often left her groggy in the morning. She sat up and ran through several yoga moves to release some of the tension, but that just brought up images of Kane. He’d been wonderfully protective, almost irritatingly so, demanding she file a report and deliciously sweet with his goodnight kiss. She wanted so much more.

And she was a mess with nothing but a broken shell to offer.

She’d come so far and yet not far enough.

Immediately, a protest jumped into her mind. She’d come a hell of a long way. She’d fought off her attacker, survived to see him taken away, and so what if she had a nightmare or two? Surely that was normal. She might not be whole, but it didn’t mean she was so far gone she couldn’t heal. It was – she’d just proven it.

And she’d keep on proving it.

But her one chance to get through a sexual encounter was with Kane.

Even her wording made her wince. Who’d want anything to do with that? Lovemaking? Yes. Getting through a sexual encounter? Nasty.

She could almost hear Jenna saying the terminology was important. It showed she was still distancing herself from the personal element of lovemaking. A sexual encounter was cold, clinical, like a lab experiment. She almost laughed. Wouldn’t Kane love that description?

And then she remembered those arms around her, his lips moving on hers, his tongue…there was nothing cold about Kane, nothing clinical about what they’d done that afternoon. She glanced at the clock. Okay, yesterday afternoon.

Even now, her body warmed at the thought of those hands of his. How gently he’d held her. How his strength had been so controlled. She couldn’t imagine what it would take for a man like that to lose control. He’d be a force to contend with. He had problems with women. She’d heard it a couple of times in his voice, saw the look in his eyes when he watched couples walk by. He’d been hurt. How he’d managed the hurt was the problem. She wished he’d talked to her, but he didn’t trust her. Maybe that was the problem. Trust. She didn’t trust any man not to hurt her again physically, and maybe he didn’t trust any woman to not hurt him emotionally. Someone in his life had ripped a hole in his body, creating so much damage he’d been forced into therapy to try and heal himself.

Maybe for his career. Another woman? To stop his brother from pushing? Who knew what was the driving force going on in there, but he was here. And he was dealing. She didn’t know how this project was supposed to help him, but it was testing her.

She sighed and realized if she wasn’t going to sleep, she might as well finish her homework.

Tucked in bed, she came back to the first question – the theme of their project. She’d considered light and dark, but it wasn’t quite right. She wrestled with it for a few moments then moved on to the next question. This one was easier as it was about process. She got to work.

A half hour later and she was done mentally, but she hadn’t gotten even halfway on the homework. But maybe she was ready to try to sleep.

Closing her light, she crawled into bed and relaxed.

Then it hit her. The theme. Was her idea right? Could it work? She thought about the images she’d taken. The look in Kane’s eyes, the changes from one day to the next. She hadn’t even downloaded today’s images, and she needed to. It would tell her if she was on the right track.

The theme – skin.

*

Kane woke the
next morning and immediately got angry all over again. He’d been so proud of Tania and her moves and pissed off at the drunk. Even more so when he understood this wasn’t an isolated incident; this guy was a hell of an ugly drunk, and research would likely show he was a controlled, angry man who, when under the influence of alcohol, found it much harder to control the rage that lived just under his skin. And he felt empowered to let it out and be the angry man who lived inside. Kane wanted the guy stopped before he really hurt someone. That it could have been his Tinkerbelle last night scared him shitless.