Stripped (18 page)

A voice above me: “Fuck.
Fuck
! Grey?” It’s Dawson.

I can’t even moan. I’m gasping, my throat raw and throbbing. I cough, suck at the oxygen.
 

I feel Dawson’s gentle hands touch me. He tugs at my pants, pulling them up. Even though it’s him, I shrink away from his touch.

“Ssshh. It’s okay. It’s me. It’s Dawson. I’m here. You’re okay.” He puts a hand under the small of my back and lifts me slightly off the ground, tugging my pants in place. “I’ve got you. I’m gonna put my shirt on you, okay?”

He does something, and the remnants of my bra, which I realize got ripped somehow, fall away. I sob again, a shuddering indrawn breath, and Dawson’s palm smooths down my cheek, wiping at the tears I realize are pouring down. “It’s okay, Grey. You’re okay.”
 

My head throbs, and there’s something wet and sticky on the back of my head. “Head…” I moan. “Think ’m…bleeding.”

Dawson curses, and I hear fabric rustling, and then something soft that smells of Dawson is eased over my head. He takes my hand in his and gently guides my arm through the hole, like I’m a child, does the same thing to the other side. I’m dressed, now, covered, and it eases the pounding terror in my gut. Dawson saved me.

I sob then, and Dawson’s hand touches my forehead, brushes away tears. Fingers curl tenderly under my neck and help me sit up, and I hear a whispered “
fuck
” from Dawson as he sees the blood. I watch him grab the ripped shred of my pink T-shirt and press it to the back of my head, and then his arm goes beneath my legs and he lifts me easily. The door of his Mustang is open, the engine idling with a noisy animal rumble. He sets me in the passenger seat, leans over me to click off the radio, which is playing the heavy metal I’ve come to associate with Dawson. I’m dizzy, seeing double, and I’m tired. I glance out into the parking lot, and I see a lump on the asphalt, dark pants, and a white shirt stained red. A pool of dark liquid glints around one end of the form. It’s him, the rapist.

He’s not moving.

Dawson has his phone to his ear and he’s murmuring into it. “…Piece of shit…yeah, he’s pretty fucked up….I don’t know, maybe? Just take care of it, okay? Got it. ’Bye.”

He shoves the phone into his pocket and stalks back to the Mustang, folding his tall frame into the driver’s seat. A glance at his face scares me. He’s lost in a murderous rage, his eyes all pupil, jaw clenching and teeth grinding, all angles and anger. His eyes catch mine and go soft. He glances out his window, catches sight of my attacker, and slams the shifter into reverse, guns the engine, and we spin around in a backward circle. Another violent jerk of the shifter, and we’re rocketing forward out of the parking lot and onto the deserted street.
 

I wonder if I’m the reason for his anger. He had to save me at three in the morning, when I rejected him.

He’s driving with mad precision, hitting over ninety and a hundred miles per hour on the straight stretches of road, blowing through red lights and taking turns in wide, drifting, squealing arcs. Red and blue lights flash behind us, but Dawson drives on unheeding. He jerks us through a dizzying series of lefts and rights in a random subdivision, squeals to a stop, and reverses suddenly into a narrow alleyway, shutting off his headlights. The police car flies by, siren howling. I can only clench the armrest in white-knuckled fingers and try to breathe. Dawson is still seething, his breathing coming in long, deep gasps, as if he’s trying to contain himself and barely succeeding.
 

“Dawson, I’m sorry.” I can’t quite look at him. “You can just take me home now. I’m fine.” I press the shirt to the back of my head, and the pressure hurts, but when I pull the cotton away, it’s only lightly blotted with blood. I press again, and it comes away clean.

He glances at me in utter confusion. “Sorry? What?” He stares at me for a long moment before understanding. “Oh, Jesus. You think I’m mad at
you
?”

I shrug. “I guess. I mean…I don’t know. You’re scaring me, though.”

He reaches out and places his palm on my knee. “Babe, I’m mad
for
you, not
at
you.”

“I don’t…I don’t understand.”

He frowns, and then sighs. “I’m taking you home.
My
home. We’ll talk there.”

“But…I’m okay. I’d rather go to my dorm.”

“Too bad.” He pulls the Mustang out of the alley and onto the main road, and from there to the highway. Once we’re on the freeway, he puts the muscle car through her paces, accelerating steadily but evenly until the needle is buried. Going a hundred or more in a Bugatti is like being on a jet—the sense of speed is contained and dampened by the expensive hand-crafted shocks and whatever else. Going a hundred and twenty in a classic 1960s muscle car is terrifying. You feel every bit of the speed. You feel closer to the road, as if you’re strapped to a rocket that could wobble off-course at any second.

“Can you slow down a little, please?” I ask.
 

He shoots me a split-second glance, perhaps seeing that my hands are frantically clutching at the armrest and the dashboard. I feel him back off the accelerator immediately. “Sorry.”

I can sense the questions in him. I have plenty of my own.

I want my bed. I want the familiar surroundings of my dorm. It’s not much, but it’s all I have.

He’s not taking me there, though. We’re pulling up to the gate and Dawson’s waving at a middle-aged uniformed guard in the guardhouse, and then we’re under the arch and softly jerking to a stop in front of his doors. I barely have time to register that we’ve stopped before the car is off and Dawson beside me unbuckling me and lifting me from the car. I should protest but I’m dizzy, and my neck won’t support my head. I’m so tired. I lay my head on his shoulder and let my eyes close.

Dawson glances at me, and then his voice rouses me. “Grey, no. You gotta stay awake for me, okay? You might have a concussion. You can’t sleep yet, okay?” He sets me down briefly, and I sway against him as he unlocks his front door and shoves it open, then lifts me again through the entry and kicks the door closed. I never got beyond the hallway with the half-bath the last time I was here. His footsteps echo on the marble of the foyer, and I see through cracked eyelids that we’re passing through an open-plan kitchen and into a huge but comfortable-looking living room. He sets me down gently on a deep leather couch.

I can’t help staring at him as he hovers over me. His jaw is brushed with dark stubble, making him look a little older and a little harder. I notice that he has dots of crimson crusted on his forehead and cheekbones, and on his shirt. I reach up without thinking and scrape at the blood on his cheek with my thumbnail.

Dawson jerks away, scrubbing at his face and staring at his hand, at the flakes of dried blood. “Shit. I’ve got his blood on me.”

“Is he—”

Dawson interrupts me. “He’s none of your concern.” He moves into the kitchen and comes back with a bottle of peroxide, a wad of paper towel, and a bag of ice. He examines my head with something resembling professional tenderness, dabbing at the cut with a peroxide-dampened paper towel. I wince at the sting, but it only lasts a moment.

“What’s Greg going to do with him?”

Dawson shrugs. “That’s not a question I want to know the answer to. I hired Greg because he scares the fuck out of me. He used to be president of a biker gang that made the Hell’s Angels look like a bunch of tea-sipping pussies. Except Greg also has a degree in business from Brown. So yeah, don’t piss him off.”
 

I have to ask. “Do you think he’s dead? The guy who tried to—who attacked me?”

“Do you care?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. I just—”

“Listen, babe. He tried to rape you. He would have killed you. He nearly did, and you’ve got the bruises on your throat to prove it. Don’t think about that piece of shit anymore, okay? He’s gone, and he won’t hurt you or anyone else ever again. That’s all that matters. His blood is on me, and Greg. Not you.”

“But you can’t just—”

“Grey.” Dawson moves to sit next to me, and I want to curl into him. Let him hold me. I stay still and try to keep my turbulent feelings in check. “Stop worrying about that fucking pile of scum. Okay? Please? He doesn’t deserve your pity. If he’s dead, it’s too good for him. He deserves to suffer.” The vehemence in his voice and in his eyes makes me shiver.

I look away and focus on breathing, in and out. Dawson is a huge, hot, confusing presence beside me, and I’m filled with sensory memories of his arms around me and his lips on me…and then the memory shifts abruptly, and I feel again a hand clamping over my mouth and hear the hiss of
his
voice, and I gag.
 

Dawson pulls me into his lap as I start to shake and sob, his arms curling around me. I tense initially, sure that the feeling of male arms holding me will trigger the horror again, but it doesn’t. I feel safe with Dawson. He protected me.

“It’s okay, Grey. You’re safe.” His mouth is beside my ear, whispering.
 

Then, something odd happens: Dawson presses a soft kiss to my temple. It’s…tender. It’s a kiss designed to soothe, to comfort. Not to ignite desire or passion. It confuses me, and it makes me feel…loved. Cared for.
 

And that is something I can’t handle.
 

My instinct is to flee, but I can’t move. I simply cannot make myself leave the protective cocoon of Dawson’s embrace, and I don’t want to. My confusion and fear aren’t strong enough to push me out of his arms. It’s a bad dream, a nightmare, and it’s fading quickly.
 

I stop crying after a while, and I let myself be safe in Dawson’s arms. His mouth brushes my temple again, and then the curve of my ear. He settles a blanket around me, and his hands skate up and down my arms and across my back and shoulders, keeping me soothed and warm.
 

I yawn, and Dawson shifts beneath me, cradles his arms under my knees and around my shoulders, stands up with me. I’m sleepy, emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausted. Dawson’s shirt is soft cotton and smells of him. He’s warm, and his muscles shift under my hands as I cling to him, like stones beneath silk. I let my head settle against his chest and absorb the feeling of comfort, of being cared for. It’s so unfamiliar. Ever since Mama died, I’ve felt alone. Unloved, unnoticed.
 

He carries me up the stairs, down a long hallway and up three more stairs, through a pair of open French doors and into a cavernous master bedroom. The bed is the only furniture besides a huge flat-screen TV on the wall opposite and a pair of nightstands on either side of the bed. He carries me to the bed, leans against it, and sets me down.
 

My heart stops, and my breath catches in my throat. I’m tense all over.
 

And now here’s Dawson, this god, this iconic movie star, this all-too-real man, and he’s paying attention to
me.
As if I mean something to him. As if he wants something from me that I don’t know how to give. I don’t even know what he wants, honestly.
 

Well, that’s not true. I do. He wants sex. I know this. I see it and sense it. It’s in the way he touches me, in the way he kisses me. I know it, because that’s what men want from me. It’s what he wants from me. And I don’t know how to give it. But I get the feeling he also might want something else from me. Something more. But that’s not his style. Nothing I’ve ever heard about him has said he wants anything from a woman he’s involved with but sex.

All this runs through my head as he grabs at the pile of throw pillows neatly arranged on the bed and tosses them to the floor two at a time. Then he reaches under the pillows and tugs the blanket down until it’s stopped by my body. “Slide under,” he says.
 

I tuck my legs beneath the blanket and lie back into the pillows, watching Dawson like a hawk. Is this where it happens? Now? In his room? My heart is pounding, but I’m still barely breathing. My fingers clutch at the edge of the blanket. Dawson moves across the room toward a pair of closed French doors, which he opens to reveal a closet larger than two of the dorm rooms at USC put together. There’s an island in the center with a marble countertop, and an actual sitting area complete with a deep leather chair. Dawson peels his shirt off and tosses it into a nearby hamper, and then his shorts. He’s in nothing but a pair of tight black boxer-briefs. My throat closes, and my fingers curl into fists at the sight of him. He’s…nothing short of glorious. The muscles in his back are clearly defined, rippling as he moves. His shoulders are like slabs of granite, and his arms thick and bulging with muscle. I simply cannot take my eyes off him as he opens a drawer, pulls out a pair of gym shorts, and turns toward me as he shoves one foot through and then the other. He tugs the shorts up, but not before I catch a glimpse of the front of him. Of the bulge in his underwear. My eyes are drawn there, almost instinctively.
 

I blush and look away quickly, but he saw me staring. The corner of his mouth tilts and tightens into a small quirk of a smile, quickly gone. He moves toward me, and I’m tense once more, staring at the ridged field of his abs and the narrow column of his waist, the inward cut of muscle where his hips guide inward to his groin. My mouth is dry as he approaches. I’m not breathing, not moving, not thinking. I’m totally panicked.

He sees it in my face, and raises his hands. “Relax, Grey.” His voice is a low, soothing rumble. “You need to sleep. I’m just going to hold you. If you’d rather not, I can sleep in one of the empty bedrooms.”

Just going to hold me
. I’ve never slept in a bed with a man before. Not ever, in my whole life. My dad used to tuck me in as a little girl, but that stopped around nine or ten. I don’t know what to say, what to think, what to even want. I’m scared, exhausted, and nervous.
 

“I don’t want to be alone,” I murmur. It’s the only true thing I know right now.
 

He carefully slides into the bed beside me, then curses when he realizes the overhead light is on. He gets up and turns it off, and the room is enveloped in sudden shadows. A slim sliver of lesser darkness carves across the room from the doorway, but all else is pitch black. I’m not afraid of the dark; I’m afraid of my confused welter of emotions regarding this man.