Inside the Storm Read online

  “I’m fine, nobody is here.” I open the car door and get out. Blake does, too. I narrow my eyes at him and he walks to the front of the car, leaning his ass on the hood. When I reach the garage door, I am able to go right in because it is so old it doesn’t shut anymore. I check the house door and it is locked. I march right back out to Blake.

  “Can I use one of your credit cards?”

  He gives me a questioning look even though it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what I am about to do. “Whatever you are about to do, you don’t need to do it. I can help you with whatever you need, Rochelle.” I roll my eyes. I hate when he treats me like I am his charity case. I am not his fucking charity case! Why can’t he get that through that smart brain of his that I don’t need him to save me? I don’t need his help.

  I walk away from him and pick up a rock on my way back to the house. When I reach the door, I throw the rock through the window so that I can unlock it. Once it is open, I step inside and scream. There is a pool of my dried blood on the kitchen floor. The blanket falls from my shoulders as I run to the sink and start dry heaving. My throat burns from the strain even though nothing comes up. I don’t have to look to know Blake came into the house. I can smell him mixed with the metallic smell of my blood.

  He gathers my hair and holds it away from my face. “If you are in trouble, I need to know. I can help you.” I turn on the water and fill my hands and then splash my face. “Please tell me what happened here. I saw the bruising and now this. I’m worried about you.”

  I fill my hands again with water and put them to my mouth. How am I supposed to tell him what happened when I don’t know for sure what did happen here? My hair falls from his hand when I stand up straight. I show him my bandaged wrist. “They say I did this. I didn’t.”

  Blake’s expression shows either pity or sympathy, I’m not fully sure which one it is. All I know is I don’t want his pity or sympathy. I just want him to get me the hell out of here.

  Stepping over to the cupboard, I take out the frosted flakes cereal box. I take the plastic bag out and reach into the box. I almost feel excited to find daddy didn’t change his hiding spot in all these years. I don’t know how much is there, but I am taking it all. I leave the kitchen to find my bag. I search all over the living room but it is gone. I frantically search the rest of the house.

  Blake comes into the living room. God, I wish he’d stop looking at me like that. The way he looked at me in his club is gone. I would do just about anything to go back to the way he first saw me. “They took my stuff. It looks like I am stuck wearing this fucking hospital gown.”

  “We should probably get out of here. I can take you anyplace you’d like to go.” He steps closer to me and touches my cheek again. This time I don’t flinch.

  For the first time since walking back into this house, it hits me that there aren’t any family photos on the walls. I move out of Blake’s reach and start tearing through the house. I don’t care much about my clothes, they can be replaced. What I care about is the picture I had of my mother. Now it’s gone. I am not leaving until I find it.

  “Rochelle,” his voice is stern and stops me in my tracks, “you really need to tell me what is going on.”

  I turn toward him and I march right up to him, then get right in his face. “Daddy welcomed me home by strangling me. Not once but twice. The second time, I grabbed a knife off the counter before I couldn’t see straight, then I woke up in the hospital. That’s what happened.” I can’t believe the words that came out of my mouth. Now that I shut up, I fully realize what I said. Just a moment ago, I didn’t remember. “I’m sorry,” I gasp.

  “I’m sorry.” And there’s that look of pity again.

  “I didn’t mean to snap at you,” I say in a softer tone. “I am very damaged, Blake. You would be smart to get away from me as fast as you can.” I glance past his shoulder and notice a green photo album on a shelf. I step around him and quickly snatch it up. When I open the cover, tears fill my eyes. I closed it just as fast as I opened it. “Can you get me out of here?”

  Blake just nods his head. He probably thinks I have lost my mind. I am nothing like the girl I portrayed myself to be in his country club. ‘Yes, Blake, I am a lost cause. Run away from me as fast as you can.’

  “Are you ready?”

  I give him a nod and turn toward the kitchen. I see my dried pool of blood again. Did I really cut myself?

  When we get into his car, he asks, “where do you want to go?”

  “Wherever you want to take me.”

  We left Daddy’s house and I didn’t even bother shutting the door behind me. I didn’t even look back, not once. I know that this time, I am never coming back. I will never see the man who tried to kill me ever again. The little girl inside of me is sad about that, but the adult in me doesn’t feel a damn thing.

  Blake whips through the town like a bat out of hell. Maybe he is driving like an IndyCar driver because he thinks I will change my mind about leaving with him. Sadly, he could be right. I am at the point where I no longer know what the right thing to do is. I am exhausted… messed up… and…my thoughts go blank. “We are getting on a plane?”

  Now it’s his turn to ignore my question. He reaches in the back and gets a leather bag off the seat. He gets out of the car and hands the keys to an attendant. Me, I haven’t moved. I have never been on a plane before. Holy shit they are big!

  Blake opens the passenger side door. “Let’s go.” His voice is stern and very demanding. My eyes must be as big as saucers. He holds out his hand and I reluctantly put mine in his. “It’s safe,” he assures me.

  We get buckled in and I can’t stop looking around. This is a once in a lifetime thing for me. There is so much to see. I grab Blake’s hand when the plane starts taxiing down the runway. Before I know it we are in the air. I don’t know where we are going, but I really don’t care where he is taking me.

  Blake unbuckles himself and gets up. I watch him as he opens his leather bag. He gets out a blue jean shirt and brings it to me. “It’s not much, but I’m sure it is better than that hospital gown.”

  “Thanks.” I unbuckle my seatbelt and get to my feet.

  Blake points to a door. To my surprise, it’s a small bedroom. I untie the ties of the gown near my neck and let it fall to the floor. I glance over my shoulder through the open door. Blake swivels in his chair and sees me. I slip his shirt on. I stand here and think without buttoning his shirt. When I exit the small bedroom, I go to where he is sitting and stand between his legs. He sits forward and puts his hands to my waist. I inhale as I feel his lips on my flesh.

  I blurt out, “I could work for you. Not at the club. I want to be your personal… you know... the girl who gives you sex whenever you want it.”

  Seeing her broken, frantic, and far less filtered was jarring for me. I’d certainly seen behind the curtain some on our first date, but I had no idea how deep and savage the damage was. I knew, deep down, that she was giving me sound advice. I should help her and then keep my distance. This girl wasn’t in the right place to enter a serious relationship, and trying to fix someone was always a losing proposition. I might have taken that advice, but there was something stopping me. I realized that I didn’t want to ‘fix’ Rochelle; I wanted to show her that she didn’t need fixing.

  The whole world seemed to have railed against her from her childhood. This amazing woman was abused, used, and kept in a constant state of inadequacy. The world had seen her beauty, but it had also seen her vulnerability and had taken full advantage. It was a crime. I didn’t want to fix her, but I wanted to give her a place where she could be herself - all of herself - and not be treated like she existed to please others, like she didn’t deserve the absolute best in life. Had she been born into different circumstances, this girl could have been anything; her beauty and sweet soul could have taken her anywhere.

  I’d made up my mind and knew that I needed to support her through this, but I was struggling to think as R
ochelle stood before me in nothing but my open denim shirt. It parted just inside her breasts, covering her nipples, but doing nothing at all to conceal anything else from me. My eyes betrayed my intentions and wandered from her face, down the valley between her breasts, and down to her completely uncovered sex. Seeing my gaze lower, she separated her legs slightly, pushing mine further apart and causing a visible surge in my pants.

  After everything she’d been through - she was giving herself to me. Her body was inviting me - begging me to take her, and I knew that I could. I could have her now, and whenever I wanted, and I could take care of her at the same time. I slid my hands down the cool, bare flesh of her waist until I gripped her hips and pulled her toward me. I had only one last chance to make the right decision. Just as I was about to refuse her offer, she leaned forward and the shirt fell away from her body, draping on either side of my face, offering me the full picture of her nakedness, which I’d only glimpsed through the open door a moment earlier.

  My head moved on its own, straining forward to kiss her flesh. Rochelle exhaled softly, a breathy, throaty sound that made me think of the cruel marks on her throat. I snapped to my senses and forced myself to sit back into the seat of the plane. My grip was firm, but gentle, as I stood her back up, and I could see the rejection in her face immediately.

  “Yes,” I say, as quickly as I can to extinguish the agony I sense coming.

  Rochelle sniffles back a tear and seems to both relax and give in at the same time.

  “But,” I continue, “Not in the way you are thinking.”

  The confusion of my response sends her back out of my hands and into the seat across from me. The same woman who served me on the short flight down comes around the corner from her kitchen area and asks if we need anything to drink. She doesn’t react in any way to the single exposed breast and the completely bare lower half of the woman across from me, and Rochelle is so numb that I don’t think she is even fully aware of just how exposed she is.

  “Just some water for now would be fine,” I answered for the both of us.

  “What do you mean?” Rochelle asks once the attendant has gone.

  “I want you to be my personal assistant, and I appreciate that you are willing to do things that might be outside the scope of a normal assistant’s responsibility. But - for this to work it has to be on my terms.”

  “Okay,” Rochelle responds and drops to her knees in front of me, reaching for the front of my pants as the attendant returns with our water.

  To her credit, the woman set down our water and even asked if we needed anything else despite the scene before her, but she was at least a little uncomfortable this time, and she was not alone.

  “No, uh - no, we are fine,” I stammered. Rochelle never took her eyes off my crotch as she unfastened the button and slowly slid down the zipper.

  “No,” I said, now to Rochelle, as I pulled her hands away. “Those are not my terms right now.”

  “But you want it,” she said, wrestling one hand free and grabbing me through my pants.

  There was no hiding my own excitement, and she was right. Part of me wanted nothing more than to let her do everything she was willing to do to me. Her body, the naughtiness of the attendant being right there and seeing us in the act, and the desire I’d been harboring for her since I first laid eyes on her were spurring me on.

  “I do,” I admitted. She smiled at what she mistook for permission and reached for my pants again.

  I pushed her away, as gently as I could, before she was able to expose me and set her back in her seat. “Rochelle - this isn’t what I really want right now. I do, but not like this. You need to stop, or the deal is off.”

  Rochelle rolled her eyes at me. “Perfect Blake won’t make even a single mistake,” she said, now with the tone she’d had with me back in her father’s house. It was somewhere between annoyance and anger.

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” I said as she leveled her eyes back on me again, pulling the shirt closed and finally hiding her body from me. “When you left I was broken up. I didn’t know what to think or do, and I thought you were really gone. I’ve never been in love before, and it hurt more than I could believe. Everything was numb and last night I made a mistake. I went to the club and met a girl there. I took her back to my place, and I was still with her this morning when I got the call that you needed help.”

  “You fucked her?” Rochelle asked, her expression actually losing some of its bite at my words.

  “I did,” I answered, “but it meant nothing. It was just an escape. I’m not that guy, and I feel terrible.”

  “Was it good?” Rochelle asked, easing back into her seat some.

  “What?”

  “Was she good?”

  “I don’t want to…”

  “Was it rough? Did you think of me?”

  Rochelle’s right hand slips inside the shirt and I can see her caressing her own breast as she’S looking longingly for my reply. This is the farthest thing from what I was expecting.

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked.

  “Did you think of me?” she repeated, ignoring my question.

  “Yes,” I said, looking down to the floor.

  Before I could react at all, her lips were on mine. I’d just told her that I made a terrible mistake and took another woman to bed the day she left me, and it was turning her on. Not only that, but her kiss was more than the submission she’d been showing me moments earlier. This felt more like our kiss from the date. Her hands were on my face, not racing for my erection, and she pressed into me in a way that felt right. I didn’t push her away.

  My eyes had closed at the kiss, but as I relaxed into it and opened them, I was now delighted to see that her shirt had opened again. Whatever this was, it allowed a change in me, and I no longer felt like I was taking advantage. I stood, lifting her with me, my hands on the bare flesh of her perfect ass, and carried her back to the bed. I left the door open, thinking about it only briefly, and laid her gently on her back in the bed. The plane hit some turbulence and we both laughed for a moment, confirming once again that this wasn’t what it had been moments earlier when she offered herself to me on her knees. That had been like it was in her apartment - a repeat of her past experience, and not something I would let her do for me. This was real. This was love.

  I had no idea how my confession had brought us here, but I was done overthinking. The shirt was hanging open on either side of her, framing her beautiful body, and I couldn’t fight my own desire any longer.

  I seriously don’t know what is wrong with me. Why can’t I be a normal girl? I have this beautiful man in front of me practically begging me to just be myself. The problem with that is, sex is all I know. I only know how to be someone's toy. I am so damaged and broken that I don’t even know if I can be fixed. The night we went to the park, I felt like a different person… carefree, or maybe just free. I want to be that girl all the time. I want him to kiss me the way he did that night. That was the first time in my life that I ever felt any kind of gentleness, or that someone could actually care about me. It was the only time I ever felt like I had any worth. I know I don’t want to be Roxy anymore, I want to find out who Rochelle is. Escaping who I’ve been for the past fifteen years, isn’t as easy as snapping my fingers. So, I get on my knees, throwing myself at him to use me as all men do. And then it happened - his confession of using another woman’s body as mine. It hurts more than I show him. When I get up off the seat next to him, I take his gorgeous face in my hands, and kiss him with as much passion as I can. I want to feel this man's love. Through all the turmoil that is going on in my head, I have this need for Blake. A need to explore uncharted territory. I want to beg him to make love to me. There’s nothing I want more than to be loved for once in my life.

  I moan into his mouth as his hands grip my bare ass and he lifts us both out off the seat. I inhale a deep breath after he carries me to the bedroom and lays me softly on the bed. We laugh for jus
t a moment. The front of his denim shirt I wear falls open and bares my breasts. I do nothing to hide my body from him. My heart sinks when Blake gets off the bed. He just stands beside it admiring my body. I don’t know what is going on inside his head, as I barely know what is happening inside of my own. My body moves on its own accord, as I put my hands to his chest and begin to unbutton his expensive dress shirt. I close my eyes and savor the feeling of his toned flesh beneath my palms. When I blink my eyes open, I take his shirt completely off while my eyes connect with his. My own words are foreign to me when I say, “Make love to me, Blake. Not because I am offering myself to you, but because…” The words aren’t even finished when he brings his lips to mine. My heart is pounding so fast. I am scared of what I just said.

  I feel the denim shirt slide down my shoulders and Blake brings my body closer to his. I gasp into his mouth as my breasts feel skin on skin contact. I don’t know if he can feel how much my body is trembling. Blinking my eyes open, he does the same. The magical kiss is broken. I swallow the taste of him that is left lingering on my taste buds. I reach for the waistband of his pants and push them past his hips. He bends to finish removing them with his shoes and I take off the only clothing I have on - his shirt.

  I almost feel like I can’t breathe when he lays me back on the mattress. With his body hovering over mine, his eyes travel over every inch of my face. I beg him with my eyes to please don’t stop. I arch my neck when his tender lips kiss my bruised flesh. He trails his mouth further down to between the center of my collarbones. I question how a simple touch has my woman parts tingling with excitement. I feel myself relaxing more to this unusual encounter. I never thought I would experience what it is like to have gentle hands caress my body the way Blake is doing. I almost feel like I am being cherished instead of being just an object. If I am dreaming, please God, don’t wake me.