One Hot Fall Term (Yardley College Chronicles Book1) (20 page)

But in a weird way, it feels good, too.

“You think this explains why I built my club, why I have the room upstairs, why I want to tie up my sexual partners, why I’m into bondage and domination, why I need to take pleasure to the edge.”

“You said it isn’t the reason.”

“You don’t believe me. But everything I said is the truth. Not every victim of abuse is into BDSM. Not every practitioner has been a victim. Brains are programmed differently for pleasure and mine just happens to be made this way. I don’t deliberately hurt someone when I act as a Dom. It’s a mutual act. It’s shared pleasure that is heightened by an incredible sexual experience. But my past has hurt me. Shaped me. I don’t trust many people—actually, I don’t trust most people. I’ve never told anyone about what happened to me. Honestly, Mia. You’re the first person I realize I’ve trusted. I must trust you—why else would I open up to you so much?”

“You can trust me.”

“I’ve never loved anyone,” he says softly. “I don’t know if I’m capable of it.”

I thought he was experiencing unrequited love for me. Apparently not. What he feels must be a very deep, strong sense of friendship. And trust. I have that with Ryan, but enhanced by love.

I try hard to hide it from Jonathon but what he said makes my heart fracture. He’s a good guy and he deserves to have love.

I want him to know his trust is not misplaced. And I guess I want to talk. “I was sexually abused,” I say softly. “You were right. It was my stepfather. It happened…it started before I hit puberty. It went on for years. I didn’t stop it. I let it happen. I could have told on him, or called the police, or run away, but I didn’t.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s all on him.”

“I did…stuff. Everything. There isn’t anything I don’t know about.” I say it glumly. I wish so much it wasn’t true. “My mom found out eventually. She…caught him. It was bad. Gross. I can’t explain it. But we stayed with him. I had the choice—” I look up at him. “I was scared I’d be throwing us into poverty and all I wanted was for it to stop. That was all. It did stop. They broke up anyway. I guess…I assume it changed things between them. So you were right about everything. Everything you’ve said to me has been totally true.”

“Do you want revenge?”

“No. No one else knows. I don’t want anyone else to know. As long as he’s changed. As long as he never does it again.”

I start to cry. I didn’t know I could anymore. I thought at a certain point I would be all cried out.

Jonathon holds me. “You’ve carried a lot on your shoulders alone. You don’t have to do that anymore.”

***

It keeps happening over the next couple of days. I think I’m okay, then something happens and I smell something that reminds me of the wet grass of the ravine, or I have a sudden flashback into being grabbed or having the guy on top of me, and I freak out.

Completely.

Jonathon is there for me all the time. He hugs me when I burst into waterfalls of tears. He doesn’t care when I fly into a rage over stupid things—running out of toilet paper, messing up my mascara, deciding I hate the sketch I just did for my project. I keep working. Otherwise, what am I going to do? Play over what could have happened again and again in my head?

I try to be tough and pragmatic about things. The only way the guy will be caught is with clues. Again, channeling CSI. And the T.V. show Castle.

On the second day after the attack, I’m sitting with Jonathon at the coffee shop in the University Center. Lara is writing a mid-term, and Jonathon and I are waiting for her to finish so we can both take her back to Jonathon’s house. I’m supposed to be studying, but when I’ve read the same sentence six times, I give up.

“I keep trying to remember what happened,” I explain to Jonathon. “There had to be some clue I could give the cops and campus security. Some minute, insignificant clue that points directly to this guy.”

“You’ve done everything you can. Don’t torment yourself. I know what that’s like.”

But I feel I have an obligation—to myself and other women on campus—to get this guy caught.

That night my mother arrives, and I stay with her at the inn for a couple of days. It’s nice to be with her. Of course, we talk to campus security and the cops. Mom is angry with Yardley’s security, even though I keep explaining there wasn’t much they could do before I was attacked.

I also get interviewed by the local news media. Jonathon kept them away from me at first, but I agreed to do the interviews. I want to make sure other women know about the threat.

Posters get put up all over the campus, warning women to go to Security if they feel threatened, or if they receive strange messages. A description of the guy is put out over all local media, but given he wore a mask, I doubt that will lead to an arrest.

He’s out there.

Has he given up on me? Does he want to take another shot?

When my mother leaves, Jonathon sends his driver to take her and me to the nearest airport, so I can see her off. She’s so scared to go, I can tell. I promise her I will be careful.

I make her swear once more not to tell Ryan.

***

After three days at Jonathon’s, Lara and I return to our dorm room. I ask her if it’s okay. I’m afraid if I wait longer, I’ll never be able to go back. I’ll be trapped by fear. I know what it’s like to be aware of fear all the time. I used to be like that with my stepfather.

“I’m tired of being afraid,” I say to Jonathon, quietly, when he drops us off at the room to ensure we get there safely.

His brows tug down in concern. “Just be careful. I’ll take you anywhere on campus you want to go. At any time.”

“What about your classes?”

“Mia, do you really think they mean more to me than you do?”

The things he says break my heart. If I didn’t have Ryan, I think I would fall in love with Jonathon in a heartbeat.

Then he says, “If I find that guy, I don’t know if I’ll turn him over to the cops. I’d like to kill him.”

“God, Jonathon, no. I don’t want you going to prison.” I’m scared. He is like me, which means there is rage burning inside him. He told me he constantly fights to control it. What if he lets go of it?

“Promise me you won’t do that.” I touch his arm. “That scares me more than knowing the guy is out there. Please, please, promise me.”

My eyes are gazing into his, pleading. I know he wants to refuse to make the promise.

“Jonathon, I couldn’t live with that. God, that would destroy me to have you do that.”

He frowns. “I would never hurt you. I promise, Mia.”

Leaning down, he brushes a kiss to my forehead. It’s not a sexual kiss or romantic. I realize it as the gesture of a guy who is trying to hang on, and he’s found someone who understands what a struggle it is. It’s a mark of sharing, of friendship. When he steps back, I impulsively throw my arms around him and hug him. Then I let him turn away and leave.

When he’s gone, I close and lock the door. Then I ask Lara, with hope in my heart, “When you guys were alone together at Jonathon’s…did anything rekindle?”

As she returns clothes to her drawer, she shakes her head. “It’s over, Mia.”

Damn. I want Jonathon to have a loving relationship. I really do.

Chapter Eleven

A snowstorm hits on Friday, two weeks before Thanksgiving. Lara and I run back from the residence cafeteria, pelted by snow. We are only wearing hoodies and sneakers, because it has been warm since Halloween, but tonight the wind is bitter. Jonathon isn’t with me, for once. But to stay safe, Lara and I are walking with a group of a dozen women from our floor. Now, we always travel around the campus in groups. Since Lara and I are freezing, we run ahead of the others.

As we near our dorm, I slow down. There’s a guy on a motorcycle on the drive outside the front door. His legs are stretched out in black jeans, he wears a leather jacket and he’s pulling off his helmet—which is black and crimson, with a reflective visor. As he lifts it up, I see his hair, illuminated by the outdoor lights at the door. Even through the swirling snow, I can tell he’s got light blond hair, buzzed short.

Ryan? I grip Lara’s arm. “Lara, I think it’s Ryan. I’m going to run up and see.”

I sprint through the snow, arms crossed over my chest because I’m so cold. Oh God, it is Ryan. He swings his long leg over the motorcycle. “Mia!”

He runs to me, and lifts me off the ground, sweeping me into his arms. He spins me under the falling snow, his arms wrapped tight around me. I smell the leather of his coat, the sweet Ryan-ness of his skin and the clean sexiness of his laundry soap. He bends down to me and I surge up and press my mouth to his.

I kiss him hungrily. It’s been so long and I’ve fantasized about this so much. This is going to be the best kiss ever. I coax his mouth to open and I wriggle my tongue inside to play with his. Ryan tastes of coffee. My tongue runs over his smooth teeth to find his tongue and duel with it. Our tongues tangle, and go back and forth, from his mouth to mine. It’s been so long since I’ve kissed him that I want to savor this. Though I’m getting eager for the main event.

Wait, we’re standing outside the dorm in a snowstorm.

Softly, Ryan moans into my mouth as he lowers me gently to my feet. I stay on my tiptoes, my arms wrapped around his strong neck. I run my fingers over the warm skin of his throat. His stubble teases my fingertips.

Snowflakes melt to water on him and me. I should draw back from the kiss, but when I try, he cups my face and kisses me with a slow, languorous motion that makes me want to dissolve.

Oh God.

He breaks the kiss first and he buries his face into my neck. He kisses me there, at the base of my jaw, and erotic tremors rush through me.

My knees almost collapse.

“You shouldn’t be here. How can you be here?” I whisper. “You’re supposed to be at school. Not here, on a motorcycle…what am I saying? I just want to kiss you.”

But he doesn’t kiss me. He tips up my face to look at me. “Your mom told me what happened. Are you okay? She told me you are, but—but I had to see you. Are you really okay, Mia?”

Fear makes his voice shake and I realize that’s what is making his voice pale, and his eyes look so full of pain. This was exactly why I didn’t want mom to tell him. She broke her promise. But mainly, I want to reassure him.

“Yeah, I’m really okay, Ryan. Nothing bad happened—”

“Nothing bad? Some guy attacked you. You don’t just shake things like this off, Mia. You must still be frightened. Things like that give you nightmares. You can tell me the truth.”

Looking into his eyes is different than looking up at Jonathon’s. Both these guys care about me. But Ryan is the one I belong to. Also the one I want to protect.

He pulls me close and I’m dwarfed by his strong body, feeling small and safe and protected in the circle of his strong arms. His lips touch my forehead. He’s holding me like Jonathon did, with all the tenderness, but there’s a depth of sexual intensity leaping between us that makes me quiver. This has to be love—the fire and the need and the desire to be as intimate with him as I can be, but with the yearning to see him happy and share with him and hold him tight.

It’s love and it’s awesome.

“I wish I’d been here,” he says. “Your mom told me this guy had been stalking you. You should have told me. I would have come up—”

“I know you would,” I say, breaking in. “I know you would have come to my rescue. But you are supposed to be in school—”

“You are more important.” This time it’s his turn to cut me off.

“You make me want to cry when you say that, it’s so sweet,” I tell him honestly. “But I’m okay. And I did try to protect myself. I’d taken the stuff the guy sent—the emails and the picture to campus security. I let people know where I was going to be, so when I walked home and he grabbed me, someone came to my rescue.” I don’t want to specify who.

Suddenly I think of Jonathon holding me while I cried. He opened his heart to me, telling me secrets that he would only tell someone he trusted a lot. And that gave me to the courage to tell him the truth about my past.

Things I can never tell Ryan.

Jonathon understands because he’s been hurt. Ryan’s been hurt in his past too, but that’s not what I want to share with him. I want to share the future with him—I want to share happiness.

He’s still holding me tight, even though snowflakes are accumulating on his shoulders. “If I’d known—”

“You would have ditched school to come to me, Ryan, and I would never have forgiven myself.”

“They would have let me take some time off.”

“Which means you would have had to go back to school, so I would have had to deal on my own at some point. Ryan, I have to look after myself—” I stop. I’ve said it too harshly, because I’m trying to be honest. It didn’t come out right.

He reels back, his eyes look wounded.

“When I realized I was being followed I wished so much I could run to you. I know you would have rescued me. Being with you would have made me feel safe. But you can’t be watching over me every minute. Even if we lived together, I couldn’t ask that of you. I get it and you have to understand it too.” Then my heart skips a beat. “You being here now…is it okay with your college?”

His mouth moves near to mine, and I’m almost painfully aware of how close it is and how I could just move a little and start passionately sucking face with him again.

He moves his mouth to the side of my face, his cheek pressed to mine. “Yeah, it’s okay,” he says. His breath teases my earlobe and my knees shake. “Even it wasn’t okay for me to leave, I would be here. I had to see you. Touch you. Make sure you’re okay.”

“I am.”

He bends and nibbles my earlobe. Arousal streaks through me like lightning. My clit starts to ache, my pussy throbs. “I want you so much.” I can hear the pain of sexual need in my voice. “I want to slither down to the ground and pull you on top of me. I don’t even care that it’s wet and cold.”