A Busty Bride for the Billionaire (Contemporary Erotic Romance) (5 page)

Even back then – way before any of the stuff I'm writing this to tell you about had even remotely started happening – it took my breath away. When he raised his arms and wriggled them about like that, into and out of sleeves, his back and his thick, thick arms would just ripple with layers of muscles I didn't know humans even had. It was like he had anacondas under his skin. I remember wondering how he could possibly put those t-shirts on without ripping them apart – he seemed way too strong to handle them gently. The thought flashed briefly through my mind, that he would rip me apart, if he ever held me like that too.

Again, I know it sounds crazy, but even though I was turned on by the sight... the predominant sensation was one of fear.

I started to avoid him... which wasn't hard, considering that's what he had been doing to me the whole time I knew him.

It was around this time, I think, that he started coming into my room.

//////\\\\\\

I first started to notice little things – a hairbrush being on the ground when I thought I'd left it on the table; a bra I had been sure was in my drawers but I later discovered in the fresh laundry...

At first, of course, I didn't think anything of it. It's only as these little moments started to add up that I started to suspect something.

I asked my mom if she had been coming in to clean up or something, which she promised me she hadn't.

It took me a long time to make the logical next step... assuming, as I did, that coming into my room was the last thing on Mr. Stevenson's mind (and anyway, he was never really home at a time when I wasn't.)

It was only when I mustered up the courage to go into his room that it all clicked.

Under his mattress was a pair of my panties – pretty much the only Cheekies I own, which I'd bought on a whim while a little high with my friends. I thought I'd lost them long ago.

But I didn't do anything about it. Partly because I was scared. I thought he'd kill me if I confronted him about it – even if he didn't mean to. Just one swat of that huge paw of his would surely crack me open like an egg.

But also, because I wasn't quite sure how I felt about it. I mean, I did feel violated, don't get me wrong. But then again, he was still a teenager... maybe this was normal for guys his age? Would I be overreacting if I got mad at him?

While the worries started to gather and multiply, he continued just as he had before – apparently, totally ignoring me. 

Only, when I started paying closer attention... I saw that that wasn't actually true.

Whenever I was looking at him, he would maintain the same sullen, stony indifference as always. So I'd pretend to ignore him too... but secretly angle the iPad so that I could see his reflection in it.

And sure enough, as soon as he thought I wasn't looking, he would sneak over a quick peek or two – at my bare legs, or shoulders. I'd pretend to doze off, keeping my eyes barely open... and he'd stare.

But each time I snapped my eyes open and looked his way, he somehow managed to make it seem like he'd been looking at something just past me, and then go and fiddle with it nonchalantly. He never got flustered. Which was frustrating.

\\\\\\//////

It was a total accident I noticed it, actually. He didn't make a sound.

I had had a weird nightmare – something about my hair going all thin and balding, and my teeth turning to mush – and was having trouble going back to sleep. I tossed and turned in my bed, but nothing seemed to help.

Then my door creaked open.

At first I thought it was the wind... that is, until Jonathan stepped in.

I kept my eyes half-shut, pretending to be asleep. I was too confused to do anything else.

In all honesty, he looked almost comical, at first. I'd never seen him try to be stealthy before – he usually just lumbered around as if he didn't care what small buildings he knocked over. But there he was: on his tip-toes, eyes darting around like a scared rabbit's, looking for danger.

And then the confusion and surprise morphed into terror. What could he want? Why wasn't he saying anything? Could he... could he really be...

And then, just like that – before I had even had time to finish panicking – he was gone. He had stood there, and looked at me sleeping for maybe a minute or two... then stepped right back out.

I couldn't sleep the rest of the night, and failed a math test for the very first time the next day. Mom was furious.

\\\\\\//////

The next time – or at least, the next time I noticed – was the following week.

It was the same as the last time. He let himself in, perfectly quietly, so that I would never have known had I not been staying awake every night, nervous that it might happen again. He stood there, looking at me frozen stiff under a loose blanket, pretending to sleep. Then, a couple minutes later, he let himself out, having done or touched nothing.

Things continued this way for several weeks.

During the days, I avoided him like the plague... but then, like I said, there was nothing really new about that.

And during the nights – once, maybe twice a week – he would come into my room and stand there for a few minutes, stony-faced.

Just like my mom and Mr. Stevenson's eye-rollingly childish flirting, it became a weird, dysfunctional kind of normal – crazy as that sounds.

I calmed down enough to fall asleep at a reasonable enough time (I'm telling you, that first week was miserable. Never had bags under my eyes like that before...), but now that I had internalized the signs to look out for, I would wake up every time.

And I didn't tell anyone – at first out of confusion and doubt, then out of fear... and finally, out of habit.

//////\\\\\\

And then came the night that changed
everything
.

Another night, another faint sound of the door creaking. I woke up, cracked open an eye-lid.

Just Jonathan again. He'll stand there, like an idiot, for whatever dumb reason he's doing this – then go back outside. Whatever...

I started to drift back to sleep.

Then I heard the floorboards creak as he made his way toward me.

Sleep immediately vanished, and I was filled with the same confusion and panic as the first time. What the hell was he doing? Was he going to rape me? Was he going to kill me?

I struggled to keep my trembling from being too obvious. I was sure that if he noticed I was awake, whatever was going to happen would go even worse.

But all he ended up doing was sitting down by my bedside, and eventually, laying his head against my mattress.

My heart was going at a hundred miles an hour, until I was sure he must be able to hear it, and a cold sweat started all over my body.

I waited for what was to come next, not daring to breathe.

But... nothing came next.

There were no sounds, no sudden movements. Just his light breathing, and the blood pounding through my ears.

After several minutes, I craned my neck forward an inch, to sneak a look down at him.

He was curled up against the bedframe – both hands clutching at the mattress, tree-trunk legs crossed under him. His eyes were screwed shut. His shoulders were trembling.

I don't know why I did it. I hadn't yet figured out what it was that made him come into my room like this or anything – not at this point.

It was just some instinct deep within me that moved my hand forward, without stopping for a second to tell me why.

Before I realized it had happened, I had moved my hand over and placed it softly on his head.

He jumped up as if I'd just shot 1000 volts through him, and his eyes were immediately clouded over with an animal kind of fear.

He shot up to his feet, and turned to flee.

But whatever intuition had taken a hold of me before hadn't let go of me yet.

“Wait.”

I reached out again, and grabbed his trailing arm, at the wrist. He was so much bigger than me, and so very much stronger – there was no way I should have been able to stop him. But somehow, I did. Something prevented him from being able to shake free of my pathetically weak grip.

“You don't have to go.”

He turned around slowly to look back at me. His mouth was tightened into a line which gave nothing away, but something in the lines around his eyes gave the impression of a wounded beast.

“Jonathan... it's alright... it's alright... calm down.”

I surprised myself again when I felt myself pulling him back down to sit beside me.

He looked like he still wanted to bolt, so I started stroking his back in slow circles.

“Sssshh... ssssshh... it's fine, Jonathan... it's fine.”

It was only at this point that my conscious mind started to catch up to the woman's intuition that had been at the steering wheel these last few seconds.

In fairness to me, it was kind of difficult to break past the 2 years of history between us. Not since the first night I met him had he shown any sort of weakness. So it took me a long time to realize that that was exactly what he was showing now. I still hadn't worked out what was at the root of it, but it had finally become clear to me that it was there.

I shifted over in bed, away from the edge, and sidled up against the wall, patting the empty space I left behind me.

“Come on. Lay down. You can't just stay sitting there.”

He tried to do just that, sitting there quite frozen, until I pulled him down beside me. He lay on top of the blankets, motionless, with his hands at his sides. His feet stuck out at the other end of my bed.

We lay there for several minutes – I'm not sure how many.

I had assumed he had some problem he wanted to talk about, so was waiting for him to say it.

After a while, he seemed no closer to opening up about it... but goosebumps did start creeping up his arms.

I sighed audibly.

“Jonathan, something is obviously wrong, but if you don't tell me what it is, I won't be able to... Jeez, at least get under the covers! You're freezing!”

I had to push him over a bit to pull the blankets from under him. But even when I got them loose, he was lying so far on the other side of the bed – halfway falling off, by the looks of it – that I wouldn't be able to cover him with them.

So I reached out and pulled him towards the center of the bed, and closer to me.

He didn't resist. He didn't even make a sound. It was the silent terror in his eyes that tipped me off.

I wrapped my arms around his head, and pulled him downwards, nestling him between my breasts and my chin. I stroked his hair with one hand, and pulled the covers around him with the other.

“There, there, there. Is that what you wanted, Jonathan?”

He whimpered slightly, and curled himself around me. I held him tightly, until his breathing steadied, and he stopped shivering for a moment.

“Jan...”, he finally whispered.

That surprised me. He had never called me that before. In truth, he had never called me much of anything. If he had, it had always been my full name, “Janice”. But mostly, it had just been “hey, you”.