Billionaire Romance: Flame (5 page)

              “Yes it is.”  John chuckled.  He didn’t share the fact that he owned the land around this area and was worth well over $3 million dollars.  This wasn’t something he shared with people he didn’t know.

              “It’s so big.”  She stared in disbelief.

              “Come on.”  He said leading her into the house.  “I have some leftovers from last night, hope that’s okay.  I’ll just heat it up.”  John said as they walked into a kitchen. 

She stared it was decked out with the latest equipment.  “Are you a cook or something?”  She asked seeing the setup that looked professional.

              “No I just enjoy cooking.”  He admitted.

She sat down at the table and watched him move about the kitchen.  He was nice to watch, she thought about his naked body again, it had been quite toned.  She smiled as she watched him work.

              “Here you are.”  He brought a plate full of food for them both.  “This is some lasagna from last night, hope you like it.”

              “Thank you.”  She said and dug in, the food was delicious.  She was ravenous and soon had her plate cleaned.

              “Do you want more?”  He asked her.

              “Please, it was great!”

He went and got another helping of the lasagna.  She polished it off almost as quickly, he was shocked she had ate so much.  The way she ate, he had to wonder if food was something the person who beat her kept from her.

              “I need to check you out to see if anything else is wrong.”  He said after she was done eating.

              “Okay.”  She said, wondering how if he was going to do that.  After all he had already seen her naked, wouldn’t he have noticed at that point?

              “First though, let me tell you something so you don’t get all freaked out.”  John started.

              “Freaked out, about what?”  She got instantly nervous.

He watched as her tension shot up through the roof instantly.

              “Well way to go slick.”  Clyde chided him.

              “Clyde I don’t need you to say anything right now.”  John said aloud.

She looked at him, wondering if she should have come with him, was she really safe?  She was tempted to get up and run out, but where would she go?

              “Sit.”  He ordered.  She quickly felt as if she was glued to the chair, no matter how much she tried to move, she couldn’t get up.  “Just relax please.”  He pleaded.

Finally, she realized there was no way up.  So she stopped, and looked at him.  It was a look that about made him cry, which he didn’t do easily.  The look in her eyes was one of “please don’t hurt me”, something he would never do.

              “I’m not going to hurt you.  I just need you to listen, please.”  John said softly.  “I’m a wizard.  Have you ever heard of a wizard?”  He asked.

She nodded her head yes.  Though she had never known one, she had heard things about wizards in the past.

              “What have you heard?” 

              “That they could do magic.  They could control anything they wanted, and most of the time they were cruel and mean.”  She replied.

John chuckled.  “Do you believe that Clyde?”  John laughed loudly.  “We aren’t all cruel and mean, though there are some that can be that way, yes.”  He said after he had finished laughing.

              “Who’s Clyde?”  She asked again.

              “Well I might as well tell you about him.  He’s my spirit guide.  Like my conscience, or so he claims.  Not all wizards find their spirit guides that is when they are normally cruel and mean.  They have nothing to stop them from taking everything they desire.  Clyde usually keeps me in line, or at least tries.”  John admitted, as a vision of making love to the girl appeared in his mind. Clyde had tried to stop him, but John had went with his body on that one.  He was quite happy about it too, and wouldn’t mind undressing her again, soon.

              “Oh.”  She replied.

              “I can explain a bit more about Clyde later.  But for now I want to really study your body, make sure that whoever left you in the woods didn’t do more to you.  Is that okay?”

              “Will it hurt?”  She asked.

              “Not at all.  It may feel a bit warm, but it will not hurt.”  He stated.

              “Okay, what do I have to do?”

              “Just relax.”  He said.

She shook her head.  John looked at her intensely and asked Clyde if he could also look into her body with him.  That way there were two of them who were double checking everything.  He placed his fingers on her temples and held them there.  He tried to access her memories, it was a mess in her mind, all jumbled and broken up.

              “Clyde, help.”  John said.  Clyde did his best to straighten up the thoughts and place them in the right order.

John watched in her mind as the past came into clear view.  There was the girl, she was backing into the corner.  Her attacker was a male, about 30 years old, balding, not at all attractive.  He pushed further so he could be there while the past happened.

              “Why do you do this to me?”  He yelled. 

              “I didn’t do anything Joe.”  She cowered in the corner.

              “Oh come now Janice.  You made me look bad in front of everyone tonight.  You and that story about whatever the hell it was.  They were all laughing at me.”  He slapped her hard across the face.  “This is your fault.  If you would just keep in line I would never had to hit you.”  He slapped her again.  John could hear the crunching of her nose as it broke.

              “Please don’t, you broke my nose.”  She cried out.

              “Fuck you Janice.  From now on you better behave.  I’m telling you, one more mess up and I’m done with you.  They’ll never find your body.”  He screamed at her and hit her again.

              “Please Howard, stop.”  She screamed.

              “Stop screaming.”  He yelled, and wrapped his hands around her neck.  He squeezed and John could feel her body cry out in pain and fear.  She was losing consciousness. 

John let go of her temples.  He knew what had happened.  This Howard thought he had killed her, and had dumped her in the woods.  Thankfully, Janice hadn’t woken up until after he was gone, or she might really be dead. 

              “What did you see?”  She asked him.

              “Your name is Janice.  Do you remember a man named Howard?”  John asked.

She broke down as the memories came flooding back into her mind.  John grabbed her again, holding her tightly, letting her body melt against his.  “You’ll be okay.”  He said as he patted her head.

After she had finished crying, she looked up at him.  “You won’t take me back to him will you?  He’ll kill me.”

              “Why would I do that?  Not I just want to know who he is, he needs to be dealt with.”  John answered.

              “He’s a monster.  I met him 6 years ago, I was young and he was charming.  I thought that he loved me.  He said he loved me.  But do you hit someone you love?”  Janice started.

John wrapped her up closer to him, giving her the comfort she needed to tell him the story.  “No you don’t.”  He answered.

              “It was okay at first.  He didn’t hit me right away.  Maybe after about six months it happened the first time though.  It wasn’t something I was expecting.  He had a friend over, we were all talking.  I was being a good host, listening to him.  You know acting like I was interested, nothing more.  Howard pulled me upstairs.  His friend was still sitting there, he grabbed me and yanked me up the stairs.  He was rich, it was his mansion.  The stairs there were so many of them, he dragged me up them.  I didn’t know why, I had no idea what I had done wrong.”  She stopped, her body was shaking hard.

              “It’s okay, I’m here.”  John said stroking her hair.

              “We got upstairs to the bedroom.  He hit me that first time, broke my nose, the first of many times.  He yelled at me, asked me why I was flirting with his friend.  Asked me wasn’t he good enough?  Did I want to leave him?  He had given me everything.  He told me that his friend would never give me everything he had, and hit me again.  I was bleeding all over the place.  He yelled at me for making a mess.  Told me to get up and clean it up.  That if there was any blood on his sheets I would pay for it.”  She sobbed.  “I couldn’t clean it all up, I had to make my nose stop bleeding.  He did make me pay for it later.  He went back down to his friend, spent hours down there.  When he came back up he was drunk and even meaner.” 

She stopped for a minute, steeling herself to tell more of the story.  “He raped me that night and hit me more.  I thought for sure he was going to kill me that time.  I hurt all over.  My ribs were bruised, maybe even broken.  It hurt to breath and my ass hurt from him raping me too.  He was rough.  He told me the whole time that this was all my fault.  I shouldn’t have been flirting with his friend.”

Janice looked around at John, tears were streaming down her eyes.  He kissed her forehead, trying to make her feel safe.

              “I don’t know why I put up with it for so long.  Hell I wouldn’t have left him this time either.  He was the one who dumped me.  He got rid of me.  Why did I put up with it for all that time?  I don’t know, really.  I guess I always felt like he saved me the first time we met, and I should appreciate everything he did.  I thought I really had caused him to hurt me all those times.  It was my fault, there was something wrong with me.  Maybe there really is, I don’t know.”  She looked at John again.  He saw the overwhelming sadness in them.

John wanted to hold her and make the pain go away.  He wanted to keep her safe and allow her to see what a real life was like.  How a real man treated a woman.  Not that thing who was her ex-boyfriend.  Howard, he would pay if John had anything to do with it.

              “He never really was nice to me after that first time he hit me.  The beatings came on a regular basis.  You know what’s sad?”  She looked at him, not really expecting an answer.  “It was sad because if a day went by without him hitting me I thought something was wrong.  That I had been bad.  Does that make sense?  Life without being hit just didn’t seem normal.  Not that I would go out of my way on those days to ask him to hit me, no.  I would enjoy them, but in my mind I would wonder why.  I felt like he hadn’t paid me the normal attention that he did, a beating.  It is really sick when you think of it that way.  But that was my life.”  Janice cried.

              “How old are you Janice?”  John asked.

              “I’m 24.”  She replied.

              “You were with him since you were 17?” 

              “My parents sold me to him when I turned 17.  I was close enough to legal, and they wanted their drugs.  He was their drug dealer, and he had always commented on how pretty he thought I was.  At that time I had enjoyed the attention.  My parents had never paid any attention to me.  They were always high, or looking for ways to get money to get high.”  She laughed a dry sound came from her throat.

John didn’t know what to say.  She had been through so much.  First parents who chose drugs over their daughter, then that asshole Howard.  This poor girl, his heart ached for her.

              “No, don’t.”  Clyde warned.

John didn’t pay attention to him.  “You should stay with me.”  He said.

              “How do you know she’s not using drugs too?  It makes sense he’s a drug dealer, her parents did them, why not her?  You shouldn’t keep her here, all your stuff will be stolen.”  Clyde stated.

              “Let me ask you have you ever used drugs?”  John asked Janice.  He watched her reply, trying to see if she was lying.

              “No, honestly I tried to take them.  I wanted to, that way I could forget the world I was living in.  But Howard hid them from me, and the one time I had found them, he beat me so bad I couldn’t move for days.  He said that the drugs were for his profit, not for me to stick in my arms or up my nose.  He wouldn’t have a druggie around him.  Funny isn’t it.”  Janice said.

              “I don’t believe her.”  Clyde said.

              “I do.  You want me to ask her again so you can really listen?”  John offered to Clyde.

              “What?”  Janice asked.

              “Clyde.  He doesn’t believe you.  He thinks you use drugs.”  John stated.

              “Well I can’t hear or see Clyde, but I can tell him he’s wrong.  I never did use them.  Like I said, I tried to get my hands on them that one time, and paid for it.  If he doesn’t believe me take a blood sample, a hair sample.  Anything.”  Janice said.

              “Do it.”  Clyde shouted in John’s head.  “Do the hair sample, it will let you know for sure.”

              “Clyde really?  I don’t think that’s needed.”  John stood his ground.

              “Well if you wake up one day and she’s gone and you’ve been robbed don’t worry I’ll let you know I was right.”  Clyde stated.

              “I have no doubt.”  John agreed.

John turned his attention back to Janice.  “Do you know Howard’s last name?”