Brand Me (Imagine Ink Book 2) (18 page)

“The girl from the clinic? She’s the one?” The look on John’s face worried him and he wondered why, but he didn’t have to wonder for long. John was a straight shooter and he didn’t sugar coat things.

“You have to file a report. Then, when it lands on the DA’s desk, we’ll wait and see if they file charges. It won’t be easy, especially on you. And there is a good chance it won’t go any further with the DA, but my sister runs an advocacy group for male victims of sexual assault, and files civil suits when the state declines to prosecute. She feels male victims are a misunderstood and poorly represented group, and so do I. Stacy fights tooth and nail to get men the same justice as women when it comes to sexual assault.”

Michael looked at John as if he had two heads.
God, I wish I’d told him sooner. I had no idea I could receive the validation that John is offering me now.
“I can’t tell you what it means to have your understanding. I, I…don’t know what to say. How in the Hell did you get so wise about such a horrible subject?”

Michael wished he could take the question back when a haunted, faraway look settled on John’s face, but he seemed to be able to give it it’s due, then move on.
I can’t wait until a time in my life when I can do that.

“Well, aside from my younger sister Stacy, we also had a younger brother, Troy. He was a happy go lucky kid, well, no so much a kid as a teen, but still. He was outgoing, funny, and athletic. Heavily scouted by college coaches by his junior year. A running back like our small town had never seen. He was popular, and smart, boy, was he smart. Most jock types barely get by, but not Troy. If he didn’t go to a big university on a football scholarship, he was damn sure going Ivy League on an academic one. He was the best of us.”

Michael had known John for years, and had heard him mention Stacy in passing, but never Troy.

“Well, Stacy had just finished her last year in law school and moved back home to help me with Troy until he graduated and she took the bar. Six months, that all it would be, but six months changed everything. With our parents gone, we’d raised Troy since middle school. We noticed the changes in him his last semester of high school. We couldn’t get him to talk and we thought it was just teenage angst you know? We weren’t experienced with raising kids.”

Tears were already threatening to make a run down Michael’s cheek. He had a sneaking suspicion he knew where this was going. As bad as he felt for John, Troy, and Stacy, he waited with bated breath thinking there might be a kinship there, a comfort in knowing he wasn’t alone, even though he didn’t wish this on anyone.

“Anyway, his wisdom teeth got impacted and he had to have surgery. On the way home, under the influence of the drugs, he broke down and told us everything. A girl he was kind of dating raped him. It was heart wrenching to hear him describe the helplessness he felt to defend himself even though he was strong enough to. The worst part was him thinking he somehow wanted it because his body reacted normally. He fell into a deep depression after we made him come forward. The cops laughed at him, and then, she filed counter charges, saying he raped her instead and she had been too afraid to come forward at first.”

Wow, Michael could relate to that.

“Her lawyer was slick and made Troy say all the wrong things on the stand and he was convicted of rape instead of her. While we were working on appeals, he died in prison. But not before he was raped by our justice system. It was finally too much for him, and he took the only way out he could. Stacy vowed that day she would advocate for people like him—men who are victimized by women and then by our society if they tell anyone and once again by our system if they seek justice.”

Michael couldn’t be more stunned if he’d been tasered. People may not believe in some sort of higher power, but how else could it be explained that John was in his life and the person he chose to tell?

“So, I know Michael. I have some idea of what you’re going through and I will not let you blame yourself. And Stacy, well, if justice is to be had, she can do it. It’s going to get better, that I can promise. If you surround yourself by the right people, it will get better.”

The floodgates on Michael’s mouth flew open and he told John everything, including what went down with Tonya, and being impotent until he saw Tori.

“It sounds like Tori may be who you need by your side to see you through this. Does she know you love her, Hell, do you know?”

Michael opened his mouth to respond, but John cut him off. He started the Bobcat and they resumed their trip. “You don’t have to answer that, I can see the truth of it. You need to call that Dr. Beckett she told you about, you need to file that report, and we need to see if we can’t get this woman in jail before we focus on love. Besides, if we can get her charged, it will go better for you if there’s a custody hearing?”

“Better for me if…? What the Hell are you talking about?”

“I’m not going to bullshit you, I was sitting there when she checked out. She got a prescription for prenatal vitamins and an appointment with an OB for next month. I’m sorry man. I wish you didn’t have to deal with that possibility on top of everything else, but there it is. I can’t say if it’s yours or not, Hell, that may have been why she got aggressive, to foist it off on you. But for the sake of no surprises, you have to accept that it’s a possibility that she could be pregnant with your child.”

H
aving spent so
much time alone today, Tori was going stir crazy. She decided a run was in order. There was still a lot of snow on the ground, but the ice layer had finally melted off, so nothing she couldn’t handle.
Tough Mudder’s arctic enema makes this look like a beach party
. Donning sweats and a hoodie, she took off for a steady, but slow pace around the lake, and lapped it twice. By the time she returned, Michael still hadn’t made it back. She grabbed her bath bag and headed toward the promise of a steaming spa tub.

Waiting for possible news from home was killing her. Michael took her cell into town. If he got a signal, he would download her messages and texts. Dreaming of what possibilities awaited her when he returned, she bathed and went back to their cabin.

She wanted to make it pleasant for Michael to return, give him a sense of belonging for lack of a better description, so she rummaged through the new supplies John brought.

If she were honest with herself, she wanted him to have a sense of homecoming without sex.
Home, coming home.
That’s something he referenced every time he entered her body. As much as that turned her on, she wanted him to embrace that sense outside of physical intimacy, show him he could have that, even without her, he just needed to be open to the possibility.

Once he accepted that, he would have a sense of freedom. He wouldn’t need to cling to her or anyone because there were no other possibilities or because he was comfortable. No, he’d seek out the person he
chose
to spend time with, and they would know he wanted to be with them because of want, not because he needed to for his sanity. Tori needed that, too—had to know she was a choice, a conscience choice, and that he wasn’t choosing her just because they shared a common enemy who caused them pain or because she was there when he found out his life was a lie. That sort of thing tended to bind a person to another if they were there or the first person to offer comfort when it all came crashing down.

After discovering everything she needed for a homemade red sauce and veggie spaghetti and…
oh, meatballs
…in the new supplies, she got to work crafting her specialty.

Making Michael a homemade meal felt organic. Everything was perfect. The sauce was simmering, the veggie spaghetti was ready to go in the boiling water when he arrived, and she even managed fresh rosemary garlic bread. Not homemade, a bread machine box, but still better than a frozen loaf.

She stoked the fire and stirred the sauce, and then she settled in to wait.

M
ichael couldn’t say
if it was having Tori waiting for him or just the weight that lifted after speaking with John, but he felt a wisp of contentment as he entered the cabin, which smelled delicious. It was like a normal family thing, coming home to Tori and…

“Is that a homemade red sauce?” Turning from her book at his voice, her face lit up and that was a gun blast to the chest. Breathing was damn near impossible as the full force of her smile tightened his heart in a vise.

Is she genuinely happy to see me
? It sure seemed that way.

“Yep, and I make a pretty mean one, too. The only reason I’m not three hundred pounds is I eat it with veggies instead of pasta.” Marking her page, she closed her book and gave him her undivided attention. “So, how’d it go at the doctor’s?”

And just like that, a handful of words robbed what little joy he had found. The conversation with Tonya, having Wendy’s hands on him again, and speaking all those truths all came back with a vengeance.

Will I ever be able to sustain happiness?
John assured him he would, but it would take time. Putting a lie on his face, he answered her question with false hope. “Good. Doc thinks a bit of scraping and physical therapy will restore full range of motion, but I will most likely have some diminished feeling in my palm. Which is fine, as long as I can feel the strings, it’s all good.”

Michael walked over to the pot to steal a taste, using it to cover up the devastation that would likely be readable in his eyes. “Oh, my God, Tori, this is amazing. Hands down, the best sauce I’ve ever had.” He was so lost in the bursting flavors he was experiencing, he missed her coming up behind him until she snatched the wooden spoon from his grasp. “Hey?”

“Hey, nothing, mister, you’ll wait until the veggie pasta is done. Shoo.” Michael found it adorable that she added some faux heat to her order, but he could tell his appreciation of her sauce bolstered her a bit and that did the same for him.

“Fine, Princess Bossy Pants, I’ll sit here like a king and watch you slave away to cook me a meal.” Plopping into the chair, he watched her narrow her eyes at him, which earned her a raised eyebrow. She responded by thrusting out her tongue like a three year old.
Is it weird that I find that sexy as Hell, too?

Michael rose from the chair and stalked her like a panther. As she stirred the sauce, he wrapped his arms around her and breathed in her essence combined with marinara. It was definitely a homey combination. “Don’t stick that thing out at me again unless you plan to use it.” The unrecognizable voice that escaped his mouth rocked him back on his heels. It was the voice of a happy man, a free man…a whole man.

“Oh, you. Go get cleaned up for dinner.” He fucking loved how she raised her cheek and pressed it into his kiss.

“Need some help? I know my way around a kitchen, well, the microwave area, anyway.” He said jokingly as he washed his hands.

“Sure, you can slice the fresh bread. It should be cool enough now.”

As he sliced, he enjoyed the companionable silence of the endearingly domestic scene he was participating in.

Tori dropped the spaghetti-thin vegetables into the boiling water and turned her attention to the counter, pouring a generous portion of olive oil onto a plate and liberally coating it in fresh cracked pepper.

Fascinated by her every movement, Michael wasn’t sure how he managed not to slice his other hand open. Tori carried the plate to the small dining table. After making a few more trips, she had it looking inviting. Michael added his bread to the display and returned for the salad she was tossing. Brushing her lips with his as he took the bowl from her hands, he made an observation.

“You should drain the veggie spaghetti before it gets soft.” The last word was said with as much innuendo as he could muster. By the spark that flared in her eyes before she could hide it, he hit his mark. Michael wanted her off-balance, needing this dinner to be a night to remember. He decided it would be as romantic as he could make it for her. Once she found out about Tonya, he might not have another chance to autograph his name on her heart.