from Pain to Pleasure (Gainesville Book 1) (19 page)

Jeff sulked back to Danielle, who was still terrified. He grabbed her breast. “Guess you’re off the hook this time, but I’ll be back if Brian needs me to be back.” Then he was gone.

Danielle let out the sob she had held in and sank to the floor.

Alex jumped off the bed and ran to her. “It’s OK. We convinced him.” He pulled her into his arms.

“It’s not OK,” Danielle mumbled. “He’s still watching.”

She was sure he was somehow. Brian knew things that no one could have told him. Once he said he had seen Alex in her room. It didn’t make sense. It was as if he planted a camera in her room.

Logan peeked out and saw Jeff was gone. Then he looked at Marie, with a jealous scowl. “Why’d you get so into it?”

“Sorry.” Marie met his eyes. “I got carried away.” She kissed his lips, and then reached down and stroked his flaccid cock. “I’ll make it up to you.” She smirked just before she ducked under the covers.

With a soft moan, Logan lost his train of thought. Marie had taken him into her mouth. “Fuck,” he whispered.

Alex ignored the new round of sounds from across the room and lifted Danielle up. Then got her into bed and held her closely. “He’ll tell Brian I’m with Marie. It’s gonna be fine. Maybe he’ll back off for a while.”

“He never gives up.” She cried louder. “I’ll never be free.”

He closed his eyes. “Somehow I’ll make it happen. Please.”

“No, you can’t.” Danielle freaked out, terrified of Brian’s wrath. “You have to leave before Jeff comes back. Please, Alex. He’ll—He’ll…”

Alex held her tight. “I swear he won’t touch you again. I scared away almost everyone else. I’ll get to him, too.”

“You what?” Her eyes opened wide. She tried to push him away. “How could you do that? When Brian finds out, he’ll know. He’ll beat the hell out of me.”

After he had let out a long exhale, Alex closed his eyes. “He won’t find out. I didn’t do it all myself. I have connections around here. Why can’t you trust me?”

“Because every time I trust someone, I get hurt.” She turned away and cried into her pillow.

Alex hugged her and didn’t let go, no matter how much she protested. He knew she needed him and was just scared. When her sobs quieted down, he sighed in frustration. Marie’s bed squeaked. That didn’t help. He was angry with Brian, Jeff and her lack of trust. The one thing he knew would calm him was the one thing he couldn’t do—make love to her.

It was Halloween and Alex’s 21
st
birthday. For almost a month, Danielle had denied her feelings for him and pushed him away. She feared Brian would discover what they had done and retaliate against them both. Brian called often and asked her where she was and what her plans were. Then, while on video chat, he told her to move around the room. She knew it was to see if Alex was there. He was worse than ever. She worried he would have a breakdown or something.

That afternoon, she was in her room, alone, doing research for a term paper. Her laptop screen flickered. She groaned. It had gotten even slower than usual. Besides that, the camera turned on by itself. She was annoyed by it. Logan was a genius when it came to computers, so she closed the lid and brought it next door.

When he opened the door, she smiled. “I need help. Something’s wrong with this thing.”

“What’s it doing?” Logan opened the door wider.

Danielle handed him her laptop. “It’s slow, and the screen keeps jumping. I gotta get this paper done.”

Logan walked over to his desk and lay it down. “I’ll figure it out.”

Danielle looked around the room. She had hoped Alex was there. She missed him. Although it was her fault, they rarely saw each other. So many times, she wanted to give him what he wanted, but she just couldn’t. She did want to wish him a happy birthday at least. She lay on his bed and sniffed his pillow, and then smiled at his scent. It was something she missed.

“Alex is at practice,” Logan told her as he deleted the temporary files from her computer. “He’ll be back soon.” He couldn’t stand that they had broken up. Alex had told him they were going out, and then suddenly they weren’t. He was worried about him because he was lost without her and depression had set in.

Meanwhile, Alex walked off the football field. He was so distracted, he got knocked down five times. His shoulders and back were sore. He could deal with it because Dave was hosting a birthday party for him that night. He hoped Danielle would make an exception, finally, and show up.

He missed her badly. Only once in the past few weeks had he had her in his arms. That was because Brian called her while she was with Logan and Marie. Logan had texted him that Danielle needed him. For some reason, Brian was meaner than usual. She made him promise not to interfere, which wasn’t easy. He hated that she feared being with him because of that asshole.

Back in their room, Logan was unable to find an obvious problem. “This is gonna take a while.” He looked over at Danielle. Tears fell from her eyes, and she hugged Alex’s pillow. “Hey, you OK?”

She quickly wiped her tears away and got up. “I’m fine. I’ll be back. I have to pee.”

With a sniffle, she left the room without a glance back. The trip made her realize she had used the bathroom a lot more that week. Her nerves got the best of her. It was stressful to pretend her feelings for Alex were gone. Her heart ached every time he was near, but she couldn’t take the chance that Brian would go after him.

She hid that Diego had visited her that week. At first, she fought him and used every defensive move in her arsenal. When he whipped her with his belt, she froze, and he took advantage. He told her not to tell anyone what he had done, just before Marie walked in. She told Marie she was fine and suffered with the memories alone.

Jeff also came by, while she still reeled from Diego’s appearance. She scratched his face and fought him as hard as she could. He had left the room before he had done anything she would regret. Sebastian had disappeared, though. At least there were only two of them to worry about at that point.

“Hey, man,” Alex said as he walked into his room. “Is that Danielle’s?” He dropped his bag and looked over Logan’s shoulder.

Logan glanced back at him, “Yeah, but there’s something funny about it. Task Manager doesn’t add up, and it’s slow, like there’s malware on it, but my scans didn’t pick up anything.”

Alex saw something flash quickly on her screen. “What the fuck was that? Did you turn the camera on?”

“Uh, no.” Logan met Alex’s angry gaze. “There has to be a hidden program.” He took out a flash drive. “I got something that’ll find it.” He quickly installed it. “This thing will show me anything that’s running, hidden or not.”

Alex watched as colors flashed and numbers changed. Then Logan’s eyes lit up, and he searched through the files on the computer again. Logan typed quickly. Alex couldn’t follow what he did.

Suddenly, Logan quietly exclaimed, “That’s how he knows so much. Damn.”

“What’d you find?” Alex was annoyed he was kept out of the loop.

Logan disabled the webcam and the sound. “He’s been literally watching her. He installed a backdoor remote-access program to control the camera and the mic. And there’s a keylogger on here, too.”

“No wonder he seen me in her room. The fucking asshole.” Alex looked up at the ceiling and growled. “I thought she was exaggerating. He’s trying to control her life even from fucking Russia.”

Alex was more pissed off than he had been in years. He paced and tried to think of a way to cut Brian off or at least limit what he could see. He knew plenty about computer hardware, but not enough about software to do something that wasn’t drastic.

“Just uninstall them,” Alex suggested. “Then he can’t see shit.”

Logan frowned. “Then he’ll know we found it.”

“So what?” Alex couldn’t think straight. He wanted Brian out of Danielle’s life already.

With a loud exhale, Logan replied, “He’ll probably send someone after her again.”

Alex knew he was right. “True. Tell her it’s got a bad virus and have Dex install a counter-program or something.” Dex was a teacher’s assistant in the Computer Sciences department. If anyone could figure out a way, he could.

“Why don’t
you
tell her?” Logan felt bad that Alex’s birthday would suck because he couldn’t be with Danielle. “Maybe she’ll thank you.”

Alex sighed. “She might think I’m trying to get back with her.”

“You didn’t give up, did you?”

“No.” Alex exhaled loudly. “But if she keeps pushing me away, I’m gonna wind up fucking Sabrina. She’s been all over me lately, and I haven’t had any since Knoxville.” He covered his mouth when he realized Danielle had walked in. He hoped she didn’t hear what he said.

She heard him say Knoxville and assumed they talked about her. “Hi,” she managed, softly. She wanted to say more, but she shivered as she stood there and hugged her body.

“What’s wrong, beautiful?” He saw a funny look in her eyes, and she had goose bumps up and down her arms. He touched her hand. “You’re cold.” He quickly took off his football jacket and put it on her. “Are you sick?”

Danielle looked up at him as he smiled down at her. The ache in her chest grew. He obviously hurt badly. “I’m fine. Happy birthday, Alex,” she said.

“Thanks. You know, if you want to make it happier, you’d come to my party.” His eyebrows rose with hope. “It’s at Dave’s again. No one will let Brian’s cohorts in. I swear.”

She exhaled loudly and wished she didn’t have a reason to say no. “I have a paper to finish for this week. Tomorrow’s Monday.”

“Your computer’s got a virus,” Logan chimed in. “It’s gonna be a few days. You can stay in here and use my desktop.”

Danielle frowned. “It can wait. It’s not due until Thursday.”

Alex hugged her before she could refuse him. “So you’ll come with me, then. Please?” He looked deep into her eyes and saw how much she missed him. “Just as friends?”

“OK.”

She couldn’t say no when he looked at her like that. It was as if he gazed into her soul. She needed to be close to him, even if it was only for one night. Since the last night he slept in her bed, she had barely slept at all. She had felt out of sorts as well. All she needed was to be in his arms all night again.

Alex kissed the top of her head. Then he looked more closely. “You dye your hair?” He played with a few strands, surprised at the dark roots that showed.

“Oh God! I forgot to get it done.” Panic rose in her throat. “He’s gonna…”

Alex made her look at him. “He’s not gonna do anything.” He kissed her lips, softly. “You don’t have to dye your hair anymore.”

“I do, or he’ll punish me, Alex.” She tried to pull away from him. “How did it grow out so fast?”

Alex held her head to his chest. “Your hair’s a beautiful color. Let it grow out. Please.” He wanted the real her, not Brian’s version.

“I can’t. He’ll see it when we talk online.”

He thought quickly. “You can cover your hair with a scarf or a towel or even a hat. Tell him it’s wet or messy. If you want, I’ll get you a wig or something.” He smoothed her hair down. “Do you like dyeing it?”

“No.” Her opinion about it had never mattered.

He took a few deep breaths. It was just another way to control her. “Then it’s settled. No more blonde, OK?”

She looked up at him. “OK.” She let out a sigh of relief. It was yet another step in the right direction. She smiled. “Thanks.”

He squeezed her body. “We’re gonna have so much fun tonight.”

“I’m gonna go get ready.” She pulled away from Alex, afraid to get too close to him, emotionally. “What time should I be ready?”

Alex grinned. “About two hours.” He watched her walk out, and then he jumped up. “Yes!”

“How do you plan on keeping the Brian bunch away?”

“I got a plan. A better one than last time.”

* * *

Hours later, Danielle walked to Alex’s car with his school hoodie on. Marie was next to her. They had their heads down and quickly got into the backseat.

“Anyone see you?” Alex asked, nervously. He knew they were caught almost every other time.

Danielle lifted the hood a bit. “No.” Her hands shook. She was sure someone would find out she was with Alex. “How did you take care of it?” That’s what he had told her about Brian’s friends and brother; that he took care of it.

“A few guys owed me a favor, and they’re playing babysitter.” He had one friend outside each guy’s place. They all had instructions to stop them from leaving. Jeff lived in Orlando, so it was quite a drive, but Jorge owed Alex a lot of money. He cleared the debt with the task. “Gary’s at the front door again, so it’s all good, babe. I swear.”

Danielle nervously wrung her hands. Brian discovered what she was up to too many times. She wanted Alex’s birthday to be special, so she took the chance. She just hoped she didn’t pay in the end.

“Relax.” Marie put her hand over Danielle’s. “If Alex said it’s taken care of, then it is. He’s a very smart guy. Trust him.”

Alex started the car and looked over at Logan next to him. “Everything good with the laptop?”

“Well, not exactly.” Logan sighed. “Danielle, do you have a backup of your files?”

Danielle looked up. “Uh, not really. Is it that bad?”

“Yeah.” Logan glanced over at Alex. “The virus got into everything. The only way to get rid of it is to reload Windows.”

Alex gave him an angry look.

“Dex said he can’t,” Logan told him through gritted teeth. “It won’t work.”

Danielle was still nervous when they had arrived at the party. She kept the hoodie on. She strangely felt chilly. After she met a few people Alex knew, and she didn’t, Danielle clutched his arm. All she could think about was the last party at Dave’s place. She was scared Diego would find out again.

After Danielle had used the restroom for the second time that night, Alex pulled her to the kitchen. Several of his friends talked. He felt her fear, and it really upset him.
Why can’t she trust me?

“Hey, Alex!” Charlie shouted. “Happy birthday, dude!” He handed Alex a cup. “We got your favorite on tap!”

Alex smiled and took a long drink. “Thanks. This is so cool.” He couldn’t believe they had thrown him a party. As only a third-string player, he expected to be ignored. However, the team embraced him and encouraged him.