Two Loves for Alex (22 page)

He sat for several minutes pondering what to do. The sound of an engine behind him made him look in his rearview mirror. It was Alex. She pulled up behind his car and turned off her engine.

He jumped from the car and headed toward her. She didn’t get out of her car as he approached. He bent down to look in her window. Her face was hidden against the steering wheel, her arms covering her head.

Alarmed, Liam pulled open the door. Alex’s shoulders were shaking and he could hear her muffled sobs. “Alex, what’s the matter? Alex?” His heart was pounding with fear. Had she been in a wreck? Was she running from something? Had someone hurt her?

Finally she looked up at him, her face red and streaked with tears. “Liam?” She squinted at him as if she weren’t sure who she was seeing. “What—what are you doing here? Is Daniel with you?”

“No, I came alone. I had to come, Alex. Daniel…
we
missed you. But what’s going on? Why are you crying? Are you hurt?”

He reached for her and she tumbled into his arms, wrapping them tight around his neck. She was still crying. He held her, frightened and sure something was terribly wrong. “Baby,” he crooned. “Shh, it’s okay. You’re safe now. Tell me what happened. Please. Tell me what happened to make you cry.”

Alex let go and stepped back, wiping her tearstained face with the back of her hand. The shirt was only partially buttoned and though it came to her knees, he saw she was naked beneath it. Anger seeped into his veins, for the moment obscuring his fear. If someone had hurt her he would kill him. He would fucking kill him.

Alex followed his eyes and looked down, clutching the large shirt around herself. “Come inside.” She had stopped sobbing but was still sniffling. “I don’t want anyone to see me like this.”

He followed her up the stairs to her apartment, the whole of which would have fit in their living room. The room was warm, the air close as if no one had been in it for a while. He wanted to ask a thousand questions, to
demand
the answers but he knew he had no right. He’d come uninvited and unannounced. At least she appeared basically unharmed.

She waved toward the sofa and he sat upon it, moving a pile of laundry to make room. Alex looked embarrassed. “Sorry about the mess. I wasn’t expecting company.” She peered at him again, tilting her head as if to question his very existence. “I still can’t believe you’re really here. And Daniel’s okay?”

“Daniel’s fine. But obviously you’re not. You come driving up in a man’s shirt with nothing underneath and break down sobbing. What happened to you, sweetheart? Please tell me.”

“Anthony,” Alex said, as if saying this one name explained it all.

“What?” Liam was confused.

“Anthony Campos.” She winced as she said his name and suddenly Liam understood. She’d somehow become entangled with that sadist. Fear for her sake and rage for his own mixed in a smashing tumult of feelings.

Oh Jesus. Oh no. No.

Liam jumped up from the couch and pulled Alex to him. Anger surged through him. “That bastard. What did he do to you? I’ll kill him. I swear to god I’ll kill him.” He swept Alex into his arms and carried her to the sofa, sitting with her in his lap.

She hugged him, pressing her wet face against his chest and bringing her hands up around his neck. He could feel her heart hammering against his like a caged bird. She had begun to cry again. Damn it, he needed to calm down—he was making whatever had happened worse.

As gently as he could Liam urged, “Tell me what happened. Are you hurt? Do we need to go to the hospital?” He wouldn’t put anything past that creep.

Alex sniffled and let go her stranglehold around his neck. She pushed her hair from her face and even managed a wan smile, which warmed Liam’s heart. “No. No, I’m okay. I’m—I’m so embarrassed. I mean, I’m incredibly glad to see you. You have no idea. But not like this. I didn’t want you to see me like this. I don’t want anyone to see me like this.”

She began to cry again though it was softer, more of a release. He held her and stroked her head, trying to keep the red rage churning in his gut at bay. He needed to hear the whole story. He needed to know what was going on.

When she’d quieted again, he reached for the box of tissues on the cluttered coffee table and grabbed a tissue, which he handed to her. Alex wiped her eyes and blew her nose. She offered Liam another ghost of a smile.

He let her slide off his lap. “Tell me,” he said quietly.

“I’m
such
an idiot. I can’t believe I did what I did. He was so handsome and he said such sexy things to me. He promised things. I was lonely. I missed you guys. Oh—” Her voice cracked.

“Hey,” Liam interjected, not wanting her to cry again. “It’s okay. Nobody’s judging you. I take it from what you’re saying you went to see him? And things didn’t turn out quite how you hoped?”

“That’s the understatement of the fucking year,” Alex retorted. Liam felt the tight ball of anguish that had been building in his gut ease. There was the fiery spirit he remembered. He grinned and stroked her bare thigh.

“Tell me,” he urged again. “Tell me everything.”

She began to relate her story, haltingly at first and then speaking faster and faster, as if by getting out the words she could distance herself from the whole sordid affair. Liam listened, biting his tongue to keep from admonishing her for being so stupid. When she finally got to the part about grabbing her purse and running out of the house, he realized he was clenching his fists so hard his fingernails were digging painfully into his palms.

Alex’s cell phone rang from inside her purse. Alex retrieved it and her face went pale. “It’s him,” she whispered, holding out the phone with a trembling hand.

“Answer it,” Liam said. “And press speakerphone. We’ll see what he has to say for himself, the prick.”

Alex obeyed. “Hello?”

“Slave,” the pompous man intoned. “You left my house without permission. You are not worthy of my attentions.”

The color rose in Alex’s cheeks. “Fuck you, Campos,” she snarled, though her hand was still shaking.

“How
dare
you, you worthless whore! You will have to be severely punished for this. You will return at once, do you understand me? And when you come back begging to submit to me, I will chain you in the attic for a month to teach you who is in control.”

Nearly sick with rage, Liam grabbed the phone from Alex. “Now you listen and listen good, you son of a bitch. You ever call Alex again or come anywhere near her and you’ll find a restraining order slapped on you so fast it’ll make your head spin.”

Liam clicked the phone shut. His heart was beating too fast and Alex was staring at him with a stunned expression. “I’m sorry,” he began. “I lost my temper. I—”

“No, don’t apologize. I bet the asshole didn’t know what hit him.” Alex began to laugh, a deep-throated chuckle. The laugh began to rise up the scale, edging toward hysteria and Liam saw she was shaking.

He pulled her into his arms and held her close. “Shh, it’s okay, baby. It’s okay. You’re safe now.” He rocked her gently, holding her until the hysterical laughter and her trembling subsided. When he let her go, there were tears on her cheeks but she was smiling.

“Thanks for defending me. I know I was a real horse’s ass to go there and not even tell anyone where I was.”

Liam held up a hand. “Hey. It’s over. He’s a very good-looking guy and you probably aren’t the first woman to succumb to his lies and false promises. D/s is a very powerful thing. Don’t beat yourself up over this. He was in the wrong, not you. I’m just so glad you’re safe and got yourself out of there.” He stroked her cheek, his gut tearing at the thought of what the bastard had put her through. “I wasn’t just offering an idle threat. We really can file charges against him.”

“No,” Alex was vehement. “Please. I don’t want this going through courts. I want to put it behind me.”

“Whatever you decide, Alex, Daniel and I will stand behind you one hundred percent. Just know we’re here for you.”

Alex flashed a real smile at him then, full of pure sunshine. Liam knew at that moment she was going to be fine. Relieved, he suggested, “Why don’t you get dressed? I could go out and get you some breakfast—”

“No, don’t leave. I don’t want to be alone. Not yet.”

“Okay. I’ll wait while you shower.”

“Thank you for being here, Liam. You’re a real friend.”

I’m more than that
, he started to say, but she rushed on. “I desperately need to shower.” She wrinkled her nose with obvious distaste and Liam felt the anger rising again at the thought of what she was washing off.

While Alex was showering, Liam pondered whether he should call Daniel and let him know what was going on. He decided to wait a while and see how things shook out. If he had his way, Alex could tell him in person.

~*~

Alex showered quickly, half afraid if she didn’t hurry Liam would be gone when she came out. But she had to shower. She had to wash any traces of Anthony from her body. She shuddered, recalling his long penis thrusting in and out of her mouth and later ejaculating on her face and breasts while she was lay naked and chained at the foot of his bed.

The burning anger she felt was better than the helpless terror she’d endured while in his clutches. She’d been in awe of Liam when he grabbed the phone and told the guy where to go. The steel in his voice left no mistake he meant what he said. It felt good to have Liam Rutherford in her corner, even if all they could ever be was friends.

In her search for love she’d nearly risked her life. She’d been a total idiot to get herself involved with a man she barely knew, a man who might have kept her enslaved for who knew how long if she hadn’t managed to get the hell out of there.

One thing she knew for sure. She would never ever allow herself to be placed in such a vulnerable position again. She’d learned her lesson. Oh boy, had she.

Feeling better from the shower and her new sense of resolve, Alex pulled on a sundress and hurried out to make sure Liam hadn’t been a figment of her imagination.

He was still there, standing by her bookshelf with a book in his hand. He held it out. “
Heart Thief
by A. H. Stewart. Very impressive.”

Alex grinned despite herself. “You knew I was an author.”

“Yes but it’s one thing to know, quite another to hold the book in your hands. I was leafing through it. It looks very good. I’ll have to read it.”

The idea of Liam reading her romance novel made Alex laugh. Daniel, maybe. But Liam? No way. His idea of light reading was a history of the Roman Empire. “I’m having a really hard time imagining you reading this.”
Or my latest manuscript, in which you are prominently featured with only the names changed to protect the guilty.

Liam flipped the book open and began to read aloud. “When he pulled down her panties, her legs seemed to fall open of their own accord. His tongue was hot and silky against her and she sighed, forgetting all pretense of resistance.”

Embarrassed, Alex tried to grab the book from his hand. Liam laughed and held it behind his back, his voice teasing. “This is good stuff. Maybe we’ll have you read it aloud to us one night after dinner.” Alex’s heart caught at the implication they had a future left to share but she said nothing.

They left the apartment in search of food. Once they were settled in a booth at Leo’s Diner, coffee in front of them and breakfast for Alex ordered, she dared, “Why now, Liam? What made you drive all the way here?”
Why you and not Daniel?

“We want you to come home.”

Whoa.

“I’m sorry. What?” She couldn’t have heard him right. They were better off without her. They didn’t need some third wheel screwing up their lives.

“We miss you. Having you take off like that was really hard on Daniel—”

“On Daniel,” she couldn’t help but interject, aware of the bitterness in her tone but unable to control it. That’s right, she recalled. Liam was the one she’d heard say she should leave.

“On me too, Alex.” Liam’s voice was sincere. She looked up at him. He was gazing at her with those dark soft eyes, so different from Anthony’s fiery penetrating stare. She shook her head, shaking the other man’s image from her mind.

“I’m not going to lie to you and say there were no issues. You know there were because you were right in the middle of them. One thing I’ve learned through painful trial and error is if you don’t communicate, if you can’t share from the heart about what’s going on inside your head, your relationship is not going to move forward. If it gets bad enough the whole thing just crumbles and half the time people don’t even know why. It just wasn’t meant to be, they might say and then they go on to make the same mistakes in the next relationship and wonder why they can never connect.”

The waitress arrived and set a platter of pancakes with fresh sliced bananas and blueberries in front of Alex. She poured syrup until the cakes were soaked with it and grabbed her fork, her mouth watering. Liam laughed. “I’m glad to see your appetite is intact, at any rate.”

Alex looked at him and laughed too. “I’m starving. You want some? There’s enough here for both of us plus that family over there.”

“No, no. You eat, I’ll talk. I haven’t done enough talking. That’s part of the problem. Maybe if I’d been a better Dom you wouldn’t have felt compelled to run away.

“We excluded you from too much. We expected you to submit to us, to give us your obedience and your service but we didn’t take into account what was going on in your head. What it must have felt like to be sent to your room at night after we were done with you.”

Alex’s eyes filled with tears but she kept her head down, focusing on her pancakes. She was done with crying.

“It’s all well and good for us to say up front we don’t want another partner but just a submissive sex slave for Daniel to play with. That sounds fine on paper, I suppose, but real life can’t be compartmentalized. You can’t neatly stash your feelings away but we acted like you could.

“In some ways I think it was to keep us safe more than you. By telling you up front this wasn’t and wouldn’t be about love, we were giving each other permission to add someone to the relationship without making the commitment such an addition would or should have entailed.”