Dances with Monsters(119)

"Well," she said, feeling embarrassed again. "I mean. It was okay. I haven't been with that many people so I guess my range of experience is limited. You're the first person to make me –" Her cheeks burned and she cleared her throat. "That is, I haven't been with anyone who –" She was getting flustered.

Heath laughed at her softly and tugged on her arm, pulling her against him. "Then I'm very glad I could be of service," he said into her ear, his lips brushing her jaw.

"Me, too," she murmured back, her eyes closing against the tingles erupting on her skin. "I'm glad you let me touch you finally."

"I didn't really have a choice," he replied, "if I wanted to keep my lip." He snuggled into her neck as his arms tightened around her. As she felt his breath warm her flesh, and a feeling of complete satisfaction settled over her like a warm blanket, she thought she was ready, more than ever, for everything Heath could bring her.





Chapter Twenty-Five


The week somehow managed to both breeze by and creep by at a painfully slow rate. Drew felt eager anticipation at the impending trip out of town to Buffalo and also a great deal of anxiety.

She found herself busy at the café, as Bunz had spent a few days at home with the flu, and in between stopping in to check on her best friend and bring her hot homemade vegetable stock and loaf after loaf of Italian bread, every moment of her spare time was devoted to her dance. Having perfected it to her own critical eye, she was now in rehearsal mode. She had always suffered from horrible stage fright, and she wanted to be able to execute the dance effortlessly, perfectly, in her sleep, so that muscle memory would take over once she was on stage and she could compartmentalize her stage fright.

Bunz was back at work on Thursday, the day before Drew was set to leave. As she went through the motions of the day, slightly less busy since she didn't have to put in extra-long hours to do the baking and run the front, she realized something.

She hadn't thought of the trial at all this week, and not much more in the previous weeks.

She wasn't sure what that meant—did she no longer care? Was she so afraid and anxious about it she blotted it from her mind?

All she knew was that she had the letter she'd received, the official subpoena, telling her to be at the New York City Criminal Court on Monday at nine o'clock in the morning.

Be there or be square.

That evening, though she knew she needed to be packing for the weekend, she lay on her back on her couch, Rocky curled above her on back edge of it, staring at the ceiling, and thought long and hard about the trial. She made herself think of what it would entail, envisioning herself sitting on the mahogany chair on the witness stand next to the judge as she told the jury exactly what Jackson James had done to her almost a year ago, in detail. And he would be sitting there across from her, with his horrible dark, almost demonic-looking eyes, remembering what he'd done as he listened to her, too. She wondered if it would affect him at all, then, with disgust, realized that if it did it would probably just turn him on.

His defense would cross-examine her, trying to poke holes in her story. Or maybe they'd realize there were no holes to be poked, and would insist that the man was out of his mind, hadn't known what he was doing.

He'd known.

He was out of his mind; of that, Drew was sure and wholeheartedly concurred. However, he had known exactly what he was doing when he'd spent almost half a day raping her, brutalizing her, beating her, making her beg for mercy and plead for her life, ripping into her soft flesh with his teeth and his hands and his weapons. A memory of the absolutely agonizing pain she'd felt, pain that she'd never before experienced and prayed to God that she would never experience again, washed over her and she could feel it like she could feel it back then, ripping over her skin, tearing down to her bones, making her wish she actually would die, just so it would stop and she would be free of his torture.

She forced herself to think of all these things, curious in a detached way about her physical and emotional reactions. It was like she was studying herself, and she thought long and hard about the way her stomach clenched up and a feeling of incredible dread washed over her. Her heart rate increased and she could feel it everywhere she had a pulse on her body. Her breathing increased and shook and involuntary tears stung her eyes as her entire body clenched up and shuddered.

She thought of her bottle of anxiety medication, on her kitchen counter, untouched since the day she'd stopped taking them, when Heath had first come over for dinner—the night he'd learned of her terrible secret. It seemed like so long ago. She wanted one. She wanted the whole bottle. Anything to make these feelings of sheer panic and anxiety go away and leave her. Anything to make her stop feeling like she was about to lose her life at every moment; that every stranger she looked at was plotting against her, making plans to rip her flesh apart and leave her for her family to find.