He touched my legs, and oh how I wanted him to take over and bring me to the bliss that I was searching for. I stopped and looked up at him. My legs moved from side to side, trying to calm down enough to wait.
The hunger in his eyes almost made me orgasm without even touching myself. His clothes were off, and I saw he was ready to do just that too, but he stayed on his knees in front of my legs.
He looked between my legs then up at me. He swallowed a few times then cleared his throat and was about to speak, but I gave in.
“Oh fuck it, Josh, I trust you.”
I leaned up, gripped him by the back of his neck and pulled him on top of me, kissing him with everything I had.
Chapter 14
Kenya
God my chest feels so heavy and tight…
My lungs are burning and I can’t… Oh God! I can’t breathe!
He’s here… He’s going to kill me! Oh God, please no!
No, I can’t let this happen. He will not get the better of me… Fight! I have to fight… I need to…
“Sweets…”
Now he’s calling me by Josh’s name… It’s a trick…It’s…
“Sweets, baby, wake up.”
My eyes shot open, and I looked down at a pair of eyes that looked so familiar to me. My chest heaved as I welcomed the feeling of air going through me. My head started to clear. The smell of Noah started to disseminate, and the scent of Josh started to overwhelm me. I blinked twice and looked in his loving eyes. His hands I found were on the sides of my face.
“There you are…”
“Wha–” I started, and looked down at my shaking hands and oh shit… “Josh, I’m soooo…”
I brought both of my hands to my mouth. I can’t believe what I just did. My stomach started to turn, and I jumped off him quick and ran to my bathroom. There was nothing in my stomach, so I dry heaved until I thought my eyes were going to explode from my face.
I splashed cold water on my face and stared at myself in the mirror.
This can’t be happening.
I looked behind me and found I wasn’t alone.
I can’t do this.
I shoved past a boxer clad Josh and went to my room. I grabbed his clothes and just as he walked into my room I threw his things to him.
“You need to leave.”
Josh frowned. “Why?”
“Huh? Why? Are you kidding me? Did you see what I just did to you? Weren’t you there?”
Josh dropped his things back on the floor and stalked toward me. “Yeah, I was there…”
“Yeah, so how could you question why you have to leave? Josh, I had my hand wrapped around your neck with a knife to your throat.”
“I remember that too,” he replied.
I ran my hands through my hair… “I could have killed you, Josh… I had a fucking knife at your throat, and you’re just standing there as if it’s no big deal… God, I’m so fucked up…”
I backed up from him until I ran into a wall and just let my head fall back a little. This is so fucked up…
“Is that what he used to do to you… sit on your chest with his hands around your neck… watching you?”
I nodded my head and replied softly, “Sometimes, I would wake with a bag over my head, and I would freak trying to rip the bag from my face. It was never tied tight, it was just over my face. It was just the idea and the feeling of it on me that I would scream and frantically figure out how to breathe.”
“Did he have a knife too?” he asked me.
I shook my head, swallowed and said softly, “No.” I slid down to the ground and buried my face on my bended legs. “Please go home, Josh, and don’t come back. I’m so messed up.”
I felt him sit in front of me, and he moved my legs down and around his waist. I looked at him through unshed tears. God, the emotions I saw in his eyes were too much to bear.
“Please,” I whispered.
“Baby, I’m not going anywhere.”
“I could’ve killed you.”
“That wasn’t going to happen.”
“How can you say that?”
“Trust me, baby, you wouldn’t have hurt me. I was more concerned about you.”
Josh put his hands on my face, but I tried to move them away… he won the battle though and moved closer to me.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because for one, I’m a very light sleeper. I’ve been watching you for a while, seeing you struggle with whatever you were dreaming about. I tried to wake you, but as I called you, you seemed to get more agitated. So I waited you out. Believe me, baby, I was in complete control. I saw you go behind your head, and I saw the knife way before you went on attack.”
“Oh God, Josh…”
“How many times did he choke you in your sleep? What made him do it, was he pissed at you, did you argue?”
I shook my head and closed my eyes. I couldn’t look at him. I felt so dirty and wrong and degraded.
“Baby…” He started, but I couldn’t stand hearing the pain in his voice.
“He got off on it…” I blurted as the tears fell from my eyes.
I tried to take deep breaths to calm my nerves. My ears were pounding from the increased blood flow that I couldn’t control. I needed to calm down or I would definitely have an anxiety attack.
Relax, Kenya.
I wiped my eyes and looked in his.
I needed to gain strength from somewhere, so looking at the strongest person I know I said, “I told you Noah and I dated for a while. Well, we dated for about six months. We were friends for a while. I couldn’t imagine at first getting involved with anyone after Wayne, but Noah was there, and I swear he just made it easy to like him. Everything happened so fast, you know… one minute I didn’t trust him then for some reason I didn’t trust anyone else but him.”
“We talked about anything and everything. He listened when I complained about my father. He listened and helped when I complained about my sisters. How they would purposefully make me look bad at work or at home. If my father praised me even a little bit, my sisters would find a way to pin my father against me. Noah was there for me. He took up for me when no one would.”
“So the moment when he asked me to be his girlfriend, I jumped at the chance. I thought he might be the one for me. God, we were so in sync with each other. This man knew me. He knew just how to make me feel better whenever I was down on myself. We were that in tune with each other. Everything went to shit one night when he took me to some event in Newark. He had a place there, so instead of taking the ride back home, I stayed in his spare bedroom. He promised I would be cool. He wouldn’t force himself on me and that I could trust him fully.”
“Yeah, so of course I believed him, and I trusted him. So I stayed in his spare bedroom, and I didn’t lock the door. I woke up suddenly with him on top of me, choking me with both his hands as he grinded on me. I was in shorts and a t–shirt, and all his clothes were still on. He was just grinding harder and faster as I laid under him gasping for air.”
I stopped talking a moment and swallowed. I rubbed my throat, remembering the feeling of his hands on me. Josh watched me closely, not really saying anything, just watching…
I said to him, “I passed out that night, and when I woke, I was in a different room chained to a bed. He kept me in this room for days. Every day I would ask him to let me go and every day he would say no. He would tell me how much no one wanted me but him. How he loved me and would take care of me. He would stay away from me though. He would leave food next to me but wouldn’t get close enough for me to touch him.”
“I stopped asking after I realized he wasn’t letting me go and I would just try and find a way to escape, but it was hopeless. I didn’t know where I was and I couldn’t get out of the chains he had me connected to. He did feed me and gave me water but I didn’t take either. I was afraid of him drugging me and I was determined to not fall asleep. I tried my best to stay awake for as long as I could, but the moment I closed my eyes, the moment when sleep took over, he pounced.” gasping
“So he would only do it when you went to sleep?” Josh finally asked.
I nodded. “I don’t know what that was about, but yeah. The moment my eyes closed, I would first feel the tightness of my throat then I would smell his cologne, hear his voice in my ear telling me sick and twisted things he promised to do to me. I would pass out from the lack of oxygen, then wake up to him staring at me with fear in his eyes. He had the audacity to be concerned about me, saying he just wanted to check on me and told me how it would get better. He wanted me to get used to the feeling of asphyxiation, and he promised I would enjoy it soon enough.”
“How long did he keep you there?”
I shrugged. “I think it was a few days. He would leave me alone in the daytime, or at least that’s what I assumed. I was in a room with no windows, so I couldn’t gauge. I just knew every time I closed my eyes I woke to him strangling me and getting off on it.”
“How did you get away?” he asked.
For the first time in a while, I smiled.
“From what Noah told me, my mother was asking for me. She said she hadn’t seen me or spoken to me in a few days. So he decided to take me to my house for a visit. He told me if I said anything to anyone about what he does no one would believe me. Even though I had the bruises to boot, he told me he was a very powerful man and whatever I would say or could say there would be no way I could prove it, and I would disgrace my family and my father.”