Underestimated Part 20

"I didn't tell her anything. I swear."

Dawson sat up and turned the lamp on, trying to get me coherent enough to realize that I was safe with him.

I crawled into his arms, and he embraced me. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why he wanted me.

Would it always be this way? Would I always be the broken one?

"Tell me about your dream," he requested, holding me tight and placing soft kisses to my forehead.

"It wasn't a dream. It was a nightmare."

"Tell me about it."

"I did. I told him every last detail, and then some. I never got to finish my dream before Dawson woke me up.

I told him about how after he dragged me from the bathroom he made me squat on a rather large d.i.l.d.o that he had lubed up for me. I wasn't allowed to sit on it. I had to hold myself up while he sat on the bed and watched. When my legs finally gave out, and I plopped to the bed he removed the foreign object and replaced it with himself.

Once he was spent he picked up the phone and called Rebecca. It was almost two in the morning. I couldn't believe that he expected her to be at his beck and call whenever he wanted her.

"Morgan's going to need an icepack," he said, but I wasn't sure why he cared about my black eye. He didn't care when he was giving it to me.

I started to get under the blankets to cover myself before she came in.

"Did I tell you to move?" he asked. I froze.

"Lay down," he demanded.

I lay down and crossed my ankles.

"Spread your legs. You want to humiliate me? I'll show you humiliation."

I was mortified, enough so that a tear did escape from the corner of my right eye when I heard the tap on the door. I lay there spread eagle while Rebecca brought me the icepack. She only looked at my face and smiled a warm smile as she placed it on my eye. I flinched from the pain.

"Riley. Please tell me that was only a nightmare and didn't really happen," Dawson begged, but he knew.

Now he not only wanted to kill Drew he added Derik to his. .h.i.t list too.

"It did happen, Dawson, and so much more. I am never going to be whole."

"What is his last name?"

"You know that I'm not going to tell you that. I don't want you to do anything. Please," I pleaded.

"Don't you want that son of a b.i.t.c.h to pay for what he did to you?"

"No. I just want to forget that he ever existed."

"Is he a good looking man?"

I rose up to give him a stressed look. "What the h.e.l.l does that have to do with anything?"

"I'm just trying to figure out why, if he is so rich and powerful, why he would come to a poor town in West Virginia to marry you?"

I relaxed and lay back to his chest. "He is very handsome. I've asked myself that same question a million times."

I finally dozed back off. Dawson never let go of the hold he had on me.

When I woke, Dawson was still holding me. He was never still in bed when I woke up. He was an early riser too, not quite as bad as Lauren, but he was still normally up before me.

I looked up and he was wide awake, staring pitiful glares through me. He opened his hand palm side up, and I placed mine in his. He kissed me on top of the head as I lay back to his chest.

"What are you thinking about?" I asked. I knew what he was thinking about, and I wished I would have kept my past in the past and not shared my horrific nightmare.

"You," he quietly said, kissing me again.

"About how pathetic I am?"

"Not at all, I was thinking about how much I loved you, and how I wished I could take all of this away from you."

I snorted. n.o.body could take it away. Drew had taken it all, and although I hated to admit it. He still controlled me. It wasn't as much as when I first left. It seemed like every time that I was happy, and things were going exceptionally well for me was when he decided to haunt me. Why? I didn't know. I guess the subconscious is just one of those mysteries that you just never figure out.

"Why did your wife leave you, Dawson?" I asked for some reason. I never asked about his past. I guess it was just another one of my hang-ups. I was never allowed to ask questions, and it was always no concern of mine.

He snorted next. I a.s.sumed he was thinking about how crazy I was.

"I met her at the police academy. I knew I wanted to stay here and take over once my father retired. She was from Chicago and couldn't get used to the small town. She needed more action than Misty Bay could give her."

"Your wife was a cop too?" I asked. I never knew that. I had seen a picture at his house once of a graduating cla.s.s, and I a.s.sumed one of the two females was her, but had no idea that she was an officer. I was shocked that Lauren never mentioned it. Not that she was much on gossip, but she would answer my questions. I guess I never asked what his wife did.

"Yes, she was a cop or is, I should say. She went back home to Chicago after one year here. Her dad was also a cop, so she knew that there was more action than writing parking tickets in some small hick town."

"I like this small hick town," I smiled up at him.

He carried a heavy heart. I could see it in his eyes.

"I need for you to talk to me, Ry."

"I'm not telling you who he is, Dawson," I a.s.sured him.

"Then don't, but I need some answers."

I took a deep breath. I owed it to him. There was nothing that I could tell him that would scare him away. If he was going to run, he would have done it before now.

"What do you want to know?" I asked, turning back to lie on his chest. It was easier not to look at him when I talked about my past. I didn't want to see the disgust on his face.

"How did you spend your days there?"

"Most days were good. He traveled a lot, so I spent most of my time either alone or with Rebecca."

"Tell me about Rebecca. She knew. She knew that you were there against your will. Why didn't she help you?"

"Rebecca helped me in more ways than you could ever know. I don't know that I would have survived without her."

"How old was Rebecca?"

I'm not sure why that mattered, but I answered.

"She was probably in her mid-thirties when I first got there."

"And she was just the help there?"

"She was more than the help. Her only job was to take care of me."

"What do you mean take care of you? What did she do?"

"Hmm, a little bit of everything I guess. She made my appointments for my hair, dress fittings for his stupid dinners, made sure that I had my birth control shots. She cooked for me too, but I think that was because she liked to do it. I remember her always being close by. I used to ride around the property on one of the golf carts, and sometimes I would see her in a distance checking to see where I was."

"Were you able to talk to her?"

"Not much. Every room in that house had cameras, and he could hear everything that was said. Sometimes she would ride with me on the cart, and we would talk, but she was always afraid to say anything."

"Why would she work for a man like that?"

"Rebecca too, came from the same side of the tracks as I did. She grew up very poor and never had much. She was waitressing in a diner in some small town when Drew approached her about working for him. I don't think she really knew what she was getting into, and I think she too was afraid of him. She had a five year contract to take care of me. He would give her, her own suite, take care of all of her needs, and once her contract was up, she would be paid a half a million dollars for her time. I guess Drew thought that five years would be enough time to train me."

"So she too was weak. What a coward. So she left before you?"

"No, she signed another one year contract. I think she was afraid to leave me. She was the one that came and put me back together when he decided to come home p.i.s.sed off and take it out on me. But she was leaving shortly after I left. I hope she did," I added.

"How often were you..."

"Punished, you can say it," I said, finishing his sentence.

"You were a grown woman. You shouldn't have been punished."

I ignored that part. "It depends. Sometimes I would go months without any encounters. He would come home and do his thing with me and leave me alone. Other times, mostly when I had to go out with him," I added. "I always said something or looked at someone or something that he made sure that I was going to be punished for."

"And this Derik p.r.i.c.k, did he leave you alone?"

I snorted. "No. Once I was trusted enough to go out and shop or go to the library, Derik had to be the one to go with me. He always made sure that he took a back way home, but I did become friends with his wife Jena and was occasionally allowed to go out to a show or to eat with her."

"You couldn't talk to her?"

"And tell her what, Dawson? Hey, your husband has s.e.x with me, and I am living in this mansion with everything that a woman could want with this good looking rich guy against my will. We didn't talk about personal things, well I didn't anyway. She did. I used to be absolutely repulsed when she would giddily tell me about their s.e.x life."

I almost felt bad thinking about it. I said, almost. I did start to somewhat enjoy s.e.x with Derik. Not that I liked him or anything. I hated the slime ball, but at least he would let me finish. He loved for me to come and tried to make sure that I did every time, unlike Drew who used it to torture or punish me when I did.

"So you were getting raped by not only Drew but his business partner as well."

He didn't say it like a question. He knew what it was.

"Not for long with Derik. I got up enough nerve one night and told Drew that I thought Rebecca should go along the next time I was going to the library. I told him that I didn't think it looked good to be running around the city with him so much alone. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d agreed. He made sure that Rebecca was with me from that point on."

Our deep conversation was interrupted by none other than my annoying neighbor.

"I'm making coffee. You guys going to sleep all day?" Lauren called from the kitchen.

We both laughed.

"Why don't you have any leftovers in here?" she asked as I made my way out to meet her.

"We had pizza at the shop last night, remember?"

"Yeah, but what happened to that lasagna?"

"You ate that yesterday."

"Great, now I'm going to starve," she pouted.

"Or you could go home and cook. Hey, I know.

How about you cook once and let me come over and eat your leftovers?"

Lauren laughed. "Nah, I kind of hate that idea.

What are you guys doing today? Wanna go hangout at the mall?"

"No. We're staying in today," Dawson said, joining us. I knew then that our conversation wasn't over.

"You guys are pathetic. You act like you're forty or something," she stated.

"I am forty," Dawson said. I laughed. He wasn't forty. He was only thirty.

I made us all breakfast and noticed how Dawson kept staring at me. It wasn't his s.e.xy, I want you stare. It was more of a trying to determine whether or not I was okay kind of stare. I wasn't okay, and was beginning to wonder if I ever would be. Some days I did think I was okay, and couldn't be better. Other days, like that day, made me question that.

I smiled a warm smile at him. He returned it.

After Lauren left we got dressed and walked down the path to the beach. It was chilly but not too bad for October in Maine. Dawson held my hand as we walked.

He was quiet, and I didn't quite know what to say. We spoke to John, out for his daily walk with his dog, and then sat in the sand. The sand was warm from the sun. It felt nice, therapeutic.

"I want to know how you got here, Ry."

I knew it was just a matter of time before the questions continued. I picked up a handful of warm sand and let it funnel through the bottom of my hand. I looked up to him, and he leaned in and kissed me.

"Please talk to me," he begged. "I think maybe getting it off your chest will help."

"It doesn't help, Daw. It makes me relive it."