Authors: Holly Nicolai
Nicole could do no more than nod her head. She
didn't bother asking for forgiveness, there was no forgiveness for
how she destroyed Mandy's life. She stood and left the office with
tears fallings from an agonized heart full of self-hatred. When she
reached the doorway, Mandy’s voice stopped her in her
tracks.
"Hold on a moment, please. These envelopes
came for you and Emmitt. I pray the club is everything you both
hope it will be." Mandy spoke softly again and held out the two
envelopes to Nicole.
Nicole turned and walked back to the desk,
took the envelopes, said a soft thank you, walked out of the office
again and closed the door softly behind her.
Mandy sat alone in silence, all of the fight
went out of her at Nicole's betrayal. She suddenly needed to get
out of there. She needed to go home and make plans. She really
thought after all the sacrifices she had made back home, including
dying to her old life, family and friends, that she really would be
safe now and have a chance to heal and move on with her life. She
just couldn’t understand it. After everything she had done for
Nicole to give her a better life, all she asked for was privacy. A
simple thing really to ask from a best friend, or so she thought.
She wouldn't make the mistake again if she had to flee, she
wouldn't let anyone get close to her, not again. She would miss
Hunter, he was her closest friend and protector. The thought of
hurting him by disappearing, shredded her heart.
In a fit of jealousy and maybe even hatred,
Nicole Givens had carelessly put her in harm’s way. All it would
take now, is for Jett Damian, a virtual stranger to open his mouth
to the wrong person and her past would once again become her
present, in a final way.
Today, she knew there was no peace to be had
in the silence. The silence had now become her nightmare. She could
not handle it, she had to get out of there and now! The walls had
begun to close in on her. Mandy grabbed her things, rushed out of
the office and right out of the building without a single word to
anyone. She breezed right past Hunter and side-stepped his arms
when he tried to stop her. She hopped in her car and gunned it and
flew home. Once there, she threw on her runner’s gear after she
left a phone message for Master Yang that she could not come in
that night to train because an emergency had come up.
She paused for only a moment to read the
newest note from Jett that accompanied the welcome letter to the
her, newest VIP member of "The Devil’s Playground Club." The
attached note said, "Come and let your hair down tigress. I won’t
take no for an answer––J." She threw the damn thing in her top
dresser drawer and screamed at the top of her lungs, "Urgh! Jett
Damian, you are a demon straight from the depths of Hell and you
will not ruin my life!
Little did she know, he heard every single
word from the condo above hers. He had purchased the vacant condo
as a temporary residence the day before. He smiled with the
knowledge that he was wearing her down. He waited until he heard
her leave, evidenced by the heavy slam of her front
door.
"See you tonight at your Krav Maga workout,
tigress." He said with a smirk into the emptiness around him. He
waited ten minutes, giving Mandy a head start and then left his
condo to meet Xavier in the parking garage. In the limo, he
instructed Xavier to drive along the route Mandy religiously ran
every day. He suspected that after his note had been delivered and
after she chased Xavier out of the store, she would run off her
anger and frustration with him.
Mandy ran out of her condo and down thirteen
flights of steps to the street and then took off at a full run down
her normal route to the city limits. She needed to work out her
shock, anger, fear, frustration and heartbreak. She had only gone
three miles when she felt a familiar gaze on her back and bum.
You have got to be kidding me!
Mandy growled silently and
pushed her legs to go even faster and swore she heard a deep, husky
and familiar laugh behind her. That laugh threatened to undo her
hard won sanity. Already pissed off and full of every emotion in
the book, she glanced back over her shoulder, ready to spin around
and kick David’s ass until he was dead, but saw no one.
Having diverted her attention away from the
path, she did not see the low lying branch which was half- broken
due to the storm the night before. Mandy turned her face forward
just in time to smash it into the branch with such force that her
body flipped over the branch and landed on her head and back upon
the cement walkway in great pain.
She felt out of it and afraid she had broken
facial and skull bones. She tried to take stock of her injuries
while she laid still and unmoving but she kept slipping in and out
of consciousness and her vision kept going blurry. For the first
time in her life, she wished she had had one of those cell phone
things to call Hunter for help, hell she would even welcome
Nicole's help at the moment. It was her last thought as she fell
unconscious.
Jett was riding along in his limo when he saw
Mandy running, driven by a force only she could see or feel. She
mesmerized him and before he could yell out the window, he watched
her slam full force into the low laying tree branch. He yelled at
Xavier who stopped the limo on a dime. Jett was out and running
toward her before the car completely stopped. He ran at full speed
to Mandy’s unconscious and still body. He gently felt her neck with
nimble fingers, searching for a broken neck. Feeling no signs of
neck or spinal damage, he ever so carefully lifted her into his
arms and walked with slow measured steps to the limo where Xavier
helped him to get in the back without jostling her. He then
instructed Xavier to drive as fast as need be to the nearest
hospital emergency room.
Mandy’s eyes fluttered open and she groaned
then cried in considerable pain as she tried to reach her hands for
her head. Jett stopped her from touching it and causing more
damage.
"Mandy, sweetheart you are okay now. Please
just relax and let me take care of you. You are seriously hurt and
I am taking you to the nearest hospital emergency room." Mandy
confused and mumbling nonsense, tried to struggle against him until
he used a commanding tone with her. "No. Do not move. You will lie
still and relax in my arms. I promise no one will harm
you."
"You––you haunted my fantasy dreams all night
long, you asshole! Stay out of my head!" Mandy growled still half
in and half out of consciousness and breathed in deeply trying to
focus. "Mm. God, you smell as delicious as you did in my fantasies.
My own personal ambrosia in the form of a sinfully sexy devil. You
gave me more orgasms in my fantasies than I could count. Mm…."
Mandy mumbled and purred incoherently while in great
pain.
In a moment of clarity, she told Jett her head
hurt like hell itself in the back, forehead and top of her face and
how she was sure she shattered something. She screamed as the
excruciating pain overwhelmed her. As she slipped back into the
bliss of unconsciousness she heard Jett's sexy chuckle.
"You truly are a god among men, Master. You
gave her that many orgasms and you weren’t even there. Oh yes. You
definitely have a gift." Xavier said and tried to keep a straight
face. Then burst out with laughter.
"You are lucky I like you Xavier, else I'd
throw you out of this limo while it was still moving. Jett growled
back then genuinely smiled at the majestic beauty in his arms.
So, you fantasized about me all night long, did you my little
tigress? I fantasized about you as well. Although, I seriously
doubt they were about the same things, but one day soon, they will
become our reality. I am going to open your horizons to
unimaginable levels and take care of you so well, you will never
want to leave me. You just don’t know it yet sweetheart.
Jett
silently said to her while he continued to stare at her beautiful,
exquisite face and luscious body. Something unusual caught his
eye.
"Alert me when we reach the hospital." He
demanded and put up the one way divider to give him and Mandy some
privacy. Jett was infatuated with Mandy and looked down. He pulled
the side of her sports bra down, exposing a large portion of her
breast and saw the deeply indented scar she had tried to hide
beneath her sports bra. He was shocked to see the deep ragged scar
and knew from experience that it was from a very deep and lethal
knife wound. He gently pulled the bra back into place and ever so
gently rolled her to her side with the intention of seeing if she
had any other injuries from her fall. He gasped in shock and anger
when he saw what he had neglected to see before. Deep whip scars
marred Mandy's beautiful back in horizontal lines across the
middle.
Jett used the same level of extreme care to
turn her on her back again and instinct told him those scars
littered the landscape of her bum and thighs as well. He raised his
hand and with the lightest of touches ran it along her scalp. He
pulled out her pony tail only to find more evidence of damage at
the back of her head. There he felt a large ragged scar and deep
indentation where no hair grew and felt hair extensions surgically
implanted below and above the area, most likely put in to cover it
up. He lifted and separated the hair. What he saw there, nearly
caused his heart to stop. Mandy had a bullet wound and not just any
bullet wound, but one that resembled damage from an execution style
shooting. He knew it was a true miracle that she was still
alive.
"Who the fuck did this to you, tigress?" He
whispered, his anger at the perpetrator knew no bounds.
"My ex-husband tried to murder me. Please
don’t tell anyone or he will find me." Mandy, her eyes still
closed, spoke in a quiet childlike whisper, full of
terror.
Jett knew at once she wasn’t consciously aware
of what she had just confessed to him. It was the terrified part of
her deep subconscious that spoke.
"Your secret is forever safe with me. I
promise sweetheart that no one will hear a word from this mouth."
He whispered in her ear and watched her smile and then relax. On a
subconscious level, she had just given him a measure of her trust
and he had a deep feeling that she did not give it out easily if at
all. He considered it a cherished gift and refused to betray that
trust, but he would find out about her past in order to keep her
safe from future harm. Her fearful and mistrustful behavior toward
him made perfect sense. It had haunted him from the moment she
cowered before him in her office. He knew exactly where that kind
of fear came from, he lived through it himself.
Jett adamantly refused to leave her side when
they reached the hospital. He felt deeply responsible for her and
strangely overprotective. The few times she momentarily awoke, she
had displayed extreme terror. She would not let anyone but him near
her. It got so bad that the neurosurgeon ordered she be put into a
medically induced coma. She had extreme swelling of the frontal
lobe of her brain and near the base by her former injury which was
where she landed on the cement after she flipped. In order for her
to heal properly, she needed to remain immobile and completely
relaxed. He worried the coma would only trap her in flashbacks of
what must have been a truly horrific past. Something he knew only
too much about.
The scars, knowledge of a horrific past and
its baggage and everything that came with her did not faze him one
bit. He still wanted her despite everything and felt bonded to her
with a passion that defied logic. He knew deep down he had no right
to ask her to be his, no matter how deeply he desired it He was not
the normal, loving, vanilla-type guy she deserved in her life. He
also carried far too much baggage from his own past that he kept
hidden away from the world. He promised to be completely honest
with her about his chosen lifestyle. He owed her honesty and would
give her nothing less.
When Xavier arrived with her friends, he
explained the situation to them and abruptly left. They would care
for her now. He could see the depth of their love for and loyalty
to her in their eyes. It made him respect her even more. With one
last glance, he said a silent goodbye.
Mandy woke and instinct told her she was back
in that hospital room. Before she could scream in terror, she
forced herself to remain calm and rational while she tried to
convince herself it was just a nightmare.
The pain told her it was not a nightmare, this
was really happening. Her head and face were in excruciating pain
but she still felt it could not be too serious. She was leaving
right that moment too! Mandy hated hospitals and with good reason.
When she tried to move her hands, they felt heavy which alarmed her
until she realized Emmitt and Hunter were on either side of her
holding them in their own hands.
The sight of her two best friends at each side
of the bed flooded her heart with warmth as if generated by the sun
and spilled over into a tremendous love for them both. She had so
many questions and her head now hurt like someone had bashed it in
over and over again.
When she tried to remember what happened to
her, all she managed to remember was small flashes of Jett holding
her, smiling at her and not leaving her side. The last flash must
have been wishful thinking, since Jett was nowhere to be
seen.
Exhausted and in pain, she reached for the
call button and pushed it. Too late, she realized she pushed the
morphine pump button, not the damn call button. Before she fell
back into a deep sleep she heard a whisper in her ear, "dream of
me, tigress.…" in her ear and felt a soft kiss on her forehead,
combined with the scent of Drakar Noir men’s cologne. She could do
no more at that moment except smile and whisper, "I will," as the
morphine pulled her back into the bliss of darkness once
more.