Burn For Him (16 page)

“No, you won’t! We’re just going to ignore him.  He’ll get bored of doing this when he doesn’t get a reaction.” I sounded sure, which was more than I felt.  I had a feeling that he wasn’t going to give up on this so easily.

“Do you even know how ridiculous that sounds?”

“Shut up, Harper.” I said as I jammed the key in the lock, kicking the mess out of the way of the door, ready to forget about it.

“You’re just going to leave it out there?”

“I said, shut up, Harper.” And I slammed my way into my bedroom.  I wasn’t in the mood to talk.  Those damned flowers had managed to totally ruin my day.  I didn’t want to talk about it or deal with the mess.  I just wanted to wipe it all from my memory.

After an hour of lying on my bed staring at the ceiling, a knock came on the door.

“Carrie? It’s me.”

Well, I didn’t think that it was going to be anyone else.  Harper knocked again.

“Carrie?”

“What do you want?” I said.  I knew that it sounded like I was sulking, but I didn’t care.  I had reason to sulk.

“Can I come in for a minute?”

I didn’t answer. Harper clearly didn’t care. He opened up the door anyway.  He didn’t say anything else but he held up the tray that he was holding like a peace offering.  He had two huge cups of hot chocolate topped with lashing of cream and cute little pastel coloured marshmallows dotted in the cream. If he had come in here with anything other than hot chocolate or ice-cream, I would have turned over and kept on sulking.  As it was, he knew that I wouldn’t be able to resist.  Especially not with a mountain of cookies piled on a plate in the middle of the tray.  I sat up in bed and Harper took that as an invitation to come closer.

“Where’s the white flag?” I joked lamely.

“Hot chocolate seems to work better.”

“True.” I grinned. 

Harper sat down on the edge of the bed and passed me over one of the cups, and a spoon to scoop up the cream and marshmallows.  “I’m sorry for trying to push you about this.”

“Don’t’ be.  It’s okay. I know you only do it because you care.”

“No, it’s not okay.  But, you do know that you have to deal with this.  You know that, right?”

“I thought that you weren’t going to push me.” I asked with the spoon halfway to my mouth.

“I’m not pushing.  I’m just being honest.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know.” He looked down at his drink and played with a cookie, crumbling it onto the plate.  “But, I don’t like it.  You should have phoned me when you got that delivery at work.”

“What would you have been able to do about it?” I waited for a split second. “Nothing.  There was nothing that either of us could have done about it.”

“But, you’re my best friend.  I’m supposed to be the one that you turn to.  I’m the one who is supposed to protect you.”

“If anything else turns up, I’ll ring you straight away. I promise.”

Harper looked satisfied that I meant it.  “And, if you see him, you’ll let me know?”

I must have shifted my eyes a little.  “Of course I will.”

“Carrie? Have you seen him?” Harper sounded concerned again. Shit.  I should have realised sooner that he would have asked me that.  I should have been more prepared.  But, I could never lie to him.

“I saw him last week. He was outside the office the day that I got the first lot of roses delivered.  The nice ones, not the dead ones.”  I tried to smile at him but he was clear that he didn’t find this in the slightest bit funny.

“What did he want?”

“I don’t know.  To say sorry, I guess.  He just kept saying ‘Come to me’.  I didn’t stop to talk to him.”

Harper nodded.  He seemed satisfied that I hadn’t hung around to talk to Milligan.  It wasn’t like he could say much else about it, except for, “Ring me if you run into him again, okay?”

“I promise.”

And with that, the subject was abruptly dropped.  Harper put on a DVD and we snuggled down under the covers on my bed.  It was just what I needed.  I felt happy again.  I felt safe.  Harper always seemed to have that effect on me.  He was my rock.  He always had been.

I fell asleep long before the film had finished, and I actually slept soundly.

Chapter Ten

The next morning, I got up for work the same as always, but I had to rush to the bathroom to throw up.  I didn’t know what the hell was wrong with me.  It felt like I was bringing up everything that I had eaten in the last week.  I felt dreadful.  Harper came running into my bathroom as soon as he heard me and quickly swept my hair back out the way.

When I had finally finished, I sat back and took the cold wet cloth that Harper had ready for me.  I felt feverish, too.

“You’re not pregnant, are you?” he half joked.

“Not a cat in hell’s chance of that.”  And there wasn’t.  This was just your standard everyday stomach bug.  Although, it didn’t exactly feel standard.  I felt like the walking dead.

“Do you want me to phone and tell Steve that you aren’t going to be going in today?”

I groaned.  That was the last thing that I needed.  I couldn’t take the time off of work.  I knew that Steve wouldn’t be impressed, but he would probably be even less impressed if I went in and vomited all over him.

“Tell him that I’ll try to come in a bit later if I can manage it.”

“No.”

I tried to look up at him from where I was sitting on the bathroom floor.  A droplet of water dripped form the corner of the wet cloth that was resting on my forehead, trickling down into my eye.  I brushed it away with a heavy hand.

“No?”

“No.  You can take the whole day off.  At least.  You need a full day of rest.  With everything that has been happening lately with Dee and… Well, you know, everything else, you need some time to chill out.” Harper looked at me like I didn’t have a say in it so I didn’t know why he was bothering to explain himself.  As my stomach rolled again, I guessed that I really didn’t have much of a choice in the matter.

Harper left for work a short while after, making sure that I was tightly tucked up into bed.  I was feeling a little better already but he vetoed the idea of me going to work.  I guessed that the throwing up was over and done with seeing as my stomach was now entirely empty.  I just felt totally drained, which in a way was just as bad as feeling sick.

I didn’t move a muscle, just like Doctor Harper had ordered.  He would have been pleased that I was taking him at his word so literally.  In no time, I could feel myself starting to drop off to sleep.

A noise woke me up a short time later.  I still felt drowsy, like I’d been pulled out of a deep sleep, but my stomach had seemed to settle, so that was a bonus.  It took me a couple of minutes to realise what had woken me up.

Footsteps.

“Harper?” I called out.  I knew what he was like.  He wouldn’t be able to settle without coming back to check up on me.  Harper was the kind of guy to come home and make me some chicken soup for my dinner. He could be such a mother hen when he wanted to be.  I smiled at the thought and sniffed at the air to see if it would give me some clue of what he was cooking up for me.

I couldn’t smell anything.  Well, not anything cooking, anyway.  I could smell aftershave.  I jerked my head up and pulled the covers up closer to me.  I knew that aftershave.  It wasn’t Harper’s.  I’d smelled that aftershave recently.

It was Milligan’s.

I froze.  Panic wouldn’t let me move an inch. It wouldn’t let me breathe.  It wasn’t like I was suddenly trying to hide and pretend that I wasn’t here. I’d already shouted out and given myself away.  It was too late for that now.  He knew where I was.

His footsteps continued ever slowly to get closer to my closed door and it felt like my heart had stopped when the door knob carefully started to turn.

He walked in slowly to my room, never taking his eyes off of me.  I didn’t know what I was supposed to do.  I wanted to scream out, but what was the point? No one would hear me.  The building was sure to be empty this time of day. 

“Carrie.” He said as he came closer.  “You didn’t tell me that you were sick.  I’ve been worried about you.  I haven’t heard anything from you.” He smiled in apparent concern.  “At least I know why. You should have told me that you were ill.”  His voice curled around me like a caress, like my skin was made of velvet.  I hated that he had this effect on me and I pulled the covers up more firmly, trying to shield myself.

I cleared my throat.  It had gone dry the moment I realised that he was in the apartment.  “What are you doing here, Milligan?” My voice sounded hoarse, like I’d had a sore throat for several days, but it was just husky through fear.

Milligan turned those soulful blue eyes back to me.  He’s been scanning my room, as if looking for something.  “I came to make sure that you were okay.  I haven’t heard from you in a few days.”

I frowned at the genuine concern in his voice.  What was wrong with him? “You know why you haven’t heard from me.  Remember?” Perhaps I hadn’t been as clear as I thought the last time I’d seen him.  I was sure that I had got my message across at the time. 

“Well, obviously.  You’ve been sick.” He smiled at me like he was indulging me and moved to the side of the bed next to me.  I scooted over as far away as I could get from him.  I didn’t want him anywhere near me.  His voice may sound like syrup over ice-cream to me, but he was clearly bat shit crazy and I didn’t want him coming any closer.

“How did you get in here?”

“The front door was unlocked. I knocked but when you didn’t answer, I started to get worried.”

He made it all sound so normal.  But, it wasn’t normal.  There was no way on this earth that Harper would have left the door unlocked when he had left me here in the apartment sleeping.  And, I couldn’t say for sure if it had been the knocking that woke me up, but for some reason, I didn’t believe him.

“What do you want?” I was almost afraid to ask him, but I wanted to get him out of the apartment as soon as possible.  My phone was over in my jacket pocket, which was on the other side of the room.  I couldn’t get to it to phone Harper.  I had to get myself out of this.

“I came to see you.” Milligan smiled at me like it was a silly question.

I didn’t see it coming.  If I had, I would have thrown myself out of the bed.  Milligan leaned over quickly and kissed me.  He suddenly had a hand on either side of my hips to effectively keep me there.  The worst thing about it was that I could have happily sunk into that kiss and thoroughly enjoyed it.  He was a master at the art of sex and seduction.  He knew exactly where to touch me to make me moan.  I didn’t even realise that my hands had snaked up under his shirt, caressing the taut muscles of his chest.  It was when my fingers ran over the nipple piercing that I realised what I was doing.  I jerked my hands back.

“Carrie.” He muttered my name over and over again as he nuzzled my neck, setting my skin on fire.  He paused to pull his shirt over his head and his mouth was back on mine before I could take a breath. 

I was starting to feel dizzy.  I needed to breathe.  He was too much.  I didn’t want this.

What the hell was I doing? What the fuck was wrong with me? I forced my eye open, braced my hands on his chest and shoved him away from me.  He didn’t exactly go far.  He was ripped and at least twice my size.  He didn’t have to move if he didn’t want to, but he did.

We were both breathing heavily.  Milligan sat back on his heels, trapping my legs underneath his hands.  “I’m sorry.  You have this kind of effect on me.  I just can’t seem to help myself.” He grinned like it was a good thing and he leant in to give me a quick kiss on the cheek.  “But, you’re sick.  I’m sorry.  We should wait until you are feeling a little better.”

He moved his weight off my legs and I pulled the covers back up over my body. He stood up and pulled his discarded tee back over his head. I don’t even know when that came off.

“I’ll let you get some rest, sweetheart.  Call me later?”

I just looked at him blankly. Sweetheart? Really? I was in a pure state of shock.  When I didn’t say anything, he laughed and leant over to kiss me on the top of the head.  “I’ll be seeing you soon, Carrie.” And he walked out of my bedroom.  I heard the front door click shut seconds later.

I burst into tears. What else did you expect me to do? I’d almost willed him to have sex with me.  I knew that if he had that I would have enjoyed it and wanted more.  What the hell was wrong with me?

I dived out of bed and checked that the front door was well and truly locked.  I sagged against it for a moment before my eyes went wild again.  I hadn’t checked out the rest of the place.  What if he was still here? I ran around the apartment like a mad woman.  It was only me here.  He really had left.

I wiped the tears from my face and took a deep breath. I couldn’t cope with this alone.  I hated to call Harper while he was at work but I needed him right now.  Plus, I knew that he would kill me if I didn’t call him and tell him about this.

He answered his phone on the first ring.  “Carrie? How are you feeling?”

It took in another breath of courage.  “Milligan’s has been here.”

Harper fell silent. “What do you mean? How? When?” He sounded confused but I couldn’t blame him.  I was as confused as hell myself.

“Please, just come home.” My voice started to crack.  I was scared.  I couldn’t help it.

“I’m on my way.”  He didn’t say anything else before he hung up the phone.  I curled up in a blanket on the sofa and waited for him.

The front door banged open and I jumped out of my skin.  I held my breath until Harper came barrelling into the lounge.  The relief I felt at seeing him was immense.  I didn’t know what I would have done if it had been Milligan returning.  Fight him or fuck him? Who knew?

“Are you okay? What happened? What did he do? Did he hurt you? What did he say?” Harper ran to where I was sitting and grabbed hold of my hands.  His eyes scanned over me, checking to make sure that I hadn’t been hurt.

“I’m fine.” I insisted.

“What did he want?”

I looked away for a moment.  I didn’t know exactly what to say to him, how much to tell him. He was my very best friend and I knew that I could tell him anything.  He wouldn’t judge me for my actions.  But, the problem was, I was judging myself.

“Carrie? What did he want with you?” he demanded.

“To sleep with me, I think.”

“What?” he jumped up and began pacing around the room.  “Did he touch you?”

“Harper.” I put my head in my hands.  How was I supposed to explain this to him?

“Carrie.  Just tell me what happened?”  I knew that he was trying to be patient with me, but I knew him too well.  He was seething inside.

I told him everything.  Everything.  Every little gory detail.  Even the ones that made me blush. But, I had to tell him it all.  I needed him to understand what was happening to me.  I needed someone to talk to about it.  Even if she had been well and awake, Destiny wouldn’t have really understood this.  Not from my point of view, anyway.  She would have just seen Milligan as a fine piece of ass and told me to overlook his faults and have some fun.  I couldn’t do that.  There was something about him that made me lose control when I was around him, pushing all good sense out of my head.  I couldn’t let that happen again.  He was crazy.  I couldn’t let myself forget that.  I couldn’t let myself forget who I was and what I wanted.

Harper was quiet.  That got me even more worried.  I was much more comfortable when he was ranting and raving, even if that was out of character for my mild mannered friend.  When Harper was quiet, that was when you knew that shit was about to hit the fan.

“I have a feeling that I already know the answer to this question, but are you going to go to the police about this?”

I shook my head at him.  “He didn’t force himself on me.  He didn’t even break in.”

Harper huffed and started his pacing again.  “So, do you have any idea what you are going to do next?”

I laughed ruefully.  “Nope.  Not a clue.”

I really didn’t know how I was supposed to handle this.  I honestly didn’t think that telling the police was going to help matters.  They would think that I was the crazy one.  I had no idea what Milligan was going to do next.  He clearly wasn’t in a sane mind.  Plus, how was I supposed to convince him that I didn’t want him when the moment that I touched him, I did want him? Was I the crazy one?

“Do you want a drink?” Harper suddenly strode out of the lounge and I heard the coffee machine click on in the kitchen.  I didn’t bother saying anything to him. His way of coping with thing was to keep busy. I couldn’t say that I blamed him really.  I felt totally useless.  Sitting here and doing nothing wasn’t exactly productive.  But, I had no clue how to get Milligan out of my life once and for all.

He walked back in with a steaming cup of coffee.  He resumed his pacing. 

“Harper, please sit down.”

“I can’t.”

“This isn’t helping.”

“No!” Harper spun around and shouted.  “The only thing that would help me at the moment would be to go out and find that bastard and beat the living shit out of him.” The look in his eyes screamed danger.

I didn’t bother telling him not to do it.  He knew that by doing that, it wouldn’t make my life any easier.  I knew that it would make him feel better about it all, but not me.  I was confused about the situation enough as it was without things turning violent.  That was part of the reason that I didn’t want anything else to do with Milligan.