Metamorphosis Read online

  Great, Sutton is now out of the car ready to step between Dax and me. He catches me with an arm around the waist from behind, suddenly shooting me back to the night I was raped. All sense of reality escapes me, and I am in fight mode, trying to escape, when we hit the ground. It is as if I am on the ground minus my panties again, sobbing for Dax. “Dax, please help me. Dax! Please! Dax.” I plead between cries. I need him, need him to stop this man from hurting me.

  “Baby, I’m right here.”

  “Please let me go. I need Dax, please.” I weep, begging my attacker to leave me alone, repeating Dax’s name over and over.

  “Cameron, look at me.” With no acknowledgement from me, he repeats himself, in a firmer, more authoritative voice, “Cameron. Look. At. Me.” I open my eyes blurred by tears, but I can see the green of his eyes. My comfort. I relax in his arms although the tears don’t stop.

  Then I hear Sutton, “What the hell just happened?” I don’t know if she is talking to Dax or me, and since I can’t answer her, I let him respond.

  “She has triggers, although I don’t know what caused this one. They send her back to that night.”

  “Geezus, has this happened before?”

  “This morning with the policemen who were trying to take her statement. I don’t know what happened then either because I wasn’t in the room, just that she did the same thing. She screamed my name, then kept repeating it like a chant that would end her nightmare.”

  “Cam, sweetie, you don’t need to be alone. Why don’t you come to my house tonight? I’ll get the rest of the girls to come over.” Sutton is overwhelmed and thinks she would be wise to have backup. God, even my friends don’t want to deal with this shit.

  “She’s not leaving my house, Sutton.” He stands with me still in his arms turning back toward the house.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing Dax? You can’t hold her hostage!” Sutton has now launched into angry, protective friend mode, having snapped out of overwhelmed like the flick of a light switch.

  “I’m not holding her hostage. This is where she needs to be.” He is firm in his response, and I already know he isn’t going to give in to her, no matter what she says.

  “She needs to be with people who love her, not some barbaric ass out to prove himself.” She just issued a challenge, and she doesn’t back down from one.

  “Was she crying your name, pleading for you to save her, Sutton? No. She wasn’t. She was sobbing mine, begging me. You and your friends are welcome in my home anytime, but do not come here thinking you are going to take Cam away because you love her.” I don’t say anything; I just cling to his neck as he starts walking.

  “Dax! Stop this shit. She needs us!” Sutton is wailing and following him into the house.

  He makes his way, with me in tow, to the family room, sitting down in a massive chair that encompasses both of us, before turning off the television. Sutton stands motionless in the doorway. My eyes have become so heavy I am struggling to keep them open. As if he can sense my needs, he tips his mouth to my ear, “Sleep, baby. I’ve got you.” I allow my eyes to close promising myself I can listen to their conversation behind closed lids as he strokes my hair.

  “She’s my responsibility, Sutton. I’m not going to argue with you. You’re upsetting her.”

  “I’m upsetting her? She called me to come pick her up! Where the hell were you when that conversation took place?” I didn’t hear his response as I faded into sleep.

  I wake, what I assume to be several hours later seeing darkness in the windows, with all four of my girls sitting around the family room. When I try to stretch, I am locked up tight in two huge arms that are unrelenting. Dax relaxes his clutch on me when he realizes I was trying to stretch not fight him.

  “Hey, Kitten, did you sleep well?” I look at him and then around the room.

  “What are you guys doing here?”

  Rachel being the loud mouth pipes up first. “Apparently, Dax there went all barbaric on Sutton. She called us refusing to leave and wanting reinforcements. By the time we all got here, everyone calmed down, and you were out like the damn dead in his arms.” I know she isn’t done when she takes in a deep breath before continuing. “We’ve all agreed that this is the best place for you to be for now, Cammy.” Ahh, fuck. She is using a childhood nickname to try to coddle me. “Fisher gave Dax the name of a psychiatrist, who is supposed to be the best in Greenville in dealing with sexual trauma. We think you should stay with him while you go to counseling.”

  “Are you guys fucking crazy? I’m not staying here! I want to go home. I want to be in my house, with my things, where life is familiar. I don’t even know Dax.” My choice of words are ironic since he’s the person I plead for when a trigger sends me back. I feel him tense at my words knowing they hurt him.

  “Sorry, Cammy. Dax made good points that we couldn’t argue with. He isn’t working, so he has the freedom to be with you all the time and can take you to and from appointments. He can deal with your triggers as you encounter them, and let’s be honest, his voice seems to be the only thing that pulls you out of them.” Piper, ever the voice of reason, she’s supposed to be the mother hen of the group. I can’t believe she’s selling me out to Dax.

  I try to pull away from him. I'm hurt. My friends don’t want me. Dax sees me as a responsibility. Standing up, “I’m sorry I’m such a burden for you guys,” I say looking at each of my friends, “and a responsibility to you,” scorching Dax with a heated glare. Walking out of the room, I make my way upstairs to the bedroom that I have somehow been relegated to. Locking the door behind me, I throw myself on the bed. I can hear them talking in the family room through the vent.

  “We knew she wouldn’t take it well. Dax, you have to understand how independent she is. She hasn’t relied on anyone since her parents died. She’s going to want to go back to work. She’s going to fight you on pressing charges. Hell, she’s going to fight you on everything you try to make her do. I hope you know what you are in for because your life is about to be all kinds of complicated.” Leave it to Charlie to send fair warning.

  “I can handle it,” is his only response.

  “So help me God, Dax, if you hurt her, I will kill you. I don’t mean I will be a little bitch who annoys the shit out of you. I mean I will take a forty-five to your goddamn head and blow it off.” Sutton spent years in the Army, and she doesn’t sugar coat shit for anyone, and if she says she will kill him, she will kill him.

  I hear the front door close, and the house goes silent except for the footsteps on the stairs. Then, there is the tap on my door.

  chapter seven

  “What?” I feel childish. I had just thrown a massive hissy fit in front of my friends and a guy that I have all kinds of crazy, mixed up emotions for. I am embarrassed and just want to be left alone.

  “Open the door, Kitten.”

  “No.”

  “Open the fucking door, or I will kick it in.” It’s amazing how threatening his words are, but his tone isn’t the slightest bit intimidating.

  Without a word, I stand and unlock it but don’t open it. I go back to the bed stomach down burying my face in a pillow. I hear the creak of the door as it opens and feel the bed dip when he sits down next to my head, but I refuse to acknowledge him.

  “When I came back from Juilliard, Jeremy moved in with me. He was my best friend, my brother. Our families are so intertwined most people don’t know where one ends and the other one begins. Neither one of us dated much. He didn’t want to live at home, I had the house, and he was here so much working on it, it just made sense for him to live here. When he died, I never touched a thing in his room. I left everything exactly where it was. I had the maid go through it a year or so after he died to get his clothes and donate them to Goodwill, but everything else in there is exactly as he left it ten years ago. It was the only room on this floor that was completed while we worked on the downstairs. I never stepped foot in it again. I should have explained when I
found you in there, but I wasn’t thinking. I told you any room because in my mind that meant any room but that one because that’s Jeremy’s. I’m sorry.”

  I don’t say anything. I am heart broken for this man, who outwardly is authoritative, controlling, demanding, domineering, and completely alpha, but there are signs of his weakness, each of them pointing to Jeremy, a heartache that has never healed. The fountain, the bedroom, the things in it – they are all memories of a man he will never see again on this side of eternity.

  “So, whose room is this? Are you going to throw me out of it next? Since you won’t allow me to go home, I need to know what I am and am not permitted to touch and do in your home.” It is a cheap, petty shot, but I take it anyway because I have lost the element of control.

  “It’s your room, Cam. You can do whatever you’d like to in it. If you want to decorate it, paint it, color on the walls, I don’t care. But, while you are in my home, you will treat me with respect. You will not act like a child.”

  “Respect? Are you kidding me? You want me to respect someone who is holding me captive? Who convinced the only family I know that this is where I should be, against my will?” I am fuming mad, my face a hundred shades of red.

  “It’s late Cameron. I’m not going to debate respect with you. I do believe this is where you should be. This is where I can provide for you best. If you consider that being held captive, you can leave after you meet with the psychiatrist if she agrees you shouldn’t be here. Your appointment is tomorrow at ten. Surely you can suffer through one night.” He gets up to leave.

  “Why do you feel responsible for me Dax? You didn’t create this problem. You weren’t even there. It’s not like you failed me in some way. I didn’t really even know you.”

  “Because you’re mine, Cam.” With that he closes the door behind him. I listen for his footsteps as he retreats to his bedroom. His proclamation is asinine. I don’t belong to anyone and haven’t since my parents’ death. I want to believe I control my destiny. I don’t need anyone else to claim me nor do I want it.

  I change clothes, putting on the nightshirt that Sutton had brought to the hospital. I hate wearing it because it smells all kinds of medicinal, but I don’t have any other options. A moment later, there is another light knock on the door, but when I open it the hallway is empty, except for the neatly folded men’s t-shirt and boxers that sit on the floor. There is a note on top of them that says there is food in the kitchen if I am hungry. I’m not. I feel sick to my stomach.

  I pull on the shorts and shirt which smell of Dax’s woodsy scent and turn the bed down to crawl in. Lying back on the pillows, sleep takes over.

  His hands are tearing my blouse; my bra is gone soon thereafter. I fight, as hard as I can I fight, but I can’t escape him. When my panties tear, I see the metal pipe the man pulls out of his pocket. It has ragged edges on the ends although the pipe itself is smooth. It is cold when it hits between my legs, but the cold does nothing to dull the pain when it slices through me. I scream in agony.

  “Cameron! Wake up!” I jolt to a sitting position drawing my knees to my chest in an attempt to shield my body from the onslaught. I have no idea where I am other than in the dark, not in the hospital and not in my house. “Cameron,” the voice says again. I look toward the figure kneeling half on and half off the bed. Dax. “Look at me, Cam.” I can see his face, but I can’t see his eyes. I need to see them. Sage green.

  “Light. Please. Light,” He understands what I am trying to say as he reaches up and pulls the string on the ceiling fan. I grab his face in my hands staring deep into the depths of green, finding my solace there. He knows they ground me, even though I haven’t told him. He never looks away. He just stares straight into my soul. I am panicked, but he takes control until he sees my shoulders visibly relax. Picking me up, he takes me down the hall to his room. Lying me down on the bed, he crawls in behind me. Pulling the covers up, he slides an arm under my neck and hooks one around my waist drawing me impossibly close to him.

  “You shouldn’t have been in there to begin with.” I know he is referring to the bedroom, but I don’t understand why.

  “But you told me to use that room.” I am completely muddled. He told me that was my room. I could do anything I wanted to it.

  “It is yours to do what you want in it, love, but it’s not where you will be sleeping any more.”

  “I don’t understand, Dax. You’re confusing the hell out of me.”

  He turns me over to face him. “Did I make my intensions clear in your office weeks ago when I asked you to dinner?”

  “You didn’t ask me. You ordered me.”

  “That’s not my point. Did you understand my intentions?”

  “That you wanted to get me in your bed? Yeah, I got that loud and clear. Oh and look, here I am. Guess that worked out for you, huh?”

  “Good God, Cam. First of all, I never said I wanted you in my bed. I told you to meet me for dinner, and we would discuss the rest then. Was there any doubt in your mind what I wanted to discuss?”

  “No, I figured you were looking for a fuck buddy and assumed I would be quiet about it because of my job. Hence the reason I didn’t show.”

  He laughs. I mean, genuinely laughs, at me. My brows come together to show my disapproval. “Bullshit, you didn’t show because you were afraid and unwilling to give up control, which, Kitten, you will give up. I know you heard my conversation with Julie that day at her desk. I know you heard her ask me if I had gone all Dom on you. I also know you heard me say that I didn’t believe a word of what she said – you are submissive. So you knew my intentions on some level. You further knew I was serious regarding my intentions when I never left your side in the hospital. Did you not?”

  “Yes. No. God, Dax. I don’t know.” I can’t explain my confusion when I don’t understand it myself – the attraction to him, the way he makes me question who I am, everything I have believed about myself suddenly turned upside down every time he’s in my presence.

  “Then let me make this clear for you. I’ve watched you for well over a year. I could have had any number of women during that time, but I haven’t, haven’t wanted to and still don’t. I want you. I will have you in every sense of the word but not until you’re ready. You will however sleep in my bed. You will let me hold you. You will allow me to comfort you. You will allow me to take care of you. None of those things are optional, Cam. You don’t belong in another room; you belong with me, here. You don’t have nightmares with me. You don’t fall prey to triggers with me. You cry for me when they hit you. Subconsciously, you know you need me in the way I need you. The rest of it will come in time, but understand, in no uncertain terms – from the top of your head, to the tips of your toes – You. Belong. To. Me.”

  “I don’t belong to anyone, Dax.”

  “Oh you do. You’re mine. You know it, and that’s what scares the shit out of you most.” Tucking my head into the nook of his shoulder, he kisses the top of my head, “Good night, Kitten.”

  chapter eight

  Dax wakes me in the morning having obviously been up for some time. He has fixed breakfast, which is waiting for me on the table. “Once your done eating, you need to get dressed so we can head into town for your appointment.”

  I just pull the covers up over my head, wishing the day away. Dax laughs, pulling them back down. “Ugh, Dax, can’t we do this another day?”

  “No, baby, you can’t. I know you aren’t looking forward to it, but it’s a necessary evil.”

  An hour later we are in his truck, driving up I-385 toward Downtown Greenville. We pull up to an office building, parking in the garage. I follow Dax silently to the elevator up to the fifth floor. When we get to the receptionist desk, he gives the girl my name and takes a seat. He squeezes my hand, reassuring me it is going to be okay. When the door opens to the waiting room, an older woman, probably in her late sixties, calls my name. I stand looking down at Dax wondering why he is still seated. “I’ll be right
here,” he smiles gently at me.

  “You’re not coming back with me?” I am dumbfounded. I need him with me. He knows I need him. He shakes his head in answer to my first question. “Why not?” I howl a little too loudly.

  The lady, whose name I still didn’t know, says, “Mr. Cooper, you are welcome to join us if it makes Ms. Pierce more comfortable.”

  He looks at me when he speaks to her, “She’ll be ok. I’m out here if she needs me.” He squeezes my hand again before dropping it. I want to argue, but Dax has already proven to me when he sets his mind to something there’s no deterring him. I follow her back to her office, looking over my shoulder. He never looks up. It stings a little to think he can be so callous toward me.

  The woman motions for me to sit anywhere I want. Just to be a smart ass, I almost sit in what is obviously her chair, but I figure the more I play nice, the faster I can get her to tell Dax I should go home and back to work.

  She finally introduces herself as Dr. Wright. How apropos. “Cameron, why did you want Dax to come back with you?”

  “Umm, I don’t know. He’s been with me since I woke up.”

  “Were you two close before then?” she asks.

  I snort in a very unladylike fashion. “No, we weren’t.”

  “Why is that funny?”

  “When you look at Dax, what type of person do you immediately see?”

  “I try not to judge a book by its cover, Cameron. People are rarely what they portray on the outside.” Oh lawd, psycho babble.

  “Humor me here.” I roll my eyes as I say it, and her lip turns up slightly in her attempt to keep from smiling. She knows what I am getting at.

  “Okay, I would say he looks like a bad boy with all of the tattoos.”

  “And?”