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  “I’m sorry I left,” I told him between sobs. “I realize right now that I feel safe when I’m with you. I’m sorry I didn’t see that before.”

  “Shh, you don’t have to apologize for anything,” he whispered into my ear. “I’m just glad I was able to find you before something bad happened to you.”

  Those words made my heart skip a beat and I could feel butterflies forming in my stomach.

  “I just…”

  Before I could get the words out, he interrupted me.

  “Not now, Hannah. Let’s just go home. Will you come back with me?”

  We walked to the SUV but I refused to let go of him. I just felt like I had to touch him or I would be lost. Even on the short drive back to the house, I was as close to him as I could get with my arms around his neck. Who knew that it would take being sold at an auction to the highest bigger and running away for me to realize exactly where I was supposed to be.

  4

  Reed

  With Hannah riding shotgun and her arms wrapped firmly around my neck, I could barely keep my eyes on the road as I drove back to the house. I just wanted to look at her, thankful that I had found her and happy that she seemed to realize that I wasn’t a bad guy after all. All I wanted to do was prove that to her in the first place.

  When we pulled up to the house, I didn’t think I was going to be able to get her off of me so we could go inside. She had a grip on my neck as though she thought she would fall into a deep abyss if she were to let go.

  “Hannah, why don’t we go inside so we can start to put all of this behind us.”

  “I will, I just feel so bad.”

  “There’s no reason to feel bad. I’m not upset with you.”

  “How are you not upset with me? I put you through all this craziness tonight. I broke the window in my room.”

  “I’m not worried about any of that right now. I’ll have that window fixed by the time you ever go to bed tonight. I’m just glad you’re back That’s all that matters to me. Let’s just get inside and we can start over.”

  “Start over? What does that mean?”

  “It means let’s start over like we just met. Let’s pretend the auction never even happened. Let’s start fresh and try to genuinely get to know each other. Is that something you’d be interested in?”

  “Yes, I would love that.”

  “All right, well let’s get inside and get started.”

  Hannah slowly released her grip and allowed her arms to fall but left her head on my shoulder. I leaned over and gave her a kiss on the forehead. I couldn’t see it, but I swear I could feel a smile creep across her lips.

  She walked in ahead of me and I closed the door behind us before setting the alarm. She turned to look at me as though the action had offended her.

  “Hannah, listen, this is the way things have to be right now. There are too many risks. There are too many bad people who would kill both of us if they found out you got away. There are way too many risks to my career. It doesn’t always have to be like this, but for now, it does. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay, I understand,” she replied, looking down at the floor.

  I could tell she was unhappy about my decision to put her back on lockdown, but that was just the way things had to be. As badly as I wanted the relationship between her and I to be normal, it just wasn’t possible yet. Would it be possible someday? I certainly hoped so, but that was ultimately going to be up to her.

  “It’s been a very long night for both of us,” I told her. “Why don’t you go on to your room, grab some clothes, and take a nice, long, hot shower. I’m going to do the same and then we’ll meet out at the kitchen table and talk about everything. How does that sound?”

  “Okay,” she said, still trying to fight back tears.

  “I mean it when I said I’m not upset with you. Also, don’t even worry about that window. I’ll get it all cleaned up this afternoon and get that window fixed, maybe even get some nice bars for the outside of it.”

  Hannah looked up at me and I shot her a wink. Her frown turned to a slight smirk that said she was relieved to see that I was joking.

  “All right, I’m going to go get a shower and put on some clean clothes. I’ll see you back out here in 45 minutes,” she told me as she walked towards her room.

  “Okay, I’ll be waiting for you.”

  I watched until she disappeared into her room, closing the door behind her. Remaining where I was, I imagined what she was doing on the other side of that door. I pictured her undressing, moving slow and deliberately, until all that was remaining was her perfect body.

  When I heard her turn on the water, I went into the bathroom off the hall to jump in the shower myself. The water was hot and felt so good running over me, which was tense from the stress of trying to find Hannah.

  As I let the water hit my back, I began thinking of Hannah in the other shower. I closed my eyes and could picture her letting the water fall over her head. I could see her slowly soaping up her body as though she was right in front of me, her hands moving over her breasts in a deliberate motion.

  I imagined her taking the oversized sponge and sliding it down her smooth legs, all the way down and then back up to her amazingly proportioned ass. I wanted nothing more than to be in the same shower with her, helping her get clean before I made her dirty all over again.

  The thought of Hannah had me aroused. I looked down and found that I was completely erect. Replaying these same images in my mind over and over, I had to touch myself. I stroked my cock to the images of her on her knees servicing me before standing up, turning around, and bending over. I slid inside of her, making her moan as I entered her.

  I wanted her. I needed her. I yearned to feel her body against mine.

  I opened my eyes and took my hand away, completely disgusted with myself. I needed to remind myself that she was only there because of very extreme circumstances. I had to remind myself that she wasn’t really mine.

  Hannah

  My feelings and emotions were all over the place when I got into the shower. There were so many thoughts, in fact, that it all became so overwhelming.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about Reed. Even though every bit of my common sense was telling me that I needed to formulate a plan and run away as fast as I could, my heart was telling me something different. Why couldn’t I have met him in everyday life? Why did he have to come into my life because of a stupid human trafficking auction?

  With a deep breath, I decided that I was going to do everything I could to put that out of my mind. I was going to act like he was a normal, regular guy and I was just a normal, regular girl.

  Maybe fate had brought us together in the strangest of ways. Maybe he was the man I’d been waiting for all along.

  5

  Hannah

  The smell of coffee was already wafting through the air before I even finished my shower. I had no idea how long I’d been in there, but I knew it had been quite a while. I spent more time letting the water rain down over me and thinking than I did actually cleaning myself up.

  Reed had told me that he’d be waiting for me and I was hoping I hadn’t kept him waiting too long. I jumped out of the shower, quickly toweled off, threw on a long t-shirt, and made my way back to the kitchen.

  Reed was already standing there in a plain white t-shirt and a pair of red and blue plaid pajama pants. I don’t know what it was, but seeing him in such casual clothing did something to me. It allowed me to see a different side of him that he hadn’t been willing to show me previously. I liked this side of him. He seemed less threatening and far more approachable.

  “I thought we should probably eat something while we talk. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving,” he said as he stood at the stove cooking.

  My stomach had been in a constant state of knots and nerves, but the various delicious smells that were hitting my nose had my stomach growling.

  “Great idea,” I agreed. “I’m starving.

&nb
sp; “Good. I wasn’t sure what you would be in the mood for, so I’m making a little bit of everything.”

  He wasn’t kidding. He literally had a buffet worthy spread going. He was preparing scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage links, and ham steaks. He had a pan filled with diced potatoes and chopped onions. Inside the oven were biscuits and he was stirring gravy to go with them.

  All these different foods reminded me of when I was just a little girl. After my mother passed away, my dad used food as a comfort mechanism. On the weekends, he would make what he called his famous big breakfast. It wasn’t as elaborate as what Reed was cooking up, but daddy would serve it to me on this special tray and made it seem like a big day. A typical big breakfast would include scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and orange juice. I used to look forward to those breakfasts all week long.

  Neither of us said much as he finished cooking. I was hoping he would say something, anything, to break the silence and tension in the room. Unfortunately, he was probably thinking the same thing, so we just existed in awkward silence.

  Once he was done cooking, he made two plates, putting a little bit of everything on them, before placing mine in front of me and taking a seat at the table directly across from me. Finally, he spoke, putting an end to the deafening void.

  “All right, we might as well get right into this. We should probably talk about what happened last night.”

  “Okay,” I said timidly, looking down at my plate in an attempt to avoid any eye contact.

  “I have a pretty good idea as to why you ran last night, but I want to hear it from you so I know for sure.”

  “I don’t really know.”

  “Hannah, please don’t do that. I know you’re a smart girl and that definitely means you’re smart enough to understand I’m not a dumb guy. Just be honest with me.”

  “Okay,” I sighed, worried that he was going to be pissed off. “Last night, I was having trouble falling asleep so I went into your office to try to find a book to read. When I was about to go back into my room, I just happened to notice the folder lying open on your desk. I promise I wasn’t trying to snoop, but the photos caught my eye and it only took me a second to realize that the pictures were of Jake and he was very obviously hurt and you had to be the one to have hurt him so badly. It scared me and I wanted to be as far away from you as possible.”

  “That’s exactly what I thought. I appreciate your honesty and I hope that you will appreciate the honesty I’m about to give you. After you told me about all the things he did to you when you were in high school, I looked him up and did some research on him. Do you know what I found?”

  “No,” I said, still having a hard time bringing myself to look at him.

  “I found out that you were just the first of many women who suffered from his abuse. The thing is, I didn’t do anything to him that was any worse than what he’s done to countless women over the years. In all honesty, I wanted to do much, much worse. He has no idea how lucky he is that he wasn’t beaten to a bloody pulp and left for dead.”

  I sat in my chair, listening to everything he was saying and absorbing every word. Even though he had done these bad things to Jake, he did them in response to the things that he had done to me. I was starting to get a gut feeling that Reed would never hurt me physically, but how could I be completely sure.

  “Can I ask you something?” I interrupted, trying to wait until he was finished talking, but my question couldn’t wait.

  “Of course.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, why did you do it? You barely know me. There are so many things about me that you don’t even have a clue about yet. Why would you track him down and do that on my behalf? Why would you do that for me?”

  “Honestly?” he asked, reaching across the table, placing his fingers under my chin, and raising my head until I was looking him in the eyes. “I did it because I don’t ever want you to be afraid of what might happen if you were ever to run into him again. I wanted to protect you from him.”

  Yeah, well who’s going to protect my heart from you?

  I squirmed in my chair with this thought playing over and over again in my head.

  “Thank you,” I said, the words being the only response I could muster.

  “I want you to know that I’ll always be here for you, Hannah.”

  I nodded my head, again not being able to look directly at him. I was trying my best to fight back the tears.

  “Listen,” he continued. “I know this was a lot to take in and we’re both exhausted. Why don’t you go and get some rest. I’m going to make a call to get this window fixed and then I’m going to do the same. Just promise me you’re not going to take off on me again before it’s fixed.

  “I promise. Next time, I’ll talk first and run second. I wish that’s what I would have done this time.”

  Reed had the window fixed as promised and over the next few days, I was able to see that he wasn’t anything like any of the men I’d ever known before. He wasn’t even anything like the man I thought he was.

  The more I saw of the person he really was, the more I knew that he just wasn’t capable of hurting me.

  He was going out of his way to ensure that I was comfortable. He stocked my room with comfortable clothes, a couple nice pairs of shoes, and plenty of girly things that he thought I’d like. The bathroom was full of bubble baths, lotions, and things like that. All different scents because he wasn’t sure what I liked and what I didn’t. No man had ever done anything like that for me.

  I was beginning to trust him. Even the battle between my brain and heart was coming to an end. He was going out of his way and trying his best to show me he was a good, decent man. Even after what he did to Jake, I felt the need to share more of my story with him. I decided he needed to know what happened with Chad.

  6

  Reed

  I was sitting at my desk, filling out some paperwork. I’d gotten notification of another auction taking place. My colleagues wanted me to infiltrate it again to see what kind of information I could get, but I felt it was best for me to sit this one out.

  The reason I gave for not wanting to attend the auction was that I didn’t want to raise suspicion by going to multiple auctions in a row and not buying any of the girls. They had no clue that the real reason was that I had made a purchase and I didn’t want to have to answer any questions about her if they were asked.

  I was finishing up the last of my files when Hannah knocked on the door.

  “Can I come in?” she asked.

  “Of course, and you really don’t have to knock. You can just come in whenever you want.”

  “I know, but I don’t want to disturb whatever you’re doing.”

  “Hannah, I’m just doing some bullshit things for work. Filling out more paperwork to try to bring down the group that holds the auctions. You never disturb me so don’t think that. Anyway, what’s up?”

  “I was wondering if you still meant what you said before when you said you wanted to know everything about me, especially about my past.”

  “Of course I do.”

  “All right then, do you have a bit. I want to tell you about something I’ve never told anyone. I have to warn you though, it’s worse than what I told you about Jake.”

  “Sure, sit down. Do you need a drink or anything?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “Okay then, whenever you’re ready, I’m all ears. Just pretend I’m a therapist or something.”

  “So this starts during my junior year of college. There was this boy, his name was Chad Whitmore, and I kept seeing him all over campus. I don’t know if it was just because I thought he was cute so I noticed him more or what, but it seemed like every time I turned around, he was right there.

  It turned out, he was a junior also and we ended up in the same graphic design class. I couldn’t find the nerve to ever go and talk to him, but I would sneak glances in his direction and often would
find him already checking me out.

  Over time, I kept hoping he would come and talk to me. It was obvious that we were both checking each other out, but he would never make the first move. It was like each of us was waiting for the other to do it or something. It was weird, but whatever.

  Anyway, one day the professor assigned a project to the class and randomly picked names to find out who everyone’s partner was going to be. I got partnered with Chad and that finally gave us both an excuse to talk to one another.

  The two of us hit it off way better than I’d ever hit it off with anyone in my life. It turned out, we had a ton of things in common. We both liked the same music. We both liked the same movies. We were both into running. Most importantly, we both came from homes that only had one parent raising us. Most of the kids I went to college with came from well to do homes with both parents still there, so it was nice to meet someone who knew the struggles of only having one parent. It was even nicer to find out that it was just him and his mom. He was able to understand the fact that it was hard to talk to my dad about girl things because he experienced the same thing when trying to talk to his mom about boy things.

  The two of us spent two weeks together on the project and we used the time as an excuse to see each other. He was a very social person, which was something I had trouble with after everything that happened with Jake. He got mad if I even talked to anyone, so I became very closed off because of it.

  Things were different with Chad. People were always coming in and out of his room and he introduced me to every single person who came in. Before I knew it, I was getting invited to parties and events that I didn’t even know existed because I was living in my own little shell. Before I knew it, I was relaxing more around everyone and socializing a lot more than I had in ages.