“Come on, baby, I’m gonna take you inside.” He drew me inside, led me down the steps to his bedroom, and soon I was lying in his bed with a cool cloth on my head. I couldn’t stop crying.
“Pearce, can you please hold me right now? Just hold me tight. I’m scared.”
“Okay, sweetheart. But please don’t be scared. I’ve got you, Lex, and I’m not going to let anything hurt you. Will you do me a huge favor?”
“Yeah. What is it?”
“Will you let me put your ring back on you?”
I smiled and stuck out my finger. I was shivering from head to toe, but when his warm strong arms wound themselves around me, I felt instantly better.
“Ahh, this feels nice. I was freezing.”
“I can tell. Your teeth are chattering.”
“Who’s John?”
“The family attorney. I went straight to him with this. He called the police. They’re trying to track this down and they now think there may be a connection with your abduction. They’re scanning internet sites to see when this shows up. This is illegal, Alexia. They didn’t have your permission. You know where they live. You know his tag number and we’re going to find him and press charges.”
“I feel dirty, Pearce.”
He didn’t say anything for a long moment, a very long moment.
“I won’t lie and say it was my finest moment to see you in that DVD.”
“No, please stop.” I couldn’t bear to hear him talk about it.
“We have to, Lex. If we don’t talk about it, it will eat us alive later on. You understand that, right?”
“But I’m past being embarrassed. I saw myself and it made me sick, Pearce, violently sick. I didn’t think I’d ever stop throwing up.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t. What if it had been you in the tape? Then how would you feel?”
“Probably like you feel now.”
The fact that this man held me in his arms, in his bed and still wanted me to be his wife told me more than I would ever need to know about him for the rest of my life.
“I thought I’d lost you over this.”
“Hardly. There’s only one thing that would cause us to lose each other.”
“Yeah? What?”
“Think about it.”
My eyelids became too heavy to keep open, so I gave up the fight and drifted off.
He was chasing me, and I ran as fast as I could, but it was no use. His creepy laughter echoed in my ears as he got closer and closer. His labored breathing thundered in my ears, which was a miracle because I was breathing hard myself. My mouth drew in air through a straw. His steel-like fingers gripped my shoulder, digging deeply into my flesh, that I cried out in pain.
“Gotcha.” He laughed, the nasty sound grating across my skin. I screamed and fought, trying to break his hold on me.
Then something moved against my cheek that was smooth and warm, and I heard a deep voice speak softly to me. “Alexia, wake up, sweetheart.”
Warm arms embraced me, and strong yet gentle hands cupped my face. My eyelids fluttered open to see Pearce’s face, inches from mine.
“I was so scared,” I whispered.