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Taking a cloth next to the tub and adding soap to it, he ran the soft cotton along my arms and across my breasts. I closed my eyes and let him clean me. The soap glided across my knee, down my calf, then back up my thigh. I stretched my body like a cat as his movements massaged my tired muscles.
When he brought the cloth to my cheek, the one that Chris had slapped earlier, I flinched. The pain was still raw; the flesh bruised. He moved the cloth onto the other cheek and blended my tears with the bathwater. I hadn’t realized I was crying until he asked me not to cry. Said it broke his heart. It broke mine too.
Water sloshed out of the tub when Colton stood. Grabbing a bath towel, he wrapped it around me as I stepped out of the bath. “I’ve got you,” he said
He carried me to the bed this time, and lay beside me, holding me in his arms. I watched the full moon through his bedroom window until I saw only a sliver of it through my sleepy eyes.
23
Colton
The buzzing wouldn’t stop. At first, I thought it was just my ears from the hurricane of thoughts swirling in my mind. But when the ping went off, I realized it was a phone. France’s phone. She lay sleeping next to me and I didn’t want to wake her, but the incessant noise surely would if I didn’t turn it off.
Unzipping her purse, I pulled out her phone. Marco and Erika had called several times and left thirteen messages. I texted Erika that Frances was with me and everything was fine. I called Marco back.
“Hello? Frances? Are you all right?”
“It’s Colton Crawford. I was the one that texted you from Frances’s phone last night.”
“I know who you are. Why are you calling me and not Frances? Is she hurt?”
I rubbed the back of my neck, thinking of the right words that wouldn’t send him into a panic. Watching Frances buried underneath my black comforter and sheets, I told him the truth. “She’s fine. She had a run-in with Chris and called the police. I took her to the station and brought her back to my place last night after she asked me to.”
“Chris? Did he hurt her? I’ll kill him.”
I was proud of the boy’s loyalty. “I’ll take care of Chris,” I assured him. “After my lawyers are finished with him—if he ever gets out of prison—I promise you, he’ll never come near her again.”
“Why can’t I talk to her?” Marco asked.
“Because she’s sleeping,” I shot back.
A groggy voice called from the bed, “I was sleeping.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s your brother. Do you want to speak with him?”
“Yeah.” She pushed herself up on the bed and extended her hand for the phone. “Marco?”
“Yeah. I’m fine,” she said, and pushed her hair away from her face. “Just tell them I’m fine and will be home this afternoon... I’ll explain everything later… Okay, love you too.”
She looked up at me. “I’m just going to call Mariam and let her know I’ll be home today.”
“Sounds good. I’ll make coffee. I think we both need it.”
I thanked the invention of coffee pods and quickly brewed two cups. When I returned to my bedroom, I gulped at the view in front of me. It wasn’t the city landscape or the wide lake that caught my breath. It was her. Her brown curls spilled over my pillow. The outline of her body through the thin sheet drew my eyes to every womanly curve. I had imagined her in my bed before, but the reality was more beautiful than the fantasy.
I placed the mugs on the nightstand, then crawled in beside her.
She rested her head on my bare chest, her smooth cheek warming my cool skin. I sat holding her in my arms, content to never leave this room again, when she whispered, “He never hit me before.”
Every muscle in my body tensed at the mention of violence toward her, and unconsciously I held her closer. “You don’t have to talk about it,” I said, smoothing a curl that wrapped around my forearm. “And one time is too many.”
“He never hit me, but I always feared that he would. He would raise his hand and act like I’d pushed him too far. Or he’d scream in my face until his spit ran down my cheeks.”
Every word she spoke pushed the tip of a blade deeper into my heart. Prison was too easy for the bastard.
“One day, after I told him I’d joined the young business chapter in my college, he threw me in the bedroom closet and pushed a chair in front of the door so I couldn’t get out. He said it was to protect me that I was too naïve to know what really happened at college groups. He shouted that I was only trying to make him jealous and it had worked. I was trapped in there for six hours.”
“Jesus, Frances.” I ran both hands through my hair to stop myself from pushing off the bed and running after him. “I’m glad you never told me any of this before. I would have locked him in some dark place for days.”
