Finding Tessa by Jaime Hendricks (best ereader for comics .TXT) 📗

it’s a matching set. I shut my eyes and I try to scream bloody murder, but I can’t. My vocal cords are constricted under his fingers, his thumbs pressing into the soft spot. How does a man know exactly where to shut you up, every time? I’m about to black out when suddenly, he’s off me. Thrown across the room and into a wall.

“What the fuck are you doing to her, Damon?” a man screams.

My face is wet from my tears, I’m coughing, I’m sure my throbbing eye is turning purple, I think my wrist is fractured, and I’m trying to figure out what the hell is going on in the chaos. The front door is wide open, and a man is in the apartment, landing blow after blow on Damon.

“You sick fuck!” mystery man screams. Another punch lands. “Leave her alone!”

When Damon is finally subdued, he wipes the blood from his mouth and looks at the guy. “What the fuck business is this of yours?”

The guy looks my way, then back at Damon. “Yeah, I can tell she’s totally into it. Girls don’t cry and scream during sex. You don’t hit women who say no—you stop.” He looks at me again but doesn’t come close. He stays near Damon, his arm out toward him in case he tries to get up and attack. “Are you okay?” he asks me.

I’m holding my eye and wiping my tears, trying to pull my bra and shirt back down. “No, I’m not okay. Who are you?”

The man looks at Damon. “His roommate. Call the cops.”

“No.” I can’t call the cops. I can’t explain who I am. Where I’m coming from. “No, it’s fine. Just get him away from me.”

Damon is still on the floor against the wall, knowing better than to jump up and continue the fight. “Fuck you, man,” he says to the guy. Then he stands and pulls his pants up, grabs his shirt and yanks it over his head. “Don’t be here when I get back. I want you out of here.” Without a care in the world, Damon walks out the open door and slams it behind him.

The guy looks at me and puts both of his hands up defensively as he slowly walks toward me. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I know,” I say, then click my jaw. The pain sears into the back of my neck. “Thank you. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you didn’t walk in just now.”

His expression is solemn, caring. “Can I look at your eye?” he asks.

I nod, and he comes closer, slowly, cautiously, still with his hands up. Then, a gentle hand touches my shoulder and another points my head toward the light in the kitchen. “This is going to leave a mark. And you’re bleeding. Do you want me to take you to the hospital?”

“No.” No insurance, fake Social on my ID, don’t want to be found. No.

There’s something in his eyes. Something special. Something gentle and loving. I’ve never seen it before. Also, they’re the same exact color as mine. Gray. Unique.

“Hang on, I’m going to get some ice.”

He stands and goes to the freezer, takes out a few ice cubes, and puts them on a clean rag he takes out of a kitchen drawer. They clink against each other as they roll into the rag and he approaches me again, slowly, gesturing toward my face.

“Is this okay?” he asks. I nod, and he swipes my hair away and winces when he sees the damage. “Jesus Christ. I’m so sorry.”

I hold the ice rag against my head. “Why? You didn’t do it.”

“Hang on. I’m going to get the first aid kit.”

He runs to the bathroom and I hear drawers and cabinets being opened and closed, and he comes out with a kit overflowing with bandages and ointments. I sniffle, but I don’t want to wipe my nose on my arm because that’s gross, and I’m trying not to be completely pathetic in front of my knight in shining armor. He stops and grabs a box of tissues off the kitchen counter and sets them down beside me, then sits cross-legged in front of me.

“Is it okay if I touch you again?” he asks, nodding toward my cut head and my purple eye and neck.

“Mmm hmm,” is all I can muster as I grab a tissue to delicately wipe the snot away.

I think he must be a doctor, or at least in the medical field, the way he gingerly takes care of me. In silence, he disinfects the cut and uses two butterfly bandages to close it and then applies a waxy ointment on top.

“I can put a gauze pad over it if you want,” he says, then holds the ice over my eye again.

“No. I’m okay. Thank you.”

“Fucking Damon. I’m so sorry he did this to you. What’s your name?”

“Tessa. Tessa Smyth. I met him yesterday at the bar.”

He shakes his head back and forth. “That’s where he finds them all.” Then he takes a deep breath and introduces himself. “Nice to meet you Tessa. I’m Jace Montgomery.”

14

JACE

Driving back from the police station, all Jace thought about was Tessa. He’d tried to fill in the holes in her past, who her ex that she was running from was, but part of him didn’t want to—the poor girl had been through some real shit. Hell, when he met her, she was being beaten and almost raped by his former roommate.

It was fate. From day one. How could he know her for barely four months, and her sudden absence left such a huge hole in his heart?

Unfortunately, he’d heard about Damon, after he’d moved in with him—it was why he mostly stayed at Joanna’s place, even though she lived so far away from work. He didn’t want to be associated with the guy that didn’t take no for an answer. It was the worst-kept secret around town. Supposedly, he’d abused his ex-wife, and that’s why