Overcoming Fear (Growing Pains #2)(110)

Where the hell are the cops? She thought desperately. What was Ben doing--hanging out and waiting to see what would happen?

Krista coughed and struggled to get up. She had to find that power again. It was an elusive thing, power. It was like catching a trout with your hand in icy water. The fish was just so slippery.

She felt his strong hand on her hair again before she was lifted and flung into the closet. Some men liked to push, some to slap. Jim had always been a fan of grabbing and throwing—he liked to see the effects of his strength. Disgustingly, his friends had always been impressed.

Until it was them on the other end.

Krista landed painfully in the closet, pulling down all her clothes on top of her. Her head hit the back wall. She stayed put for a second, dizzy, frantically searching her mind for what she could use as a weapon.

There was a knock at the door.

Thank God! She blindly hoped it was someone with authority.

As she struggled to right herself, her shoulder popping painfully, she heard the door open.

“Who are you?” Jim asked with a defensive quality she hadn’t heard him use before. It couldn’t be the police, then. The cops tended to love Jim. He had a way of talking to them that made him seem like one of the boys instead of a woman beating ass**le.

“My name is Sean. I was wondering if I might speak to Krista?”

A pure shot of adrenaline pierced Krista’s middle. She was caught between a sense of relief and one of terror. Sean was muscular and a good size, but Jim was a giant; raw power in the flesh. The weights he had been lifting only increased that. Plus, he had been in more fights then Hercules. Probably won more than Hercules, too. Some people said only wimps picked on women. Jim was no wimp. He beat women because he was as sexually aggressive as he was physically aggressive. Jim picked on everyone.

Sean didn’t need any part of this. He didn’t need to get mixed up with someone like Jim. Jim was dangerous, and if he felt threatened in any way, or his possessions threatened, which was Krista, he would react. She no longer had faith that reaction would be sane, or legal. She didn’t see a weapon, but it didn’t mean he didn’t have one.

“Krista is busy.” Jim was coiling again.

“All the same,” Sean said pleasantly.

Krista struggled up, and then stumbled into the middle of the room. Jim had the door mostly closed, filling the opening with the girth of his body.

“Sean! Go on, I’m okay,” she called. Her hoarse voice sounded weak, even to her. She tried to keep it level, keep the tears at bay, but she failed. Miserably. She was just so glad to hear his voice. More glad than anything she could ever remember. And more terrified.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Sean stood in the bedroom doorway in a house well-kept with muted, warm colors. He stood facing a man who did not, nor would ever, belong in such a setting. The man was a giant. He was a monster. He was taller than Sean. Brawnier. Definitely stronger. Sean could see rage boiling behind his perilous dark eyes; madness.

“Don’t worry about me,” Krista called again from inside the room.

Fear stabbed Sean’s heart. Her voice was strained and terrified. It sounded like it’d been damaged. And now she was trying to send him away to keep him safe.

“You heard her,” Jim said, pushing his size into the space he’d opened in the door.

When Krista had told Sean about her ex-boyfriend, Sean had imagined some normal-sized guy who was taking out his insecurities on a woman. He had imagined a guy who would cower from someone his own size and strength. Someone who got yelled at by the boss and went home to take it out on the wife and kids.

He did not, in his wildest imagination, imagine a guy like the mammoth who stood in front of him. Sean had wondered why Krista hadn’t left sooner. Why she stuck it out a year. She was a strong woman—a woman Sean couldn’t see dealing very long with physical abuse. But under the thumb of a man like this, a man who could probably pick Sean up and throw him…yeah, it made more sense now. If it wasn’t for Krista, Sean would get the hell away from this guy as soon as possible. The way he hovered, the way he blocked the doorway so Sean couldn’t step in and steal what he was guarding—Krista could never just walk away. Not without this monster coming after her.

Which he apparently had. And now Sean couldn’t walk away, either. Wouldn’t walk away. Not until Krista was safe.

“May I come in, Krista?” Sean asked politely, keeping his eyes locked with Jim’s.

Jim, having sized Sean up and found him wanting, stepped out of the way and opened the door. Sean got his first glimpse of what happened when a woman stood up to a man like Jim.

She was standing on her own two feet, but painfully. Her throat was a furious shade of red, her hair wild—it looked like he had taken fistfuls of it—and her bare leg was blotchy up the inner thigh, turning bruised. Her dress was ripped and finger marks were burned into her upper arm.

Sean’s vision went red.

“Yes!” she shouted in return, hope lacing her words.

A sickly smile took over Jim’s face. There was death in that smile.

He opened the door wide, watching Sean enter with a manic light in his eyes.

~*~*~*~

Seeing Sean peer in at her, eyes thick with determination, Krista cringed. This could be a death sentence. Sean did not plan to leave, he planned to put himself in harm’s way for her, regardless of what he faced. Despite that, her heart surged, feeling like the stronger half of herself was kept with him for safe keeping, and he was now returning it to her.