Page 3 of Embracing My Nightmare
Chapter 1
Elise
Nine years later
Another Saturday nightin Pierce Bluff was starting, and I was serving drinks to all the cheery patrons. Tending bar at Falcon’s Tavern had been a great way to earn extra money during college and I enjoyed the people watching. The music drove me as I mixed and served the townspeople, getting lost in the faces of the strangers who came and went. The town was small enough to have regular patrons but not so big that it lost its charm. Lately, being here and watching the fun was becoming boring. I felt the itch for more.
Hayden, the owner, brushed up behind me, his toned body and hard length rubbing against my ass as I leaned over and handed the customer his beer. I glanced over my shoulder and smirked at him. He and I occasionally hooked up when he wasn’t in a relationship, and he had just kicked the most recent bimbo to the curb last week. His blatant advances before he left me alone behind the bar had me biting my lip with a smile as I took the next order.
Pierce Bluff was a great town to live in. I had been here for almost ten years, and I fought every day to make the most of the life I had now, refusing to dwell too deeply on the past. The state moved me to Pierce Bluff two weeks after my adoptive parents’ murder/suicide. The police had burst through the door and found me tied to the bed, drugged and covered in bruises. After I told them what had happened, or what I ‘could remember’, they sent me to a group home until a new foster home was ready for me.
I was taken in by a wonderful couple who hadn’t had children of their own, and they made me feel welcome from the first moment. My parents, the ones who gave me enough love to fill two lifetimes, offered to adopt me, but after the hell I had survived, I was reluctant to become comfortable anywhere. They reassured me, protected me, and with time, taught me that I was valued and loved.
I expected to be cast away on my eighteenth birthday, but they shocked me by throwing me a party. All my new friends celebrated me, and I remember feeling like I had a family for the first time in my life. I lived with Chuck and Blaire until I graduated from college three years ago and found a two-bedroom apartment in a new building overlooking Pierce Lake. I worked as a project manager at an interior design company, but I still worked at the tavern on the weekends for extra money. I liked my job, but it wasn’t my passion. I took the first job offered to me and had contemplated changing careers, hoping to find something that ignited a fire in me. It was time to focus on my future.
Or what futureheallowed me to have. I always felt him breathing down my neck. He had promised to return for me, and it fueled my inability to relax. His vow had been the driving force behind some of my reckless behavior, thinking once he came for me, my life would be over.
I had a close relationship with my dad, Chuck. He liked to stop by the bar and have a drink on his way home, which I knew was his way of checking on me. He had urged me to give up the second job to focus on my career, but I would laugh, reminding him I still had just under ten thousand dollars in student loans to repay.
I had inherited a large sum of money from Roger and Sally, but I hadn’t spent a dime. With no idea where they got it, I refused to touch it. They hated me, so it somehow felt wrong to use it. Chuck and Blaire offered to help with college, but I didn’t want to take their money to pay for my education, knowing they would be using their retirement funds.
Chuck had medically retired from the Army a year before I came to live with them. Blaire had been a graphic designer who worked from home for years. They were both twenty-seven at the time, and that made my transition both easier and harder. They were closer to my age in comparison to my adopted parents, who were close to forty when they died, but they were still parental figures and that alone incited fear in me.
I had been withdrawn after the incident, and the fear he would come back for me had kept me from sleeping properly or wanting to open up to anyone. It worried me that my new family would be as bad as my old one, then after time, I worried he would come and take them from me.
Chuck would find me reading a book in my room in the middle of the night, and he would silently nod as he passed my open door. After a few months of slowly building trust and communication, he finally asked me about what happened. I told him what I could remember from that night. I gave him the same version I told the officers who had found me bound to the bed, leaving out my dark savior. I fought the need to tell someone, anyone, about the mystery man who had killed my abusers and set me free.
A few times, I pondered if he was real or if I had created him in my mind to protect me from the worst of the memories. Then I remembered his kind touch and his promise to me that I was safe, so I chastised myself for the jumbled memories of doubt.
Chuck observed me with knowing eyes. His time in the military and what I guessed was a tough childhood had hardened him into a man who listened but never pushed. In all the years, he never called me out on the glaring omissions in my story and I never asked him how he got the scars that crisscrossed his back and chest. He and I had the same hollow expression that, no matter how hard we tried, was still clear to those who met us.
Pain. Demons. Fear.
We were damaged from our pasts, and together, he and I bonded. Blaire would watch the two of us but never interrupted when Chuck or I were lost in the past. She would observe us, love us, and be there for us when we finally found our way back into the light. They were amazing people who had chosen me, and I loved them for everything they had done for me.
My foster parents knewsomeof my past, and after a year of therapy, I could discusssomeabuse with them without fear or shame. I was always general about what I told them, and no one knew the full extent of what I endured. I tried every day to keep the monsters buried deep in the recesses of my mind.
I didn’t think of him every waking moment anymore, but every time I saw a tall man with jet-black hair and deep blue eyes, the breath would catch in my throat. I would panic when I saw someone who reminded me of him, or the image my mind had conjured of him in my drug-induced, fearful brain. I used every tool Chuck had taught me to remain calm and soon realized I was living in fear instead of living my life.
Chuck recognized my anxiety and helped me channel it into a way to save myself. Every evening in the garage, he would quietly teach me self-defense, and he familiarized me with guns and knives. He took me to a private range and taught me to shoot. There was a snubnose.38 in mypurse, and having it close comforted me.
Basic survival skills during camping trips, first-aid lessons, and situational awareness were a few of the things he taught me in private, and he often reminded me that no one should know about my abilities. People will push your limits if they think they can get away with it, and his only goal was to ensure I was safe and able to protect myself fully.
“It’s better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission,”he would say every time I excelled at a new task.
Somehow, I knew Chuck was aware of more than he let on, and I was grateful for everything he taught me. Blaire was an amazing person who helped me navigate the waters of blossoming from a young girl into a confident woman. The night I lost my virginity to the bumbling hands of an inexperienced boy, she was waiting for me when I got home. Without me saying a word, we sat down and she shared her first experience, explaining how not all sex was good sex. With only twelve years between us, she became a confidante to me, and I was grateful to have them both in my life.
All throughout college and after I graduated, I had too many one-night stands and put myself in situations I shouldn’t have been in, secretly hoping that he would come and make good on his promise. I let the dark recesses of my mind wander, imagining it was him who was thrusting into me as yet another selfish man got off, not bothering to make me come.
After a few close calls and one night where I had to fight to stop a man from taking a part of me that didn’t belong to him, I bought a drawerful of toys and swore off men who weren’t good for me. Refusing anything more than friends with benefits, I found time every day to get myself off, needing the emotional and physical release orgasms gave me. The endorphin release kept me sane when all I wanted to do was be reckless.
I was sure there was something wrong with me thatI had to picturehim, his broad chest pressed against me, black hair swept to the side as he dominated me, forcing me into orgasm after orgasm. I didn’t even know his name, but he was the overshadowing force in my sexual desire. I wanted to be ready for whenever he returned . . . if he returned.
“Hey sexy. How’s it going out here?” Hayden asked as he came back behind the bar with an armful of beer, snapping me out of the desire I had for a nightmare.My savior.
Hayden wiped the fallen blonde locks from his forehead, and I let my eyes linger on his fit body. He was looking delicious tonight with his tight t-shirt straining against his muscular chest and fitted jeans. I eyed him up and down, remembering the last time we hooked up. I decided tonight was a good night to release some of my pent-up desire and Hayden was always a good time. I felt my eyes hood as I licked my lips and smiled at him.
Hayden smirked at me as he sat the boxes down on the floor for me to stock the coolers. Reaching down, he adjusted his thick cock in his jeans and winked as he turned and went to grab more cases of beer. Sighing, I shoved the cold bottles into the bin of ice as another customer placed their order.
