Rock Hard (Rock Kiss 2)

Charlotte hadn’t been able to stand it.

“My father always told me I should never waste money on rent if I was in a position to invest it in a property instead,” she said, her voice raw, “so I bought the town house.” Going from a family home to a smaller town house had left her with enough money to put herself through university.

“Molly and I had the biggest argument because she wanted to pay me rent. I finally used guilt to win.” She laughed and it was real, if a little wet. “I asked her if she wanted my mom and dad to haunt me. After all, they’d always treated her as another daughter.”

“Devious.” His lips brushed her temple, his hand warm and protective on her hip. “No wonder you two are close. You’ve been through a lot together.”

Feeling safe in a way she hadn’t since before Richard, she nodded. However, the warmth that came with talking about her parents and her best friend faded into a shivering chill as she looked into the darkness. “I met Richard two months into my first semester.” His name was like broken glass in her throat. Hard and cutting and bloodying her from the inside out. “He was smart, good-looking, and he liked me. At least that’s what he made me believe.”

Pressed as she was to Gabriel’s body, she felt the thrumming tension in him, his muscles bunched up. “It’s all right, Gabriel. He’s in prison.”

“Jesus, Charlotte.” His arm tightened around her. “What the fuck did he do to you?”

Charlotte knew she just had to get it out—Gabriel had to know. “Four months of being in a relationship with him and I finally started to understand he was bad for me. He made me doubt everything about myself, made me think I was worthless.” Looking back, Charlotte couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen through him sooner. “I wish I could go back and shake myself.”

Gabriel scowled. “You were hurt and grieving. He took advantage of that.”

Intellectually, Charlotte knew she’d been in a vulnerable place at the time Richard came into her life, but it was so hard not to look back and wish she could change the past. Still, that insecure, shy girl hadn’t totally let herself down. “One day, while we were talking about a paper for a shared class, he hit me,” she said past her thundering heart, conscious of Gabriel’s muscles going hard as rock against her. “Said I was giving him lip.”

Shocked and in pain, her lip bleeding, Charlotte had headed for the door. “I broke up with him then and there. Or I tried to.” It had taken all her courage; she’d kept waiting for him to haul her back, hit her again. Richard’s arrogance was what had allowed her to escape. “He refused to believe it. At first he laughed, said I’d come crawling back since he was the only one who’d have me.”

A growl rumbled out of Gabriel’s chest. “Tell me you reported the motherfucking piece of shit.”

Patting his chest in a soothing gesture, she snuggled even closer to the furnace of his body in an effort to get warm. “Yes, but it was my word against his.” And Richard was a master manipulator skilled at creating illusions that appeared real. “In the end, nothing came of it.”

Gabriel’s jaw was granite. “It didn’t end there, did it?”

She shook her head. “When he realized I was serious about breaking up, he began to bombard me with flowers and chocolates, was suddenly the charming boy who’d first made me believe he loved me.” Panic pulsed in her, causing her lungs to struggle, the air suddenly too thin. “But when I wouldn’t budge, he started to get mean.” Shallow breaths, her heart beating too fast. “He spread rumors about me on campus and through the online campus forums, but that didn’t matter so much to me.”

She’d never been a social butterfly, hadn’t cared about the opinions of the popular cliques. “Molly knew the truth, and that was all that mattered.” During their relationship, Richard had tried to manipulate her into dropping Molly as a friend, but that was the one thing on which Charlotte had never given an inch. “The fact that I was a nobody on campus actually helped me—no one cared enough to spread the rumors.”

“Breathe, Charlotte.”

“I can’t. I have to get this out.” Almost panting now, she slid her hand around to his back and fisted it in his shirt. “I thought that would be the end of it, but he started sitting in on my lectures, just smirking at me. And I could feel him following me around campus, but I could never catch him at it.”

Fear licked at her, a memory of how hunted she’d felt, never knowing when he might confront her, hurt her. “Then I started getting anonymous e-mails full of pictures of women being degraded. No messages, just the vilest pictures with my head Photoshopped on the women’s bodies. The phone calls started soon afterward, all from untraceable numbers.” Nausea had swamped her each time she heard the ringtone. “Over and over and over and over at night and during finals, until I had to change the home line and my cell.”

Gabriel’s voice was hard when he spoke. “He was stalking you.”

“Yes, but he was so good at covering his tracks that though the police were sympathetic, they couldn’t stop him. They did give him a warning though—it enraged him. He stewed and stewed on it, and he watched me.”

She shivered, continued to push the words out because she was afraid that if she paused, she’d never start again. “I didn’t know that then. The incidents stopped after the warning, and when they didn’t reoccur over the next two months, I felt safe again. Safe enough to insist Molly go out of town for a special seminar her lecturer had recommended. I told her I’d be fine.”