All Chapters of Enemy Mine (Unseen Enemy 3): Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

55 Chapters

Chapter Twenty-one

“Five hundred thousand dollars? With more to come?” Liv was thunderstruck. “What the hell, Em?”“Yeah, I know, right?” Emma tried to smile, but her hands were shaky as she put her cup of tea to her lips. “Chemo and spinal taps and stem cell transplants aren’t cheap, huh?”“And I imagine that five weeks in isolation post-transplant was expensive, right?” Jenny asked.“Oh, yeah. According to Helen Carrow, that’s what really racked up the numbers, actually. The isolation ward, the drugs afterwards, the twenty-four-hour care. But if I take into account chemo for the next six to eight months for sure, just that alone will push me up well over seven hundred thousand. Forget about my drugs and blood tests, and anything unexpected.”“Fuck.” Kat’s green eyes were glittering. “This is bullshit. You get sick through no fault of your own, and you go through hell, and now you’re going to be bankrupted?”“Well,” Emma said. “I do have a plan.”“What?” Liv asked. “You’d better not be going back to wo

Chapter Twenty-two

Chris glanced up when he heard the front door open and then close.“Hey,” he said. “How’s it going?”Jenny looked over at him, amazed. “Are you – cooking?”“Yeah.” He stirred the sauce. “Nothing fancy, and nothing that’ll impress you, Ms. Chef. But you’ve cooked for me since I moved in here, and all you do all day is cook for other people… I thought maybe you’d enjoy being fed, for a change.”“Oh, Chris. That’s so great. Thank you.”“Sure,” he said. “It’ll be about fifteen minutes, so if you want to get cleaned up and relax a bit, I can call you.”“Perfect.”Upstairs in her bathroom, Jenny stripped off her clothes, stretched a bit against the tightness in her shoulders. With a sigh, she stepped into the shower and just stood there for a few minutes, letting the hot water wash away the stress and craziness of the day.When she washed her face, she suddenly noticed her hands on her skin. She ran her fingers across her forehead, her cheekbones, her chin. She touched her lips, then moved

Chapter Twenty-three

Jenny felt heat moving through her body. It wasn’t fear or panic, though; this was a sticky heat, a slow, languid wave. It pulsed in her ears, and made her stomach tighten and curl. She was shocked to remember what this was.Oh, my God. This is arousal. I’m turned on. “Chris.” Her voice was hoarse.“Yeah, baby?”“Is this OK?”“For me it is. You?”She nodded. “Can you… suck on my finger?”He closed his eyes again, feeling his cock harden immediately. OK, stay calm. Careful now. Don’t scare her.Gently, he closed his lips around her fingertip, his tongue pressing against it slightly. She jolted, but didn’t pull back. He parted his lips, released her finger, then sucked it back in again. His tongue darted out, circled her finger. She gasped.“Oh, God,” she said. “That feels so good.” She picked up his hand and placed it on her cheek again. “Touch me.”He stroked her cheek and sucked on her finger, his eyes holding hers. Her face was alight with pleasure, and he felt emotion well up in

Chapter Twenty-four

Four days later“I want to tell you,” Jenny said. “What happened to me. I want you to know.”Chris looked up, totally shocked.Wow. This Saturday morning has taken an unexpected turn.“You do?” he asked cautiously.“Yes.” Her face was tight and pale, but she had a determined set to her lips and eyes. “I want you to understand. I want you to know why I panicked the other night.”He leaned back, his hand clutching his cup of coffee. “You can tell me as much as you want, or as little. I’m listening.”She nodded, took a deep breath. She fucking hated talking about this, and no matter how many times she’d been over it with Lori – and they’d discussed it ad nauseam over the previous six years, to the point that it was almost like pushing ‘rewind’ and then ‘repeat’ – parts of it still made her physically weak and ill.Chris was feeling pretty weak and ill himself. He knew that she’d promised to tell him the whole horrible story, but he was sure it would be later, maybe when they were moving

Chapter Twenty-five

“Chris?”“Please tell me that they went to jail for a long, long time.” His voice was coiled, quiet. Almost a hiss.She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to keep her body from shaking apart. “No. They didn’t.”“Why not?”She exhaled, hard. “A few reasons. First, one of them – the youngest guy, he was only sixteen – started to freak out, and he called the cops himself, gave them very clear directions to the cabin up in the Rockies where they were holding me. So he got credit for being so helpful, and also for being a minor.”Chris clenched his hands. “Second, they always wore condoms, so there was no physical evidence of any of them raping me. I mean, it was obvious what had happened, from a physical and medical point of view, but there was no way to prove who actually did it.”“But you told the cops, right? I mean, you’d have heard their voices…”“Yeah, well. The DA decided that I wasn’t the most reliable witness,” she said. “I was blind, so I had no way to confirm anything vis

Chapter Twenty-six

Chris slammed into Jim’s apartment. “I need a fucking drink. And something to beat the hell out of.”The three men looked up at him, looked at each other. Without a word, Jim got up and went to his kitchen. He poured out a shot of whiskey and handed it to Chris, who threw it back.“Another one." Chris wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “And where’s that thing for me to punch?”Dallas was already over in the far corner of the room, hanging Jim’s punching bag from the hook in the ceiling. Dean went to the closet and took out the boxing gloves, but Chris tossed back his second shot and waved the gloves away. The guys watched silently as Chris laid into the bag with a ferocity that they knew he possessed, but which they hadn’t seen in a long time. Not since Tiegert had been killed, actually. After five minutes, Chris yanked off his sweaty t-shirt and returned to the bag. Every muscle in his back and arms strained as he punched, kicked, punched again. The only sounds in the apartmen

Chapter Twenty-seven

“You know, it makes me have a whole new appreciation for that first time we all met,” Dean said.“In the hospital waiting room?” Chris asked.“Yeah. Think about it from Jenny’s perspective: four huge guys show up out of the blue, refusing to leave. We just… just stormed them, you know. And there were four of us… Jesus.” Dean ran his hands through his scruffy blond hair. “No wonder she looked like she was about to pass out on the spot.”“It also explains why Kat and Liv got between us and her,” Jim said quietly. “They’d know exactly where her mind must have gone.”The men nodded.Chris sighed. “There are just so many ways for me to scare her, guys. So many ways for me to screw this up.”“You go as far as she asks, and not one inch beyond,” Dallas said. “And if she panics, you tell her she’s safe now. That’s it, man. You take it one inch at a time.”“Yeah,” Chris looked down at his hands, finally saw the blood and bruises blossoming across the knuckles. “How the hell am I going to expla

Chapter Twenty-eight

He picked up the mug of green tea and walked up the stairs. Her door was open, and he paused just outside.“Hey, sweetheart. I’m home.”Jenny looked up at him, relieved that he was back. For about an hour after she'd left Chris downstairs, looking shocked, she’d berated herself for telling him as soon as she did. Finally, she’d called Emma in a panic, sure that Chris was going to run. Hell, she’d run, if she had any choice in the matter whatsoever.“Hi,” she said. “I’m glad you’re here.”“Can I come in?”“Yes.” He approached the bed slowly, then set the tea on the bedside table before stepping back. Jenny gasped and grabbed his hand.“Chris? What happened?”“Oh, baby.” He swallowed hard. “I – I went over to Jim’s and I beat the hell out of his punching bag.”“You did? Why?”“Because… I was angry. No, correction. I was fucking furious. I wanted to kill someone for what happened to you.”“You did?”“I did.”She sat there, his large hand cradled in both of her smaller ones, running her

Chapter Twenty-nine

At her restaurant the next morning, Jenny glanced up to see a large group of people enter. She blinked when she saw that it was her friends. They grinned at the look on her face as she approached. “Hi,” she said. “You guys OK?”“Sure are,” Dallas said. “We came for brunch.”“Oh!” Jenny said. “OK. Well, we always leave a few unreserved tables, and you’re here early enough to snag one.”“Yeah, we figured we’d have to get here early,” Jim said. “Believe me, babe, nothing but your buffet would get me out of my place before nine a.m. on a Sunday.”She giggled. “Come on, then. This way.”She led them over to a large table next to the window. “This OK?”“Yeah,” Liv said as Dallas helped her take off her coat. “Thanks, Jenny.”“Sure,” she said. “Coffee?”“Many,” Chris said. “Many, many coffees.”She looked at him now and their eyes met. His softened, and he walked over to her, moved closer. She didn’t back away, so he gently reached out and placed his fingertips on the generous curve of her

Chapter Thirty

Dallas was sitting on the edge of his bed, wearing just boxer shorts and feeling incredibly nervous.Jesus Christ. I feel like a virgin or something here. I haven’t been this worried about getting into bed with a woman since… well, actually. I’ve never been this worried about sleeping with a woman.He heard the bathroom door open and he turned to the hallway. There she was. Beautiful, brave, kind. His Olivia. She was wearing his long t-shirt, the one that she’d used as a nightgown since her stalker had sliced her up almost three months earlier. His heart squeezed at the look on her face. She looked tentative and afraid, and he didn’t want to see her like that. Not ever again.“Olivia,” he said. “Baby, are you sure?”She stepped into the room and joined him in bed. “Can we take it slow?”“Yeah. We can.” He lay back. “You set the pace here. You decide what we do, and when. You decide if we stop.”“OK.” She bit her full lip. “But Dallas, I really want this. I miss you.”“I’m right here,

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