The Monster Hunter Ch. 01-10

His fingers pinched her nipples hard as he slammed forward and started jetting into his condom. The sensations sent Angel flying. Her head went back, her eyes rolled, and her mouth opened in a soundless scream before she lost consciousness.

Daniel felt her go limp, and he let her legs down as he slowly pulled out. She was breathing fine, so he pulled the covers over her and let her sleep. He ditched the rubber and took a quick shower; she'd hosed him down good, and he loved every minute of it. When he cleaned her up with a washcloth, she didn't wake up. "Long damn day," he told himself as he covered her up.

Getting dressed quietly, he locked the door behind him. He walked to the McDonald's down the road and bought her coffee and a breakfast combo, getting a Quarter Pounder meal with a Coke for himself. When he came back into the room, she was still sleeping. He looked at the clock; in twenty minutes, he'd wake her up, and they'd head back. He sat in the chair and watched the weather forecast; they'd have decent weather for the ride.

When it was time to wake her up, he climbed onto the bed, his hands and knees trapping her under the sheets as he moved up to her face. He leaned down and kissed her, watching her eyelids twitch as he roused her. "No, please NO!" She started to struggle underneath him, kicking and pushing against him. "LEAVE ME ALONE!" He backed off and was getting off the bed right as her right leg came free of the sheets. She kicked him in the thigh, knocking him to the ground as she continued to struggle against the sheets.

"Angel, wake up," he said as he pushed himself up. She continued to thrash, so he pulled the sheets off the bottom of the bed. Thinking fast, he went in and filled a glass with cold water. The shock of it hitting her face startled her awake.

Angel sat up, seeing his look of worry, and started to cry. He sat on the bed and pulled her into his arms, rocking her like a child as she let it out. When she gathered her wits about her, she was embarrassed. "Some tough chick," she said as she looked away.

Ch. 10

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No." Angel got up and found her clothes and her bag, putting on clean underwear and a T-shirt with her jeans and boots.

Daniel didn't understand what was going on; they'd had fantastic sex, and now she wouldn't look at him. "Was it anything I did?" He got up and limped over to the desk to get her motorcycle jacket and shoulder holster.

"What happened to you?"

"Kick to the thigh," he answered.

Angel let him help put the holster on and then her jacket. "I hurt you. I'm sorry, I don't remember. When I have one of those nightmares, I can act out and hurt myself. It's my fault; I should have warned you. You aren't the first person I've hurt before I came out of it."

"You kick like a mule," he said. "I'll be fine. Will you be?"

Angel walked up to him and pulled him down for a kiss. "I had a lot of fun this weekend, Daniel. Let's leave it at that; we're both better off that way." She walked out the door, grabbing her bag and helmet as he followed.

She entered her address in his navigation system while he was locking things up in his carriers. Angel didn't talk as they drove off; she just clung to him like a baby koala to its mother. "We've got over two hours of riding time, Angel. When you're ready, we can talk about anything."

"You don't want to know my story, Daniel. I have demons you can't dream of and stories you'll never get out of your head. I've learned to keep them to myself. I like you, Daniel, but if I let you in, you'll never look at me the same way. I can't stand it when people look at me with pity in their eyes."

"Have you told anyone?"

"Doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists, police officers, and my family. Only Michael can look at me and not make me feel like a victim. I HATE feeling like a victim."

He let his hand move down to cover hers around his waist; they were cruising on the freeway now. "Well, you haven't told a submarine-qualified Naval officer yet. Who knows, maybe a mechanical engineer can help where the others can't."

That got her laughing. "I think your big dick has done more to help me than your brain," she replied.

"Angel, if I haven't been obvious enough, I have feelings for you already. You're not just a notch on my bedpost; you attract me in a way I didn't expect to find again. You have no idea how much I respect you for what you are and what you do. I want to see you again, Angel. I want to see if this thing between us can grow into something special, and I'd like to do that without getting beat up every morning."

She thought about it for a few miles. "I'm damaged goods, Daniel. I'm that porcelain doll that broke and someone glued back together and put on the shelf. You can't look at it without seeing the damage, and you're afraid to break it again if you take it down and play with it."

"Yet you still want to play with that doll because you love it for more than the glued-up cracks in it," he replied. "I'm thirty years old, not long removed from a divorce where my wife took everything from me and didn't say a word. She betrayed me in the worst way, ripping my heart out and stomping on it while she took my money to her new lover's bed. I'm sure you have more in your past than I do, but I'm up on that shelf too. I look fine, but my heart is held together by duct tape and glue."

"So?"

"If you're looking for a person without scars or history, you're not going to find it. The trick is finding someone who can look past the scars to the person underneath. I think you're an amazing woman, Angel. Talk to me."

Angel closed her eyes; he was right. Eventually, she'd have to tell him or stop seeing him. It wasn't fair to either of them, and it would hurt less if their relationship ended today. She had two hours to talk, and at least she wouldn't have to see what was going on in his eyes as he listened. "Promise me one thing," she told him.

"Anything."

"Dangerous word. When you know what I am, if you can't look at me without pity, I want you to ride away and never call me again."

"Fine. But if I look at you with love in my eyes, I want you to promise you'll go out with me your next day off. Maybe next time you won't fall asleep on me during sex."

She smacked his leg. "That wasn't MY fault, Daniel! You dicked me into oblivion!"

Over the next two hours, she told him everything. Angel started with her Mom selling her to settle her drug debt. She talked in a detached manner about the years she spent as a captive, rented out to perverted men who liked to violate young girls. The beatings. The tears. The whispered conversations with Michael through the air vent, his stories taking her mind off the pain and the hopelessness. She told him about the day the police raided the home and rescued the two of them. They made the Beltway as she kept talking. Angel told him about her time in different foster homes until the Johnsons accepter her as Michael's sister. "Michael is the most important person in the world to me; he's all I have left. I don't let anyone close, and I have no friends or relatives. I'm a cold bitch at work, and I treat men I like as fuck-toys for one-night stands. My therapist tells me that my aversion to relationships is a fear of getting hurt, and the shell around me is my defense mechanism. Even my partner in the FBI doesn't know my history. My parents made sure my medical and adoption records got sealed from that time; they didn't want anyone to know what happened to us that wasn't covered by a confidentiality clause. The shrinks would take my badge away if I told them the truth about me."

"Didn't they ask you why you wanted to join?"

"I told them the truth; I wanted to protect and defend. I wanted to put human traffickers in prison, and I am good at it."

"You want to keep other girls from going through what you have," Daniel replied. "You can't do anything about the men who hurt you, but you can hurt men like them."

"Yeah." She laid her chin on his shoulder. "That was my shitty childhood."

"It doesn't sound all bad," he said. "You found a brother, and you got a great set of parents out of it. They spent a lot of time gluing you back together after finding you like that."

"They did. I was so hard on my parents; it was a year before I'd let Dad even touch me. He never raised his voice, never hurt me, but he was a MAN. It took three years before he could hold me. I don't know how they did it."

"They loved you, Angel. You may not feel you know how to love, but they showed you everything you needed to learn."

Angel held him tight as she started to cry; as difficult as this ride had been for her, Daniel reached her in a way the others hadn't. She didn't say anything until he pulled into her driveway. She got off, opening the saddlebag to grab her stuff while trying to avoid looking into his eyes.

Michael came out, instantly worried because her face was a streaky mess from the crying. "Are you all right?"

"I'm tired and emotional," she told him. Daniel had taken his helmet off and was looking at her.

She looked into his eyes and didn't see pity. She saw love, and that scared the shit out of her at the same time it sent a thrill through her body. "Thank you for the ride," she told him as she walked close to him.

"Call me when you're free," he said before he took her mouth in a bruising kiss. Angel kissed him back, wishing he didn't have to go. He finally let her go, put his helmet on, and drove away.

Angel started crying again and ran inside. Michael followed her in, trying to figure out what was going on, but she closed the door to her room and locked it.

She took a quick shower, then slept until her alarm went off the next morning. Dressing in her work clothes, she was surprised to find Michael waiting for her in the kitchen so early on a Monday morning. He was making pancakes and gave her a plate. "Want to talk about it?"

"Work? It was a waste of time. It's not our guy."

"That's not what I was asking about, Angel. If Das D hurt you, I have a problem with that, and he's going to have a problem with me."

"I was the one who hurt him, Michael. I like him a lot, and it scares me."

He reached across the table and took her hand. "It's all right to find someone to love," he told her. "Of anyone in the world who deserves a happy ending, it's you."

"Maybe you should find a woman of your own," Angel replied. "That college girl near Gettysburgh sounded fun. Are you going to call her back? Maybe ride up there?"

"I didn't get her phone number," he told her. Both of them knew that if he wanted to see her again, he'd find her. Michael was just like her.

Angel walked out to her car, and Michael went back to his room. He turned the framed print above his desk around, exposing the dry-erase board where he kept his notes. Switching on the computer, he started his next search.