Finding Love: Incident at the Candy Apple (At the Candy Apple Series Book 2) Read Online Free PDF

twirling his glass on the bar counter. He couldn’t shake the need to see Ellie again. He said good night to Tom and left the club.
    As he ran down the steps and took a right into the street, someone stepped from the shadows of a darkened doorway. It was Ellie.

Chapter Six
     
     
    A spike of shock ran through Jake. He stopped walking.
    Ellie gazed up at him, her face pale in the light from a street lamp. “I owe you an explanation.” She actually smiled at him.
    Disbelief raced over Jake and made him indignant. How is that okay? She smiles at me as if nothing happened. What a nerve. “You sure do.” He glared at her. This was the first time ever he’d displayed his anger at what happened to him at the hands of bullies and right now she fell into that category for him. He grabbed her elbow and hurried her along the sidewalk. “There’s an all-night café around the corner. Come with me before I change my mind, take you back into the club, and march you up to the office to explain to the owner.”
    “Okay, don’t pull.” She clattered along beside him in her high-heeled shoes.
    “Sorry.” Jake stopped hurrying her, but kept a grip on her arm. At the door of the café, he reached over her shoulder and pushed it open blocking her exit with his body, so that she couldn’t make a break for it if she’d changed her mind. Once inside, he stayed close behind steering her toward an empty window table with his proximity.
    Ellie sat and Jake sat opposite her. She rubbed her arm where he’d gripped.
    Jake frowned. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Are you okay?”
    The server showed up. Jake instinctively let Ellie order what she wanted first and then he asked for black coffee.
    He watched the server head off and then switched his gaze to Ellie.
    “If you’re okay, explain to me now.” He snapped out the words trying to be harsh although his anger had gone replaced by a strange feeling of freedom.
    Ellie pulled a paper napkin from the dispenser and started rolling it into a strip.
    “I knew you would escape or be found. I’d watched you. I reckoned that you wouldn’t be the kind of guy who’d track me down and slap me around for doing what I did. You were so keen to give me what I needed and I needed to do that—to get it out of my system. I waited for you so that I could explain why, hoping that you’d forgive me and understand.
    My last boyfriend was the dominant type. He used to make me have a safeword and have me submit to what he called love play. I should have left him, but for some reason I just let it happen until he tied me up and kept me for days in his bedroom. He didn’t hit then, but he knew the ropes hurt, and he knew I was afraid. He ignored my safeword. He said he loved me, said he couldn’t let me go he loved me so much. He left me in the dark, naked for two days before he came home. I—I wet myself. It took me two more dark days to persuade him to untie me. I needed a drink of water badly. I felt faint. I promised him I would stay—that he could trust me. He untied me and locked me in the apartment the next morning when he went to work.
    He’d taken my cell phone. I’d kicked my purse under the bed when I’d first arrived early in the week, and somehow he’d forgotten I had that. I had my wallet and car keys in the purse. I smashed the window with the metal legs of a designer stool he used as a bedside table, and escaped via the fire ladders. It was so scary. I left town that day and never went back.
    That was about six months ago. I couldn’t trust anyone. I couldn’t let myself date. New work friends brought me to the club saying I had to break my drought, get back in the saddle, those sorts of joking around things. I joined. It felt safe. I saw you. I really liked you. I waited for your approach. Honestly, I would have just had sex with you, but you came on with that safeword stuff and giving me what I needed, and suddenly I needed to rid myself of the experience with