Pulled Within

by Marni Mann

  “Hi, Rae.”

  My breath got stuck in the back of my throat. I had to stop myself from choking. It was that voice again, the one that made my entire body melt…and that made my heart ache at the same time. I’d lost track of him at the casino. He’d so easily left me behind. Again.

  What the hell was he doing here now?

  “Seeing you at the poker room was a coincidence,” he said as I turned around. His soft lips were pulled into a grin. “This time, it feels a little more meaningful.”

  I didn’t bother telling him that, after I‘d gotten out of work, I had checked the whole parking lot for him. I hadn’t expected that he’d stick around, considering his tendency for leaving. Maybe I’d just been hoping it would be different this time.

  “The poker room was definitely unintentional. But you’re in my space now.”

  And he was. He was standing only a foot away, with his hands in his pockets. A fleece hugged his tall, tight frame.

  His eyelids narrowed. His bottom lip was wet where he’d just licked it. “Your space?”

  I didn’t just hear his words when he spoke; I felt them push through my jacket and tickle the skin around my navel. Had I closed my eyes, I’d have seen his lips in that exact spot. His tongue, too. My back arching from the syllables he breathed over my flesh.

  But I couldn’t close my eyes…and I couldn’t let any of that happen. I wasn’t going back to that place with him. It had taken me far too long to recover last time. All he would get from me now were simple answers. “Yeah, this is…”

  I stopped speaking when Shane joined us suddenly, his eyes bouncing from Hart to me. “Did I interrupt you guys?”

  “No,” I answered quickly, thinking of a question to fire off at Shane. “Is everything okay with the landlord?” I hoped it would make Hart uncomfortable enough to walk away. But he didn’t. He just stood there facing me, his eyes never leaving mine.

  “He’s giving me a few extra days to move Brady’s things,” Shane said. He wasn’t done speaking. I could tell that whatever was coming next, it hurt him to say it. “That’s the only allowance he’ll make. He doesn’t want you—or anyone—living there, so that means you—”

  “I’ll head over there right now,” I blurted out. I got it. He didn’t need to say any more, especially in front of Hart. Not that it mattered, but Hart didn’t need to know anything about my living situation. And it was a reason to make my exit.

  “He wants you to leave your key on the kitchen counter,” Shane said.

  That spot inside my stomach began to thaw from Hart’s silvery stare. It was the same spot that liked to shoot little bolts to the place between my legs, reminding me of the control he used to have over my body…and apparently still did. I only wished it could heat my face, too; it was the only skin that wasn’t covered by at least a layer of clothes. And the colder it got, the deeper and redder my scar appeared. I hated that I couldn’t hide it from him.

  “No problem,” I said.

  Shane’s hand was back on my shoulder, more fatherly concern filling his face. “You know you can always stay at my house. No one is using Brady’s room, so it’s yours if you need it. You still have the key I gave you?”

  Hart had noticed Shane embracing me, and his concerned expression. He was processing the pieces he’d just heard, putting the whole picture together. His stance told me he wasn’t going anywhere…which meant I needed to. “Yeah, I have it, but I’m all set. I have a place already.” I hated lying to Shane after everything he had done for me. It was something I didn’t usually do. I just didn’t want him to worry, and I really didn’t want Hart to be here while we had this conversation, either. “Thank you, Shane. I’ll call you after I leave the apartment.” I glanced at Hart. I had no idea what to say to him, so I said nothing. I raised my fingers and waved as I turned around and rushed to my car.

  I slid into the driver’s seat and watched the guys from the corner of my eye. I saw their lips move. I couldn’t help but wonder what they were talking about, why Hart was at the construction site…what he was even doing back in Bar Harbor. Shane would tell me everything, but it would have to wait until later.

  I put my foot on the brake and turned the key, and a sputtering filled my ears. The entire car shook. It sounded like it was trying to start; it just didn’t actually fire up. I checked the key to make sure it was the right one. I tried tapping the gas.

  Nothing happened, other than the noise attracting their attention.

  This can’t be fucking happening.

  As my forehead pressed against the steering wheel, my skin chafed from the leather rubbing against it. I didn’t care. All I wanted was to go to Brady’s and grab my things and figure out where I was going to live. Hopefully, it wasn’t going to be inside this car.

  There was a knock at the window. I took a deep breath, slowly turning toward the glass and rolled it down.

  “I think you’re out of gas,” Shane said.

  Hart had followed him, and was already lifting my hood. It blocked my view of him, but I could hear him checking whatever was underneath. He closed it and walked over to my window. “Shane’s right,” he said. “Everything else looks fine.”

  I felt so stupid. I knew I needed gas, but I had left Bangor in such a hurry that I’d forgotten to get some. My eyes automatically closed; my head leaned into the seat. I needed to think—again—and knowing Hart’s eyes were all over me wasn’t helping.

  “Shane,” Hart said, “I know your guys need you right now. I’ve got some time before my next meeting. I can take her to the gas station.”

  My lids burst open and my head lifted. The spot in my stomach was boiling. I wrapped my arms around it and squeezed.

  “Are you okay with Hart taking you?” Shane asked. He knew about my past with Hart. But we were adults now, and all of that had happened years ago. There was no reason for Shane to think I couldn’t be in a car with him. But he didn’t know what was going on inside me.

  And there was plenty of reason for me to think I couldn’t do it.

  I had no choice. I had to get to the apartment. “I’m…” I glanced at Hart. The flirtatious grin on his lips, the way his long, harmless-yet-demanding fingers ran through the scruffy stubble on his face. It was too much. I couldn’t do it. “I’m good, thanks. I’ll just call a taxi so I can get my stuff.”

  My car door opened. “No need,” Hart said. “I’ll take you there. Come on.”

  There was no way he was taking me to Brady’s. This whole situation was embarrassing enough.

  “No, Hart, it’s okay…really.”

  He just kept holding the door open, and I just kept sitting there, waiting for him to close it again. Finally, he reached for my hand. “Let me help you.” It was an order, though a soft one that came from a sincere, helpful place.

  “The man’s offering to move you out,” Shane said. “I’d do it if I could, but I’m stuck

  here.”

  They obviously weren’t going to ease up on Hart’s offer, which didn’t surprise me. I grabbed my purse and got out of the car. Hart’s hand dropped when he realized I wasn’t going to take it.

  “Give him a real good workout, Rae,” Shane laughed. “Maybe he won’t ride my ass so hard this afternoon.”

  What the hell did that mean?

  I didn’t have time to think about it. I smiled at Shane, but it wasn’t real. I was just trying to hide everything that stirred inside me. “Don’t worry…I won’t be easy on him.”

  “Good,” Shane said. “We’ll talk later.”

  I nodded as he walked away.

  “Does that mean you’re going to ride me really hard at Brady’s?” Hart’s lids narrowed again, and he gazed at me through his long lashes. “You know how much I liked it when you did that. And you know how much I liked to return the favor.” His words could have been taken as an attempt at humor, but his tone told me he wasn’t entirely kidding.

  Goose bumps covered my skin.

  “Where’s your
car?” I asked, breaking my stare away from him.

  He laughed and held out his arm. “This way. After you.”

  I moved in front of him and headed down the long driveway. After a few steps, he caught up with me and led me to the black Range Rover that was parked in the street. I should have known he’d be driving something like that. Money wasn’t something Hart or his family had ever lacked.

  “Where are we going?” he asked once he got in.

  “Turn around and go straight until you hit Main Street.” I ran my fingers over the stitching of the leather seat, rubbed my knuckles—anything to keep my hands busy and my mind off him. I knew both were impossible. I had too many questions. I just didn’t know why I couldn’t bring myself to ask them.

  He’d left Maine while were still dating—abruptly, with no warning, and no good-bye. It was the summer of his junior year. He just disappeared one day, and I hadn’t heard much about him since. But that was my doing; whenever someone started talking about him, I walked away. It hurt too much to hear it. Eventually, I’d heard that Bar Harbor wasn’t enough for him. His dream was to play professional baseball, but college scouts weren’t exactly rushing to our town to find athletes. So he moved away and went to the best prep school in New England. Knowing he’d chosen sports over me and hadn’t bothered to tell me hadn’t exactly left the best impression.

  I stared at his profile as he looked over his shoulder to back out of his spot on the street. I knew his face so well, but the years we’d been apart had only made him more attractive. More mature. His features were so sharp, so angled. He’d always been sexual, more so than anyone I had ever dated, but now it felt like there was a grown-up confidence that enhanced his physicality.

  Sex poured from him.

  He wasn’t all tatted up like Saint—not that I could see, anyway. He didn’t have Saint’s rugged appearance, or a bad boy exterior hiding an interior so battered and damaged that he was nearly impossible to heal. Hart was bold and smooth instead.

  He was refreshing.

  The only badness about him was the way he’d pleasured my body with his hands…and tongue.

  I made myself not think about it.

  He put the SUV back in drive and slowly turned around again, stopping when he found my eyes. I hated riding in the passenger seat. It positioned my scarred cheek closest to whoever was driving. He may not have been staring at it, but I could feel his questions regardless. I’d been so whole the last time he’d seen me. Now my skin was cracked, so thick and jagged that it barely looked like skin at all. But the memories inside me had made scars even worse than this, even worse than how I’d felt when Hart left without saying good-bye.

  The countdown was still ticking away.

  Twenty-nine days.

  I made myself not think about that either, though it wasn’t easy. I looked at Hart again. His eyes hadn’t left me. He was looking beyond my scar, beneath the surface, trying to read my thoughts. I had no doubt he could do it, too. He’d always had the ability to hear the things I didn’t say. Sometimes he’d tell me what he’d seen, but I had usually gotten the feeling that he kept most of it to himself.

  His vision returned to the road. “I take a left onto Main Street?”

  “Yeah, then a right onto Hancock. It’s the third house on the left.”

  Slowly, the questions came. “So…you’re living with Brady?” His hand casually slid around the wheel, pausing when it reached the top.

  “I was just staying with him.” The conversation he’d heard between me and Shane couldn’t have made a lot of sense. “The landlord kicked us out—well…really, he kicked me out. I just need to get my stuff.”

  “You guys have been best friends for a long time.” He was already digging around. “Still…just friends?”

  I remembered all the conversations I’d had with Hart about this subject. He’d thought Brady liked me as more than just a friend. Saint had thought the same. Neither of them understood the level of friendship I had with Brady, what the two of us had been through together. Having been away as long as he had, Hart couldn’t have known the half of it. I thought at least Saint would have gotten it, since he’d experienced some of my pain. But he never understood.

  “Yep. Just friends,” I said.

  “I hear he’s gone into rehab.” I nodded. It felt like an interview. “Where will you be living now?”

  I wondered how much more Shane had told him. I glanced out the window, tracing my fingers over the tinted glass. I wasn’t giving him any eye contact while I answered. “I’ve lined up a place around here.”

  It was time to get the attention off me. It never should have been on me in the first place.

  “You’re living in Mass now?”

  His grin was back. It was unsettling. “You’ve been looking into me?”

  I didn’t have a computer, and my phone only had features I could afford. I wasn’t into social media…those sites were full of pictures of people who loved looking at themselves. I hated photos of myself—the old ones reminded me of someone I’d never be again, and the new ones told the truth about it. It hurt too much to look at them. “No. I saw your license plate.”

  “That’s not what I was hoping you’d say.”

  Our eyes met briefly, once again triggering the jolt in my stomach.

  “Being in Maine is one thing,” I told him, “but what are you doing back in Bar Harbor?”

  He shrugged. “I travel a lot for work.”

  I had no idea what his work was. “Baseball couldn’t have brought you here.”

  His brows narrowed, a small line forming between them. “Baseball?” He paused. “You really haven’t looked into me at all, have you?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “Baseball didn’t end up happening. I was injured pretty early on…my career ended before it really even started.”

  I could relate to that, more than he probably realized. But my scar hadn’t changed only my career choices. It had changed my entire life.

  “And why are you working for Shane?”

  His hand moved down the wheel to hit the blinker. “Shane’s working for me, actually. He’s building the spa.”

  “He’s working for you? Wait…” Hart’s mom had once owned a spa in town; his dad was an accountant. After Hart left for prep school, his mom sold the spa and the family moved to Vermont. The spa had been sold several times since then and it was now closed. But now… “So The Harbor Spa is yours?”

  “I partnered with my parents after I graduated college. So yeah, it’s half mine.”

  I couldn’t picture Hart working at a place like that. He’d grown into a sort of refined masculinity and was well-kept appearance-wise, but he didn’t have the personality to be surrounded by so much vanity. I had no doubt his mom loved having him work with her. She had always been a bit controlling and a tad mouthy; having Hart in that position meant she could watch him closely. Hart had never confirmed it, but she hadn’t been the biggest fan of me. “What do you do there?”

  “I build the locations. Then I oversee the openings, making sure they’re up and running to my standards.” Locations…openings. There was more than one, apparently.

  I turned my head toward the window again, scrunching my lids together while I waited for him to answer my next question. “So that means you’re going to be here for a little while?”

  “Six months in Bar Harbor, six in Bangor. Then another six in Portland. After that I’ll hopefully be headed to a new location.”

  A year and a half in Maine.

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. In two short days, it had already become hard not to run into him. Eighteen months would only make it that much worse.

  “I bet you’re good at what you do…especially the taking off part.” That slipped out. I didn’t want to have a more in-depth conversation about it. I just couldn’t help pointing out his flaw, since he was in full view of mine.

  His sigh filled the silence. “Rae, about that—”


  “It’s that house right there,” I said, pointing just ahead of us. Whatever the excuse was going to be, I didn’t want to hear it. It wouldn’t have stopped my stomach from jolting, wouldn’t have made those memories hurt any less. I’d felt the heat return between us as soon as we were alone in the car, and even though it was tempting to climb over the seat, straddle his lap, and taste those lips I’d been missing, I couldn’t do that. I didn’t want to be hurt again. Saint was a brutal reminder of how bad it could feel to be cut loose. The pain returned every time I saw Drew. I didn’t want another doomed relationship.

  And casual sex would never work with Hart.

  He turned into the driveway, and I saw Vince immediately. He was leaning against the side of his car, his arms crossed, the entire lower half of his face dropped in a frown. He looked like a pug.

  He snapped like one, too.

  Hart parked as Vince walked over to the SUV, stopping just a few feet from my door. “You’re late,” he yelled.

  “But I’m here now,” I replied once I opened the door.

  He looked at his watch. “You have ten minutes before the locksmith gets here.”

  “Just give me a second and I’ll get all my things out. Damn.” I shut the door and hurried toward the building without even glancing behind me to see if Hart had gotten out of the car.

  “Ten minutes,” Vince yelled. “That’s all you’ve got.”

  “Got it,” I shouted back. “Again.”

  “Relax,” Hart said. I stopped in the middle of the staircase and turned around. He was at the bottom, standing in front of the landlord. “We heard you the first time.”

  “She was supposed to be here over thirty minutes ago.”

  Hart’s back straightened, his feet spread apart, his hands stiffened at his sides. “That’s not her fault; it’s mine. So if you’re going to yell at someone, yell at me. Or keep quiet; that would be even better.”

  “But she—”

  “There’s no way in hell you’re going to keep talking to her the way you have been.”