Part of me actually felt relieved that Tanner interrupted, and I hated myself for it. I couldn't deny it though. It was easier, thinking that I lost her to Tanner before I had a chance to tell her that I cared about her. Her rejection and her pity were two things I didn't think I could handle.
And no matter what Father O'Toole said, I knew she didn't feel about me the same as I did about her.
That wasn't me thinking she was shallow. It was me knowing that she deserved so much better.
I turned and walked back down the hall to the kitchen. I wasn't really hungry anymore, but I knew Kipp was coming later today for an extra session. We were working on shorter sessions more often as I would soon be switching to doing a lot of the work myself.
The way I felt at the moment, I was looking forward to it. The pain of pushing my body, the stretching of the scar tissue when I moved. It always hurt like hell, no matter how much I'd improved. A part of me enjoyed the pain. Not because I was a masochist – though I couldn't say the thought of nails and teeth during sex didn't turn me on – but I still hadn't lost the dark part of me that felt like I deserved to be punished for all I'd done, the person I used to be. I knew that Kipp wasn't punishing me, but that didn't matter. I was punishing myself, just using him to do it.
I picked up Nori's dishes and put them in the dishwasher. She'd cleaned up enough after me that it only seemed fair I do the same for her. Besides, she was probably preoccupied at the moment.
I pushed aside the thoughts that wanted to come. The ones that told me Nori and Tanner were enjoying the hospitality of the sitting room more than common sense said they would. I knew Nori would never be so disrespectful as to actually have sex right there in my house. Hell, I doubted she'd even do it on the third floor even though it was technically hers for as long as she was employed here.
But that didn't stop my imagination from running wild.
From the moment she told me she was a Sub, I hadn't been able to get certain images out of my head. Those came back now, but they weren't just of Nori, or even of the two of us. It was him. In every single one.
Nori on her knees, teal eyes peering up through thick lashes. At him. Hands clasped behind her back in the pose she told me Submissives used with their Doms. She waited for him to tell her what to do.
I swallowed hard and closed my eyes, trying to will away my thoughts.
Nori bent over the couch, her pants around her knees. That firm ass bared to his eyes. His hand running over her pale skin, then coming down with a crack. She gasped, but it wasn't a pained sound, but rather one of pleasure.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
It didn't matter that Nori and Tanner weren't having sex in the sitting room. Once he had his say, I was sure Nori would be on her way back to Texas. From what I'd been able to put together, Tanner wasn't just good-looking. He had money too. Probably enough that he could whisk Nori away on a private jet, take care of her while she decided what she wanted to do.
Hell, just because he wanted her back didn't mean that they had to go to San Antonio. He could take her wherever she wanted. Paris. Italy. Greece. He could rent out the best hotel in any city, take his time showing her just how much he wanted her back. Considering Nori hadn't acted like the break-up had been bad, I doubted there'd be any animosity they'd need to overcome.
I felt the familiar depression starting to creep up on me. The whispers that told me I was going to lose her.
“She was never mine to lose.” I forced myself to say the words out loud because I knew I had to hear them, and no one else would say them.
They were painful, but not as painful as the realization that it was the truth. She'd never been mine. She worked with me. For me, technically. She was my nurse, physical therapist. Caretaker, to use the father's word. At the most, she was a friend. I'd never asked her to be anything else. And she'd never offered. I knew she'd seen the whole Dom / Sub thing as a sort of therapy. Just another way to help me.
She was free to date – or fuck – whoever she wanted.
And if that meant she wanted a totally hot dark-haired rich boy, so be it.
I scowled at the contents of my refrigerator. I wasn't even close to hungry. In fact, I had a feeling I'd throw up if I tried to eat anything else right now. I shut the door and headed for the stairs.
Hopefully, Tanner would be gone before Kipp got here. And if I was really lucky, Nori be gone with him. Packed her things and left without a word. I knew she was more polite and professional than that, but I could hope. I might have accepted that Nori was essentially gone already, but that didn't mean I wanted to pretend to be civil with the man who was taking her.
Or pretend not to still want her so badly that it hurt.
I wasn't strong enough to do that.
Chapter Two
Nori
My head was spinning.
Actually, that was an understatement. My mind was beyond spinning. Tanner was here, and he wanted us to get back together. It didn't make any sense. We both decided that the two of us just weren't in love anymore. We'd ended things as friends.
“So...that was the soldier.”
I bristled, even though there was nothing mean or condescending about the tone. That was just what Tanner knew about X. Soldier.
Well, that and the fact that I was teaching him about being a Dom.
I just wasn't sure if Tanner had figured out that I was having less than platonic thoughts about...the soldier.
“Yes,” I said. “That was X.”
Tanner's bright green eyes watched me closely. I'd almost forgotten how much he saw, especially when it came to me.
“He didn't seem that pleased to see me.”
I shrugged and pulled my nutmeg brown hair back into a ponytail, mostly because I wanted something to do with my hands. “X isn't exactly the most social person.”
“Are you sure that's why?”
I jerked my gaze back to Tanner. “What other reason would there be?”
“You both just seemed a bit...preoccupied when I got here.”
The thing was, he wasn't wrong. Well, not exactly. I didn't know anything about what was going on in X's mind, but my own had been so focused on the conversation he and I were having when Tanner arrived, that I'd been completely thrown. Hell, I was still freaking out about it.
Just before the doorbell rang, I'd been so sure that X was leading up to tell me something important. We'd been talking about me moving back to Texas after he no longer needed me, and I was pretty sure I hadn't imagined that he didn't want me to go. It might've just been wishful thinking on my part, but I had a gut feeling that it wasn't.
But the moment was gone. If it'd really ever been there in the first place.
“You just caught us in the middle of a discussion.” I gestured toward the couch. “Have a seat.”
“A discussion?” Tanner asked as he sat down. “What were you talking about?”
I gave a dismissive wave as I sat on the other end of the couch. “Just discussing his prognosis and how we're going to proceed.”
“How's he doing?”
The great thing about Tanner is that I knew he was legitimately asking. He might have come here to talk about us, and I was pretty sure he didn't like the idea of me teaching X how to be a Dom, but Tanner had the utmost respect for the military, and he was an all-around good guy. He knew what X's recovery meant to me.
Well, not entirely, but enough for him to truly be interested in X's condition.
“Much better,” I answered honestly. “We were specifically talking about how, in a couple weeks, he won't need any medical assistance.”
“And that means, technically, he won't need you anymore.”
Tanner's voice was gentle, but the words still hurt. I didn't want to think about X not needing me. Because I was pretty sure I needed him, no matter how much I hated the idea.
“We were talking about whether or not I planned to stay on as a general caretaker, try to find a job in Philadelphia or go back to
Texas.” I sighed. “Or, I suppose, it doesn't really have to be either there or here. If I really wanted to find another job, I could look anywhere.”
“Do you not want to come back to Texas?” Tanner leaned forward slightly, an earnest expression on his handsome face.
“Honestly, Tanner, I don't know.” I shook my head. I had to admit, it was nice to be able to say what I was thinking. “I can't lie and say that the familiarity wouldn't be nice, but I can't say that it hasn't been nice being somewhere new either.”
“How much of that is your parents?” he asked.
“A lot,” I confessed, struggling not to twist my fingers together. “I haven't really talked to them except to let them know I got here safely. They're both still pretty upset that I moved.”
“You needed to get away from them.” He started to reach toward me, then dropped his hand, as if he wasn't sure that was appropriate at the moment. “We both know they needed a wake-up call about how they were treating you.”
I nodded. “I'm just not sure it'll have been enough time if I go back in a few weeks. That seems more like an extended vacation, and I'm worried things will go right back to the way they were.”
There was a moment of silence and I knew we were heading toward the real reason he was here. He really did care about my family and work, but that was all because he cared about me.
“I think we made a mistake when we broke up.” Now that it was time to talk about it, he got right to the point. “I've missed you.”
I couldn't lie, not about this, but I needed to be careful. “I've missed you too. You're one of my closest friends.”
“And that's why I think we worked so well together,” he said. “We had a relationship built on friendship first, and I think things just...got away from us.”
I looked down at my hands. What he was saying made sense.
“I tried looking at other girls,” he continued. “To see if I was even interested, but I wasn't. Every woman I saw, I compared to you.”
A stab of guilt went through me. I hadn't done that. Since the moment I arrived here, I’d spent a great deal of my time thinking about X. But I hadn't compared him to Tanner. The only thing I'd done was berate myself about what a bad idea it was to get involved.
“When you called me and asked about teaching X...” Tanner ran a hand through his dark hair. “I won't lie to you, Nori, I wanted to tell you what a horrible idea it was, how you shouldn't do it.”
I stared at him. If Tanner had told me those thing, I wondered if I would've changed my mind and not gone through with it. Would he have been able to convince me that I should leave X to professionals and medication, that traditional therapy was the way to go?
“The thing was,” Tanner continued. “After we talked, I had to admit that the reason I didn't want you teaching X was because I was jealous.”
I looked up then. Tanner wasn't the jealous type. Some Doms were. They were the kind of person who had to control every part of their Subs' lives. Some Subs couldn't even talk to other people without asking their Dom first, and it wasn't always because of control. There were Doms who saw their Subs as theirs. Not in a creepy stalker way, but jealousy was a part of who they were. And some Subs needed their Doms to be jealous. I never had and neither had Tanner. I'd often talked to other men and it'd never been an issue between us.
“I know, crazy, right?” Tanner said with a self-deprecating smile. “The whole time we were together, I never worried about you cheating, so I didn't have to be jealous. I knew you'd never let any man touch you while we were together. But then we weren't together anymore. And you were free to date and touch whoever you wanted.”
He had no idea who I wanted to touch, and I knew he wouldn't approve if he did.
“I knew it wasn't like that with X,” Tanner said. “That it was just a different form of therapy, but I still couldn't stop myself from thinking about how intimate things would get between the two of you.”
A knot formed in my stomach, twisting my breakfast until I felt like I might throw up. That was how things were supposed to have been between us, but I wasn't so sure that was what I wanted anymore.
“I hated the thought of him getting to see you like that, even if it wasn't sexual.” Tanner moved closer to me but didn't try to touch me. His eyes darkened in a way I knew quite well. “I don't want anyone to see you that way but me. I don't want another man touching you. The thought of you moving on and falling in love with someone else...it kills me, Nori.”
These were all the things I was supposed to want to hear, the things that most women would've given anything to have a man say to them. Especially a man like Tanner. Kind. Generous. Loyal. Not to mention smoking hot and insanely rich.
But his words didn't do anything but make me feel guilty for not feeling the same way. Sure, there was a bit of wistfulness at the memory of our relationship. It'd been solid and good. But I didn't have any of that intensity. I couldn't say that it would break my heart to see him with another woman.
“I want us to try again,” Tanner said. “I want you to give us, give me, a second chance. We can work through whatever it was that had us stuck before. I'll try harder, and we can move forward. Together.”
This felt like some sort of strange, bad dream. Just when I felt like I was getting closer to X, Tanner appeared in my life again. Now that I had to face the fact that in a few weeks, I'd have a decision to make, here was Tanner, presenting me with yet another choice.
“Please, Nori.” Tanner did reach out this time and put his hand over mine. “What do you say?”
Part of me wanted to tell him yes, that, of course, I wanted to get back together with him. I'd move back to San Antonio as soon as X's injuries finished healing up. Maybe I'd even move in with Tanner like we'd discussed on and off for the past year. He could help me stay strong when it came to my parents, and he'd support whatever I decided to do with my job. Just because it was me going back to the same man, the same city, didn't mean I had to have the same life.
Except I knew better. I knew that if I said yes right now, I'd fall back into old patterns and habits. Maybe Tanner and I would move forward as a couple, but the rest of my life would probably go back to the way it'd always been.
Part of me wanted to tell him no, that I needed a clean break and fresh start. That I wanted to stay here and pursue new relationships, find a new job, keep my parents at a distance.
Except I knew that there were plenty of things in Philadelphia that made staying here a bad idea.
I closed my eyes for a moment and pinched the bridge of my nose. I was getting an awful headache. When I opened my eyes, Tanner was watching me, and I could see the cautious hope in his eyes. Another thing that Tanner had going for him. He was eternally optimistic and hopeful about everything.
“I need some time,” I finally said. “You completely caught me off guard at a time when I was already struggling to figure out what I wanted to do in the near future.”
He nodded. “I understand.”
He stood and I did the same, tilting my head back to look up at him. I'd forgotten how tall he was.
“I can be patient.” He started for the door and I followed him out into the hallway. When we got to the front door, he stopped and turned to me. “I'm planning on heading back to Texas first thing in the morning. Do you think we could have dinner tonight?”
I raised an eyebrow and he held up his hands in a gesture of surrender.
“Just as friends. No pressure, Nori.” He smiled at me. “I promise, we'll only talk about work and weather and all those sorts of things that friends talk about.”
It would be nice to have at least a couple hours where all of the shit going on wasn't preoccupying my mind. And I trusted Tanner. If he said we were going as just friends, then that's all it'd be. He was a man of his word.
“Okay,” I said. “Dinner tonight. You want to meet me somewhere?”
He shook his head. “Of course not. I might only be your friend, but I'm always a gent
leman.”
I chuckled and shook my head. I had to admit, I'd missed this easy sort of banter. “So then I'll see you at seven?”
“At seven,” he agreed. Then he leaned down and kissed my cheek.
It was an innocent kiss, something I'd seen Tanner do with female friends. But if I still had feelings for him, I knew even that platonic touch should've given me butterflies, left heat on my skin. It didn't though. It felt the same as a handshake.
“I'll see you later,” he said as he opened the door and walked out.
As I turned from the door, I caught a flash of movement near the stairs and knew that X had just walked by. How much he'd seen and heard, I didn't know, but I couldn't deny that I hoped he'd heard me emphasize that my dinner tonight with Tanner was just between friends. I didn't want X thinking it was anything more, and that realization did nothing to make me feel any better.
I sighed again. Kipp would be here shortly and I needed to be in the therapy room to make notes on X's progress. I had to put all of this aside and do my job. Later, I'd try to sort all of this out and figure out what I wanted, and what would be best for everyone involved.
I just had a bad feeling that what was best and what I wanted weren't going to be the same thing.
Chapter Three
Nori
I was starting to wonder if I'd made a mistake. Not in breaking up with Tanner, but in agreeing to go out with him tonight. X hadn't said a word about what he overheard, or even about Tanner in general, but I felt like the wall between us had gone back up. He hadn't been rude or anything like that, but when I saw him at PT, he hadn't smiled or talked to me about anything other than business. When he asked how long I thought it'd be before he could change his own bandages, he hadn't met my eyes and I'd known what he'd really wanted to know.
How long until I was gone.
Dom X - The Complete Box Set: Alpha Male Romance Page 22