by Stella Noir
There it was, that incredible smile that had made me so sad at one point in my life because I believed that she would never be able to look at me that way, that I was too messed up for anyone to love. Not after everything that I had done. I couldn’t imagine my life without it now, without her smiling up at me with so much warmth and brightness and there were times when I still felt like this had to be a dream. That there was no way she could really be here with me, looking up at me with those eyes. I brushed some stray hairs away from her eyelashes and kissed her gently on the lips and tried to ignore the ringing and vibrating on the table by the bed.
I finally broke away from Avery and grabbed my phone because I knew it could only be one person.
“Yo, what’s up?”
“Hey, you busy tonight?”
“No, why? What’s going on?” I asked. I hadn’t seen Landen in a few weeks and I had assumed it was because he’d been spending a lot more time with Barbara lately. “Don’t tell me you and Barbara are already getting sick of each other.”
“Not even. No, she’s visiting her parents for the weekend and something came up. I could use your help.”
“With what?” I didn’t even have to ask that question. I knew exactly what he was about to say.
“Well, I’ve got someone here in one of my cells and …”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” I said as I looked over at Avery. She was looking back at me and the smile on her face was completely gone now. It was almost as if she knew what Landen and I were talking about without hearing a word of the conversation.
“You don’t need to do anything, just come over and keep me company. I don’t know, man … it’s been a while for me and I’m feeling … I don’t even know, I feel like I’m losing my touch or something.”
“Wow. Who is it?”
“No one you know. I found him skulking around in my tunnel and I brought him in, and now I feel like it would be best if I just got rid of him.”
“Maybe it’s about time you put a lock on that tunnel door,” I said as I watched Avery’s eyes get bigger. She mouthed what, but I just shook my head. “Just a minute,” I whispered, but Landen heard me.
“What? Is Avery there?”
“Yeah, and she’s pretty much figured out what this conversation is about.”
“Is she pissed? Tell her I just want your moral support, that’s it. And tell her I said hi.”
“Landen say’s hi.”
“Hey, Landen!” Avery yelled at the phone.
“I don’t know. I’ll see what she says.”
“Ok, so you wanna give me a call back?”
“How about if I just text you.”
“Sure, that’s fine. So, are you gonna come through the tunnels like old times?” he asked with a slight chuckle.
“I doubt it … I’ll probably just drive.”
“Suit yourself. So, it sounds like your interested? I’d really appreciate it, man.”
“Just keep your pants on. I’ll let you know, and if it’s yes I’ll be over in about an hour.”
“Sounds good! Later.”
I hung up the phone and looked over at Avery. I knew I didn’t want to bring any of that part of my past back into this house … our house … but I couldn’t deny that I was interested to see how it would feel to be around that sort of thing after all these months. But there was no way I could even consider doing anything without talking to Avery. She was everything to me now and there was absolutely nothing in the world that was worth throwing what I had with her away.
“What’s the matter? Is everything ok?”
“Yeah, Landon wants me to come over for a little while tonight.”
“It sounded like he wanted you to help him with something? What’s going on?”
“Well, he found someone in his tunnel and he … well he …”
“You don’t have to say it, I know,” she said as she looked down at the pillow. “Do you want to?”
“He said he just wants me there for moral support. Apparently he hasn’t done anything in a while and he feels like he just wants me there. And yeah, I do. I really want to be there for him. He’s done so much for me and been there for me throughout most of my life.” Ok, that wasn’t the entire truth, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that I was actually intrigued by watching the whole thing. I was going to have to work on that, but I felt like I was being pretty damned honest.
“Does that make me a horrible person?”
“Well, I can’t answer that for you, Colin. You’re the only one that knows the answer to that question.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s probably true. But what I really want to know is … will you still be here when I get back … if I go over there tonight?”
Avery snuggled up next to me under the covers and wrapped her hand around my waist.
“Of course I’ll be here. I’m not the police and I’m not your mother. I’m not here to tell you what to do or judge you or make you do what I think is right. I want you to do what you believe is right, not because you think it’s what I want, or because you think you’ll lose me if you do something I wouldn’t approve of. Because if that were the case we’d just wind up resenting each other.”
“Yeah, I guess I’m just trying to take the easy way out,” I said as I smiled faintly at her. It really did seem like it would be so much easier if she would just tell me what to do so I didn’t have to make the decision for myself, but I knew that wasn’t fair to her at all.
“Look, I trust you, Colin. I trust that you will tell me what’s going on. So, if you want to go and see what it’s like over at Landen’s house tonight, go ahead. It may help you figure some stuff out.
You told me once that talking to me about your past was one of the hardest things you had ever done, and that you thought that sort of thing seemed easy for me. Well, it’s not. I’m not saying that what we’ve been through and what we are working toward is too hard or anything, but there are no easy or right answers for either of us.
We both just have to go little by little and day by day and figure out what feels best. And I think the closer you get to forgiving yourself the clearer your choices will probably become.”
“I don’t know about that,” I said as I looked at her, but I knew she was right. I still didn’t understand how I was supposed to forgive myself though, especially since I was still working on forgiving my father. I wrapped my arms around her and just felt her warm breath on my neck. I couldn’t understand how it was that someone so much smaller than me, someone who felt so helpless and delicate in my arms, could make me feel so safe, but I knew between the two of us she was by far the stronger one.
“I don’t want to ever do anything that would make you want to leave me, Avery. If you don’t want me to go I won’t go. I would die if I ever did anything again that hurt you, you know that, don’t you?”
“I know. I won’t leave, Colin,” she said as she looked up at me, her eyes glistening with tears and the most beautifully sad look I’d ever seen. “I understand that you have to do this. I really do.”
I grabbed her head with both hands and moved my lips across her face and onto hers and as I did I felt the world stop around us and I wished that we could stay like this forever, wrapped in each others arms and floating in nothingness, but a nothingness where I let myself feel everything. Everything that we were together, everything that I wanted to be, everything that she meant to me, and everything that she was letting me be even though it’s not what she wanted at all.
One of the things I was starting to realize, one of the things that Avery had taught me, was that it was possible to love someone without loving every single thing about them. Even when some of those things seemed unforgivable.
*
The End
THE DARK DOCTOR
THE DARK DOCTOR
A Dark Romance Novel
By Stella Noir
&
JB Duvane
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Cover by Kasm
it Covers
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© 2016 Stella Noir and JB Duvane
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1
ABBY
I gripped the steering wheel tightly as I wove my way through the last bits of rush hour traffic at twilight. Steady streams of tears poured down my cheeks.
Streams that mirrored the drops of rain that danced in miniature rivers down the windshield in front of her.
“Oh, Jesus Christ! Shut the hell up with that nonsense.” I said out loud to myself. The rain had just started coming down heavier as the daylight faded away and headlights lit up in long strings in front of me. I’d hoped that leaving would make me feel better, or maybe just relieved somehow. That running away would alleviate the panic that was building inside me every time I kissed Jake. But that wasn’t the case at all. I already missed him and at every exit I passed I wanted to turn back and run into his arms. I was too scared of my own feelings, though, and the dreary weather and darkening of the sky were really very appropriate at that moment, considering that there was no way I was going to be able to stop crying anytime soon.
The irony of the situation I was suddenly finding myself in was not lost on me, though. Here I was, a 24-year-old girl most people would consider an adult, yet for some reason, I wasn’t able to feel good about anything in my life that really mattered to me. And I still wasn’t sure when I was going to start feeling like an adult. I had been writing since I was a kid and selling my books online for years, yet I could never admit to myself, or anyone else, that I was a writer. I would tell people that writing was a hobby, and I would always qualify it by saying that they were just romance novels, which somehow made me feel less like a big old liar than if I were to just come right out and say that I was a writer. My soul sucking day job in retail was somehow more appropriate to refer to as my real job and when people invariably asked “what do you do?” that’s what I told them. As if retail sales were my life. And there was just no way I could even begin to see myself as an adult. I looked at my parents and people their age and just didn’t understand how or when I was supposed to resemble anything remotely like them.
When am I going to actually feel like an adult, goddamnit? I thought as I fought back full-on sobs.
And then there was this thing with Jake. I loved him. And he loved me. At least he told me he did. But the more I saw those incredible eyes of his and felt the shivers that his kisses sent coursing through my body the more I wanted to bolt out the door. The sex was incredible if somewhat confusing at times, but we were just figuring each other out. And besides, I was an adventurous girl and I was willing to try anything once. The real problem was his eyes; the way they looked at me like I was the only thing on this entire planet that he could see. He could give me one look and send me into a fit of passion that left my jeans soaking wet. It just scared the hell out of me the way his eyes seemed to look inside me and make me believe that he loved me. I told myself that’s what I was really running away from, those eyes of his and the way they could manipulate me, and I think I was actually starting to believe it.
She let the tears fall and wash black streaks of mascara down her cheeks, hoping that those same tears would wash the sorrow out of her heart too.
“Ugh, stop being so pathetic, Abby!”
But I am pathetic. I’m ruining my own freaking life with every mile I drive away from Jake, and no one’s gonna feel sorry for me because of that.
“So go ahead! Feel sorry for yourself. Live it up!” I said out loud as I burst into tears again.
“Can’t you just stop it for a little while, Abby? Can’t you just grow up and stop being a basket case for like ten seconds?”
The traffic thinned out gradually as I drove north, out of the city and towards an unknown place that seemed a hell of a lot safer right now than the arms of the man I loved. God, he had great arms too. I felt so safe when we were in bed together and he wrapped them around me from behind. It felt like nothing bad in the world could touch me when we were together. Nothing but my own stupidity. But here I was again going back and forth about Jake. One second I was confident of my decision to leave him, and the next I was mooning over his eyes and arms and remembering how safe he made me feel. I was going to give myself mental whiplash if I didn’t stop this. I really needed to find a nice, quiet place where I could relax and take some time to think. I was sure that after a few days away I would be able to see things more clearly, but the thing I wasn’t sure of was which part of me would win out. The part that was running away from him or the part that was missing his strong, safe arms.
“Goddamnit, I need something to get my mind off him.” I turned the radio on, trying to find some upbeat music or anything that might distract me from the incredibly sad image of his face, and those eyes when I told him that I couldn’t do this anymore.
“DO WHAT? What do you mean?” he asked, his voice more serious than I had ever heard it. He knew something was wrong and I avoided his eyes by staring down at my hands. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to explain to him that I loved him too much and it was all too scary and I had never let a man get this close to me, ever. It seemed plausible when I made the final decision an hour ago, but it suddenly all sounded so ridiculous and childish to me when I was trying to explain it to him.
“I need space, Jake. I think I just need to be alone for a while. This is all moving so fast and I had never planned on a serious relationship,” I said as my voice trailed off to almost a whisper. I was losing my momentum fast. I felt like I needed a stronger argument, but those were the first things that popped into my head that didn’t sound completely idiotic. I guess it just seemed easier to lie to him and give him a string of cliches straight out of some TV show dialogue, because telling him that I was terrified of what I was feeling just sounded so overly dramatic. What idiot left a guy because she thought she was starting to love him too much?
When I looked up at him I could barely open my mouth, let alone summon up the strength to tell him the truth. How could I tell him that every time he kissed me it made me wish that a hole would open up in the ground underneath me. I couldn’t take it anymore because it was getting to the point that I needed his kisses too much. I craved them and I felt like my heart was going to explode every time his lips were near me. But then what if the kisses from those incredible lips went away? What would I do then? I just couldn’t face that possibility, and I kept thinking that, no matter what, I couldn’t let him kiss me one more time. Leaving seemed so final, but I just didn’t know what else to do.
“THIS IS JUST GREAT, Abby. Run away and find a rock to hide under while the man of your dreams slips through your fingers, why don’t you.”
I continued to cry as I drove through the pounding rain and thought about the image that I just couldn’t get out of my head. The sad look in those deep, dark, eyes as I turned and walked away from him. He had one of those classically handsome faces with a strong, chiseled jawline and a gorgeous mop of two-days-past-needing-a-haircut shaggy, dark brown hair - which were definitely some awesome perks for sure. But his eyes…my god, did I mention his eyes? I pictured them as I drifted along in my driving daydream, trying desperately to replace the sadness that I had caused in them with the lust that had previously been there every time he looked at me. Before tonight, that is. I tried as hard as I could to visualize the mesmerizing, swirling lust filled stares that had always made my head swim. I knew it probably wasn’t the best idea to keep thinking about him, but since I couldn’t stop myself right now I figured it was better to picture him at his most glorious than dwell on the miserable. I had never seen eyes as dark and incredibly intense as Jake’s before. They almost felt like they were not only seeing into my soul…
…but were talking to it, whispering sweet things to it. Telling it secrets that my brain didn’t even know or understand.
“Good lord, Abby. How
much more melodramatic can you get?” I said as I rolled my eyes at myself. But to be completely honest, even though I was prone to romanticization, I wasn’t really exaggerating in this case. From the very moment I met him I hadn’t been able to mask my feelings when his hypnotic eyes met mine. The world dropped away and all I could see were those deep, dark pools of moonlit water. Even as he walked towards me, before we met, it was as if I could feel the energy of his stare boring into me and through me. I was frozen in place until he touched my hand and smiled, and my mouth may as well have been full of food for all the good it was to me at that moment.
“HELLO. My name is Jake. Jake Lewellyn.”
“Uh…”
“You must be Abby.”
“Uh huh…”
I’d just climbed out of the swimming pool when this man with laser beam eyes approached me. If he hadn’t said my name I would’ve thought he was talking to someone that was standing right behind me, but there he stood, just inches away from me, holding his hand out and smiling. He was easily a foot taller than me and as I looked up at his face and shook his hand I had shift a little to block the late morning sun that was peaking up over the country club roof just behind his head.
“Maxwell went inside to use the club’s phone. She asked me to tell you where she was if you got out of the pool before she came back,” he said with a sexy smile.
“Oh, she did?”
“Yes, she did. She also told me to have you join me at my table. She said she’d meet us over there when she was done on the phone.”
Maxwell had brought me to the club with her for a day of full-on rest and relaxation after a night of wallowing and crying over being dumped by the guy she had been seeing for almost two months. I looked around the pool patio to see if I could catch a glimpse of her, but it sounded like he was telling me the truth. The thought of a gorgeous stranger at a country club lying to me to convince me to sit at his table made me smile to myself, and through my giddy haze I realized that he was smiling back.