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Arie tried following suit, though Cees could tell that she was still having trouble processing the information she had just been given.
“Lilly can’t stand the sight of me.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. She taught you to dance, didn’t she?” Cees tried for levity. She would have to decide how she felt about Arie’s dancing. On the one hand, she really liked it; on the other, it would be next to impossible not to get turned on any time they took to the dance ß oor.
“It’s because things didn’t work out between us?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“You aren’t going to tell me what happened, are you?”
“I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”
“It’s just, I don’t want to feel like the rest of my life hinges on the fact that I can’t remember anything past the last few weeks.
I want…”
“What is it? Tell me what’s on your mind.” Arie’s agitation was starting to spread to Cees.
“I want to make love to you, and I don’t remember how. I don’t remember what you like and dislike. I don’t know anything, and it’s frustrating.”
The honesty was what got her. She hadn’t expected such an honest admission, and she was speechless. The waitress misconstrued their body language and thought it was the perfect time for her to gravitate over to top off their already full coffee cups.
“Something wrong with the food? Neither of you have touched a bite.”
Cees looked down at her wafß e and said, “Uh, no. Thank you.” The waitress frowned at her, looked as if she decided she had been drinking, and walked away.
“Sorry, I know I’m supposed to say that better, but…”
“No, I appreciate your honesty.”
“So?”
“So, we can’t,” Cees said into Arie’s crestfallen face. “I’m
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sorry, Arie. I just can’t. Not until you remember everything else that happened between us.”
Arie looked as if she was going to protest. Instead, she picked up her fork and began eating the eggs that must have been cold. Cees wanted to soothe Arie, to wipe away the hurt she had glimpsed brieß y in her eyes. But she had yet to Þ gure out how to heal her own hurt. How could she possibly help heal the person who had caused it?
v
Cees wondered if Arie noticed how slowly she drove home. Despite the discomfort in the restaurant, she didn’t want the evening to end. More importantly, she was afraid of losing her resolve. She kept the music as low as possible in case Arie wanted to talk more, but neither of them had uttered a word since leaving Sheri’s.
The problem was, Arie wasn’t the only one who was forgetting. Cees also had to have some form of selective amnesia in order for her to allow the woman who had hurt her so badly into her home and even close enough to kiss her . No, scratch that, Cees Bannigan. You kissed her. You did more than kiss her.
Cees tightened her grip on the steering wheel. It was the dancing.
It was that damned Lilly’s fault. It would serve Lilly right if she did sleep with Arieanna. What the hell am I thinking?
Cees grinned. She kept trying and failing to be mad at Lilly.
Arie had had every eye in the place on her. People would have assumed that the two of them, who couldn’t keep their hands and other body parts off each other, would be in bed within minutes of leaving the club. Instead they’d ended up in an all-night café with one of them in tears. Cees almost wished it was as simple as sleeping with Arie instead of this thick-headed feeling of being on a train headed toward disaster.
As if following her line of thinking, Arie sighed. Cees glanced at her proÞ le and wished she could see her expression.
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“Tired?” Cees asked and could have kicked herself for her tone. The one word probably telegraphed her feelings as clearly as if she had written it on a piece of paper.
Arie’s smile, illuminated by the glow of the console, was a more honest answer than her simple “a little.”
She is so confused, Cees thought and then tried to harden her resolve with a thought of “well, she should join the club,” but couldn’t quite get there. She pulled into her driveway and Arie opened the door and jumped nimbly down from the monster. Cees noted with some satisfaction that she was moving well despite exerting herself on the dance ß oor.
“May I make you a cup of tea before you go to bed?” The proper use of the word “may” was what got Cees. Arie’s sadness and confusion were palpable, and Cees’s own yearning returned full force.
“Come here.” Arie’s only move was to cross her right arm over herself and grab her left bicep. Cees put a hand on Arie’s hip and Arie moved into her embrace. Cees pressed her forehead against Arie’s and they stared solemnly at each other. “Don’t look at me like that,” Cees said.
“I can’t help it. You’re confusing the hell out of me,” Arie said, her breath smelling of the grape jelly from the one bite of toast she had attempted to eat.
“I’m confusing me too.” Cees straightened, but kept their bodies tight against each other. She wondered if she could do her show like this: Arie glued to her front and a stupid grin on her face. She heard Miranda’s voice intone, “Ratings would go through the roof.”
“What’s the smile for?” Arie asked with an answering smile of her own.
“Nothing, I’m just thinking silly thoughts.”
“Share?” Arie asked, and Cees wondered if Lilly had given Arie classes on how to give a tummy quivers with the sound of her voice. She pushed aside thoughts of Lilly and how she owed her a good ass kicking.
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“I’ll share mine if you share yours,” Cees answered. It was a natural response. It wasn’t as if she expected Arie to share everything on her mind.
“Okay,” Arie said with little to no hesitation. “Right now, I want to lay you on the ß oor, take off all your clothes, and taste you everywhere for as long as you let me, and then I’d like to watch you sleep.”
Cees turned her head so she could let out a choking cough without doing it in Arie’s face. When she faced Arie again, she said, “Um, you’re supposed to, you know, hold back because we’re afraid of being hurt.”
“Oh, okay. Let me try this again. I’d rather we went into the bedroom and lay on the bed. I’ll take your clothes off slowly.
Shoes Þ rst.” Arie smiled. “Then I’d kiss—”
“Um, yeah, that’s about the same as before,” Cees said as her stomach somersaulted, stuck the landing, and waited in anticipation for her score.
Arie’s brow rose. “No, it’s not. I put a bed in this time because the ß oor might be a little hard. Unless hard is good, because we could—”
“Arie, please just kiss me.”
Arie smiled triumphantly and Cees pulled her forward by the back of the head. She barely kept herself from moaning. God help her, this part of Arie had not changed. Her kisses could always set Cees on Þ re. She felt as if all pride, all pretense of coyness had slipped from her and she was willing to beg Arie to do all those things she spoke of.
First the ß oor, and then the bed. Hard, then soft. She wanted it all, she always had. Her hands were at Arie’s stomach, unbuttoning her shirt and tugging it out of her jeans. Arie was wrestling with her own belt. Cees reluctantly let go of Arie’s swollen lips long enough to Þ nd the fastener on Arie’s pants.
Her heart slammed against her chest and she tried to calm it, but gave up when Arie rested her head on her shoulder. Arie’s pants unfastened, she closed her eyes and paused.
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“I hate how much I want you.” Cees didn’t realize she had actually spoken the words out loud until Arie’s body stiffened.
Her hands were on Cees’s shoulders and she pu
shed her back.
Arie had a completely shocked look on her face. “It’ll never go away, will it?”
“I didn’t mean that,” Cees said, but Arie wasn’t listening.
She was righting her clothes, and Cees realized with a sinking heart that the moment had passed. She might not have meant to utter the words, but there was truth in them. Now Arie realized it, too.
“I don’t think I can keep doing this with you,” Arie said, and Cees felt her confusion and pain as if it were her own because it had been her in this same position almost two years ago. She remembered what it felt like to be loved passionately, only to have that passion ripped away moments later. She remembered, and she still dealt with the scars daily.
Cees reached for Arie, but she stepped back shaking her head. “No more,” she said. But Cees knew all she had to do was step forward and take her in her arms and whatever resolve Arie had come to would fade. It had always been that way with her, hadn’t it?
The tone of the doorbell froze both of them. Seconds passed where they both just looked at each other.
Cees broke the silence by stating the obvious. “It’s midnight.”
“Maybe it’s your neighbors?”
“I doubt it.” Cees walked to the door and looked out the spyglass. “Damn it, Lilly, your timing is impeccable.” Cees unlocked the door quickly and swung it open. She was actually grateful that Lilly had come by. She needed something or someone to light into.
“Lilly, what the hell are you doing here at—” She stopped speaking because from the looks of her, Lilly had just come back from the club, only she wasn’t alone. Lilly’s companion was maybe Þ ve-foot-one and handsome, if you overlooked the
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fact that his forehead glistened with the remnants of whatever products he had used to spike his short dark hair out in all directions. His biceps looked as if they were about to burst the seam of his pristine white long-sleeved shirt. His shirttails hung wrinkled and loose outside of the waistband of his tight leather pants. From his features, Cees Þ gured he wouldn’t be meeting Momma Nguyen. If he wasn’t Vietnamese, Momma didn’t want to meet him.
“This is Chuck,” Lilly said as she pushed past Cees and stepped into the room.
“Charles. You can call me Charlie if you like,” the little muscle man corrected. Cees stepped aside so that Charlie could follow his hell-on-heels date.
Lilly turned her back on Arie, who was starting to look a little pale and was holding her arm again. “How was dancing?”
she asked Cees.
“Dancing was great. Why are you here, Lilly? It’s after midnight.”
Lilly smiled. “We were on our way to Chuck’s house.”
“Of course you were,” Cees said sarcastically. Arie looked as if she needed to sit down. Cees wanted to get Lilly out of her house so that she could talk to Arie.
“Chuck was telling me about his job, and I came up with a fantastic idea.”
Cees waited for Lilly to Þ nish her story and when she didn’t, she Þ nally stopped looking at Arie long enough to say, “Okay, Lil, I’ll bite. What is this fantastic idea?”
“I think we should hypnotize her ass.”
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CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Cees fought the urge to laugh as the room became still.
The only person who seemed comfortable showing emotion was Chuck, and it was obvious he was already mapping out an escape route.
“Chuck here—”
“Um, it’s Charlie, actually. Nobody really calls me Chuck.”
Chuck unwittingly made mistake number one—of his allotted three—when he corrected Lilly.
“Chuck here is a hypnotist,” Lilly continued unperturbed.
“I’m a clinical psychologist who uses—”
“He hypnotizes people to make them—”
“I help them to—”
“Chuck, if this relationship is going to be successful, you are going to have to stop interrupting me.” Lilly ran her bright red nails through her hair as if showing off Þ ne fabric to a prospective buyer.
“Sorry,” Chuck said.
Lilly must have accepted his apology because she turned back to Cees. “Anyway, I think we should make her remember the crap she put you through.”
“Lilly, you are really starting to piss me off,” Cees said between clenched teeth.
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Arie’s hand on her arm was the only thing that kept her from saying something she would regret later. “Cees, maybe we should try it.”
Cees lowered her voice, despite the fact that Lilly had perfected her eavesdropping skills long ago and would probably pick up on everything anyway. “Arie, this isn’t about you. This is about Lilly proving her point. If you want to try hypnosis, Þ ne, but not with some guy Lilly picked up at a bar.” She hated the disappointment she could read clearly in Arie’s face, but Cees was determined to assert some control over the situation. “That’s it. Lilly, it’s time for you to go. We’ll discuss this when we’re calm, but you overstepped this time. Chuck, it was nice meeting you.”
“Overstepped?” Lilly said as if surprised, but her face was far from surprised. “How am I overstepping? By asking her questions that you should be asking? Because I want to Þ nd out why she left you and if she’s likely to do it again?”
“You two need to leave, now.”
“I want to do it,” Arie said without taking her eyes from Cees’s, making it clear that she was only speaking to her. Cees’s heart plummeted at seeing distress and frustration on Arie’s face.
She wanted to go to her, but Lilly’s words rang in her ears as if they had been spoken in a deep, cavernous hall. Why she left you and if she’s likely to do it again?
“You don’t have to. It may not work,” Cees said.
“She’s right. It might not work if—” Charlie chimed in, his tone much different than the one he had used to apologize to Lilly.
“Don’t butt in, Chuck,” Cees said, the sharp ring in her tone caused by her distress instead of any real anger with Chuck.
“Sorry,” he said, in that same whining, contrite voice he had used with Lilly.
“Where did you Þ nd him?” Cees asked Lilly.
“At the leather bar,” Lilly said with unabashed honesty.
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Cees broke contact with Arie and turned to him. “What are your qualiÞ cations?” Chuck quickly snapped back into his professional mode and rattled off his alma mater and his internships, his years of practice, and the fact that Palo Cantiones, one of the foremost specialists in his Þ eld, was his friend on MySpace.
“Arie, can I speak with you for a moment?” Cees didn’t wait for an answer; she walked into the kitchen and shut the door behind them. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because I need to know and so do you.”
“I don’t know anything about this. Don’t you think that Dr.
Parrantt would have suggested it if he felt it would help you?”
“Dr. Parrantt is telling us that he doesn’t know when or how.
Hell, he doesn’t even know why I can’t remember, Cees. He’s not telling us anything. You need to be able to trust me. I need to be able to trust myself.”
“I do trust you.”
“No, you don’t, and the worst part is, I don’t remember why.”
Arie cradled Cees’s face in her hands. “We have something that’s so strong. I don’t remember a whole lot, but I know that this is real and it doesn’t happen often. And despite the fact that I hurt you, you can’t stop yourself from feeling it either. I need to know, so I don’t make the same mistake twice.”
Arie’s words thrilled Cees. But then reality set in. This Arie couldn’t possibly make such a promise. How could she? What Arie couldn’t know was what Cees couldn’t bring herself t
o tell her: That even if she had the answers for Arie, she might not be able to bring herself to tell her. Not if it meant Arie could disappear from her life again.
“Then I’d like to try this.”
“You Þ nished in there?” Lilly called from the front room and Cees rolled her eyes.
“She must have been a holy terror when she was thirteen,”
Arie said.
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“She was exactly that, plus some. She’s also a genius. An evil one. She means well, Arie. She doesn’t want me to get hurt.”
“Well, we shouldn’t keep her waiting, then. She might decide to use that genius to plot my demise. Chuck probably has a degree in dismantling bodies.”
Cees was taken aback for a moment. “You been watching those true crime shows with Momma Nguyen?”
“Yeah.”
Cees shook her head. No wonder Arie had nightmares.
When they walked back into the living room, Lilly had already moved the table back and had placed two chairs in front of each other.
“If this gets weird, you’re both out of here,” Cees said sternly and stood with her arms folded as Arie reluctantly sat down. “You comfortable?”
Before Arie could answer, Lilly interrupted. “Want me to get you a pocket watch? Cees probably has one.”
“Now, why would you think I would have a pocket watch lying around?”
“You have all that old stuff in your shed.”
“Those are antique tools my dad collected.”
“Ladies, please, would you step into another room?” Chuck’s professional voice left no room for compromise.
Lilly sighed loudly. “I need a cigarette anyway.” Cees watched Lilly slam out the front door and made a mental note to apologize to her neighbors.
“I’ll be outside, okay? You need me, you just yell. You have thirty minutes.” She directed the last sentence to Chuck, who canted his head almost regally and returned his gaze to Arie.
“Tell me what you know,” Cees heard him say just as she closed the front door.
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