by Unknown
Chapter Sixteen
“I’d suggest a nightcap, but somewhere between the tacos at the SOB and a scoop of rocky road at Miss Icey’s, you started to go downhill fast.” Gabe put the card key in the villa door and let her go inside, confident the little house had been secured and observed for the day and evening they’d been parading Lila around Mimosa Key.
Which had been a pretty damn good time until they sat down for ice cream, and that reminded him of a similar night in Cuba. When he started talking about it, she almost immediately began touching her temple and then the base of her neck.
He knew the headache tells by now.
She did it again as they walked into the villa, lingering on the temple a little longer than usual. “Yeah, this one’s a bell ringer.”
He slipped his hand under her hair, pressing the nape of her neck. “I can get rid of it.”
She snorted softly. “On the contrary, you cause it.”
“What?”
“Just a joke,” she said quickly, stepping out of his touch. “And you can’t fix and control everything, including my frequent headaches. Excuse me while I overdose on Advil, okay?”
Not okay. She walked toward the bedroom, and he waited a moment, replaying the conversation and feeling like something was not okay.
It wasn’t really fair to move in when she was weakened by pain, but if he was going to get some answers, this was as good a time as any. Maybe better.
He followed her and walked in on her pouring some ibuprofen into her hand.
“Before you take it, let me try my personal magic.” He angled his head toward the bed. “Lie down and let me fix and control things.” He added a smile, but they both knew he wasn’t really kidding.
She sighed and set the pills on the dresser, then climbed on the bed, facedown, arms out, fight finished. “At this point, I’ll try anything.”
“Anything?” he asked, playfully rolling up his sleeves and settling on the bed next to her.
She turned her head so she could see him, no smile. “Anything.”
Promising. Still, she was in no shape to break the bed, so he started with a gentle rub on her neck and shoulders. “When did they start?” he asked. “I have no recollection of you having such frequent headaches.”
“Don’t talk,” she commanded, closing her eyes. “This could work. But, please, don’t make me talk.”
“Okay, just relax.” He situated himself next to her, getting a better angle to use both hands, controlling his touch carefully. Almost immediately, he could see the tension slip from her shoulders.
A soft moan confirmed that his hands were doing the trick.
He brushed her hair away and leaned a little closer, a whiff of Chanel No. 5 wending its way straight to whatever brain cells screamed for sex. He flattened his hands on her back, dragging them over her narrow frame and sliding them under her hair, making her sigh again.
“You like that?”
“Mmm.” Her eyes fluttered with another sigh, and he studied her profile, barely seeing the tiny scars he now knew were there. Another, right under her earlobe where he used to flick his tongue to make her lose control.
He could almost see her former face at certain angles. All that did was make him want to dig more Isadora out of her.
He concentrated on the massage, pressing his fingers into the very top of her spine, eyeing the few freckles that somehow didn’t get lasered off in some surgery center in Cuba.
Now they were familiar. Completely recognizable, he thought with a jolt. They dotted this skin around yet another scar, that one more obvious than others, like the surgeon got tired of all his artwork on the face and decided to stitch this last one in a hurry.
He rubbed the tiny raised flesh gently, one of her many hidden scars.
That’s what she was. A woman of hidden scars.
“It’s perfect, Gabe. Perfect.” She whispered the last word, like she might have if he were on top of her, inside her, consuming her.
His body responded, of course, getting hot and hard and achy. He leaned over her and got his face a little closer to her ear. “Feel better?” he asked.
“A little, yeah. It’s going away.”
“You know what you need?”
She opened one eye and looked up at him. “I have a feeling I do.”
“For the blood to flow in a different direction from your brain.”
Very slowly, she smiled, then turned a little bit, some trepidation in her eyes. “I could try,” she said softly, her words catching in her throat. “I want you so much, Gabe.” Her fingers shook a little as she reached for him, pulling him down to her. “So much.”
His blood hummed, definitely going in the right direction, filling him with need. He finished turning her all the way over so he could kiss her and slip his hand under her top.
“A bra tonight?” he asked, rubbing the lace trim. “What’s the occasion?”
“It’s a push-up. I thought you might like it.”
The confession tweaked his heart and made him smile. “I like what you have, Lila. In and”—he unsnapped the front opening—“out of a bra.” Pushing her top up, he kissed his way to her breasts, hungry to taste her and suckle her.
“Oh…” Her cry was sharp. Instantly, he lifted his head.
“Did I hurt you?”
She shook her head and bit her lip. “It’s just…no. Don’t stop.” She pushed him back to her breast and arched her back, rocking her hips into him, a low grade of desperation in the move.
He liked desperation. But it wasn’t…her. Not old her or new her.
He softened his kisses and trailed them down her stomach, adding little licks as she dug her fingers into his head. Hard.
Again, he lifted up. “You sure you’re okay?” he asked.
She swallowed, a shadow of torment around her eyes. “I’m…okay.”
“You’re lying,” he said, inching up.
She bit her lip. “I don’t want you to stop,” she said breathlessly. “I don’t care if my head hurts, I want you.” She reached down and closed her hand over his pants, squeezing his hard-on. “I want you and need you. Please.”
Except there were tears in her eyes—tears of pain, not pleasure—which was a deal breaker for him, hard-on in hand or not.
Very slowly, he took her hand and removed it, forcing himself to sit up but never taking his gaze off of her. “Not like this,” he said gruffly. “Not until you tell me what the hell is going on with you.”
She took one long, ragged breath, shuddering the exhale and turning over on her stomach again, facing the other way.
“They started after Rafe was born,” she finally said.
The headaches. “So it’s hormonal? Can’t they adjust that somehow?”
“Not so far, but they’re easily triggered.”
“Triggered by what?”
“Feelings.” He barely heard the whisper.
“What kind of feelings?” he asked.
Slowly, she turned her face back toward him. “These kind,” she whispered.
“Sexual feelings?” That didn’t make sense. They were only talking about Cuba when he’d seen the headache start to really kill her that night. “Lila?”
Everything in the room grew silent and heavy.
Finally, she turned over to look up at him again. “Intense emotions like love. Any incredibly powerful emotional connection to another human being makes my head hurt in a way that I cannot begin to describe.”
Her voice cracked and her eyes welled.
“Loving someone gives you a headache?”
“It’s not quite that simple, but you’re not far off.”
He felt his jaw loosen in shock. “What a spectacularly crappy way to live.”
She closed her eyes and nodded. “I guess I’ve developed some bizarre allergy to something like serotonin or another hormone associated with emotions. It happened during pregnancy, the doctors I’ve talked to assume. The headaches started when Rafe was really small
but eased up when I was away from him. When I was deep into work and connected to no one at all, I lived pain-free. When I was undercover and pretending to be someone else, because by the very nature of that job you can’t care about anyone, I lived just fine.”
Holy, holy shit.
She put her hands on her cheeks, pressing into her temples, fighting the tears. “But the minute I was back with Rafe and my heart soared with love…” She closed her eyes and choked on the last word. “I just can’t love him, Gabe. I can’t love my own son. I can’t love anyone.” Tears rolled now, and his own throat thickened in sympathy. “That’s why I want you to take Rafe. He deserves unlimited, intense, crazy love. I…” She shook her head from side to side. “I am not capable of it. It cripples me.”
She wiped her eyes and tried to push up, but he eased her back. “We’re going to fix this.”
That turned her sob into a laugh. “You can’t fix everything, Gabriel Rossi. You can’t fix me.”
“But you have seen a doctor?”
“More than one, certified and sanctioned by the CIA.”
“Which doesn’t make them the best in the business,” he said dryly.
“They were excellent. They gave me MRI’s and meds and therapy, and nothing helped. Finally, they sent me to a shrink who said it’s another form of a migraine, just brought on by…what I’ve been through. The changes and stress. The surgeries and constant lies. Getting close to someone or feeling love is a trigger, like chocolate or coffee for other people.”
Except you can live without chocolate or coffee. “Those bastards will wreck your life, send you undercover, and then wipe their hands of you.” He stroked her cheek, pushing her hair back. “They should have told you this could screw up your whole life when you signed up for the job.”
She snorted softly. “I didn’t even know there was surgery involved.”
“What? Dexter didn’t tell you?”
“He seemed surprised when they wanted to go that deep and undercover, but he didn’t tell me not to do it. I was all in at that point, Gabe. I thought I’d lost you and my parents and anyone else I’d ever love. What difference did it make what my name was or how my face and body looked? You know how much I wanted to make a difference in the world.”
He lowered himself closer to her, desperate to comfort her, to change this horrible side effect unfairly thrown at her, ruining her life. “And you did,” he assured her.
“Don’t.” She put her hand on him, frowning. “When you kiss me, when I start to feel…it hurts. I tried. I want to.” She stroked his cheek with a soft groan. “There are no words for how much I want to, but I can’t, Gabe.”
He closed his eyes, sucker-punched. “I thought there was something you weren’t telling me,” he admitted. “I guess this is it.”
“I hadn’t told you because I’m ashamed.”
He lifted his head up to look at her. “Ashamed of a bizarre side effect from something you did to save the world? Why the hell would you be ashamed of that?”
“Because I can’t love my own son. Do you think I want to give him over to you and leave him forever?”
“Then don’t.”
She moaned in frustration. “It’s not a normal headache, Gabe.”
“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be nice,” she said, the slightest tease in her voice. “It only makes it worse when I like you. When I…feel. When I remember how much I loved you.” The tears started again. “How much I loved sex with you.”
“I loved sex with you, too,” he said, wrapping his arm around her because he couldn’t help but want her closer. “How’s that for the master of understatement?”
She smiled and sighed. “I thought the same thing about my blood. That maybe sex would get all the blood out of my brain, and it wouldn’t hurt just long enough to actually make love to you. Just once. But I can’t make love to you without feeling things so intense and powerful and real that I want to die from the pounding that feels like it could crack my skull.”
She couldn’t live this way. “There has to be a doctor who can help you.”
“No, not any doctor. They’ll take a million MRI’s and see all the work that’s been done surgically and I risk drawing attention if I see a doctor who doesn’t know what I’ve done and why. I can’t tell that to just any doctor who could put it in some medical journal. I can’t trust anyone to be discreet about this.”
A shot of anger pushed him up. “So what if people find out you used to be Isadora Winter? Who are you protecting?”
“Everyone in the operation. The CIA. And, yes, Dexter Crain. If that operation became public, the fallout would be incredible. People would lose jobs, and attention or press coverage could potentially include Rafe or endanger him. No, I won’t take that chance.” She eyed him. “You need to know this, Gabe. You can never make another decision autonomously once you have a child. The possibility that it will affect him impacts everything you do.”
“We gotta fix you,” he said, too focused on that goal to even hear everything she was saying. “We have got to fix you.”
She closed her eyes and reached for him, wrapping her arms around his neck and shoulders and pulling him into her. “I love that you want to, but it isn’t going to happen.”
“Don’t love anything,” he warned. “Yet. Until I solve this problem.”
She relaxed a little, setting her head on its home base on his shoulder. He didn’t know if that made her head hurt, but it sure did things to his chest. This is what heartache is. This.
Wanting. Needing. Loving. But not having…because having meant feeling, and feeling meant hurting yourself or the person you loved. What a spectacular shitshow.
“You want to know the worst part?” she asked.
“It gets worse?”
“This is why I’m so cold. This is why my whole personality is frigid. When I quite literally imagine ice around my heart, I get relief. It’s the only technique that has ever worked. I learned years ago that if I don’t let myself feel anything intense, whether it’s happiness or misery, love or hate, I can ward off a headache. So I’ve developed the ability to control that. Mostly.” She sighed, as if the loss of something so natural pained her as much as the headaches.
He stroked her hair, wondering if even that touch hurt her. Damn it. This was paralyzing. “What does it feel like?” he asked, wondering if there was a way to pinpoint where they started.
She took his hand and pressed it right behind her ear. “It’s like a knife slicing into my head, both sides, then up here.” She guided his hand to her temple. “It’s a blinding, agonizing, breath-stealing pain that honestly makes it impossible to function normally. I can even get confused or feel like I might black out.” She bit her lip. “So the threat to Rafe isn’t just some nameless guy hunting me down. It could be…me. The headaches make me an unfit mother.” Her voice grew thick again.
“Shhh.” He caressed her hair again. “Don’t. Don’t go there. You’re not unfit. You’re more than fit. And the kid has two parents now.”
She curled deeper into him, pressing her body against him. “That’s what I want for him. Your love. You and your wonderful family. Nino and Chessie.”
He laughed. “There are so many more.”
“Yes. Your brothers and cousins. Give him that love, Gabe. Give him that for me.”
He lifted up his head to look down at her. “He needs all that and you.”
“Oh.” The word came out as a whimper, soft and helpless, as she reached up and clasped her hand over his neck. “I…Gabe…I…”
Despite her different eyes and different face, he knew what was coming. The declaration. The three words. The bond they’d had before. Love. It was starting again, as if the emotion had a mind and power of its own and neither one of them could stop it.
Isa and Gabe. One thing. One…one.
“Please kiss me,” she whispered. “Please. I want to feel it.”
He kissed
her lightly, holding back, certain that anything he did would only make her feel the way he did—attached and connected and hungry to get inside. And that would hurt her head.
One kiss was all he took. One long, sweet, perfect kiss, and while he tasted her, he swore to God he would fix this woman. He just didn’t know how yet.
Chapter Seventeen
“Someone’s having a meltdown.”
Lila pulled herself from sleep and squinted into the morning light, seeing Gabe’s silhouette in front of the partially closed plantation shutters.
“What?” She pushed up, remembering how she’d finally fallen asleep next to him and that…he’d stayed there. And it had been warm and heavenly, but then the headache got bad enough that he’d just left.
And that broke her heart. He held out her cell phone. “Your pal Chris keeps texting one word. Meltdown. That can’t be good.”
“Oh shit.” She pushed herself off the bed and shook off sleep. “It’s not good.”
“What is that? A code?”
“Hell yes, it’s a code. Code red. Rafe’s having a meltdown. I have to go.”
“We’ll go. I can handle a meltdown.”
“Defcon 1 from a four-year-old?” She headed into the bathroom, glancing down to see she’d slept in her clothes. Next to Gabe, a normal woman ought to sleep naked.
Well, she wasn’t normal, and he knew that now.
“My four-year-old.” He came to the door and handed her the Casa Blanca bathrobe that had been tossed over the chair. “I know these meltdowns.”
She took the robe, but he didn’t let go, using it like a tug-of-war rope to pull her closer. “You okay?”
“At the moment. It usually takes an hour or so after I wake up for a headache to start. Don’t push it, though. Please don’t be nice to me.” She shut the door in his face.
“I’ll be a bastard,” he promised through the wood. “A stone-cold bastard.”
Unlikely, but to his credit, Gabe was quiet as they drove south on Mimosa Key.
She used the quiet to stare at the road straight ahead. Despite the graceful palm trees against a clear blue sky, she took her usual trip to the Arctic and visualized a sheet of ice, cold, thick, and impenetrable, closing around her chest. The technique, taught to her by a hypnotist—one of a several CIA-sanctioned “expert” doctors she’d seen over the past few years—sometimes protected her when feelings got too intense.