Sacred Serenity (Lotus House Book 2)

by Audrey Carlan

  “Oh, I like the sound of that,” I said, walking toward him. I didn’t stop until my breasts bumped against his chest.

  “Then I shall address you as such more often, Doc.” He grinned.

  I practically preened, looking up at him with a heaping dose of love and desire. How had this man so quickly become the center of my world?

  Dash wrapped both arms around my waist and locked his wrists together over my bum. Then he did the ultimate. He leaned down, brushed his lips along mine, nuzzled my nose, and asked, “How’s my girl?”

  Swoon.

  Lord, I cannot be held responsible for my actions. I was born a sinner, and sin I will.

  “Perfect, now that you’re here,” I whispered before curling a hand around his neck, rising onto my tiptoes, and kissing the daylights out of him.

  If he was surprised, he didn’t act like it. No, my guy took over the kiss, hissing into my mouth like a snake ready to strike its unsuspecting prey.

  I nibbled on Dash’s lips, alternating between licking and sucking the top then bottom, adding just enough pressure to get the lower half of his body in the game.

  I’d learned a fact pretty quickly about Dash. He had absolutely no qualms about PDAs or public indecency for that matter. When he got in the mood to show his affection, he went for it. And me? Well, I was incapable of stopping that train once it left the station. Not that I’d even try.

  His lips devoured mine while his hands gripped my ass in a firm squeeze, rubbing my groin against his hardening shaft. I gasped into his mouth and attempted to pull away, knowing I was in the hall at school and lacking all common sense. Dash would have none of it. He chased my mouth, wrapped a hand around a section of my hair, and tugged my head back far enough so that it was immobile, and I had to take his kiss.

  Secretly, I loved when he turned alpha Neanderthal male. I found it wickedly sexy. He wasn’t demeaning me in the slightest. On the contrary. The man was so taken by our connection that he worshipped me wherever I stood. Public be damned. Now, if I could get him to keep these reactions to more private locations, we’d be set.

  “Told you, Dad!” I heard Landen’s voice behind us.

  I ripped my mouth away, but Dash only allowed us to separate a few inches. “Dash, um, we have company.” I hooked a thumb behind me.

  He glanced over my shoulder. “I know. I’m deciding if I care.”

  Oh no, he didn’t. “Seriously, rude!” I growled into his face, fisted his shirt, and pushed off. Finally, he let me go. By go, I mean he allowed me to shift to his side where he wrapped one hand around my shoulders and the other he splayed low on my belly. Very low. Too low to be considered just friendly.

  Professor O’Brien smacked his hands together, the loud clap echoing off the mostly empty hallway. “Well, I guess I owe you an apology, son,” he said.

  Landen nodded and smiled smugly.

  I did my best not to roll my eyes at his immaturity. However, I did think it was funny that I was the only one who noticed the professor didn’t actually apologize, just said he owed Landen one. Point for Dr. O’Brien.

  Whatever worked for them. I didn’t want to get them going at it again, especially in front of Dash if it had anything to do with the concept of Landen and me in a romantic sense. Not that I understood why it would be an issue. I mean, I never thought I was much of a catch before, but I definitely wasn’t a dog. Also, he had told me I had the highest intellect in class, so what was I lacking? Not that it mattered per se, other than the fact that it irked me not knowing.

  “Ms. St. James, would you be so kind as to join me in my office?”

  Landen blinked. “Why? I thought we were having dinner with Mom?” His tone was curious but lacked any knowledge of whatever his father had to say about my mother.

  “Son, go on home and tell your mother I’ll be there within the hour. I have a matter to discuss with Ms. St. James.”

  Landen tucked his hands into his pockets, looked at his dad, then me, and finally Dash. I don’t know what he saw in Dash’s eyes, but whatever it was got him to move along because the next thing he said was a grumbled, “Fine, see you in class on Wednesday, Amber.”

  “Yeah, see ya. Thanks for the help with the A and P today. I owe you one.” Anatomy and Physiology could be tricky when the sole focus was the nervous system.

  “Score me a date with a girlfriend of yours and we’re even!” He laughed, walking backward toward the turn in the hallway.

  I shook my head and looked at Dash. “Professor O’Brien wants to talk to me about my mother. Would you, you know, like to sit in?”

  Please say yes. Please say yes.

  Dash cupped my cheek. “Amber, I told you whatever you need, I’m your guy. When you’re uncomfortable, I’m uncomfortable. Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You don’t mind if I join you, do you?” Dash geared the question to my instructor.

  Dr. O’Brien rubbed at the back of his neck and yanked at his collar again. Looking more closely, I noticed a layer of darkened strands at his hairline. Either he was nervous or sweating due to being overheated, and frankly, the temperature in the building felt just fine to me.

  “If Amber is okay sharing very private information with you, then it’s okay with me.”

  Dash threaded his fingers through mine and squeezed my hand so we were palm to palm. “Lead the way.”

  The professor walked in front of us and led us down two barren hallways to a row of offices. Each door had frosted glass with a different doctor’s name on it. I recognized a couple of them from the program syllabus. They’d likely be one of my instructors for certain portions of the coursework. Dr. O’Brien couldn’t teach every specialty. He had to bring in experts in the different fields beyond general medicine and emergency care.

  He opened the door to his office and turned the light on. The room was chaotic, to put it mildly. Bookcases ran the length of both walls, making the room feel closed in and dark. A single window on the back wall was covered with shutters closed tight so you couldn’t even gauge whether it was dark or light outside. On his desk were books, stacks of files, and bits of paper with words scrawled on them. Only a small eight-by-ten-inch space in front of him was bare for working. Even a chair in the corner was filled to the brim with a stack of books, a wayward plant that could have used a cup of water, or twelve, and a hat that was teetering on the edge of the seat just waiting for a strong wind to push it over.

  “Nice digs,” Dash commented dryly.

  The doctor glanced at the two chairs sitting in front of his desk. Both of them held stacks of files and other odds and ends.

  “Sorry, Landen’s my TA, but I haven’t let him into my office to organize me. The last time he came in here, I couldn’t find anything for a month.”

  I chuckled. “What did he do? Toss your stuff?”

  He shook his head while clearing the files off the chairs and stacking them on an already leaning pile at the edge of his solid wood desk.

  “No, he put it in order.”

  “Blasphemy,” Dash joked, and the doctor actually laughed.

  “All joking aside, it’s…”

  “Organized chaos. Looks like my desk at home. Drives my grandparents insane. I’m meticulous with my room, clothes, study habits, but my desk is an utter nightmare to anybody…”

  “But you.” He pointed at me, a strange look crossing his eyes.

  I tilted my head. “Yep.”

  “Birds of a feather,” Dash said, grabbing my hand across the chair and pressing his lips together in a small air kiss.

  Professor O’Brien sat down across from us and positioned his hands on top of the desk. He looked me straight in the eye and proceeded to blow my God-loving mind.

  “Back when your mother was nineteen or twenty, she and I had an affair. For a year.”

  DASH

  “Holy shit!” I said out loud. The plan was to stay quiet while Amber and the doc discussed his knowledge of her mother’s past, but him stating h
e’d had an affair with her was not at all what I’d expected.

  Amber opened her mouth, closed it, and then swallowed. “Excuse me?” she whispered.

  He ran a hand through unruly hair that had bits of gray at the sides. “It was my first year teaching Anatomy and Physiology, just about mid 1990s. Kate, your mother, was in my class. She was a sophomore. As a second-year student in my program, Kate was my first choice to be my teacher’s assistant.”

  Oh Christ. I knew where this was going before he even said it. The old “late one night…things got out of hand.” I could already hear the excuses a mile away.

  As it was, Amber was squeezing the life out of my hand. I would have pulled her into my lap to give her the extra touch I knew she needed right then to ground her, but she’d never approve. Definitely not in front of her instructor. Instead, I ran my thumb along her wrist to remind her I was there, listening, and ready to battle any demons that might surface with this new information.

  “Go on.” Amber’s voice was raspy, emotion already starting to muddle her beautiful timbre.

  “Kate was top of her class, like you. Bright, had the entire world ahead of her.” He took a slow breath and sighed as if he’d been waiting years to let the weight of this secret fall from his shoulders. “My wife and I were at odds, separated. I was living in a hotel and running back and forth between teaching, spending time with my six-month-old son, and trying to give her space.”

  “You were married at the time? And you had Landen?” Amber closed her eyes and took several breaths.

  Waves of painful energy banged against my psyche. My girl was not taking this information well, but she deserved to know the truth, and I was determined to help her through this until she got it all.

  The doctor sighed. “I’m not proud of what we did. Not only was I ten years her senior, the breach of the teacher-student relationship unethical, I was cheating on my wife. Kate though, she had this way about her. She was convinced that we were meant to be and had I not already been married with an infant son, I’d have agreed with her. Hell, I did agree with her, in silence. I loved your mother deeply, Amber. Please know that. She was everything I’d ever wanted in a mate. She just came into my life too late.”

  “So you carried on a relationship with Amber’s mother for a year, you said?”

  He nodded. “Yes. My wife and I were separated almost immediately after having our son. She didn’t take his birth and being a mother well. She wanted to be at work where she was confident, strong and, in her mind, needed. Ultimately, she was diagnosed with postpartum depression. Only it took over a year for her to even remotely return to the woman I’d married eight years prior.”

  Amber choked on a sob. “You’d been married eight years before you were with my mom?”

  He licked his lips and looked away. “As I said, I’m not proud of the decisions I made. I can only say that your mother, there was something about her. I couldn’t not be with her. It was like she was gold dipped in liquid sunshine. Her warmth and love shone so bright, it blinded everything else in my world so that all I saw was her. She got me through the most difficult time in my life.”

  If everything was all roses and rainbows between Kate and the professor, why’d she end up pregnant and alone? Oh no. Oh hell no. Dread so strong crawled up my throat and coated it with a thick slime. I could hardly breathe. There was just no way…

  “Then why were you not together?” Amber sniffed, and he passed her a box of tissues. She wiped her eyes and licked her lips. “I’m okay. Go on.”

  He clasped his fingers together in front of him. “Well, throughout the time I was with Kate, my wife was seeking help. She was officially diagnosed and then given antianxiety meds and antidepressants to help with the depression. Within a couple months, she was a new woman. The woman I married. The very same woman I had a child with. Our son…Landen…needed both parents. I couldn’t just give up on him.”

  A tear slipped down Amber’s cheek. I wanted to kiss it away, pull her up and over my shoulder, and storm out of this vile room. This man had hurt her mother deeply, and in turn, he was hurting Amber. I’d about had it.

  “So you broke it off,” she said bluntly.

  He nodded. “One night she came to me, had something important she wanted to tell me. God, if I knew then what I know now…needless to say, I wish I’d listened. But I didn’t. I cut her off, told her that we had to end our affair and that I was going back to my wife to give it another shot.” The professor rubbed at his face, removed his glasses, and that was when I saw it. His eyes. As familiar as my own because I spent hours looking into them when I looked at the woman I’d die for each and every day.

  “H-how did s-she take it?” Amber asked.

  He closed his eyes. “With grace. She hugged me, kissed me one last time, and told me that she’d always love me and would never speak of our affair.”

  Amber swallowed, tears flowing down her cheeks. “And what did you say to her?”

  “That I’d never forget her. That there would always be a place in my heart she owned, and finally, I’d never love another the way I loved her. And I never have.” Sorrow overflowed his tone, making me believe he meant it.

  “Thank you for sharing your story with me. It means a lot and gives me more to go on. Definitely helps to understand why she left school when she did.” Amber wiped at her runny nose, and I squeezed her hand.

  Sometimes there’s a moment in time when everything in the world as it’s always been is about to change. Almost like experiencing a premonition about how certain life events are going to rip the world into bite-sized pieces. Right then, that feeling hit my heart like a tidal wave blasting the shore during a hurricane.

  “May I ask you a question, Amber?”

  She nodded.

  “How old are you, and what day is your birthday?”

  Her nose scrunched up in that cute way I adored. “I’m going to be twenty-three on November sixteenth. Why?”

  He closed his eyes, and his hands shook as he pressed his fingers against his temples. “Valentine’s Day.”

  “Huh?” Amber said.

  “You would have been conceived around Valentine’s Day.”

  Amber chuckled. “I imagine a lot of babies are. It’s a romantic holiday. What are you getting at?”

  “My wife and I didn’t celebrate Valentine’s Day, but that year, Kate and I did. I took her on a dinner cruise where we danced in the moonlight, shared our future desires. I wanted to be the department chair over the medical program. Kate wanted to be a pediatrician.”

  Amber jerked her hand from mine and leaned forward. “A pediatrician? I just chose that as my specialty. It’s why I missed the last class.”

  He smiled solemnly. “You are your mother’s daughter. It’s why when I saw your face it was like looking into my past. You look so much like her, only with subtle differences.”

  “Yeah, green eyes for one.”

  “That and your chin is rounded here.” He pointed to his own rounded chin.

  My heart sank. He was going round and round the mulberry bush, and I still didn’t know when he was going to stop and tell my girlfriend the obvious truth! If he didn’t get on with it, I was a solid two point five seconds from laying it out in black, white, and glaring multicolors.

  Amber blew her nose into the tissue, wiped up, and squirted some hand sanitizer into her hand that she’d magically seen on his desk. “That’s really nice of you to share your experience, but why the questions about my birthday?”

  Dr. O’Brien placed both of his elbows on his desk, took off his glasses, and left them dangling in one hand. “Because, Amber, the year your mom would have conceived you, we were together. The Valentine’s holiday we spent together fits as well. A DNA test would prove it, but I’m almost a hundred percent certain that I was the only man Kate was in a relationship with at the time.”

  Amber’s eyes widened, and her pupils dilated so much that the green had nearly disappeared. Her cheeks had taken
on a deeply flushed appearance. Her expression looked surprised, anxious, and frightened all at once. “Are you suggesting…”

  “That I’m your father? Yes, Amber. That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.”

  “No,” she whispered, her hand coming up to cover her mouth.

  “I’d like to have a DNA test done to be sure but looking into your eyes, Amber, darling, it’s like looking into my mother’s eyes and mine. Even Landen’s.”

  “Oh my God, Landen!” Amber stood up, tears flowing down her cheeks once more.

  Bastard made her cry again. That was two for two, and I sure as hell was keeping track. I gripped both hands into tight fists. I’d never been a violent man, until another man made my woman shed a tear. A blast of anger sizzled along my nerves, and I had to grit my teeth in order not to go apeshit on him.

  He stood up and brought his hands up in front of him. “He doesn’t know anything, yet. I wanted to talk to you and be sure. Do you know who your father is?”

  Amber shook her head, the long, dark waves I loved running my fingers through falling in front of her face.

  “Did your mother write a name on your birth certificate?”

  Again, no words left her mouth, just a slight jerk of her head in the negative.

  “Okay, perhaps your grandparents mentioned your biological father?”

  Amber straightened her spine, pushing her shoulders back and down. “My mother died in childbirth. She took my paternity to her grave.” Each word was a cold, lifeless utterance from a woman so far gone emotionally I wouldn’t have recognized her had she not been standing in front of me.

  “I think it’s time to go, my love. Get you home.”

  “Home? Where’s home?” Amber’s eyes were flat, emotionless, her face deathly pale.

  “Amber,” he tried, but I slashed the air.

  “No. You don’t get to be concerned. Not now. Maybe not ever,” I gritted through my teeth. “Amber, honey, your home is where I am.”

  She nodded, picked up her backpack as if on autopilot, and reached for the door handle. When she got there, she stopped and turned just her face. “I believe you loved her. And I believe that, even in death, she died protecting the ones she loved. She protected you, and her promise to not speak of your affair, with her very last breath.”