by Robin Lovett
“Don’t even think about it, Kane,” Blake warns.
I wipe her from my mind and tell him the truth. “I’m not thinking anything.”
* * *
Seeing Logan, I want to confess it all to him, to share the things my brother told me with him the way he shared his truths with me. I forget he’s not the man of truth I thought he was.
The look of contempt on his face reminds me. Even if what he told me of his sister is true, there are too many other lies about him for him to be the man I thought he was.
But my response is unchanged. His look, the intensity, the brutality of his stare, it could be the first day I met him. I want him to make all the rest of it disappear so there is nothing left but us and what he makes me feel.
I cover it, steel my spine and reject the weakness.
The trek to my car is a slow one.
My brother’s truths about my mother stagger me. She was a victim of my father like Logan’s sister. Blake’s face was contrite. He’s ashamed, as though he were the one who hurt our mom.
I told him it wasn’t his fault, but the guilt on his face and his confession hurt.
He didn’t want me to know. He wanted to save me from it. Like he’s been saving me his whole life. He told me he’s the one who convinced father to send me to boarding school. He’s the one who made sure I always had a summer camp to go to or could visit our aunt in Charleston on school breaks. All to keep me safe from our father.
Blake was a teenager, and he was being a surrogate parent to me.
I could see the fear in his eyes—he’s afraid he’s like our father. But Logan was wrong. Blake cares too much, to a fault, but he could never be evil like our father. There’s too much care in him. His misses our mother, the mother I never knew, too much.
He needs something to do with his grief besides obsess over taking care of me. I never thought about how he moved from Nashville to California to pursue his law practice, just to be near me. He took the bar exam in California just to be with me.
He’s trying to save me the way he couldn’t save our mother. And I was too dense to see it.
I need to do something for him, for us.
If there’s one true thing Logan taught me about myself, one thing I won’t let go of, it’s that I need to do something. I can’t let this news about my mother debilitate me like the death of my father did. I won’t let it.
Action.
It would be easier if I had him with me.
I go to the hospital with no makeup, the first time I’ve ever gone to work without it. It feels good. My value is in myself—not in my looks.
I pass by the pillars he used to watch me from—my distraction. And try not to think about how much more than a distraction he became.
I remember why I wanted to work in maternity. Back when I thought the only tragedy my mother experienced was her death in labor with me, I wanted to help other mothers. But now, that’s changed. Working back in NICU doesn’t seem as vital to me anymore. I want to help in other ways now.
I resign from the nursing staff and stay in the offices to begin research for a new crusade—asking questions, making phone calls.
Nancy Toolen, I learn, didn’t go to the women’s shelter we found for her. She went home to her husband.
I call her. Leave her a message. I’ll pay for her plane ticket home to her family if I have to. I don’t care what she needs, I’ll give it. I have to help her.
My mother had no one to help her.
Louisa had no one to help her.
I have to do something.
Ideas pour from my head. Fifteen million. I don’t need that trust fund. There are far better things for me to do with that money.
The hospital offices close. The sun went down hours ago, and I’m forced to go home, my brain swirling with ideas.
But my body . . . it hurts. Aching and empty. It misses him the way my heart misses him. I’d take him any way I can get him now—evil, dark, caring, light. Just him. Any version of him.
On the drive home, I wish I could go back to the hospital and keep researching. My usual habit of avoiding my lonely condo by going shopping—I have no desire. I need that money for other things now.
It’s dark on the drive, but two blocks from my driveway, my headlights pass over a truck. A familiar one.
Why would his truck be there?
He’s sleeping on the beach again.
My beach.
The one outside my window.
The one he used to watch me from every night.
My heart throbs, labored and heavy, pumping blood to my fingertips to my toes.
He’s watching me.
My skin alive with sensation, as though his eyes are already touching me, I park my car in my driveway and go in my condo. The motion sensor lights come on, but that’s not enough. I turn on every light in the living room and kitchen and the terrace. I want him to watch me and see everything I do.
And I don’t care who else sees.
I wish I could tell him about everything I did today, about all my actions and plans.
He may not exist that way, but I can pretend he does. I can pretend while he’s watching me that he’s the man he made me believe him to be. A man who values truth above anything. A man who makes me face my greatest fears and greatest desires with every touch of his fingers and every word from his mouth. A man who understood the lines between fear and desire, between choice and control, and could walk them with me.
He’s more than those things though. He walked those lines with me, but not with himself. He’s not just a manipulator, he’s a man who killed for revenge. He killed my father, probably.
I choose to let him see me.
I walk out on my terrace and stare down at the beach. The breeze ruffles my hair and I can see nothing but the lights in the other houses on the shore. The sand and anyone on it is too dark to see. But I know he’s there.
Fear binds my lungs, and it’s ecstatic. He’s more dangerous than I even suspected. And though it shouldn’t, it makes me want him more.
I pretend I’m looking at him. I pretend he’s seeing me.
I turn my face to the stars and let him watch me stand there. But I don’t see the sky, I only see his face and how his eyes are when he looks at me. How I’m only a thing of desire to him. How he looks with the hunger in his eyes that devours me before he even touches me.
How I used to fear he would destroy me, fuck me, or both. Were the hands he used to make me feel such desperate things the same hands that he used to kill a man?
I go back inside and do the unthinkable, again.
I unlock my front door and disarm my security system.
My addiction to fear, it’s not the same as before. I don’t crave it to feel alive. Because I am alive. But I crave it because I crave him.
I turn off the lights in my living room and kitchen and go to my bedroom. I open the drapes as wide as they’ll go and turn on every light. And I undress. In front of the window.
Perhaps it’s desperate. Anyone could be watching. No one could be watching.
He might not even be there.
I could’ve mistaken it for his truck. Maybe it wasn’t even his.
I stand naked in front of the window and let the hole that opens in my chest swallow me.
When I’m convinced he’s no longer out there and I imagined the whole thing, I turn out the lights, cuddle into bed and try to forget him.
Chapter Thirty-Four
My hand is on her door. She invited me.
I can’t say no.
If she wants to know who’s in control, it’s not me.
She stood on her terrace and stripped in front of her window like an invitation. I could see it, even from the beach, in her movements. The hesitation and the determination. She’s more afraid of me than ever . . . but she wants me anyway. Or because of it.
If her door is locked, I won’t go in. But if it’s not . . .
The knob turns in my hand and the door op
ens.
Invitation accepted.
Excitement shoots through my veins, and I’m hard before I even enter her condo. It’s tinged with a bitterness though. She only wants me for the thrill I give her, not for me. But if that’s how she’ll have me, then that’s what I’ll give her.
It’s dark inside, not a single light is on.
Except for the moonlight lying across her dining room table—the first place I fucked her. I take off my flip-flops and step silently through her condo. Her bedroom door is open, and she lies on the bed.
It’s too dark for me to see if her eyes are open, but the moonlight outlines her body. I pause to listen for her breathing. To hear if she’s asleep.
Her inhales come slow, but not slow enough. She’s awake. She’s waiting for me, hoping I’ll come to her.
Her back is to me. She doesn’t know.
I’m already here.
I wait, standing, hearing her breathe. I want her so relaxed that she’s forgotten I’m coming, that she’s given up on me. Before I come to her.
I envision, I plan, what I want to do to her. How best to give her what she likes and how she likes me to make her feel.
I shouldn’t be here. I should leave.
If Blake knew I was here, he’d have me thrown in prison.
Or he’d try.
I walk closer, stripping out of my clothes on the way.
Naked, I kneel onto the bed so gradually that the dip in the mattress doesn’t disturb her. I ease closer and run my hands an inch above her, past the swell of her hip, the curve of her waist, around her shoulder and the crown of her head.
I pause, counting her inhales. One. Two. Three.
I cover her mouth and yank her against me. “You fell asleep. Did you forget I was coming?”
She relaxes against me and moans a sound of pleasure.
“Don’t think this is going to be easy. You taunt me like it’s a game. Are you sure you want to play it my way, sweetheart?” Her body tightens against me, but not in a trying-to-get-away-from-me movement, an arching into me.
Her fingers claw at mine, and she mumbles something against my hand. I loosen my hand on her mouth so she can speak. “Yes.” The word is musical in longing and sends straight shots of blood to my cock, hard and pulsing against her back.
“Yes what?”
“Play with me.”
Her sheet pulled down, I find her naked and run my hands across her skin, gorging myself on her softness. “You missed me. You want me to fuck you. Fuck you until I’ve had my fill.”
She shudders and nods against my chest.
I flip her on her stomach and press her into the mattress with my weight, trapping her arms by her head. “You like it.”
“Did you do it?” she blurts and it catches me unaware.
“What?” I don’t want her to be asking. This is about sex, truth of the physical, not of the past.
“Did you kill him?”
“Do you think I could?”
She swallows and breathes, “Yes.”
I don’t know if I’m relieved or angry that she believes it. Without real evidence or a confession from me, she believes what her brother and friends tell her. It makes me want revenge on her, for not trusting me.
It’s what she wants.
I hook her knee and fold it up beside her hip, spreading her, opening her, my chest still heavy against her back. I bite her ear, and she squirms beneath me.
I test her. “Do you think I could kill you?”
“No.” Her breath stops, then she squeezes out, “I don’t want to lose you.”
My forehead falls to her neck and I’m helpless to do anything but inhale against her. She’s in love with me.
The feeling is strange. It’s like power bleeding into my muscles, but it’s like a ripping open, too. To hear her say it.
It shouldn’t be that way. She should live without me, uncursed by the pain and scars that are me and all that I will ever be. “Wrong answer.” Angry at her for letting me get to her this way, angry at myself for allowing this to happen, I probe between her legs.
She’s ready, swollen and wet.
I take her arm and hook it beneath her raised knee, “Hold.” I pull back, not wanting to, but I have to put on a condom.
Sheathed, I notch into her, letting her swallow me in her warmth.
My aim is to tease her, my goal to make her wait for not just her orgasm but for mine too. She tries to hide it, but she likes it too much when I come. But with her leg raised high, I thrust in, and she’s like a fist around me. My emotions run too high for control.
I give her everything. Not only the dregs of my anger and hurt, but also my fear for her and how I wish she had better than me.
I weigh her down with my chest, wishing I could sear myself into her. I suck her neck, wishing I could take her life and make it mine. Then maybe the insatiable things in me, the cries of pain and the endless sorrow I’ve spent my life running from, will finally let go.
She comes, her body gripping me in the way that makes me come too fast to control it.
But it’s not enough.
I flip her over. I kneel, resting on my heels, and pull her into my lap, spreading her thighs around my hips. Her back arches, her body pliant to whatever I want, and I start again, back at the bottom of the pit that is the endless well of overwhelming things living in my chest.
I lose track of me.
But I don’t lose track of her.
I feel her, her softness, how she tenses and moves, moans and writhes. How she comes. I could happily listen to and feel her do that every minute of every day until I die.
Unable to face it. Whether she still wants me or never wants to see me again, I never want to see myself again the way I am with her.
The things that she awakens in me, the unstoppable things, they’re too much for me and too much for her.
But I can’t leave.
When I’m spent, when she is spent, I can’t let go. I wrap myself around her wishing I could be her blanket of protection against the world—against everything that could harm her. Including myself.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The soreness I wake with is the only proof he was actually here.
I bury my face in my pillow and groan the most wretched sound my chest can create. I do it again and again, until my voice is hoarse.
There is no end to this. He and I are doomed to a cycle of endless heartache.
The past is unchangeable and it looms between us like a specter, dictating our choices and feelings.
But I will not wallow.
I have things to do. Time to get up.
I’m doing more research online at home, making phone calls and trying to decipher spreadsheets, when Layla calls.
I don’t want to answer, but her voicemail snags me. “I have news. New information you need. And it’s concrete this time, not speculation.” There’s a note of contrition, almost like she’s regretting focusing all her suspicions on Logan. The thought of seeing her fills me with hope. Even if she is anti-Logan, she’s still my best friend and I miss her.
I meet her for lunch, and she starts with small talk. “Are you back in NICU?”
I sip my iced tea then shake my head. “I’m doing other things now.”
“Not because of this Logan thing, I hope. Don’t let him wreck your life.”
I close my eyes and force myself to inhale. “This ‘Logan thing’ has changed me for the better.”
“I’m sorry.” She sighs and looks at her hands. “What other things are you doing?”
I’m not going to lie or fake it. I’m telling the truth as is. “I have some ideas, but I’m not ready to talk about it yet.”
“I’m glad to see you excited about something new.” She smiles. “You really are doing better.” If by doing better she means weighing my heart on a scale of lies.
“I’d like to get back to work soon. What’s up?”
She pulls some papers from her bag. “I did some mor
e detailed research. Something I should’ve done sooner. But here it is.” She slides the stack toward me, a list of records with two lines highlighted.
“What is it?”
“They’re highway toll records. Of Logan’s license plate.”
“Okay.”
“The second page is from the night your father died. There’s two leaving the city. And if you’ll note the time.” She points. “He drove home more than four hours before your father’s time of death.”
Confusion plays with my mind. I don’t know if I believe it or not. I just want to know. “So he left the hospital. You’re saying he couldn’t have done it?”
She shrugs. “All I can tell you is at the time of your father’s death, Logan’s car was miles from the hospital. For what that’s worth.”
I can’t process the information.
“I wish I could give you a concrete answer,” she says.
I sit back in my chair. “I don’t know what to think.”
“Have you asked him? That’s probably the only way to get a straight answer.”
My hands vibrate in anger. “You don’t mean that. You don’t trust him to tell me the truth.”
“You do.”
I’m not sure if she’s right. I’m not sure of anything anymore. Last night he wouldn’t answer me. I still think he could’ve done it. He had just cause to do it. He said before that my father died too easily. Perhaps he did.
Would Logan tell me the truth if I asked? Would I believe him?
Layla leans forward. “How many times did he actually lie to you? Not by omission, I mean. Just out and out lied.”
“Never. But he refused to answer last night when I asked him.”
“You saw him?” her eyes brighten. “And you point-blank asked him?”
“Well.” I blush. I can still feel him, lying on top of me, moving inside me, his mouth on me, his words in my ear.
Layla laughs. “Sleeping with the enemy.”
“It wasn’t . . .” I can’t defend myself. She won’t understand.
“You can’t ask him during sex. That doesn’t count.”
I almost smile. “I guess not.” I’m not sure how I do ask him though, how I get him to talk to me. He’s not exactly the type to openly confess his deepest secrets. Though he has done it for me before.