by Jolie Day
She had no idea if any of them was what she wanted, though. No idea if trauma was where her future was.
Of course it is! her mind chastised, several times a day, as she sat in her office at work. What else are you going to do? Spend your life in some tiny town, prescribing antibiotics for runny noses and performing routine checkups? Where’s the excitement in that? That’s not what you’re trained for! You should be saving lives!
Lauren buried her feet in the lukewarm sand and watched Emma splash around for a few moments more, mulling over her options. She could stay in Slightuckett. She could be a plain old family doctor. She could live without surgery. After all, she’d gone this long without cutting anybody open. She could go longer. She could probably go the rest of her life without ever holding a scalpel again.
But that’s what she had said—basically—about men.
After Jack…did what he did to her, Lauren had sworn off ever trusting another man for the rest of her life. She had put up walls around her heart and her body and kept to herself as much as possible over the next two years, sure that she couldn’t be comfortable with any man as she’d been with Jack, in the beginning. There was always that chance that it could happen again.
But then Marc Kelly had come along and tore every wall down within seconds of meeting. She’d felt that connection instantaneously. Had felt the passion and the trust and that surge of…something that she just couldn’t name until it was almost too late. She’d tried not to feel anything emotional. She’d tried to lose herself in the sex—the amazing, earth-shattering, toe-curling sex—and do as Marc said.
But she couldn’t.
Why couldn’t she?
Emma’s bark woke her from her thoughts before she came to the answer and Lauren blinked, noticing, for the first time, that the sky was starting to fall dark with the oncoming dusk. Emma had trotted back up the beach on her own and was now standing at attention by Lauren’s feet, her beloved ball in her sandy mouth. Her master smiled at her and reached out, patting her head.
“Ready to go back in, Em?” she asked. The dog waved her tail at the recognition of her own name, dancing a bit on her front paws. “Okay,” Lauren said, rising to her feet and grabbing her shoes from the sand next to her. She started up the beach, Emma at her heels, and stomped up the steps to her deck, her mind spinning with all the possibilities her future held.
She supposed she should count herself as lucky. She had so many people vying for her attention. She had hospitals bribing her to take jobs that anybody else would kill for; she had neighbors and friends in the townspeople that she had healed and lived with for two years now; she had a life and what might even be described as a family. She had so much more than she’d believed she would before she came here, before she decided to run away.
The only question was whether she wanted to believe she deserved it.
*****
The second she stepped through the back door, Lauren could feel that there was something off.
All the doors and windows were closed, but she could still sense a change in the air as she padded softly through the kitchen.
Her hair stood on end as if there was some kind of electric charge in the air and, suddenly, she knew exactly what was different.
“Marc?” She spun around just as she reached the door, her gaze falling on the man sitting on her sofa, reading a book in the dark.
He glanced up at the sound of his name, his eyes somehow glowing bright blue in the low light coming through the front windows. He closed the medical journal—which she was certain he couldn’t have been reading in such a low light—and placed it beside him on the couch, before standing up. Lauren forced a frown on her face and resisted the impulse to throw her arms around his shoulders by folding her arms over her chest. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“I needed to speak to you,” he responded, placing his arms behind his back and standing at attention, like a soldier. Which, Lauren mused, he pretty much was.
“About what?” she asked. “How you lied to me? Or how you slept with me even when you were supposed to be ‘protecting’ me.” She used air quotes and watched as his lips twitched the slightest bit in amusement.
It disappeared almost as quickly as it appeared.
“Actually,” he said, “I was sent to talk to you about the case.”
“Isn’t that witness tampering?” Lauren asked, her brows furrowed.
“Not exactly…” Marc said, then swept his arm toward the kitchen table. “Can we sit?”
“I’m good with standing.”
“Lauren.”
“Marc. If that’s even your real name.”
“You’re one to talk, Dr. Stanley,” Marc retorted. Lauren looked away at the sound of her birth name. “You changed it after what happened with Jack, didn’t you? After he…” Marc’s throat bobbed thickly and he looked down at the shiny black shoes on his feet. He looked so different in his professional, FBI-standard suit. But she could see the hint of his tattoos peeking out from behind his collar. “After he did what he did to you. So that you’d be hidden away. Not the best choice, in my opinion.”
“I thought it was good,” she admitted. “Close enough to my real name to make him think I hadn’t changed it at all, but then he’d see that it was different and move on. Maybe he’d be expecting me to pick an entirely new name. The WPP was supposed to keep me safe, anyway. They failed. Obviously.”
“In their defense, you didn’t go very far to get away from him,” Marc pointed out.
“I couldn’t,” Lauren huffed.
“Why not? Because you needed the view from a tiny ass beach house? You could have gotten that on the West Coast! Hell, you could have gotten that in goddamned Barcelona, if you wanted. And you could have continued to work in your field.”
“No, I couldn’t have,” Lauren repeated.
“Why not?!” Marc growled.
“Because I have too much here!” Lauren shouted back, surprising herself. “My mother lives two miles away and I never get to see her, but knowing that she’s there is enough comfort. Jack wouldn’t let me see her after we got married; not even when she got sick.” It was all pouring out now, along with her tears. “When I was finally freed of him, I wanted to run straight to her side, but I was advised against it. Because…because…” she broke off with a sob.
“Because he could find her,” Marc finished her thought. “And you were afraid that he’d kill her.”
“Terrified,” Lauren agreed. “So…so terrified. He has so many connections. He always has. I used to be impressed by it, you know? That he could get us into all the best restaurants and Broadway shows. He had even lined up a few fellowships for me just before…” She shook her head and turned away from Marc, walking into the kitchen. “Tea? Coffee?” she asked, hiding her face behind the refrigerator door. She hadn’t gone shopping much in the last week, but she had enough to scrounge up something for dinner. If worse came to worst, she could just order something for—
Her thoughts were cut off as she was suddenly pulled away from the fridge as a pair of lips landed on hers and her body pushed the door closed, Marc pressing her up against the appliance as his hands gripped her ass, then her thighs, lifting her up. Lauren didn’t waste any time in kissing him back, her lips gliding smoothly over his as she clutched at his shoulders, her fingers playing with the chain on which his FBI badge hung.
Suddenly, she broke away.
“Marc,” Lauren gasped. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”
“Tell me you don’t want it,” Marc husked back. “Tell me you don’t want me and I’ll back away right now. I’ll leave and you won’t see me again until the trial begins. I swear. But, Lauren, you have to tell me that you don’t want me. Otherwise, I…I won’t be able to let you go.” His grip tightened on her thighs and Lauren moaned, tugging at the ends of his hair with the tips of her fingers as she looked up into his eyes, which were the clearest blue she’d even seen; the most honest she’d ever seen
from him.
She couldn’t say no.
Lauren surged back into him, reattaching their lips and allowing him to pull them away from the refrigerator and carry her toward the bedroom, where he slammed her against the closed door next. His lips didn’t leave hers until she was firmly held up by his hips, his hands stroking up her body to slide under her shirt and grasp her breasts. Lauren let out a deep, guttural moan as she felt his thumbs and forefingers squeeze her nipples, sending electricity right to her core.
Marc’s mouth abandoned hers for her throat, pressing sucking and biting kisses down to her collarbone as his hands continued their assault on her breasts, his arms slowly shoving the scrub top she was wearing up, higher and higher, until Lauren had no choice but to let go of his shoulders and raised her arms.
Marc had her shirt and bra off in practically one single move, before pressing his mouth to the center of her chest, right above where Lauren’s heart lay. “Mine,” she heard him sigh, no louder than a pin drop. His arms wrapped around her waist, then, his lips still pressed to her skin, he reached for the knob pressing into her lower back and turned it, forcing them to fall into the room together.
Chapter Eight
She had missed this. The way he held her still underneath his body as he pumped himself into her. The way their bodies rubbed together, sweat glistening on their skin as they shifted in the moonlight. The way she tightened around him, as if their bodies were puzzle pieces meant to find one another, again and again and again…
Lauren called out Marc’s name as he hit a particularly sensitive spot deep inside of her, her nails scoring raised pink lines across his back as he held himself against her, grinding slow and deliberate as he prolonged the sensation. Lauren felt like sobbing, it was so good. It was so much better than she remembered; so much sweeter.
“Open your eyes,” Marc growled and Lauren startled; she hadn’t even realized that she’d closed them. When she locked gazes with him again, she found something in Marc’s gaze that she tried not to allow herself to hope for. But it was clear as day. Clear as it had ever been. And the very sight made her break, his name tripping off of her lips like a mantra.
Marc followed shortly after her, pounding as fast and hard as his hips would go, trying to coax Lauren into another orgasm to follow on the heels of the last—and succeeding, at that. When he finally spilled into her, Lauren took delight in his shout of her name, then the slight, incomprehensible murmurs as his body relaxed over hers, covering her like a blanket.
She let him, happily wrapping her arms and legs around his body to pull him closer. As the pleasure began to wear off, the panic that he might leave started to replace it and she didn’t want that to happen. Not again. She didn’t know if she could survive it.
As if reading her mind, Marc began to rise, prying her hands from his body. Lauren couldn’t stop the tears from streaming out the corners of her eyes. She turned her head in the hopes that he wouldn’t see, biting her lip as her chin quivered, her hands curling against her chest as she tried to hide herself from his suddenly intrusive gaze.
But then Marc’s hands were reaching for her, pulling her up into his strong arms and holding her, bridal-style, his lips pressed to her forehead as he carried her to the bed. Marc laid Lauren down on the place where he’d pulled back the covers, tucking her in, then himself, and turning their bodies until he was spooning her, his arm wrapped protectively around her waist.
“You’re mine,” he said, his voice full of a possession that might have terrified her if she didn’t know the man currently pressed against her body. He wasn’t Jack. He wouldn’t hurt her. He loved her; she knew it implicitly now. She could feel it spreading, like warmth, from his fingertips; felt it in the way he kissed her and whispered her name into her ear. The way he nuzzled her ear with the tip of his nose.
The callouses on his thumb rubbed just under her breasts, soothing her beating heart as she came down from her orgasmic high, her heavy eyelids lowering until she was almost asleep. As she drifted off, Lauren could swear she heard those three little words fall from his lips, making her heart sing as sleep finally took her.
When she woke up, hours later, he was gone. There was a note on his pillow, along with single seashell.
Lauren,
I had to get back to New York, but I want you to know that this is not over. Not by a long shot. The court date has been set and that’ll be the next time I’ll see you. I’m doing everything I can to put him away. And I will.
No matter what.
Love,
Marc
She ran her fingers over the last two words; eight letters that settled in her heart and took root. A smile spread across her lips as she laid back on her bed, gripping the flower in her hand. It was a carnation—her favorite—and she wondered where he’d gotten it. Perhaps, he’d had it last night when she’d found him in her living room. She hadn’t given him much room for speaking, she thought with a smile.
When she did finally rise from the bed, Lauren found herself aching from her activities last night. It was another thing she missed from her time with him; another thing that brought a smile to her lips. She practically limped from her bedroom into the kitchen, where there was already coffee brewing. She wondered how long it had been since he left…
Emma was laid out in the sun coming in through the sliding glass doors, her tail wagging lazily, spilling a few flecks of sand on the back doormat. Lauren gave her a pat on the head and the retriever rolled over, exposing her belly. Her master laughed and sat down next to her, scratching the dog’s belly as she leaned against the wall. She brought the carnation up to her nose and inhaled, smiling sweetly.
For the first time in what felt like forever, she could finally breathe easily.
*****
One month later…
Marc looked so handsome in his suit and tie, his FBI badge clipped to his hip. He stood straight and tall, his hands tucked into his pants pockets as he waited for court to be called into session. He was outside the courtroom as Lauren entered, her heels clicking on the linoleum floors of the courthouse. His gaze was upon her almost immediately, his eyes darkening in visible lust before he was able to compose himself and look away.
Lauren had caught the heat in his gaze—and she could feel the same in her own—but all she gave him was a tiny grin as she followed her lawyer into the courtroom. She could feel his eyes watching her and she put an extra swing in her hips, just for him. She was feeling confident, finally ready to face the man that had made the last two years of her life a living hell. She could do this.
The courtroom looked exactly like the ones you might see on a procedural crime show. Lauren had spent many a night, alone, with takeout and Emma cuddled on the couch next to her, drinking in every second of action. She wondered if it would be like that today; if the defense lawyers would be as slimy as they were on the shows she watched. She wondered if the prosecutor would have to coax Jack’s final confession out of him. The jackass had pleaded Not Guilty, thinking that he’d be able to get away with it—again.
But she was not going to let that happen. And neither, Marc had promised, would anybody on her team. They were taking Jack Snyder down if it was the last thing they did and that gave Lauren some comfort. But her memory of the last two abuse cases he was involved in made her stomach churn with nerves as her lawyer sat her down behind the prosecution side of the courtroom.
“Just breathe,” James Harrison—a well-respected attorney from Slightuckett—said, his hand on her shoulder. “This will all be over before you know it.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Lauren muttered in response and he frowned, but nodded in understanding, sitting down next to her.
It was only fifteen minutes later when they were asked to stand again for the Honorable Judge Stacy Kensington. She was a tall woman, with tight curls and a pair of glasses at the end of her nose. Her skin was as dark as midnight, but her eyes were a clear blue that seemed to spark with intelligence as s
he perused the gallery before her, her chin held high. Her hands were slender and her fingers graceful as she used them to push up her glasses.
Judge Kensington took a seat at her podium and spoke in a voice that was clear and strict and demanded respect.
“Be seated.”
Like everybody else in the room, Lauren didn’t dare refuse.
“We are gathered here today to hear the case of one John Martin Snyder, also known as ‘Jack’ Snyder. Will the defendant please rise?”
Lauren kept her eyes forward so she wouldn’t have to see Jack’s face as he stood up. She didn’t think she could handle seeing him right now. She was reserving all of her strength for the stand and she didn’t want it sapped from her body too quickly. She took a deep breath as his voice echoed around the room.
“Present, Your Honor,” he said, his voice oozing with charm. The judge didn’t look the least bit impressed and Lauren had to hold back her own grin at that. She liked this woman already.
“Mr. Snyder,” she said, her voice more clipped than before, “you have been thrice accused of domestic violence and stalking and attempted murder. Is that correct?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Jack said, his voice not wavering the tiniest bit.
“And how do you plead?”
“Not Guilty, Your Honor.”
“Even though three women have come forward with such accusations in the last three months?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“And I see here that you’ve moved to have the former two sets of accusations dismissed. Is that correct?”
This time, it was a different voice that spoke. A woman’s voice.
“That’s correct, Your Honor.” It was sultry and clear and almost lyrical.
“Why, Counselor?”