by Dana Marton
“Lost my phone.”
Dan strolled over. “He’s setting up appointments for exit sessions for the Navy SEAL. He’s checking out.”
Annie stopped where she stood, a mix of feelings crashing through her: surprise, regret, betrayal. She couldn’t believe Cole didn’t tell her during their walk that morning that he planned on leaving.
She hated the thought of not seeing him again, not going on walks with him. That he’d no longer help with the midnight feedings left a hollow feeling in her chest.
She tried to shake off the hurt. Considering how her heart leapt every time she thought of the gruff SEAL, some distance between them was a good thing. The relationship wasn’t appropriate. Her life would be easier if he wasn’t here.
She kept telling herself that.
But then, when she was back in her room, and he came to see her, all she could think of was how much she was going to miss him.
He took one look at her face and said, “You heard.”
She nodded, drinking in the solid shape of him that filled her doorway, that solitary way he had about him, the intensity of his dark eyes.
He stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
Before she could say You shouldn’t be in here, he said, “You weren’t answering your phone.”
“Lost it in the cornfield.”
Anger flashed through his gaze. “You shouldn’t go into the cornfield.” Then he asked, “Joey still in jail?”
She wanted to turn from him so he wouldn’t see the mixed emotions on her face. But if she turned, he wouldn’t be able to read her lips, so she faced him. “Harper is going to keep them the full seventy-two hours. He’s playing them against each other. He thinks one will finger the other for driving the SUV the night I was run off the road.”
She couldn’t think about Joey. “Why are you leaving?”
Cole stepped closer. “I want you to know that you’ve made a difference for me, Annie. Thank you for making me think about things I wouldn’t have thought about if I hadn’t come here.”
“Did any of it help?” She didn’t want him to leave, but she had no right to ask him to stay.
“I think so. Yes.”
“But you’re leaving.”
“I’ve started having flashbacks.” His voice tightened. “They’re pretty bad.”
Her heart leapt, aching for him. “Have you told Dr. Ambrose?”
“Not yet.”
“Tell him in your exit interview.”
“I will.”
“Are you sure you have to leave?”
A sour smile turned up the corner of his lips. “I feel crazier than when I got here. Maybe if I stay, I’ll go off the deep end.”
“Or you’ll start seeing that therapy works, and you’ll stick with it.” She wrapped her arms around herself. He had been tenser this last day or two. She’d chalked it up to her accident and Trevor’s death. “I’m worried about you.”
He held her gaze for an endless, charged moment. His voice was soft. “Why are you worried about me, Annie?”
She gave him half the truth. “I worry about all my patients.”
Disappointment flickered across his face.
She wanted to tell him that she would miss him, but that would be inappropriate. So she said, “Would you please reconsider?”
“No.”
She couldn’t badger him, even if the thought of his leaving was a deep ache in her chest. The decision had to be his.
“Annie . . .”
Her heart rate sped from his gravelly tone. And then he closed the distance between them and kissed her.
Somehow this kiss was more devastating than the ones before, maybe because he was leaving, and this was the last time.
He wasn’t tentative. He kissed her the same way as he did everything else: a full frontal assault. In her mind, she was resisting, or was about to resist. She wanted to resist. Unfortunately, her body went for full capitulation once again.
She barely processed the thought that he had his lips on her before he swept inside and claimed all the hidden places of her mouth, leaving her with the shattering feeling that he was claiming all the hidden places of her heart at the same time.
This right here was the danger of opening herself to patients and encouraging them to open themselves to her. She had opened, and Cole had marched right in. And not just into the foyer, as she’d meant, but into every room she had.
Her head buzzed, her eyes drifted closed, her hands went to his massive shoulders. He was pressing against her as if he meant to climb inside her. He pressed and pressed until the back of her knees met the bed.
He laid her down, never moving his mouth from hers, never slowing his plundering.
Then he settled over her, keeping most of his weight on his elbows, but letting his body press against hers so she felt him firmly above her, nestling her into the mattress.
His knee parted her legs, and then he was suddenly between them, pressed against her apex where a low, dull pulsing began. She groaned at the overwhelming sensation of him on top of her.
He dragged his mouth to her chin, down her neck, and nibbled on her collarbone while one hand moved to her breast. Her body arched against her will, pushing a hard nipple into his palm.
Something fluttered low in her belly, probably her ovaries waving twin white flags.
He yanked her T-shirt and bra down until he bared what he needed. When his hot lips closed around her nipple, a sound of alarm escaped her because she understood suddenly that she was powerless to stop him. She didn’t want to stop him.
“I’ve wanted to do this since the gas station,” he said in a ragged whisper before descending on her swollen flesh again.
“Please don’t make me fall in love with you,” she whispered over his head, her eyes squeezed tight, her hands on the soft bristles of his head.
Unaware of her words, he suckled her with heated passion. Then he laved her with leisure. The next groan that left her mouth was a sound of pleasure mixed with embarrassment because she just realized that she’d been grinding herself against him.
She was wet and ready for him. He reached for the button of her pants. He would, within seconds, find out just how much she wanted him.
Now. Stop him now.
But her pants were sliding down already, a few inches past her hips, and then his hand was in her underwear.
He had two fingers at her opening, his thumb on her clit. He pressed the thumb down. His fingers slipped inside her at the same time, stretching her.
She bucked against him. “Cole.” Stop. Stop. Stop. This isn’t right. But out loud she just repeated his name again. “Cole . . .”
His thumb pressed down again, and she flew into pieces, her body madly contracting around his fingers.
She was dimly aware that he was pushing down his own pants, that his hard, hot erection was bobbing free against her thigh. Then his fingers were on Annie’s pants again to remove them, so she could open her legs wider.
As the fabric brushed against her scars, she jackknifed, “Wait.” She had to push his hands because he wasn’t looking at her lips.
His gaze, startled and murderous at the same time, met hers. “What happened to you?”
She tried to shove him away. She might as well try shoving a boulder. She reached to pull up her pants, her face flushed with heat, but he wouldn’t let her.
“Annie? What is this?”
She yanked harder, and he let her go at last. She scrambled up the bed to the headboard, pulling her pants up and dragging the coverlet over herself as she went.
He pulled up his own pants, then remained kneeling on the mattress, sitting back onto his heels. “When?”
She wasn’t ashamed of her past. The past wasn’t her fault. But she didn’t like sharing the story. Still, after what had just happened, Cole was hardly a stranger.
“It happened after my mother and I left Broslin. After my grandfather kicked us out.”
“So you were what, e
leven?” His voice was tighter than she’d ever heard it before.
She swallowed. “About that.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
He waited. Silently. Unmoving.
“Randy had a thing for blood.”
“Is he still alive?”
“I don’t know. Haven’t seen him since we left him.”
The glint in Cole’s eyes said he might be looking into the matter sooner rather than later.
“What did he do?”
Her heart pounded. The only person she’d told was Dan, since he was her therapist. Dan had helped her deal with the past and put it behind her.
“All right.” Cole opened his arms. “You don’t have to tell me. Just come here, please.”
Instead, she pulled the cover up to her chin. “Both mom and Randy used to get paid on Fridays. So Saturday morning, my mother would go to the grocery store, and I’d be home alone with Randy all morning.”
Cole held her gaze, the skin tightening over his cheekbones, his mouth pressed in a near-flat line, his eyes growing cold, then colder.
“As soon as she was out of the driveway,” Annie said, “Randy would clean off the kitchen table.” Immaculately disinfected it with vinegar. The smell of vinegar made her nauseated to this day. “Then he made me climb onto the table, and he tied me to the legs.”
A muscle ticked in the left side of Cole’s face.
“He would lift my skirt.” She rushed now, wanting to get to the end. “Then he took his straight razor, made a cut, and just watched the blood well.”
Cole’s chest rose and fell as if he were struggling for breath.
“He said he was opening me up to let the naughtiness out. The blood washed it away. He was mesmerized by the cutting. He’d be staring for ten, sometimes fifteen, minutes before wiping off the drying blood then putting on a sliver of bandage.”
“For two years?” Cole’s voice was hoarse. “Every week?”
She nodded. She had more than a hundred white lines crisscrossing her inner thighs, making the skin look like the skin of a cantaloupe.
Cole was there then, so fast she barely saw him move, and the next second she was enfolded in his strong arms, his lips pressed to the top of her head.
She lifted her chin so she could finish the story. She looked into his tumultuous dark eyes. “The second year, as he was getting nearer and nearer to my private parts, I figured out that when he reached that far, he was going to open me up and make me bleed another way.”
Cole’s arms tightened around her.
“Then one day,” she said, “while Randy was at work, my mom packed us up and moved us away without any explanation.”
“Do you think she knew?”
“I don’t think she did. She’d never caught us. After we moved, she never said a word about suspecting anything. I think they had a falling-out about something else.”
Cole kissed her forehead, then when she closed her eyes, he kissed her eyelids. She felt doubly wrung out, first from their physical intimacy, and now by the stress of reliving the past.
Then Cole pressed a kiss to her mouth, but even that chaste kiss was too much suddenly. He felt so right in her bed, with his arms around her, yet she couldn’t refuse to acknowledge how wrong it all was. He was a patient.
She pushed against his chest until he released her and pulled back.
“Annie?”
“This is not right. Even if you’re checking out, it’s still not right. You need to leave my room. This is completely inappropriate. I apologize for what happened before.”
Thank God, he didn’t ask for what, because she wasn’t sure if she could say, I apologize for having an orgasm on your fingers.
She felt raw and stripped bare. Too much had happened in the last hour between them. She was unsure about most of it, except for one thing: she shouldn’t have let him into her room to start with.
“It’s all right.” He moved to hug her again. “Annie, listen—”
“No.” She scrambled off the bed, putting distance between them.
A determined light came into Cole’s eyes. “I need to tell you something.”
“There’s nothing to say.”
If he wouldn’t go, then she would.
Annie buttoned her pants and ran.
Chapter Twenty-Three
KELLY MADE ANNIE chicken soup from their grandmother’s recipe. They bundled up on Kelly’s couch with their bowls, surrounded by pillows and blankets as if in a nest, and watched Bridget Jones’s Baby.
The one-bedroom condo was a showplace. Kelly’s house had had to be sold to pay for the divorce, the leftovers split with Ricky, her cheating-ass ex. Kelly had rallied by buying this condo, doing a full renovation almost all by herself, and making it so resplendent, home magazines should be standing in line to feature the place.
Serene, pale-taupe shades dominated the color scheme, accented by lots of French linen, bouquets of live lavender, and on the walls, black-and-white art photos of Paris, London, and Budapest.
Annie sank into the calm, sophisticated energy of the place as the TV flashed image after image of the delectable Darcy.
They’d both seen the movie before, so they talked about Cole over Hollywood dialogue.
“You’re falling in love with him?” Kelly wanted confirmation.
“We can’t have a relationship.”
“Is he married?”
“No. He is a patient.”
“And there is no way around that? You said he was quitting.”
Annie sagged against the back of the couch. “I don’t know. We only had an intro session. But I’m at Hope Hill as a therapist, and he was there as a patient. I crossed the line already. It’s a huge breach of ethics.”
She wanted to turn back time. “I should have stopped him right when he first kissed me.”
“Exactly.” Kelly jumped to her defense. “It’s all his fault. He started it. Want me to make a house collapse on top of him?”
“I can’t believe you’re talking to me about collapsing houses.”
“Too soon?”
Annie groaned.
Kelly finished her soup and put the empty bowl on the side table. “If you want to hate him, then I’ll hate him too. Want to talk trash about him? Who needs giant muscles anyway, right? Or a chest that wide. You’d probably spend the rest of your life trying to find him shirts that fit. Nobody needs that kind of grief.”
She pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, her face tilted toward Annie. “And, seriously, if his thing is as big as the rest of him . . . wouldn’t that hurt? Would you really want to limp around day after day?”
Annie squeezed her eyes shut, but she couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up in her throat. “Stop. Too much. Could we please not talk about his penis?”
“Have you seen it?”
“Kelly!”
“What? I’ve been divorced for ten months. Ten. Months. Throw the poor divorced woman a bone. Pun intended.”
Annie had to set her soup down so she wouldn’t spill it as her body shook. “Get your own boyfriend.”
“It could happen.” Kelly’s tone turned sly.
“Who?”
“David Durenne. The producer from the TV station. I think he likes me.”
Annie snorted. “You think? He carried you out of my collapsing house in his arms.”
“I thought we weren’t talking about collapsing houses.”
“My bad. What’s happening with David?”
“He keeps sending me clients.”
Annie said, “He came over to the house to help a couple of times after the incident that shall not be named.”
“Maybe he thinks of us as charity cases? Helpless spinsters?”
“Or maybe he’s a nice guy. The whole time he was at my place, he kept asking about you.”
Kelly’s eyes lit up. “Really?”
“He has a son. Tyler.”
“I kno
w. He told me over lunch the other day.”
“You had a date?”
“Ran into him at the diner. He came over and asked if I minded if he sat with me.”
“He’s not a doctor or a lawyer.”
Kelly let her head drop to her knees. “When I said that, did it sound as incredibly shallow as I think I did?”
“You were pretty focused on marrying one or the other.”
Kelly lifted her head, frowning. “What I really meant was, I’d like a man who knows how to work hard and has initiative. A man who sticks with things. I can’t afford another deadbeat husband like Ricky. I need someone self-supportive. An adult.”
“How long do you have to pay alimony?”
“Three more years.” The words floated on a pool of misery. “But I’m off the hook if he gets married again.”
“Are we rooting for the hairdresser?”
“I guess. But we’re still wishing that she pokes her own eyes out with her giant fake fingernails.”
“Are we mean girls now?”
“We’re wishing for immediate injury. Any wounds she suffers will heal by the wedding. No ruined wedding pictures.”
Annie stirred her soup and deadpanned, “We are two classy ladies.”
Kelly looked away.
Annie lowered her bowl to her lap. “Aren’t we?”
Long silence. Then Kelly said quietly, “I had a breakdown at the grocery store the other night.” She pressed her lips together.
Annie waited her out.
In a couple of seconds, Kelly gave a big sigh and made a face. “I was getting chicken breast and looked at the steaks. You know how Ricky always liked a good steak. No matter how I was scrambling to pay off the mortgage early, he liked his food, and he liked his cars. I used to beg him to cut back on spending, at least while he was out of work.”
Annie didn’t know much about all that. Kelly was divorced by the time Annie had returned to Broslin. But Ricky sounded like a jerk, so she nodded.
“Anyway, I had a hard day. I was tired. It was the day the alimony gets deducted from my account, and I was thinking how I was still paying for his steak dinners. So there I was, standing at the meat counter, and I broke down in tears.” She covered her face.
Annie put an arm around her.