At the Brink

by Anna del Mar

  “Maybe now they’ll think twice before they fuck with us.”

  “You guys are shit hot. Every hacker in the world will want to know how you did it.”

  “Credit goes to Noah Blake and his whiz team,” Riker said. “You did good recruiting those digital warriors.”

  “You take good care of Noah and the rest, you hear me?”

  “Will do.” Riker went silent on the line.

  “What is it?” I said.

  “I just thought you ought to know,” Riker said.

  “Know what?”

  “She kicked us out of the house.”

  Lily.

  “She booted us out of her accounts as well,” Riker said. “She’s taking care of herself.”

  It was bound to happen. She’d healed and moved on. It was the natural progression, exactly what I’d expected. Why then did I hurt inside?

  “What do you want us to do?” Riker said.

  “Nothing.” I hung up.

  I stalked over to the suite’s bar and picked out a tiny bottle of whisky. I hadn’t had a drink in over seven years. I broke the seal and unscrewed the cap. Who the hell needed a half a liver anyway?

  I took a swig and grimaced. Fuck. The alcohol burned all the way down to my gut. Survival was the mission, day by day, hour by hour. That’s how I’d made it before. That’s how I would make it now. At least I had more traveling ahead of me. After that, I didn’t know what I’d do. I didn’t want to think about it, because I’d rather go back to Afghanistan than face my empty house and my former life.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Lily

  Mom died the last week of January. She never recovered from the lung infection. In truth, she’d died on the breakfast table three years ago. After that, her so-called life had been an extension of my pathetic life, my invention, because I hadn’t had the guts to face the loss and the loneliness that came with her absence.

  It was a lot of grief to handle and I didn’t do it well. My only satisfaction came from being able to bury my mother on my own dime. I didn’t tell anyone about my mother’s passing, except for Bree. She stood by me as I emptied my mother’s ashes into the Charles. I know. It was probably illegal. But I was beyond caring. I was mad and broken and I didn’t know what to do with myself.

  I didn’t tell Riker, who called to check on me often, or Amman, who actually showed up every day at my curb and had to be sent away. I didn’t want anyone to tell Josh. I’m not sure what bothered me most: that Josh would feel obligated to call or come back or that he wouldn’t do either.

  Life went on, but the world felt emptier than usual with Mom and Josh gone. February lasted forever. It was the coldest, longest, dreariest winter in Boston’s recorded history. I tried to look at the positives in my life. I taught and painted and got paid for doing both. Martin was in the past and although I wasn’t by any means rich, I was able to meet my financial obligations. I was freer than I’d ever been, and yet I couldn’t shake the icy layer that settled over my heart.

  Somewhere at the beginning of March, while I was helping out at the coffee house, Bree finally came out and said it. “I think you’re depressed.”

  “Me? Depressed? Nah.” I rounded the counter and straightened the merchandise on the shelves by the register.

  “You’re trying to hide it,” Bree said. “You’re functioning, sure, but there’s no joy to your smile, no happiness in your gaze, no enthusiasm for anything. Maybe you should talk to someone.”

  “I talk to you,” I said, rearranging the inspirational mugs.

  “I’m your friend,” Bree said. “You need something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “Some meds and a few sessions with someone who might be able to help you.”

  “Waste of time, water under the bridge.” I contemplated my handiwork. “Shoot. I’m going to have to reorganize these.”

  “Enough.” Bree interjected her stout self between me and the counter. “You’ve got to stop. The display looks fine. You, on the other hand, are not fine.”

  I looked away.

  “Listen to me,” Bree said. “You’ve spent your whole life doing stuff for others, making choices based on other people’s needs. Now it’s your turn. There’s no more Dad drama, no more Mom to tell you how to act and what to think. There’s no more Martin to manipulate you, no more Josh Lane to make you feel nominally safe but conflicted. It’s time for you to make decisions based on your needs and wants.”

  “Lucky me,” I muttered.

  “You can’t just idle on automatic forever,” Bree said. “You’ve got to dig deep. You’ve got to do something for yourself.”

  I knew she was right and yet I couldn’t get myself to follow her advice. Instead, I took refuge in my work and tried to keep every moment of my day filled. But not even my hectic work schedule could keep me from thinking about Josh. Part of me was still furious. The other part of me worried. I wondered about his trip, if he slept enough, if he took care of his health. I woke up in the middle of the night, wondering if he ever thought about me.

  I threw myself into a massive spring cleaning effort. I turned the apartment upside down. The clutter that had once given me comfort now assailed my senses. Josh had done much to organize the place, but when I wasn’t painting, teaching, at Vinnie’s or at the coffee shop, I polished the floors, dusted the doors’ lintels, organized my paint brushes and alphabetized my oils.

  I began to understand why Josh relished neatness and organization. If I couldn’t control the mess in my heart, then I could at least try to control my environment. The realization made me feel closer to him. How the hell could I feel closer to him when he was gone for good?

  I was cleaning out my closet when I found the golden clutch I’d used the day of the benefit at the Prudential Center. I opened it. The stunning earrings Josh had gifted me glimmered from the bottom, along with the monogrammed gold-and-silver balls.

  They clanked faintly in my hand. My first impulse was to toss them in the trash. Then I recalled how I’d felt on the night I wore them. Months of abstinence caught up with me all at once. I remembered the balls, spinning inside me, and my body, rich with sensations. I remembered Josh’s cock, filling the emptiness when he’d removed them.

  I groaned in frustration. Helpless. I felt so helpless. What was it Bree had said?

  It’s time for you to make decisions based on your needs and wants. You’ve got to dig deep. You’ve got to do something.

  She was right. I had to shake off the paralysis, accomplish some victory, even if it was something small and meaningless to begin with.

  I washed the little balls in the sink, took off my jeans right there in the kitchen and, pushing my panties aside, slid them into my sex.

  Relief. I felt better right away. My body came alive. My thoughts centered. My emotions focused. I drew the curtains and sat on the sofa, rolling my hips, clenching and unclenching, shuddering with desire. I fitted my hand between my legs and played with my clit, massaging the unbearable ache building up in me.

  I didn’t want to think of Josh and yet he remained at the core of all my fantasies. I closed my eyes, entering the intimate darkness where his blindfolds led me, imagining the feel of his eyes on my body, his mouth on my lips and his tongue fucking my mouth. I stroked my clit with the same audacity with which he used to fondle me, kindling my need. I arched my back and widened the span between my legs, looking down to visualize Josh’s cock pumping in and out of me.

  I pushed myself hard—as Josh would’ve done—remembering that day in the plane when he had fucked me without a blindfold. I could almost hear the rustle of his cock and the steady beat of his balls slapping against my ass. I rubbed my clit and fingered myself, toying with the ben wa balls until my breath came in short gasps and I teetered at the edge of a massive orgasm.
As my sex chomped down on the balls inside me, I recalled Josh grunting as he filled my sex with his come. I exploded with pleasure, groaning aloud, quaking with a powerful release.

  It took a while before my heart returned to normal and my body stopped quivering. As I lay on the couch, moist with my own come and still panting from the orgasm, I understood sex’s incredible healing power, pleasure’s stunning ability to soothe, satisfy and comfort—all things that I was sure Josh had known all along.

  I want you to remember, he’d said to me on the plane. This is the only gift I know how to give. I’m doing the best I can, he’d said on the day he left. I want you to know that I tried, I tried really hard. There are things I can’t do, not even for you.

  I’d been through the grief and I’d been through the anger. I had called him a liar in my dreams, but I knew better. If not forthcoming, Josh had always been honest with me.

  One thing I knew for sure: I was tired of waiting for nothing.

  * * *

  I made my way to the house on Back Bay. I had to button up my coat to ward off the gusty wind churning the snowflakes all around me. Thank God for my new sturdy-soled boots. They helped negotiate the icy walkways. It was late March and Boston was still stuck in the grip of winter. I was on a fact-finding mission.

  A number of fears assailed me as I climbed the steps. Maybe Josh’s housekeeper would be there and wouldn’t let me in. Perhaps he’d changed the locks and my keys wouldn’t work. Maybe I would trigger the alarms and end my day at the police station, trying to explain why I’d broken into the house of Phoenix Prime’s CEO.

  It was nerve-racking. I swiped my card, put my thumb to the pad, my eye to the scanner and finally, the key to the lock. I was frankly surprised when the lock gave way and the alarms didn’t go off.

  “He probably forgot,” I muttered to myself, because part of me still fumed. And yet the other part of me knew if Josh had wanted to keep me out of the house, he would have deactivated my entrance codes a long time ago.

  My steps echoed in the foyer. The curtains were drawn. Sheets covered the furniture and no one was about. I had a sudden urge to flee. Instead, I forced myself to climb up the staircase. I went directly to the third floor. I knew the door to Josh’s rooms would be locked, but I tried the knob anyway. It didn’t open.

  I stared at the keys in my hands. I didn’t think it was likely, but just in case, I tried every key in the pack. Much to my amazement, the last one worked and the security door whirred open. I had to wonder: Had Josh known all along the key was part of the pack? Had he wanted me to enter these rooms on my own? And if he had, why hadn’t he told me about it?

  Because he couldn’t talk about any of this. He’d told me so the last time I’d seen him, but I’d been deaf to his needs and dumb to his limits. And now I was about to start a conversation with Josh’s elusive subconscious.

  I entered a foyer illuminated by a stunning skylight. Three doors opened into the foyer. The first door on my left turned out to be a home office, complete with a number of wall-mounted screens, notable only because of the muted colors and the perfect order. The second room proved to be an extensive home gym, furnished with every piece of equipment necessary to keep Josh’s superior level of fitness, including a climbing wall set up against the far corner.

  The third door opened onto a small entrance hall. Josh’s bedroom stood to the right. I was astounded. The bedroom was an exact replica of the Spartan one at the cove, down to the beige walls, the polished hardwoods and the low platform bed outfitted only with the white sheet and the folded blanket.

  The sadness I sensed in the room overwhelmed me. Standing there, I recalled how little and how restlessly Josh slept. This was the room of a man who’d had stripped his environment of everything that could distract him from the difficult chore of sleeping, a person who wanted to deny his dreams and avoid his nightmares. It was also the cell of a man punishing himself for something, the place where he came to renounce the world’s trappings and atone for everything that ailed him.

  I made my way to the bathroom, which was grand, not for show, but to facilitate circulation. The massive shower had built-in seating all around, safety bars on the walls, and several hose-mounted shower heads.

  I remembered Josh’s reluctance to join me in the shower or the tub, his compulsion to plan every outing to the last detail, and his frustration when I was in the water and he wasn’t wearing his wet suit. It all made sense now.

  I moved on to the closet. On the right wall, a long row of suits hung from cedar hangers exactly two inches apart. On the left wall, his casual clothes hung with military precision. The closet smelled like Josh, wholesome, manly, clean. It was as if he was all around me, enfolding me in his arms. How I craved those arms.

  A door at the far wall of the closet concealed yet another room. A high window allowed natural light to pour in. A workbench stretched below the window. Instruments and tools were neatly stored on the shelves. I stood before the massive wardrobe built into the wall and took a deep breath. I wrapped my fingers around the stainless steel bar and pulled.

  The wardrobe opened to show me the truth I had sensed since our first night together, the truth that had eluded me until the day that I walked into Josh’s bedroom at the cove and on the afternoon of the explosion. Snippets of conversations rang in my ears.

  “Why did you leave the Navy?”

  “My military career had run its course.”

  I also remembered things that other people had told me.

  “My boy’s tough,” Josh’s father had said. “He won’t stay down.”

  “My brother’s been through enough as it is,” his sister Jan had said.

  Josh had indeed been through a lot. He never spoke about it, but his injuries had left more than a few permanent scars. On the day of the explosion, as he swam toward me and I sank to the bottom of the ocean listless and dazed, I’d seen him as he really was: Strong, athletic, powerful, but incomplete, one long leg kicking next to a shortened stump.

  His severe wounds had made him an amputee.

  There had been moments in the last few months when I’d wondered if my sputtering brain had really seen such a terrible sight. Now, as I reached out to examine one of the many futuristic-looking prostheses tics neatly stored on the shelves, I knew for sure Josh had lost his right foot and part of the leg below the knee.

  My strength gave way. I dropped down on the floor, hugging the prosthesis to my chest. I could only begin to imagine how the injury would have been devastating to any person, let alone to Josh, the SEAL, the world-class athlete, the fiercely strong and independent person I’d come to love.

  I realized now why he was able to relate to my dislike of hospitals, why he’d taken me home so quickly when I asked. He had probably spent a very long time at the hospital. I couldn’t help but admire the wounded warrior who’d drawn on his courage to reformulate his life after suffering such a devastating injury. He’d rebounded from tragedy to become one of the wealthiest and most innovative entrepreneurs in the nation.

  I looked at the tiny scars on my healed arm. I wondered if his bones ached when it rained, like mine did, if his body sometimes evoked the grating of metal against flesh with an aching pang. Did the memories haunt him?

  How had he rebuilt his ruined body? He walked, jogged, ran, swam, hiked, did everything with style, elegance, confidence and even swagger. He never betrayed any hints of pain or discomfort. How had he managed it?

  With indomitable determination. With stoic self-discipline, self-training and self-control. With obsessive-compulsive passion. With the stubborn courage that made him who he was.

  I realized that Josh had tackled me with the same zeal he’d used to heal himself. That’s because he was still healing and, for a brief moment in time, I’d been part of that process. He’d cared for me from the very beginning, showing his affe
ction in the only way he knew, passionately, single-mindedly, compulsively, with sex and gifts, because he didn’t know how to do it any other way. I’d missed the weakness in his strength and the care in his compulsion.

  I hadn’t been able to recognize his caring because I’d come of age believing that affection between two people was improbable and dangerous. Moreover, I hadn’t recognized the depth of his affection, because I didn’t feel worthy of anyone’s love, let alone someone as brilliant and successful as Josh Lane.

  My eyes fell on a pair of crutches neatly stored in the wardrobe. These had provided the only assistance he would accept, and only in the privacy of his sanctuary, where no one could see him struggle. I envied the crutches, because they’d been the support that Josh needed, whereas I’d just pushed him away.

  “Miss Lily?” Amman stood by the door.

  “Amman,” I said. “I think I’ve known it all along but I had to get answers for myself, confirmation, you know?”

  “I know, Miss Lily.”

  “How did you know I was here?”

  “Riker has the house under surveillance,” Amman said. “He dispatched me as soon as he realized it was you.”

  “I guess he wants me to leave?”

  “No, Miss Lily, you can stay as long as you like. When you’re done, I’ll take you home.”

  I don’t know why, but their generosity brought tears to my eyes.

  “I guess I’ve found the answer I came looking for.” I got up slowly from the floor. “I just wished he could have told me himself.”

  “He would have, Miss Lily.” Amman helped me up. “If he’d been able to.”

  I steadied myself against him. My fingers tripped on the dog tags hidden beneath his shirt. I held on to his hand and, for the first time ever, noticed that although it looked exactly like a hand, it was cold and stiff. I looked into Amman’s eyes. Like Josh, he too had lost a part of himself while serving our country.

  “You were always one of his.” I hugged him, dampening his shirt with my tears. “Thank you. For standing by him. For serving our country. I’m sorry.” I hiccupped. “I’m a little emotional these days.”