Penance (Long Slow Tease, #2)

by Mayburn, Ann

  She laughed, a pure, clean sound that helped lift some of the lingering shadows in his soul. “Even then – though I must admit, I keep wishing for a shark to leap out of the ocean and maul you.”

  “That’s not very nice.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a very nice person.”

  She said it in a joking tone, but he was so attuned to her that he could hear the sorrow beneath her words. “If you keep that shit up I’ll draw out your orgasm denial for another day.”

  “You wouldn’t dare!”

  “You bet your sweet ass I would. I told you, my rules, my way.”

  She jerked her hand from his and crossed her arms, “Yes, Master.”

  The fuck you in her tone couldn’t have been more clear, but instead of being insulted he laughed. “I like it when you call me that, baby. Maybe I’ll make you call me Master in front of the other volunteers.”

  Her shocked gasp only made him grin wider. “You wouldn’t.”

  “I don’t know, I’ll have to beat the other guys off with a stick when they get an eyeful of you. Might help reinforce you’re off limits if you kneel next to me.”

  She slugged him in the arm. “You better not because that’ll put me at the right height to punch you in the nuts.”

  Laughing, he turned into the parking lot of the Front Line foundation. The building they used was an old National Guard armory, but the outside had been painted with a series of murals done by a local art college. The image on the front of the building was one of massive impressionist style tropical flowers against a sky blue background. It wasn’t exactly rough and tough, but it wasn’t meant to be. Wendy, one of the founders of the Austin branch of the foundation, had told him that painting the building camouflage green wouldn’t change who they were and what they did anymore than having flowers on the outside that made people smile did.

  “Ready?”

  “Wait, what am I doing here? I mean what have you told them?”

  “Just that I had a friend who is a doctor and she was interested in checking the foundation out. They practically salivated at the thought of having a doc with field experience on staff. We have a bunch of nurses, EMTs, medics and corpsman, but it’s always nice to have a heavy hitter for going into situations with the potential for serious injuries.”

  She sat up straight and smoothed her hands on her jeans. “Sounds interesting. I’m not promising anything but I’d like to check them out.”

  “There is one thing I need to tell you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Your dad is one of the major contributors to the foundation.”

  “Shit.”

  “Wait, they don’t know you’re his daughter. All they know is that you’re a friend of mine.”

  “Just a friend?”

  He laughed at her suspicious look. “Come on, they’re waiting to meet you.”

  Chapter 15

  Michelle slipped her hand into Wyatt’s and gave the bubbly young brunette that was making calf eyes at him a look that made it clear he belonged to Michelle.

  Kelly, a volunteer with the foundation, looked down at Michelle and Wyatt’s hands with a slight frown. “I’m so happy to see you again, Wyatt. I had such a good time with you learning how to fix that broken door and I swear I’ve never had more fun rehabbing a house.”

  The obvious flirting tone in Kelly’s voice rankled Michelle, but Wyatt, bless his heart, seemed oblivious. “I was just glad I could help. Is Wendy here? I told her we’d be stopping by.”

  It was all Michelle could do to keep from laughing at Kelly’s disgruntled look. “Yeah, she’s in her office. Need me to show you the way?”

  “Nah, I remember where it is. Thanks for your help.”

  Giving Wyatt’s hand an extra firm grip Michelle followed him down a hallway off the main foyer, glancing at the pictures of various groups of people at building sites, what looked like backyard barbecues, and a few where they were obviously in some kind of disaster situation. By the time they reached the frosted glass door that led to what she assumed was Wendy’s office she had to admit she was intrigued.

  After giving the glass a brief rap with his knuckles, a woman’s voice called from the other side, “Come on in.”

  Wyatt opened the door to reveal a severe looking woman who was probably in her sixties with silver hair in a no-nonsense short pixie cut sitting behind a battered desk stacked high with papers and a computer sitting in the corner. Deep lines bracketed her eyes and mouth, but when she smiled at Wyatt her face lit up and she went from super intimidating to somewhat intimidating. There seemed to be an invisible mantle of authority that hung over the woman and Michelle would bet her trust fund that Wendy had been some kind of high ranking military official.

  The other woman wore a pair of faded jeans and a faded t-shirt that had bleach stains and paint splotches all over it. “Wyatt, so good to see you again. And this must be Dr. Sapphire.”

  Wendy extended her hand and gave Michelle a good, firm handshake. The other woman had calluses on her palms and short, well-kept nails. It might seem odd, but Michelle could tell a lot about a woman by her hands. In this case she’d guess Wendy was a woman used to working, and she was married for a long time if the worn gold band on her ring finger was any indication. The silver-haired woman had a good energy about her and Michelle immediately relaxed.

  “Nice to meet you,” Michelle said with a smile.

  “Nice to meet you, Dr. Sapphire.”

  “Please, call me Michelle.”

  She gestured to the two mismatched chairs in front of her desk. “Have a seat.” Wendy gave Wyatt a knowing grin. “So this is the young lady who stole your heart. The girls are going to be crushed.”

  Wyatt laughed and ran his hand through his hair. “I told them I had a girlfriend.”

  “Yes, but there’s taken and then there’s taken. You, my friend, are taken.”

  Michelle couldn’t help the burst of pride that filled her. “That he is.”

  With a laugh Wendy sat back in her chair, the springs creaking as she examined Michelle. “So Wyatt tells me you served together?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Wendy made a shooing gesture. “Please, call me Wendy. I’ve had enough ‘yes ma’am’ and ‘yes sir’ to last me a lifetime.”

  Michelle gave her a brief rundown of her military experience as well as her medical background. Through it all, Wyatt kept throwing in praise for her and by the time she was finished she couldn’t help leaning over and giving him a kiss on his cheek. He wore some kind of cologne or aftershave that had an almost woodsy scent to it and she lingered for a moment, taking in his scent before leaning back and smiling at him.

  “What’s that for?” he asked with a grin.

  “For being my number one fan.”

  Clearing her throat, Wendy tried to hide a smile as she pulled out a folder from her desk. “Yep, definitely taken. Michelle, we’d love to have you with us if you’re game.”

  “What would I be doing?”

  “With your medical background I’d like to train you as part of our first responders team. If you like, I can put you with the same team that Wyatt is on.”

  “What would I do?”

  “Whatever is needed. We aren’t big on set roles. While you will have certain duties and a protocol to follow, we deal with so much different shit that it would hamper our volunteers to have too many rules to follow.” She pushed the folder across the desk to Michelle. “Take a look at the forms and paperwork inside and think about it. This is a time commitment so we don’t want anyone to join up not knowing what they’re getting into.”

  Flipping through the documents, Michelle quickly scanned them. “Do you have a pen?”

  Wendy titled her head and her expression became serious. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because…” she glanced at Wyatt then back to Wendy. “Because it feeds my soul. I need to do something that will
help others. It gives me a sense of purpose. I can’t really put it into words but I’ve kind of felt like a kite without a string.”

  “Or a mule without a harness,” Wyatt said in a teasing tone.

  She thumped his shoulder with her fist, but laughed. “That too. I’m not saying that I’ll be here every day, but when you need me I won’t let you down.”

  Wendy nodded, then handed Michelle a pen. “I’m a pretty good judge of character, and I know you won’t. After you’re done signing I’ll show you around and introduce you to some people. If you have the time we can start training you right now.”

  Six hours later Michelle was trying to devour a sloppy cheeseburger while sitting in Wyatt’s truck without getting anything on the seats. Her appetite had returned with a vengeance and she practically inhaled her French fries and some of Wyatt’s as well in addition to a huge chocolate shake that was almost gone. Wyatt had been right, as usual. She’d had a great time working with the other volunteers at Front Line and had easily fallen into the almost military like atmosphere of the place. Everyone knew what they were doing and while they’d joked around a lot, there had been an undertone of order and structure that she found oddly soothing.

  They were heading back to the beach house, and the closer they got, the more her nerves began to act up. Things had been so easy, so normal with Wyatt today and she didn’t want that feeling to end. Not that he was acting any differently, but she knew that once they were back in the beach house he had something planned for her. In a way she felt like this was the quiet before the storm and she couldn’t help wondering when the other proverbial shoe was going to drop.

  They pulled up to the beach house and she let out a soft sigh.

  Wyatt looked over at her and she marveled again at how handsome he was in the fading sunlight. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” She bit her lip. “Am I still allowed to talk to you?”

  He gave her a searching look, then nodded. “You are.”

  She nodded, and ironically enough couldn’t think of something to say, so instead, she got out of the truck. As soon as she reached the paving stones leading to the front of the house she slipped her shoes off. The warm air caressed her skin and she took a moment to appreciate the beauty of the grassy dunes and the endless expanse of the Gulf.

  Wyatt came up behind her and took her hand in his. “Let’s go down to the beach.”

  The nervous ball of energy in her stomach continued to knot up and she was practically shaking by the time they made it to the beach. Wyatt gave her an odd look, then sat in the sand and pulled her down so she was cradled between his thighs with her back against his chest. He rested his head on her shoulder and began to gently stroke her arms.

  “I really like it here,” he murmured.

  She watched the waves roll in, the white foam taking on hints of orange and red as the sun dipped below the horizon. “Me too. How did you find this place?”

  “My grandparents have a home about ten miles from here. I always liked the beach, something about the great expanse of the ocean, the endless motions of the tide help me remember my place in the world.”

  “Is that why you brought me here? To remember my place?”

  “Yes and no.” He sighed. “I wanted you to remember your place, but not in a bad way. I wanted you to see that…well, that some of the things we think are so important, so world shattering, are nothing more than our personal demons.”

  She frowned, trying to understand him. “Like your PTSD?”

  “Like our PTSD.”

  Overhead a seagull screamed and she tried to fight the immediate need to say she was fine, that nothing was wrong with her, that everything was okay, but it was fucking hard. No matter how much she wanted to confess to Wyatt about her nightmares, her self-doubt, everything she tried to hide from the world a small, panicked part of her mind insisted he would leave her if he found out how screwed up she was. It was irrational, stupid, and totally idiotic to think that he didn’t know, but she just couldn’t acknowledge that she had PTSD, at least not to him.

  Wyatt loosely gripped her wrists. “Still not ready to admit it, are you?”

  A harsh shiver worked through her and she tried to get out the words she needed to say, tried to admit that she was fucked up, but her voice refused to work. Overwhelming fear that he would leave her tried to rob her of her sanity and she struggled to get out of his arms, but he threw his thighs over her legs and effectively pinned her.

  “No, no running away from me, Michelle. Don’t you understand? I love you. Warts and all.”

  She shook her head. “I’ll try harder, I…”

  To her shock he bit the side of her neck hard enough to really hurt, startling a yelp out of her. “If you spew anymore of that bullshit I’ll take away your privilege to speak again, am I clear? I don’t want to hear any of your fucking lies about how your life is nothing but sunshine and rainbows. You love me despite my fucked up mind, why do you find it so damn hard to believe that I can do the same? Do you really think I’m that fucking weak, that superficial? That my love for you isn’t as strong as your love for me?”

  “I’m sorry.” She took in a ragged breath. “Please forgive me. I won’t be a problem, I promise.”

  He released her and stood abruptly, refusing to look at her as he stared down the coast. “I’m sorry you can’t believe that I love you.”

  Her heart broke as he turned and stormed off towards the beach house, and panic filled her that he was leaving her again. She struggled to her feet and ran after him, grabbing him by the back of his shirt and yanking him back hard enough that he stumbled and fell with her on top of him. She fisted his hair in her hands and the words tumbled out of her mouth, her fear of him not talking to her, of him ignoring her greater than her fear of showing him how fucked up she was.

  “I do know you love me. No one has ever gone to so much trouble to help me. Owen…Owen would have been long gone by now. My parents would have shipped me off to a psych ward, and even Yuki is getting tired of my shit and she loves me more than anyone on earth, except you. Don’t you get it? I’m so damn unworthy of your love that I can’t understand why you would want me.”

  He growled and flipped them over so she was on her back and he was pressing her into the soft sand. “Don’t you fucking get it? You aren’t unworthy, you’re amazing. Yeah you have issues, but we all have fucking issues. You’re still the strongest woman I know when you aren’t letting your personal demons fill your head full of lies. And your family, your friends love you more than you know. You. Are. Loved. Not because of how perfect you are, but because of how beautifully flawed, how wonderfully screwed up and yet amazing you are. I don’t want perfect, because perfect is a lie, I want you.”

  “No you don’t, if you knew the real me you’d run. I know you would.” She stood up and fisted her hands.

  “What the fuck, Michelle? What the hell do I have to do to earn your love, your respect? I’m doing my fucking best and it never seems to be enough.”

  “It’s not you, it’s me!”

  “Bullshit! If I was good enough, strong enough you would have come to me instead of Petrov. You wouldn’t have fucking lied to me and strung me along like a fool, believing your bullshit. So don’t you fucking dare pretend that everything is okay with me, ever. Do you hear me, Michelle? Are my words getting through to you or are you still so wrapped up in your own bullshit that nothing I say is sinking in? I love you, but sometimes you’re so goddamned self-centered that it drives me fucking crazy.” He yelled the words so loud a flock of seagulls down the beach took flight and their startled shrieks filled the air. With a furious look in his eyes he took a step back, then another. “How the hell am I supposed to stop you from self-destructing next time the pressure gets too great and you need an outlet? How the fuck am I supposed to stand by and watch you hurt yourself over and over when you don’t need to? I’ll be your outlet, your protector, your submissive, your man, but I can’t be any of those things if you
refuse to get past this need of yours to punish yourself in the most self-destructive manner possible because you think I’m too weak to handle you at your darkest.”

  She reached out to him and placed her hand on his arm, trying to pull him closer. “Wyatt, wait.”

  To her shock he actually pushed her away from him, hard enough that she almost fell on her ass. “Don’t fucking touch me right now, Michelle. I’m not in a good place. Just give me some goddamn space to cool down before I completely lose my shit.”

  “Wyatt…”

  He turned away and stormed off to the house, leaving her gaping at his back. A sick, deadening feeling filled her heart and she watched him take the steps two at a time up to the beach house before he went inside, slamming the door behind him. The food she’d eaten threatened to come back up, but she didn’t want him to look out the window and see her throwing up. He was right, she was so incredibly self-centered and selfish. From the moment Wyatt had reentered her life she’d only thought about herself and how Wyatt affected her, not how Wyatt was feeling. Even her guilt over hurting him was selfish.

  She stared up at the beach house for a long time, her thoughts scattered and disjointed as she tried to make herself see the world from Wyatt’s point of view, to get into his head. She used to be so good at figuring out her submissives, easily slipping into their thoughts, but with Wyatt, she was having a hard time separating her own emotions from the equation. Guilt nearly paralyzed her and kept her stuck out on the beach, but she found the strength to walk towards the beach house, to put one foot in front of the other on the boardwalk, to face Wyatt and be there for him. This wasn’t just about her, this was about both of them, and it wasn’t fair to let Wyatt take on the entire burden of trying to fix her.

  Cursing herself, she watched as the lights in the beach house came on and Wyatt’s shadow moved past the windows. Of course his PTSD hadn’t just gone away, no matter how much therapy he’d gotten while they were apart. The thought that her bullshit was triggering an episode was more than she could bear. She vowed that next time she talked to her therapist she would really, truly try to figure out how to get past her need to self-destruct.