The minutes ticked by, but as tired as she was, she couldn’t sleep.
Obviously Damien couldn’t sleep either because he suddenly said, “You awake?”
“Yes,” she answered softly.
“Maybe we ought to talk about…about what happened between us,” he suggested.
“What happened was that we had a fling the summer before we went to college. A very long time ago. Nothing more, nothing less.” She said the words as much for herself as she said them for Damien. She needed to remember that what they’d had was never something that was supposed to blossom into love, not with the two of them heading off in different directions. Her problem was that she’d allowed herself to believe that what they’d had was something special.
“That’s what you feel about our relationship?” Damien asked.
“It is what it is,” Kendra stressed, taking deliberate breaths to keep her pulse calm. “We both know the extreme unlikelihood that teenage love ever blossoms into something more, so I see no reason even to talk about it.”
“Oh,” Damien said, and Kendra could swear that he sounded disappointed.
She didn’t want to think about their history, much less talk about it. So she asked, “How are you enjoying the medical field?”
“It has its challenges,” Damien said, “but I love it. Research is leading to all kinds of effective treatments for cancer, which is exciting. It’s great to be able to give patients hope.”
“I guess I’m surprised that you went into oncology. You seemed so adamant about pursuing the field of neurology, as I recall.”
“I’m surprised you remembered that I said I wanted to go into neurology,” Damien said.
“Of course I remembered. You used to talk about it all the time. How proud you were going to make your father.”
“Yeah,” Damien said softly. “That’s right.”
Just like at the airport, Kendra picked up on something painful in his tone. “I guess you found oncology more appealing?” she asked.
There was a long pause. Then Damien said, “A year and a half into my premed studies, I found out that my father was sick. Cancer.”
“No,” Kendra said, the word coming out as a gasp.
“Yeah.” Damien exhaled sharply in the dark room. “I couldn’t have been more shocked when I got the call. My dad had lung cancer? When he’d never smoked a day in his life? Of course, he worked with people who did. And…I don’t think the paint fumes at the factory where he worked helped.”
Kendra didn’t want to ask, but she knew the answer in her heart. Damien’s father had died.
Still she asked, “Did he at least find out early?”
“No. It was too late when he found out. Stage four. He’d had another health issue and was coughing a lot. He was told it was a side effect of the medication he was taking. He didn’t question it. Then things got worse, and he could no longer lie down to sleep because he couldn’t breathe well. But my dad—always so strong—suffered through it without going back to the doctor. I was the one who had to tell him that he needed to see his doctor again, insist on further tests. I was talking to him on the phone and he was coughing almost constantly—and I knew something wasn’t right. So he went, got more tests. And then they told him he had lung cancer.”
Damien spoke not quite nonchalantly but without much emotion. And yet Kendra knew that what he’d gone through had to have been utterly devastating.
She wished that he had called her, but of course they’d broken up by then and hadn’t been talking. “I’m so sorry,” she said.
“Yeah, it was the worst thing I’ve ever had to go through.”
“How old was he?”
“Fifty-one.”
“Oh, God. That’s so young.” Her eyes filled with tears. She knew that Damien had been close with his father, and to lose him at such a young age…she couldn’t imagine that kind of pain. The mere thought that something bad might happen to her mother always made Kendra emotional.
She wanted to reach for his hand, but he was on the floor. It didn’t seem right to her, talking about his father’s death with the huge physical rift between them.
“I always thought he’d be around to see me become a doctor.” Damien paused briefly. “To know that cancer could take down my father, who was such a strong man.... It became clear to me that I had to go into oncology. Try to make a difference for those battling this disease.”
Kendra had met Damien’s father, Edmund, only a few times, but she had been drawn to the hardworking, charismatic man. He had worked six days a week in order to put food on the table for his family and provide his sons with the kind of educational opportunities that he hadn’t had.
“I believe your father is looking down on you and that he’s extremely proud,” Kendra told him.
“Thanks,” Damien said softly. “I do believe he’s still with me, even if I can’t see him in a physical sense. I can feel his presence.”
Silence filled the room, and with each second that passed Kendra felt more uncomfortable. Here she and Damien were having this serious conversation, yet she had sent him to the floor because she wanted to keep a physical and emotional barrier between them.
There was a sense of disconnect between the two of them that seemed forced. Worse, it struck Kendra that she was making the opposite point of what she wanted to. Because by insisting on him sleeping on the floor, instead of telling Damien that she wasn’t interested in him, he was probably suspecting that he was far too much of a temptation for her.
“Um,” she began, “why don’t you… There’s more than enough room on the bed.”
A beat passed. “You’re sure you’re okay with that?” Damien asked.
“Yes,” Kendra said, speaking with more certainty. “I had a knee-jerk reaction earlier, but like you said, there’s plenty of room on this bed. So, please.”
“All right.”
Kendra heard Damien get up, and then she turned on the light so that he could see better. He first brought the pillows over, and then he began to put the large spread back onto the bed.
Kendra didn’t breathe as he climbed into the bed with her. As he’d promised he would, he made sure to position himself at the far opposite side of the bed from her.
And then, silence. The quiet in the room became so intense that Kendra had to make an effort to draw in shallow breaths. Each breath sounded like a geyser going off in the quiet room.
“What about you?” Damien asked after a few minutes passed.
Kendra was startled by the question. “Pardon me?”
“What about your career? Still loving politics?”
Kendra drew in a breath. “I… It also has its challenges. I got involved in politics to make a change, but there are a lot of negatives. Subterfuge and abuses of the system. I guess I went to D.C. with stars in my eyes.”
“Well, that’s politics. But the truth is, every field has its hurdles.”
“That’s for sure,” Kendra conceded. “Aside from the scandal concerning Senator Chambers, I am happy to be working for him. He believes in the causes I’m passionate about. For example, I’m working on a bill to amend Maryland’s abortion laws. Now, I’m definitely pro-choice, but the abortion laws in Maryland go too far. Just about any excuse will allow late-term abortions when a fetus could be viable. I want to see that changed.”
“Important work,” Damien said.
“Hard work,” Kendra said. “But I’m determined to see changes to the law.”
“And I’m sure you’ll make them happen,” Damien said.
Silence fell between them once again, and no one was more surprised than Kendra when she asked, “So, are you married?”
“Married?” Damien repeated the question. “No. No, I’m not.”
For some reason, that news made Kendra’s stomach tickle.
“But I was,” Damien went on.
Married. Damien had been married. Why did that reality bother her?
We were only teenage lovers, she
reminded herself. No need to be jealous.
“You…” Kendra swallowed, her chest tightening with discomfort. “You were married?”
“Yeah. But it didn’t last long. Pretty much by the time we came back from the honeymoon, I knew we were heading for a divorce.”
“After your honeymoon, you’re supposed to be on cloud nine,” Kendra commented.
“And we weren’t. Gwen was having a panic attack. Telling me that I wasn’t opening up to her the way a husband should.”
“What?” Kendra scoffed. That didn’t sound like the Damien she had known, the one who had poured out his heart and soul to her.
“She always said that, yet she married me anyway. And I…well, I started to realize that I’d gotten married because I was searching for the kind of relationship my parents never had. Gwen seemed to really love me. I thought she’d be a doting wife. But six months after we said I do, she filed for divorce.”
“Wow,” Kendra mumbled. But she wasn’t thinking so much about Damien’s ill-fated marriage. Rather, part of what he’d said had irked her. Did he not think she would be doting-wife material? Was that why he had stopped calling her back then?
“Pardon me?” Damien asked.
“Nothing,” Kendra said, speaking louder so that Damien would hear her. “I’m just…surprised.”
“We were on two different pages,” Damien explained. He paused. “Maybe I’m just not the marrying type.”
Something within Kendra fizzled at Damien’s statement. Which was absolutely ridiculous. Sure, she hadn’t seen him in ten years. But she had once thought that they would get married someday yet those dreams had long since died.
“What about you?” Damien asked. “Are you married?”
“Me? Oh, definitely not. I’m not married.”
“You say that as though it’s an impossibility,” Damien commented. “Surely you must have men who are interested.”
“I don’t know about that,” Kendra said. “You say you’re not the marrying kind—well, I’m beginning to fear I won’t get married at all.”
“That’s nonsense,” Damien said.
“Seriously, dating in the nation’s capital is not easy. Maybe we’re all so ambitious that we don’t want to sacrifice anything for love. I always thought I would get married, have kids by thirty. That’s always been the big number hanging over my head. But I’m not even close.”
“I find that very hard to believe.”
“It is what it is,” Kendra said, feigning a nonchalant tone that she didn’t feel.
“Well, you’ve got two more years before you hit thirty. I seriously doubt you’ll still be single by then.”
Kendra drew in a breath, but it got caught in her throat. She didn’t know what was worse—lying in a bed with Damien when the last time they’d shared a bed they’d been crazy for each other, or the fact that he was giving her a relationship pep talk.
He had suggested they talk about their relationship, an idea she had shot down. But there was still a part of her that wanted him to turn to her and tell her that he’d never forgotten their summer together. That he had truly loved her.
Maybe the truth was that being this close to him, in bed with him, it was impossible to forget that hot summer they had shared. And it had been so long since Kendra had been intimate with any man, there was a part of her that was aching…
No. Well, maybe yes. Maybe it was only natural that she was remembering the sizzling times she and Damien shared, given that they were now physically in bed together. Because the last time they had been in bed together, they hadn’t been able to keep their hands off of each other.
“Gosh, look at the time,” Kendra said. “It’s almost one-thirty. We really should get some sleep.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Especially if we’re going to get up early and hit the road so we can make good time getting to Louisville.”
“Exactly,” Kendra said.
“Good night, then,” Damien said.
“Good night.”
Chapter 7
Kendra’s eyes popped open, greeting the sunlit room. It wasn’t the fact that she instantly realized she was in unfamiliar surroundings that had her alarmed. It was the fact that she was wrapped in a man’s arms.
And then she remembered. The airport. Damien. Driving together to a hotel.
She quickly rolled out of his arms, breathing heavily as she did. They had started the night off on separate sides of the bed. How was it that she had ended up with his arms around her?
Kendra’s chest beat rapidly as she quickly looked at Damien, hoping that he hadn’t awoken and realized the compromising position they’d been in. But his eyes were open, and he was staring at her with a curious expression.
“I…I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Morning,” Damien said.
“It’s after eight.” She couldn’t meet his eyes. “We should get up.”
“Yeah. Better hit the road.”
* * *
They grabbed a quick breakfast of coffee and muffins in the hotel’s café, then got on the road. The storm had ended, though the snow was still lightly falling. According to the news, the roads were still a mess, but road crews were out trying to clear the interstates and city streets.
For the first hour and a half, the music played and Kendra had her eyes closed. She didn’t want to talk, least of all about how she and Damien had woken up in each other’s arms.
Eventually, she opened her eyes when she heard a talk radio show and the mention of Morris Chambers’s name.
“It’s this kind of blatant abuse of power that makes everyone distrust politicians,” the male host was saying.
“Ugh,” Kendra groaned. “I hate shows like this. You have these salacious radio hosts going on about things they don’t even know, judging someone guilty in the court of public opinion.”
“You want me to change the station?” Damien asked.
Kendra sighed. “No. I want to hear this.”
But after talk about the other scandal involving the senator, where he’d admitted to an affair, she’d had enough. “Mrs. Chambers had forgiven her husband,” Kendra said. “That should’ve been the end of it. Why do people have to keep slinging dirt?”
After a long moment passed and Damien didn’t speak, she answered her own question. “Of course the media’s interested in this story,” she said softly. “Sex sells. Scandals sell. Damn, I wish the senator hadn’t become like so many other men in a position of power. Why can’t men realize that sleeping around is going to come back to haunt them? Especially when you’re a public figure?”
“That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?” Damien asked.
“You’re probably going to tell me that I’m naive. That all men cheat. That’s what everyone I know says. That it’s to be expected.”
“Um, no. That’s not what I was going to say. Not at all. Call me different, but I don’t believe in cheating.”
“You also don’t believe in fighting for your marriage.”
Damien glanced at her, then gave her an odd look. “I never said that I didn’t.”
“Not in so many words,” Kendra said. She felt anxious, and she didn’t know why. Maybe it was that being with Damien again, and hearing about the senator’s affair again, was making her feel dismally hopeless about relationships. After all, Damien hadn’t tried to make their relationship work all those years ago.
“Are you curious about my marriage…or is your question about something else?”
“I’m…I’m curious about your marriage,” Kendra lied. “It’s a bit unusual for someone to file for divorce after only six months.”
“I’m not proud of how things ended, but I did my best to make it work. But when it became clear that Gwen was done, no, I didn’t beg her to stay. I guess all that talk about me giving her just half of my heart…well, I knew there was no changing her mind.”
“I don’t get that. Why would she think you were only giving her half of your hea
rt?” Kendra found that hard to believe. Because the Damien she’d known had given her all of his heart…at least that’s how it had felt to her.
Of course, he had quickly taken it back…but that was another story.
“That’s what she said. She felt I was always keeping a part of myself from her.” Damien paused for a moment, then met Kendra’s gaze briefly. “Maybe I was.”
Kendra wasn’t sure of what she picked up in his voice…a little pain? A little vulnerability?
“I never thought that when we were together,” Kendra found herself saying. “I always found you very open with me.”
“You were different,” Damien said.
This time when he looked at her, he held her gaze for a few beats.
“Damien…” Kendra looked away, glancing ahead. And then, “Watch out!”
* * *
Damien threw his eyes back to the road and saw that something was in his immediate path. He jerked the steering wheel to avoid it, and then the vehicle began to skid.
It happened fast. Kendra screamed, and Damien didn’t breathe as the car spun around.
Once, twice. Then the car came to a sudden stop.
It took a moment for Damien’s heart to start beating again, and when it did, he observed his surroundings. The car had hit a wall of snow, which had prevented it from careening into the ditch.
“Kendra.” Damien quickly undid his seat belt and reached for her. She was whimpering, but he knew that she was more frightened about what had almost happened, rather than what had.
He undid her seat belt, too, then cradled her in his arms. She gripped his shoulders, for the first time not pulling away from him.
“It’s okay,” Damien told her. “You’re fine. We’re fine.”
“I thought…I thought we were going to die…”
“But we didn’t. We’re lucky.”
Finally, he glanced through the back window and saw what was in the road. A rolled-up carpet that had obviously fallen off of someone else’s vehicle.
“Damn it,” he muttered. And then he drew in a deep breath as the weight of what had happened hit him. They were lucky the SUV hadn’t rolled.
Kendra was shivering against him. “I don’t know, Damien. I’m kinda scared to keep going. Driving in this weather…”
Merry Sexy Christmas Page 14