by HELEN HARDT
“But we failed.”
“Hardly. You did much better than a lot of my patients in their first session. You actually got through the barrier. That says a lot about you and your determination, Mr. Wolfe. I can’t make any guarantees, but I think you’re going to be successful.”
“Can we go on?” I asked. “Finish this tonight?”
“You’ve been here for two hours. This takes a lot out of you. You need some rest.”
As if on cue, my face split into a giant yawn. Right. I hadn’t slept in over a day. I probably did need to rest.
“But I want to keep going. I don’t want to lose it. I don’t want to find myself in the forest again.”
“You may very well find yourself in the forest again, but like I said, you’ll have an easier time getting out.”
“When can I come back?”
“We’ll set something up with Nanette on the way out. I’ll get you in as soon as I can.”
“I’ll come anytime. Money is no object.”
She laughed. “Not for a Wolfe, I’m sure. I’ll do my best to accommodate you.” Then she stood. “Shall we?”
I followed her out of her office.
Feeling better than I had in some time.
45
Charlie
I jerked when the door to Dr. Woolcott’s office finally opened. Roy followed her out, his eyes sunken and fatigued but oddly brighter than I’d seen them in a few days.
“Hey,” I said softly.
“Hey, silver.”
Dr. Woolcott walked toward the reception desk. “Nan, what do we have available in the next couple days for Mr. Wolfe?”
“You’re busy all day tomorrow. There’s Sunday, but that’s your only day off.”
“Hmm.” She looked over Nan’s shoulder at the computer. “I don’t usually work on Saturday evenings, Mr. Wolfe, but since you did so well today I’ll make an exception if you’re willing to come back tomorrow, same time. Of course, I’m sure you already have plans.”
We didn’t. In fact, I had plans for dinner with Blaine, something I wasn’t excited about conveying to Roy.
He looked to me. “You mind?”
“Of course not. If this is working, you should continue as soon as you can.”
“I’ll be here,” he said to Dr. Woolcott.
“Great,” she said. “See you both tomorrow.”
See you both. She’d actually only see Roy. I had a dinner date with Blaine. Now to find the right time to let Roy know.
I smiled and took his hand, pushing Blaine to the back of my mind. “How did it go?”
“It was strange,” he said. “But I think…it was good.”
“That’s great! You want to tell me about it?”
He paused a moment. “I’m not sure. It’s not like I want to hide it from you, but I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about it.”
“That’s okay.” I tried to sound bright, but I was a little bummed that he didn’t want to talk about the session. Frankly, I found the whole thing fascinating and wanted to know more.
Maybe Lacey would be willing to talk about her session, but that wouldn’t be until Monday at noon.
“What now?” I asked, as we got into a cab.
“Let’s go back to my place,” he said. “I want to show you the piece I’ve been working on.”
“Wow.”
Words scrambled in my mind, words of magnitude and beauty for the piece Roy showed me. But all that came out was, “Wow.”
“Not everyone appreciates abstract the way you do,” Roy said.
“I appreciate all art,” I said. “Especially yours.”
The blues and grays were haunting. They created a spiral—sort of. When I looked closer, I saw that the spiral was only an illusion. What I was actually seeing were tiny brushstrokes that all flicked downward. Quickly downward, as if someone were freefalling from the sky.
“Have you ever gone skydiving?” I asked.
“No. Why?”
“The movement of the painting. I feel like I’m falling. Falling fast.”
“Yes. Falling.”
“Have you ever fallen off something?”
“No,” he said again.
“Hmm.” What could he be saying in this painting? “Why did you paint this, Roy?”
“I felt it. So I painted it.”
A-ha. Perhaps he felt like he was falling into a pit as a result of this buried memory. His attempt to find the key.
“Don’t overthink it,” he said.
“I’m not.”
He chuckled. “You are. Your cute little forehead is all wrinkled.”
When he said the words, I consciously relaxed my facial muscles. Yeah, I was overthinking it.
“Do you ever paint something without a reason?” I asked.
“Every piece of art has a reason,” he said, “but it’s not always something esoteric and philosophical. Sometimes, I just feel like painting, so I do.”
Right. Made perfect sense. I didn’t always have some deep-seated reason when I used to paint. But Roy? This painting was too engaging for him to have “just felt like painting it.”
“I don’t buy it.”
“You don’t have to buy anything.”
“This is a clear descent, Roy. What does it mean?”
He wrinkled his forehead this time. “I’ve never fallen.”
“So you’ve said.”
“But there was one time…in an elevator…”
The elevator again. I’d seen him tense up more than once in an elevator. And he didn’t want to have sex in an elevator. Most men would jump at that.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I’m not sure, still. It’s kind of blurry in my head. It might have been a dream. But I was scared shitless. It was like the floor fell out from under me.”
“The cable must have broken. It happens every once in a while.”
He nodded. “I swear my stomach came out through my mouth.”
“You got sick?”
“No, just felt like that.”
“The negative Gs,” I said.
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“So you don’t have any desire to ride those kind of features in an amusement park, huh?”
“God, not in the slightest. The feeling of plummeting to my death isn’t anything I want to relive.”
I found his word usage interesting. Relive. This hadn’t been a dream. Whatever happened in an elevator was part of whatever Roy had buried in his brain. Should I push it? Or should I let it go?
The fact that he’d painted this—indeed, that he’d stayed up the previous night working on it—meant it was becoming unburied in his mind.
That was a good thing, and I should probably let it happen naturally, not push.
But—
“Tell me more about the elevator, Roy.”
46
Roy
The elevator.
The elevator that had appeared in the clearing after I’d trudged through the forest.
Hadn’t been real, of course. I’d been under hypnosis, in a deep state of relaxation.
The gray and silver interior. Still had those same elevators. Still had…
“Roy?” Charlie said tentatively.
“I’m okay.” I closed my eyes. “I want to share this with you.”
“Okay.”
“Except that… I didn’t open it. I didn’t use the key.”
“What are you talking about?”
“My session. It went well, I guess.”
“You said you didn’t want to talk about that.”
“And I don’t. Except that I do.”
She walked into my arms and laid her head on my shoulder. She didn’t say anything, but her actions said something far more powerful than words.
She was here for me.
Had anyone ever been there for me in my life? My parents took care of me financially, but they were hardly there for me. My father would kick my ass if I bothered him, at least until I tu
rned sixteen and I got as big as he was. Poor Reid was his sole punching bag after that.
And my mother? She was about as attentive as that polar bear mother at the zoo who rejected her cubs.
Rock had left when I was eleven, and Reid and Riley—though I loved them, I wasn’t overly close to either of them.
As an introvert, I didn’t have many friends. A few dates now and then, and a few one-nighters.
No one who was there for me.
But now? I had a beautiful woman who loved me.
Heaven had sent Charlie to me. Charlie with her silver eyes. Charlie with her good heart.
She didn’t push me to elaborate. She was giving me time. Time to gather my thoughts, if I even could.
Should I tell her about my trek through the imaginary forest? It almost made me sound nuts, though the doc had assured me it was very normal.
I wasn’t nuts, though. I knew that, because of the elevator. Because of the key.
I’d found what I was looking for. Rather, I’d found the key to unlocking it. But at least I knew now that a key existed.
I hadn’t known that before tonight.
I held onto her, relishing the warmth of her body against mine, and then I regarded my painting.
She was right.
It was a fall.
A descent.
Like that elevator had fallen on that fateful day…
I smashed my palm onto the red button.
Then the thump when the small cubicle landed. The floor met my body, my stomach lodged in my throat.
I opened my eyes wide, attempting to see in the darkness.
No biggie. The elevator malfunctioned, obviously. Now I just needed to pry the doors open with something. But with what? Plus, I could be stuck between floors. I’d been going to the lowest floor. Had I made it?
I pushed the red button once more, and then again, until I was smashing it with my palm in a quick rhythm.
I wasn’t claustrophobic, but between the darkness and the fall, I was freaking out. My heart beat like a thunderhead and I had to piss like a racehorse.
The cartons that had been on the dolly were now scattered on the floor, files tumbling out of one that had been smashed open.
A scream lodged in my throat, but I suppressed it. I wasn’t going to scream like a sissy girl. My father had called me that name since I started painting, and I would not make his assessment true. For Christ’s sake, he was forcing me to do this stupid internship. If that was really what he thought of me, why would he want me in his sacred office?
I lifted my hand to press the red button once more but then decided against it. Continually pushing the button was the equivalent of screaming. I’d pushed it enough already. Help would come eventually. Only the best for the Wolfes, after all.
The fucking Wolfes.
I inhaled, trying to hold it for a few seconds, and then exhaled. Breathe in, breathe out. That was supposed to relieve stress, right?
Fuck if I knew. My mother practiced a bunch of breathing exercises with her yoga. But really, it was probably just an excuse for her to get together with her other first-wife friends to bitch and whine. She even had a wine glass that had “bitch and wine” etched on it.
Odd. Thoughts of my neurotic mother actually had a calming effect on me. Breathe in, breathe out. My eyes adjusted to the darkness and I shoved the files back into their box. Then I stacked them all back on the dolly. I was ready when that damned door finally—
I squinted as the light came back on.
I stood, hoping I didn’t look like I’d nearly pissed myself waiting for the elevator to move.
But it didn’t move.
Instead, the doors opened.
“Roy?”
I jerked out of my thoughts. Charlie had moved slightly away and was looking into my eyes.
“Yeah?”
“Are you okay? You got kind of…rigid.”
The elevator. The fall. My stomach in my throat. The fear. The panic.
Then the lights.
The doors…
I closed my eyes, squeezing out any remainder of the memory that threatened to come forth. No. Not now. Not now. Not now.
I pulled Charlie back to me, enclosing her in my arms. I drew comfort from her warmth, from her closeness.
From her.
“What can I do for you?” she asked, her breath a sweet breeze on my neck.
“Just stay here. Be with me.”
“I can do that.”
We stood in the studio, embracing, for a long, long time.
47
Charlie
We didn’t make love. When I finally got Roy to leave the studio, we went to the bedroom, shed our clothes, and lay down in each other’s arms. He was asleep almost instantly.
Poor thing hadn’t slept the night before.
I snuggled up to him, his arm around me, listening to the comfortable sound of his heartbeat.
What was it about the Wolfes?
First Lacey fell for Rock in a week, and now I fell for Roy. Would someone crawl out of the woodwork and fall for Reid next week?
I smiled to myself. What was going on with the Wolfes right now was serious. Dangerous, even, but I was happier than I could ever remember being. Crazy.
Tomorrow was Saturday, and I needed to go home. And…I needed to tell Roy I was having dinner with Blaine. That wouldn’t go over well. He was going to see Dr. Woolcott, though. Did I really need to tell him? He’d be at his session for two hours, most likely. My dinner would end around the same time. We could meet back here, or at my place.
God. Was I really considering lying to Roy? That was no way to begin a relationship.
I sighed and glided my fingers over Roy’s rock-hard chest and abs. His nipples tightened under my touch. I smiled again.
“Wake up, silver.”
My eyes popped open. Roy was above me, his cock poised at my pussy.
“I checked. You’re ready. What were you dreaming about, baby?”
I smiled. He rarely called me baby. I liked it. Silver was sweet and was only for me. It was my favorite, but something about a man calling me baby… It made me feel cherished.
Blaine had never called me baby.
And enough of that. I erased Blaine Foster from my mind and concentrated on the gorgeously handsome man about to start fucking me.
“I don’t remember,” I said, “but I must have been dreaming of you.”
“You sure are wet.” He met my gaze, his eyes smoking with desire. “I need you. I need you now.”
“Then take me. I’m yours, Roy.”
He thrust into me harshly. Yes, I might’ve woken up wet, but still the invasion burned as he tunneled into me. A good burn. The perfect burn. A burn that was meant to be.
“You feel so good,” he said, his voice husky. “I swear to God, nothing has ever felt this good.”
I moaned in response, unable to form words. Right now, my whole world was his cock inside me—thrusting, thrusting, thrusting—taking me home. Making me alive.
I wasn’t after an orgasm, so when one crept up on me I gasped in surprise. Simple penetration didn’t usually do it for me, but he was plunging into me so hard that his pelvic bone was hitting my clit with just enough force to send me over the edge.
“I’m coming. God, Roy. I’m coming…”
“Come, baby. Please. Come for me, silver. Always come for me.”
More words tumbled out of my mouth, but I didn’t grasp the meaning of any of them. Only the feeling, only the pure emotion coiling within me and spreading outward, only the pure rapture and lust. I came and I came and I came, and just as I hit the peak and started floating downward, Roy thrust into me so hard, hitting my clit and sending me toppling back into the clouds once again.
“Yes,” he said through clenched teeth. “Yes, God, so good.”
We came together, then, not just two bodies, not just two climaxes, but two hearts and two souls.
Roy’s brow was slick with sweat, and a few
drops rained onto my face. His gorgeous hair was in disarray, tickling my cheeks and neck.
When he rolled off me and onto his back, I hurriedly snuggled into his shoulder, assuming the position I’d slept in all night.
“That was amazing,” I said.
He didn’t respond for a few seconds. Then, “You’re amazing, silver. Everything about you is amazing.”
Again, my dinner with Blaine catapulted into my mind. I wanted to erase it away, not let anything soil this beautiful moment with Roy. But I wasn’t going to lie to him. Yes, I might get away with it, but it didn’t feel right. It would be an ugly stain on this blooming relationship. I didn’t want that.
“Roy?”
“Yeah?”
“Would it bother you if I didn’t go to Dr. Woolcott’s with you tonight?”
He opened his eyes and turned onto his side, meeting my gaze. “Where else would you be?”
A night with the girls. The words hovered on my tongue. They were a lie, but they would be an easy out.
Roy would know. There was no night with the girls. There were no girls. As the Cosmo quiz said, I put my work above my social life. Which basically meant I had no social life.
I sighed. “Blaine says he has more information for me, but he won’t give it to me unless I go to dinner with him tonight.”
“He doesn’t have anything.”
“He may not, but I can’t take that chance.”
“Fine, then I’ll go with you.”
“There’s nothing I would love more than for you to come,” I said. “But you can’t miss your session, Roy. This is too important.”
He wouldn’t disagree with me.
Would he?
Though he’d told me little, the first session had been pretty successful as far as I knew.
He cleared his throat. “I won’t miss my session. But I need you there with me, silver. Please.”
“But—” I stopped quickly. No buts. I loved this man, and if he needed me there, I’d be there. “I’ll call Blaine and cancel.”