by Marie Force
It wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it would be. At first it was pretty painful, but it got better, and he was careful with me. I’d do it again, I decide, not right away, but we’ve got all the time in the world to try new things, and I want to try everything with him.
I wash up and wince when the soap stings abused flesh. The hot water doesn’t last long, and I get out to dry off. Back in the bedroom, I return the lamp to the bedside table and put the cap on the tube of lubricant before I put it back in the drawer, where there is also a box of extra-large condoms. I wonder why he has that stuff in there if he never brings women here. I’ll ask him about that in the morning.
For now, I’m content to crawl into bed with him, to snuggle up to his warm body, to breathe in his appealing scent, even if the hint of whiskey in the air reminds me of how he spent his evening.
It’s okay. He works hard and everyone has the right to blow off some steam every now and then. As long as no one gets hurt, why would it bother me if Blake did that once in a while? It wouldn’t. Nothing will bother me as long as he loves me and I love him. We can get through anything together.
Resting my hand flat on his back, I take that thought to sleep with me, a smile on my face and my heart at peace for the first time since I lost Gran.
Chapter Ten
A relentless pain in my brain wakes me from a sound sleep. Someone has driven an ice pick through my skull while I was sleeping. That’s the only possible explanation for the agonizing pain. I try to move my head and discover that’s the last fucking thing I should do, followed at a close second by opening my eyes to bright daylight.
Wait. What the fuck? I force my lids open again to find a mass of honey-colored hair on the other pillow. I know that hair. Why is she here? I let my gaze fall lower to her bare back and the two tiny dimples at the base of her spine. The sheet covers her ass, but the rest of her is a sight for my very sore eyes.
But what is she doing here? We’re over. We both agreed it was for the best when I left her at her house the other night, even if I’ve regretted that stupid decision every second of every minute since. So why is she in my bed, and how did she get there?
I move painfully to my back and stare up at the ceiling, trying to remember what happened last night after work. I went to the bar, had a beer or maybe two. After that, my mind is blank. I don’t recall anything beyond those first couple of beers. Jesus, when was the last time I drank myself to blackout?
Not since the months after Jordan died, when I did it so often, my family threatened to drag me to rehab. But like all things, time soothed my need to blot out the memories with alcohol. A relentless dedication to my work helped, too. I replaced the alcohol with my machinelike focus on staying as busy as I possibly could. It worked for me until I spent a weekend with Honey and got a taste of what I’d been missing out on.
And now here I am, drinking myself to blackout again. Fuck. The last thing in the world I want to do is go back to the black pit of despair that followed Jordan’s death. I never want to sink that low again, which is why I’ve stayed far away from emotional entanglements with women. It’s why I left Honey with that chaste kiss on the forehead the other night and ended this thing between us before it could get complicated.
So why is she here? What the hell happened last night? And why can’t I remember a fucking thing?
Feeling like the proverbial kid in the candy store, I reach out to touch the soft silk of her hair, letting it slide through my fingers. Though I tell myself one touch and one touch only, I quickly go back for more while breathing in the sweet fresh scent of her hair.
She sighs in her sleep and then shocks me when she turns over and cuddles up to me, her soft breasts pressing against my side, her leg hitched over mine and her hand on my stomach, centimeters from the tip of my suddenly hard cock. Her breath flutters across my sensitive skin, and I hardly dare to breathe from wanting her so badly, I can taste it.
This can’t happen. I thought she knew that. So why is she naked in my bed, and why am I filled with a sense of dread over what might’ve transpired during the lost night? I have so many questions and no answers.
Her leg slides up my leg, and her hand wanders south to wrap around my cock.
I gasp when she begins to stroke me in a slow, lazy rhythm. I’m filled with an almost painful yearning to begin each and every day exactly like this—with Honey pressed against me, her hand wrapped around my cock, her pussy hot and moist against my leg. That would be my idea of heaven.
The word heaven stops me short. That’s where Jordan is, and she’s there because of me. She never got to have any kind of life, so why should I allow myself the sweet pleasure and joy I could find with Honey? Why should I be allowed to let a beautiful woman like Honey love me and care for me when Jordan is gone forever and can never have any of that for herself? And what if I were to take this huge chance with Honey and something happened to her, too? I barely survived it the first time. There’s no way in hell I’d ever survive it again.
I push aside the painful yearning and gently remove her hand from my cock, though that’s the last fucking thing I want to do. Extricating myself from her soft skin and sweet fragrance, I sit up and take a minute for my pounding head to catch up.
“Are you okay?” she asks in a sexy, sleepy voice.
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“Do you want me to get you some painkillers?”
“No.” The one word comes out more harshly than I intended, and I feel the loss of her body heat when she backs away from me. I’m a fucking asshole, and I hate myself for whatever series of events brought her to my bed last night. I only hope I didn’t say or do anything that can’t be undone.
“What’re you doing here, Honey?”
After a long, long pause, she says, “Jimmy called me to pick you up.”
“Oh. Okay. Thanks.” That doesn’t tell me one damned thing about why she’s naked in my bed and stroking my cock like she has a right to.
Without looking back at her, I get up and go into the bathroom, intending to take a cold shower to wake me up and extinguish my raging hard-on. I stop short at the sight of our clothes, intermingled on the floor outside the shower. Fuck, fuck, fuck! Feeling more desperate by the second to fill in the missing gaps in my memory, I bend over to retrieve her thong, bra and dress, holding the items close to my chest for a brief moment before hanging them on the hook on the back of the door.
I feel sick, and not because of the beer still sloshing around in my gut. While the water warms up, I take a leak and desperately try to piece together the previous night. But like before, my memory ends with Jimmy, the bar, the beer, the... Fuck. Whiskey. That’s why I can’t remember anything.
Standing with my back to the water in the shower, I wonder if there’s any hope at all that we didn’t have sex. I glance down at my cock and note for the first time it’s tinged with red. Is that… Oh my God… My heart begins to pound erratically and my hands don’t want to work right as I quickly wash my body, including the dried blood on my cock. I made her bleed?
I’m going to be sick.
It takes a herculean effort to hold back the nausea that burns my throat. I sling a towel around my hips and reach for the door, noticing that her clothes are gone. Panic surges through me as I chase after her, running through the house and out to the driveway without a thought for decency or anything that doesn’t include stopping her from leaving before we get the chance to talk.
She’s pulling out of the driveway when I burst out of the house.
I chase her down the street, but either she doesn’t see me or she ignores me. I suspect it’s the latter. And more than that, I suspect I’ve done something awful to deserve her disdain and her hasty departure.
He doesn’t remember. He doesn’t remember. Oh my God, he doesn’t remember.
The sentence cycles through my brain on repeat until I begin to fear I’ll go mad if I have to think about it for one more second.
Tears slide down my c
heeks, making it difficult to drive. Fortunately, I don’t have far to go. Not only can I not see, sitting is excruciatingly painful. I choke on a sob. How can he not remember telling me he loves me and needs me and doesn’t want to let me go?
How can he not remember the searing intimacy of what we did in his bed?
I’m going to die from the embarrassment as much as the heartbreak. Just when I thought I couldn’t be a bigger fool than I’d already been with him, this happens to show me I’ve only begun to scratch the surface of my own stupidity.
Brushing away tears that refuse to quit, I’m not sure if I’m more hurt or angry. Hurt. Definitely hurt. The pain inside me reminds me far too much of how I felt when Gran died and I woke up the next day to realize I was all alone in the world. That’s exactly how I felt this morning when it occurred to me that he had no memory of what transpired between us last night.
Now I feel like someone has run a spear through my chest, making it impossible to breathe or think or feel anything other than crushing pain. I arrive at home, and when it hurts to get out of the car, I decide to do something I never, ever, ever do. I’m canceling my appointments for the day to stay home and lick my wounds, which is just another reason to be furious with Blake. Now he’s ruining my business along with my life. I make the necessary calls to cancel my day, apologize to my clients and reschedule them for later in a week that’s already booked solid. It’ll make for some long days, but at least I’m free today.
I draw a hot bath and dig out Lauren’s box of Epsom salt. Gran swore Epsom was the cure for every ache and pain. I suspect the magic might not extend to broken hearts. Lowering myself into the steaming water, every muscle I have fights back, or at least that’s how it seems to me.
Whimpering from the pain that radiates throughout my body, I begin to cry all over again, as if I haven’t already dehydrated myself this morning.
All at once, someone is pounding on my door and yelling my name.
I’m frozen with indecision. He came after me. Surely that must mean something.
“No, Honey. It doesn’t mean anything more than he feels bad that he doesn’t remember last night. That’s all it means.”
I force myself to stay put, to not get out of the tub, to not answer the door even if I’m worried that my nosy neighbors will call the police. Let them. That’ll be his problem, not mine.
He pounds on the door for at least ten minutes, yelling for me the whole time.
I close my eyes, cover my ears and pretend I can’t hear him. Eventually, he’ll go away—or be arrested. At this point, I’m not sure which outcome I prefer.
Finally, the racket stops, and the silence is almost as loud as the noise was.
I wait until the water goes cold before I drag myself out of the tub, put on my coziest robe and go to peek out the front window to make sure Blake is actually gone. There’s no sign of him or his truck outside, and I’m gutted all over again.
“What did you expect? To find him sitting on your front stoop waiting you out? That only happens in bad movies.” I make myself a cup of tea and take it to bed, where I plan to spend the rest of the day hiding from the world.
I’m sound asleep later that afternoon when my cell phone rings, jarring me awake. I ignore it and turn over, intending to go back to sleep. It rings again.
I’m almost certain it has to be Blake, but I check the screen just the same and see Lauren’s name along with a text from her that says 911. I take the call.
“Lo? What’s wrong?”
“Thank goodness you answered, Honey! Where are you? There’s been a water-main break on Highland, and the whole street is flooding. You need to get to the studio to save what you can. Honey? Do you hear me?”
“Yes, I hear you.” I blast out of bed, ignoring my aches and pains, and pull on shorts, a bra and T-shirt. I jam my feet into sandals and run for the door, grabbing my keys on the way out. “I’m coming.”
“Hurry, Honey.”
As I drive the short distance into downtown Marfa, I try to think about what might be in the line of fire from the flooding. Mostly the hundreds of framed and matted photos I have available for sale in the studio. All the photos are backed up in the cloud, but I’d lose thousands of dollars in materials if they’re ruined.
My most valuable equipment is stowed in a fireproof vault that I hope is also waterproof. Why can’t I remember if it is? Surely I should know that. I turn onto Highland and immediately encounter water rushing toward me. At the far end of the street, I can see emergency vehicles and a geyser shooting water high into the air. Shop owners and business people are gathered on the sidewalks that line the street, keeping a close watch on the rising water.
For a second, I’m not sure if I should get out of the car and battle my way to the studio or if it would be safer to stay in the car. One of the local cops, a guy I grew up with, waves for me to go on ahead. Johnny wouldn’t wave me through if it was dangerous, would he? I hope not.
I press the accelerator and hydroplane my way down Highland Avenue, pulling into the parking lot next to the studio and running for the back door, where the water is already ankle-deep. When I open the door, the water rushes into my pristine studio, and all I can think about is the entire weekend Lauren, Julie, Matt and I spent refinishing the wood floors. I’m no expert, but even I know that wood plus water isn’t a good thing.
Determined to save what I can, I spring into action, grabbing armloads of matted photos and carrying them off the showroom floor to a table in the back room that’s four feet above the water. If it gets that high, we’re in really big trouble.
I splash through the water that continues to rush in through the front and back doors as I make numerous trips back and forth with armloads of stock photos. It’s above my ankles and rising by the second. Why can’t they shut it off or do something to make it stop? Grabbing up boxes of props that I use for my desert photos, I’m on the verge of panicking about the possibility of losing everything I’ve worked so hard for when Blake appears like an apparition at my back door.
He directs his men in a strong, authoritative voice, and they begin sandbagging my back door. “Go around to the front,” he orders some of them. “Hurry.”
Dumbstruck by the sight of him, I watch the muscles flex in his arms as he quickly builds a barrier of sand to keep the water out of my studio. As he works, he occasionally looks my way, his intense blue-eyed gaze slamming into me, putting me on notice that we have unfinished business.
“I’ll be back,” he says when they’ve built a wall of sandbags that slows the water to a trickle. “Be here.”
He’s gone before I can formulate a reply. And what exactly would I say to that anyway? I’m resigned to having one last conversation with him about what went on between us before we return to life as friends who’ve known each other since we were kids.
I can do that, or so I tell myself, trying not to think of the late-night encounter in his bed that tipped my world on its axis and filled me with relief and excitement and joy like I’d never known. It was all a tease. I get that now that I’ve had some time to accept that he doesn’t remember anything that happened between us last night, even if I already know I’ll never forget a second of it.
For one brief, shining moment, I had everything I’ve ever wanted in the palm of my hand, so close I could taste the sweetness of my future laid out before me with a strong but complicated man who loves me. Then it was snatched away ruthlessly, and no matter what he might have to say to me, I need to remember how badly that hurt.
I busy myself sorting through the photos that are now stacked in disorganized piles on my worktable. My gaze falls to one of my favorites, the famous Hotel Paisano, where James Dean, Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor stayed during the making of the 1956 film Giant.
I’ve poured my heart and soul into my work because I didn’t have anywhere else to direct my love since Gran died. My affection for Marfa, the town that rallied around an abandoned baby girl, shines through in every
photo I’ve ever taken of the famous courthouse, the Marfa lights, the Chinati and the various art installations that make our town so unique.
I love this place and wouldn’t want to live or work anywhere else, but now I’ll have to worry about running into Blake in random places like the grocery store or post office, tearing the scab off the wound each time I come face-to-face with those cool blue eyes. I’m well aware it’s a wound of my own making, beginning with the words “I want you to fuck me,” but that doesn’t make the wound any less painful.
“I’m sorry about that, Gran,” I whisper to the silence that surrounds me in the studio. “I never should’ve propositioned him the way I did. You were right about the importance of being a respectable lady. But I don’t regret anything that happened with him, except for the fact that it ended. I wish we could’ve had more time. I wish I could keep making him happy the way I did when we were together. More than anything, I wish he remembered what happened last night.”
“Why don’t you tell me?” he says from behind me.
I whirl around, shocked that he came back so soon, that he heard what I said, that he wants to know what happened.
He closes and locks the back door to my studio. “We’re not leaving here until you fill in the blanks for me.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I think it does. I think it matters a great deal.”
“You were straight with me from the beginning. It’s not your fault that I blew it up to be more than it was ever supposed to be.”