Animal Rage

by Kathryn Thomas

  “Like the dead. I’d forgotten how comfortable the beds here are.” He scratches at the blonde stubble that’s starting to form on his chin. Even just waking up you’d have to be blind not to see how good-looking he is.

  Isabel is aware of his eyes on her, taking in the shortness of her shorts and her silk cami top, which doesn’t leave much to the imagination. His soft pajama pants tell her exactly what it is he’s imagining and Isabel’s eyes widen as she spins around, busying herself with the eggs.

  “Coffee?” The word makes its way out through her strangled throat.

  “Yeah, that’d be great. But why don’t you take a seat? I can take care of the breakfast.” He takes her by the elbow and gently guides her to one of the chairs before she has time to disagree.

  “I don’t think my tenants are quite ready to take their life into their hands yet, Mike!” Isabel half-rises to stop him, knowing he’s about as proficient in the kitchen as a bull is in a china shop.

  “Oh ye of little faith!” He points at her with a spatula. “I’ll tell you what. I make these eggs just for the two of us and you tell me if you trust me with the health of your paying customers. Deal?”

  Isabel smiles, sitting back down. “Deal.” She watches him make his way around the kitchen, using pretty much every pan and utensil he can find to make scrambled eggs.

  When he’s done, he delivers a plate to her with a flourish and goes to refill her coffee.

  “Just black -” She starts directing him before she remembers that he knows exactly how she likes her coffee.

  “I remember, Issy.” He says the words softly, placing the coffee mug down in front of her, his hand, skimming hers and it’s not a stretch to tell it wasn’t just a throwaway touch.

  They sit in companionable silence, eating, but Isabel is slightly on edge. She knows there’s something that Mike is waiting to say.

  “How do you look so pretty when you’ve just woken up?” She looks up from her plate, to find him staring at her in that way of his that lets her know his mind is somewhere she would rather it wasn’t.

  Isabel opens her mouth to throw him a smart remark or to wave away the compliment but she’s interrupted before she can even start.

  “Well, isn’t this cozy?” The voice behind her is as familiar to her as her own but she can’t quite believe what she’s hearing is real. Slowly, as if she’s afraid that any sudden movements would cause the mirage to disappear, she turns and looks at the man standing in the doorway.

  “And you are?” Mike’s voice radiates tension and Isabel wonders if men have some kind of caveman instinct when it comes to ‘the other man.’

  “Wesley. Who the hell are you?” The way he says the words are more like a challenge than an introduction and his gaze is pure steel.

  Isabel opens her mouth to say something, but she’s still in shock, still taking him all in. He looks like he has a cut on his eyebrow that hasn’t been looked at; it probably needs stitches and there are some bruises fading on his knuckles. Aside from that, he looks in good shape and she sends up a little prayer of thanks to anyone who will listen.

  “I’m Mike.” Mike, to his credit, stands up and walks towards Wesley, sticking his hand out to shake.

  Wesley looks at it warily, before he takes it. Isabel can tell from Mike’s expression that Wesley crushes his hand in a tight grip and she can’t help but roll her eyes at the stupid things testosterone makes men do.

  “Mike. Heard a lot about you.” Wesley looks the other man up and down, assessing him.

  It’s bizarre to see the two of them together. They’re chalk and cheese. They couldn’t be any more different. Where Wesley is dark and olive skinned, Mike is blonde and blue eyed, the All-American boy. Both men are tall, but Wesley has a couple of inches on Mike and there’s no mistaking the fact that he’s broader, more powerfully built. They keep their eyes locked on each other, staring each other down and Isabel wonders absently if she’s been transported back in time to the Wild West.

  The ridiculousness of the situation makes Isabel find her voice. “Wesley. What are you doing here?” She isn’t even aware she had stood up and is already walking towards him.

  He looks at her now, focusing on her with those dark, bottomless eyes of his that make her want to fall into them and never find her way out. She swallows hard, noticing the way he looks her over, the way his eyes become hooded with lust as they roam her scantily clad body. It’s only then, when his gaze flicks to Mike, taking in his pajama bottoms that Isabel realizes what this must look like.

  Wesley had stumbled on them eating breakfast together, looking for all the world like a happy couple, the morning after. She starts to tell him that it’s not what he thinks, that she and Mike aren’t together, before she remembers he’s the one who walked out and left her. He’s the one who disappeared into thin air. She doesn’t owe him any kind of explanation. Let him think what he wants. His eyes burn as the possibilities seem to run through his head.

  “So, how do you two know each other?” Mike looks between Wesley and Isabel, but there’s no doubt in her mind he already knows the answer to that.

  Isabel starts to explain before realizing that she actually has no idea where to start.

  “I’m just a tenant.” Wesley hoists the bag that he’s let drop back over his shoulder. “But I guess there’s no more space for me here.” He looks at Isabel then, as if he’s asking her that exact question.

  “We have room, Wes.” Isabel keeps her voice low, not wanting to give her emotions away.

  She can sense the way that Mike is looking between the two of them, assessing their movements, the way they’re staring at each other.

  “You’re him, aren’t you?” Mike nods slowly in understanding, as if everything makes sense now. “You’re the guy who walked out.”

  Wesley nods, almost imperceptibly, but he doesn’t take his eyes off of Isabel. “I didn’t want to. But I didn’t have any choice.”

  Isabel bites her lip, not wanting to believe what it is he’s telling her, needing more. “So why did you come back?”

  Wesley opens his mouth to tell her, to tell her all of the things he’s been thinking and feeling for the past month but his gaze flicks between her and Mike again and back to her. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s going on here. “I guess that doesn’t really matter anymore.” He takes a step back as if to put some distance between himself and Isabel.

  The connection between them hasn’t dimmed at all over time; if anything it’s even stronger. She can feel herself being pulled into his orbit again, but this time she has to show some kind of self-restraint; she has to employ some kind of self-preservation. Otherwise she’s in great danger of being pulled under again.

  “Wes, tell me. Why are you here?” Her voice is strong, despite the fact that her knees feel as if they’re knocking together.

  He looks at her then, and she almost wishes he hadn’t. The expression of hurt on his face is enough to bowl her over. “How long did it take, Bel? Did you call lover boy the minute I walked out the door or did you wait at least a couple of days?” He shakes his head at her and Isabel rears back as if he had hit her.

  “Now, wait a minute -” Mike tries to intervene on her behalf but Isabel has no plans to let anyone else fight her battles for her.

  “You’ve been gone for over a month, Wes. Or did that little fact somehow slip your mind?” She points her finger at him as if it were a weapon.

  “I told you why I had to go.” He steps forward, filling up the space in front of her, but she’s not intimidated; she knows him too well. His nearness is intoxicating and it’s all she can do just to stay upright and not lean into him.

  “Yeah, you did and you also told me I didn’t get any kind of a say in it!” Isabel throws her hands up in despair. Whenever she had thought of Wes reappearing in her life, this isn’t how it had played out at all.

  “I did it for you, Bel.” His words come out through gritted teeth. “I did it for you.�
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  “Bullshit.” She says the word with enough venom for him to widen his eyes. “You did it for yourself, to relieve your own guilty conscience.” She knows she’s being harsh but a month of no contact from someone you thought really cared will do that to you.

  “And what part of yourself were you relieving with blue eyes over here?” Wesley jerks his thumb at Mike as if the other man can’t hear what it is he is saying.

  “Hey, that’s enough.” Mike slams a hand down on the kitchen table and both Isabel and Wesley turn to face him at his sudden outburst.

  Immediately, Isabel feels like a heel. She and Wesley are going at each other as if there is no tomorrow, leaving Mike in the middle of an argument that he wasn’t even aware he is a part of.

  “Mike, I’m sorry. You shouldn’t be involved in this.” She takes a step towards him and he holds up his hand to stop her.

  “This is him, isn’t it, Issy?” Mike’s focus is on Isabel. He doesn’t once look at Wesley.

  Isabel nods wordlessly and Mike rakes his fingers through his hair, as if she’s just confirmed something he hoped he was wrong about.

  “So where does this leave us?” He looks at her, a whole world of hurt in his eyes.

  “Mike, I -” She stops, not knowing what it is she wants to say, only knowing it’s not fair for him for them to have this conversation with Wesley standing right there.

  “It’s all right. I get it. I really do.” He holds his hands up in surrender. “I’ll just go get my things.” He starts to walk out but Isabel grabs hold of his hand.

  “All right, everyone just hold up for a minute.” She looks at both men, her levels of impatience reaching stellar levels. “You,” she points to Wesley, “your old room is all made up. And you,” she points to Mike, “you sit down.”

  “I’m not staying.”

  “Issy, this isn’t -”

  Both men speak at the same time, in the same stubborn tone.

  Isabel shakes her head, holding her hands up to get them to stop. “I don’t want to hear it. Wes, we’ll talk later. Mike, sit the hell down.” She crosses her arms over her chest, just waiting for one of them to give her a reason to get even madder.

  “Has she always been this bossy?” The amusement in Wesley’s voice is the last thing she expects.

  “Pretty much.” Mike’s response is equally full of humor. “I think the professors are even a little scared of her.”

  The smile the men exchange throws her completely off guard. “It’s nice everyone’s bonding and all that, but -”

  “I know, I know. I’m going.” Wes holds his hands up in surrender, but she doesn’t miss the heart-stopping grin he throws her before he disappears down the hallway in the direction of his old bedroom.

  “And I’m sitting.” Mike imitates Wes’s pose and sits down hard on the wooden chair, crossing his arms and looking at her expectantly.

  Now that they’ve actually done what Isabel has asked, she feels a little at a loss of what to do next. Focus, Bishop, focus. She takes a deep breath, deciding whether she should speak from her head or from her heart. Looking into Mike’s eyes that look bluer than ever before, she knows what she has to do. She opens her mouth and speaks.

  CHAPTER 6

  Isabel hugs herself, still reeling a little from the conversation she’s just had with Mike. She bites her bottom lip as she stands outside Wesley’s bedroom door. She’s lifted her hand to knock more than once, but she hasn’t been able to follow through. By the time she and Mike had finished talking and Isabel had focused her thoughts back onto Wesley for the second part of what is going to definitely go down in history as the day she made one of the biggest decisions of her life if not the biggest, she isn’t even sure if he was still there. It isn’t hard to imagine that Wesley has lost interest in waiting around and has just walked right out the back door, leaving again just like he had before.

  That’s partly why she’s still standing outside his room, frozen to the spot, scared to go in. Because, for now, she can still believe that he’s inside, that he hasn’t left again. But once she knocks and he doesn’t answer, that’s when it becomes real again that he’s left without her being able to explain.

  “Are you going to stand out there all day or are you actually going to come in?” His voice through the door makes her spirits rise and she can’t help smiling to herself that he could sense her presence, the same way she knows whenever he walks into a room. It is as if the air itself changed, as if the molecules vibrated whenever he is close by.

  She pushes the door open and finds him prowling around the room, pacing like a caged animal. He’s not a man that is used to being still, that is something she learned about him from early on. She’d also learned that he tended to pace when he was nervous.

  “So, how’s Mike?” He says the name with a little less hate than he had managed to muster before.

  “Do you really want to talk about him right now?” She levels a serious gaze at him and watches as he ducks his head in silent agreement with her. She perches on the edge of the bed, watching as he continues to pace around the room. “You came back, Wes. Why?” This, she has decided, is the most important question of all.

  “How long have you been sleeping with him?” Wesley’s question comes out through gritted teeth as if he can’t even bear to think about it let alone say the words.

  Isabel shakes her head, knowing she’s not going to get any of the answers that she needs to be able to move on until he’s through. “He only arrived yesterday, Wes. It was as much a surprise to me as it was to you.” She waits, knowing there will be more questions coming.

  “What did he want?” He doesn’t look at her as he prowls around the room like a panther, but she can feel the tension radiating off of him.

  Isabel sighs, knowing Wesley won’t want to hear this, but that he needs to. “He wanted to tell me that he wants to be with me.”

  Wesley stops in his tracks, as if her words have frozen him to the spot. “He’s in love with you.”

  It’s a statement not a question, but Isabel answers anyway, knowing she needs to. “That’s what he said.”

  “And what about you?” Isabel can almost hear him holding his breath.

  “What about me?” She shakes her head, angry that she’s the only answering any questions.

  “Bel.” His voice is a warning, as if he’s telling her not to play around with him.

  “I think it’s my turn to get some answers, don’t you?” She pushes herself up from the bed, her own agitation forcing her to move.

  Wesley doesn’t respond but she doesn’t need him to. She’s more than happy to just push on.

  “Why did you come back, Wes?”

  “You keep asking me the same question.” He shakes his head as if it doesn’t make any sense.

  “Because it’s the only answer I care about right now.” She watches him, her arms crossed tightly over her chest so he can’t see her hands shaking.

  Wesley looks at her, takes her in with that familiar way he has and then he looks up at the sky, as if he’s looking for some kind of salvation there. “I came back because of you.” Wes’s words are said so softly that, at first, Isabel isn’t sure that she’s actually heard him correctly.

  She looks at him, nonplussed, though her heart feels like it’s about to beat out of her chest. “Because you needed someone to patch you up? That cut over your eye looks pretty nasty.” She’s proud of herself for keeping her voice on an even keel.

  “No! Jesus, Bel.” Wes closes the distance between them, close enough to touch. “I came back because I miss you.” He yells the words at her as if they were insults rather than endearments. She waits, not daring to move, not daring to say anything before she’s heard everything. “I came back because I miss the smell of you, the taste of you, the way you get a dimple in one of your cheeks when you smile, the way you pretend to be all tough when you’re really the best person I know. I came back because I feel like something’s missing when you’
re not with me.” He reaches out to touch her but then seems to think better of it and lets his hand fall back to his side. “But it doesn’t matter anymore, does it? None of it matters. I’m too late.” He rubs the dark stubble on his cheeks, his dark eyes bottomless.

  “It’s only too late if you want it to be.” Isabel only just manages to get the words out before her voice threatens to break.

  Wesley’s gaze snaps up to meet hers, a question in his eyes. “What about Mike?”

  “Mike and I are friends. That’s all we ever should have been; that’s all we ever will be.” Isabel bites her lip, hoping he can’t tell how churned up all her emotions are right now.

  “I thought you and he...” He trails off as Isabel shakes her head. “So you didn’t...? I mean, last night you and he didn’t...?” Wesley stops short of actually saying the words, as if even saying them causes him pain.

  “I haven’t been with anyone since you, Wes.” She takes a deep breath saying the words she wishes she had said a month ago. “I don’t want to be with anyone else but you ever again.”

  Wesley looks at her, his eyes wide. He couldn’t have looked any more shocked if she’d just told him that she’d won the lotto.

  Isabel carries on talking, just to fill the void of silence that’s putting her more and more on edge. “I told Mike I love him like a friend, but that’s all, that it wouldn’t be fair to him for me to say anything else.” She shakes her head. “He said he understood. Before he left, he said he could already see that I can’t give him my heart because I’d already given it to someone else.”

  She bites her bottom lip, watching as Wesley stares at her in that inscrutable, intense way of his. Before he has a chance to say anything she barrels on, scared that if she doesn’t say everything she has to in one go that she’ll lose her nerve and the chance will be over. “I was so angry with myself that I just let you leave.” She shakes her head, her words brining back all the feelings that were bubbling just under the surface. “When my mother died, I didn’t have a choice. The only thing I could do was watch as she slipped away from me. But with you, with you I could have stood up and fought for what I wanted. And I was scared I would never get to say that to you, that I would never get the chance to tell you how I feel.” She’s babbling now and she’s suddenly become aware of the wetness on her cheeks.