Off-Limits Box Set

by Ella James

  When I found his letters in my parents’ closet, I knew that wasn’t true. I wailed and raged. My parents held me while I cried, while I lashed out and threatened them and lost my mind. Then they put me on the plane—because they felt they had to.

  “We will get him back, Evie. While you’re away. We’re not lying, we just haven’t done it yet. Let us handle this. I know it doesn’t seem good now, but we will handle this. We want to talk to Landon. Really know what’s going on in his head. Try to trust us. If he wants what you want, we can help.”

  His letters crushed me. I felt as if I was deserting him, but I trusted my parents. I trusted DHS, that they would want the best for Landon. If my parents wanted to foster him again, I thought that they could get him out of a group home. They’d told me that they would adopt him if that was what we really wanted. My mother looked me in the eyes and promised that she’d find a way.

  So I went to Cambridge, with our baby. I let him go on not knowing the truth.

  I didn’t see his other letters until my junior year of college. After all the chips had fallen. After it was broken—our love story.

  3-22-07

  Things here have gotten worse. The trucker lost his job and he’s been home more. There are twelve kids here, the two women (the wife and her sister Lindy), plus the man. There’s something wrong with this guy. I’m hanging in here because some of the kids are younger. They need someone here who isn’t fucking nuts. But I don’t know how much longer I can do it, Evie. I got some blankets on my bed again. At night I get under them and try to remember you. Sometimes it helps me sleep. I found your school’s calendar on the computer lab computer, and I printed it. At least I can try to picture what you’re doing. Evie, I love you so much. I miss everything about you. You’re so good, Evie. Don’t forget how good you are, and don’t feel bad about not writing me. I’ll find you down the road, okay? I hope your friends are being good to you, and concert band is fun, and Emmaline is giving you the hugs I wish I could. I wanted so much more than this, Evie. One day I’ll come and find you. One day soon.

  March 24, my parents’ request to foster Landon again was turned down, basically because of how they’d shipped him out at Christmas. On March 25, they filed the first of many papers to adopt him. They had planned to wait, but his March 22nd letter spurred them on.

  4-3-07

  I sent the newspaper a letter. Tipped them off. I didn’t trust DHS to get the other kids out of here.

  Ev, I’m leaving this place. I can get my GED if I don’t finish. If you find out I left, don’t worry, okay? I know I said skipping town is dangerous for people in my position, but I’m more bulletproof than average. I took the SAT in January and I got a 1600. Colleges will take me.

  I want to see you, Evie. I want to touch you. God, I want to talk to you. Ev, I need you.

  I love you. It hurts so bad that I haven’t heard from you, but I feel better when I think that probably means you’re doing well. I hope you still remember me. I hope you know I’m getting out of here for you. One day, I’m going to come find you. Until then, I remain yours. Every part of me. Forever.

  Landon left that day. We didn’t know it at the time—I didn’t know it until tonight—but apparently, he ended up in Knoxville. My family didn’t hear from him again until the day he showed up at our door, that next Christmas. Emmaline answered. By the time she told my dad, Landon had gone.

  It didn’t matter. It was too late. September had come, and it had gone, and with it, any chance we might have had to have a life together.

  So I thought.

  Six

  Landon

  I knew she was here when I applied for the program. I’ve kept track of Evie since the day I left her parents’ house. Not because I thought she wanted that. Because I had to. Some things aren’t choices, and over time, we come to terms with that. Evie is one of my life’s facts.

  What did I think would happen when I accepted the position as an intern here? I try to answer that as I lie in my bed. I have my window open. I can see the city spread before me, glowing in the dark that soon will turn to gray, then blue, then orange.

  Evie.

  Even running her name through my mind gives me an element of peace. Peace where there should be none.

  I can’t sleep, of course, and by now, I know what to do. I go into the living area and look at my tea pot, but I can’t stand to wait for it. With so much in the air, waiting feels like claws around my neck. It feels like hands around my neck at that old group home, right before I split.

  So I walk.

  Down the hall and to the elevator, through the lobby, out the doors, into the cool night, which is gray with morning, having lightened slightly while I walked downstairs.

  Around the corner, there’s a coffee shop that’s open all night. It serves tea, too. Chamomile, with milk and honey. I don’t realize till I get there what my plan is. I buy two insulated cup infusers, a box of my favorite brand of chamomile, plus a little quilt-looking thing the girl behind the counter calls a “mug rug.” It’s pink and green paisley, and it looks a little like her bedspread print, which I remember so well from the couch.

  I walk slowly home while the day brightens and the mountains wink through summer haze. At home, I steep some tea in one of the cup-sized diffusers, then add milk and honey and go straight to bed. I sleep for nine hours. When I wake up, I go by the bank and withdraw three thousand dollars. Several hours later, I steep Evie’s tea, get into my newly acquired 2008 Ford Focus, and drive to the hospital.

  Evie

  I find the cup and mug rug in my locker after the longest day ever. After a day in which I felt like I was dying alongside the forty-two-year-old woman who actually did—in a tumor resection I was in on with Eilert and Hamm, one of the younger attendings.

  I open my locker, swaying on my sore feet at 9:45 p.m., and there it is. As if it’s always been there. Tea. I know it by the color and consistency, and many years of tired sipping: chamomile.

  In the few seconds I stare at it, my body heats up hotter than the tea, because…it must be him. I never drink chamomile at work; no one I work with but Eilert really even knows me. Except for Landon.

  When I turn around, I find him sitting at one of the round tables, feet kicked up into a chair, fingers steepled in his lap, blinking at one of the walls, all inconspicuous-like.

  I give him a slow smile.

  Landon smiles back, low-key and mysterious; flirty.

  I hold out the cup and arch my brows. I look down at the mug rug in my other hand. “Pink and green. My favorite colors.” I tap my chin, twisting my mouth in mock confusion. “Do you know who left this for me?”

  “Must have been a pretty awesome motherfucker.”

  I shrug. “Thoughtful, sure. But pretty awesome? Ehhh.”

  His jaw drops slightly. “Someone brought you tea—hot tea—and left it for you, and you’re gonna talk like that?”

  “Well, just to you.” I wave my hand dismissively.

  “Just.” He shakes his head, looking insulted.

  And right then, I have this dizzying moment where it doesn’t seem real. That Landon and I are joking. That we work together. That we had sex last night. That he doesn’t know. I take a deep breath, and the moment passes.

  Calm down, Evie. Focus on the moment.

  To anchor my mind, I drag my gaze up and down him, trying to give myself something to observe.

  “You look very rested,” I observe. He’s wearing a gray T-shirt, khaki shorts, and beat-up sneakers. His hair has that just-washed look about it, and his gray eyes look brighter than I’ve seen them lately.

  “Being pretty awesome brings out my good looks.”

  I laugh, and sip more tea, and Landon looks me over. “You look tired.”

  “I am.” I take another long sip of the tea and lean my butt against the donut room’s counter. “We had one bite it in a meningioma resection. Don’t know if you heard already. How long have you been around?”

  “
Just got here.” He moves his feet out of the chair and turns his full attention on me. “What happened?”

  I describe the surgery, a resection of a meningioma tumor at T4, and the simple mistake Hamm made while narrating his technique to Eilert and me.

  “Fuck. How’d Hamm take it?”

  I shrug. “You know how the older doctors are. I guess you have to be. I couldn’t even tell he was upset. He had to go and tell the family, obviously.” I fold my hands around the warm cup, shaking my head. “I don’t know. But I guess that’s normal, that he kept things professional?” Losing a patient in the OR on a non-emergent surgery is somewhat uncommon, even in our field. I’ve only seen it happen one other time so far.

  Landon looks down at his clasped hands, then back up. I love his gray eyes. Right now, they look thoughtful. “Probably. We lost a guy at Hopkins last year on a glioma resection. Attending was female. I saw her mouth do that little wobbly thing—you know, the little crying twitch—right when we were scrubbing out, but that was it. He had a young wife she went and told. Now I don’t know what she did that night,” he says, implying maybe the attending cried at home.

  “So anyway…” I shake my head and bring the cup’s rim to my mouth. “I really need this.”

  I feel a growing buoyancy as I peer down at him: freshly showered, rested Landon, here on his “off” day to bring me tea.

  I cried half the night, and it was really therapeutic. Acknowledging what happened to us. Thinking about the time between then and now. Sometimes, it’s good to do that. When I woke up, though, I felt hollow, as if time was suspended until I saw which way this thing would go. I half figured he’d avoid me, considering he didn’t stay long after. I wondered if that was for the best. I knew for sure if he did dodge me, there’d be no way I could pursue him. Not in good conscience.

  Landon stands up, hands going into pockets. “You finished?”

  I nod, pulling my briefcase out of my locker. I slide my tablet inside and dare to look back at him. “Did you come just for me?” My stomach twists as I ask.

  “Should have waited on your steps,” he says as he moves toward the hall door.

  I take another sip of tea to stifle a giddy smile. We walk past the nurse’s station. I’m surprised when no one looks twice at us. Can’t they see the magnitude of this? Landon gets the stairwell door, and we start down the stairs, with him a step behind me.

  “So,” I ask over my shoulder, “you still drink your chamomile?”

  He smirks. “Ever since some bossy girl got me turned onto it.”

  I feel my face go hot at the words “turned on.”

  “Tell me you’re not blushing. From me saying turned onto it?” He gives a low laugh. “Oh, Evie. That’s not good.”

  “It’s not?” I whisper.

  Landon drags his palm down his lower abs...and over his pants. Where there’s a tent. It makes me giggle. “Landon…”

  “Hey, it’s not my fault. How sheltered are you, Evie?” It’s half growled.

  “I’m not sheltered. I think you noticed that last night.”

  “Don’t mention last night.”

  I turn around to face him. “Why?”

  Alarm flickers over his features before they darken. “Do you want to get fucked in this stairwell, Evie?” His tone is quiet, controlled. It’s a tone I’ve never heard from him before.

  My heart thunders. “Is that on the table?” I whisper.

  “Do you want it to be?”

  I swallow, holding his intense gaze. “I think I always would,” I answer honestly.

  I’m going to pay for this…I almost know I am. But there it is: the truth of my heart, laid right at his feet. It feels so simple, this confession. How could I deny it? Loving Landon changed my life, and here he is again, and it feels fated. I’ll say yes as long as he’s asking.

  It won’t be forever, a voice in my head says.

  “Why do you make me feel like this?” The words are out before I get a chance to censor them.

  “Like what?” He steps closer, close enough to touch a lock of my hair. When I fail to answer, he says, “Like what, Evie?” His face is gentle, even though his eyes are burning.

  “We should leave the stairwell,” I say, glancing around. Someone could see us. That would really not be good.

  “How do I make you feel, Evie?”

  I exhale. “Like doing something stupid,” I say softly.

  He gives me a funny, eyebrows-raised look, then leads me by my hand down to the second floor, into a hall, and to a door. He looks both ways down the hall, then, seeing no one, opens it, revealing…a storage room for stretchers?

  As soon as he shuts the door behind us, he presses me against a wall and kisses me: my mouth, my cheek, my forehead, then my mouth again—a hard, rough kiss as he pushes his cock against my hip.

  “You think,” he says, between kisses, “that this is stupid?” I answer with my mouth, and when we stop to pant, he murmurs, “Do you?”

  “I…don’t know.”

  He urges me down onto the nearest stretcher, stroking my hair as he kisses me more gently. “Does it scare you?”

  “Yes.”

  I grab his neck. We kiss the way that people drown—helpless and frantic: Landon’s body over mine, his fingers in my hair, his mouth forceful on mine.

  In between our kisses, whispers.

  “I missed you.”

  “Landon—”

  “Forgive me.”

  “Why?”

  “For leaving.”

  We kiss until we can’t breathe, then we hold onto each other.

  “Christ, Evie. Why can’t I stay away from you?”

  “I’m irresistible?” I laugh.

  “You’re right, this is reckless,” he says, leaning over me.

  “I know.”

  “We could lose our jobs.”

  “I know.”

  And so much more. Landon doesn’t even know how much we stand to lose. How much safer—how much smarter—it is for us to steer clear of each other. Especially me. I need to stay away from him, because at some point soon, I’ll have to tell him. I’ve only kept it from him this long because I thought he’d be better off not knowing. I haven’t been around Landon in ten years. Now that this is happening again, the weight of my secret makes my heart feel like it’s breaking.

  An how ironic that it hurts so much. For years, I used to think that he and I were star-crossed lovers, soul mates held apart by circumstance. As we pull each other’s clothes off in that second-level closet, I revisit that idea…but twisted. I wonder if there’s a dark version of soul mates: people meant to hurt each other. No amount of love, regret, or effort can change that now. Just like no amount of sense can keep me from him.

  He wraps his arms around me, so we’re sitting on the stretcher, holding onto one another. His face brushes over my hair.

  “God, Evie.” We start to kiss again. Landon lays me on the stretcher. With a dark smile on his mouth, he straps my arms down, unbuttons my pants, reaches a hand into my panties. He kisses me and makes me come with probing fingers and a thumb that skates around my slick and swollen clit.

  I’m gasping, my heart pounding. “You’re so good…” Tears gather in my eyes as he looks down on me.

  He gives a small smile. “You are, Evie.”

  He looks down, and I see that his cock is rock-hard, bent in his pants. I reach for him. “Let me help you. Let my arms go.”

  He does. There’s only room in here for one of us to sit or lie down, so I slide down off the stretcher and unzip Landon’s pants, freeing his gorgeous cock.

  “Sit up there. Let the doctor take a look at this.”

  He chuckles, but it’s strained. He does what I said, sitting with his legs hanging off the edge, his cock jutting upward, his gray eyes glassy.

  I’ve never seen anything as hot in my whole life as Landon sitting on a stretcher with his undone face as I pull down his boxer-briefs, exposing cock and balls.

  I grab h
im, fondling his head and giving hard, fast strokes to his thick shaft as Landon groans and grabs my shoulders. Lust spears through me as I feel his balls bounce underneath. I want him in me, and for that reason, I kneel in front of him instead and take him in my mouth. I can’t reach him if I’m kneeling, so I crouch, my knees and thighs aching as I give him the most exquisite pleasure, till he’s got his teeth clamped on his lower lip to keep from moaning, and I taste the salt of just how close he is to losing it. He does moan, finally, and grabs my hair and tries to thrust his hips toward me, and when that fails, he tries to hold onto my head.

  “Ahhh, ahhhh—Evie.”

  As I blow him, I wonder how many other girls have in the years that I was gone, and whether they were worse or better. Whether their hands knew him like my hands do, whether their hands cared enough to stroke his balls and squeeze him just the way he taught me, suck him deep into my throat so tears streamed down their faces and they wondered if they might pass out from choking on his cock.

  And I hope they didn’t.

  This is mine. This man is mine. And even if he breaks me—and I know he will—I cannot let him go.

  The sound he makes as he comes in my mouth is music to my ears. The way his hands go gentle in my hair…

  He tilts his head back, and I stand and wipe my face and wrap my arms around him, easing his damp head against my chest. He pants there, and I stroke his hair. I touch his face. I run my hands down his strong arms and kiss his hands. I look down at them. His hands look the very same.

  “Why Knoxville?” I whisper.

  He looks at the door. “Let’s get out of here,” he says quietly. “I’ll tell you.”

  I watch as he puts himself in place and zips his pants. I can’t help smiling as he gets down off the stretcher.