A growl of rage echoed off the tile walls and the weight of the man on my back lifted. I immediately twisted away, scrambled to my feet, and headed straight at the emergency box without looking back. I flipped the plastic door open and smashed the button as hard as I could. Adrenaline spiked my heart and sent it catapulting against my rib cage.

  The emergency lights flicked on and the alarm sounded throughout the tunnels, too loud and not loud enough at the same time. I turned in time to see Sean throw my attacker into the tiled floor with a whump loud enough to be heard despite the alarm’s cry for help.

  He kicked the knife away and it skittered off onto the tracks.

  Sean bared his teeth, his muscular shoulders tensed. He growled like an animal as he fell on the man who whined and begged for forgiveness. He swore he meant no harm, but Sean gave him no mercy. He captured his shirt in his fist, pulled the man’s chest off the floor and punched him back down over and over again like a man possessed. For a split second I thought Sean might kill him, the way he beat his anger into him.

  Somewhere nearby I could hear boots hitting tile, the urgency of protection against the alarm wailing Danger! I ran to Sean then, wanting so badly to get away from all the noise and terror.

  I grabbed his shoulders, wrapped my fingers around his fists to hold him back. He stumbled, twisted into me, and somehow we ended up wrapped in each other, his hand in my hair holding my face against his chest and me with my fingers locked tight around knots of his shirt.

  7

  ____________

  “Can I take her home now?” Sean kept his voice low, the mayhem of the station subdued. Two police officers and one of the transport authority deputies had answered the call for help, but by the time they’d arrived my attacker was on the ground moaning and Sean and I knelt several feel away holding onto each other for all we were worth. There was nothing for them to do but take our statements and haul the criminal off to jail.

  At the other end of the platform, my attacker sat slumped over, hands cuffed behind his back. He bent his head down but I could see bruises the size of apples already showing through his scruff. I’d repeated my story three times already, and by the third description I was done. Exhausted. I didn’t care that my cheek throbbed, that my body hurt. I’d gone through the five stages of grief in about sixty seconds and now I wanted to go home.

  My eyes traced the spill of my belongings across the tile. Lipstick. Wallet. Tampon. Paperback book. A pound of change. Having these strangers analyze my belongings and write down a list of all the things that made up me, Kara Mahoney, made me feel strangely more violated than when my attacker had done it looking for money. I didn’t want any of it back.

  “We have all we need. This isn’t his first time attacking a woman, though he’s never hurt one of his victims before. He shouldn’t see daylight for a while. Thanks for your help.”

  Sean shook the officer’s hand and began collecting each of my lost objects one-by-one.

  My cell phone vibrated between my fingers and I tapped the screen. Marcus’s grinning face popped up, but it did not inspire as much pleasure as it usually did. I was too tired to get excited for him.

  Party’s over. Changed my mind. Want to see you. Coming to get you.

  I thumbed a message back.

  Not home. With police. Was mugged while waiting at the subway. I’m fine. I promise. Bad guy’s in custody. Just want to go home and sleep.

  Sean returned to where I was sitting on the bench. I turned my phone off when he got close and tucked it in my jacket pocket.

  “How’re you holding up?” He handed me my bag, then offered his hand, and I took that too. It felt more calloused than I remembered. Too many hours of cutting and chopping and too many kitchen burns and hot pans, I guessed.

  “Besides the fact I feel like the word victim has been carved into my forehead, I’m ok. He didn’t hurt me.” I touched my cheek hesitantly with my fingertip. I could feel a cut, but it had stopped bleeding a while ago. “Well, maybe a little. Nothing that won’t heal.”

  Sean tugged my hand until I was standing. He put an arm across my back and urged me away from the crime scene.

  “Come on. Let’s go take a look at that.”

  He pulled me into the men’s room after making sure it was empty. I stood near the sink and Sean stepped in close to me. Too close.

  “Up,” he whispered as he placed his hands on my hips. I slid up onto the edge of the countertop, a secret part of me stirring with pleasure at being given a command from this man it could happily obey.

  He moved his hands down to my bare knees to just above my socks and parted my legs slowly. The memory of this felt so acutely real it took my breath away and started my heart hammering despite my exhaustion. He was so close, his hot breath on my face, the warmth radiating through his fingertips on my bare skin. It all felt so deliciously familiar. I gazed up at his face, but he watched my knees where his hands touched. His eyes glassed over and I thought I could detect a hitching change in his breathing, too.

  When Sean pulled his hands away, they were shaking.

  He grabbed a handful of paper towels, ran one under the faucet, and then moved expertly between my parted legs to get as close as possible. He touched a fingertip under my chin, raised my gaze to meet his, and lightly guided my face to turn so that my wounded cheek was facing him, every touch given with frightening intimacy.

  He held me still with his thumb on my chin and index finger beneath it. Very gently he touched the wet paper towel to the dry edges of my scratch. I flinched, tried to yank away from him, but he held me steady.

  “Shhh,” he whispered. “I’ve got you.”

  The ghost of a smile caught the corners of his mouth and I considered what the consequences might be if I pressed my mouth against that smile.

  “Reminds me of the Syler game my junior year,” he murmured.

  “If I remember right, it was you and Zach against the entire Syler soccer team that night after the game.”

  “Not our fault they were sore losers.” Sean tossed the paper towel and grabbed a new one, ran it under warm water before beginning again. “You tried to stop that fight single handedly and ended up taking an elbow to the nose. There was so much blood, man, I thought you were dying. You’d only let Maris anywhere near you.” He got quiet then, lost in the memory of that night, maybe. I could relate.

  I remembered Maris holding a bag of frozen French fries against my nose she bullied from the boy working the concession stands. I remember I couldn’t taste food for days. I remember we made love twice a night for a week after that game.

  “I stopped the fight though.”

  “With your nose.”

  I shrugged. “A girl uses what she’s got.”

  He smirked, then pulled away. “There. It’s only a scratch. Should heal up fine , but put some hydrogen peroxide on it when you get home.” He drew his fingers gently along the underside of my jaw and turned away as if embarrassed. I slid off the counter and straightened my paint splattered dress.

  Memories hung heavy between us, and not only of that terrible soccer game. We walked back to the station, empty now as if nothing had happened. The train pulled up less than a minute later and without asking or being asked, he got on the train with me and we shared a seat despite the empty car. I set my hand on the bench between us and he did too so that our fingers almost touched.

  I couldn’t help but think of the subway couple I’d seen the night before.

  His phone rang twice. He glanced at the screen, then silenced it and returned it to his pocket each time. Taylor, I wondered. Or Zach.

  Moments before the familiar sway of the train pulled into my station, he broke the tension between us by closing the distance and covering my hand with his. Our fingers intertwined, squeezed, but the touch was brief. As soon as the doors opened he let go and got out first with me close on his heels.

  We filed up onto the street side-by-side, his hands shoved into his pockets, mine holding my jacket tight against me.

  “This is a nice neighborhood,” he said without looking at me.

  “Thanks.”

  He cleared his throat. “Do you…do you live alone?”

  My heart knotted. “Just me and Molly.” He glanced at me and I thought…I don’t know. I thought I saw relief in his eyes.

  “Molly?”

  “My cat. When you get your degree in library science, they hand one out with your diploma. You get a cat, a pair of glasses, and a pencil skirt.”

  “Wow. Hot.” A grin lit up his beautiful face. The warm emotion was fleeting. “I was there, you know. At your graduation.”

  “What?” His admission did something to me I wasn’t expecting and it hurt. I staggered to a stop and he halted a few steps further and turned to me. My hand went to my neck and I didn’t know why, like I couldn’t take a deep enough breath. “No. Don’t tell me that, Sean. I don’t want to know that.”

  “Kara…” He tried to grab my hand to stop me from bolting again but I put up both palms against his chest to stop him. We were so close I could smell him, his shampoo, his cologne, the simmering raspberries on his fingertips. It was too much. It was all too much. “I wanted to be there. It seemed important at the time.”

  A black car screeched in front of my building, still a half block away, and the back door opened before the driver could get out. Marcus threw himself up my building’s stairs two and a time. I could hear him mashing the call button from here.

  “You have to go home, Sean.” I pushed him back from view of my apartment into the shadowy corner of the building. Confusion filled Sean’s eyes, but he back peddled beyond the street light. “You need to go now.”

  “Who is that?” he asked, but he knew. We were both fully aware of the inappropriate jealousy that hardened his voice. “Kara. Who is that man?”

  I only made it a few feet away from him before I stopped and reluctantly faced him one last time.

  “Thank you, Sean. For coming after me. Don’t do it again.”

  Before he could ask the questions I didn’t want to answer, I turned and ran for my apartment. Marcus shouted my name and met me halfway. He wasted no time in sweeping me up into his arms and holding me with all his strength and I needed it. I needed all the strength he had to offer if I was going to keep breathing.

  “Jesus, Kara, are you alright? Why haven’t you been answering my messages?” Marcus pulled back and grabbed my face in his hands, turned it so he could see the scrape. I winced when he pressed unknowingly against the bruise forming over my cheek.

  “I’m ok, Marcus. I’m ok. I’m so sorry. Let’s go to your place. Let’s go right now.”

  “Of course. Anything you want.” His tux smelled like wine and perfume that wasn’t mine but I let him pull me into his body and kiss my face without regard to the ache in my cheek and jaw. He held open the door and helped me in before going around to the other side.

  When I thought it was safe I turned and glanced out the back window to the corner of the street where I’d left him. A part of me wanted him to have vanished like he had six years ago.

  A part of me needed to know he hadn’t.

  Sean stepped out of the shadows to stand on the street corner, hands folded into his pockets. He watched us and I watched him until the car pulled us out of sight.

  8

  ____________

  Marcus paced his bedroom and I watched him until it made me nauseous. I rolled onto my back and stared at the inset ceiling panels pressed with nearly invisible satin fleur de lis. I was lying on the finest organic cotton sheets money could buy, surrounded by pillowy down and a glass of wine that cost more than I made in a month. Marcus had drawn me a bath and washed my skin free of paint and the dark smears on my hands and knees from the station floor. I’d told him about the restaurant and the painting and conveniently left out all references to Sean. His hands had been magic, rubbing and drawing the tension from them, and his kisses had been full and here, not shared with anyone. Not dreaming of anyone else.

  And despite all that I selfishly couldn’t relax, couldn’t feel safe, couldn’t bring myself to want to be here.

  I barely heard him talking to me, going over the attack, his inability to help me. Instead it was white noise and I closed my eyes and tried to block him out.

  All I could think about was that I should have kissed him when I had the chance.

  I was such a fraud.

  “You’re moving in with me until we can find you a different place closer to mine. That’s the end of it. And you’ll have a driver.”

  My thoughts startled like a record scratch and I immediately sat up, alarm flooding my exhausted body. “What? No. I don’t want to move in with you and I don’t want a driver.”

  “Don’t argue with me, Kara. What happened to you tonight is unacceptable. He hit you. What if he’d wanted more than your money? What would you have done if you couldn’t hit the distress alarm? He could have taken anything he wanted and you’d have been powerless to stop him. I want you safe. I can’t worry about you like this.” Marcus set his hands on his hips, his chest still shiny wet from the shower. Normally I would have loved to have watched him like this. I would have pressed my mouth to catch the lonely water drops from his chest. Now all I wanted to do was grab my things and leave.

  “I wasn’t alone, Marcus.”

  His brows furrowed and I felt the air close in around us as suspicion filled his eyes. “You didn’t say that before.”

  “I didn’t want to upset you.” I sighed and rubbed my palms across my face. “I was with Sean. The restaurant? It belongs to him and his older brother. His brother asked me to do the mural for them.”

  “Sean,” Marcus repeated. “The Sean?”

  “Yes. The Sean.”

  He lowered himself to the edge of the bed and leaned forward on his knees. I noticed the tension cross through his shoulders as the silence stretched between us.

  “You seeing him,” he said quietly. “That’s not acceptable.”

  I expected him to react poorly, but his tone threw me off entirely. I startled and sat back away from him.

  “Excuse me?”

  Marcus turned to meet my wide eyes head on. “I know our relationship is a little unconventional, but Kara, I know how you feel about this guy. I have heard you scream his name while I fucked you as if it were him inside you and not me. I am grateful he was there but it is unacceptable for you to be alone with this man. I can’t accept that.”

  I stared gob-smacked, unable to process his strange, overbearing attitude that only came out when we had sex. I didn’t like that it bled outside our play.

  “He’s in a relationship, Marcus,” I said gently, instead of all the other things I wanted to yell about not telling me what to do. That seemed like a really bad idea.

  “So are you.”

  “Am I? I don’t know what we are, Marcus. But even so, nothing happened between us. Nothing is ever going to happen between us. He’s serious with another woman and what we had was a long time ago, even if sometimes my subconscious forgets.”

  He made a sound like laughter that was anything but funny. He stood and swiped a t-shirt off the chair beside the closet and pulled it on over his wet body. His anger was painful to witness. “You’ve got more commitment issues than most guys I know. If you can’t see how inappropriate this is, I don’t see how we can have anything either.”

  Marcus stalked out of the room before I could answer. I stared at the space he’d moments ago inhabited and let his words fall through me. Commitment issues? Did I have those?

  No. No I wanted to be with someone. I wanted someone to want me. I didn’t want secrets and lies and misdirection. I didn’t want to dodge paparazzi or lie to my friends. It was Sean and Marcus who’d kept me hidden. I was ready for someone to share me with the world.

  But I couldn’t ignore my own truth. Sean was in a committed, serious relationship. We’d shared something tonight, but it was born out of a serious situation and complicated by memories of a better time. Nothing changed the fact he’d left me without any explanation and cut all ties once he was gone. It didn’t change the fact he had Taylor.

  Despite my exhaustion, I climbed out of bed and tiptoed into the living room where his desk stared out over a wall of windows filled by a sleepy, dark city. Office lights twinkled on and off like stars. He caught sight of my reflection in the window and turned to greet my body, covered only by one of his long button up shirts and my underwear. Marcus grabbed my hips and pulled me into his face. He kissed my belly and wiped his hands slowly down my thighs. I steeled myself as he stood, took my hand, and pulled me over to the couch.

  He sunk down into the soft white leather and reached into his boxers to free his strong erection. I stood between his knees and watched as he hooked his finger around the crotch of my panties and tugged them down to my ankles.

  “Come here, Kara. Show me that you choose me.”

  I climbed obediently onto my knees over his lap. He pushed my shirt up over my wide hips and helped maneuver my body over his throbbing cock. The heat between my legs uncurled like a sleeping dragon. He waxed his fingers between my lips, felt for the moisture that proved my excitement, and he wasn’t disappointed. What he didn’t know was that I’d been wet all night long at a constant, slow burn. He didn’t need to know it hadn’t been his doing.

  He didn’t need to know that and I had to forget that.

  “Down,” he ordered, and I placed my hands on his shoulders while he held his erection in one hand. His eyes stared between us as the head of his cock pressed against my lips and slowly spread them while I lowered my body. I drew the pleasure out so he could watch me feed his cock into my body just the way he liked it. It took all my concentration to keep my head in the here and now and not let it drift away.

  Marcus was who I needed. Marcus would stay with me. He wanted me to move in, even temporarily that was more than any man had ever offered me.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8