Bound to Forbidden

by Keira Blackwood

  Dearest Dr. Stone,

  I hope this letter finds you well. I wish to schedule another appointment. It’s happening again. This time there were four. Please call me at your earliest convenience.

  Your friend,

  Lenore Pratchett

  I smiled at her politeness. Usually when I got an email from a client, it involved cursing and fractured sentences. There was one who would just write, call me bitch. There was never any capitalization or punctuation. I knew it was meant as an insult to me, but without the comma, it read as if that was his preferred nickname.

  I’d taken the advice I would have offered Daphne if she was looking for any, and cut him loose as a client.

  I made a mental note to call Lenore after the party, then slid my phone into my pocket. Enough time had passed that I could head over to Gram’s.

  The hall was blissfully quiet with the troublemaking guests out and about. I went downstairs and heard Daphne talking to someone.

  “You’re in luck, a room just opened up this morning. Brand new everything.”

  “Wonderful,” a man responded.

  Daphne went on, “You’ll have the whole floor to yourself,” she said in her always cheerful tone. “Let me know if you need anything.”

  At the bottom of the steps, Daphne smiled at me in passing. She popped back into the kitchen, and I got a glimpse of the newest guest.

  He had black hair slicked back in a pompadour style. He was super tall and thin, and wore a black leather jacket. He looked like he’d just stepped off the set of Grease. His face was pale and clammy, and there was a red mole on his cheek. His eyes darted around quite a bit.

  He looked at me, but his eyes quickly flicked away, and he backed slowly into his room. “Good afternoon,” he said, just before clicking the door shut.

  Another weirdo guest for Daphne. As long as this one was quiet, I didn’t care how clammy he was or what decade he’d strolled out of.

  I hopped into my rental and drove into Forbidden. Gram’s gift—a scarf with dahlias on it—sat wrapped in the seat next to me. I’d purchased it at the airport before leaving Denver. She never wanted gifts, but I hadn’t been able to resist because dahlias were her favorite flower.

  My hands clammed up and my heart raced as I entered town. The craziest part was I’d already run into James O’Malley. It should only get easier from there. But still I found myself a ball of nerves.

  I drove through the familiar streets. Everything was somehow both the same and different. Eden Groceries had a new sign, and the Hellfire Grill and Diner bore a fresh coat of paint on the outside.

  I pulled up to the curb in front of Gram’s rancher, opting against the driveway to avoid getting myself blocked in. There were only a few vehicles here before me. One was a cop car—that would be Matt. Another was my brother’s work truck.

  The three of us used to run around this place when we were little and play tag. The yard was exactly the same as it had always been, full of colorful flowers and mature bushes.

  Before I could knock on the door, it opened. My dad stood in front of me with a grin that spread from ear to ear. He looked exactly the same as I remembered, but with a little more gray and a few more wrinkles.

  “Annabelle!” He pulled me into a huge bear hug, squishing Gram’s gift between us. “Oh, sorry.”

  “No problem, it isn’t breakable.” I hugged him back, just as glad to see him as he was to see me. Though it really hadn’t been that long, since he’d come to visit me a few months prior.

  “I’m so happy you came,” he said.

  “Me, too.” I smiled as he released me.

  His grin turned a little bit sad as he realized the half-truth of my words, and he squeezed my hands. “It’ll mean the world to your Gram that you came. Just like it does to me.”

  I squeezed his hands back.

  He turned and scanned the room. “Ma, look who’s here!”

  There were familiar faces and some I didn’t recognize. Most people were talking to each other and paying me no mind. But none of them even registered. My eyes were fixed on the man across the room.

  James O’Malley.

  His golden brown hair was combed back, revealing his passionate, turquoise eyes. His face was hard, as was everything about him. I drank him in, from his black dress pants to the charcoal silk shirt that clung to his broad shoulders. He was sex on legs, and he was glaring at me.

  “Anna,” Gram stepped into my line of sight and grabbed my arms. “You look lovely, dear, though a bit thin. Make sure you eat.”

  “I will.” Though if anything, I’d gained a few pounds since leaving Forbidden, filling out from my boney teenage form. I offered her the smashed card and package that I held in my arms. “Happy birthday.”

  “That’s so sweet,” she said, and took both the gift and my jacket. “I need your help with something.”

  “What’s up?”

  “In here,” she said, poking me between the shoulders and shoving me toward the guest bedroom. “James,” she called, tugging him by the sleeve of his shirt, “I need you, too.”

  “What is it?” he asked, following me into the room.

  “Over there, by the dresser,” she said. “On the floor.”

  James and I stood as far apart as possible and squatted down.

  Then we heard the door shut behind us, and the unmistakable sound of a key turning and the lock clicking closed.

  “Gram?” I said, standing.

  Her voice was faint, but pleased-sounding. “Don’t come out until you’re speaking to each other.”

  Chapter 8

  James

  Anna looked at me.

  I looked at her.

  We both ran for the door. I was closer and beat her to it, so I tried the handle first.

  “She didn’t just do that.” Anna pushed me out of the way so she could try the door, too.

  “She did,” I said, catching my balance before braining myself on a bedpost. “You didn’t have to shove me.”

  “You didn’t have to be such a dick.”

  “You didn’t have to—” I didn’t finish the sentence. Run away had been on the tip of my tongue.

  Turning around, she put her back to the door and faced me. A new expression slid into place, making her look curious and detached, non-judgmental. “What were you about to say?” she asked.

  “Don’t use your therapist shit on me,” I said.

  “So you know I’m a therapist now.”

  “Your gram is always going on about it. Caleb too. Hard to ignore either of them.” The pride in their voices when talking about Anna had always gutted me. And whenever she brought it up, Anna’s grandmother would have a sparkle in her eye, like she was getting pleasure out of running my heart through a metaphorical garbage disposal. Sadistic old broad.

  “And here I thought you were searching for me on social media.”

  I gave her an incredulous look. “I don’t go on social media.”

  “You have an account,” she said, keeping her face straight.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “You do, too.” She pulled her phone from her pocket and pulled up a site I didn’t even recognize. “See?”

  She didn’t offer her phone to me, so I had to come over and stand next to her. As subtly as possible, I inhaled, because apparently I’m a masochist who likes surrounding himself with the things he can’t have.

  Chrysanthemums and clover.

  Fuck.

  I was a goner, all over again.

  I looked over her shoulder at the phone. James Butthole O’Malley, it read, below a terrible picture of me where my mouth was half open. CEO of Dicktastic Fuckery.

  “I’m going to fucking kill Brody.” I reached for the door handle again.

  “Don’t break Gram’s door,” Anna said, accurately reading my intent.

  “If she didn’t want her door broken, she shouldn’t have locked me in here with you.”

  “What’s wrong with me?” Anna said.
<
br />   I looked at her. “If you don’t know, then I don’t know why I should tell you.”

  “No, it just doesn’t make sense,” she said. “If anything, I’m the one who should be pissed at you, not the other way around.”

  “You have got to be kidding me.”

  She shook her head. “Are you gaslighting me?”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  She arched an eyebrow and folded her arms across her chest.

  I could still see the phone in her hand, with that terrible photo of me. It looked like I had a slice of pizza in my hand and I was about to take a bite.

  “First of all, stop swearing at me,” she said.

  “I’m not swearing at you, jeez fu—fudge.”

  “Now, instead of talking about who wronged who in vague terms, why don’t you tell me why you’re mad.”

  “Because you fu—freaking left,” I growled. “How can you not know that?”

  “You were already moving on,” she said dismissively.

  I stared at her. “No, I wasn’t.”

  “Well, you were obviously going to, because it wasn’t a week later that I heard you were out with someone else.”

  I shook my head. This made absolutely no sense. Here she was, standing in front of me and looking more beautiful than ever before—more beautiful than any woman I had ever laid eyes on in my entire life—and telling me I’d moved on.

  No one could compare to her. Not before, not after, not ever.

  Her hair was down, with soft strands falling around her face. She looked sexy and sweet. Her yellow dress had buttons going up it, and I wanted to pop them all free, opening her clothes to see what was underneath.

  “I never went out with anyone else,” I said.

  She arched that eyebrow of hers again. “Not Hazel?”

  I would have laughed if my heart wasn’t so fucking broken. “Nope. We were just friends. When I found out she might be feeling differently, we stopped hanging out.”

  Anna looked like she might be trying to find the lie in my words. I let the truth linger between us for a moment.

  “You left me,” I said. “I waited for hours on Mrs. Saltzman’s porch, holding the keys to our townhouse. You never showed up.”

  I took a step closer to her. Her breath came faster, raising the neckline of her dress.

  “And in ten years,” I continued, “ten years, there has never been anyone else for me.”

  Her eyes widened, looking like two shining caramel pools. Her clover scent wrapped around me, as potent as ever before.

  “No one else,” I said. “It’s always been you, Anna.”

  She sucked in a breath. “But...we were so young.”

  “Are we young now?” I asked.

  “No,” she whispered.

  I wanted to take her in my arms and kiss those sweet lips. My heart had done nothing but miss her for a decade. But if I gave into the urge, if I kissed her like my inner wolf wanted me to, hell, like I wanted to, like I needed to—how would it feel when she left again?

  I had a whole pile of canvases in my studio that showed me exactly how this would turn out. She’d left before, and she could just as easily leave again.

  Clenching my fists, I turned away from her.

  “James,” she said.

  It was my undoing, the way she said my name. She came around so we faced each other again. Then she stood up on tiptoes, the same way she’d needed to when we were in high school, and brushed her lips against mine.

  A growl wrenched from my chest and I crushed her to me, deepening the kiss. Spicy chrysanthemums, fresh clover, sweetness.

  She hooked one of her legs around mine, trying to bring herself closer. I wondered if she’d been just as hungry for this as I was.

  There was no tenderness—I had none of that in me. I needed her now. Spinning us around, I backed her onto the bed and fell on top of her, kissing her mouth, her cheeks, and trailing my lips down her neck. She had always liked it when I nuzzled the part where her neck met her shoulder—like a tease of the mate mark I’d never had the chance to give her.

  I didn’t want to think about that. I wanted to think about her here, in my arms. More skin. I wanted to touch as much of her as possible. My hands and mouth had been starved for her.

  I fumbled with the front of her dress, impatient with the tiny buttons and tempted to rip them away. But she’d have to leave here after this, and as much as I wanted everyone to know what we’d been doing, I didn’t think she’d appreciate it. I got enough of the buttons undone that her breasts were out, clad in a black satin bra. I wrenched the cups down, exposing her copper-colored nipples and taking first one in my mouth, then the other.

  She writhed beneath me. “James, yes.”

  A clattering sound at the window caused me to look up. Someone was watching us.

  Anna jumped up, pulling her dress closed over her chest.

  “It’s that stupid vulture again,” I said, marching over to the window.

  “Again?”

  “Yeah, the damn thing seems to be following me.” I smacked my hand against the glass.

  The bird gave a mournful caw, then flapped its wings and flew away.

  I turned around to face Anna, suddenly confused. What had we been doing, making out during a party like a couple of teenagers? This was the kind of thing we would’ve done ten years ago. But I was older and wiser, now.

  “Yoo-hoo,” her gram said on the other side of the door.

  Anna was already buttoning her dress, as if she’d sensed the change in my mood.

  “We’re here,” I said. “We’ve talked.”

  The knob clicked, and the door swung open.

  “Good job,” her gram said. She opened her mouth to say more, but stopped when she saw my face.

  “Happy birthday,” I said to her, with probably the fakest smile ever. I bent down and kissed her leathery-soft cheek before brushing past her, through the house, and out the front door.

  Maybe Anna wasn’t the only one who was good at leaving.

  Chapter 9

  Anna

  I sat on the edge of the bed, my body still hot from his touch, from his mouth, from my need. It had been ten years since James had been with someone. It had been ten years for me, too. I should have told him that. I should have—

  “You might want to straighten your hair before you come back out,” Gram said, her knowing smile growing wide. “And check your buttons.”

  She slowly shut the door. I sat there a moment, stunned, paralyzed.

  We’d kissed. James and I had kissed...and more. And he hadn’t been with anyone else in ten years.

  I looked down at the buttons of my dress. Gram was right, they were a mess, two in the wrong holes. I didn’t even want to know what my hair looked like.

  I righted the buttons and checked myself in Gram’s vanity mirror. I looked like I’d been good and fucked. Sadly I had not. I threaded my fingers through the strands that were sticking up and ran for the door. James could still be here. I had to talk to him. I couldn’t let him leave like this. I had to fix things. I had to—

  I stepped out of the room and scanned the crowd. I didn’t see him.

  “Anna.” Matt gave me a dude-nod in greeting. “Nice to see you again so soon. We didn’t really get to catch up, earlier. How’s life?”

  “It’s good,” I said, only half paying attention to my cousin. “I’m a therapist with my own practice. How about you?”

  “Still a cop,” he said, like I hadn’t caught that when he’d questioned me an hour ago. “You looking for someone?”

  “Yeah, sorry,” I said, meeting his gaze. “Did you see which way James went?”

  “He left.”

  Fuck.

  “You two used to date, right?” he asked.

  “Yeah, we did.”

  “I swear he’s just gotten grumpier and grumpier over the years. You should hear the way Finn talks about running out of the house in the morning just so he doesn’t have
to wake him up.” Matt laughed. “They’re all working on the old asylum, so you’ve probably seen them around.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Caleb bumped my shoulder with his arm, pushing in beside me. “Yeah, she’s staying there because she didn’t want to stay at my place. My own sister, can you believe it?”

  “You didn’t offer,” I said.

  “It’s an open invitation.” Caleb’s eyes sparkled.

  “I wouldn’t have wanted to stay there either,” Matt said. “No privacy with the string of women going in and out.”

  “You’re just jealous.” Caleb laughed.

  Matt shrugged.

  It was nice seeing them, it really was. But there was a weight on my chest, a heavy nagging feeling that I shouldn’t be here. I should be chasing after James.

  It had been so long, what was another couple of hours? But with every minute that passed, the weight grew heavier and I became less and less sure about chasing after him. There were reasons that we hadn’t worked out. I hadn’t been ready for forever when I was a teenager. Now, so much time had passed, we’d both changed.

  People came up and talked to me, and I smiled and answered their questions. They asked the same questions over and over again. Anna, where’ve you been all these years? What’s it like living in the big city? Did you miss home? Poor James was just devastated after you left. I think he’s here, have you talked to him?

  My answers were the same each time. Yes I missed home. I like the city. And I did talk to James. It got a little less awkward every time someone brought up me running off and leaving poor James behind. Also a lot more tiresome.

  By the time people were starting to leave, I was numb. All I wanted to do was curl up on my plane seat and get the hell out of Forbidden. No surprise there. But my flight wasn’t for two more days, so I’d settle for my rented bed.

  I said my goodbyes and made my escape. But on my way out the door, a woman I didn’t recognize blocked my path. She was the same one who’d been talking to James when I’d first arrived at Gram’s.