by Peggy Jaeger
“If only it was that easy.” She swiped at her teary eyes again.
“This is why you never show your arms?”
She nodded.
“Because you’re, what? Embarrassed by the scars?”
“Well, they’re not exactly pleasant to look at. People usually react one of three ways when they see them.” She ticked the ways off on her fingers. “One, they get all pop-eyed and want to know chapter, book, and verse about what happened.” She looked pointedly at him when she said it. He looked back at her, his face blank. “Two, they get grossed out, wince, and ask me to cover them, hide them.”
“And the third?”
“The worst one. They don’t ask any questions, just look at me with pity, like I was a leper or scheduled to die at sunrise or something. I hate that one most of all.”
Nikko brought one of her hands to his lips and kissed the knuckles. When his tongue grazed against them, she shifted her hips again. Tiny electrical pulses shot from her hand straight down to her groin.
He spun her hand and pressed his lips to her palm, his gaze never wavering from hers.
Running a hand over the scarified tissue again, he said, “You’ve seen the scars on my leg. They’re raw and fresh and not very pleasant to look at. And yet...” he chucked her under the chin, forcing her to look at him again. “And yet I never saw an ounce of pity, or disgust, or fascination in your eyes the night you tended to me. All I saw was kindness.”
“You were in pain,” she said, carelessly flipping a hand in the air. “I knew I could help.”
“Yeah. And you did.” He pulled her in for a quick kiss. “Even though I’d been acting like a prick to you. Rude, nasty. Overbearing. You still showed me compassion when it would have been so easy to just forget about everything and walk away.”
“No. No, I could never walk away from someone in pain. Especially if I could help ease it.”
It was Nikko’s turn to nod. “I realized that about you that night. You have a kind heart. You’re generally a kind person.”
“Not always,” she admitted.
“From everything I’ve seen,” he said. “And certainly if you use Melora as a yardstick.”
“I told you before: I know what it’s like being that age and being, well…”
“What? Say it.”
“Angry. Powerless. Consumed.”
He squeezed her neck and slid his fingers up to her face again, caressing her skin along the way. “Interesting word choices. Explain them.”
She swallowed. Hard.
“At one point in my recovery I was so angry about everything. Angry at my parents because I blamed them for being overprotective. Angry at myself for being so stupid to get in that car. Angry with the boy—who was dead—for being so irresponsible as to drink and drive. I was even angry at my cousins because they got to have normal, pain-free lives while I had to spend most of what should have been my sophomore year in high school confined to a hospital bed. I was so angry I just wanted to die. Dying would get rid of the pain, on the inside and the outside. I just wanted the pain to go away.”
Nikko took her chin between his hands and forced her to look back at him. “What happened?”
She debated with herself for a moment about whether or not to tell him the full story.
“Sweetheart, talk to me.” Nikko kissed her lips so tenderly she wanted to cry again. “I want to know. Please.”
She sniffed, then nodded. “I was still in the hospital after the last surgery to align the bone. The pain was beyond excruciating. Really, there needs to be a better word to describe it. Anyway. A new girl was admitted one night, my age. We... well, we hit it off. She was smart and funny in a totally snarky way, and I just adored her. We spent all the time we could together. We talked about everything. Held nothing back. She was supposed to be discharged over the weekend, but…” she stopped, tears springing up again.
Stacy dropped her chin to her chest and bit down on her bottom lip. Nikko said nothing, just kept his hands back on her waist, holding her, waiting.
“She, she…died. Before she could be discharged. Her heart gave out. When I saw what her death did to her parents, how destroyed they were, I stopped being angry. Stopped wanting to die, and started looking for ways to control the pain. To fight it. Through my physical therapist, I found a yoga teacher who helped me heal. Inside and out.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask,” he said, “but why did that girl’s heart give out? She was, what? Fifteen?”
She nodded.
“Did she have a congenital heart defect or something that weakened it?”
Instead of answering him outright, she said, “Remember when I told you I understood how Melora felt? About the stressors of being a teenager, torn between wanting to be treated like an adult and yet still being a child?”
“Yeah.”
“I know how she feels because my roommate, the one who died, was admitted in an advanced state of anorexia.”
She heard and felt the breath push from between his lips.
“She hadn’t eaten any real food in so long, her heart grew weak. So I do understand the challenges Melora has been facing.”
He didn’t say anything, just kept his hands on her waist and continued to stare at her.
She knew she’d overstepped. Stacy had no right, none at all, to call attention to so private a matter. Her only excuse was she cared for the girl, deeply, and she more than cared for the father.
“How long—” Nikko said, then stopped, pressing his lips together so tight the outer rims blanched.
“What?”
His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “How long had the girl been suffering from the eating disorder?”
“Since she was ten.”
“Five years?”
Stacy nodded. “A third of her life devoted to intentional starvation.”
“What…what triggered it? Do you know?”
“Yeah. Her mother had been a professional dancer and Kitty—that was her name—had been taking ballet lessons since she could walk. Her mom never made it big and had shoved all her plans for fame onto Kitty. When she turned ten, she started noticing the other girls in her ballet glass were a lot skinnier than she was, and were getting better and bigger dancing roles in shows and pageants. She asked her mom how she could look like they did.”
“Don’t tell me this kid’s mother was the one who told her to stop eating.”
“I wish I could, but she was.”
“Christ.”
“Her dad didn’t know about it until Kitty was well into the cycle of starving and purging. By then, too much damage had been done to her heart.”
Nikko closed his eyes and leaned his head back on the sofa back. “Melora’s eating issues started with the death of her mother.”
“So, not too long ago.”
“No. But I didn’t notice it for a while. I was so busy trying to be a single, working dad. When she told me she’d already eaten when I got home from work, I believed her. When she said she’d grab breakfast at school with friends, I let it go.”
“When did you find out?”
“When she passed out at school. The nurse called me and in the emergency room she told the resident she hadn’t eaten anything—anything—in three days. And I’d never even noticed.”
He shook his head so violently, Stacy’s body shook.
The need to comfort was so strong in her, she instinctively reached out and took his face in her hands. With the slightest of movements, he burrowed a cheek into her palm.
“You know it’s not your fault, right? You didn’t cause this to happen to Melora.”
On a sigh, he said, “Yeah. The therapist we’ve been seeing assured me of that. It’s all about control, she said.”
Stacy nodded.
Nikko slammed his eyes closed, squeezin
g so much the lines at the corners furrowed into deep grooves. “It’s so damn hard,” he said when he opened them again, “to know how to help her. Who to trust and believe. The therapist she saw in the hospital wanted her to be admitted for up to six months. The minute she said that and I saw how terrified Mel was of the thought, I started researching other therapists who specialize in eating disorders. The one we’ve been seeing came highly recommended. I’ve done everything she’s suggested. I’ve adjusted my schedule so I can cook for her. Not balk if she only eats a fraction of what I make. Stay with her after she eats so she doesn’t run off and get rid of it. But I’m still so damn scared something is gonna happen even after doing all that.”
“For what it’s worth, she’s as concerned about you as you are about her. She worries about your leg and your pain level a lot. And,” she added, “I’m sure she’s just as scared that something is going to happen. But to you. She’s already lost one parent. She’s probably terrified of losing you, as well.”
Nikko spit out an oath. “The two of us are some screwed-up pair.”
“As an outsider looking in, I think you’re a terrific pair,” she said, honestly. “You love one another a great deal and it shows in everything you both say and do. Please believe that.”
His hands were still around her, casually placed on her waist, holding her in position on his lap. She’d tried to ignore the tiny, unconscious circular motions he made with the pads of his fingers while they’d both been speaking, but was having a difficult time doing so. His fingers, like his hands and everything else about him, were long, strong, and thick.
As if realizing what he was doing for the first time, Nikko’s glance dropped to where she was perched on top of him, her naked knees drawn up against the outside of his thighs.
His grip tightened when his looked back up at her.
Something shifted in his eyes as he stared at her. Warmed, then heated, then—she swore—turned molten.
Her mouth went desert-dry and she became acutely aware of her sitting position. Especially when she felt him pitch, roll, and lengthen beneath her.
“You know, I didn’t come knocking on your door tonight looking for sympathy and understanding.”
“No?” She had trouble getting the simple word out.
“No.”
His lids went to half-mast, his mouth pulling up at one corner. With the merest press of his fingers against the small of her back, he moved her in closer, so close the heat of his breath warmed over her.
“If I’d had to wait another moment to do this, when it’s all I’ve been able to think about for days, I don’t know how I would have gotten through the night.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask what he meant. Before she could, he showed her.
In the time it took her to form the question in her mind, Nikko had his mouth on hers, his arms pressing her body against his again, and her pulse jumping beneath her skin.
She didn’t think. About anything but how good, how really good, it felt to be kissed by him.
The tips of her fingers scampered across his pecs and she swore they came away singed. Stacy had tasted desire before, but had never been consumed by it as she was right now. Every rake and slide of his hands on her body sent a million little fireballs exploding through her system.
She welcomed the inferno, ran headfirst into it.
The hottest, wettest part of her felt the long, long line of him throb along the heat hidden by her panties.
“Do you have any idea what I’ve been going through?” he rasped against her ear. “I’d welcome my leg pain back if it could take my mind off remembering what you taste like; feel like.” His wet lips slid along the column of her throat. She threw back her head to give him full access.
“Knowing you were sitting right behind me every day and I couldn’t touch you has been torture. Pure—” he sucked the skin at her collarbone, making her cry out—“torture.”
Gathering her hair between his hands, a quick tug had her looking him in the eye.
She almost came undone just from the unbridled want on his face. Reaching up, she smoothed her finger along the grooves on his forehead, down the corners of his eyes to his chin. A quick nip at a corner of his chiseled jaw had him sucking in a breath.
He angled her face back to his, sought her lips, and laid claim to them.
“No woman has ever distracted me from working before,” he said against her cheek.
Stacy didn’t bite back her laugh quick enough.
“You’re laughing at that?”
She stared him square in the eye and trailed a finger across his swollen mouth. Swollen from kissing her.
Good Lord.
“I distract you from your work?” she asked, her own kiss-slicked lips pressing together. “You don’t have a clue what it’s been like for me, do you? One minute you look as if you’re going to throw something at me, in the next your eyes get so hot they scorch with just a passing glance. Do you have any idea what that’s been doing to me?”
His slid his hand across her shoulder, pulling the T-shirt to the side, allowing the edges of the scarring to be seen.
He dipped his head and pressed the gentlest of kisses along the scar line. Stacy’s heart tumbled and turned over and she had no will or power to stop it.
“You’re so polished and perfect and prepared all the time,” he said, punctuating each description with a kiss along the scars. “Tapping away on that damn notebook device. You make me want to ruffle your feathers just so I can see you lose that control.”
“I’m far from perfect. Anytime.” She tilted her head back so his mouth would have better access to her jawline. “Oh!”
His evil chuckle at her response sent a shock wave up her spine. One finger dipped down her back, across the thin strap of her thong and pulled it to the side.
“I want you, Stacy. Too much for my own good, I know it. But I want you. I’ve never slept with a coworker before, that’s the truth. Too many potential problems, hurt feelings—Christ, even the threat of a sexual-harassment suit, have all been valid reasons not to.”
He cupped her butt cheeks in his hands and ground up into her. The sensation of all his hard, long length meeting her wet heat sent her heart jackhammering.
“But I don’t care about any of those reasons when I think about being with you. When I imagine what you’ll feel like coming apart in my hands. You make me forget every single one of those excuses. And probably a half-dozen more,” he added with what sounded like surprise.
Stacy laid her forehead against his and sighed. “I forget about all the rules and the reasons they’re put there in the first place too, whenever I’m around you.” She pulled back and laid her hands on his chest for support and felt his heart drumming. “But I’m afraid.”
Nikko lifted one of her hands to his lips and kissed it. “Of?”
“So many things.” With a dry laugh, she hung her head again.
“But not of me, right? You’re not afraid of me, are you, sweetheart?”
A week ago she would have told him she was. Now? There was no way she could say that and have it not be a lie.
She laid a hand across his cheek and placed a kiss on the corner of his mouth. “I feel a great many things for you, Dominick Stamp, but fear isn’t even on the list.”
She moved, pressed her lips against his and in the time it took an old-fashioned clock to tick once, he changed the kiss.
Hunger and frenzied need rose up while his mouth took possession once again. A desire she’d never known before coiled deep, deep inside her, screaming to be unwound.
Nikko wrenched his mouth from hers just long enough to rip her shirt up and over her head before his lips circled around one breast and tugged the nipple between his teeth.
Fisting his hair between her fingers, Stacy arched and rose up, balanced on her knees, from Nik
ko’s lap. She cried out in the next moment as his hand snaked down and cupped her.
“Good Christ. You’re drenched.” With slow, steady, and determined fingers, he stroked, front to back, over the thin wisp of material covering her skin. Stacy’s hips began to rock to the same tempo. With a sound she could only describe as feral, Nikko ripped the material from her body in one swift move, allowing his hand free access now to her bare flesh.
His fingers glided along her length, then snuck one, two inside her. While he slowly pumped in and out, his thick thumb circled around her clitoris, pressing, easing, then pressing again, zeroing all her attention to that one spot.
A slow burn of liquid heat flamed down her spine. Her breathing turned coarse and shallow as his movements quickened. Blood pounded so loud in her temples, she was amazed it didn’t deafen them both.
Nikko shifted and moved her to the sofa, flat on her back. He knelt and, with his hand never leaving her body, replaced his thumb with his mouth. Stacy’s hips shot up, the orgasm ripping through her with no warning and no way to slow it down.
Her insides clenched around his fingers, her thighs imprisoning him as the quaking peaked higher and higher until she swore her body would burst. She had no idea how long she lay, suspended, floating on the crest. All concept of time ceased and all she could do was feel.
Nikko rode the storm out with her. When she opened her eyes, she took a ragged breath and found him staring at her, his own gaze hooded, but piercing right to her very soul.
“That was…” She couldn’t find words descriptive enough.
“Just the beginning,” he said.
A gentle tug and he lifted her in his arms and moved them to the turned down bed.
“Why am I the only one naked?” she asked, pushing up on her elbows after he laid her down and tossed the extra pillows to the floor. He stood at the foot of the bed, just watching her.
“Because you’re prettier than I am.”
Her skin blushed from toes to scalp, as his words warmed her insides.
He grinned, toed off his shoes, undid his pants, and let them drop to the floor. Stacy crept to her knees and popped the buttons she hadn’t already opened on his shirt, then pushed it down his arms.
