Heart Doctors Collection

by Carly Keene

  I’d felt a bit bedraggled, going inside Lucky’s Bar to wait for my friends while they stopped by Simon’s apartment for fresh clothes. Simon wasn’t about to appear in a drinking establishment in a tunic and gartered hose, and I was beginning to wish I’d brought some extra clothes from Noah’s house.

  But there he was, calling me “goddess” like it was a cheesy pick-up line—except that if I judged by the stunned look in his eyes, he meant it. I asked for an esoteric cocktail, and he just went and got it for me. He picked up the Mabon banter in an instant, though I could tell he hadn’t the faintest idea who Mabon was. And then, as if that wasn’t sexy enough, he had to turn my glass around and put his mouth over where mine had been, and I swear my panties soaked through in an instant.

  Never mind that he wasn’t my type. I’ve never been much into the All-American type, that short-hair, no-tats, clean-cut thing, but this guy looked brighter than the frat-boy clothes he was wearing. Also, my best guess said he might have some decent muscles under them. And his eyes were pretty, a soft blue-green with a darker ring around the iris.

  Not to mention that he was calling me by the name of the goddess Rhiannon, she of muse and magick.

  I thought of the fortune-teller and the “tall fair stranger,” and about Mabon the Young, who could make anyone fall in love with him. I thought about my day out of the cage, and about extending it well into the night.

  So I asked if he’d like to go somewhere with me, and his eyes went dark like a stormy sea, and my arousal became intense.

  “My place?” he said, and his voice had gone as dark as his eyes.

  On the short walk, I texted Lia, and then I shut my phone off and tucked it into the purse on my belt. Mabon stopped walking near one of those old brick warehouses rehabbed into trendy apartments. “Here,” he said.

  We went upstairs. He closed the door behind us, and then we were on each other, only streetlights shining in through the window to aid us in discovering each other’s bodies. I kissed him. He tasted like whiskey and brandy, vermouth and sugar and absinthe, everything intoxicating. He tasted like recklessness and freedom. I couldn’t get enough. I could feel him hard against my thigh, and I practically ripped his shirt in my enthusiasm.

  I’d been right, he had a lovely body under the boring clothes, all lean and lithely muscled like a panther. He kicked off his pants and hefted me into his arms, carrying me to the bedroom. He laid me down on the bed, flung up my skirts, and ran his hands up my thighs in a caress. “I can’t wait to taste,” he said, and then my damp panties were just gone, and his head was between my thighs, his tongue on my grateful pussy.

  I took one moment to congratulate myself on having had a full wax the week before, and then I had no time to think of anything but his skill and my pleasure. He licked me right into one of the best orgasms of my life, and while I was catching my breath, seeing stars, he planted one tender kiss on the slope of my belly. “I’ve never eaten goddess before,” he said. “Nothing like it.”

  When I could breathe, I stood up to take off my dress and bra. “Ever made love to a goddess?”

  “Not yet,” he said, and took off his boxers. I caught my breath. He was beautifully made, from his strong chest and biceps to his manly thighs, and his cock stood up long and thick and beautiful. I knelt on the bed to take him into my mouth, moaning in pleasure at the feel of him: hard as marble under the soft suede of his skin, and so solid. I was aching in my core, thinking of the way he’d feel inside me.

  Before long he was gently pushing me back, telling me to stop before the game was over. “You’re incredible,” he said, and kissed me, our tongues dancing together in warm liquid sensation. His fingers were gentle and insistent on my nipples, teasing them to diamond hardness, and I could feel my arousal dripping down to my thighs.

  I groaned into his mouth. “Please,” I said, and reached for his cock. I lined up the head of it with my wet opening and we both moaned.

  He pulled back a little, just enough to look into my eyes with his own bright blue ones, then pushed that amazing dick inside me, slowly. “Receive my act of worship, my goddess,” he said, and although it was cheesy—it wasn’t. He meant it.

  With every stroke, he was kissing my pussy with his cock. I kissed back. It went slow and languorous, every movement sweet torture, and then suddenly it wasn’t slow, it was urgent and ravenous, and I called his name out again and again as I reached a peak of sensation. My pleasure arrowed out from my core, making me limp, before he went rigid atop me, crying out as he filled me with hot juices.

  Then he kissed me again. “That was perfect,” he said softly, and it was.

  It was perfect again two more times that night: one time raunchy and full of need, the next gentle and dreamlike, a bubble of magic containing us and only us. Then I fell asleep, only to be woken in the wee hours by my phone ringing nonstop. I fished it out of my belt purse and recognized my brother’s number. “Hey,” I whispered. “Everything okay?”

  “It’s a little after five,” Noah said. “I have to leave. Can you be back in half an hour?”

  I was taken aback. “Um. Yeah. No, not really. I have to catch a cab or an Uber or something.”

  He exhaled. “Just as soon as you can, okay?”

  Mabon the Young Beloved didn’t stir in the mound of bedcovers.

  “Yeah,” I said on a deep sigh, reminding myself that I had voluntarily signed up for this, to stay with Noah while he grieved and to take care of baby James. “Yeah. As soon as I can.”

  “Rach? Thank you. Really, it means so much,” Noah said, and his voice cracked a little. “To know you’ve got my back.”

  “What’s family for?” I said. “Go when you need to. James won’t wake up, he never does.”

  “Thanks.”

  I fished around and found my bra, then my very wrinkled dress, rushing every minute. Texted Uber. Got dressed. And all the time, Mabon never woke. Only light snores broke the silence. I thought about leaving my number, and then I thought about how perfect it had been, the whole thing start to finish. Mabon the Young, god of sex and love and prophecy.

  I wanted to keep it perfect.

  I wanted not to find out that Mabon was a douche, that he already had a girlfriend, that he had some kind of investment-banker type of job that looked down on artists. I wanted not to find out that his parents paid for this cushy apartment. I wanted not to know that he was the kind of person who “didn’t get” modern art. I wanted not to know that he spent his weekends at bars trawling for Instagram girls, making them scream his name with the same kind of pleasure I’d screamed it.

  I wanted that perfection in my memory, unspoiled by reality. Fairy tales and myths? Maybe. But I spent my hours with Noah and James pursuing adequacy and my hours in the studio pursuing transcendent loveliness, and I never felt that I got to either standard, in either case. This might be my only shot at perfection, ever.

  So I kissed his cheek, marveling again over the lovely lines of his body in the dawn light. I put on my ankle boots and went downstairs to my Uber, and then to my brother’s house, where he was pacing in front of his car and his two-year-old son was awake and screaming in his crib.

  I left “perfect” behind, and I went forward into four years of living for somebody other than myself.

  I didn’t regret living for Noah and James. I still don’t. But I dreamed about my Mabon.

  THREE: Taken By the Wind

  Maddox, now

  Noah Bonner corners me in the cafeteria while I’m gulping down an orange juice and a sad leftover Panera sandwich from two days ago, which has somehow managed to become both stale and soggy. “What’s this?” I look from the fancy envelope he’s offering me to his face. We’ve been working in the Hopedale ER together for six years and we’re friends, but we don’t really socialize outside of work.

  “Kalinda and I are having a wedding reception.” He gestures at the envelope. “Getting a few people together for appetizers and wedding cake, Saturday a coupl
e of weeks from now. You’re invited.”

  “Dude,” I say, “you got married months ago.”

  “Dude,” Noah shoots back, “you have to quit calling everybody ‘dude.’ You’re not in your twenties anymore.”

  “I’m young at heart.”

  “You’re single at heart.”

  “Ha, very funny. I work a million hours a week, in case you hadn’t noticed,” I observe out loud. “Come to think of it, that’s probably why you married someone else who’s stuck with our shitty work schedule.”

  He shrugs. “I won’t say it isn’t nice to work the same time my wife is working. We have lunch together, now that we’re back on day shift.”

  “Can’t hurt that you have the opportunity for a quickie in a broom closet at work, either,” I tease.

  His face goes brick-red, and he splutters, “We don’t—that’s illegal, Maddox! And grossly unsanitary. Besides, we have a perfectly good bed at home.”

  “So how are things at home?”

  “Good,” he says, and his face opens into a real smile. “Amazing. I love it. The kids had kind of a rough time adjusting, but everything seems to have calmed down now. We even hired an overnight nanny to help out with the little guys, and it was a huge relief. No more screaming meemies every morning before school, making sure everybody has their shoes on and their packed lunches and their gym suits and whatever. It was making Rachel crazy.”

  “Yikes.”

  “So now that things have calmed down at home, we can celebrate with people that we like. It’ll be swanky but friendly. I swear.”

  “Mm-hmm.” I take the envelope.

  “And Kalinda,” he says, dopey smile on his face, “she’s incredible. Everything I ever wanted. You should get married, Maddox.”

  I snort, opening the envelope to find an engraved invitation:

  Saturday wedding reception Dr. and Mrs. Noah Bonner, yada yada,

  celebrate with their friends yeah yeah,

  Art Factory downtown Richmond blah blah blah.

  “Two weeks from Saturday? I think I can be there. What do you mean by ‘a few people’?”

  “I don’t know. Depends on who brings a plus-one. No more than a hundred, I think, but maybe less than that.”

  Finlay walks into the cafeteria and pours himself a cup of the horrible, but totally necessary, coffee from the big carafe. “Oh, you got an invite too? I’m going. I wouldn’t turn down crab canapes and champagne cocktails.” He whacks Noah on the shoulder. “Congratulations. Can I bring a date?”

  “Sure.” Noah looks pleased. “I’ll tell Kalinda. Do you actually have a date?”

  Finlay shakes his head. “Not yet. Maybe I’ll meet somebody.”

  “Want to escort my sister Rachel?” Noah asks.

  “Sister? No thanks.” Finlay says, and snags a toffee-chip cookie out of the plastic container on the counter. “Who keeps bringing these? They’re like crack for your arteries.”

  “Deena brought them,” I tell him.

  “Deena scares me,” Finlay says. Which has to be a joke, because nothing scares Fin. “She’s a great doctor, but she’s like a vicious nun disguised by fabulous tits.”

  I roll my eyes. “She’s not that bad.”

  “Well, you have to admit the tits are fabulous,” Finlay insists.

  Okay, they are. I nod. But there is absolutely zero hint of magic between me and Deena McLean. “I mean she’s not that vicious. She’s relaxed a lot since she started going out with that EMT, don’t you think?”

  Noah shrugs. Finlay shrugs. “If you say so. Hey, I’m back to the salt mines, guys.” He salutes us with the cookie and backs out.

  Noah turns to me. “How about you, you want to take my sister to the reception? She’s actually got some pieces on display. The art gallery made us a deal on the event space but they were limited on the dates available.”

  I shake my head.

  It’s not like I haven’t dated since the goddess ditched me. I went through a bad phase where I was going through women like a fat guy through Cheetos, but it only took six months for that to depress the living fuck out of me and I’ve been sensible since. Well, “sensible” meaning I went back to heavy dates with Miss Rosie Palm and her five sisters, as if I’m some hapless zit-ridden teenager whose parents won’t let him date. Sure, that means there’s no warm female body in my bed, no cuddles in the middle of the night, nobody to talk to when I get home exhausted from work. But Rosie’s never disappeared in the middle of the night and broken my fucking heart, either.

  No. There’s just nothing to measure up to my goddess, and I’ve never seen her again no matter how many times I’ve been back to Lucky’s looking for her.

  I’ve started thinking that she was an act of nature. She wrecked my world like a flood or a lightning strike, and nothing has been the same. I wasn’t expecting it, I didn’t want it, but I had no choice in the matter. Once you’ve been with a woman like that, nothing else will do.

  “Oh, come on,” Noah coaxes. “Why not?”

  “I’m looking for the right woman. The perfect woman. She’s out there.”

  “You sound pretty sure.”

  “She’s out there. Somewhere.” I sigh. “I’ve met her. Met her, fell in love with her, lost her.”

  “You’re a romantic,” Noah says in surprise. “I never would’ve guessed that.”

  Yeah, me neither.

  I still thought of Rhiannon, more often than I cared to admit. She hadn’t promised me forever; hell, she’d never promised me anything at all. But I’d seen perfection that one night. It had been in the way we breathed each other’s air and meshed our bodies, and together we were perfection.

  I won’t settle for less.

  FOUR: When Away from Me, Stays Deep Inside My Heart

  Rachel, now

  It’s time.

  I look around the messy bedroom that’s been mine since I moved into Noah’s house to help him take care of James. I remember feeling like this just before I went to art school: sad to leave, but eager to explore new things. Nostalgic but impatient.

  I sigh.

  I’m 33 years old now and I don’t have a place of my own—not yet. But just as Noah’s personal life has settled down (as much as a life can settle when it includes three elementary-school-aged children, a teenager, and a new wife), my career has begun to really take off. It started last year, when James went to kindergarten; I got an internship at Art Factory, helping to set up and display exhibitions. Then I met Jonathan Whey, professor at the university, and he showed me this technique adapted from terrazzo, where you mix portland cement and marble dust. The mixture can be carved and polished like marble, but is far less expensive. It’s well suited to my oeuvre, which is medium-sized abstract shapes. I love the ones that invite you to touch, to run your hands over and and enjoy.

  I just sold a piece to a collector in Atlanta, and another one to a small gallery in Nashville. I’m thrilled.

  I may at some point begin to work solely in marble, but for now, the terrazzo-marble is just right. I have several pieces on exhibit at Art Factory right now. A few weeks ago I signed a lease on a studio space downtown, not far from Art Factory. I’ve already moved my art supplies there, to make room for the kids in the house, and to allow myself some darn peace and quiet where nobody’s banging on the door, demanding that Aunt Rachel come out and make them peanut butter sandwiches.

  I mean, I love the kids. But I need studio space away from them.

  When my cell phone rings, it’s Lora at the Factory. “Rachel? I need you to come in and help us arrange your exhibit. Do you have business cards?”

  I need business cards? Dammit, it’s just one thing after another. I just want to make my art.

  “Not yet,” I tell her.

  “What about a website? We need that info for the exhibit brochure.”

  “I’m getting it set up,” I promise her. “Should have it by tomorrow or the day after.” We make arrangements to get together and get things set u
p; they’re exhibiting six pieces. It’s so exciting.

  Noah and Kalinda’s post-wedding party is day after tomorrow. I need a hair appointment and a really good dress. I need some killer heels.

  I need an apartment within the next few weeks.

  And frankly, I could use a good lay into the bargain. I’m not really looking for somebody like Mabon; I’ve come to believe he was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. But I’d love to meet a guy who is truly single. (Honestly, it’s sickening the number of men who take that ring off when they go out on the town! ) A guy who accepts that my work is important, a guy who’s willing to flirt a little, a guy who has a decent job, a guy who knows a clitoris from his thumb and isn’t obsessed with his own penis . . .

  If he can cook, that’s a plus.

  I open my closet and sigh, considering the array of semi-formal dresses. For the past several years, while I’ve been staying with Noah and James, I’ve barely gone out in them.

  The berry chiffon thing I wore for Lia’s wedding last year is too obviously a bridesmaid dress. This silver sequin tank dress is trying too hard. (For New Year’s Eve, perfect. For this cocktail party, nah.) Black bandage dress? Okay, a possibility, but honestly I’m enough of a southerner to not want to wear black to anything remotely wedding-y. I dig some more, finding dresses I wore in high school. God, it is seriously time to go through my closet, because I shouldn’t even have moved these here in the first place. I find the medieval dress I wore to Ren Faire four years ago, the one I was wearing when I met him, and let my fingers trail down its elegant draped sleeve, remembering the way he looked into my eyes, the way he called me Rhiannon . . .

  My eyes sting with stupid tears. I remind myself that I don’t want to bring up those reckless, bad-decision vibes. Either I should never have fucked him, or I should never have let him go. But it’s too late to change my mind now.