by Jenna Mills
But then everything shifted and I was in his arms. The door slammed shut. A lock turned. Then another. Or maybe that was only my imagination, because how could I hear something as trivial as a lock, when my heart blasted through every pulse point, drowning out everything else.
And then he was carrying me through the house that I knew inside out, the house I’d walked countless times—and into the shadows of the unknown.
Chapter 12
DARKNESS. I WAS aware of that much. Quiet. No one else was home. It was just us. Alone
He kept walking, carrying me. Through the family room to the beautiful staircase. Up.
“I’ve imagined this so many times,” he murmured as he started up the stairs.
I knew what was up the stairs.
I’d opened the door before, looked.
I’d seen the fireplace, the huge, antique, four-poster bed that dominated the spacious room.
But I’d never been inside.
Until that moment, when he kicked open the door and carried me across the rug.
And the spinning started all over again.
I held on, lost there, lost in the moment, drowning—drowning—trying to breathe, to hold on, to reach—
I knew I had to reach for something.
“This,” he said, reaching the big bed. “This is better than anything I imagined.”
I don’t know why I looked away, toward the dark, vacant fireplace across the room, but in that moment I couldn’t look at him, didn’t know how to handle the possessive gleam in his eyes.
“Goddamn,” he said again, this time softer, lower, and even as something registered deep inside me, some instinctive blade of panic, another wave came over me, stopping—holding.
And then I was no longer in his arms but against the soft, cotton sheets, and he was across the room, beside a small bar cart, reaching for a tall bottle and pouring wine into two glasses. Returning to me. Placing one in my hand.
“Here,” he murmured. “For you.”
Slowly he guided the stem to my mouth.
His eyes met mine as he sipped deeply of his. “For us.”
A tremor went through my parted lips.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said, and then he was crouching over me, and for a heartbeat the image of a wild animal came to me, about to devour its prey.
His shirt was open, his chest endless. “I knew some day it would happen for us,” he murmured, hovering over me. “All those times at practice, after meets, when you’d collapse into my arms…”
His words came at me, quiet, rough, but like the caresses of before, there was something more to them, something that made them more like a cool mist, slithering…
“…hot and sweaty, and I’d hold you, feel you…”
W-what?
“I knew,” he said, straddling me as he ripped off his shirt. “I knew someday it would be for real—like this…that you’d be mine…”
The sensations kept coming, one after the other, the cold and the clamminess, a twist somewhere inside me, a twist somewhere deep, that wouldn’t stop, that kept right on twisting.
“When I’d come home and find you asleep on the sofa…sometimes I’d watch you…and wonder what it would feel like to wake you with a kiss…”
My breath turned shallow. Dizzy, I blinked up and tried to steady myself, but there was this sudden clawing inside me, faint at first, then stronger, desperate almost. Frantic.
Wrong.
“Like this,” he said, and then his mouth was there, and he was kissing me, soft at first, more fevered with every slam of my heart. I stared up at him, trying to breathe, to remind myself this was what I wanted, but the spinning wouldn’t stop—
“…and touch you like this,” he murmured, running a hand along my breast, his fingers lingering there, slowly circling the outline of my nipple. “Taste you-”
W-wait…
But before the thought could finish, his mouth was slanting against mine again, eager—demanding. Smothering.
“To feel you beneath me,” he breathed, “and on top.”
On some level I was aware of the kiss deepening, of the way his hands played over my body, easing my shirt over my head to bare my chest to him, the black bra I’d purchased after leaving work, of the insanity of it all, that it was actually happening. That’s why my heart was racing…
I blinked, tried to steady myself. To remind myself that this was what I wanted. To hold on, but the way the room kept shifting, the roller coaster racing faster, faster—
“I was always afraid Jillian would figure out who I was really making love to,” he whispered, his mouth following the trail of his hand, down my neck to my chest. Disconnected, floating, I was aware of his breath against my flesh, of his fingers, seeking and teasing, stroking feather-soft, the length of his body pressed against mine, leaving no doubt how hard and ready he was.
But from one breath to the next, something inside me froze. I hung there, lost, drowning, waiting for the moment to take me away, to that place where rational thought stopped, and feeling took over.
Like when I was with Josh.
But there was only screaming, screaming that ripped from somewhere inside me, the same screaming as the night I’d lost control of my car, those paralyzing final moments as I’d realized the enormity my mistake. That I was going too fast. And the edge was too close.
And there was no way to stop.
Only the dark silhouette of the tree…
“No,” I tried to say, but the word came out more breath than voice.
But he heard me. I knew that because the feel of him against me changed, tensed.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. He’d asked. He’d asked me to be sure. I’d told him I was.
But I wasn’t.
Couldn’t be.
That was only a lie.
To him.
To myself.
Desperation.
A mistake.
“So sorry…” It was all spinning, spinning so fast. “But…I-I can’t do this.” Didn’t want to. Never had.
That much I knew.
But with the words he was looking at me, the dark gleam of his eyes finding mine. “Sh-h-h,” he said quietly, oh so crazy quietly. “Just relax and let me take you somewhere better than you ever imagined.”
I thought I was going to be sick. “No—I can’t…I’m sorry—”
He was touching me still, touching me all over, his hand on my face, his touch as gentle as it was possessive. “Trust me,” he said with a slow slide of his thumb along my bottom lip, and then he was lowering himself again, the warmth of his skin against mine, the fevered riff of his heart pounding into mine. And his mouth, hovering so close to mine. And his hand sliding lower, along my neck to my bra, where he slipped inside and began to slowly circle my nipple. “We’ve both wanted this for a long time,” he murmured against my mouth.
No.
No!
And then I was unraveling, unraveling fast and blindly. Somehow I made myself move. Somehow I made myself jerk and roll, shoving as I tried to twist from beneath him.
“Emily—” he called, but even as the rip of his voice registered, I was already scrambling to my feet.
Away. It was all I could think.
I had to get away.
From him.
The insanity.
The mistake.
My mistake.
But the room kept tilting, like some kind of crazy, out-of-control carnival ride.
“Baby, come back—”
I made it to the bathroom, staggering inside and slamming the door, locking it before leaning against the wall.
The knob jiggled. “Em?”
I made it to the counter, the sink, turned on the water, cold, and splashed it to my face. Everything was so blurry, fuzzy, all bleeding together.
The pill, I knew. The one Lexi had given me.
The one I’d taken.
Of my own free will.
To mute everything I didn’t want
to feel, didn’t know how to feel.
For the night of my life.
Without holding back.
Because the truth hurt too bad.
“Talk to me.” Loud knocks pounded. “This is me—you don’t need to be afraid.”
But I was.
I was afraid.
Of him.
Of…myself.
Of how close I teetered to the edge.
Of the truth.
And the lie.
Looking up, I stared at the dark, confused eyes of the stranger in the mirror. “I’m sorry,” I said, fighting, clawing against the distorted swirl inside me. “I should never have come here.”
Never have taken that pill.
Never have believed the lies I was telling myself, the lies I so desperately wanted to believe, that somehow I could create a new story for myself…
That I wanted a new story.
“You know that’s not true—”
I braced myself against the counter. My hands shook. My legs. My stomach rolled. “I just wanted…”
The cold marble of the big beautiful bathroom pushed in on me like a horrifying prison of my own making.
I’d wanted a new story, to be someone else. Someone I wasn’t.
Didn’t want to be.
Couldn’t be.
Lexi.
I realized that now.
“I thought this would make everything go away.” The words were a scream inside me, but nothing more than the hoarsest of whispers against the cold silence of reality. “Make everything…better.”
From the other side of the door I could hear the uneven cadence of his breath. “And it will,” he said in that same steady, quiet voice—the coach’s voice, the one he always used when encouraging me to give more than I had left. “I would never hurt you.”
Breathe, I told myself. Just breathe.
“Emily. Let me in.”
Coach Grimes. The man I trusted—
The man who wanted me—
Who’d made it clear exactly how long he’d wanted me…
Who wasn’t playing a game.
I needed to get out of there. It was all I could think. I needed to go home, for it to all be over with—but my body wouldn’t cooperate. I’d heard rumors. How the pills worked. And I could feel it, the sluggishness overriding my body. If I opened that door, I lost all control over what happened next.
Shaking, I reached for my phone—but had no idea who to text. Josh—
No. Not Josh.
He would kill him.
But who was he—and who was him?
I didn’t know—it didn’t matter.
Lexi—
She wouldn’t help. She’d tell me to go for it, go with it.
Zoe—
Shaking, I fumbled to form the right words.
At Coach Grimes.
Not okay.
Need help.
“Emily, baby, please. Open the door—”
“I…can’t.” I needed Zoe to text me back. “This…is wrong.” Wrong to turn my life into a game. Games were neat and tidy, with rules, a beginning and an end. Games you could step away from. They were fun, to be played—
My phone beeped—
“What the hell—” Coach Grimes jiggled the knob harder. “Are you texting someone?”
Zoe.
Finally.
What kind of trouble? What’s
wrong? What do you need?
“Emily.” He was more composed now. “Open the goddamn door. You don’t need to involve anyone else—”
My fingers felt fat and clumsy.
Need you to come get me
“I need to go home,” I said. “Forget this ever happened.” Before the pill took over, and I went to bed with a man who should have been pushing me away.
But wasn’t.
Mistake. God, I’d made such a huge mistake. I’d been so desperate—stupid.
So stupid.
That’s when the sudden silence registered, the absence of knocking or breathing from the other side.
The bathroom tilted, but I made it to the door and reached for the knob, listened. If I could get out of the bedroom before he came back, I could find a way to make it downstairs, outside. Zoe would come, and the nightmare would be over.
But if I didn’t make it—
Voices then, loud—angry. Coach Grimes—and another.
“You fucking son of a bitch—where is she?”
Chapter 13
THE VOICE, THE hard, broken edges, the fury, the desperation, cut through me with the precision of a cold scalpel. He was here. He knew. He knew I was here with Coach Grimes
Josh.
It was what I’d wanted. For him to know. For him to know I was moving on with my life. Without him.
All I had to do was let him find me. Slip between the sheets and wait. Let him see me in another man’s bed. He’d be gone.
That’s what I should have done. I should have stayed right where I was. I should have waited for him to find me, to see the reality of me in another man’s bedroom. It was what I wanted, the final nail—
But in that moment, the truth broke through everything else, how wrong I’d been letting blind emotion consume me, twist me up into something ugly and unrecognizable, something and someone so desperate all I could think about was getting rid of the hurt.
Somehow I staggered into the hall. I wanted to run. I tried to run. But the tilting wouldn’t stop. Or the shouting. I could hear them, the hard angry voices blasting up the staircase.
“You need to go,” Coach Grimes was saying, his voice tight, eerily calm.
“I’m not going anywhere.” Josh. Josh.
We’d said goodbye.
He told me he knew it was over.
He’d walked away…
“—not until I see her.”
Grabbing onto the rail, I worked my way down the stairs, trying not to fall.
“She doesn’t want to see you—”
“Emily—” Josh shouted. “Don’t do this!”
My heart lurched.
“You sent the fucking flowers,” he accused, and now his voice was cold. So cold. Hard.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
With each step I managed, the staircase lengthened.
“You knew she would think it was me!” Josh said, “that I was stalking her.”
The lilies.
I’ll never let you go.
From below, the sound of harsh breathing. “You’re out of your mind.”
“That was your plan all along, wasn’t it? To get her to come to you?”
And I didn’t understand.
Didn’t understand any of it.
If Josh didn’t send the flowers…
“You need to go.” Coach Grimes’ voice was getting harsher. “Don’t make me—”
“What?” Josh asked with a dark laugh.
Up was down and down was up—only a few more steps.
“What are you going to do?” Josh taunted. “Call the cops? Let them find you, with her, like this? I don’t think so—”
I’ll never forget the look in his eyes as I staggered into the foyer and he twisted toward me, the fire, the way they burned with the same desperation I’d seen all those weeks before, when our world had crashed down on us, that night, the one in his apartment, when I’d learned about him and Heather.
“Emily,” he whispered.
Destroyed. It was the only word. Because I knew what he saw, how I looked. That I wasn’t wearing my shirt, only the skimpy black lace bra. “Josh.”
And in that one fraction of one heartbeat, it all played there in his eyes, the love and the sorrow and the fear and the rage. It all gleamed like a lone star against an endless night. And then it exploded. Without warning. Without mercy. He launched himself, launched himself at Coach Grimes.
“You sick fuck—”
“No!” I lunged, but it was too late.
Coach Grimes was ready for the attack, fending off Jo
sh’s fists with his own.
“You sick son of a bitch!” Josh kept on, going at the man who’d taught us both history, going for him. “She looked up to you.” Fists flew, landed. “You were her coach and you took advantage of that—”
“Josh!” I shouted. “No—”
Coach Grimes met him blow for blow.
“She trusted you—you knew she was hurting, confused. You knew she was vulnerable. But that didn’t stop you. You just went for what you wanted.”
Coach Grimes spun, ducking out from under a vicious assault. “Maybe she wanted to know what a real man was like—”
“Stop!” I screamed, reaching for them. “Stop it!”
But Josh didn’t listen. He charged, going in for a low tackle. “Everyone’s going to know what a twisted bastard you are—”
It happened fast. Coach Grimes spun again, this time gaining the upper hand and landing a hard right hook against Josh’s jaw. He flew back—his legs going out from under him as his head slammed first against a marble column, then bouncing to the hard, cold floor.
“Josh!” I screamed, blood blooming, red against white.
He didn’t move.
“Oh, my God, Josh!” I dropped to my knees, crawling through a haze of disorientation and disbelief. “Josh, please…”
He looked so peaceful, like he was asleep.
But he wasn’t.
“Oh, God.” I reached for him. “Josh—” Leaning closer, I felt for breath.
The soft warm flutter would have sent me to my knees, if I hadn’t already been there.
“Call 911!” I cried. “Hurry!”
It took a few seconds before I glanced back to find Coach Grimes standing there, statue still, his face a twisted parody of the man I’d known—or thought I had—for so many years.
“What are you waiting for?” Terror gutted me. “He needs an ambulance.”
“Give him a few minutes. He’ll be okay.”
“Now—omigod, he’s bleeding.” He could have a concussion. Or worse. “He hit his head really bad.”
“Just unconscious,” Coach Grimes insisted. “I see it in football all the time. No reason to panic or over-react.”
“Over-react?” Twisting back to Josh, I hunched over him, using my body to hide the slide of my phone from my pocket.
