Into Focus: A Second Chance Amnesia Romance (High Stakes Hearts Book 1)

by Becca Barnes

I had his off with a quick tug of string the moment we were near the bed. After what had seemed like a week of foreplay, I was nothing more than a bundle of primed nerve endings as he curved his hand under my ass and lifted me up to circle my legs around his waist.

  “Annie, are you sure you’re recovered enough to—”

  “Yes.” Oh, yes.

  He hesitated for a split second, then I watched his resolve melt before my eyes.

  “Do you have any idea what you do to me?” he said. “Any idea at all?”

  “If it’s anything like what you do to me, I think I have the general gist.” I nipped at his lower lip, and he shivered.

  “I’m not going to stop until I make you forget your own name and moan mine.” He pulled his head away and turned serious. “But are you sure?”

  “Well, I’m already halfway to forgetting my own name.” I laughed, but then brought up my own serious face. “Yes, I’m positive.”

  He laid me on the bed, and I tried to pull him toward me, but he made it abundantly clear he intended to take his time sweet time. It was an odd sensation, being with someone who was a complete mystery to me but who already knew me in and out. Every stroke, every caress, it was like he’d taken the advanced course of How To Pleasure Annie.

  When he’d brought me to the limits of what I could take without reciprocating, I grasped his biceps and gasped, “Now.”

  He gave me a lopsided grin, and I realized this wasn’t the first time I’d used that super subtle code word. It also must have felt like having the real me back, if only for a moment. He reached over for a condom and ripped the package open. But when he started to sheath himself, I heard the tell-tale riiip of splitting latex.

  “Crap,” I said, writhing in agony at having to wait one second longer.

  He grabbed the box of condoms . . . the empty box.

  “Crap,” he echoed.

  “My diaphragm.” I reached for my nightstand, where I’d replaced the case after fishing it out of the back of my bathroom vanity drawer.

  “Wait.” Evan placed his hand over mine and stopped me.

  “Why?”

  “Nothing. I just . . . let me focus on you.”

  Yeah, umm, he could focus on me better with my diaphragm in place.

  “But don’t you want to . . . ahhh . . .”

  He was too busy to answer. Besides, his tongue was otherwise occupied.

  After he had kept his promise (well, technically I’d remembered my name, but I wasn’t sure I could have spelled it in the moment), we went to take a shower together, where I kneeled down and made him forget his.

  It had felt good. Better than good. Bloody fabulous. But I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed that we hadn’t technically had sex. I might not have my memory restored, but he and I both knew what now meant.

  Why had he held back?

  And it wasn’t just this. He was keeping something from me. I could feel it. The suspicion had niggled at my mind since the hospital. I didn’t know what it was or why. But there was something there. It wasn’t the brick wall that had come crumbling down earlier. That was gone. It was more like a window. I could see him—the real Evan. But I was desperate to push through that last barrier so we could fully join as husband and wife.

  Nine

  “Marshall.” I said it aloud. The name had bubbled up unbidden from the recesses of my mind, and I clapped my hands together.

  “Oh, good job, brain,” I said, giving myself a congratulatory pat on the noggin.

  It had been like this for weeks. Bits and bobbles. Flashes and flurries. All of them rising to the surface and then slowly coming into focus. I was nowhere near having a complete memory of my past, but I’d made definite progress. It was more like feeling my way through fog now, rather than pitch darkness.

  Evan had just gotten home from a work site, and I ran downstairs to double check, even though I was sure I was right.

  “Good evening to you, Evan Marshall Gaines.” I lifted a coy shoulder to him as he hung up his hard hat.

  “Did you remember that on your own?” he asked.

  “I did indeed.”

  “Hey, now. That calls for a celebratory pizza.” He waved to the box that he’d already laid on the table. He opened it up and handed us each a slice, holding his up in a toast. “To my middle name.”

  “I solemnly swear that I won’t use it for scolding.” I held mine up as well.

  “Did you remember it from our wedding vows?”

  I couldn’t help but note the tinge of hope in his voice. I was sorry to disappoint him.

  “Nope. It was kind of boring really. I had a memory of filling out paperwork.”

  “Wedding license?”

  “No, it wasn’t that.” I wasn’t sure how I knew that fact, but I did. If there was anything I could say about the recovery process from amnesia, it had given me a newfound respect for the intricacies of the human brain. Plus, I’d learned to trust my gut.

  Sometimes, details came back to me in rapid succession, like waves crashing one after another on the shore. Other times, it was like deep sea fishing with a flimsy pole.

  “I don’t know what else I’d be filling out with your full name, though. Maybe insurance?”

  “Yeah, maybe.” He bit off another mouthful, still smiling, but his enthusiasm had obviously waned.

  I didn’t expect him to throw a ticker tape parade every time I recalled a fact, but I was flummoxed at his reaction or lack thereof. If anything, he seemed worried. True, my gains had been slow. But progress was progress.

  “Aren’t you happy?” I asked.

  “Of course. I . . . of course, sweetie.”

  “I’ll remember our wedding at some point. I can feel it.”

  “Oh, no. I didn’t mean that I was disappointed that you hadn’t. I just . . .” His voice trailed off. And there it was again. That glass wall.

  The next morning, Evan got up early as usual. He was finishing up paperwork in his office and preparing to leave for a work site as I walked down the hall.

  I was sore from the previous night’s festivities. The condom stock had been replenished more than once in the last month. Although I still found it strange that Evan preferred condoms to my diaphragm. I’d never heard of a guy who would willingly choose those of the two options. Of course, I’d also never heard of a guy who had the self-control to pull out. Every. Freaking. Time.

  It seemed like overkill with the condom. I hadn’t worked up the nerve to ask him about it, though.

  We crossed paths as he was exiting the office. He was tucking a rolled-up blueprint into a tube and stuck it in the corner on his way out.

  His eyes were puffy and bloodshot, ringed with moisture.

  “Oh, hey,” he said. He pointed to his face. “I should probably grab a Claritin on my way out.”

  Allergies, my ass.

  But I nodded in agreement and gave him a kiss on the cheek and a pat on the butt as he walked out to his truck.

  Then I deadbolted the door and scrambled back into his office.

  Yes, I was totally invading his privacy.

  Yes, I made Nancy Drew look like the CIA’s finest.

  But I was getting to the bottom of this once and for all. My husband was keeping something from me. I knew it.

  I started with the tube he’d put down. There was only one blueprint in it, and I unfurled it on his drafting table. It was . . . a tree. No. Some kind of bunk bed or . . . a tree fort? It was intricate and I could tell it would be something interesting. Something . . something that meant absolutely nothing to me.

  So maybe that wasn’t what had gotten him crying. Then what?

  I looked over his shelves. Pictures from our wedding, photos of him growing up with his brother and sister, family vacations. One of us standing in front of the house, holding up a “Sold” sign. Books on woodworking. An old soccer trophy.

  No. No, it wasn’t any of these. Again with learning to trust my gut, I just couldn’t see him breaking down ove
r taking second place in his junior year state finals soccer tourney.

  I was back to the question of, “Then what?”

  I sat down at his desk and rifled through the drawers. Mostly client files and invoices. I felt around at the back to make sure there weren’t any false-bottomed drawers. Nada.

  I pushed myself back from the desk.

  Get a grip, woman.

  There was no reason to believe that he was doing anything sinister or unethical. Certainly not cheating on me or something like that.

  And then I noticed a slender top drawer, barely noticeable. It wouldn’t hold anything thicker than a pencil. But it had a keyhole.

  I tugged on it.

  Locked.

  The key wasn’t anywhere in the desk. I’d already sifted through all of the other drawers. It wasn’t on his keychain. All he kept on that were our car keys and a house key. I looked over the shelves. Nothing there.

  Okay, I was officially being paranoid. And an idiot.

  I had an amazing husband. Attentive, kind, loving. One who I still occasionally had to pinch myself over, to make sure the life we’d built was real. I looked up at his shelves again.

  One who surrounded himself with pictures of us. Of me. One who loved the same geeky movies that I did and tried really hard to stay awake during Jane Austen movies. One who kept second place soccer trophies from high school.

  Wait.

  Who the hell would display a second place soccer trophy from high school?

  I picked it up and looked closely at the inscription. It didn’t list his home state of Tennessee. Or any state, for that matter. It didn’t have his name on it or the name of a school. The top was cheap plastic, but the bottom was oddly heavy. I shook it.

  It rattled.

  Then I carefully unscrewed the bottom, and objects clattered out. There was a key for a safety deposit box, a few rings that looked like they might be family heirlooms, and . . . a small key.

  This was it. The moment of truth. Was I going to be that woman? The snooping, suspicious, meddling type?

  Hell, yeah, I was.

  I stuck the key in the lock.

  “All right. Let’s see what we have.”

  “What are you doing?”

  I screamed and dropped the key, whirling around to face my best friend.

  “What are you doing?” I said. “You almost gave me a heart attack, Jen.”

  She handed me one of the two lattes she was holding.

  “Amnesia and a heart attack? Sounds like you’re gunning for a full-blown Lifetime movie, Annie.”

  “I repeat, what are you doing in my house?” Unannounced.

  “Chill out. I’m bringing you coffee.” She handed one over, her eyebrow quirked up. “I rang the doorbell, but you didn’t answer, so I let myself in.”

  “I didn’t hear a doorbell.”

  “Maybe it’s broken. Too bad you don’t have a hot husband who’s good with his hands to fix it for you. Or maybe he’s figured out better things to do with those hands.”

  “And why do you have a key to our house again?” I asked, pinching the crease of my eyebrows.

  “Evan gave me a copy. He wanted to make sure someone else close by had one in case of an emergency.”

  “Oh. Well, thanks for the coffee, not that I usually think of coffee as an emergency.”

  “It is when you don’t answer the door. I was two seconds away from calling Evan to ask him where you were.”

  My breath caught in my throat, imagining how awful it would have been if it had been him and not Jen who had walked in just now. How would I have explained this intrusion of his personal space?

  “Now back to the original question,” she said. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m . . . invading my spouse’s privacy.”

  “And does that strike you as a particularly healthy exercise?”

  “No.”

  “Why are you invading his privacy then?”

  “Because” —I put my hands on my hips and stared up at the ceiling—“does it seem like maybe he’s hiding something from me?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like . . . honestly, I don’t know. Not anything terrible. But something hard or hurtful or . . . I don’t know.”

  Jen just stood there, staring at me. She no longer looked put-out. More pitying.

  “What?” I said. “Say something.”

  “I think . . . I think that’s a question you need to ask Evan.”

  Ten

  “Oh, hey, honey. Glad you’re home. Thanks for all the sacrifices and selflessness you’ve poured into this marriage, especially in the last month. Oh, and by any chance are you hiding any deep, dark, dreadful secrets from me?”

  Yeah, that would go over great.

  I curled into a ball on the bed, trying to feel like anything but an ungrateful, paranoid lunatic. Maybe it was better if I didn’t know what this thing was. Because every other part of this marriage was so good. The conversation and getting to know each other. The snuggling on the couch binge-watching Netflix. The sex. No, the sex wasn’t good. It was amazing.

  And the hard part was that he had answered all my other questions truthfully, even if it was obvious that they made him uncomfortable. I knew that if I asked this one, he would probably answer it, too.

  I just didn’t know whether or not I actually wanted the answer.

  I sat up suddenly.

  “Lingerie.”

  This conversation might be easier if we had it after we’d just made love and he was so relaxed I could lift him off the bed with a spatula.

  But not just any sex. Crazy, monkey, little-black-strip-of-lace-and-nothing-else sex.

  That negligee from the photo album that had made my boobs look effing spectacular would fit the bill. I pulled open my lingerie drawer and sifted through teensy thongs and silky camisoles until I found it. Umph.

  I slipped it on, the delicate patches of lacy flowers covering just enough to keep him guessing. I turned to the side and looked at myself in the mirror, and my boobs looked . . . okay.

  Huh.

  I mean, they looked fine, their normal perky selves. But not the va-va-voom that I remembered from the photos. Those pictures hadn’t been photoshopped. I could spot that nonsense a mile away.

  I ran upstairs and pulled out the album, flipping to the boudoir pages. My breasts looked just as fabulous as I had remembered. Maybe more. I’m a good solid C, but those things were DD and then some. As I squinted to get a better look, the memory hit me like a thunderbolt.

  “They’re like water balloons that are about to burst.” Evan gazes with frank admiration at my chest. “Or beach balls . . .”

  “That are about to burst?” Honestly, it’s a decent metaphor. They’re heavy, aching. Not in a bad way. Just different. The thought of them getting even bigger leaves me with a sense of wonder and impossibility.

  “Well, yeah,” he says.

  “That’s not very sexy.” I laugh.

  “Oh, trust me. They’re sexy.” He pulls the corner of the lace down and exposes the nipple. I feel it stiffen at the sudden cold, and it prickles almost painfully. But then his warm lips surround it and any thought of pain disappears. I clutch the duvet beneath me. Our duvet. I still can’t believe I’m married. To Evan, who is . . .

  I moan, tremors building as he takes more of me into him, suckling while he rolls the other nipple between his thumb and forefinger. I’m going to come with this alone, I know it. I have so much blood coursing through my body that even the brush of lace against my clit is enough to send me over the edge before he’s even unbuttoned his jeans. He pulls away, but I grasp at his hair.

  “Don’t stop,” I gasp. “Don’t . . . stop.”

  And then I’m screaming in ecstasy as he pushes me into the most mind-blowing orgasm I’ve ever had.

  After Evan enters me, I come again. Twice. Good Lord. It’s like all the extra blood flow has turned it into a superpower. Then he climaxes and collapses into his own puddle
of molten flesh. Evan reaches down and plants a gentle kiss on each nipple in turn. He chuckles.

  “I’m going to miss having these all to myself.”

  I turned the page of the photo album and stared at the blank space where the last page had been ripped out. A tear dripped from the end of my nose and landed on the paper. I didn’t bother to wipe it away.

  At least I knew what question to ask.

  Eleven

  The loose plank outside Evan’s office door creaked as he stepped on it, but I didn’t turn around. I didn’t know if I could bring myself to look him in the eye.

  He didn’t say anything, but I could tell he knew. He knew I’d remembered. He walked up behind me and laid a hand on my shoulder. I fought the urge to flinch away. Instead I picked the drawer key off his desk and handed it to him.

  “Show me the picture.”

  “Are you sure you—?”

  “I need to see it.”

  He slid the key into the lock and turned it slowly. I reached in and pulled out the single sheet of glossy paper. The tiny, white object was grainy and out of focus, nothing more than a splotch in a field of black.

  And it was more beautiful than any photo I’d ever seen or taken.

  I ran my finger along the side.

  “How far along was I?” I whispered.

  “Eight weeks in the ultrasound.” He gulped and his voice choked up. “Twelve when we lost her.”

  “Her?”

  All the pieces fell into place. My cleared schedule for the summer. The discarded diaphragm. The boobs with a life of their own. A delayed registry for when we really needed new stuff. The blueprint for a nursery straight out of a fairy tale. A blueprint that my husband couldn’t bear to look at.

  And the answer to the question that had loomed in my mind since I’d woken up to find myself married to Mr. Perfect. The answer to why he pulled out every time we made love.

  Mr. Perfect had accidentally knocked me up. He’d felt obligated to marry me. And he wanted to make damn sure he didn’t make the same mistake twice.