By Her Touch

by Adriana Anders

  “I owe you some money, Doc.”

  “Oh. No. Thank you,” she said. “You saved me from…from a world of hurt. I can’t accept your money.”

  “Look, Doc, I—”

  “Mr. Blane. Please,” she said, her breathing loud in her ears.

  His eyes flicked between hers, measuring, weighing, and finally, apparently, deciding she wasn’t bluffing.

  He gave in, lowered his chin in a single quick nod, then asked, “Where d’you want me, Doc?”

  “Come on back,” she said, trying so hard to sound like the doctor she was, suddenly wishing she hadn’t insisted on seeing him this late, all alone, with her staff long gone.

  As she led him to the last exam room on the right, George pretended he was just another patient—an urticaria needing steroid cream, a full-body skin check, or a mole to biopsy. When she turned back at the door, though, and caught him eyeing her bottom or her legs, hidden though they were by her trousers, her body reacted in a way that showed it knew the difference between him and everyone else, even if her mind didn’t care to. Just that look, that slide of his eyes over layers of clothing, dragged her into a morass of sexuality that she’d managed for years to avoid.

  His gaze went up to her face, and she saw his eyes change, watched their warm brown darken to black, and the muscle in his jaw tighten. “Didn’t realize they’d got your face so bad.”

  “Oh,” she said, her hand flying back to the telltale bruise. “It really is fine. No big deal.”

  “You call the cops after I left?”

  “No. No, I didn’t.” And then, because she didn’t want to talk about it any longer, she said, “Your eyes look good.”

  “You call this good?” He shook his head wryly. “You’re one weird lady.”

  “I know it hurts, but it’s doing what it should. Red, blistering. Now, let’s get your shirt off, Mr. Blane,” she said, dodging his gaze. And that sentence—her stupidly chosen words—heightened her body’s fall into unwanted sensuality.

  Wonderful. Just great. After all her careful planning and preparation. Rather than look at him as he stripped, George busied herself prepping the already-prepped room, her mind hunting for words that didn’t contain subtext within subtext, with even more subtext lurking beneath.

  “Remembered the burning hair last time, Doc.” Behind her came the sound of clothing being removed. “So I shaved my chest.”

  Oh, that did it. Her eyes, evil creatures, bypassed her brain’s directives entirely and slithered right to where her body wanted them—on that chest. Good Lord, that chest. She’d spent all weekend thinking about that chest. Below his clavicles, he was so unfeasibly flat and broad, she’d need a half-dozen hands to span it. And strong. Still lower, the muscles curved out, hard and male and sexual in a way that pectorals shouldn’t be—they really shouldn’t. And then the thought of her bare hands, right there, touching his freshly shaven skin…

  George swallowed audibly in the quiet room and reached for her gloves. A barrier.

  “’S that okay? You hadn’t mentioned body hair last time, but I figured it’d make it easier.”

  “Oh, yes, that’s wonderf—” Another attempted swallow over dry, dry throat. “I mean, you did the right thing. In fact, I should have told you.” Her throat clicked again, and before her tongue managed to talk her straight into some sort of absurd 1980s porn scenario, George threw the switches on the machine. It would drown her out. And him, thank God.

  * * *

  He’d blocked out the memory of that fucking noise. Louder than the sound of Ape’s tattoo machine and just as insistent, like being too close to an airplane right before it takes off.

  The doctor put a hand on Clay’s arm, and he sighed.

  “Sorry. Kinda forgot about that sound.” The motherfucking sound.

  “Need a minute?”

  He shook his head. They’d done this just a few days before. He could do it again.

  Her hand lingered on his shoulder for another beat, and he willed it to stay there. To touch him, ground him, make him real.

  That didn’t happen though. Instead, she moved, handed him a pair of big, dark glasses, which he slipped on, and picked up that laser thingy.

  “Okay, so. Chest today.” She sounded as breathless as he felt.

  “Yeah.”

  “Great.”

  The clicking started, and Clay closed his eyes, girding himself for the pain. When it registered, though, he opened them again. He needed to see what was happening. There was nothing worse than being blind to your fate.

  She held the metal arm contraption out, focusing the point on his skin, and pulled the trigger mechanism. With her head down, with those glasses on, the woman looked focused, serious, professional.

  Fuck, that hurt. And not one big pain, but a series of tiny, minute burns, one after another, like rubber bands snapping, snapping. He watched his skin change in the laser’s wake, a hazy, slightly puffy white frost overlaying his ink. He’d been disappointed to see from his last session that the white disappeared eventually. False hope that the process would be faster than expected. But no. Once the white burn faded, the ink was still there, only—

  Oh, hell, it hurts.

  “I’m so sorry. That was your…” The woman cleared her throat. “Your nipple.”

  No shit, he thought, pasting on a smile for her benefit.

  “The rest should be easier.” Again she hesitated. “Your stomach and…hips.”

  Clay’s eyes stayed glued to the doctor. What the hell she must think of him, this big creep with his contradictory stories scrawled all over his outside—and his one, drunken attempt to rid himself of the worst of the ink.

  Yeah, he bet she was impressed by that. Her expression, though, was hidden behind those ugly-ass glasses, so he had no clue. No fucking clue. She bit her lip, leaned in, and went to town on his belly, one hand resting lightly on his. Clay closed his eyes at her touch—soaking up the pain the way his bloodstream would soak up the particles of pigment—and let his mind go away.

  Ape, marching him into the back that day, surrounded by their brothers. But what could he do? What could he fucking do, with the entire fucking multi-agency task force poised outside, waiting to descend on the place?

  Into the back, the stress of that quick stop in the head, whispering into the wire and those ridiculous Hail Marys as he waited for Ape to pop his eyeball. Because when Ape wanted you in back, you fucking went, and you let him ink you. Brotherhood and all that.

  “Mr. Blane? Andrew? Are you okay?”

  “Mmm?” Clay shook his head. It was fuzzy, wrong.

  He opened his eyes to find that the noise had stopped, which was better, since it meant no more tats. Ape nowhere in sight. Or behind him with a fucking ax.

  The quiet left a hollow in his head, a vacuum where he should have found relief, but instead he seemed to have lost sight of himself.

  From the hazy depths, he saw a woman’s hand on his. He frowned at it, the way the fingers looked over his dark ones. She was talking to him, and he tried nodding, wanted to smile.

  Be a cop, not a biker.

  Stuffing the biker deep, deep inside of him, Clay attempted to listen to what she was saying.

  Her other hand reached out and touched his shoulder lightly before trying to pull away, but he stopped her, grabbed her, held her against him, hard.

  “Stay here,” he slurred. Was he drunk?

  “May I…” A thin, white hand hovered close to his face, and he almost flinched before she reached out and removed the foggy layer covering his eyes.

  Oh. Oh, right. Glasses. Protective glasses. He blinked in the bright, sterile room and let it come back to him. Or rather let himself return. Shit. The doctor. Had he hurt her?

  “I’m…I’m sorry, Doc.”

  He should thank her.

  He woul
d. In a second. Just as soon as he got out of this fuzz. He sat back on the table, sank down, heavy. Shit, he’d done it again, hadn’t he? Gone somewhere ugly, from the looks of it.

  “Did I…?” He closed his mouth, trying to get enough saliva to speak. “Are you okay?”

  “Am I…? Oh, I’m fine, Mr.… I’m fine.”

  The woman, clearly not in her right mind to trust him, reached out, and he caught those gloved fingers with his, almost brought them to his mouth, but saw the freakiness of that before it happened. The arm of his protective glasses snagged between them, hard edges pressing grooves into his flesh.

  “Thank you,” he said in a voice that wasn’t even remotely his. It was too low, too grainy, too breathy and bare.

  For a handful of seconds, she squeezed him back, and all he could see were the kaleidoscope layers of her eyes.

  It took some time for him to come out of his haze, the air still snapping with electricity.

  “You Irish?” he asked, and she squinted, not seeming to understand. “Green eyes,” he explained.

  “Oh. Right. Actually, yes. I’m half Irish,” she finally answered, and he nodded. And there were their hands again, still pressed together into a stark, spidery sculpture of black examination gloves, tattooed fingers, and dark glasses. The longer he looked, the less it felt like him. He squeezed and felt nothing. After a moment, she squeezed back, and that, that he felt, like a vise. A warm, solid vise. He let a finger loosen, ran it over hers, and shivered when she again tightened her hold. He moved his eyes back to her face, and she looked—what? Shocked? Scared?

  Don’t be scared.

  “Are you okay, Mr. Blane?”

  Blane? His mouth groggily attempted to correct her, but the woman talked right over him.

  “Is there someone I can call to come get you?”

  He chuckled at that. Just a half laugh, which eventually turned into a real one, strong enough to finally pop this goddamn bubble.

  Clay needed to stop this. Now. He considered calling the shrink, whose wrinkled card lay back in the motel, at the bottom of his duffel bag. He wondered if he should, in fact, be taking the meds that had been given to him—and then shook his head.

  “No. No, Doc. There’s nobody to call.” He had to smile then at the woman’s concerned expression. How was this person so nice? Couldn’t she see that he was absolutely the last person on earth she should be bothering with? Had she no survival instincts whatsoever?

  “Well, I could bring you—”

  He swung his legs over the side of the table, wincing as his thigh got to that crucial angle, and then covering up the expression as he realized what Dr. Do-Good’s reaction would be. He let go of her hand, immediately wanting to take it again, then hopped down, ready for the pain this time, and reached for his shirt, which he pulled over his head.

  “Oh. I haven’t applied the petroleum jelly. You need—”

  “I’m fine.”

  Her eyes roamed his chest in a way he could almost feel, and fuck, he hated slimy crap, but he wanted her to spread that shit all over him. “You should really let me…”

  Fuck yes, touch me.

  “No,” he heard himself say. Firm almost to the point of rudeness. “I’m fine, Doc. Seriously. I got it.” He smiled at her again, made the expression hard and self-sufficient. “When can I come in again?”

  “Oh. I’d better look at the…” He caught her eyes, let his gaze take in the smooth skin of her face, broken only by the unnaturally rosy flush of her cheeks and that fucking bruise that made him want to kill.

  Farther down, her lab coat blocked his view of the rest of her, but he knew. He remembered, from those brief, stolen snatches, her pale legs in that dress and—

  He glanced back up and found her watching him watch her. Her words had trailed off, and there was awareness here between them. Awareness he might not have given her credit for before. She looked so innocent that he’d thought she might be oblivious too. But the flush crept farther up her ears, and he knew she’d gotten at least a tiny bit of what his thoughts were.

  Clay considered stepping forward, doing something inappropriate. He considered it and then threw it away, because his track record with ladies was pretty grim. Not only that, but this woman was the only person he’d found who’d take care of him. And that was the priority.

  Priorities. Right.

  “Can you take me tomorrow? For my back?” he asked, cutting through this absurd fantasy they appeared to be sharing. Synchronized hallucinations. Folie à deux, he remembered a psychiatrist calling it once on the stand, and he’d gone and looked it up—shared insanity. That was what this shit felt like.

  “Yes,” she said without hesitating. And he liked that. He couldn’t help but enjoy that she wanted him to come back, but he also knew it was bad. Attachments were bad. Anything that distracted from his goal. Anything that risked his cover, his anonymity. “We’ll need to numb your back. You’ll need an injection.”

  “No.”

  “It’s too big a surface, Mr. Blane. The pain—”

  “It’ll be fine. No injections.”

  “Then we’ll do one section at a time.”

  “I want to get it out, Doc. All of it.”

  “There’s so much solid black. I really can’t…” She stopped, appearing to reevaluate. “Fine. We’ll use a numbing cream. The treatment won’t be as effective. The research proves it. But I won’t do it otherwise. Not with that much ink.”

  “Got it. You’re the expert.”

  “See you tomorrow, then?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Although”—he glanced at the door—“maybe I should wait for you to finish up here. Walk you to your car.”

  “Oh, no. I’ll be fine.”

  He wasn’t sure he agreed, but her expression didn’t leave much room for argument.

  “See you tomorrow, then. Same time” was all he said, before turning and limping out the door.

  As he made his way up the hall, through the waiting room, and out into the hot, humid evening, he considered, not for the first time, what his future consisted of.

  And, try as he might, he couldn’t get past the first few steps: federal court, testify, put those fuckers in prison for life. And then… Christ, he didn’t know. He tried to picture his next gig. Tried and tried and…nothing.

  There was nothing for him but empty road.

  * * *

  George didn’t follow him out, didn’t lock the door behind him. Hands shaking, she pulled the paper off the examination table, wiped everything down, and walked the trash straight out back, since everything had already been cleaned out once that evening.

  Outside, the air was rank with the stench of a week’s worth of summer sun beating on the Dumpster—and no rain. A glance farther down showed the lights on at the MMA school. Time to head home to her crew. Leonard would no doubt be angry.

  Still her pulse beat like a jackhammer, and she refused to think about why. Why did she feel so compelled to comfort that man? Why couldn’t she keep her damned hands to herself?

  She had no answers.

  George had hung up her lab coat, grabbed her keys and purse when her phone rang. She fumbled it out and to her ear, almost expecting… What? Him to be on the other end?

  “Hello?” she said, out of breath.

  “Dr. Hadley?”

  “Yes?”

  “Hi there,” replied the chirpy voice. “I’m calling from the Charlottesville Regional Reproductive Medicine Clinic.”

  “Oh.” She stopped, heart thumping harder. “Yes?”

  “Dr. Sternberg took a look at the ultrasound, and everything’s ready to go. He’d like to put you on the books for a week from Wednesday. The…uh…fifteenth.”

  “Oh. Wednesday the fifteenth. Okay, great.”

  “How does five sound?”

  “Wonderf
ul. Five. Perfect.”

  “Did you have any questions about the intrauterine insemination procedure before you come in?”

  “No, no, I’m good.”

  “And you’ve got the HCG injection for Monday?”

  “Yes, I’ve got it ready to go.”

  “Great, well, we’ll see you next week, then.”

  A week from Wednesday. Somehow, through the ultrasounds and endless medications and self-administered shots, George had managed not to think about what she was preparing her body for.

  They’d take her dead husband’s sperm and put it inside her cervix, and she would, hopefully, get pregnant.

  Treatment. Pregnancy. Baby. Child.

  She should be excited, over the moon, but something was missing here. The husband, perhaps, to go with that vial of washed sperm the lab had kept on ice this past decade? A vial of sperm that she had to use or lose at this point? A daddy for the baby she planned on bringing into this world? Someone to love her?

  For almost a decade, she’d let that vial sit, an unexpected second chance left untouched in that sperm bank. A decade spent picking up the pieces of her shattered life, creating the perfect nest for the baby she’d one day have, putting it off and putting it off. A decade spent eschewing fun in favor of responsibility. Because this was what she wanted: her clinic, her house, and now her baby.

  Why on earth didn’t it feel like enough anymore? She didn’t trust it—this feeling that suddenly there might be more to life, just out of reach—but she had no idea how to make it go away.

  * * *

  Clay let his eyes scan downtown Blackwood, taking in the cars parked nearby. The martial arts place next door to the skin clinic was holding a class for women. He squinted, watching the ladies go slowly through a series of defensive moves before practicing them on a couple of guys. He surveyed the rest of the block—it was quiet, so quiet he had a hard time trusting this place. Time and again since he’d gotten here, he’d had to remind himself that it was a small town. Quiet was the norm, not the other way around.

  Except it wasn’t like that, was it? There was bad everywhere, people like those junkies who’d attacked the doc. Because under the quiet, in every bumfuck corner of this godforsaken country—probably the world—evil lurked.