He strokes his hand back and forth, and then kneels down beside me. “You’re so beautiful when you sleep,” he whispers.
I smile at the compliment. “What’s done?” I mumble.
“The deal. We struck it at the eleventh hour, as always happens in those types of negotiations. The urgency that’s needed emerges only when time is tight.”
“Congratulations,” I say. “So now you’re free?”
“For the moment, yes,” he muses. “And so are you.”
“Jeremy, wait,” I stop his hand before it can start exploring my body. “We need to talk first. We didn’t get a chance last night. And you interrupted things the last time I tried.”
“What’s the rush?” he asks. He twists his hand out of my grip, but then connects our palms. “Time is not at a premium. You and I have all night. You avoided an altercation among you, me, and your two friends. After bringing them here, you fixed things of your own accord. I checked. Both of them left on a flight to New Haven hours ago.”
“Still don’t trust me entirely, huh?”
“No.” He tightens his grip. “You, I trust with my life. It’s Fey and Robin who are the unknowns.”
“And now they’re dealt with,” I say.
“Now they’re dealt with,” he confirms. He walks to the bed and beckons me to follow. I give him a sly glance as I do.
I sit beside him. He nuzzles my neck.
“Aren’t you ever tired?” I ask. I’m half amused by his persistence, and more than a little flattered that he still has the energy for me after God knows how many meetings he’s had over the last few days.
“Seeing you washes away all the fatigue.”
“Aren’t you sweet?” I murmur. I sigh with pleasure as his kisses reach the sensitive spot right beside my collarbone.
Then—and it takes all the willpower I possess—I push him away. “We need to talk,” I insist.
Jeremy exhales. “You’re firm on that, aren’t you?”
“I’m not the only one who’s firm,” I quip, glancing between his legs.
He chuckles. “Fine, Lilly. If that’s what you want. But let me change first.”
He stands up. I lean back on the bed, eyeing him with one brow raised. He gives me a knowing, provocative look, and strips out of his jacket.
Then he unbuttons his shirt, slowly, meeting my eyes the entire time.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re trying to seduce me,” I say, smiling as his shirt falls off and his delicious body is revealed.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re in a prime position to be seduced,” Jeremy says.
“Not now.”
“I know, I know,” he relents, holding up his hands. “I know you want to talk. But can’t a man change into some comfortable pants when he returns for the night?” He glances down at his tented slacks. “These are somewhat…constricting.”
I start licking my lips then catch myself, and stop.
“Perhaps I could elicit your help with that?”
“Perhaps not,” I say, sticking my tongue out at him. “At least, not until later. I’m not putting this off, Jeremy.”
“I like you when you’re assertive,” he growls.
And then, he leaps at me.
I’m caught totally off guard. I shriek as he pulls me to the mattress and starts kissing my neck again. He moves his mouth further down, nuzzling his head between my breasts, kissing me through the layer of clothes. I can feel his erection against my leg.
“Jeremy, no. Jeremy, stop!” I can’t help but laugh when he starts blowing raspberries in the crook of my neck. I play fight with him. “Jeremy, let go!”
“You don’t want me to let go,” he says. He wraps his arms around my body and holds me to him, tight. “You don’t ever want me to let go. And I don’t think I ever will.”
Something sure and undeniable comes to life within me on hearing those words. It’s a foreign feeling, and it comes from the very depths of my soul.
I don’t want him to.
I freeze. Jeremy notices. He lets go.
“Lilly?” he asks, his face a mask of concern. “Lilly, what’s wrong?”
The only reply I can give is to shake my head at him. “No,” I say softly. Then I repeat it again. “No, no, no, no.”
“No, what?” Jeremy rolls off me. He gives me the thinnest margin of space.
“No,” I say again. I’m suddenly reciting. “No, no, no, no.”
“Lilly! Talk to me. What happened? Did I do something wrong? Fuck!” he curses. “This is what I talked about before. Isn’t it? The trigger?”
He takes both my hands, and looks me in the eyes. “Talk to me, Lilly Flower. I don’t want to cause it again. It’s my fault, isn’t it? Dammit!” He slams one fist against the mattress. “Of course it’s my fucking fault. It’s what I put you through.”
I keep saying, “No, no, no, no.”
The reason why I’m saying it…the reason the barrage of empty words won’t stop…is that I just glimpsed my own true feelings.
I love Jeremy Stonehart.
And I am terrified of that.
“I need…air.” I break away. Run to the window. Fling it open. Gasp in the freezing January cold.
I look down. A sense of vertigo takes me. I’m so high up. I feel tipsy, like the slightest nudge would have me falling over the ledge…
Desperately, I back away. Or rather, I try to. My feet catch. I fall to the floor in a great heap. I scramble up before Jeremy can get to me, and find the room still spinning. There are multiples of him. Everything is all wrong. It’s worse than a bad trip or a horrifying nightmare. It’s worse because all of it is reality.
And I can’t get a grip on it.
I close my eyes, trying to shut away the world. The hotel room. Jeremy. My new feelings…Everything. I feel warmth flow into me from the bottom. I don’t fight that feeling. I let it wash over me, doing away with fears, with concerns, with stress. I let it wash over me until there is nothing left but the empty existence of my mind and that deceptive, comforting warmth.
I fade away.
***
When I come to, I am in a hospital ward.
I recognize it immediately because of the stark white walls, the linoleum tiles coating the floor. By the bright, artificial lights shining high above me.
I roll over and groan. My whole body hurts, like I’ve been through the battering ram and back.
Why?
“Lilly Ryder?” An unfamiliar female voice says my name. I look and see a nurse entering the room. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m…okay,” I say. I push myself up, and find that the aches are not quite as bad as I first imagined them. At worst, they are what I would feel after a sleepless night.
“What happened to me?” I look around the room, and am struck again by all the white. Something about it feels wrong. “This isn’t Massachusetts General Hospital. Is it?”
“No,” the nurse says. “This is a private facility. The Hermann Grace Medical Center. Try to sit up, please. I need to check your vitals.”
I scooch upright. The nurse takes my blood pressure, measures my heartrate, checks my temperature, shines a bright light into both eyes all with a detached efficiency.
All I can think of while she’s doing it is: Where’s Jeremy? Why isn’t he here?
She finishes jotting down all the information, and says, “Dr. Telfair will see you shortly.”
“Dr. Telfair.” Why does that name ring a bell?
She exits the room, leaving me to ponder that thought.
I don’t get very long. No more than five minutes later, the door opens again—and Jeremy walks in.
Except, he’s not Jeremy. He’s wearing a white GP lab coat. His hair is shorter than it was last night—almost a crew cut.
What the hell? He had time to get a haircut while I was here?
He looks at me, and smiles, “Hello, Miss Ryder.”
Miss Ryder? Since when
am I Miss Ryder to him?
“Jeremy, what’s going on?” I demand, sitting up again, quickly. Big mistake. The blood drains from my head. For a moment or two, the room spins.
“Careful, now,” he murmurs. He strides up to me. His gait looks wrong. It’s not quite as confident, quite as self-assured as I remember.
He adjusts something behind the bed. I look back. I am astounded when I see that I’m hooked up to an IV. I follow the trail of the clear plastic tube all the way to where it ducks under the sheets. I lift up one corner of the blanket, pull back the sleeve of my white robe, and see the needle inserted into my left arm.
“What is this?” I hiss, getting angry now. Angry at myself for not noticing before. Angry at him for acting so indifferent. Angry at him for getting a fucking haircut while I was passed out!
I move to pull the needle free. Before I get there, the most tranquil type of nirvana takes over my body.
“That’s better,” he says.
The words float to me like beautiful petals rising to the surface of a lake. My arms fall to the side of the bed, feeling numb and wonderful. My eyelids start to droop. A goofy smile takes over my face.
I gaze up at Jeremy. “You’re so…beautiful,” I say, the words coming slowly. The worries and concerns have all gone away. The only thing I feel is a glowing, building sort of bliss. Everything is slow and unhurried. “This room,” I say, moving my head in a slow circle, “is so…beautiful.”
I see Jeremy smile. I watch his lips move as he speaks. I can’t hear the words. I’m too far away. But his lips are so pretty. So wonderful. They fascinate me, with all their subtle contours and tiny lines and red…redness.
My head swings to the other side. Was I worried before? Why? The memory is far away, like it happened a lifetime ago. A warmth creeps into me. The walls of the room, so starkly white, are no longer alarming. They are beautiful, wonderful. Pristine. They make me think of the cool freshness of newly-fallen snow, peeked at from behind a heavy glass window with a roaring fire at your side. Of the promise of the white Christmases of my childhood.
There are sounds in the air. Beautiful sounds. Amazing sounds. My head lolls back. I can see Jeremy again. Only this time, he is surrounded by a haze, like an angel descended from heaven. I know, on some level, that those sounds are coming from his lips. From his mouth. I know, on some level, that I should be able to understand them. To draw meaning from the words…
I cannot. That knowledge does not frighten me. Rather, it sends me deeper into my tranquil space. I am surrounded by sounds, by beautiful notes, by the treble of his voice and the wonderful, beautiful, clean white room.
A thought bubbles up from deep in my conscious. From a part that has not yet been put under the spell:
I’ve been drugged!
Oh, yes. I smile at the idea. I’ve definitely been drugged.
It does not alarm me. On the contrary, it feels…wonderful.
Never want to leave the state that I am in.
Slowly, as if time has ceased to hold any meaning, I become aware of another voice. A second one, joining the choir. This one is more familiar. It is more…
I close my eyes and soak it in. More…mine.
Again, slowly, the sounds of an argument come to me. One voice battling another. Something tells me I need to see. Something tells me I need to reemerge. It is almost like a longing, a craving for that second voice. A need, a desire to see who it is coming from.
I blink, rising from the depths. I feel my body as a part of me. But, at the same time, it is not. I exist solely in my mind. I have achieved the ultimate disassociation.
As my eyes flicker open, and I reconnect with the world, I see that things have…changed. They’ve shifted. Warped. I do not find the bright lights of fluorescent lamps above me anymore, but a breathtaking view of a clear, blue sky. I feel warmth, not from inside of me, but from the outside, radiating from my face. I know it clearly as the warmth of the sun. I know it with the same certainty that a child knows her mother’s voice.
The argument, the two battling voices around me, continue.
Has it ever stopped? I am not sure.
In the moment I drifted away, an entire lifetime might have passed. Or no time at all. I cannot be certain, and that sort of ignorance grants me bliss.
I look in the direction of the voices. I see two Jeremys. One has his hair, long and wavy, as I’ve always remembered. The other has that short crew cut.
One is wearing an immaculate dark suit. The other is dressed in chinos and a checkered shirt. As the movement of my head draws their attention to me, one of them smiles. The other does not.
And then, as if I don’t exist, they turn their attention back to each other.
Hurt. A deep hurt engulfs me. I feel neglected. It pierces through the ocean I am drifting on and stabs my heart like the cruel words of a former lover.
Why are there two Jeremys? I don’t know. That is not what concerns me at the moment. Not at all. The fact that neither one of them rushed over, that neither of them came to me…is what hurts.
I start to cry.
My whole body trembles from emotion. But I cannot give sound to my sobs. I feel myself breaking, falling apart. I can’t feel my body. That terrifies me. My arms? My legs? They’re there, somehow beside me attached to me. But my knowledge of them is the same as the knowledge I might have of an inanimate object that I spy out of the corner of my eye. I see it. I know it’s there. I know it’s real.
But the influence I can exert over it from my position is nonexistent.
That furthers my despair. I feel myself sinking again. This time, instead of a warm embrace, I am falling deep underground. Into the cold, cold dirt. In the grave of a thousand victims. I keep falling, farther and deeper down, to a place where all joy is extinguished and all hope is gone. To a place where only those who are the most despicable types of souls might ever wander. To a place reserved for the most loathsome creatures of the earth.
I sink, farther and deeper down, lower and lower into the ground, and I lose all sense of self, of knowledge, of happiness, of pain. I cease to exist.
Chapter Nine
I wake with a gasp.
My nightgown is cold. It is drenched with sweat. Immediately, memories of the vile tube pumping drugs into my blood come to me. I move to rip it out—and discover it gone.
A sharp pain starts to build, just on the edge of my consciousness. Before I can make sense of it, it crashes into me, hitting me right in the gut.
Hunger. A ravenous sort of hunger…as if I haven’t eaten in months. I clutch at my stomach and double over. Next thing I know, I’m dry heaving, trying to spew the empty contents of my stomach all over the floor.
A long dribble of spittle runs down my chin.
Ugh.
I shiver. I feel disgusting. My body is sticky with sweat.
Where am I?
I look around the unfamiliar room. It’s dark, but there’s a window with the drapes thrown open. I see stars in the night sky.
My bed is large but uncomfortable. The mattress feels hard as a rock. The pillows I woke up on were too big, too puffy. They made my neck ache.
With a gasp of alarm, my hands fly to my neck.
The collar, I think, frantic. Is the collar back?
My skin is bare. That, at least, grants me some relief.
I look about the room again. It’s furnished with thick oak furniture. Expensive paintings hang on the walls. There is a bookshelf lined with volumes. Beside it is a door.
A door. A way out.
Without knowing why, I slowly get up and start toward it. Nothing about this room is unpleasant. In fact, it feels like the homey type of dwelling one might find inside an ancient house situated on the New England coast.
Still, I want nothing more than to get out.
My legs shake as I put weight on them, but they hold me. I discover a pair of slippers by the bed. They are my size.
With that thought, memories of my time in
the dark come rushing back.
I remember the discomfort. The fear. The complete and constant uncertainty. The apprehension of what tomorrow would bring.
I shudder and try to brush it off. But the memories cling to me like moss on a boulder. This room evokes all of those feelings. I’ll go insane if I find the door locked.
I hurry toward it and place both hands on the knob. This is it. The moment of truth. Fear makes me delay. Courage makes me press forward.
I twist. The door knob moves. The door comes open.
A great sigh escapes my lips. Then a draft hits the back of my neck and causes my nightgown to ripple.
Quickly, I step outside and close the door, shutting off the wind.
I find myself in a long, abandoned hallway. The same ancient, expensive furnishings line both sides. Light is provided by a strip of skylights along the ceiling—no doubt a modern addition.
I wonder just where the hell I am. I take a cautious step forward. The floorboards creak. My heart leaps to my throat.
I wait. One anxious minute passes. Then two. When the blood isn’t pounding quite so loudly in my ears, I venture forward.
I brush my fingers over a shoulder-high vanity as I pass it by. There is no dust. This place is being well maintained.
I wonder where Jeremy is.
Suddenly, all memories of my time at the strange medical facility flood my brain. I remember the nurse, and the doctor. The doctor? He looked just like Jeremy. I’d even say he was Jeremy. But then I recall seeing double. Not two of the same person. Two people who happened to look identical.
Does Jeremy have a twin?
Jesus Christ!
I bring an unsteady hand to my head. None of this seems real anymore. It’s like living inside someone’s horrifying nightmare.
That’s the only explanation that would make sense. Even if I was under the influence…even if I was drugged again…seeing the two of them interacting, arguing, stands out clearly.
And then I ended up here, I think.
Wherever “here” is.
I reach the end of the long hallway and enter a vast, open lobby. I’m on the top floor. There is a railing in front of me through which I can look down. A grand staircase curls around the inside of the building. It is impressive and wide.
Uncovering You: The Complete Series (Mega Box Set) Page 79
