"I'm sorry that happened to you."
"And I'm sorry your mind works against you and makes you think ugly things about yourself," she said, giving me a knowing look. "We are going to see if we can help you see what the rest of us see when we look at you. Do you happen to have contacts?"
"I, ah, yeah. I just never wear them. Kind of a hassle compared to the glasses."
"Oh, Chinese," she said when the buzzer sounded. "Okay, go put the contacts in. I'll deal with the food."
With that, liking this whole experience too much to object to doing something so small, I slipped in the contacts, ignoring the foreign sensation until it went away.
Then we ate Chinese while she told me more stories about her life, focusing a lot on meeting Hunter, about how she stole his tools because he wouldn't stop making noise when she was trying to sleep, about how he'd tattooed her to cover her childhood scars.
But before long, we were back to my makeover.
I lost count of all the products that she put on my face. Tinted moisturizer, blush, lip liner and lipstick, about ten different eye shadows, liner, mascara.
"Don't move," she demanded, voice grave when she started coming toward me with a sewing needle.
"This seems unnecessary," I told her as she came closer.
"The wands have come a long way, but nothing has ever matched separating your lashes with a needle. Don't move."
When someone was coming at you with a sharp object right near your eye, yeah, you didn't move. Or even breathe.
"Okay. Girl. Yes. Am I too old to say 'snatched'?" she asked.
"I'm not sure I even know what that means."
"My kids would probably say I'm too old, but your face is snatched. Okay. Hair. Then outfit."
"I want to loo—"
"Um, no," she objected, rolling her eyes. "You don't get to see it until I'm done."
She didn't give in, either. No matter how much I begged. She made me dress in my bedroom because the bathroom had a mirror.
I could have found some shiny surface to check out her work, but I was enjoying the intrigue too much. Which made no sense. It wasn't like me. I hated surprises. I always liked to know what was going on, being prepared.
What can I say?
Fiona made it fun.
She almost made me believe she could show me something other than what I saw in the mirror.
Then, hair and outfit done, she did.
"Okay," she said, nodding. "Now you get to see what we see," she went on, bringing me into the bathroom to the full-length mirror. "Open your eyes."
There was a mix of worry and excitement in my system, making me want to keep my eyes closed, stay lost in the fantasy.
But, eventually, my eyelids fluttered open.
And there I was.
Me.
But different.
More polished.
More fashionable.
"Wow," I said, feeling tears burn my eyes.
Was I suddenly a supermodel? No.
But Fee was right.
I wasn't nearly as plain as I had always believed myself to be.
"Okay. Now, to the car!" she declared.
"What? Why? Where are we going?"
"I didn't just spend like two hours making you up so we could sit and eat cold Chinese leftovers."
"Okay, but where are we going? Fee?" I asked when she breezed out, refusing to answer me.
I would get my answer soon enough, though.
Because we parked.
Then we got out.
Then Fiona led me up the street.
"Really, where are we going? This is a weird part of town. There is nothing here."
"Well, not nothing," Fee said, waving up toward the sign on the door of one of the buildings.
"No," I said, stomach plummeting.
"Yep," she said, nodding. "Go get 'em, Sandy," she said, pulling open the door, nudging me in.
I had every intention of turning and rushing back out.
But then there he was.
More gorgeous than I remembered.
Making my heart do that ridiculous little pitter-patter thing it sometimes did when I was near him or when I was talking to him on the phone.
Still, I needed to go.
Get as far away from him as fast as possible.
"Katie?"
Too late.
"No retreat now. I'm sorry but not really, "Fee said before rushing out, abandoning me.
When I turned back, Rush had moved further into the room, his gaze doing a slow inspection of my tight skinny blue jeans, my high heeled boots, my faux corset under a simple deep crimson blazer, the color matching the shade Fee had painted on my lips.
When his gaze fell on my face again, his breath rushed out of him in a way it sometimes did on the phone, those nights when I wondered if maybe he was as affected by the conversations as I was before I convinced myself it wasn't possible.
"Fuck, baby," he said, finally breaking the silence.
All that work I thought I had been doing to move past this, to get over my silly infatuation with him?
Yeah, it all flew out the window.
Because there was no mistaking the look he was giving me right then.
Hunger.
For me.
ELEVEN
Rush
Work was proving the exact distraction I needed.
I'd worked with King a lot over the years, so I guess I had walked in on my first official day as a full-time employee a little more cocky than I should have.
As it turned out, subbing in when Kingston needed a hand was a completely different beast than getting in on the daily nitty-gritty grunt work.
The fucking paperwork.
I woke up during a nightmare I was having about being under a paperwork avalanche.
That said, all the busy work kept my mind occupied. Which was exactly what I needed.
Because it was doing far too much fucking wandering. And in one specific direction.
Back to her.
And once it got going, it was hard to turn shit back around.
So it was better to keep my days busy. After work, I dragged my ass to the gym and let Shane Mallick go all drill sergeant on me for an hour or two until I was too exhausted to do anything but go home, shower, eat, and drop into bed.
Bed was the problem, though, of course.
Body tired, mind quiet, there was finally a chance for thoughts to weasel their way in. Those thoughts, overwhelmingly, traveled back to the office, to a familiar face, and an even more familiar voice.
I spent more time than I cared to admit mixing the woman on the phone with the woman in the woods, creating a whole picture. One I liked more than I should have, more than I wanted to.
Especially given the situation.
King was right. The anger dulled. But that didn't mean it was any less fucked of a situation either.
I tried to tell myself I would stop thinking about it, that a little space would help a lot, that, eventually, she would stop dominating my thoughts.
Invariably, though, I woke up hard and frustrated with the sound of her orgasm in my ear, made even more intense now that I had a face and body to put to the sound, an actual woman rather than a voice through a phone.
I thought I was making some progress.
Then there she was.
Looking like a whole goddamn meal standing in the waiting area of the office.
She'd always been cute. Bookish and sweet, body mostly obscured in loose-fitting work clothes and oversized sweaters.
It was impossible to know what she would look like in something form-fitting, something that clung in all the right places, with her hair down and wavy, with her eyes made up to pop more.
She looked sexy as fuck.
And, what's more, she seemed confident.
At least at first before it started to fade, leaving her shifting her feet, a flush creeping over her cheekbones.
It probably didn't help that I was staring at her like
a creep at a bar catching a woman separated from her clique.
"Fee, ah, she wanted a girl's night," she told me, eyes darting to the floor. "Hunter was spending time with his brothers. And, ah, her girls are pretty much grown. She was bored. We ordered Chinese and she brought over half her closet."
"If you think she could bring half her closet over without a moving truck, you are sorely mistaken," I teased, getting her head to lift again, her lips curving up. "I've never met someone with as many clothes as she has. And, I swear, the woman doesn't own a pair of sweats. She's always dressed up."
"She told me if her shoes fit me, I had to wear them," she told me, grimacing down at her feet.
"They hurting?" I asked, giving her a smirk.
"Only when I'm breathing," she said, getting a chuckle out of me.
"My sister would call those sit-down-shoes," I told her, waving over toward the seating area, moving in that direction as well, but not sitting down. It was a close space. I didn't want to get too tempted. As it was, she was making it hard to ignore the rekindled desire moving through me. "She didn't tell you that she was bringing you here, huh?" I asked, sensing the tension sparking off of her.
"No. She just said we were going out. I thought to a bar or something. Because she was, um, pressing me about dating earlier. I just...assumed."
"Yeah, you kinda can't assume shit with Fee. She's unpredictable."
"I'm starting to see that," Katie admitted, but there was a softness in her eyes at the admission.
"Do you want to leave?" I asked, knowing from Dusty—Ryan Mallick's wife—that having an escape clause could help with anxiety levels.
"I, ah. Yes. But no," she immediately rushed to add. "I, uhm, I wanted a chance to say I'm sorry," she said, eyes squeezing shut as she took a deep breath. "I'm so sorry. I just... I planned to stop. You know... calling. I was working on stopping doing that. And then, I guess, I just figured no one ever had to figure it out. And I know that isn't right. Like, if it was just a random person on the phone," she went on, tapping her foot, "I guess it wouldn't matter. But because you weren't a random person. That wasn't right. And I didn't mean to, I don't know, play you. Or mess with you. Or make you feel stupid or betrayed. I truly didn't mean for any of that to happen. I just... I just didn't think anyone would ever know. I thought it was going to be my dirty little secret. And I'm so sorry."
Christ.
She looked like she was crumbling right in front of me. All that confidence that had had her standing straighter when she'd walked in was gone, leaving her mumbling and glassy-eyed.
"Okay," I said, releasing my breath as I moved across from her in the seating area, my knees practically brushing hers. "It's alright, Katie," I told her, watching as she vigorously shook her head. "It is," I repeated. "I overreacted at the office. I was surprised. And shit got confusing. I was harsher than I normally am. That wasn't fair. Can I ask you something?"
"After all this, I think you have a right to any answers you want," she said, still avoiding eye-contact.
"Who was that?"
"Who was what?"
"On the phone at work that day. Who was that?"
"Oh, ah, uhm, that was my ex-husband.
Ex-husband?
How did I not know she was married?
I guess because she never talked about herself unless she was prompted to. And I had, apparently, been selfish in all of the conversations we'd had over the years.
"You were married?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"Up until two years ago."
"And he was still calling you at work?"
To that, she let out her breath on a snort. "He wanted money," she admitted, glancing up at me, a mix of exasperation and anger on her face. "I didn't realize until after the divorce that he had been using me in a lot of ways. And, apparently, hitting on Fee. I learned that tonight. He was making a fool of me in every way he could think of."
"His shit isn't on you," I objected.
"No," she agreed. "But it was on me to stay with him as long as I did when I was miserable."
"Why did you?" I asked. If she was talking, I was going to keep her talking. There were so many things I didn't know about her, that I found I wanted to know. For better or worse. Whether it made sense or not.
"Because I didn't think anyone else would want me," she admitted, voice a small squeak as she studied the pattern on the arm of the couch. "Which is a silly reason to stay."
"Well, you're half right," I agreed, watching as she looked up at me from under her lashes. "It was silly," I told her. "To think it, that is. Of course someone else would want you."
"I have a lifetime of experience that says otherwise," she told me. "And that's okay. It's okay. Some women beat men away with sticks. The rest of us get by, maybe a good guy comes around. Or a string of bad ones who make us decide to be single. And that's okay. It's fine. I kind of always knew, deep down, that it would be me and my books. Maybe a cat. I think when you hit a certain age and are still single, the cats start coming to you. So I am waiting on mine," she quipped, lips twitching.
"Katie," I started. "Can you look at me for a minute?" I asked, waiting until her chin lifted, her gaze slid up my chest, throat, chin, then finally to my eyes. "Hi," I said, getting a wobbly smile from her.
"Hi."
"You want to know why you're silly?" I asked.
"Sure."
"Because I want you," I told her, feeling like the tension left my chest at the admission. I'd been keeping it to myself, refusing to acknowledge it to anyone, but knowing the truth within me.
"You don't have to say that. It's okay," she said, shaking her head.
"I don't say shit if I don't mean it, baby. I wasn't faking shit at the cabin. I don't make out with random women just because they're in reaching distance."
"But that was before—" she started to insist.
"Yeah, but also no. It was before I knew it was your voice on the other end of the phone with me for months, the voice that was making my cock hard at my desk at work. Yeah," I said when her head shot up, eyes going wide. "I'd never had a hard time keeping shit professional. I had always been able to detach from it. But then your voice was on the phone. And something in me responded to you."
"You don't have to say that to make me feel better," she tried again, refusing to believe the truth.
"You want to know how I figured it all out?" I asked, watching as she gave me a tight little nod. "When you were on the phone with your ex, you begged him for something. Please," I repeated, sucking in a deep breath, exhaling it slowly. "I knew that sound. You. Begging. Fuck, you begged on that phone and my cock was straining. Every fucking time. Don't," I said when her mouth opened. "I already told you I don't bullshit people. I'm telling you the truth. You don't get to choose whether you want to accept it or not. It's a fact. I get it flies in the face of all the ugly shit you've probably been telling yourself, but that is what happened. And kept happening. And that's probably why I flew off the handle when I found out it was you all along. Not someone untouchable, someone halfway across the country, married with kids. No. You were right there. All that time. Right within reach."
"I... I don't know what to say to that," she admitted after a long silence that had her pulling at a loose thread in the seam of her jeans.
"You believe me?" I asked.
"I don't think you would lie to me," she hedged, letting me know she wasn't fully there.
"Okay," I said, nodding, standing.
I moved over toward the front door, sliding the lock.
"What are you doing?" she asked, brows pinching as I moved back toward her side.
"Come on," I urged, reaching down to grab her hand, pulling her to her feet, getting a small grumble. "Just a couple feet," I promised her, pulling her through the office, bringing her through the door to my office, pressing her down into my chair. "You sit here," I suggested, swiveling her so that she looked at the back wall, facing away from the doorway. "And when t
hat phone rings in ten seconds, answer it," I suggested.
"I, ah, why?" she asked, voice getting squeaky.
"Answer it, baby," I said, moving out into the hall, closing the door, taking a deep breath as I reached for my cell, dialing.
She let it ring three times, likely looking for the nerve to pick up, before she finally answered.
"Rush?" she asked, tone high-pitched. Nervous.
"Hello, Katherine," I said to her, leaning back against the wall in the hallway.
I couldn't see her, save for one of her arms on the rest of the chair.
Still.
She was there.
Close.
Reachable.
And, fuck, I wanted to reach out.
But I couldn't. Not that way. Not yet.
Instead, I let my voice dip low, the same smooth sound it always had on the phone with her all those long nights.
"Oh," she said, her breath rushing out. "This isn't..."
"How was your day?" I cut her off, not giving her room to feel weird about it. It wasn't weird. We'd done this dozens of other times. The only difference was, now we both knew who we were on the phone with.
"I, ah. It was okay," she said.
"Just okay?" I pressed.
"I think I made a new friend," she admitted.
"Yeah? What'd you two do?"
"She... she gave me a makeover."
"Yeah?" I asked.
"She said something about how it worked for Sandy," she added, snorting a little. "But that I could do better than Danny," she added, and I could hear the smile in her voice.
"How do you feel about the makeover?"
"It's... it's different. And I don't think I could ever figure out how she did the makeup myself, but I like it. I mean the shoes are awful. But I like it. She told me that she was going to make me see in the mirror what other people saw when they looked at me."
I felt a pang at that, at realizing how hard she must have been on herself, how much those assholes she went to school with had worked to shape her perception of herself.
"You're beautiful, baby," I told her. "Even without all that shit on your face. And the awful shoes," I added, getting a small giggle out of her. "So, what are you wearing?" I asked, trying to ignore the cheesiness of that line. Sometimes, you had to pull on the classics. Clothing talk, well, it led to other things. Things were classics for a reason.
Pull You In (Rivers Brothers Book 3) Page 13
