And then his eyes caught hers, held hers, refused to let her look away. All the things she saw…It was too much, the hope and the longing and the wishing and the want. How was she supposed to survive without him in her life? How was she supposed to pull out this memory years down the road and be happy when he wasn’t with her?
Because she had no answer, she came, completely, giving herself up to the physical bliss of their joining. It was the most glorious pain, a beautiful ache.
She had him, but she didn’t, and when he growled out, “Hands and knees,” she gladly did his bidding, crawling off of him and onto the bed, punching a pillow beneath and anchoring her arms around it.
He knelt behind her, dug his fingers into her hips to position himself, then slid his palm over her sex, cupping her, slipping a thumb inside of her. His cock nudged his hand away, and he pushed into her slowly, releasing a groan that rattled her as his cock filled her up. He slid deeper, deeper, withdrew and returned, then reached around to toy with her clit, seeing to her pleasure while finding his own.
His strokes grew swifter, his breathing shallow; when he pulled his hand away to hold her hips, she replaced it with her own, working herself to completion as he came. He shuddered, stiffened, cursed coarsely and called her name. It made her cry, that sound, those words, though she buried her sobs in the pillow, hiding them.
Seconds later, the muscles of his thighs relaxed, and he moved away, easing himself from her body, then wrapping an arm around her waist and lowering them both to spoon.
They calmed together, no other words spoken, and then they showered, cleaning each other, Kell rinsing her, toweling her off, dressing while she dried her hair, fixing breakfast while she donned her weekend wardrobe of a tank top and shorts, and when time could no longer be forgotten, kissing her goodbye in her driveway.
It was a kiss full of tenderness, beauty, and she pressed her fingers to her lips to hold it there when he put his SUV into gear and backed into her street. He lingered, shaking his head as he settled his sunglasses in place. And when he finally pulled away, he burned strips of rubber into the pavement in front of her house.
A long black reminder of what she’d had and lost, one she’d see every day when she left for work and when she came home.
She returned to the cottage and spent the rest of the day—Saturday and Sunday, too—doing next to nothing but missing him. She didn’t call her mother to tell her she was home. She did little more than move from the bed to the bathroom to the refrigerator, opening the door and staring inside.
When Monday morning arrived, she gathered her things, then exited through her half-acre backyard, opening the gate that led into Mr. Floyd’s equally large yard behind and walking down Paul Revere Street instead of Lamplighter Lane.
Mr. Floyd wouldn’t mind if she used his property as a shortcut in order to avoid the mark Kell had left in front of hers. It was either that, or never leave her cottage again.
AS THEY’D PROMISED, Roni and Honoria had indeed taken care of things while Jamie’d been gone. That didn’t mean she’d returned to find nothing to do. On the contrary. Her coworkers taking care of things simply meant they’d handled the daily chores that usually fell under her purview. It didn’t mean they’d done her work, and she was glad.
Keeping busy meant she didn’t have time to dwell on Kell’s leaving her, or answer any questions Roni or Honoria had about what had happened while she was away. She didn’t want to think about Midland. She didn’t want to think about Kell or the hypnosis.She didn’t even want to think about what was going on today—or had over the weekend—with the investigation into the Sonora Nites Diner murders. She wanted to think about the unpaid insurance claims and their deadlines staring her in the face. That was all.
She’d finally gone over everything about the trip and the hypnosis with her mother when Kate had stopped by the pediatrics clinic on her way to work. At least everything but the sex. Though Kell had called Jamie’s mother while Captain Greenley had been conducting the exit interview following the session, Kate had wanted to hear the details firsthand.
As much as Jamie wanted to leave the last few days behind, she couldn’t blame her mother for her curiosity or her concern. And though Jamie was certain her mother knew things with Kell had gone as they had, Kate didn’t say a word. She just handed Jamie her coffee refill and told her they’d have dinner at Buck’s Burger Barn tonight.
A burger sounded great, Jamie had to admit, heading to the lobby to cover the phones while Roni went on break. A burger wasn’t a steak. A burger wasn’t a bacon sandwich with Cheetos and tomato soup. A burger wouldn’t make her think of Kell standing at her stove frying fresh-cut potatoes.
In fact, she was hungry enough that she didn’t know how she was going to make it the two more hours until the clinic closed and she could get dinner, return to her sleepathon and start picking out names for her future cats. Gah, she had to stop. She was getting on her own nerves now.
When the front door opened, she welcomed the distraction from her depressing thoughts, smiling at the Hispanic man who approached. “May I help you?”
A shock of black hair falling over his forehead, he looked around, leaning his forearms on the reception counter, then finally gave Jamie his attention. “This office. It’s the only kid doctor in Weldon? Me and my son, we just moved here.”
Jamie nodded. “We are, yes. There’s a general practitioner here as well, but you’ll have to go to Alpine or Fort Stockton for another pediatrician. Were you wanting to make an appointment for your son?”
“School’s coming up. He’s going to need shots and things,” he said, frowning, distracted, his dark eyes flitting but never to hers.
Jamie wondered if he was on drugs. “Sure. Do you have records from his last doctor? So we can see what he’s had and what he needs?” she asked, opening the appointment-scheduling program and pulling the keyboard in front of her, prepared to input his information.
“His mother did all that. In Midland. I’ll have to check.”
“Did you want to go ahead and make the appointment? With school starting soon, we don’t have a lot of openings in our schedule.”
He shook his head, reached up to push back the fall of hair. “I’ll just wait.”
O…kay. She grabbed one of the clinic’s cards and handed it across the counter. “Here’s our number. Just give us a call when you’re ready to come in.”
He nodded, took it with a shaking hand, making Jamie think again of drugs. Or at least she thought of drugs until the cuff of his sleeve slipped up as he reached for the card and she saw his tattoo. The tattoo. The snake. Then she couldn’t think of anything but not giving herself away.
For one short second, she considered asking for his name for their records, then thought better. She wouldn’t do that with any other parent who wasn’t ready to bring his child to see Dr. Griñon. This man might know that. This man might have been in here previously, before the hypnosis, and know that. And so she smiled and waited for him to go.
He studied the card, tapped it on the counter, then finally pushed away and headed for the door. Once he’d left the building, Jamie counted to thirty. She didn’t want to jump up while he was right outside. She didn’t want to start digging through the desk drawers for a letter opener or knife. She didn’t want to pick up the phone and call for help until he couldn’t walk back in and catch her.
Just as Jamie hit twenty-nine, Roni returned from her break. The other woman hadn’t taken but one step into the lobby when Jamie whispered, “Lock the front door. Now. Turn the sign to Closed. And shut the blinds.”
Roni frowned, but hurriedly did as she was told. Jamie picked up the phone, searching the desk for a weapon while she waited for Kell to pick up.
It took four rings before he did, and she could hear laughter in the background. His own voice sounded buoyant, upbeat. “Jamie?”
“He was here,” she cried out with before he could say another word. “Here. In the office. I saw his tattoo.”
“What? When? Maybe it was similar or—”
“Kell, it was it. The same one. I remember.”
“Shit. Are you there alone?”
“No. Roni just locked the front door, and I’m holding a letter opener.”
“Was he driving? Walking?” he asked, and Jamie could hear him shuffling his phone, slamming drawers.
She shoved out of Roni’s chair and rushed to the door, flattening herself against the wall beside it to peer through the slats of the blinds. “There’s a car pulling out of the lot. The glare’s bad and the angle’s wrong. I can’t see if he’s behind the wheel, but it’s the only one.”
“Can you get the tag numbers?”
Jamie gestured toward Roni who’d been standing and listening to her side of the conversation wide eyed. “Roni, help! Can you read the plates on that car?”
They talked over each other, Jamie seeing an eight where Roni saw a six, a three where she saw a five. It didn’t matter. She rushed back to the desk, leaned across the counter, scrambled for a pen and wrote all of them down on her hand.