The Institute, Daddy Issues(43)

“I don’t…don’t want to talk about this any­more.” My voice soun­ded strangled, even in my own ears.

Dr. Lucy ig­nored my plea.

“Maybe you’re res­ist­ing what your Papa of­fers be­cause you’re afraid,” she sug­ges­ted.

“Afraid of what?” I tried to scoff, but again my voice came out sound­ing strange and broken.

“Of be­ing hurt again. It’s scary to be Daddy’s little girl be­cause when Daddy leaves you, your whole life caves in,” Dr. Lucy said softly. “It’s the worst be­trayal you could en­dure. That’s how it feels when you’re a child, any­way. As adults, we get used to people we care about mov­ing in and out of our lives. But as a child…” She shook her head. “The sud­den loss of a par­ent… well, it might as well be the end of the world. That’s what it feels like.”

“It feels like death,” I whispered, put­ting my hand to my chest. “Like dy­ing a little more every day he doesn’t come back. And won­der­ing…won­der­ing what I did that made him go away.”

Then I shook my head. What was I talk­ing about? I was let­ting her get into my head again—I had to stop.

“But it’s over now,” I con­tin­ued, straight­en­ing up and wip­ing at my cheeks which were wet for some reason. “And I’m over it. So…”

“Look at your part­ner—your Papa, mishka,” Dr. Lucy mur­mured. “He wants so badly to com­fort you—he wants to pro­tect you from the pain you’re ex­press­ing, just the way you wanted to pro­tect him.”

I looked at Salt. He was lean­ing to­wards me, his big hands clenched into fists on his knees. There was a look in his blue eyes I couldn’t read. A yearn­ing maybe…a long­ing so deep it made me ache just to see it.

“Andi…mishka,” he said in a low voice. And then stood up and strode across the room to me in two steps. Lift­ing me, he car­ried me back to the love seat and settled back down with me in his lap.

“No, stop it! Put me down!” I meant for the words to come out in a shout but some­how they were barely a whis­per.

“No,” Salt growled softly. And then he was kiss­ing my cheeks again, as he had the night be­fore—hold­ing me close and kiss­ing away the tears that I couldn’t seem to help shed­ding.

“Salt,” I whispered. “God…” And then some­how his lips found the corner of my mouth in­stead of my cheek. The next time he kissed me, I moved so that his lips met mine.

A sweet, sharp, elec­trical tingle went through me—the feel­ing of be­ing plugged into some im­mense source of power I had never even sus­pec­ted of ex­ist­ing.

Salt froze and I wondered if he was feel­ing the same thing—that same in­cred­ibly in­tense high. Then he kissed me again and I kissed him back—hun­grily, raven­ously—it was as though an ap­pet­ite I’d kept in check for years was fi­nally com­ing for­ward, de­mand­ing to be fed.

His mouth was salty with my tears—hot and wet and per­fect. I wound my arms around his neck and pressed my­self against him, my heart pound­ing. He crushed me to him and kissed me un­til I couldn’t breathe—not that I wanted to. I just wanted to go on kiss­ing him forever.

It was ma­gical…amaz­ing…

Wrong.

What are you do­ing? shouted the voice of san­ity, fi­nally mak­ing it­self heard in­side my head. He’s your part­ner—the only good re­la­tion­ship you have in your whole shitty life. And if you’re not care­ful, you’re go­ing to ruin everything!

I pulled away ab­ruptly, break­ing the kiss.

“Wait,” I said. “Stop!”

The hun­ger in Salt’s pale blue eyes mirrored my own. But to his credit, when I said ‘stop’, he stopped.

“Andi,” he said hoarsely. “I…” But then he just shook his head and we sat there star­ing at each other.

“Well…” Dr. Love gave a soft laugh which made me tear my eyes from my part­ner’s in­tense gaze. “I sup­pose that an­swers my next ques­tion—I was go­ing to ask if the two of you are truly sexu­ally at­trac­ted to each other.”

“I…we…don’t usu­ally act like that,” I pro­tested, wish­ing my voice didn’t sound so breathy.