Hell Without You (14 page)

“Will you go back on the pill?” he asked when he pulled the truck into his driveway.

“What?” His question snapped her out of thoughts of Trevor. It was a welcome distraction.

“I want to fuck you bare. I don’t like the thought of anything being between us if it doesn’t have to be.”

God
. Another one of those bolts hit her core, causing her pussy to draw up tight. “There’s no reason why I can’t start taking it again. I’ll have to see a doctor to get a prescription though, and even then it’ll take a little while to start working.”

All in all, it’d probably be at least a couple weeks before she’d be safe to have sex without a condom. And what then? Would she still be in Willow Heights? Running into Trevor had her re-thinking the wisdom of returning to her home town despite the economic advantage that had drawn her back.

“Yeah, I realize that.” He killed the engine, cracking his door. “But you’ll do it?”

“Yes.” Her heart jumped when he breathed a sigh of apparent satisfaction, filling the cab with the sound.

“For now, though…” He laid a hand on her thigh and squeezed. “I’ll take you any way I can get you.”

She looked down at his hand, large bones and tough sinews beneath suntanned skin. It was clean, though its powerful shape combined with knowledge of his past made it seem built for stains. Grease or blood – his hands could build, could repair … or they could destroy.

Her heart kept jumping, kept racing. What was Trevor doing in town? Surely he hadn’t moved back, not after an expensive education at an Ivy League university. He wasn’t the type to savor small town life, anyway. He was probably only visiting his father – and Clementine’s mother – but even that seemed dangerous.

With a population of only 12,000, Willow Heights was small enough that he and Donovan might end up in the same building again … might come face-to-face.

“You all right?” Donovan leaned across the seat, close enough that his breath warmed her cheek.

“Yeah.” She did her best to distance herself from her inner turmoil. “Ready for dinner? I skipped lunch and I’m starving. I picked up some pasta – it won’t take long to make.” Without waiting for his reply, she slipped out of the truck.

“Guess I’m pretty hungry too,” he said, gathering up the grocery bags and turning toward the house, gravel crunching beneath his boots, “though I haven’t given it much thought until now. Been too distracted.”

Inside, she flipped on the light, flooding the kitchen with brightness. She’d spent enough time in the house to know where Donovan kept the few pots and pans he owned. She pulled out the largest one while he rummaged through the bags, putting away the milk as she filled the pot with water and set it on the stove.

“These for anything in particular?” he asked, holding the bag of apples aloft.

“Thought I’d make a pie.”

He set them on the counter. “Sounds good.”

Was he remembering the way she’d used to wait for him at the end of her driveway with a backpack, then hop onto the back of his bike? They’d go somewhere – the quarry, or maybe a movie at the old drive-in theater, and she’d pull a package of brownies or cookies from her backpack. As she dumped pasta into a boiling pot, she tried to focus on the good memories instead of remembering when they’d been brought to a screeching halt, when everything had changed.

“Let me help.” He stood behind her and reached around, his hand closing around hers as he took the spoon from her.

“There’s no need.”

“I can handle stirring a pot,” he said. “And I can tell that something’s bothering you. Sit down – I’ve got this.”

She eyed the table and its four empty chairs. “I’ll make the salad.”

“So what is it?” he asked as she washed a head of lettuce. “Is it that I asked you to go back on the pill? I thought—”

“No.” She began tearing the leaves, tossing handfuls of bite-sized pieces into a bowl. “I’m fine with going back on the pill.”

“Then why do you keep staring off into space like you think you’re looking somewhere else – thinking of something?”

“I saw Trevor when we were at Studebaker’s.” Done shredding lettuce, she wiped her damp hands on her jeans.

“What?” His voice was like steel now, all traces of patience and concern gone.

“He was there, shopping. I got worried – I was afraid you’d see him, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.”

“Why the hell didn’t you say something?” His voice went a little lower, tension clipping each syllable short.

“Why do you think? I didn’t want you to see him. I was afraid you’d smash his face in again!”

“Damn right I would’ve.”

“Damn it, Donovan – see? This is exactly why I didn’t tell you.”

“You’re telling me now.”

“So you know to avoid him.”

“Like hell I will. If I see that piece of—”

“You won’t do anything!” She spun around, facing the other side of the kitchen, where Donovan stood at the stove, his back to her. “You won’t touch him! God, do you really want to get in trouble and go to prison over something that happened
seven years ago
?”

“What happened seven years ago matters just as much as what’s happening now.” His voice had evened out, calmed. The sound of it sent an uneasy frisson creeping down Clementine’s spine. “If you don’t believe that, I don’t know why you’re even here.”

“Donovan?” Her wariness intensified as she eyed his back, the span of his shoulders beneath the thermal shirt he’d pulled back on when they’d finished in bed. His muscles were rigid, straining against the cotton as he stirred the pot with his left hand. And his right… His right hand was against the side of the pot. The pot full of boiling water. “What are you
doing
?”

She raced across the kitchen, eliminating the space between them in three frantic steps. Wrapping her hands around his upper right arm, she pulled as hard as she could.

His balance wavered, but he didn’t move backward, not even a step. His hand came away from the side of the pot though, the palm a furious shade of red.

“What the hell?” She jerked again, determined to pull him away from the stove. “Forget about the pasta!” Anger and exasperation sliced through her, blade-sharp, as he continued to methodically stir the boiling noodles.

He dropped the spoon into the bubbling water, finally turning as she clung to his arm, using her weight against him.

“Are you going to tell me what the hell you just did to your hand?” she demanded, her pulse ringing in her ears as she met his eyes.

He stared down at her like he was explaining something to a child. “You ever get so mad you know you’re going to snap – do something you’ll regret – if you don’t find a way to distract yourself?”

“No. Not like that, anyway. You burnt your own hand because you were mad? Je—”

“Forget about it,” he snapped. “And forget about that worthless shit, Trevor. And keep him the hell away from me, because if—”

“I don’t have any control over whether he crosses your path or not. And in a town as small as this, he might. If you can’t handle that without murdering him, why did you move back?”

He didn’t answer, didn’t say anything – just moved his burnt fingers slowly, his lips thinning into a hard line as his flesh puffed up before her eyes, pink and shiny.

“You could’ve moved anywhere in the country, but you chose to come back here, where you knew my family would still be. Why?”

“There was no reason for me to come back,” he said. “So if I did anyway, that meant it was possible you could, too, even if it didn’t make any sense. And I knew if you came back, you’d come here.” He motioned with his unhurt hand, indicating the house.

“So you moved back to a town you hate and tied yourself down to this old house on the off chance that I’d stop by?” Her exasperation rose like water at high tide. “And then what – you’d keep me here forever?”

He gave the slightest shrug, more a stretching of his broad shoulders than anything. “Basically, that was the plan.”

“Well, I’m not going to live the rest of my life in Willow Heights. I can’t. I wouldn’t want to even if I could – I don’t want to run into Trevor, or my mom, or Robert or anybody – anybody except you. You’re the only person in this town who means anything to me. And I have to leave. So how does that figure into your brilliant plan?”

It hurt to say it – acknowledging the fact that she couldn’t stay forever was like pushing a knife into her own solar plexus, twisting it a little further with each word. After she finished speaking, silence reigned, a self-inflicted wound not unlike the burn that reddened the palm of his hand.

“I never said it was brilliant, but it was all I had. What was the alternative – throw a dart at a map, pick someplace else to carry out the rest of my existence? I don’t want that – I don’t want a life without you. Fuck staying away from Willow Heights if it means never seeing you again. I … it was hell without you.”

“You’ll never see me again if you murder Trevor. At least, not without being behind bars or glass or whatever it is they keep killers locked up behind.”

“I know that. But I can’t think of him and not want to hurt him. Not after what he did to you … and to us.”

“I’m over it,” she lied. “You should get over it too.”

Now, Donovan stood in front of her, eyes flashing, fists clenched – even the burnt one. “There’s no such thing as getting over something like that – and don’t give me any bullshit about forgiveness, or people changing. There’s only controlling yourself enough to keep from giving what’s due, because you don’t want to hurt someone you love.” He held up his burnt hand, his gaze never wavering from Clementine’s. “I won’t touch him … unless he bothers you again. God help him then.”

Relief trickled into her veins, tainted by horror at what he’d done to himself and how he justified it. “He’s not going to touch me again. Ever.” She was a grown woman now and had no intentions of being cornered by a piece of shit like Trevor. “But just so you know, I think you paid him back in full. You beat the hell out of him, Donovan … it was horrible.” She’d felt vindicated, at the time – and scared, so scared, for Donovan.

“He deserved it.”

She didn’t argue, and tried not to wonder how many other girls Trevor had assaulted – ones who hadn’t had a dark knight to come charging to the rescue, to strike fear into the heart of the over-privileged college brat Trevor had been.

The stove timer went off, its high-pitched beep cutting through the seconds of silence that had followed Donovan’s declaration.

Shutting it off with the press of a button, she removed the pan from the stove and dumped it into a colander that waited in the sink. The spoon tumbled out, sinking into the noodles, and her stomach clenched at the thought of Donovan stirring the pot, his movements measured as he purposely held his hand against the hot surface. “You need to see a doctor.”

He said nothing.

“For your hand.” She turned to face him. “It looks bad. How long did you hold it on the side of that pot?”

“Long enough. You can be my doctor – just like with my foot.”

“This isn’t just some cut, Donovan. I don’t know how to treat that – you need a professional. God, how are you going to work? Even your fingers are blistering!”

“Tomorrow’s my day off.”

“It’s going to take a lot longer than a day for that to heal.” She marched over to the sink and turned the cold water on. “Come here.”

She guided his hand under the stream, holding him by the wrist as the water gushed over his damaged skin. It looked ugly, painful – her own free hand clenched shut as phantom pain sparked in her nerve endings. “Don’t move,” she said, letting go of his arm. “I’m going to look up what to do on my phone.”