Losing Control (33 page)

Hungrily, her eyes soaked him in. His hair was longer than the last time she had seen him. The whiskers on his cheek and chin showed a full beard instead of the smattering he usually had. His eyes, blue though they were, held a tiredness that she hadn’t seen before. “Hi,” she whispered, scared to speak too loudly.

Jagger grinned and reached forward with one of his hands to grip her own. “Hey,” he answered back.

She knew by the way he stopped abruptly that he wanted to say more but he was worried about spooking her. This would be all her. Whatever came out of this, whatever happened, would be because she wanted it too. “I missed you,” she told him, her throat clogging with emotion.

“I missed you too,” he told her. He wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her there forever, but he wasn’t sure how it would be received. Nothing was the same as it had been.

It was hard to tell him what she wanted, when before it was so easy with the two of them. No one had offered her physical comfort since that fateful day at the school, and she wanted it desperately. The rub of it was that she wanted it from this man, and somehow she had scared him off. “Can you give me a hug?”

The thinness of her voice and the tears that he could hear broke his heart. Pulling her into his arms, Jagger wrapped them around her, squeezing so tightly her feet lifted off the ground. “I’ve wanted to do this since you woke up,” he admitted, burying his face in her hair.

“I’m so sorry,” she told him, her voice muffled as she dug her face into his chest. “I was in such a weird place,” she tried to explain to him.

“Hey.” He pushed her face back from his chest and cupped her cheeks with his warm palms. “You don’t have to apologize to me.” He gave her a small smile. “Just promise me you’re not gonna shut me out. Let’s go talk to this doctor and fix what got messed up.”

“Let’s go.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him into the office where the good doc sat on her ever-present chair.

“Bianca, you look much better than you did last week,” Doctor Jones commented as the two of them had a seat.

The couch didn’t moan as much as when Tyler sat in it, but it groaned a little under Jagger’s weight, and she had to suppress a grin. These men that she seemed to be counseling on a more frequent basis were enigmas. She wasn’t sure that anyone would believe her, even if she could talk about it.

“I am.” Bianca grasped Jagger’s hand, pulling it into her lap. “I feel much more in control of myself than I did a week ago.”

“Like I explained to you before, sometimes when we go through a shock, it just takes a little bit for us to get our sea legs under us again. It just takes us a while to feel normal.”

Bianca nodded. “I get now what you were saying when you told me that. A week ago, I was still jumping at the weird sounds my apartment makes when the heat comes on. Last night I slept with the light off for the first time since this happened. It’s just taking time—like you said.”

“Jagger, how are you doing?” she asked the man who sat so stoically next to the woman who so obviously had his heart.

He swallowed loudly and then used his free hand to wipe at his forehead and eyes. “It’s been rough. I’m still having those dreams we talked about before.”

“Why don’t you tell Bianca about those dreams?”

This was something he really didn’t want to do, but she was an integral part of them, an integral part of his life. He knew that in order for them to move on, he had to be honest. He had to explain to her how badly this was affecting him. “It’s the same thing as before. We get to the kitchen and Raymond’s got his hands around her neck. I see her take a breath, and then he tightens his hands around her neck. I hear it crack and that’s it. I know she’s dead. I stand there and watch him kill her and don’t do anything to prevent it.”

Bianca gasped as he spoke. His speech was so even, almost emotionless, but she knew that wasn’t the case. The hand that held hers gripped tightly as he told the story. “I’m here, Jagger.”

A smile that didn’t quiet reach his eyes appeared on his face. “I know, but I haven’t been able to see you, and it’s caused my mind to play some crazy tricks.”

“I’m so sorry. I was selfish, I should have known that you needed to see me as much as I needed to see you. I just felt so awkward about everything,” she admitted, letting her foot tap against the floor.

“Why did you feel awkward?” Doctor Jones asked as she leaned forward in her seat.

She shifted, not wanting to go into this. “He made me feel guilty.”

“About what?” Jagger asked. “You did absolutely nothing to encourage him.”

“He called me a whore,” she bit out. “And in a way, he really was right. I don’t sleep with men for money, but I play them for it. It’s all an illusion—an illusion made to make men give up their hard earned paychecks. Do you know how many of them have wives at home? Children? I can see where he believed the shit that we force-fed down his throat. For that I feel guilty.”

Jagger didn’t know how to answer that. Luckily for him, Doctor Jones had an idea.

“Okay, so you take responsibility for your part. However, I need you to remember that nothing in any of that you just talked about gave him the right to get obsessed with you. Neither did it give him the right to hold you against your will, to touch you in a way that made you feel uncomfortable, or threaten a school full of children.”

“I know,” Bianca nodded. “Realistically I know that, but I still feel responsibility for it. I quit
Wet Wanda’s
last week. I graduate in a few weeks as it is.”

“You quit?” Jagger asked, his eyebrows raised.

“I had to, I just didn’t feel right when I went in there. It didn’t give me the feeling of family that it once did.”

“What are you going to do about things financially?” Doctor Jones adjusted her glasses. “We’ve spoken at length about how you worry about finances.”

“I took out an extra student loan. I didn’t really want to do it, but it was the best thing for me at this point. I’ll deal with paying it back when the time comes. As it is, I’ve been asked to be a full-time teacher by the school board, so I’m secured a job for next year.”

“That’s great, B!” Jagger hugged her around the shoulders.

She blushed. “I really think it’s more to keep me quiet about what happened than them really wanting to hire me, but who gives a shit at this point. They asked, I accepted. I’ll just prove to them how good of a teacher I can be.”

Doctor Jones looked at the two of them. They sat so close together that every part of their bodies touched, and Jagger softly played with the hair at the nape of Bianca’s neck. They were relaxed against each other. Bianca, who two weeks ago had held herself so rigid during therapy sessions, was now lounging against Jagger. Jagger, who hadn’t smiled in the entire time she’d been seeing him, had one on his face right now that rivaled that of a super model. They were going to make it. She was sure of that.

“It looks like the two of you are on your way.”

“I think so.” Bianca smiled widely, raising the hands they had entwined. “I think we just had to get over this awkwardness.”

“Then I think the two of you should spend some time with one another. If you feel like you’re okay being with him, then you two need to do that. The only way Jagger’s going to get over seeing you up against that wall is if the two of you make memories that show you living, Bianca.”

Jagger nodded. “You’re right. I feel less stressed now that I’ve actually seen her.”

She leaned in and kissed his cheek before he turned into her lips, making them meet in a full on kiss.

Doctor Jones grinned as Jagger’s hands moved to Bianca’s hair and held her mouth closer to his. “Okay, you two. Get outta here.”

Bianca bit her lip and dipped her head as they pulled apart. “Sorry, Doc,” she giggled as she and Jagger scrambled to their feet.

“If you need me, I’m here. I hope the two of you know that.” They both nodded.

“Good! Now get outta here and go live your life. There’s no reason the two of you can’t have an amazing life together. I think you have a really good base for your relationship. Don’t lose sight of how you feel right now, this feeling that you feel now is why you love each other. It’s pure, plain, and what many people search for. Keep nurturing it and know when you need help, there’s nothing that’s gonna stop you.”

Jagger knew that the doctor spoke the truth, and he planned on never being stopped again when it came to the woman who stood in the circle of his arms.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

“W
here are we going?”

Jagger glanced over at Bianca and grinned. They were coming through on the other side of the hurdles that had been placed in front of them. It was nice to see her excited about something. “Just sit over there and look pretty,” he told her, a full smile breaking out over his face as she huffed.

“Seriously. I’m worried that I didn’t dress okay.”

He allowed his eyes to take in her body. The weather was finally beginning to get warm and what she wore was a reflection of that. A t-shirt covered her torso, a skirt stopped just about halfway between her knees and her upper thighs, and cute little sandals sat on her feet. The pink color of her toenails shined back at him, providing him with a glimpse of summer.

“You look fine, baby,” he assured her.

“I’d still like to know where we’re going.”

As he took the exit onto I-65, she saw that they were going south. “Can you figure it out?” he asked, as he reached over to take her hand in his.

“Are we going to Nashville again?”

It had been months since they’d had that first date in the city directly south of Bowling Green, but it almost felt like years. So much had changed in their lives and between them.

“We are,” he affirmed as he let go of her hand.

It was déjà vu and she grinned. He let his knees do the steering as he reached into his pocket and grabbed out a new pack of cigarettes. She watched as he beat the pack into submission and then got one out, lit it, and let out a breath that told her he was finally relaxed.

“What?” he said when he noticed the little grin on her face.

She shifted as much as the seat belt would allow her to do. “We’ve been here before—in this exact same instance—and it just reminds me of how far we’ve come.”

“I guess you’re right. I do remember doing this on our first trip to Nashville,” he laughed. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t think it would take us this long to get back down there.”

“Life just kinda got in the way,” she shrugged.

Life had a way of doing that, he realized. More than anything, the past few months had taught him how important it was to make time for the people that you care about. Make time to tell people that you love them. Things could change so quickly. You might not get a chance to tell that special person exactly how you felt about them. “It did,” he agreed. “But it’s not going to anymore. We’re gonna make time to do stuff like this. Especially after you graduate and start your full time job.”

She liked the sound of that. “You plan on making me a priority, huh?”

“You’ve always been a priority. Like you said, life just kinda got in the way. We have to work at this. A relationship isn’t always easy, and I think ours has been a little bit more intense than most people’s, but I’m so glad you’re here with me right now.”