Quiver (Revenge Book 1) (22 page)

That day when one of her patients didn’t wake up.

Her blood went icy at the thought, and she forced herself to push it away.

She needed to remain focused.

The later into the night it got, the quieter the halls of Blackwater Hospital became. The sun had set, leaving just a few employees from the night shift breezing through the halls every once in a while. Even working in an upgraded hospital with all new state-of-the-art touches, Veda still felt like she was in a horror movie whenever she found herself there late at night. Like the ghosts and spirits of all the patients who
hadn’t
woken up were lingering around every corner, waiting to—

She yelped when she felt a hand around her forearm out of nowhere, and that yelp moved to a horrified scream as she was tugged with a strength that sent her tumbling sideways.

It wasn’t until she was sure she was going to fall to her death that an arm encircled her waist, keeping her steady.

Her heart pounded wildly as she took in the empty stairwell before her, eyes shooting to the wall-to-wall window that gave her the perfect view of the parking lot.

She heard the door to the stairwell slam closed and when she took her first heaving breath and smelled that spicy, earthy scent, she swiveled on her heels and instantly pounded her fists into the chest of the man she knew would be behind her.

“You. Scared. The. Shit. Out. Of. Me,” she said, her voice rising with each strike until Gage was finally forced to take both her wrists under his strong grip, pushing her back against the wall behind her.

The moonlight shone through the window and made his brown eyes look copper as he braced his hands on the wall on either side of her head.

Veda felt herself falling out of control at his closeness, the way she always did. Taken hostage by the ‘itchy thing’
she’d been so sure she could work out the first night they’d fucked. The ‘itchy thing’
that had hung around for two—almost three—long months now. The ‘itchy thing’
that was, miraculously, still alive and well, even after all the shit she’d been blasted with over the past few days.

“Why don’t you ask your boyfriend?”

She searched his eyes, swallowing heavily when she didn’t see the lines that always deepened at the corners whenever he smiled at her. Those lines weren’t there because he wasn’t smiling.

He was looking at her in a way he never had before.

She didn’t have the time to decide what that look was doing to her body, even though she knew it was like nothing she’d ever felt before.

“I can’t do this right now, Gage.” She tried to get under his arm but he lowered his hands on the wall, blocking her in and pushing closer. “You’re not even supposed to be here today,” she accused. “It’s your day off.”

He licked his lips, his eyes growing heated. “Why were you holding Lincoln Hill’s hand at the gym the other day?”

Caught off guard, she had to blink a few times to collect herself. “What?”

“Why have you been boxing next to Lincoln Hill at the gym every weekend?”

“Are you following me now?”

He shrugged, tried to smile, but a frown won over. “Is this whole thing just….” His frown deepened. “Is it just a big fucking joke to you?”

Her heart went into overdrive. “Lincoln and I are just friends.” She heard her voice shaking and tried to control it, but as she continued, she realized it only wobbled more. “And I doubt he’d even call us that. He’s barely spoken two words to me. And I wasn’t holding his hand.” Why was she explaining herself? “He saw that I was holding my fists incorrectly and was kind enough to help me out before I dislocated a thumb.”

“I want you to stop seeing him.”

She felt her eyes grow wide as saucers. “You’re joking.”

“No.”

“I’m not sure what you think this is, Gage.” Feeling like the accusation in his eyes was going to set her on fire, a blaze came to life in her own body, and she was sure it manifested on her face. “But it isn’t any of your business who I am or am not friends with.”

“It isn’t my business?”

“No, it isn’t.”

The muscle under his jaw rolled. “It isn’t my business, Veda?”

She jolted when his voice rose.

“The Lockwoods… The Blackwaters… They’re dangerous. They hurt people.”

She tried to back up but realized she was already flat against the wall. She rose to her toes in her attempt to get away, holding her breath when he wouldn’t even allow her that inch of extra room, pushing in so close she could see the black shards in his eyes where his pupils melted into the irises.

“Two days ago, you told me not to marry Scarlett. Now it isn’t my business?”

“Have you left her?”

He faltered, and it was clear that the truthful answer was one he was in no hurry to utter. “I went home to end it. She wasn’t there. Ended up going toe-to-toe with my mother. Defending us. Defending
you
.”

“But you didn’t end it.”

“Like I said, Veda, she wasn’t home.”

“Because we don’t live in the age of the cell phone, the Internet, and social media.”

“Beautiful deflection. Brilliant. Truly. But it won’t work.”

“I’m not deflecting.” Veda swallowed, lowering her eyes. “I made a mistake telling you not to marry Scarlett, and the fact that you haven’t ended your engagement yet… Well, that proves you agree that it was a mistake too. You’re clearly not ready to go against your parents, and you shouldn’t.”

“Nothing could be further from the truth.”

“We’ve always been completely clear with each other about what this was. When we made love the other night it was… deeper… more intimate than what we’ve grown accustomed to. It muddled our feelings—”

“I’m not muddled.”

Veda faltered. “Gage, what we have is casual. We’re scratching an itch. Telling you not to marry Scarlett was a momentary lapse of good judgment and sense.” She turned her head and peeked at his hand on the wall, saw it tighten into a fist.

“What did he say to you?” Gage asked through clenched teeth.

Veda looked at him from the corner of her eyes. She considered lying, but the words left her lips before she could stop them. “He said that I should ask you about his missing wife.” She didn’t realize how much those words had been eating her alive until tears filled her eyes the moment she said it. She wanted an explanation. She wanted him
not
to be the man Lincoln and Coco had turned him into with just a few whispered words.

She wanted him to be different.

For the first time since he’d pulled her into that stairwell, his head fell.

Veda turned her eyes back to his hands, watching as he dragged his nails down the concrete wall. She looked back at him once he lifted his head again, saw that the anger in his eyes had ebbed to desperation.

He spoke in a calm tone that was clearly difficult to maintain, as it shook with the frustration that lingered underneath. “Lincoln Hill is entrenched in a fantasy world he’s concocted in his own head. He believes that because his wife disappeared during one of my father’s cruises, that my father had something to do with it. He’s been trying to have my father arrested for years, and he’s been unsuccessful, because my father hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“A warrant I was counting on fell through. The rich prick I was gunning for found yet another loophole.”

She heard Lincoln’s words and couldn’t believe it when her heartbeat slowed. Was her body that much a fool for Gage? Willing to swallow up any and every bullshit thing he said if it meant returning him to the angel who’d taken over her life? Her spirit? Her heart?

She felt her eyes falling to his lips. She wanted to stop them, but couldn’t.

Gage removed one hand from the wall and cupped her cheek. “Veda, I love you. Please don’t allow other people to get in your head and confuse what we have. Especially not a man who has a vendetta against my family. A man who’d love nothing more than to see you and me broken apart.”

“Linc doesn’t care if you and I are broken apart.”

“I see the way he looks at you.” Anger filled his eyes. “Whenever he’s in this hospital.”

Her eyebrows knitted. “The way he looks at me? What, with total indignation? Intense irritation? Borderline loathing?”

He searched her eyes. His voice lowered. “I see the way he looks at you.”

Veda was stunned. “Gage, this has gotten completely…” She swallowed heavily, her voice weakening. “Completely out of control. This is just casual.”

His voice rose. “This is not casual.”

Veda pressed back against the wall. “It is casual. And even if it wasn’t, you’d still never have the right to tell me to stop talking to Linc. You would
never
have the right to tell me what to do with my own body.”

“Whether you have the courage to face it or not, Veda, I’m in love with you.”

She opened her mouth to refute, but nothing came. A frown pulled at her eyebrows.

“I am madly in love with you.” He seized her hips with splayed fingers, his voice strangled with the same vulnerability staining his eyes. “And these are my hips.” His greedy fingers traveled behind her, cupping her. “This is my ass.” They climbed her back, circling around to her breasts, which he took under a gentle hold. “These are my breasts.” Up to her face, where the pads of his fingers stroked her mouth. “This is my bottom lip. My top lip. My nose. My eyes.” He buried his hand in her hair. “These are my curls.” He tangled his fingers in them and pulled her in.

Veda tried to fight every muscle in her heart that screamed
yes
as he leaned close. She tried to heed every muscle in her mind that screamed
no
. She tried to stop her heels from kicking off the floor and taking her to her toes, to stop her chest from pushing up against his, to stop her fingers from taking his jaw under her grip. Her leopard-print nails sank into his cheeks, and even as she told herself to push him away, she drew him in and their lips met.

They gasped together, and the kiss was instantly intense. Her arms were around his neck and they were tilting their heads, letting their panting tongues sweep together.

The embrace went on until the smack of their lips and the heat flying from their flared nostrils had filled the stairwell, echoing as it bounced off the walls.

Her pussy squeezed for more, and when he ripped apart the drawstring at the waistband of her scrubs, it took everything Veda had to take his shoulders and push him away.

“No.”

He zeroed back in. “I will end this engagement tonight, even if it means turning my life upside down.” He took her jaw in his hands, pressing his forehead to hers with desperate eyes. “I will end it tonight, Veda. But I need to know… I need to know….”

Veda knew what he couldn’t say. She knew what he needed.

And she knew she couldn’t give it to him.

The vial in the pocket of her scrubs suddenly felt like it weighed a thousand tons, reminding her of what she needed to do that night. What she’d been on the way to do before he’d pulled her into that stairwell and muddied up her mind.

She now understood that she couldn’t give him the chance at all.

She couldn’t give him the chance to kiss her, touch her, or even talk to her.

She couldn’t give him the chance to be this close because she couldn’t trust her own body.

She tried to say the words she knew she had to say, but her throat choked them back like they’d serve as poison the moment they hit her tongue, killing her instantly. It took a few tries, but she finally managed to croak, “This is why we had limits. We never argued like this when we had limits, did we? This is exactly why the danger zone was to be avoided at all costs. But you insisted on….” She took chunks of his shirt into her fists at the horrified look that filled his eyes. “On trouncing all over it—” The words broke. With a strangled breath, she bent down, snuck under his arm, and went for the door.

“No, Veda—” He caught hold of her upper arm, stopping her, raising his voice as he tightened his hold. “Veda, I’m
talking
to you.”

She stumbled back, met his eyes, and then lowered her gaze to the fierce hold he had on her arm.

“I want to go back downstairs.” Veda tried to pry her arm from Todd’s painfully tight grip, wondering when the room had started spinning. Her vision blurred, her drink dropped from her hand, and she only distantly heard it crash to the floor as she clapped a hand over her burning forehead, slurring, “I don’t want to go in there.”

“Don’t grab me,” she said, her teeth clenching as she realized this had never happened before. She’d never flashed back to that night while in Gage’s presence. Not once. “Don’t grab me like that.”

Whatever he saw in her eyes made him release her with a look of deep regret, breathing out, “I’m sorry.”

Veda didn’t know why, but even then, even after he’d freed her, she couldn’t make herself leave. She couldn’t make herself walk away. When a silent tear raced from the corner of his eye, blazing down his cheek and plummeting to the concrete floor, her heart split in two.