The Dom With a Safeword (34 page)

As the server left to get their drinks, Sabrina leaned toward Q. “I feel like people can smell the sex coming off of us,” she whispered.

Q laughed, and when Jude raised a brow, she put her mouth to his ear and said, “Sabrina is worried we smell like fuck.”

Jude barked a laugh just as the waitress
plunked
his drink down in front of him and she eyed him appreciatively.

Nice! Q had been so wrapped up in her own thoughts she hadn’t seen their server. It wasn’t often she was oblivious to an attractive redhead. Jude hadn’t noticed her either. And he wasn’t just being polite to them by pretending not to. The girl moved off, looking disappointed that she hadn’t caught his attention.

“Hey Jude, if you collect her, you’
ll have the whole set,” Q said.

Sabrina looked annoyed and muttered something under her breath about not liking to share.

He stared at her blankly then gave a lopsided grin. He’d missed the joke. They both laughed, and he shrugged and settled back, sipping at his beer.

Lunch came and they
fell ravenously on their meals.

Jude groaned. “I feel like you two haven’t let me eat in days.”

“Yes, you’ve been too busy getting laid. You poor bastard.” Q arched a brow at him, daring him to complain. She’d lost momentum and already felt full. Sabrina was so hungry Q wasn’t sure she bothered to chew.

Jude’s dazzling blue eyes narrowed to sexy slits. His expression was damned smug. “I know, Q. If I had any buddies around here I wouldn’t get much sympathy. Maybe Fredrick would understand.”

“He won’t be very understanding if you don’t take those O-rings out of the sitting room ceiling soon,” Sabrina mumbled. Her eyes darted around to make sure no one else had heard her.

His expression changed to a pained smile. “Yeah. I’d better get on that. It’s hard to believe I’m leaving in a week. You two want to help me pack?”

The fries settled like a lump of lead in Q’s stomach. “A week? But there’s two more weeks until September.”

Compassion flashed in his eyes. Too close to sympathy for Q’s comfort. “I need time to settle in and visit my family before school starts, Q. I thought you knew that.” He paused, looking uncomfortable. “I’m sorry.”

They had never actually discussed when exactly he was going. And that, by itself, had seemed to mean maybe he wasn’t.

As if this were an everyday conversation, Sabrina poked at the remains of her meal. But as she placed the fork next to the knife, her hand shook and metal tinkled against metal. Her knuckles were white. Q felt like a rug had been jerked out from under her feet. Was this such a non-event that Jude could drop it into trivial conversation?

The silence stretched but no one seemed to want to break it. Jude looked from Sabrina to her and back. She’d always adored the hint of humor in his eyes and his mouth that turned into a grin at unexpected moments. It made him a man and not just her Dom. It wasn’t there now. His eyes seemed…dead.

“I wouldn’t have given this summer up for anything in the world,” he explained. “But it had to end. I have no choice. I never had.” He dropped the balled-up napkin from his hand and batt
ed it into the middle of table.

He si
ghed and looked up at the sky. “
I
think I owe you an explanation.”
Then he spoke very clearly though softly, enunciating words like they might explode if he handled them wrong. “I care for you both, a lot.”

Q swallowed.

“I didn’t mean to get emotionally involved, but it just kind of happened. Having two girlfriends was fun
while I had the summer off but
... You can’t leave your careers to follow me
halfway across the country. And I can't let my family down and stay here. Though I’d love to keep this going longer, I can’t see it working out. We could
try for long distance I guess.”
He shrugged.

That suggestion was out of pity
. He didn’t really want to try to make things work long-distance – he was just trying to soften the blow.  That just made things worse.

“
But it'll be hard for me to give you the attention you deserve. I'll be swamped. I remember my brother going through it. We barel
y heard from him for two years.
Sabrina…” he looked at her, “you have something to lose here too. Do you think you c
ould keep this up indefinitely?”

This time the silence seemed so solid the air might be glass. Q’s heart stopped.

Sabrina avoided eye contact, her lip
s turned down in a frown. “No.”

And so
easily, the glass shattered.

“No. I can’t,” she added, frowning. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey.” He reached and patted her hand. “It’s okay. I thought so. This just makes it simpler, for all of us.”

Except me
.

As if shaking herself from some heavy thought, Sabrina cleared her throat. “It’ll be weird to go back to just dating vanilla guys after this. Though, I guess it’s time to look for a real partner.”

“A real partner?” A ringing started in Q’s ears. She didn’t feel well. They were done with her. Simple as that.

“Yes.” Sabrina still didn’t look her in the eye.
“It’s not that this wasn’t
real
but it couldn’t last, you know? We can still be just…friends.
I mean, we have for five years, right?
We can do that, can’t we?
You promised.
” Her final wistful tone might have given Q hope if this was the start of a relationship, but now it said precisely nothing to her numb heart.

“Sure.” She nodded. In her head she worked fast, trying to build the wall back up. But it was too late. There was nothing left to protect herself with. She stayed in her seat, trying to look as blasé as they did. They glanced at her intermittently, but she knew she couldn’t trust herself to speak. When the topic changed she excused herself, grabbed her bag, and escaped to the bathroom.

She bit her lip hard all the way there, trying not to cry before she was somewhere safe. With a gasp, she rushed into the room. It was empty. A flood of tears erupted, her hands unable to hold them back. Her heart fractured, grinding down into dust. She locked a stall door behind her. The sobs were too loud and she tried to quiet herself – she didn’t want to be the girl that made scenes in public restrooms.
It’s okay, it’s okay
, she kept telling herself, frantic to calm down before Sabrina came looking for her.

Her default fix popped into her mind but she pushed it away. There had been therapy for this, when she was younger. After her parents died. Unbidden, the thought came back again. The knife in her bag was sharp. It would only take a couple of minutes. She could go somewhere quiet.

Shut up
. She’d promised Sabrina they could still be friends no matter what. And Jude? Neither of them deserved the guilt she’d leave them with. This is what they’d agreed on. She could do this. Splashing water on her face helped a little, but she still looked red and blotchy. She’d tell them she’d had an allergic reaction and sneezed a lot. A little sob escaped her, and she bit the next one down. Her stomach knotted and she felt nauseous. Breathing slowly, she calmed.

She started to reframe. What had she learned from this? When she walked out of the restroom, the girl who cared too much would stay behind. The old Q would be back. Trying to be loving had been a mistake. First
Nico
, now this. Getting attached to people was for idiots – no more making a fool of herself. Her inner
cyborg
shut off the part of her that craved love. Violence, and how it made her feel, would have to be enough. She left the room awhile later, the last of her tender feelings ground beneath the soles of her boots.

Chapter 17

Jude

One of his lecturers had mentioned his father’s favorite saying today and it had hit home. The old medical saying that was supposed to help with diagnosis:
If you hear
hoofbeats
, expect horses not zebras.
He hadn’t been to see his dad yet.

Study and hospital rounds absorbed his time. Shit. Jude slammed shut the laptop and beat a short drum solo on the lid with his hands. The words in his head
pattered in time with the beat.

An-atomy, an-atomy, path-
ology
and zebras. Fuck-
ing
zebras.

He slumped back in the chair and scrubbed his fingers through his hair. Fact was, he hadn’t done much at all for two months except try to settle into studies, and he was still a fish out of water…or was that a zebra?

And he still missed the girls – missed them so much his gut ached. Just yesterday, he’d come across a photo of the three of them Sabrina
had emailed to him a month ago.

Every night he shut his eyes and went to sleep remembering the feel of their hair in his hands. The feel of their bodies too, but mostly he pictured their hair gliding across his fingers. Sabrina’s tousled blonde. Q’s dead-of-night black. His beach bunny and his
goth
. The sexiest chicks ever and he was obsessed with their hair…and the way they talked. And what they’d said. How good they’d made him feel just by being there. Sometimes he wafted into dreamland thinking of them both lying with their heads on his chest, snuggling.

Snuggling
for
chrissakes
. He was destined to study medicine, to be a doctor, not to be a playboy Dom with girlfriends left and right.

Fuck. He set both elbows on the desk and leaned his forehead on his palms. Fuck fantasies. Fuck swearing when there was no reason. Fuck everything.

He sat up and shoved back the chair then went in search of his jacket and a pair of pants suitable for visiting his father. Far as he knew, all that was clean was a blue T-shirt and a pair of faded brown pants. Maybe he should start just buying black, like Q. At the sudden ache, he froze, halfway to the closet, and put his hand to his chest. Heart attacks didn’t happen to men this young, did they? Not commonly. Think horses, not zebras. He squeezed his eyes shut.

Fuck horses too.

As soon as he pulled into the parking lot at the nursing home, he felt queasy. He hated visiting this place. In fact, he hated all places with the sick. The accumulation of illness and sadness overwhelmed him every time. Blood, he could handle. Puke, wet diapers, kids vomiting on him…all those were okay. Just not this. Not places where death poked its scythe in way too often.

He stared at his hands on the steering wheel. Some doctor he’d be. The smell of fresh-cut timber excited him, and the firm feel of a hammer in his hand. Making things. Building. That was him. Sick people made him sick.

The nurses smiled as he went past. The entertainment room was packed with elderly men and women in wheelchairs watching TV, playing cards and gossiping. IV drip stands stood like strange metal trees. His march down the corridor was as lonely as that of a soldier coming home from war without his buddies. His soles squeaked on the floor. He took the right turn to the door, and pushed it open.

The room itself was clean and smelled fresh. A vase of beautiful roses sat on the table – his mother must have been here recently. She still came most weeks. The view out the opened French door was stunning – trees, an expanse of green lawn, flower beds overflowing with bright blossoms. A few birds flitted past, chirping.

He took a breath and went to the bed. He stood a while, flexing and clenching his fists. Looking at the man in the bed made him feel so empty. This wasn’t his dad, not anymore. Not since six years ago, soon after he’d started pre-med.

He looked around and found a chair then pulled it up next to the bed. The noise at last attracted the attention of the skeletal figure in the bed. Drool hung from his chin and his eyes were rheumy and sightless. Though the nurses must clean his face each morning crusts had already collected on his eyelids and lips.

His father. His world, until that day. The stroke had taken his father’s mind if not his body. The family, him included, had waited in turns for weeks, praying at first that he’d survive, then praying the brain damage might not be as bad as the te
sts indicated. All for nothing.

No matter the positive spin people tried to put on this, he’d never been able to see the point in life if you didn’t even know it was passing you by. This was the man who used to carry him on his shoulders, and who gave him bear hugs when he needed comfort. If he’d so much as nicked his finger, his mother had sent him to Dad. As if
she couldn’t put on a Band-aid.

Jude smiled weakly. He saw through it now – her plan had been to let his father be involved in his son’s world. As a surgeon his days had been filled with work. The good memories still crowded in though – waking at night to a gentle kiss on his forehead and a smile, sitting on the floor with him laughing as his armies of toy soldiers got flattened by their basset hounds galloping through, buying popsicles at the beach.

But the brilliant surgeon had become a husk.

The ache in his stomach intensified but he reached over and took his father’s thin hand. What to say? He always went through the news when he visited…no matter how gruesome or strange or how bland. His year
s
in Europe had meant telling some hair-raising tales of traffic on the autobahns as well as sexy stories of the European girlfriend who’d dumped him for a German accountant, of all things.