Unforgiven (9 page)

“Darren—”

“Stop, Bailey. There’s nothing to say. I fucked up.” Then he shook his head again as he watched her. “Fuck.” He couldn’t seem to stop muttering, and when Trinity turned toward them as she stepped off the last step to the seawall sidewalk, Darren turned from Bailey and started walking toward Trinity, leaving Bailey staring like an ass after him and feeling like an ass too.

Now

“Why did you offer to give me a ride?” Her voice broke his concentration on the road. In truth, his concentration was nowhere near the road, and it was already entirely on her, but he’d been zoned out thinking about her, not at all expecting to hear her voice.

“I thought I already told you. Your sutures need to be removed.”

“Then why aren’t we headed toward the hospital?” Her voice was quiet, unsure, and her fingers trembled as much sitting beside him in his car as they did the first night in the hospital. Her discomfort left him feeling just as conflicted now as it did then.

“I’m just going to stop by my home; it’s closer than the hospital, and I have what I need there.” And he wanted her there. He couldn’t—hell, wouldn’t—admit that to her, and regardless, he didn’t even understand why anyway, so there was nothing at all to explain. He just wanted her there, wanted her near. He would torment her when the compelling and angry need would surface, and she’d likely tolerate it. He’d hurt her with every cold remark he made, and then he’d go back to utter confusion at what was driving him. He’d only seen her a handful of times recently, but he knew very well how he would respond to her. It was as if his need to hurt her was an addiction he couldn’t deny. But his need to see her and be near her in some way was becoming just as compelling as his anger.

She said nothing in response, and she stared straight out the front window. When he turned onto his long and winding lane that led back into the woods and past the Andersons’ house, she started looking around. It was really very beautiful, and it was why he’d chosen the spot. When he risked a glimpse at her, her lips were pulling up slightly. It’s not as if they hadn’t both grown up for the most part in the Ozarks, but his particular slice of heaven compared to no other. The narrow road was winding as it moved up into the hills. There was a stream that ran and followed the lane, crossing under a stone bridge in one place and crossing back over the roadway itself in a shallow, slow-moving sheet that literally covered the roadway in another. The green in the surrounding deep forest was lush, the trees were tall, and it was like being surrounded by a thick, green carpet with a green canopy overhead.

When Bailey caught him looking at her, his eyes shifted away instantly, and he was left fighting his lips to relax. He’d wanted to smile. As they pulled up outside his contemporary, yet completely warm and earthy home, she inhaled deeply, and her eyes flashed quickly to every surface imaginable. There was little discernible slope to his roof—only enough to allow for effective drainage during the heavy rains. The siding he’d chosen was a cedar plank siding, and the windows were large and many.

She climbed from his front seat, still staring up at his tall and towering home. It was a two-story structure with the bedrooms on the second floor, but the first-floor living room was open to the high second-floor ceiling. Once she’d made it up his front steps and he’d opened the front door, escorting her into the large living room, her eyes still hadn’t stopped roving and taking in every last detail.

“Your home’s beautiful, Dare.”

“Darren. No one calls me Dare anymore.” That name held entirely too many memories—memories that sparked rage with the woman standing in front of him, and he didn’t want to feel any of that at the moment. He’d had enough of it recently, and it was wearing on him. It was making his well-ordered and managed life entirely too confusing and complex. It was bringing up far too much of his past that he’d prefer to ignore—prefer to pretend didn’t exist at all. It was making it damn hard to simply believe he was happy.

He didn’t bother responding to her compliment. “Stay here a moment.”

He walked to his office that sat beyond the open dining room, and as he rustled through a medical case with miscellaneous instruments, he tried to calm the tremble in his own hands. He didn’t tremble. He didn’t get nervous. He didn’t allow himself to care enough about anything to warrant such pathetic responses as trembling, sweating under pressure, heart-pounding nervousness, but he could see the shake in his hands as he dug through his case, and he could nearly hear the pounding of his heart roaring through his head.

As he returned to the living room, he saw her sitting on his large sectional couch. Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap, her knees set together, and her body rigid. He sat on the coffee table in front of her, holding the operating scissors and tweezers in his hand.

“Scoot forward.” He was already sitting very near the edge of the table, and he needed her closer. She struggled to figure out what side of his legs to put her knees on as she moved toward him. He made that decision for her when he reached between her knees, pushing them apart and wedging his knee between hers. They were entirely too close, and his heart was thudding away. He was guessing hers was too, but he’d never shown much respect for her personal space before, and he wasn’t going to start now.

In the past, she’d enjoyed the limits he’d pushed with her. He’d always chastised himself loudly in his head as he overstepped one limit after another, touching her just a hair too low on her back, refusing to pull away when he found himself too close. She’d allowed it, and he knew why. She’d wanted him. She’d wanted him just as much he’d wanted her, but the touches, the looks, the closeness were where it had ended in that lifetime—at least for the most part.

He might be displaying the same lack of consideration for her personal space now too, but it was different. Everything was different. She was panting by the time she had scooted to the edge of the couch. His knee was practically touching her crotch, and he swore he could feel the warmth of her sex.

He studied her old, tattered T-shirt. It was gray, and he knew it. He knew it well, and he’d seen it plenty. She likely thought he was staring at her tits, and he certainly wasn’t above noticing them—perfect and perky, if a bit bigger than they’d been six years ago. He’d always liked her build, and despising her didn’t seem to wipe out his ability to appreciate her figure. But right now, he was studying that ridiculous disjointed leprechaun on her chest, and he was remembering a different life, a different world. He liked her in that life; hell, he might’ve loved her. To some degree, he most definitely had.

When she offered him her hand, he cleared his throat and forced his focus to move back to her hand and not some other time that simply didn’t exist anymore. He snipped through the sutures. Her laceration had healed perfectly, but she’d ignored the sutures a bit too long, and they’d already started healing into her skin. He picked up the tweezers next, and as he started pulling the thread pieces from her skin, gently tugging the exposed ends, she winced. Each thread he pulled left a small dot of blood in its wake, and eventually she had nothing but a faint pink line of healed scar tissue lined with dots of blood.

He stood, and she did too. They were standing close, and her breasts were brushing against his chest just below his pecs. He pulled away quickly, but not before his cock was set on fire and started straining against the front of his pants to get to her. He didn’t want to respond to her, but it hardly mattered how he wanted to respond. His body had other things in mind. He pulled her to the kitchen sink, holding her hand under the faucet as he turned the water on to flush the blood away from her skin.

He pressed a paper towel against her skin after her hand was clean and held the pressure, trying to ignore her, trying to ignore the fact he had a raging hard-on for a woman he hated. But his brain wasn’t cooperating, and instead of ignoring his arousal, his brain started flashing images of the one and only time he’d truly indulged in her. He’d been jealous, crazy jealous to the point of wanting to fuck her brains out against that damn wall on the beach. He’d been such an immature prick then. He’d touched, he’d penetrated, he’d thrust into her with his fingers as though he’d had every right in the world, when in truth, he had no right. He’d been in a relationship, and it didn’t really matter that the relationship wasn’t going anywhere.

He wasn’t the cheating type. Had never up to that point or since then stepped out on a woman he was dating. His relationships never panned out, and he failed to commit to the level needed for something worthwhile, but regardless of his inability to truly commit to a relationship, he still respected the bounds of it . . . except for that night. That night, he’d been prepared to set his integrity aside for her. It had been wrong. It had been wrong to the girl he was dating, and it had been wrong to Bailey, but he’d needed to consume her in a way he didn’t quite understand. He’d been a jerk, and he wasn’t making any excuses for it.

“How is your family?”

Her voice startled him again, and as he looked down into her eyes, he was incapable of thinking about anything but the way she’d felt around his fingers that night. She’d been wet; scorching hot heat had coated and covered his fingers as he pushed. Her tightness had trembled and clenched around him, promising his dick everything he wanted. Had his girlfriend not arrived when she had, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have ended up fucking Bailey against that wall. In fact, he was quite certain he would have.

“My family is fine.” He stared into her crystal blue eyes. He knew he was likely glaring, but she didn’t look away. She just watched him as he held her hand, squeezing gently on the side of her hand to stop the bleeding. “And your mother?”

Her cheeks flushed, and he inhaled a deep breath while he waited for her response. She shrugged before finally speaking. “She’s okay.” He knew better. He’d seen her mother on occasion, and since Bailey’s father had passed away from cancer a year and half ago, the woman was looking more and more gaunt every time he saw her. It didn’t take a genius to understand that seeing your daughter hauled off to prison and losing your husband in a matter of years might take its toll on a person. But he let Bailey’s understatement slide. She was nervous enough as it was.

He released her hand, checking to see that the small punctures where the sutures had been had stopped bleeding, and after bandaging a couple that just refused to stop seeping, he walked away from her to grab his keys. She followed silently, and soon he was traveling slowly down his long and winding lane. He glanced at the Andersons’ house as he passed, and Katherine was sitting on the porch. He raised a hand, and she did the same, but her expression was all intrigue. She hadn’t missed the woman sitting beside him.

Bailey gave him directions to her home—not more than three miles from his own. Her surroundings were just as wooded and deep, but her small cottage was covered in moss, and overgrown shrubs and ferns surrounded the exterior walls. He wanted to go in. He wanted to see what her life looked like now, but he sat stone-still beside her when he parked.

“Do you hate me yet?”

Her eyes snapped to him with a shocked look on her face.

“It’s not like I’ve been at all nice to you. You did lose your job because of me after all. I’m just curious if it’s sunk in yet.”

She swallowed harshly as her wide eyes watched him for a moment. “I couldn’t ever hate you.”

“You should. It would be easier on us both.”

She sat silently beside him, and he refused to look at her. The silence became uncomfortable and long, and he was contemplating just what harsh and cruel words he would use to kick her out of his car, but he didn’t get the chance to use any of them. She refused to look at him as she opened her mouth to respond. “You’re different than you used to be. Sometimes I think there’s nothing recognizable of you left. But then. . .” Her eyes drifted out the window. She was still refusing to look at him, but she didn’t need to. She was reminiscing, remembering, and she didn’t need to see him to do that. “Sometimes I see you in there. I hate that I played a part in changing you.” Then she turned to him, and they focused on one another. “But I don’t hate you. And I won’t hate you until I’m certain you hate me.” She could be unbelievably bold when she wanted to be. Her strength was a quiet one—always had been, and he’d always been drawn to that in her, but now, he hated that she was using that backbone on him.

“And you don’t think I do already?” His tone was cruel, taunting, but she’d already thrown it in his face. He hated her, but even as the words passed through his mind, he could hear the question, the lack of surety, the weakness in the thought. All he could see was that damn T-shirt. He could see a trio of them standing side-by-side in the stadium, bouncing, screeching, and hopping excitedly around as Notre Dame squared off with some other team he’d long forgotten. He was there beside them, specifically right beside Bailey, feeling her arm brush against his constantly, regardless of whether they were sitting or standing, feeling her skin on his and doing nothing to move away. He never moved away—even then. She never did, either.

She opened the door without responding, but before closing the door and walking away, she turned, finally looking at him. “Thank you.” And then she was gone, and all he could do was stare after her. It wasn’t
all
he could do of course; it was simply all he was willing to do.

Six Years Before

He couldn’t seem to stop staring at his fingers. He wanted that warmth again. Her warmth, her wetness. He’d dreamed of it plenty, and now all he wanted was more. Of course that wasn’t going to happen now. Trinity beside him, hanging on him wantonly, wasn’t going to let him out of her sight. She seemed wary. She had every right to be. His heart was cold to her, and all he could think about was Bailey.

She was glancing at him regularly from her table across the bar with Jess. She was refusing to dance with Jess, and if nothing else, that was at least a relief. Her previous idiotic suitor was nowhere to be found either, affording him another moment of relief. But her eyes were leery, she looked nervous as hell, and she couldn’t seem to hold his eyes for more than the briefest of moments. All he wanted to do was look. He wanted to look, touch, taste, and fuck until he could stop thinking about her. Instead, he watched.