Wake for Me (Life or Death Series) (27 page)

As his eyes trailed downward, Sam noticed Viola was wearing nothing but a very small towel. Long, smooth legs stretched abruptly out from the bottom of the glorified terry cloth band-aid, prompting him to bring his gaze back up to where it belonged before she caught him staring. Her hair was still wet, and that struck him as a huge turn-on. Inexplicably, he’d always had a thing for wet hair.

Clearing his throat, Sam said the first thing that came into his mind. “You shouldn’t be here.”

Slowly, she turned to look at him. Her face was completely blank—no makeup, no attitude. Just an unspoken question.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to sound like a jerk. What I meant was, this room is really depressing—you probably don’t want to hang out in here.”

“What was his name?” She asked, with no trace of her usual smirk.

“Ben.”

“What happened to him?”

For a second, Sam tried to think back to whether or not he’d mentioned Ben to her before, even when she was asleep. Why would she automatically assume that something had ‘happened’ to him? How stupid of him. The answer to his unspoken question was obvious: of course something had happened. Why else would someone have an entire room in their house that just sat there undisturbed, full of memories and covered in dust?

“He died when he was seventeen,” Sam explained, lamely.

Viola waited. Blinked at him. Ran a hand through her wet hair as small droplets of water fell, soaking into the towel that she held knotted around her chest. As if she knew exactly what it did to him, how nervous it made him.

Sam sighed, then started talking. Honestly, it seemed safer somehow than just standing there, staring at her while she was wet and half-naked. It was too surreal, too good to be true.

“He had appendicitis. It was during football practice, and he’d been having stomach cramps. But he didn’t tell anyone, and it ruptured. My dad took him to the hospital—he was Ben’s coach. He was young, otherwise healthy. It should’ve been a routine operation with a short recovery, but something went wrong. He went septic.”

Sam looked away, staring up at the football jersey, so she wouldn’t see the flash of guilt in his eyes. “He fell into a coma, and within twelve hours, he was gone. The doctors said they didn’t know what happened, why Ben’s body got hit so hard by the infection. Of course, I was too young at the time to get what they meant. I was fifteen. I thought it sounded like a lame excuse, like someone had messed up. That’s all I knew: someone had made a mistake that cost me my older brother. Someone had missed something.”

Viola stepped closer, looking up at the pictures as she put a hand on his arm, so lightly.

It was enough. Just like he had when she was in a coma and he would visit her room, Sam found himself spilling his guts to her. Confessing all the reasons he wasn’t worthy of the way she looked at him, like he was her savior. Like he was something she needed.

“He was a senior in high school. He had a girlfriend, and things were looking good for a football scholarship. Everything great in life was still ahead of him, you know? But because some surgeon missed something, he was just…gone.”

With her other hand, Viola reached up and ran her finger through the thick layer of dust on top of the dresser. Once again, Sam found himself wondering how long it had been since his mother had come into this room. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d even opened the door, before last night.

“That’s why you became a doctor.” It wasn’t a question. She’d already connected the dots, but unlike most people who found out about Ben, Viola didn’t have that look on her face. That piteous look which always made Sam feel as if he needed to downplay his brother’s unnecessary and fucking tragic death, or qualify it by explaining why it had ruined him for life. Which was probably why it didn’t hurt as much as it should’ve, when he made himself go a step further and told her the moral of his story—the most pathetic part of all.

“I was so naïve back then. I thought I could do better. I told myself that if I became a doctor, I’d never make those kinds of mistakes.”

Back then, he’d told himself that when he became a doctor, he’d never cause someone to lose the person they loved the most. That as long as he did his best, no one would lose their child, or their sibling, or their spouse, because of him. God, he’d been so wrong about that.

“Even in med school…” he said quietly, as he stared at Ben’s smiling face in his senior class photo, taken just a few months before he died. “I thought I could prove it, that I could finally figure out where they went wrong, and make sure that never happened to someone else’s brother. I’d read the studies, I’d heard the statistics. But now, I realize that the guy who killed Ben wasn’t a bad person. He wasn’t even a bad doctor. He was just human, like me. Like everyone.” Sam clenched his jaw, his fists, everything. “I can’t save anyone. The harder I try to hold on, the faster they slip away.”

Viola turned fully toward him, letting the hand that was on his arm slide up until it was cradling his jaw. She tilted his head down, forcing him to look her in the eye.

“Go ahead, Sam,” she said gently. “Say it. I think you need to say it out loud.”

His eyes were burning. Teeth cemented shut, blinking hard, Sam shook his head.

“Say it.” Her voice was now hard, demanding.

“It’s my fault.” The words seemed to rip themselves out of his chest. “The night you came into the ER, I was distracted. I was freaking out, thinking about how I’d just seen you, less than an hour before. I couldn’t focus. I just kept thinking about how cold you were. How blue your lips looked, when... I was so…helpless. There was nothing I could do to save you. So I lied. I told you everything was going to be all right, but I knew it was a lie. I knew something was…. Viola, I
know
that I missed something. I can feel it. It’s my fault that you were in a coma. You should’ve woken up after the surgery, but I missed something. I almost killed you.”

“No.” She shook her head.

“Yes!” He was yelling at her now, but Sam couldn’t stop. “Think about it! It’s my fault your parents are dead, too, because if you hadn’t been in the hospital for so long, they wouldn’t have been so stressed out. They wouldn’t have even been in the car in the first place.”

When Sam finally stopped raging, he felt like he might actually puke.

Viola had her hands on either side of his face, and her expression was severe. “Breathe.”

Sam inhaled loudly.

“Are you finished?”

Feeling his pulse throb against her fingers, he nodded. Now that he’d said it out loud, there was some part of him that realized how outrageous it all sounded. And yet, no matter how kindly she looked at him, no matter how strenuously she might protest that it wasn’t his fault, he would never fully believe that he hadn’t played a part in ruining her life.

But instead of babying him or trying to make him feel better, she rolled her eyes.

“This is why you’re afraid of me? Not because you’re worried I’m crazy, but because…you think I’ll be mad that you couldn’t magically heal me? That you’re human?”

“What?” Sam shook his head. “No, I’m not afraid. I’m just…being careful.”

Viola laughed in his face.

“I disagree. You’re scared shitless.” She moved closer, until the hand that held her towel in place was pressed up against him. “You’re afraid of asking for what you want. Hell, you’re probably afraid of even
wanting
what you want. If it wasn’t for me, I bet you wouldn’t have even asked Chocolate Barbie for a spot on that study.”

Standing that close to her, trying not to freak out about how her hand was loosening its grip on the tiny little towel, Sam was unprepared to control the look of sheer panic that flashed across his face.

Instantly, her look went from teasing to incredulous. “You didn’t ask, did you? You just waited around until he offered it to you.”

Sam jumped to defend himself, although he really had no defense. “I would’ve asked him…eventually.”

With her non-towel holding hand, Viola poked him in the chest with her finger. Hard.

“Liar!”

Without meaning to, Sam took a step backward, into the wall.

“You’re all about playing it safe, Sam. Choosing the world’s most boring specialty, when you could’ve been a rock star in almost any other field? Oh, yeah, I heard the other doctors talking about that.” She advanced a step, pinning him against the wall with her glare. “And then there’s me, Sam. You risked your job to steal back my watch for me yesterday, and then you kissed me, like I’ve never been kissed before. But now that I’m practically naked in front of you, you look like you want to run. What’s up with that, Sam?”

“I’m not….” Sam felt like his head was spinning. There was no winning this argument. Because she was right—he did want her. More than he’d ever wanted anything. But she was also right when she said that he was scared. Not of her, but of the way she made him feel. Like he’d burn the world down, just to be alone with her. It wasn’t rational. It wasn’t healthy.

So he yelled right back at her, because that seemed like the most irrational, unhealthy thing to do.

“I can’t, Viola. I don’t know what I’m doing, especially right now. I can’t think. I mean, Jesus. Ever since you kissed me, I’ve been…” He shook his head, feeling like he was spiraling toward something drastic. “I don’t even know what I’ve been like! You drive me crazy. I can’t control myself around you.”

“Really?” Raising her eyebrow in challenge, Viola dropped the towel. “Prove it.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“The behavior of a human being in sexual matters is often a prototype for the whole of his other modes of reaction in life.” –Sigmund Freud

When she was a little girl, Viola used to imagine what it might be like to fall in love.

 Of course, eventually, all little girls have to grow up. And as she’d watched each of her school friends succumb to childish crushes one after the other, only to get their hearts broken by some clueless and careless boy, Viola had started to wonder if what she saw happening to her friends really was worth all that fuss. It wasn’t long before the bloom of young love—of sweaty handholding and clumsy first kisses—kind of lost its appeal. When she was fifteen, she’d finally decided once and for all that love was overrated.

Or at least the nauseatingly sweet, romantic comedy, ‘check this box if you like me back’ kind of love was, anyway.

The kind of love her dad used to read to her about, though, where people died for each other, or killed for each other, or hacked through giant thickets of poisonous thorns for each other…that was the kind of love she could get behind.

Unfortunately for Viola, in her deepest and most secret fantasies, the guy of her dreams had always kind of just showed up out of the blue and taken her in his arms. Claimed her. Refused to take no for an answer—even if he was a little bit scared of her, like Aiden had been. Like every guy had been.

Of course, Sam was different. Or at least, she hoped he was. Maybe the kind of guy worth changing the rules for.

Dropping her towel to hang around her waist, Viola watched searchingly as Sam tried—and failed—not to let his eyes leave her face. When they did, she could practically see his internal barriers crumbling. His jaw was clenched. His breathing became labored, like he was carrying something heavy. She watched the muscles in his throat working, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed, hard.

Victory.

At that moment, she knew he wouldn’t try to stop her. She stepped forward, raised herself up on her tiptoes, and kissed him. Softly. Then she pulled back, challenge unspoken.

Come on, Sam. Fight for me.

For a few precious seconds they stood there, face to face, looking into each other’s eyes and sharing the same air. Sam’s head dipped, and he cupped her face with both hands, holding her suspended in the moment. When his lips tilted over hers, it was gentle. Fathomless.

And so deeply, terrifyingly honest.

Finally, Viola thought, as she fell into Sam. When he made a strangled sound in his throat, and reached out to grip her by the shoulders, she let the towel fall to the floor.

Surprisingly, Sam stayed firmly in control, holding on to the upper hand and taking his time. Moving his lips down her neck, behind her ear. She shuddered with impatience. Every move he made was electric, but agonizingly slow.

“Come on, Sam,” she whispered against his lips. “What are you waiting for?”

Pressing her bare skin against his fully-clothed body, Viola could’ve sworn she had dreamed about this exact moment.

But her subconscious mind must have left out a few very important details. Like the way Sam’s biceps swelled against the bands of his t-shirt, as he slid his arms slowly across her shoulders and down her back. Or the rough scrape of his chin stubble against her shoulder, sending vibrations dancing over her skin. The smell of him, though, that was the same: chlorine and cotton. He was like summer in human form. God, she wanted to devour him.

“Sam,” she whispered, pleading. “Any second, I’m going to burst into flames.”

“I’m savoring the moment,” he murmured, nibbling gently at her earlobe.

Viola sucked in a breath. “Which moment?”

“The moment before I abandon all control.”

“Mmm.” Her chest became a butterfly cage. “I like the sound of that.”

Without warning, Viola found herself whirled around and slammed backward against the door. All the breath left her lungs in a surprised ‘whoosh’ as she gazed up at Sam, wide-eyed and speechless. It hadn’t hurt, but she’d be lying if she said the move hadn’t seriously caught her off balance. His smile was slow, almost predatory.

“Maybe we should give you a safe word,” he said, trailing his hand down her neck.

Viola realized then what was happening. “Oh my God, Sam! Really?”

She laughed in his face, then immediately regretted it when Sam picked her up and wrapped her legs around his waist, pressing her back against the door even harder. Okay, maybe she didn’t…regret…anything.

But she did taunt him, to see if she could push him just a little bit further. “You’ve been reading some of my erotica books, haven’t you?”