Love Scars (2 page)

Lisa and Brad both reached for me as I pitched forward.

“It’s okay,” I said as they steadied me by my elbows. My hands kept going to fists, and I forced my fingers apart. “It’s okay.”

I gulped at the air and drew it down deep into my lungs, the way the therapist taught me years ago. I blew the fear and the evil out and away from me. The sunny sky returned. The pounding of my heart slowed. My hands became my own again.

“You should sit down,” Lisa said.

“No,” I said. I avoided Brad’s questioning look. “Walking it off helps. I’m going to tell Dr. Barton right now I can’t do it. He’ll need time to find someone else. I’d better grab him before he leaves campus. Just wait here for me, and we’ll go for the keg as soon as I get back.”

I was babbling, and they both stared at me like I wasn’t making sense.

“I’m fine.” I picked up the packet and my backpack from the ground. “Lisa, give me your dig packet. I’ll take it back too.”

“Take your time,” Brad said. “Don’t worry about anything. I’ll give Lisa a ride home, and we can pick up the food and the keg on the way. You do what you have to do, but take it easy.”

“Call if you feel like you can’t drive,” Lisa said.

“Absolutely,” Brad said. “If you need a ride, we’ll come back and get you.”

“Thanks guys,” I said. “I’m really okay. I’ll see you later.”

They went on to the parking lot, and I turned back to the campus. I almost cried with relief that Brad hadn’t asked any questions. The people in my life these days didn’t know about my past. I wanted to keep it that way.

Chapter 2

I wasn’t okay. I headed back to the humanities building feeling like an idiot. I hadn’t had a flashback like that in ages. Years. It caught me off guard, the name of that town coming at me out of the blue. I was a sack of frayed nerves, and my fists were clenched again. I stretched and spread my fingers.

I focused on something I had no emotion attached to.
Jane Marks, Jane Marks, Jane Marks.
I repeated the name of the professor’s TA over and over in my head, visualizing her no-nonsense, mundane, completely nonthreatening competence. Then I proceeded to plow right into her as I came out of the elevator on the second floor.

“Heads up, kiddo.” She stepped aside without breaking her pace and slipped into the elevator as the doors were closing. “See you at the dig.”

Kiddo.
A knifing pain sliced into my heart. My mom used to call me kiddo. I have these embedded memories, things buried deep inside and forgotten until some innocuous trigger springs them loose. They pop up and make me feel how much I miss the people I’ve lost. Even when it’s something I hated about someone I lost.

The door closed and Jane was gone before I could explain my problem. I had to hope Dr. Barton was still in his office.

“The dig.” A man’s voice sounded behind me.

It was the guy who’d been waiting for Jane outside the lecture hall earlier. He looked about thirty, part Asian or maybe Native American, and in insanely good shape. Special Forces good shape. I hadn’t realized how gorgeous he was beneath the asshole demeanor.

He wore black twill slacks and a snug-fitting black knit polo shirt. He had a military bearing, close-cropped straight black hair, controlled facial expression, poised ram-rod-straight shoulders, and intense dark eyes.

My eagerness to hit somebody morphed into eagerness to hit somebody, if you know what I mean. Sex was a great way to avoid feeling other things. I’d gone through a phase using it as an escape. The phase ended abruptly one morning when I caught a guy who’d slept over watching Stacey in the shower. That’s when it occurred to me I couldn’t screw up or CPS could take her away.

“I take it you’ll be working at the Barton dig,” the guy said. It didn’t help that he had a strong confident voice that was sexy as hell.

“Then you take it wrong.” I walked past him and down the hall toward Dr. B’s office.

He followed me. “Aren’t you Nora Deven?”

“How do you know that?” I stopped outside the professor’s door. “Who are you?”

“My name’s Steve. I’m a recruiter for a corporation which will remain anonymous for now,” he said. “I already talked to Cindy. You’re carrying a dig packet, so you’re either Lisa or Nora. I had a fifty-fifty chance of getting it right.”

“What do you want, Steve?”

“To change your life.”

“Why would I want my life changed?” I said. “I like my life just fine.” Lies, all lies. But not his business.

“Sure. Your life is full of infinite variety,” he said. “It must be difficult, always choosing between can’t and have to
.
”

Harsh. True. And again, not his business.

“And you can change that.” I rolled my eyes. “I think not. It’s the human condition.”

“Not for everyone. Not always,” he said. “With enough resources, choices multiply. Most people barely scratch the surface of their potential.”

“Stop the presses.” I didn’t need any more amateur philosophy. “Look, I’ve had my life changed before.” I didn’t mean to laugh so sarcastically. I didn’t shares things about myself—certainly not with guys like this. “It didn’t turn out so great.”

“This will be great, trust me,” he said. “Or don’t. But get all the facts before you turn it down.” He was good. Confident, but not too cocky.

“Look, I’m not going to the dig.” I reached for the door. “I just came to let Dr. Barton know so he could give it to someone else. Not that it’s your business.”

He stopped me opening the door. His hand enclosed my wrist entirely.
Crap.
His strength seemed to flow into my body like it was riding an electrical current. I imagined that hand on other places.

“What if my company makes it worth your while?” he said.

“I doubt that’s possible.”

He smiled as if I’d said something so stupid it was cute. “We’ll pay off your student loans. All of them. And there could be a $200,000 bonus on top of that.”

That stopped me. I looked at him again. His attitude convinced me he was telling the truth, but there had to be a catch.

“For three weeks’ work?” I said. “It must be something illegal. Otherwise, Cindy would have already accepted your offer.”

“Cindy didn’t make the cut,” he said. “Not serious enough. Too chatty.”

He had me there. I was nothing if I wasn’t serious. But then, events hadn’t exactly conspired to make my life a laugh riot.

“And I assure you it’s nothing illegal,” he said.

“Oh, that makes me feel so much better.”

“But it
is
something we need kept secret. For a while, at least. It’s a corporate intrigue kind of thing.”

He smiled then, and his whole aspect changed. Like he knew how crazy it sounded, but what could he do? I wish he hadn’t smiled. It made him even sexier. I was really feeling it today, how long since I’d gotten naked with a guy. It was completely inappropriate and off topic, but I was ready to jump on him right there in the deserted hall.

I felt my face go red as he caught me staring where I shouldn’t be staring.

“My student loans are over a hundred thousand.” I looked him directly in the face. “Close to two hundred, actually.”

He whistled, but he kept his smile. “So having them paid off would be a good thing. Right?”

I wasn’t lying. Sadly, I wasn’t even exaggerating. The fact he didn’t blink at the amount got my hopes up. The fact he got my hopes up pissed me off.

I hate hope above all things. You can’t hope. You can’t depend on other people. You never know when they’ll disappear from the face of the earth. Stacey doesn’t have to
hope
I’ll keep her safe and clothed and fed. She knows I will.

Except I’d blown it. I’d been my niece’s sole caretaker since I our grandma died when I was eighteen. For six years, I supported us both with student loans. Every year I took out the maximum I qualified for, and now I was in over my head. I couldn’t keep going to school the rest of my life. I was a fool to study religion and philosophy and art. Whatever I was looking for there, I hadn’t found it.

I should have learned computer programming. Or accounting. Or architecture.

Now Steve offered a way out. But could I do it? Could I go back there again?

“It’s something else, isn’t it?” Steve said. “You’re afraid of something.”

Sometimes I wonder if angels walk among us, dressed up like mundane people, dropping off hints from God. I don’t believe in God anymore, but for a split second I thought Steve might be an angel, sent here to guide me if I’d only listen.

“I don’t want to pry,” he said. Sheesh, he had a great voice. Calm, strong. “And consider the fact I have a conflict of interest. I
want
you to do this thing. But some advice? The only way anybody ever conquered their fear was to face it. Go through it, and come out on the other side.”

He had a point. I had worked like a dog to bury my fears. My mini crackup on the quad was proof it hadn’t worked. Not totally. But if I
could
face those demons from my past, if I could get through it, maybe I could set myself free at last—and from a lot more than debt.

“Tell me what you want me to do.”

Chapter 3

BlueMagick World Headquarters, Folsom, California. Office of the CEO.

“Take your pants off,” I said.

Nicole stepped out of her skin-tight jeans and kicked them aside, keeping her shoes on. In those shiny red six-inch heels, she must be five-ten or -eleven. I took in the familiar long legs all the way up to the red lace panties, the smooth pale skin of her hips and stomach, the matching lace bra. The curly red hair tumbling over her shoulders.

“Go to the window,” I instructed.

My corner office at the BlueMagick Folsom plant is on the fifth floor. The tallest building on the tech campus, it looks out over a grassy park-like area with trees and a pond. It’s nice. I like to fuck in front of the window. It really gives me that master-of-all-I-survey feeling. Nobody can see in through the tinted glass, but I don’t think Nicole knew that.

I stood behind her and watched our faint reflection in the window as I unhooked her bra. She had great breasts, a little more than a handful. I played with a nipple and made it hard between my thumb and finger as I reached down inside her panties with my other hand.

She groaned a little and tilted her head back against my shoulder. I knew what she wanted. She wanted me to kiss her neck, nibble her ear. To murmur sweet somethings with what she called my low grumbly voice. To admit that she was the one woman who’d finally broken through my outer titanium-coated shell to the chocolaty good person inside.

I didn’t care what Nicole wanted.

I turned her around. The top of her head came to just below my chin, and she licked and kissed my throat. She reached for the buttons on my jeans, but I brushed her hands away. I wasn’t giving today. I was taking.

I hooked my thumbs on the lace panties and pulled them down. I knelt on the floor and slid two fingers between her folds into her warm and cozy wetness, and she stepped out of the panties and hooked a leg over my shoulder. She moaned as my tongue found her nub. I grabbed her butt and pulled her closer.

“Oh, J.D.,” she whimpered.

I pushed her away. Sex wasn’t happening today, not between us.

“Get dressed.” I stood up and gave her a playful slap on the butt.

“Shit, J.D., you’re killing me here.” Her voice was husky and convincingly desperate. “I need to feel you inside me.”

“You know the rules, Nicole.”
Never say my name during sex.
Names were too personal. “I’m disappointed too.” I was. Kind of.

Okay. I wasn’t. I didn’t give a fuck. My office suite included a private bathroom. I’d take care of my
disappointment
easily enough as soon as she got out and went back to her lab.

“Fuck you, J.D.” She buttoned her jeans and found her shirt. “Someday you’re going to fall in love, and I hope she stomps all over your heart.”

“Too late, Nicole. Been there. Done that.”

Despite her fuck yous, Nicole was a good sport about everything. Now that she got her scratches in, she put her claws away. She already had her white lab coat on over her jeans. She put her hair up on top of her head and fixed the pile of red curls in place with two pencils. How did women do that?

Just before the door she turned around and smiled. “Tomorrow? Same bat-time, same bat-place?” 

The door flew open behind her, and my best friend and partner barreled into the room like the building was on fire, his face screwed up in a distorted frown.

“J.D., we’ve got a problem,” he said.

“Hi, Brad,” Nicole said, still in the doorway. “Did MolyMo corner the market on something else?” She rolled her eyes at me.

Like we’d share a joke at Brad’s expense? Ah, no. “Goodbye, Nicole,” I said. “Close the door behind you, ’mkay?”

Under all that hot sexy beauty, she was actually a pathetic soul. I had no idea why she kept coming back for these little after-lunch grope sessions. From the start we were both clear there was never going to be anything more. She must be in it for the orgasms.

“Is that still going on?” Brad said when the door slammed shut. He looked at me like he thought I was crazy.

“Well, no. Not precisely. But if you’d barged in three minutes earlier, it would have been a different story.”

“You do know that’s a lawsuit waiting to happen, J.D. You’re her boss, and you’re breaking her heart.”

“That’s news. Nicole has a heart? Nah, I think not. And how would you know? She never talks to you. She hates you.”

“Except when we’re having a three-way with Jose Cuervo,” Brad said. “She’s starting to think you need to marry her. What if she gets pregnant?”

“I’ll wear two condoms.”

“Double-bagging is contra-indicated.” Brad used his Mr.-Know-It-All voice.

“Ack, that’s creepy,” I said. “Nicole’s not getting pregnant. And she’s…convenient. She’s circumspect about her personal life.”

“Dude. After a few Long Islands, she’s not all that circumspect.”