Page 45 of Into the Dark

Jake stares at me for a long time without speaking, and I can’t decide if he’s trying to work out how best to lie to me about this. “Yeah,” he says finally.

“Why would you do that?” I sidle closer. “Don’t you trust him?”

He turns his head away and stares at the ceiling, beginning to nibble the inside of his cheek hard. From here I see the tension move over his face, creasing his brow further.

“I don’t trust anyone, Alex.” He looks at me. “Except you. The police? No fucking way. I don’t owe them or him a fucking thing. I’m doing what I need to do. And yeah, a lot of that is lying to people,” he says. “But not to you. I won’t lie to you. So please don’t ask me, Alex. Don’t ask me about this. After, when I’ve dealt with it all, if you still wanna know about all the things I’ve done then I’ll tell you. If that’s what you want.” He swallows, uncomfortable.

“I just want you to be safe.” The tears feel dangerously close, rising up from nowhere.

Jake takes my hand and pulls me closer to him. “And I want you to be safe. So trust me, yeah? Trust that I know what I’m doing. You’re already more involved than you need to be.” His voice is soft and pleading, his eyes the same.

“I do trust you, Jake. I’m just…scared. I’ve never been this scared before. I’m scared for you and for us, and I feel useless because…I can’t help you. I’m just something else you have to protect and keep safe now, and that just makes me feel like a burden.”

He frowns at this. “Are you kidding me? You think you’re useless? You think you’re a burden to me?”

“Yes. I don’t want to be another thing you need to worry about, Jake—I want to help you, and I can if you let me. I jus—”

“Alex, listen to me. Listen to what I’m telling you.” He takes hold of my other hand, squeezing them both in his tightly. “You’re not fucking useless. You’re not a fucking burden. Do you know what it means to have you back? Do you have any idea what it means to be able to come home to you, call you, to see you and be with you? Baby, you’re the light in this. You’re the light in the pile of black shit that is my life. That’s what you are. That’s what you’ve always been.” He shakes his head. “And you know me now. You know, and the fact you love me anyway? I have no idea what I did to deserve you, but here you are.” He leans in and presses his mouth to mine. “Alex, I love you. And I need you. I’m nothing without you. How is that you being useless? You’re here. That’s all I need you to do. All I need is you.”

My heart seems to stop beating for a moment, my voice absent like my breath. What am I supposed to say to that? Nothing I can say will ever be enough of a response.

“You have me. I’m here. I’ll always be here,” is what I settle on. I bite back a swell of tears and move my body closer into him. He’s hard and warm like always, large and strong against my body. The hairs peppered across his hard thighs tickle the skin of my legs, and then lower, between his legs, he’s large and weighty.

Suddenly, the need and desire for him flood through me. I want him again. I always want him. Encased in the tight boxers, his cock teases me with its power as it pushes against my thigh. It’s possibly a little shallow to focus on that given what he’s just said to me, given the depth of his words, but I feel closest to him when he’s inside me. When there’s no space between our bodies at all, and where the end of him meets the start of me. I need him. He needs me.

“I love you,” I whisper.

“Glad to fucking hear it,” he says with a grin.

As I draw my hands over his shoulders and then down his chest to his stomach I watch as a shiver of desire runs over his tattooed, powerful body. I pull at the waistband of his boxers and then lift my eyes to his. The heat in them makes my pulse increase. “So then…can you please make love to me?”

The side of his mouth lifts, his length growing under the fabric at my fingers immediately. “There she is, my polite, well-mannered girl. I knew she was still in there.”

“Looks like you haven’t completely ruined me after all.”

“Nah, but there’s still time.” He chuckles before turning onto his back and pulling me on top of him.

Tuesday doesn’t start well. I wake up feeling achy and sore all over. A good sore between my thighs—a tight, delicious tenderness—but my stomach is knotted and queasy.

Part of it feels like back-to-work nerves, but part of it feels like something else. And after Saturday’s fainting episode I need to pay attention to what my body tells me. I can’t call off though. It wouldn’t look good on my first day back from leave. So I’ll muddle through today and reevaluate tomorrow.

I arrive at the surgery just after 8:00 a.m. and head straight to the staff kitchen. Anna, Katie, and Sam are already in there chatting animatedly about Sam’s leaving do, due to happen a week on Friday. They’ve booked out the mezzanine of the cocktail bar a few streets over, and we’re all going straight there after work. There is no way of avoiding it. I wonder if Jake will come with me. Could I trust him not to punch Sam in the face?

“She’s baaaaaaack!” Anna squeals in my direction. “And whiter than ever!” she says lightheartedly.

The jokes about my lack of tan are incessant and predictable.

Sam smiles warmly at me. He looks like a completely different person since he made the decision to go, as though he’s now free of some burden he’s been carrying around since birth.

“Bonjour.” I wave, setting the French macaroons and sugar cookies I brought back for them down on the counter. Every year they beg for more, and every year I comply.

After I fill them in on the holiday and the wedding and Sam fills me in on what I’ve missed, I take my black coffee and paper files back to the silent comfort of my office. My desk phone starts to ring just as I’m swallowing a large gulp of my coffee and starting up my computer.

“Eastwoode Surgery, Dr. Marlowe speaking,” I answer, wiping the coffee spill from my mouth with my hand.

“Fuck, is that your professional voice?” His voice is low and heavy with sleep.

“Is it different from my normal voice?” I sit back in my chair and press my hand to my still knotted stomach.

---