Page 16 of Broken Bonds

“Are you okay?” I ask.

She nods. “Yes…yes, I’m wonderful, actually.”

I help her sit up and my eyes stray down to her prosthetic.

I know it’s really not my place, but I can’t help my curiosity.

“How…uh…how did that happen, if you don’t mind my asking?” I nearly flinch at how stupid and timid I sound.

She glances up at me with a small smile. “It’s okay. When I was young, I broke my leg playing soccer. The break healed, but I got an infection in the bone and became sick with osteomyelitis. It was really bad and didn’t respond to medication, and eventually, the doctors didn’t have any choice…they had to take my leg or the infection would’ve spread and likely have killed me.”

Her voice goes soft and her expression grows tight. I can’t imagine what she must have gone through losing her leg like that. Sickness isn’t something I have to worry about, and so I’m unfamiliar with the helplessness and pain that comes with it. I can see it, though, right there in her expression. I can tell that that pain, though it happened so long ago, is still fresh in her mind.

“That must have been terrible,” I mutter, unsure of what else to say, but wanting to offer some sort of comfort.

She appears contemplative for several moments. At length, she looks up at me and her gaze is almost…haunted.

“It broke me,” she confesses. “Not only physically, but emotionally. I didn’t know how to be myself again for a long time. It felt like I’d lost more than my leg…I’d lost my freedom. I was an athlete, but after my sickness, I was convinced that part of my life was over. It’s hard to explain, but when…when you lose a piece of yourself like that…” She stops and takes a shaky breath. It’s clear she’s trying to control her emotions. When she speaks again, her tone is bitter. “Well, you’re never the same after. Everyone around you can try and pretend otherwise, but once your broken so badly, it’s hard to feel whole again.” Almost under her breath, she adds, “I just wish I could fix myself.”

Her words slice through my heart. I gaze at her, seeing her in a whole new light. As appealing as she’d been before, she’s straight up amazing in my eyes at this moment. I can’t believe the pain and suffering she’s endured, yet she somehow found a way to pick herself up and continue on with her life. She’s accomplished so much already, and despite the obstacles that life has thrown at her. Not only that, she’s somehow been able to maintain optimism in her perspective of the world, and is capable of such compassion that she’d go out of her way to make homecooked meals for a cold bastard who continuously attempts to ignore her.

My heart begins to thump, and I’m overwhelmed with a swelling of tenderness toward her. Affection. It startles me, and my instinct is to chalk it up to the bond, but I know better than that. The bond controls my physical responses to her and my instincts – it can’t control my emotions. That’s why I was able to hate my previous mate while also lusting for her. What I’m feeling for Samantha, this warmth and desire to comfort and make her smile, is all me.

It’s a surprising realization, but also…not unwelcome. There’s something nice about knowing that some of the things I’m feeling for Samantha are genuine and not driven by the bond. No doubt, the bond is intensifying things, but those feelings were mine, nonetheless.

The only thing I’m not sure of, is does this realization makes things simpler between us…or exceedingly more complicated?

Samantha

What just happened? I’m not certain I really can say. One moment, I was trying to get him to tell me why he seemed to dislike me so much. The next…his tongue is in my throat, and I’m caught-up in the hottest kiss of my life, followed by amazing, frantic, passionate sex.

I don’t understand how we went from zero to one hundred in point zero one seconds. When I placed my hand on him, it was as if…as if I became possessed. I was suddenly overwhelmed with this intense need for him. This desire that felt like a fire in my blood. That was shocking enough, but then when Dr. Pyrrhos grabbed me and kissed me…it felt as though I was in some crazy dream.

I’m pacing back and forth in my lab, my mind a riot as I consider everything that happened between us. After we’d finished, things had felt awkward, as though neither of us were sure how to proceed. Which, in all likelihood, was one hundred percent true. With a lame excuse about getting back to work, he’d left the room, practically fleeing me, but I hadn’t tried to stop him.

I’d needed space to actually process everything.

This made things much more complicated between us, of that I had no doubt.

I shake my head. That’s enough! I can’t keep obsessing over this. I need to get work done, which means I need to focus. I’m determined not to think about Dr. Pyrrhos or that kiss and everything that followed. I move across the room to my microscope and set back into my work, studying my samples.

After a few minutes, however, I lift my head from the scope and sit back on my stool with a frustrated sigh. Damn it. I can’t focus. That whole encounter just won’t get out of my head. I’m not someone who usually engages in casual sex, but in that moment, when Dr. Pyrrhos had me on the table with his hands roaming all over me, I just couldn’t stop myself or what was about to happen.

I just don’t understand what it was that came over me. I’ve never experienced anything like that before. Did he experience the same thing. Of course he did. There’s no way he’d have kissed me initially if he had full faculty of his senses.

For some reason, that thought stings a bit. There’s no reason it should, I tell myself, because it’s not like I’m actually interested in him anyway.

Sure, he’s handsome, with eyes so blue I could drown in them. And, he’s obviously intelligent, which is super sexy as well. His personality wasn’t bad until he decided to hide away from me completely, but, like I’ve said before, what can I expect from someone who’s been in isolation for so long? Sure, if he wasn’t so set on avoiding me all the time, maybe I could see something happening between us. Maybe I could see myself possibly falling for him, if he were at all sociable, but that’s not the way things are at present. He’s made it very clear that he wants pretty much nothing to do with me, so that kiss had to be an anomaly of some kind. A moment of poor judgement on both our parts.

I frown as a realization enters my thoughts, however. If Dr. Pyrrhos really is so dead set on avoiding me, why did he come to the kitchen and then stay when he saw that I was there? Why didn’t he turn and immediately run away, like I’d have expected him to?

His staying and eating with me, even if conversation with him was like talking to a brick wall, gave me the smallest spark of hope that some kind of friendly relationship was possible. Did that mean nothing in the end? Did I just read too much into that interaction?

Even if I did, though, that still doesn’t explain what just happened between us.

Letting out an exasperated groan, I shove to my feet. I’m obviously not going to be able to focus on my work anymore tonight with everything else that’s rattling around in my head, so I should really just go to bed. Everything will make more sense in the morning…I hope.

I straighten up my lab and step back out into the hall. Dr. Pyrrhos’ door is still closed. I resist the urge to step closer and see if I can hear him inside. He’s probably going to pull another all-nighter, or at least use that as an excuse not to come out and risk running into me. Lifting my chin, I turn and walk away from the labs, making my way through the facility to the dorms. When I reach my room, I shut the door behind me and proceed to get ready for bed.

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