Page 40 of Loss and Damages
“No.”
“Does that make you sad?”
She tucks the hand I was playing with under her cheek. “No. We were friends, and we enjoyed each other in other ways.We shared a love of art, of wine. Conversation and comfortable silences. Music and a good cup of coffee. We didn’t need this because everything else we had was enough. I’m sorry, Dominic. If you’re wondering why we were satisfied with that, it’s all I have. We were friends.”
“I’m trying to figure it out. You’re pretty, and for a man not to want... I didn’t know my brother as well as I should have. It’s not your fault you don’t have answers, and I’m sorry I don’t have any to give you. If he was seeing someone in the city, she hasn’t come forward, so I’m likely to believe he wasn’t spending time with anyone other than you.”
“You say that like I should be relieved.”
“You’re not?”
She smiles faintly. “That’s not how love works. Leo would’ve had plenty of time for me even if he would have been seeing someone. Love never runs out, and I’m sorry your mother taught you that it comes in a limited supply.”
A tear runs over the bridge of her nose and I wipe it away. She doesn’t pull back.
I want to be angry, but it’s impossible cocooned in the softness of the morning and the compassion in her eyes. Still, the bite is there in my words when I respond. “You don’t know anything about me or my mother.”
“I know...” She sighs and lifts onto her elbow. Leaning toward me, her lips an inch from mine, she tries again. “I know she didn’t—”
Her cell phone chimes on top of the nightstand on her side of the bed, and she jerks away. “I’m sorry. The alarm. I need to make coffee and get ready for work. You can stay, take another pain pill and go back to sleep if you want. But I have to—”
She grabs her cell, silences the alarm, and climbs off the bed so quickly she loses her balance and falls on her knees. Withoutlooking at me, she scrambles to her feet and rushes out of the bedroom.
I’m rock hard and thank Christ the position I’m lying in hides it, or she would have been running for a different reason. I can’t go out there like this, and I drag her pillow over my face. The pillowcase smells like her and I inhale, the light vanilla scent not helping my situation one damned bit.
What did my mother say to her? Enough, by the sounds of it. I don’t need anyone’s sympathy, especially not Jemma’s.
I roll to the edge of the bed and sit up. Blood is seeping through the gauze and into my shirt’s sleeve. I shouldn’t have been lying on it, but I wanted to be as close to Jemma as possible. We were close enough to kiss. It’s best her alarm went off. As far as love goes, that may be in limited supply, but I have an endless supply of pity from everyone I meet and I don’t need any more.
My cock dawdles, and the second I think I can get away with it, I grab my sling and push on my shoes. Jemma’s in the kitchen leaning against the counter watching coffee drip, her ass poking out, begging me to tug down those shorts and slip inside her as she presses her face against the granite and moans.
The floor squeaks under my feet and she turns around. “You’re bleeding.”
“I noticed. If you could be kind enough to change the gauze, I’ll get out of your way. Thank you for letting me stay the night. I wasn’t feeling my best.”
Biting her lip, she studies me, and it feels nothing short of her stripping me bare and dissecting all my secrets. “Are you sure you should leave?”
“I won’t take another pain pill until I’m home. I’m not your responsibility, Jemma.”
She looks down at the floor. “I know that. I have a roll of gauze and some medical tape in my medicine cabinet. I’ll be right back.”
While she hunts down gauze, I help myself to a cup of coffee. I find mugs in a cabinet above the sink, and I pour the pitch-black brew into a Hollow Lake Café coffee cup. It’s huge and sturdy in my hand. I like it.
Jemma steps into the kitchen holding a roll of gauze, white tape, and a pair of pink scissors. She frowns, and I want to ask what’s wrong or apologize for helping myself to coffee, but she uses a step stool and sits on the counter next to the coffeemaker. “You’re tall.”
“I suppose as an artist you need a keen sense of observation.”
She tamps down a smile. I like this side of her. The side where she doesn’t treat me like a monster. The side where she lets herself relax.
“Leo noticed little things,” she says. “Can you take your shirt off?”
“Right.” I unbutton my shirt, pull it off, and bunch it up next to her on the counter. “Like what?”
She shrugs and begins peeling the tape off my arm. Her fingers skim over my skin and I fight back a wave of arousal.
I sip my coffee.
“One evening we were walking from the café to the cottage and he saw a turtle in the middle of the road. He carried it to the other side so a car wouldn’t run over it.”
