According to Mark Page 5

  I thrust back in and fucked her in earnest. Deep. Hard. Fast. And one hundred percent skin-to-skin.

  “But…” she whimpered even as she rocked into me, an active participant in our frenetic coupling despite her objections.

  My orgasm didn’t creep up on me; it attacked me with all the stealth and finesse of a mugger in broad daylight. I gritted my teeth and murmured, “Come, pet,” before letting loose inside her, the agonizing ecstasy of my release intensified by the rhythmic grip and release as she came with me.

  “We shouldn’t have—”

  “It’s okay,” I muttered through clenched teeth as the waves of pleasure subsided. “We’re exclusive now.”

  Chapter Nine

  For the next six weeks, we met at the club every night unless I was on call or her job as a child advocate required an early morning court appearance or deposition. Sometimes, we would have a drink in the bar and exchange small talk for a few minutes, but the conversations never drifted into the possibility of taking the relationship outside of The Rack. Inside it, she wore a plain silver choker that clearly marked her as property, which prevented other Doms from approaching her if I was running late for our assignations, but I had no idea whether she kept it on at other times.

  I told myself I didn’t care. That our incredibly hot and unabashedly kinky sexual relationship was all I wanted or needed.

  Of course, I was a master of self-deception. Always had been. So good that when we were kids, my brothers had relied upon me to tell the lies that got us out of a host of boyhood scrapes. I’d been a convincing liar not because I was better at hiding the fact that I was lying than anyone else, but because I could actually get to the point where I believed that whatever story we’d concocted was the truth.

  Like the story I was currently telling myself about not wanting Allison in my own bed, lying next to me when I went to sleep at night or there when I woke up in the morning. The story where the fact that I might have botched my best friend’s brain surgery because I coveted his wife was conveniently omitted, brushed aside as irrelevant because, after all, it was only sex.

  I drained the last drops of the Glenlivet from my glass and set it back on the bar in front of me.

  “You look like a man who’s swallowing a bitter pill instead of the establishment’s best whisky.” My older brother, Luke, clapped a hand on my shoulder.

  I spun around on my barstool to face him. It was Thursday night, our traditional brotherly get-together, but I’d only expected Matthew and John to be here tonight, not Luke. He and his wife split their time between Chicago and Los Angeles, and at this time of year—the sticky height of summer—they were normally in the latter city.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Business,” he said with a shrug. “Merger between two Midwestern companies that’s easier to handle from here than Malibu.”

  “Lisa with you?” I asked, peering over his shoulder in search of the sprightly blonde he’d married. Lisa was so unlike the women he’d dated most of his adult life that I was still baffled by their whirlwind courtship, even more than two years later.

  He grinned. “She had to stay in LA. Doctor’s appointments.”

  When I didn’t evince any particular curiosity as to what sort of doctor appointments, he shook his head, his expression grim.

  “Damn, you’re in bad shape. Let’s go grab our table, and you can tell your big brother all about it.”

  Like that was going to happen.

  I followed him to the booth in the back corner anyway. We’d been coming to O’Malley’s at this time on Thursdays for so long that the staff automatically put a “Reserved” sign on the table half an hour before they expected our arrival. Our drinks would begin appearing as soon as one or more of us got to the table. We were as regular as snow in February and humidity in August.

  We’d just slid onto the bench seats when the waitress appeared, a freshly poured Harp for Luke and another whisky for me on her tray.

  I held up my hand. “Sorry, already had my quota for the day. Just water from now on, thanks.”

  I’d only had one, actually, and I wasn’t even close to my limit, but the last thing I wanted was to get shit-faced and spill my guts to my siblings, especially Luke and Matthew, who were both still in that ridiculously sappy “love conquers all” stage of their relationships. There were some things that love couldn’t conquer, and the possibility that you’d killed your best friend so you could have his wife was one of them.

  Nodding, the waitress set Luke’s Harp in front of him and headed back to the bar with my Glenlivet in tow. I watched it leave with a vague sense of loss; it was an awfully expensive beverage to throw down the sink.

  Luke took a swig of his beer to satisfy himself that they’d given him Harp and not Coors Light, then said “So, what’s up? Last time I saw you look this crappy was when your best friend died.”

  Trust Luke to cut to the heart of the matter in two seconds flat. He wasn’t a successful corporate lawyer-cum-shark for nothing.

  “When he died because I chose to operate on an inoperable tumor,” I said sourly.

  “You need to stop blaming yourself. You were trying to help him, for God’s sake. And the medical board cleared you of any possible wrongdoing.”

  That was true. Clint’s parents had filed a suit against me, claiming I’d been reckless to attempt the surgery in the first place and negligent in my performance of it. The board, after reviewing Clint’s records and my own files, ruled in my favor, saying my surgical plan was rational if not “standard of care” and that my performance of the operation was not a factor in Clint’s death.

  The problem was I didn’t entirely believe that myself. Oh, I’d gone over the surgery in my own head a thousand times, and I couldn’t find a single flaw in my execution. It was the fact that I’d even suggested it at all, given the location and size of the tumor, that I found fault with. There’d been nothing logical about my recommendation that we take the chance of operating. And although I’d been sure at the time I was doing it because Clint was miserable, a perfectly functioning mind trapped in a useless body, now I wasn’t so sure.

  The thought of having Allison for myself after his death hadn’t crossed my mind in any conscious way back then, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the prospect hadn’t invaded my subconscious and let me do something risky and irrational.

  “I’m sleeping with his widow.” I didn’t know where the words came from or why I said them, but there they were, flopping like a dead fish in the air between us.

  Luke, to his credit, maintained his poker face. “Oh. I see.”

  I suspected he did. Knowing my brother, probably all too well. I wished the admission back like I longed for the return of my Glenlivet, but I knew it couldn’t be undone.

  It’s impossible to say where the conversation would have gone if John, our younger brother, hadn’t appeared at that moment.

  “Shove over, Luke,” he said.

  My older brother shifted to his left, and John folded himself into the vacated space. Tall and dark-haired with a face and physique that made women swoon, John was currently dressed to the nines in a black silk button-down shirt and an unnecessarily tight pair of jeans. Too bad for the two pretty young things at the bar currently giving him the eye, John played strictly for the other team.

  “Plans tonight?” I asked, hoping to divert Luke’s attention from me to John.

  “Nothing special,” John said with a grin. “Just the usual—drinks, dinner, get laid.”

  Sometimes, I envied John his complete comfort in his own skin. I knew being gay had been hard on him growing up, although Luke, Matthew and I had done what we could to insulate him from the worst of the bullying he might have suffered. But despite the abuse—or maybe because of it—John had arrived at adulthood supremely confident in his identity, both sexual and otherwise.

  It wasn’t that I had hang-ups about my own sexual preferences. I didn’t. But unlike John, I had
to keep mine safely and securely under wraps. Even my twin brother, who knew me almost as well as I knew myself, didn’t have a clue about that aspect of my personality, and I planned to keep it that way.

  Speaking of my twin brother, Matthew appeared a few seconds after John, a rolled-up blueprint tucked under his arm and harried expression on his face.

  “Fucking building inspectors,” he muttered as he pulled a chair up to the table and sat down. When the waitress arrived right behind him and immediately set his Guinness in front of him, he let out a long, grateful sigh. “At least someone in this city understands the meaning of public service.”

  “Maybe you should consider tipping the building inspectors as well as we tip Ariadne,” John observed with a wink. Leave it to him to know the waitress’s name.

  Matthew wiped the foam from his upper lip and grimaced. “Afraid in my line of work, that would be considered a bribe.”

  “Too bad,” John commiserated. “It works great for snitches.”

  At this point, Matthew seemed to register Luke’s presence for the first time. All good, as it kept his focus off me. If Luke had noticed my ennui so easily, Matthew would pick up on it in two seconds flat.

  “Hey, I didn’t realize you were in town. Where’s Lise?”

  Luke grinned again, the smile of a man bursting with good news. Well, at least someone had it. “She had to stay in LA. Doctor’s visit.”

  “Oh.” Matthew looked alarmed. “She all right?”

  God, sometimes I wondered how it was possible that he and I shared a full set of DNA. “Of course she’s all right,” I said. “She’s pregnant, you idiot.”

  Luke lifted an eyebrow. “So you were paying attention.”

  Fortunately for me, Matthew and John were immediately diverted by this news. After slapping Luke on the back and congratulating him on the potency of his swimmers, they peppered him with questions like a couple of mother hens—had it been planned, when was the baby due, would the baby be born here or in LA, did our mom know yet?

  I leaned back against the vinyl cushions and drank my water in silence. In another twenty minutes or so, I could make my excuses and slip out without answering any of the questions I knew my lawyer brother wanted to ask. Damn, why had I let those words out of my mouth in the first place? I was supposed to be a sadist, not a masochist. Did I have some deep-seated need to torture myself that I wasn’t even aware of?

  When the waitress brought another round of drinks, I checked my watch. Five more minutes, and I’d be golden.

  “So,” Luke said, “enough about me and Lisa. Did you all know Mark’s banging Allison Hoffman?”

  Fuck. I gave him a look that said I was going to eviscerate him later—and believe me, I had the technology.

  “Clint Hoffman’s widow?” Matthew asked, his brow furrowed in incredulity.

  “The very same,” Luke confirmed.

  Matthew gave me an appraising stare. “I always wondered if you had a thing for her. Can’t blame you. She’s gorgeous. I hope it works out.”

  I set my water glass on the table. “I do not have ‘a thing’ for her. I’m having sex with her.”

  “Sounds like the definition of ‘a thing’ to me,” John observed drily.

  “And how many of your things actually last more than couple of weeks?” That was a low blow, I fully admit it, but it was either go on offense or play defense until I could escape.

  John, being John, was totally unfazed. “Wouldn’t you like to know? So, how long have you been thinging this one?”

  “A little over a month,” I admitted, trying to downplay the timeline without outright lying. No point in counting all the way back to the night of Clint’s death. That encounter was best forgotten. “But it’s not serious.”

  Matthew made a choking sound in his throat. “A month? And you haven’t mentioned her once?”

  “Since when is my sex life your business?”

  “It’s not, but you’ve never exactly been tight-lipped about your girlfriends in the past. Although, now that I think of it, I don’t think you’ve mentioned seeing anyone since right around the time Clint died.”

  He didn’t ask the question, but it was there anyway. I ignored it.

  “Maybe I just wanted to avoid the when’s-the-wedding questions I’m getting now.”

  Luke let out a bark of laughter. “Interesting that you went to weddings when no one even mentioned the possibility. So much for nothing serious.”

  I flexed my fingers to keep from clenching them into a fist. I wasn’t really angry with my brother, but I did have the desire to punch something.

  Because, of course, what I had with Allison was serious. As serious as a brain tumor.

  And just like a brain tumor, I had to cut it out. Tonight. Before it grew so large it killed me.

  Chapter Ten

  I was late. It was nearly ten o’clock when I stepped through the door of The Rack, and I had my doubts that Allison would still be waiting for me.

  I hadn’t consciously tried to be late. But after I left my brothers at the bar, I kept finding things to occupy my time. An article in the latest New England Journal of Medicine about new surgical approaches to bi-hemispheral seizure. An email from the mother of a former patient—one I’d saved—telling me said patient had recently graduated summa cum laude from MIT. An episode of So You Think You Can Dance I found impossible to look away from. The last was a particularly disturbing manifestation of my disorder.

  Of course, I was avoiding the inevitable. Having made the decision to break it off with Allison, I didn’t want to actually have to do it. It would be so much easier if she just took the hint and disappeared as surprisingly as she had appeared.

  Except that was the coward’s way out, and I wasn’t a coward, damn it. I could do this, and I would do it the right way.

  As soon as I entered the foyer, I looked toward the bar. No sign of Allison. My stomach crashed into my shoes. She hadn’t waited.

  Rex must have read the expression on my face. As he handed my membership card back to me, he jerked his thumb in the direction of the tables lining the dance floor.

  Allison was sitting in the same booth I’d been in the night she first showed up at The Rack. And she was sharing it with the same man—my good buddy, Dr. Greg Hernandez.

  Icy hot acid burned its way down my gullet and straight to my gut. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her. Or him, for that matter. I knew there was nothing prurient going on between them. Not yet, anyway.

  But seeing them together—heads bent, talking, smiling, laughing—was a visceral reminder of what giving Allison up meant. It meant letting her find someone to love. Someone to spend the rest of her life with. Someone other than me.

  And it could just as easily be Greg as anyone else.

  As if sensing my presence, she turned her head and found me still hovering in the doorway. A smile lit her face, and she beckoned me with a wave of her hand.

  Now, I’m a doctor. Hell, I’m a fucking neurosurgeon. I know perfectly well that the seat of emotion is in the brain, not the heart. But it wasn’t my brain that felt crushed and bleeding.

  With a nod of acknowledgment, I headed in their direction. Allison slid over and patted the seat beside her.

  “I was starting to get a little worried about you, but Greg assured me there must have been some sort of medical emergency.”

  Yeah, like my heart literally breaking in half.

  I didn’t sit. Instead, I extended my hand. “Let’s go.”

  She looked from me to Greg, her cheeks flushing at the obvious implication that we were going right upstairs to fuck.

  “Let me get my handbag,” she said, fumbling under the table for said item. When she had slung it over her shoulder, she took my hand. “Good night, Greg,” she said, her eyelashes lowering demurely. “It was nice to meet a friend of Mark’s.”

  She started in the direction of the stairs, but I tugged her in the opposite direction. Toward the door.

  “Wh
at—?” she began.

  “Not here,” I said. “Not tonight.”

  Her forehead creased. “I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do I,” I admitted. “But tonight, I want you in my house, in my bed. Where you belong.”

  * * * * *

  It was absolutely the wrong thing to do, of course. But it felt right. From the moment she walked in through the front door, it felt more right than anything ever had.

  I’d lived in this house for almost four years, but in some ways, it had never really been home. I’d bought the place, a historic mansion in the Gold Coast district, at Matthew’s insistence. He assured me that, despite the crumbling limestone façade and the minor inconvenience, not to mention major expense, of converting it back from six apartment units to a single family house, it was a solid investment and I’d easily double my money in a couple of years.

  Uh, no. At least not with the entire real estate market going into the tank.

  That said, I wasn’t as far in the hole as a lot of people who’d bought during the boom. Matthew had been right about one thing—always buy the worst house in the best neighborhood. That part had paid off, and it helped that, unlike a lot of folks, I still had a regular paycheck and could afford to make my payments.

  Moreover, even with my limited grasp of art and architecture, I had to admit that the house, post-restoration, was gorgeous. The cut glass of the large bay windows and the intricacy of the wrought iron railing on the second-story balcony only hinted at the host of architectural details within the walls—molded plaster ceilings, exquisite wood paneling and crown moldings, carved marble mantelpieces for each of the seven fireplaces, and a host of built-in cabinets, bookshelves, and the like.

  But until I led Allison into the foyer—a space that was large enough to be treated as a living room in most new houses—, the house had never felt complete. And now I knew why. Somehow, without consciously being aware of it, I’d bought the house because it was as beautiful, as graceful, as intricate as she was.