Chapter 32 Sex Possessively
sex possessively
Lorien
Without a word, he turns on a booted heel and leaves the room. He’s down the hall, and if I’m not mistaken, out the back door.
I laid my heart bare, and he vanished.
I should be angry. I could be angry, but mostly I’m drained.
I love my brother. I can’t wait to see him and hug him. But talking about his condition and the what-ifs drains me. At least at home.
It’s a stark reality. It’s brutal truth. And it cuts me so deep.
In the lab, it hones me. But here, I want to curl up in a ball and hide from the actuality that unless I can do something groundbreaking medically, I’ll lose my champion, my protector, my Strider to a disease that we’re so close to curing.
I toss on a tee and shorts. I have no energy to play sexpot tonight. It didn’t work anyway.
I dry my hair just enough that I won’t look homeless tomorrow at work and climb under the covers.
When I wake before the alarm, I’m not alone. Liam is curved around my body, his long thick arm pinning me to the bed, and his hand…
His hand cups my sex possessively.
Fudge balls.
I’m trapped. I’m warm. And, oddly, I feel safe.
On that thought, I drift back to sleep.
When the alarm sounds, I wake alone.
I know immediately, and while I’m relieved, it hits a chord of sadness.
Arrangement. It’s an arrangement. Not a relationship. I’d do well to remember that.
I do my morning routine and am ready to take on the day. I’m going to make the connection today. I’m going to find that sequence that will allow me to change history.
An hour later, I learn how wrong I am.
In reality, I will not be charting new waters. The immunology department has been closed. I’m officially a member of the topicals team. Topicals!
It’s not bad work. It’s basically secondary immunodeficiency work, but the PID, the primaries… that’s where the crux of my research—where my passion—is. I want to work on the cause, not the symptom.
I wish I could talk with Dr. Patel. I wish there was someone who understood the particulars and could guide me on this whole thing. I feel utterly alone.
I have a job. That’s a tick in the pro column. I can afford my house and my student loans. Also a pro. I can even afford a new car seeing as how the insurance company emailed the amount of the payout for my Accord. It’s a pittance, but it’s a down payment. Though, maybe not on an Audi.
In the con column, the vehicle for my whole career has been shuttered.
Which means one thing. If I am to stay at Platt BioPharma, I need a way to do the data analysis on my own. Or I need to find another job, but one in research instead of the pharmaceutical industry.
My entire day is spent moving labs, cleaning out my desk, finding a new home with people who think so differently than I do.
The glass on my family photo shattered Tuesday night in Liam’s garage so it doesn’t go to the new lab with me.
At least not yet. And somehow, that in itself feels ominous, as if my purpose is fragmented along with it.
I’ve taken to calling my new team LFM in my head. It’s funny and it’s not. Liniment for money. I could go with CFC—creams for cash. Ointment for dollars has zero ring to it.
By the end of the day, I’ve created more acronyms than I care to admit. None of them are better. In fact, all are worse.
And I have tomorrow and Monday off, so at least I can leave the salve people behind.
Seriously. No. Just no.
By the time the big black SUV slides in front of the office, I’m done.
The relief at seeing it, at seeing Liam, is foreign.
Quite honestly, after today, and certainly after last night, I don’t want to think about it.
I want to have a meal, take a walk, and pack my bags for a weekend in steamy Peoria, Illinois.
“Where to?” Liam asks, when I slide inside the cab. It seems he’s okay with me opening my own doors if he’s already driving. Good to know.
“Home. Please. It’s been a day.” I buckle as he exits the parking lot.
“Want to tell me about it?”
“Well, you’re looking at the newest member of the lotions and potions team.”
His gaze finds mine. “What? Why? Aren’t you better with the DNA stuff?”
“Is that the technical term? I’ve been mislabeling it this whole time.” I smile, but it’s forced. “They shut down my division, the lab, sunsetted the equipment. Everything.”
He nods. But it’s understanding, not agreement. “Mind turning off your phone?”
My face must show confusion, but he lifts his from the mount on the dash and demonstrates doing the same to his own. Reluctantly I do, showing him the device when it’s dead.
“What was that about?”
“I’m going to say something you won’t like.”
“Okay.” I don’t like where this is going. “And my phone needs to be off because?”
“What’s on the thumb drive in the safe deposit box?”
Ice flows through my veins. How does he know? How could he know? Did he hack the cameras at Platt?
“Lorien?”
I hold up a finger, asking him to wait. It’s a stall tactic because paralyzing fear has me experiencing something I never have before.
My throat is squeezing so tightly due to adrenaline and I’m fighting to swallow and breathe.
We studied the globus sensation in school, but I’d never experienced it before now.
When I regain the use of my autonomic nervous system, I force words that terrify me over the driest throat I’ve ever experienced. “How do you know about that?”
“I’ll tell you how if you tell me what.”
It says something about how badly I want to know how he knows that I spend no time at all contemplating outing myself. “The drive has data indicating that genomic isolation—basically DNA sequence modification—can cure most immunologic conditions.”
“In English?”
“There’s a cure for AIDS, arthritis, Lupus, Celiac. All of them. Not a pharmaceutical intervention. Not medicine. Cure.”
“For your brother’s condition?” He loops through a cloverleaf and sets us on C470, heading south and I wonder how we got here so fast.
I nod. “The data indicates that, yes. It’s not fully baked, but given the time and attention, all of those diseases would be gone well within the decade.”
“And they shut that down?”
“You think they know?”
“That the data in your lab would put them out of business, and their profits would tank… Probably. Profit is king. Earnings drive holdings. Stock prices make people very wealthy. And you could grind all of that to a halt.”
“They know…” I taste the words, bitter and disgusting in my mouth. “They know people could live, but they’d lose money.”
“It’s a guess. Shareholders care about increasing returns. Leadership cares about shareholders.”
“But the people who are sick—”
He cuts me off. “Make them all their money.”
“Pull over.” I point to the shoulder. “Please pull over.”
He changes three lanes from the far left all the while dealing with commuters honking their horns and flipping him the middle finger.
“Please,” I beg.
As soon as the car slides to a stop, I unbuckle and hop out, folding at the waist to empty my stomach of what little is in it. It’s bile and bits and nothing more.
I don’t know how many times I retch before a warm palm slides up my spine, and he pulls my hair back. It’s too late. The closer strands hit my face over and over, sliding over my lips, coming away wet.
But the comfort wrecks the threads of the shit day. Everything unravels. I hold my stomach and scream. Tears fall into the grass to meet the sick that already stains the terrain.
I let the thing that’s been clawing around in my gut since moving day have its way.
Abject terror. The knife at my throat. The smell of urine in my house.
Hope. Being chastised by Dr. Patel. Or feeling like it.
Lawsuits. An arranged marriage to a stranger.
Being targeted. My goal is just out of reach, being snatched away for money.
Profit over people. Revenue over remission.
I scream until my throat is hoarse and the strength in my legs gives out.
I’ve almost hit the dirt when strong arms envelop me and lift me.
I’m placed into the passenger seat and buckled in.
I don’t fight the tears. I don’t fight the defeat.
I merely sob as Liam gets back in the car and drives us home.
Liam
There’s no plan when I park. There’s no thought about where or what. I just lift her, tossing her purse over my shoulder, and let myself into my unit.
I don’t know why I don’t take her home, except that it’s further away and with my phone off I can’t access her garage door.
“Stay right here.” I set her on the edge of my bed, placing her bag on the nightstand, and flip on the shower to full hot.
I return to find her exactly as I left her. Her eyes are red and puffy and far, far away, and her lips are swollen from crying.
“Do you need help?”
She shakes her head but doesn’t move from her position.
“Lorien. Real talk.” Her gaze snaps to mine, as I continue, “Do you need help in the shower?”
“No.” Her voice sounds like she scraped it over gravel for a week while smoking too many brown cigarillos.
“You’ve got it?”
“I’ve got it.” She stands and wanders toward the bathroom, stepping out of her shoes along the way.
“I’ll be out here if you need me.”
She lifts a hand in acknowledgement, but I don’t believe her.
I never thought I’d wish to be car shopping.
It’s a terrible experience. Okay, a few things are worse.
When Ayla spent days not waking up in the hospital.
The worry around Sariah and Renée in South Dakota.
Watching the light dawn on an innocent woman that the right thing won’t be done so the profitable one can be.
I’m out of my depth.
I can only do what I can do.
I head to the kitchen to chop up some fresh veggies and sauté them until they wilt. Realizing what I need is next door, I let myself into the other unit and grab the rotisserie chicken from the fridge and a few other things we got yesterday.
I don’t think about clothes, which I realize the moment I get back home to find Lorien padding around the kitchen wearing another one of my tees.
They’re worse than the nightie. I have no clue why, but something about seeing her wearing it is hardwired to my cock.
“Decent shower?” I drop the ingredients on the counter as she folds into a chair at the table.
“I guess. I found an extra head for your toothbrush. I hope that’s okay.”
I forgot that too. I suck at this.
“That’s fine.” I pick about half the chicken and drop the meat into the pot with the veggies. “Would you rather chicken soup or chicken with noodles?”
“How did you know?”
I freeze. She’s going to be pissed. I always knew she’d be pissed; but pissed after that scene on the highway might be worse.
“You didn’t answer my question.” I turn toward her.
“You didn’t answer mine. ‘You’ll tell me how if I tell you what’.” She air quotes. “Or was that a lie?”
“I don’t lie. I’ve never lied to you.”
She gestures to me. “Well then?”
I take a deep breath not quite ready for the turd sandwich that’s about to go down. “I wired your place with cameras after you moved in.”
“Cameras,” she says to herself, waiting a beat, to add, “After I moved in.”
I don’t turn away. I don’t flinch. I watch her face as the anger ripples over the surface and the shutters come down.
The silence stretches for minutes that feel like hours. A lone tear tracks down her face, and she walks to the back door. “Of all the things that could hurt me, the last thing I ever would expect is being betrayed by you.”
If she had yelled it, it would’ve been easier. If she’d screamed and beat my chest, I could’ve dealt with that blow. But the quiet resignation is what cuts me to the quick.
“Lorien,” I start, but I know I have no leg to stand on.
The door snicks closed in my face.