Chapter 17
Justin still had me pinned to his desk, his body draped over me. The room was hot and smelled of sex.
“Dr. Kingston?” The girl I’d asked to watch the front desk’s voice traveled through the door. “Is everything okay?”
We shared a look.
“Fantastic,” Justin grinned down at me, my stomach fluttering. “Everything is fantastic.”
“Are you sure? I saw—”
“It’s fine, I’ll be out in a second, please wait at the front for my four o’clock appointment.”
There was a brief moment of hesitancy before the sound of hushed voices and footsteps retreated crept through the door.
He was still buried deep inside me, as if he were as loath as myself to break this connection between us.
“How’re you?” his kisses were gentle. Tender. Possessive.
I never wanted them to end.
“I’d say fantastic, but I think that’s already been used.”
He barked a laugh. “You’re something else, Katie, you know that?” He brushed my damp hair away from my face. “Don’t ever change.”
Something changed in the air, and I could only nod. “Okay.”
I expected him to break the contact then, to break this whole spell and thrust us back into the reality of work, but he didn’t.
“Come over Saturday.”
I blinked.
Yes.
Yes, yes, yes.
“I don’t think—”
He rolled his hips and I shuddered in his arms. “Come over, Katie. I want to taste every inch of your body. I want to make love to you properly. I want to hear you screaming my name. I don’t want you to hold back.
I want to take you again and again until you can’t walk straight.
Until I’m all you feel for days to come. ”
God, so dirty and yet, that’s all I wanted too.
“Justin…”
“Think about it.” He kissed me. Quick and rough. “Please.”
“You, what?”
I winced at Zoe’s voice screeching through my phone. I knew opening up to her would be a bad idea.
I hadn’t even told her the worst part.
That I’d somehow fallen in love with Justin. I squeezed my eyes shut. God, everything had turned to shit.
I paced my room. It’d been less than 24 hours since Justin had taken my virginity and now I felt restless without him.
I’d turned into one of those girls I swore never to become. Clingy.
“I slept with him, Zoe,” I hissed through the phone not wanting the entire household to hear me explaining that I’d banged my stepfather.
“How was he?”
“I’m not answering that.”
“Oh, come on, he’s like a sexy dream come true and you’re not going to tell me anything?”
I battled with myself for all of five seconds. “I can still feel him between my legs,” I admitted, heat rushing to my cheeks.
The line went quiet.
“Zoe?”
“You lucky bitch. Oh my god. Katie, this is huge. So now what?”
“Why do you think I’m calling you! He asked me to come over this Saturday.”
“Like a date?”
I tugged on my hair, restless. “I don’t know, yes? No? He didn’t say date, only that he…” I dropped my voice again. “Wanted to taste every inch of me.”
A low whistle came from the other end of my phone. “I repeat. Lucky. Bitch.”
The hope I’d kept locked deep inside started to unfurl in my chest. I grinned.
“You’re serious about him, aren’t you?” Zoe’s words wiped the smile off my face.
“Why do you ask?”
“Are you kidding me? You’ve never been this into a guy before. You had sex with him. You trusted him, Katie. You’ve never let anyone in that far before. He’s the one for you, isn’t he?”
My hand landed on my stomach, where it was knotting inside. “What if he doesn’t want me, Zoe? Why is this time different? What if this is only a fling to him?”
And here I’d given him my heart on a silver platter, ready for him to step all over it.
I started to hyperventilate.
“Katie,” Zoe’s firm voice brought me back. “Listen to me. You let him in for a reason. For once, trust yourself, and him. I know you don’t want to, but ask him about all those years ago. It’s the only way you’ll get answers. You deserve to be happy, now go get your happiness.”
Zoe was right.
I needed to trust myself.
I deserved to be happy. Which meant I didn’t second guess myself when I sent off the testimony Justin wrote for me to the investor interested in my charting program.
KM-Charting. Katie Malone Charting. I’d talked with my professor about trying to come up with a more medical sounding name, but he told me not to limit myself.
So my name it was. The thrill I got seeing my finished product was indescribable. This was it. My future.
Or one part of it.
I’d decided to go over to Justin’s on Saturday. I’d texted that night, but couldn’t wait to see his face in person the next day at work.
“What do you mean he’s not here?” I asked Midge, who was back in office too soon for my liking.
Midge crossed her arms. “He had a meeting about the clinic. Why? What’s so urgent you have to see him?”
I didn’t like the way she watched me, a snide look on her face.
“I wanted to talk to him about the program, he left an email for me to train you up on it.” It wasn’t a lie, but that wasn’t the reason why I wanted to see him.
“Right. The charting program.”
I didn’t appreciate her tone of voice. “Is there something wrong with it? Justin vetted it, if that’s what you’re worried about.
He wrote me a wonderful testimonial, I have an interested buyer, which means it’s only a matter of time before it’ll get picked up.
It’s going to help hundreds,” I wouldn’t sell myself short, “thousands of people.”
“Sounds like you put a lot of hard work into getting that testimonial.”
Something wasn’t sitting right.
A sick feeling started in my gut and only grew as the day went on.
Midge was acting weird and I hadn’t heard from Justin all day. I knew he was busy, the clinic was generating a lot of buzz, but it was still in the early planning stages and I didn’t know enough about philanthropy to gauge how close he was to actually start construction.
On Saturday, I felt like an idiot standing outside Justin’s house.
I wore my best skinny jeans, a new pair of flats I’d bought last night to keep myself occupied when Justin hadn’t texted me back, and a tight sweater with a plunging neckline.
I told myself the sweater was a sensible choice.
The sleeves would keep me warm against the cool breeze signaling autumn’s arrival—finally—and the open neckline would keep me from overheating. A perfect balance.
I was so full of shit.
I wore it because it looked sexy and I wanted Justin to think of me as sexy. I wanted him to want me. All of me. Forever.
Tonight, I’d show him how much he’d come to mean to me in such a short time.
Inhaling, I ran my hands over myself one last time to make sure everything looked perfect.
I rang the doorbell and waited.
And waited.
I looked at my phone.
I rang the doorbell again, leaning in to try and see through the glass siding.
The foyer remained dark and empty. No light came from the back.
I checked my phone again. We’d agreed Thursday night on the time and though I hadn’t heard from him all Friday when he’d been out on his clinic meeting, Justin wasn’t the type to cancel and not notify me.
I texted him and waited.
And waited.
Fifteen minutes later I still didn’t get a text.
A ball of anxiety started to build low in my gut.
Another ten minutes passed. I’d tried calling him, but it went straight to voicemail. I drew the line at leaving a whiny voicemail. I wasn’t his girlfriend, I was…his stepdaughter.
I could feel my old fears creeping up on me.
All the calls my mom didn’t take. Being left alone at school. Forgotten. Abandoned.
I gave up at the one-hour mark.
As I got up from my perch on the front step, headlights came up the drive.
My heart jumped.
It had to have been an emergency at the clinic.
“Justin!” I ran to the car only to draw up short when he got out.
“What—?” I took in his dark wash jeans, the sexy black button up.
Those weren’t work clothes. “Where have you been?” Because he didn’t look like he’d come to get me for a date.
He looked like he’d just come from a date and my stomach tightened when I saw the missing button on the top of his shirt where it gaped open, exposing the smooth muscle of his throat and upper chest. His hair, usually swept away from his face, hung at his side, like someone else had run their hands through it.
I felt sick.
I couldn’t read the expression on his face and my gut sank even further.
“Well? Where the hell have you been?” I knew I sounded like a jealous girlfriend, but I couldn’t help it.
He looked tired. “Katie,” he scrubbed a hand down his face and for a second, I thought I caught a glance of something like remorse in his deep blue eyes. “Go home.”
The words cracked something inside me. I started to tremble. I didn’t know which emotion fueled it. Fear or anger. But I didn’t want to feel fear, so I concentrated on the anger.
“Fuck you, I deserve an answer. You invited me over. You made me believe you cared about me.” My lip trembled. “I thought you cared about me, but you don’t. You never did. You never will.”
I was back in high school, back to that day I’d seen my discarded letter. All my hopes and dreams crumpled. I hadn’t meant to voice all my fears. Not really.
Justin’s eyes widened.
I needed to leave. I was done making a fool of myself.
He didn’t want me.
Maybe he never did.
It was all some sick, twisted game. I pressed my hand to my heart to try and ease the pain inside, but it didn’t work.
“Katie, listen to me very carefully,” he tried to approach me but for every step he took toward me, I took two back. “This is for the best. Your future would be ruined, your program, my clinic…”
A manic laugh bubbled up my throat. “Your clinic? That’s what this is about? That’s all you care about?”
It hurt. It hurt so damn much.
His hands fisted, knuckles white. “The investor came to the clinic and overheard us, Katie. Do you have any idea what that kind of information would do for this project in its infancy? All the work, all those people…”
I couldn’t look at him anymore. “I get it. This is your dream.” He’d all but told that reporter when I’d first started. The clinic was his calling, a way for him to really help people—like he wanted to when he’d been my age and first started his career.
“It’s not only my dream, Katie. If that investor goes to the media…
I mean shit, you saw how hungry that fucker Gracelyn was at the thought there was anything going on between us.
This kind of media attention would pull you in and taint any kind of relationship you have with your buyer.
That letter I wrote you?” He shook his head.
“I should have never wrote it. It’s more condemning now than anything. It’s a direct link between us.”
His jaw clenched. He looked ready to punch someone out.
The cogs were turning in my head and the reality of what he was saying finally sank in through all my emotional distress.
No one would do business with me if they thought I’d slept with Justin to get a testimony.
I was going to be sick.
“Now do you understand?”
I’d started to turn numb. I nodded, while internally trying to glue the parts of me back together that had been shattered. I lifted my chin. “We both have something more important to worry about.” The words tasted hollow.
Justin’s eyes burned into mine, but I refused to give him what he was searching for. I didn’t need him. I’d been fine on my own, to think otherwise had been a foolish dream.
“Katie,” he stepped toward me and this time I let him, because I had to prove to myself that I didn’t need him. That I wasn’t crumbling from the inside.
When he cupped my face, it took all my resolve not to fall into him—to not taste his lips.
His lips parted, but I didn’t want to hear anymore. “Goodbye Justin.”
It physically hurt to pull away from him.