Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 72892 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72892 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
“You have a signed first edition of Garin’s first book,” he says. “The dedication he wrote is to you.”
I should accuse him of snooping when I was asleep, but I’m not surprised he did. If I ever step foot in his apartment, I’ll do the same.
“I treasure it.” I walk over to the shelf to retrieve it. “He was in Buffalo for a poetry reading. It was at a bookstore near my high school, so I cut class and went to see him.”
I open the cover to find the blue-inked dedication and the date Claude Garin had written it.
“When you knew who he was at the club I felt an instant connection to you,” Gaines admits. “I had never met anyone before you who even knew who Garin is.”
“They’re all missing out.”
He steps closer but stops himself, as if he’s fighting a silent battle.
“It wasn’t a hate fuck,” I whisper. “It was an angry fuck, wasn’t it?”
He doesn’t say a word as his gaze wanders to the windows behind me.
“When you came here last night you were in knots,” I broach the subject I’ve been avoiding since he walked into my apartment at three this morning. “Did something happen at the hospital? Was it a patient?”
He tilts his head back. His hand trails over the front of his throat. “I almost lost a long time patient last night. It was touch and go for hours.”
I rush toward him but stop just short of him.
I don’t know how he processes that, or what he needs from me.
Maybe the sex settled whatever demons are raging within him, or it quieted the pain of what he must have endured last night.
“Will he be all right?” I ask even though the man in question is a complete stranger.
All I know is that he matters to Gaines, and I suspect that his concern for the patient reaches beyond his position as his doctor.
“He’ll survive.”
“I’m glad.”
As if on cue, his phone dings.
He checks it instantly. “I have to go.”
I nod silently.
He glances at me. “Thank you for answering your door last night.”
“You would have broken it down if I hadn’t.” I smile.
“You don’t know how true that is,” he says with a straight face. “I’ll text you now that I have your number.”
I won’t ask when or what that text might say because when he walks out my door he’ll leave me with more questions than I had when he stormed in here early this morning.
He steps closer to me to plant a kiss on my mouth. It’s soft and tender. “Goodbye, lamb.”
I shove the book in my hands into his. “Goodbye, Garin. Keep this until I see you again.”
“I will.” He holds it against his chest. “Tell me the page of your favorite poem.”
“Forty-two,” I whisper just as his phone sounds again.
“I have to run.” The words leave him as he sprints to my apartment door.
We don’t exchange another word, just a look into each other’s eyes before he’s out the door and gone again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Gaines
I read over the text I just typed out and then press send.
Gaines: Her eyes are the color of the sky when the clouds have cleared.
Her response is almost instant.
Eloise: But it was her lips. Oh, those red-stained lips. They charmed him so.
I step onto the subway platform a block from Eloise’s apartment with her poetry book tucked under my arm.
I didn’t have to look at it to know what poem I’d find on page forty-two, or the first line of it, which I sent to her just now.
I own this book too, although mine isn’t a first edition and I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting the poet whose name I’ve adopted for what I do in the dark, and in the burgeoning light of the day as I did this morning with my lamb.
I toss my head back to chase away the lingering image of that picture tucked in Eloise’s nightstand.
She didn’t have time to hide it after I arrived at her place in the middle of the night so that offers a small degree of comfort. It was stuck in that drawer before that.
Still, I have no claim to her, and as angry as I was when I fucked her, it was incredible. It was so goddamn intense that my legs are still shaking.
She makes me weak in a way I can’t afford to be, but the thought of never touching her again makes me fear I’ll collapse.
As the train approaches, my phone chimes.
I drop my gaze to it and chuckle.
Eloise: Be honest. Did you have to look in the book to recite the first line of the poem? No judgment here, sir.
My reply is on its way to her before the subway slows to a stop.
Gaines: You know I didn’t. I should punish you for questioning my love of Garin’s work.