A Change of Heart (16 page)

“But these aren’t normal circumstances, and you deserve better.” Her voice hitched. “I…I don’t have anything to offer. I’m messed up. I can’t even consider dating anyone right now.”

“Don’t I get a say?”

She shook her head and turned to face the window. “Don’t waste your time waiting for me to make it to normal.”

Damn.
His heart couldn’t take much more of this flip-flopping around. He felt like a fish on the bottom of a rowboat, bruised and gasping. “You aren’t a waste of time, Cory. You’ve only been with L&L a little over a month, and already you’re
much less skittish and more relaxed. Time.” He nodded to himself. “You just need more time.”

The Langfords’ driveway came into view, and he turned onto the gravel, pulling up alongside their minivan. He hurried out so he could open the door for her. “I have an idea.”

She climbed out without his help. “Oh, yeah? What is it?”

“You said you can’t stand the thought of physical intimacy, and I know you can’t tolerate being hemmed in.”

“Right.”

“Kiss me.”

“What?” Her eyebrows shot up. “After everything we’ve discussed, you want to—”

“No, Cory. I’m not going to kiss you. You’re going to kiss me. My hands will be in my back pockets, and they won’t move. You’ll be in complete control with nothing binding you. Set the lemon bars on the hood of my truck and get that pepper spray out of your purse. Put your finger on the nozzle and pucker up.”

“I don’t think so.” Now her brow lowered, bringing back the worry grooves she wore far too often.

“Remember I talked about replacing the bad memories with good? This is a step. I’m trying to help.” He wanted to convince her to take the chance like his life depended on it. “I’m safe. You can trust me.” He raked a hand through his hair. “You do trust me, don’t you, Cory?”

“I…I do, Ted, but I don’t want to risk ruining our friendship.”

“You won’t. I swear. No matter what, I’ll always be there for you. If friendship is all you can manage, fine.” He’d never be satisfied with anything platonic where she was concerned, and now he’d turned into a liar for the sake of getting her past their first kiss. Yep.
A fool in the making, that’s me.
She scrutinized him,
her gaze roaming over his face, finally focusing on his mouth—which suddenly went sawdust dry. “Let’s pretend.”

“What are we pretending?” Her frown deepened.

“From this point on, you’re a born-again virgin. This is your first kiss, and you have no bad memories.”

She sucked in an audible gasp and stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. He held his breath, certain she’d refuse. Several tense seconds stretched between them. He filled the gap by kicking his own ass. He’d pushed too hard and too soon.
Dumb! Baby steps.
He could hardly believe it when she set her purse and the plastic container on his truck.

“You swear you’ll keep your hands to yourself?” she whispered.

“I swear.” He jammed them into his back pockets and backed up against the door of his pickup. “Have at me. I’m all yours.”

She stepped closer, leaned in, and tentatively brushed her lips against his, immediately backing away. The brief contact set off grand-finale fireworks inside him, all of his nerves firing up at once. “That’s it? That’s all you got?”

She shot him a disgruntled look, but took the bait. She stepped closer, her lips connecting with his more firmly. He melted, kissing her back, letting her take the lead. It worked. Her tongue slid into his mouth for a brief exploration, then withdrew. He couldn’t resist chasing the lure and tried to follow. She let him. Good Lord. She let him in, and he fell under her spell completely.

His entire world narrowed to the single point of contact, her mouth on his, the most erotic experience he’d ever had. The kiss consumed him. His knees went wobbly, his heart thundered, and he couldn’t catch his breath. Keeping his hands to himself was the hardest thing he’d ever done.

Her palms came up to rest against his chest, and then it was
over. She pushed away from him, her chest rising and falling as rapidly as his. Only with her he had no clue whether it was from panic or arousal. No matter how much he wanted to reassure her, the link between his brain and his mouth refused to connect. He was on overload, hard as rock, achy and wanting. All he could do was stare into her lovely brown eyes with all the longing he couldn’t hide. Bad move.

“Good night, Ted.” She turned on her heels and hurried off to the carriage house.

He watched as she disappeared around the corner of the big house in the dimming light, wondering if he’d just made a huge mistake, or…Scrubbing his hands over his face, he tried to draw enough air into his lungs to calm his raging lust. One kiss. The only things touching were their mouths. What would it be like to hold her in his arms?

Once he regained control over his rubber-band legs, he climbed into his truck and headed home, his mind still lust buzzed and fogged. Twenty minutes later he pulled into his parking spot, climbed the stairs to his lonely apartment over the machine barn and flopped down on his couch. There he stayed, staring at the ceiling, and then around the home that wasn’t really a home at all. It was far too empty for that.

He and Noah had custom built his two-bedroom apartment. The kitchen with its center island spanned the entire width of the great room, which included the living room with the exposed timber framing and a small fireplace. A short hall led to two large bedrooms, with one nicely sized bathroom at the end of the corridor and a laundry room next door. He’d furnished the place mostly with L&L scratch-and-dent returns and samples, with the exception of his bedroom furniture. That he’d custom designed and built with his own two hands.

He wanted someone living here with him, someone to wake up beside every morning, making this a home instead of just the space where he lived. The stainless steel appliances, granite counters and custom cabinets in the kitchen had been designed with that faceless feminine someone in mind. He had a face to put with the longing now, and he hoped like hell that for once things would work out in his favor.

Their kiss had shaken him like a pair of dice in a cup, and there was no turning back for him. He wanted Cory, and it was the deep kind of want that wasn’t going to go away, only grow stronger.

What was she doing right now? What was she thinking and feeling? He didn’t know how he’d face it if she’d been more disgusted than turned on. That would be a setback of monumental proportions. He leaned his head back and groaned.
Born-again virgin?
Who said stuff like that? What the hell had he been thinking? Well, the deed had been done, and she’d kissed him back. Whatever shook free from tonight would shake free, and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it now.

He rubbed his eyes, sat up, and searched around the couch cushions for the remote control. Might as well attempt to get his mind off Cory’s delectable lips, the sweet taste of her mouth and the breathy little sounds she’d made that had gone straight through him. Otherwise it was going to be a long, frustrating night. He flipped through the channels until he found an action movie in full swing, hit Enter, and stared without really seeing while counting the hours until work tomorrow.

CHAPTER SEVEN

C
ORY LEANED CLOSER TO
T
ED,
tentatively placing her mouth against his. He tasted sweet, and the softness of his lips against hers sent a delicious tingling current cascading through her. She stepped closer. Intoxicated by his unique scent and the warmth radiating from him, she placed her palms against his chest and deepened the kiss. His heart raced under her palm, and the sudden intake of his breath thrilled her. She ran the tip of her tongue over the seam of his mouth. He opened for her, and she slid her tongue over and around his, reveling in the groan her actions elicited from him. Ted kissed her back with heart-stopping tenderness, demanding nothing, offering everything. She moved closer, craving more…

His arms came around her. Roughly pulling her against him, he turned her around and pressed her against…the wall? The sour smell of Staff Sergeant Barnett’s sweat assaulted her. His rough, callused hand came up to cover her mouth and he leaned close enough for her to smell what he’d had for lunch on his breath.

“You have this coming, bitch.”

No, no, no! She twisted and turned, fought him with everything she had. Desperation and panic clawed at her gut, and bile burned the back of her throat. She couldn’t breathe. Rage exploded
into a red haze in her brain. This wasn’t right. Not fair. Not fair at all…

Cory cried out and sat up in bed. Sweating and shaky, she sucked in bucketfuls of air and wiped her face. “Oh, God.” Wrapping her arms around herself, she began the all too familiar ritual rocking. Once she’d worked herself into some semblance of calm, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed and made the trip to her small bathroom. One more hot shower that would do little to assuage the horror.

Tears pricked at the back of her eyes. The nightmare echoed exactly what had happened a few hours earlier. At first, kissing Ted had been wonderful, tender and sweet beyond belief, filling her with tantalizing sensations. But then his earnest image morphed into her attacker’s, and everything went to hell. Panic banished all the good stuff, replacing it with revulsion and white-hot rage. She’d fled, leaving him with that familiar hurt and confused look on his face.

Cory stepped under the scalding-hot water and scrubbed away at the panic and fear. She toweled herself dry and put on a clean T-shirt and boxers. Not ready to return to bed, she headed for her laptop. She sat on the recliner and searched through her e-mail for any word from the Yale law clinic. Spam, a few messages from military friends, something from Brenda, and that was it. Nothing from Yale. She slammed the computer shut, got up, and kicked the chair. Twice.
Not fair at all.
Her chest banded so tightly she could hardly breathe.

Frustrated, she took a swing at the chair’s overstuffed headrest. The smacking sound reverberated through the living room. How could she face Ted tomorrow? How could she tell the greatest guy she’d ever met that kissing him made her want to vomit and beat up furniture?

Unfit to serve.
Hell, yes. Unfit pretty much covered it, and she was so damned tired of feeling this way. Damned tired of the rage, the nightmares, the fear and the twitchy, skin-crawly desire to jump out of her own body when touched. The black, miasmic pit that had taken up permanent residence in the center of her soul exhausted her.
Smack.
Her fist connected with the leather again.

Maybe Ted was right, and she should find a therapist in Perfect who worked on a sliding scale. She hadn’t done anything up till now, and look where that had gotten her. Nowhere. On the other hand, the army owed her. All she had left of her military career were her principles. Sergeant Butthead had been found guilty. Changing her record should be a slam dunk. So what was taking so long?

Aiming all of her rage at the innocent La-Z-Boy, she slammed her fists into the chair again and again, imagining Sergeant Barnett’s face in place of the smooth brown leather.
Take that, asshole.
After sucking in another huge breath, Cory let it out slowly and stopped her assault. After all, the furniture was innocent in all of this, and it wasn’t hers to destroy.

She walked to the kitchen toward the roll of paper towels and tore off a few to blow her nose. It wouldn’t hurt to at least look into getting help sooner rather than later. Having a backup plan didn’t mean she’d given up on her principles. Right?

Returning to her computer, she sat down and Googled therapists in Perfect. There weren’t any. She tried a few more keywords and found the closest clinics willing to work on a sliding scale were all in Evansville—forty-five minutes away, and she had no car. Despair ate away at her resolve, and a fresh deluge flooded her eyes. Now what?

She’d have to save every penny she earned and buy a cheap vehicle ASAP, that’s what. The alternative was to beg rides, and
that she couldn’t do. She had her pride. Being dependent on Noah for rides to and from work was hard enough. Asking him to stop at the grocery store was no picnic either. He had a family to get home to, and taking more of his time twisted her into knots. She was twenty-seven years old and still living like a teenager with no real independence. That sucked.

I could ask Ted.
No, no, no. As soon as the thought entered her head, she rejected it. No doubt he’d help, but she already owed him so much, and helpless and dependent were not the characteristics she wanted him to associate with her. Besides, did she really want to be anywhere near him after a session? She’d be chewed up, raw and extremely vulnerable. Who in their right mind would want anyone to see them like that? Not her, that’s for sure.

Cory pressed her palms against her eyes. She had no choice but to work toward buying her own car, and that would take months. She’d have to wait—wait for enough money to support a car, wait to get word from the law clinic, wait to leave her personal hell behind so she could start living again. And it certainly wasn’t fair to expect Ted to wait with her. More than ever she needed to put some distance between them. No more evenings out or time alone, and no more kisses.