“I’ll drive you.”
“Can’t. You came with Will. If I’m not mistaken, we’re going to find him sound asleep in one of the other alcoves, all alone and snoring. Wanna bet?”
Phillip laughed outright for the first time since Sarah’s accident. “No way. I’m thinkin’ you’re too right.”
They found Will by the sound as soon as Clare opened the drapes. The room was lined with little alcoves, at the moment all empty save one. Will hadn’t drawn the curtains and the sounds of his slumber filled the room.
“Will, wake up. You need to take Clare and me home.”
“Right. I’m not asleep, I was just resting my eyes.” Will blinked like an owl several times as he struggled upright.
“Yeah, we could tell.”
Clare touched Phillip’s arm. “While he wakes up, I’m going to go change. You’re going to have to go home in the robe. Your pants are being laundered, I’m sure. Your shirt, however…”
“Thanks, Clare. I’ll get him going and meet you out front.”
* * * * *
Phillip waved to Will’s disappearing taillights and turned toward the empty cottage. He hadn’t been here since Monday and today was what? Wednesday? He’d totally lost track of days. Each one had seemed an eternity.
But he was home. And Sarah was safe, even if he couldn’t see her. It would have to be enough.
Chapter Eleven
Together
“Thank God your three-week separation is almost up. I swear I can’t take one more day!”
Will sat in his kitchen watching Phillip pace the floor from the back door, past the table, over to the dining room door and back again.
“You’ve paced that same spot so many times before dinner these past…” Will did a quick figuring in his head, “twenty days. I’m gonna have to replace the tile!”
Jill came in the front door and Phillip held himself back, even though he wanted to dash to her and get the latest on how Sarah was doing. For the past week and a half, Jill had been driving Sarah to and from work since she couldn’t drive with her arm still immobilized with a sling. Impatiently, he waited for Jill to enter the kitchen, then take forever to set down her stuff and kiss Will hello. She turned toward Phillip and gave him a casual greeting but then saw his distress and took pity.
“First of all, Sarah’s fine. Her stumble last night did no damage.”
The force of air out of Phillip’s lungs pushed a lock of Jill’s hair into her eyes. With a grimace, she tucked it back behind her ear and shook her head.
“She really shouldn’t be staying in that apartment all alone. I’ve said that over and over.” Phillip loved Sarah’s independence, though he thought this time she took it too far. “I wish she had come here to stay with you two.”
Will got up and checked the soup on the stove. “She’s doing fine on her own, Phillip. Besides which,
you
come here every day.”
“Well, I wouldn’t if she were here.”
“Phillip, be a dear and open this jar for me?”
Phillip took the jar from Jill and absently tapped it on the corner of the counter before popping the top. He didn’t even look at it as he handed it back to her.
“She could’ve tripped going to the bathroom in the middle of the night here too, you know. Or at the cottage.” Will tasted the soup. “Perfect.” He gestured to Phillip. “This is a make-your-own sandwich and grab-a-bowl-of-soup dinner. Last of the garden vegetables!”
Phillip grabbed three bowls from the cupboard, as at home here as he was in his own home. “Yes, but at both those places, there would have been someone to help her. She wouldn’t have been alone.”
“I don’t know who’s more grateful today’s the last day of the court order, you or her,” Jill told him while piloting him over to the counter with the bowls to get him out of her way.
“She misses me?”
Jill rolled her eyes at Phillip’s insecurities. She hadn’t seen him when Tamara left but from what Will had told her, it had been a messy breakup. Jill had met Phillip only a few years ago and in all that time he’d been a polite, pleasant and mostly cheerful person. Occasionally, however, she had caught glimpses of the loneliness he hid. She didn’t see it much when he was visiting them. No, she saw it almost always when there were couples involved. He’d get a sad look in his eyes when he thought no one was watching or those magnificent shoulders of his would droop a little as he turned away.
Since he’d met Sarah, however, she hadn’t seen any of that occasional black cloud. And the night at his cottage when the whole gang had gotten together? Jill hid her smile as she remembered the show they’d put on for Sarah and how Phillip had beamed all night.
Now, however, he fretted and it was just about driving her crazy. He wandered from their place to Lady Aleshia and Anton’s like a lost puppy. It was almost as if he didn’t want to face being alone without her. Jill understood. Keeping busy kept the demons at bay.
“Yes, you big lout. She misses you. I told her you’d pick her up after work tomorrow, since she’s not driving yet.”
Phillip held the bowls as Will ladled the vegetable soup. “You expect me to wait until five o’clock?”
Jill shook her head. Men. Did they have to be so dense? “Of course not. I expect that you’ll be over to her apartment at 12:01 tonight. Well, tomorrow morning…”
She didn’t expect the sudden kiss she got from Phillip. He bussed her right on the mouth. “Jill, you’re a genius!”
Will laughed and Jill gave him a “come-hither” smile. “It isn’t rocket science. Sarah told me to make sure you’re there right at 12:01. She doesn’t want to be kept waiting one more minute than she has to.”
“I’d say that means she missed you,” chimed in Will, enjoying Phillip’s sudden animation. “And I’m thinking you might want to take a nap after dinner, since I’m pretty sure you’re not going to get much sleep tonight…”
* * * * *
Once back at the cottage, Phillip tried to nap but found his mind racing. Would Sarah look any different? How many changes can a person go through in three weeks’ time? The last time he’d seen her, she was bruised and bloody. That image haunted him and he had nothing to replace it with. He tried to remember how she felt when he held her or the sight of her naked and in cuffs but each time the image was quickly supplanted by his last view of her in the emergency room.
By eleven o’clock, he couldn’t stand it anymore. Although tempted to throw on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, he decided he wanted Sarah’s first impression of him after three weeks to be one of self-control. He might be coming unglued in the privacy of his own home but he didn’t need to show that to the rest of the world. If he had realized how much Will and Jill had seen, he would have been mortified.
Blissfully unaware of his friends’ perceptive natures, Phillip mastered himself, forcing himself not to speed down the country roads on his way to the city expressway that would take him within blocks of Sarah’s apartment. This was not the time to be getting another ticket.
She lived in an old two-story brick building with not much in the way of parking. Sarah’s space was open and Phillip knew her car would never occupy it again. He slid his winter rat into her spot and checked his watch. Five minutes and not a cop in sight. Chuckling, he got out of the car, knowing the courts and law enforcement weren’t really watching him and wouldn’t care about him being early.
He bounded up the stairs, taking them two at a time and knocked only once on her door before it flew open and she stood there.
For several seconds, he stood drinking in the sight of her like a thirsting man gulps water. Her hair, always at shoulder length, seemed a bit shorter. Her face, still pixie-like and beautiful, glowed with hope. Her left arm, protected in a white sling, hung across her naked body. Phillip chuckled.
“Good thing it’s me at the door. Or were you expecting someone else?” He gestured to her lack of clothing.
She laughed and Phillip knew he’d never heard anything sweeter. “Get in here before I lose my nerve entirely!”
He stepped over her threshold, shutting the door and twisting the lock. Prolonging the torment, he lifted the chain and put it in place before turning back to her. She looked so vulnerable, so alone. Phillip stepped forward and scooped her into his arms, picking her up and holding her tightly to him, being careful of her arm and shoulder. How long they stood there, he didn’t care. His arms felt filled again.
Phillip had only been in Sarah’s apartment a few times to help her move out some boxes but he remembered the way to the bedroom. She weighed nothing as he carried her along the short corridor.
Because Sarah had been packing for the move to his place, the room held only a double bed and an almost-bare dresser. Scattered boxes, some of them open with clothes hanging out the sides, were a testament to her efficiency. Before the accident, she’d packed everything with an eye toward moving within two weeks. Three weeks later, the boxes had been reopened and the clothes worn. He kicked one out of the way and set Sarah gently on the bed.
“I missed you,” she murmured against his chest, not willing to let go. Her arms ached from the need to hold him. He slid next to her, keeping her close and she put her face up, wanting his kiss.
Phillip saw the unshed tears in her eyes and brushed her hair back from her face. “I missed you too.” Her lips beckoned and he bent down to claim what was his.
He took his time, savoring every nuance. It had been so long. A mixture of spices filled his nose and he drew in a gentle yet deep breath, memories of her stretched body beneath his awakened by her perfume. Her lips, soft and pliant, opened and he took her invitation to taste deeper, his tongue swirling around hers in a dance of desire.
Sarah felt herself relaxing for the first time since leaving his cottage that fateful Monday morning. Phillip was here. He would take care of everything. She broke the kiss, the words tumbling out of her like water falling off a cliffside. “I missed you so much,” she said again, only this time it sounded like a cry of loneliness. “You can’t know how it is to have someone in your life all day and all night and then suddenly have him not there. You do all these things together, make decisions together and then you have to do it all yourself. And you know you can. You have to, you don’t have any other choices. Well, you do but curling up into a ball and wailing is only allowed for a little while.”
She couldn’t stop the words and didn’t even realize the tears had escaped and now cascaded down her cheeks. “So you go on. You get yourself up every morning and you force yourself to go to work. And you find every excuse not to come home at night because you can’t stop thinking at night. There’s no one but you and four walls and insanity.”
She took a breath to sniffle and Phillip caught her chin in his hands, tilting her head up toward his. “Insanity. Exactly.”
He understood. She should have known he would. With a sob, she threw herself into his arms and let the pent-up tears fall. Soaking his shirt, she didn’t stop until every last ounce of tension had released.
“You’ve been holding that in all this time, haven’t you?” He handed her a tissue from the box on the floor.
Sarah nodded. “Three weeks. I don’t see how you can sit there, so calm and self-assured while I fall to pieces. It isn’t fair.” She looked at him with a hint of petulance. “And it isn’t because I’m a woman and you’re some macho kind of man.”
Although tempted to tease her, Phillip didn’t. He couldn’t. Not after his own breakdown at Maxi’s. Everyone needed a knight-protector sometimes. His had given him welts of forgiveness.
But that wasn’t what Sarah needed. He pulled her close, the softness of her body as it melted into his reminding him how long it had been since he’d felt her skin next to his.
Laying her back on the pillows, Phillip looked down at his injured slave. He wanted her and he would take her tonight. Beneath him, she looked so fragile with her broken arm no longer in a cast, but still bound with an elastic bandage and encased in a sling. Above her, he unbuttoned his shirt, his eyes never leaving hers as he prepared to make this a night she would never forget.
She loved watching his shoulder muscles ripple as he took off his shirt. God, how she’d missed him. Having cried out her frustrations, his presence filled the empty spot in her life that had been there for the past few weeks. It wasn’t that she needed someone to take care of her but now that he was here, for the first time in far too long, she felt whole once more.
Her eyes drifted down as he unzipped his pants, smiling as she realized he hadn’t even taken the time to put on underwear. His cock, semi-hard already, poked out from the dark hair surrounding it. Soon it would grow and she would reap the benefits. Grinning in anticipation, she squirmed up onto the pillows, pushing down the covers with her one good hand.
No grin answered hers. “Here, let me get those.” Phillip took the sheet and blankets from her and pulled them all the way to the bottom. “I want nothing in the way between you and me.”
His dark eyes smoldered and Sarah shivered. For ten days after her accident, she had been a good girl, stifling all erotic thoughts as her body healed. After that, without Phillip to guide or fulfill her, she had depended on her own fingers, the one unpacked vibe and memories to reach her sexual climaxes. Those paled now in comparison to the hunger she saw reflected in his eyes. Had he, too, come since they’d seen each other last? Somehow the thought of him alone in the cottage, masturbating in the dungeon, set her blood pounding in her ears.