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Confirm again that you will be there?
No matter that she’d been trying to follow everyone’s advice about “giving it time,” the war drums inside her hadn’t abated. The text broke the sound barrier, and they beat through her senses all over again.
Like a festering cancer, pissed at being ignored.
Go find Brick. Go find him now.
The desperate thought shamed her. She couldn’t be a coward. She wouldn’t. She moved woodenly toward the bathroom. As she lifted her gaze to the mirror, she saw another woman standing before her, eyes so wounded, so broken, they should have been pouring out blood, not tears.
Panic clawed at Les’s throat as she tried to speak. As she had tried to speak then. Hands on her, shaking her, a hand slapping her face. Mrs. DaCosta’s wedding ring had cut her forehead. Her hand went to the mark at her brow, hidden under her bangs. Hospital personnel had pulled the mother off of Les, but those staring, anguished eyes had locked onto her, waiting for an answer she couldn’t give.
Everyone had the dream where they tried to call out for help to save themselves, but no words came. This had been like that, except it hadn’t been a dream, and Les hadn’t been the one needing saving. She’d been the villain, the one who’d bolted into the rain-soaked garden. And run to Brick.
“Les?”
Brick was standing behind her. Blocking the doorway, keeping her where all those accusing emotions ricocheted off the walls and struck her. Like being stoned in a public square.
“I can’t keep pretending everything is okay. Nothing has changed. I shouldn’t have come. I need to go back.”
She groped for the washcloth and hit the faucet handle to turn on the water. She would rub this shit off her face, scrub her skin like a wire pad applied to soap scum. Pull her hair back into a practical ponytail rather than letting it float around her face like a fucking fairy princess.
When he closed his hands over her wrists and pulled her hands away, she snarled. “Let me go. I’m not hiding behind you or this Dom/sub bullshit for you to make it better.”
“You want a fight, doc? You want that wrestling match here and now? Go for it.”
His voice was hard, so when he flipped her around, locked her back against his body, rage erupted from a terrible reservoir deep inside. More than she could control.
She screamed at him, feet lifting to kick at the walls and door. With Rory, she’d learned to wiggle, squirm and shove against things, to break his hold. But Brick moved them into the bedroom. Distantly, she realized he was using a psych hold, one she’d learned about during her Behavioral Medicine rotation. Not the modified version, which was less dependent on upper body strength and more on leverage and pressure points. Brick didn’t have to worry about that choice. He could use the whole arsenal of strength and strategy together.
He wasn’t the target of her rage. She jerked a hand free. He’d made her drop the cloth, so she’d use her nails to scrape off the makeup. Her swipe at her face opened up the scratch under her bangs before he recaptured her hand.
“Let me go.”
“Stop trying to hurt yourself.”
“Fuck you.”
He nipped at her ear, teeth sharp enough to make her yelp. His voice was a harsh scrape over things too raw not to hurt from the contact. “If that’s what you want, baby, that’s what you’re going to get.”
She began to fight as dirty as she knew how. He didn’t give an inch, staying in the open space of the bedroom, offering her no fulcrum. She couldn’t throw elbows, couldn’t grab onto anything. The only thing more frightening than being this out of control was knowing she was, and unable to stop it.
Words she’d give anything not to say, to not be true, overflowed, awful and overwhelming. “I broke her. I took everything from her. I can’t fix it. I can’t change anything.” She shouted it at him, and at the universe.
Brick sat them down on the floor, her thrashing legs out in front of her, her arms pinned against her at the elbows. She was struggling, but couldn’t move.
“Easy,” he said. “Easy, doc. Let it out.”
She kept fighting. Once or twice, she went limp and gasping. It was a wild animal’s survival trick, intended to fake him out. He was obviously paying attention to something far deeper inside her. He didn’t relax his hold until the limpness was genuine, the fury sliding away, replaced by exhausted, pathetic begging.
“Please let me go back to school, Brick. Don’t let me dump any more of this on you. I need to deal with this.”
“You are dealing with it.” His heat covered her back, his breath against her temple. He had his long fingers wrapped over her forehead, keeping her against his shoulder. He was rocking her, a soothing motion that was helping, no matter that she didn’t want to feel better or be helped.
“Next week, you’ll deal with the professional part of it. You’re here to deal with the rest of it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Ah, doc, you know better than to lie to me. Or to yourself.” He put his teeth against her throat. “Why did you decide to be a doctor?”
