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Since I’ve replayed it every single day since then in my mind, the memory has only become more vivid. I can recall the color of his tie, and the way his hair fell around his ears. I remember the scent of his skin beyond the cologne he was wearing.
I know all of the lyrics of the song that was playing when he was fingering me, and the dull beat of the drum of the music that sounded through the speakers when he came down my throat.
I spin to face him. “I remember it all.”
We’re in the living room now. His gaze darts from my face to a bookshelf behind me. It holds a collection of my most treasured reads along with a few books my aunt had, and a couple that Astrid had left behind on the nightstand when she moved.
“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.”
