All Amity Allows (Fall for You Book 2) (13 page)

Chapter Twelve

The next two
weeks passed in much the same fashion as the first day Drew had let Amity take him out. On the days he had to go to work, she would be waiting for him to come home so she could put him through his paces on the exercise equipment and then they’d go on some ridiculous date just for fun. There were no expectations, no possibility of scoring, and absolutely no seriousness allowed. They were just two friends hanging out with no real rhyme or reason for the dates. It was so far outside of the scope of anything Drew had ever done before.

Sure, he’d had one-nighters and that sort of fun, but that had been stress relief for him, something to help ease any potential case of blue-balls and give him the focus he needed to study again. He’d never understood hobbies or fun for the sake of it. At least not until Amity came along.

She’d even managed to coerce him into seeing the latest animated movie and he’d found himself laughing through most of it in spite of himself. The nighttime activities were the perfect distraction from the days he might have had otherwise. Whenever he had to talk to Becca, he found himself purposefully thinking about Amity instead. It was his only method of coping with the urge to beg Becca to tell him that it was all in his head and they still stood a chance in the crazy world, despite the fact that it was obvious she’d been happier in the last few weeks than he’d ever seen her.

Even bringing Amity to the front of his mind didn’t stop the yearning he felt to reach out and caress Becca’s cheek again when he was near her though. It didn’t stop the ache in his fingertips when he thought about trailing them over her skin once more. Or the stirring in his pants as he recalled just how many days it had been since they’d last shared a bed.

“Dr. Petersen?” Becca’s voice oozed irritation as she tried once more to get his attention. The quiet growl in her voice snapped him out of his thoughts. She had a patient’s chart in her hand and she’d been telling him . . . something. He’d become lost in thought because she had a random curl that had fallen free of her loose knot. That strand had distracted him with memories of his fingers in her silken hair as she sucked . . .

“Drew,” she hissed under her breath as he lost his train of thought again.

“Sorry, I was remembering how good it felt when you sucked my co—” he managed to cut off his verbal diarrhea before he went any further, but it was too late. Three pairs of eyes—a green pair he was used to staring into as she writhed beneath him in pure, unadulterated pleasure, and two other pairs he’d never met before in his life—all stared at him, wide-eyed and disbelieving. He could practically feel the blood rushing to his face, filling his cheeks with heat. “I, uh, I mean, I’ll umm . . . Miss Lewis, can you please refer the patient onto Dr. Steward? She’ll be able to help.”

He spun on his heel and walked away before he could cause any more embarrassment, for himself or for anyone else. He was in his office, trying to work out why he was unable to refrain from spilling his deepest darkest secrets whenever he thought about, or talked about, Becca, when she walked into his office.

“What the hell was that?” she hissed. She waved her arm in the general direction of the reception area.

Drew wasn’t certain how to respond, so he just stared at her. This was the first time she’d ever been in his office alone, and with the door closed at that. Usually if she needed him, she’d stop by and stand just outside the door for long enough to impart the information he needed. Even when they’d still been dating, she’d never come into his office; although he’d fantasied about it often enough. Back then, he’d spent more time than he cared to admit dreaming up all the ways he could use the different office furniture to his best advantage and draw those perfect moans of pure pleasure from her throat. He blinked at her in rapid succession as he tried to will away his sudden erection.

“Are you trying to embarrass me? Get me fired? Is this some sort of sick payback?”

He frowned, but it was about all he could do as he took in Becca’s red face and high-pitched voice. Her green eyes flashed with rage and he was powerless in the face of her reaction. It was the first time he’d ever really felt her claws. The whole time they’d dated, she’d been almost meek—willing to sacrifice so much for him. It occurred to him, for perhaps the first time ever that he really didn’t know Becca all that well. At least, not this new, real Becca who was so different to the idealized one he’d loved for so long in his own mind.

“I know things didn’t go the way you planned—the way either of us planned. God, if I knew then what I know now, I would have made sure nothing ever happened so we could stay friends. I care about you, Drew. I know you might not believe me, but I do. And goddammit, you cannot do this! Not here. This job may not be my life’s ambition, but damned if I want to lose it!”

“I’m sorry,” he said. His voice was barely above a whisper, but it was enough to cut through Becca’s anger.

“Why?” she asked again, her voice imploring and desperate.

He stood from his office chair and turned his back on her. That left him inches away from a plain, white expanse, but he couldn’t look at her. Now she’d lost the initial heat she’d shown, the flush on her cheeks and the heaving of her chest filled his mind with images that would only lead to more trouble. More than anything else in that moment, he needed to keep his verbal spillage issues under control, which meant not looking at her or thinking about her.

He fisted his hands in his hair as he tried to will away the thoughts. He needed to give Becca a reason for his outburst—an outburst that could easily see him sued for sexual harassment—but he didn’t have one. All he had was a headful of inspiration, which wouldn’t have been out of place in a
Playboy
magazine.

The truth was, he didn’t really want Becca that way anymore. He didn’t even want to want her. Someone else was starting to take up residence in his mind, someone equally as taboo, but his unimaginative mind just couldn’t fill in the blanks well enough to give him the one image he was starting to crave with a maddening desperation. He was fine at extrapolating known data to build realistic scenarios in his mind, but to come up with an image entirely from scratch was something he hadn’t needed to do since high school. Even then, he’d never been good at make-believe and pretend. So now, when his body craved Amity beneath him, wild and wanton, his mind offered up the next best thing, Becca.

“Are you going to answer me?” Becca’s voice was almost silent, broken just as it had been when she’d uttered her apology for loving someone else.

He exhaled shakily. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know if you’re going to answer me?” The anger was back in force.

He spun back around but couldn’t meet her gaze. “No, I don’t know why I said it. I don’t know why half the crazy stuff that has happened to me lately has been happening. First, I find you on the very first day I arrive back in town, and we have a moment that is everything I dreamed of having with you when I was younger. I could barely believe my luck that you were unattached and as interested as I was. So of course, I throw myself into the relationship, thinking that everything is fantastic except for the fact that you have this guy hanging around you almost constantly. Someone with an ulterior motive that I tried to warn you about time and time again but that you refused to listen to.”

“That’s not fair. Evan didn’t . . . He wasn’t . . .” She frowned at him before signaling for him to continue, no doubt realizing she couldn’t argue the fact that Drew had been right about Evan’s motives all along.

“Then, just when I think we might have a genuine future, just when I lease a house so we can spend more time together in a space of my own, I find out that you’re in love with him as well. I knew how he felt, but I never guessed you would do that to me. To us. I should have known though. You spent so much time defending his motives. So much time defending
him
. I should have seen it sooner. Cathy did, you know. She knew all along. She even tried to warn me, but I was just too blinded to see it.”

“Drew, I—”

He cut her off, refusing to allow her to try to take the moment away from him. It was his chance to tell her everything he felt, something he’d been unable to do so far. It was becoming increasingly clear to him that he had to let her go, and in order to do that, he needed closure. Then he wouldn’t let her have a hold over him anymore. “And then when I think things have finally reached the lowest point that they can reach, my car starts fucking up and I end up with some odd inability to keep my private thoughts private. So to answer your question, I have no idea why I said what I said other than the fact that things have been going from bad to worse ever since I arrived back in Flint, and I don’t know how to stop things from getting even worse.”

“Wow, I . . . I had no idea.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”
You’ve been far too cozy in your little love-nest with Evan
. “Let’s just say that if it wasn’t for Amity, I probably would have gone completely insane by now.”

“Amity?” Becca’s brow furrowed and he could see her trying to match the name to a face. There were no Amitys that she would know though. He could tell she wanted to ask for more information, but decided he’d rather let her stew on it. She didn’t deserve his generosity after the way things had ended between them, even if he had just made an ass of himself at her expense.

He crossed his arms, leaned against the wall and nodded.

Becca huffed. “Okay. Amity. Good. I’m glad you found Amity, but you can’t pull any more crap like you just did. Seriously, you’ll get us both fired. If Mr. O’Brien complains, I won’t take the fall for you.”

Her assumption made Drew’s eye twitch and jaw clench. It wasn’t like he’d expected her to lie for him. In fact, he would probably be incapable of carrying out that sort of deception at the moment anyway, not with all of his truths on the very tip of his tongue just waiting to spill forth.

“I never asked you to.”

She scowled at him for a moment, but then her expression softened. “Is it always going to be like this between us?”

He could have asked, “Like what?”, but he knew exactly what she meant. And he didn’t have any real answer, so he just shrugged.

“I—I don’t want it to be,” the words spilled from Becca in a rush. “I really hope we can be friends one day.”

Staring at her, at her pleading eyes and small, hopeful smile, Drew wanted to assure her that they might get back there, but the truth was he couldn’t see that path. He couldn’t see a day when they’d be in the room together and it wouldn’t feel like his heart was trying to claw its way out of his body through his throat. It should have been easy to form the words, “Me too,” to give her that little white lie to help ease the trouble he’d stirred within her, but they wouldn’t come.

When a beat too long had passed and he still hadn’t said anything, the tiny smile that had curled the corner of Becca’s mouth fell. She opened her mouth to say something else, but was stopped by a knock on Drew’s office door.

“I’m sorry, Becca, I’m going to have to go. And again, I apologize for what happened before. I was out of line, and I’ll try to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”

Becca huffed, and it was clear the conversation wasn’t over—she would be back to deliver another piece of her mind at a later time. Thankfully though, she must have decided it wasn’t worth the continued hassle at that point. She spun on the spot before striding from the room without a backward glance, leaving the door wide open in her wake.

Drew pinched the bridge of his nose, wondering how to even start to fix the little issue he’d been having.

I was so certain I was getting on top of this.

For the last two weeks, the attacks, or whatever they were, had been happening less frequently—but something about Becca stirred it all back up again. She was the key, he was certain of it.

“Come in,” Drew called to whoever it was outside his office when they didn’t enter as Becca left.

When after a moment he still had no extra company, he lifted his head in confusion.

As if waiting for his attention as her cue to arrive, Amity strode into his office as if she owned it. With her blonde hair loose around her shoulders, and another perfect tank top which made his trousers tight—purple this time rather than lipstick pink—she was a vision. Exactly what he needed to see after his encounter with Becca.

“You ready?” she asked.

Drew frowned. He couldn’t remember them making any daytime plans. So far, all of their dates had been at night, long after the day was behind him, or on his days off. “For?”

Amity giggled. “Lunch, silly.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I told you, I’m taking you out for lunch. You must get sick of cafeteria food all the time.”

“Well, yeah, but . . .”

“But what?”

“It’s just that your timing couldn’t have been better if you’d planned it.” He shook his head, marking it down to a coincidence. Then he offered her his arm, ready to head out.

Alarm bells
were sounding in Amity’s head. She was really pushing her luck when it came to Drew. She needed to back off, but instead, she seemed to be rushing headlong toward him faster than ever. She was feeling things she shouldn’t have been feeling, and not just because he was human. He was damaged, hurting, and she was daydreaming about breaking many, many years of celibacy in a number of varied and interesting ways. At least ten of which involved the weight bench she’d conjured for him. Seeing him on the black bench, half-naked and straining as he lifted ever increasing weights sent her mind straight into the gutter and made it almost impossible to have any thoughts that didn’t involve them both shedding their clothing.