Sexual Healing for Three (5 page)

“I know. I’ve seen you doling out an endless supply of treats to your younger patients.”

He shrugged. “I’m a regular candy man.”

And she bet he could make it all taste good too. She was sure
he
also tasted good.

Stop it! It’s just a date.

“It’s tonight.” It was way too short notice. Yeah, that was it. He wouldn’t be able to go. It conflicted with his schedule. He was an ER

doctor after all and—

“Works for me.”

Donna had to stop herself from gulping. “Don’t you have to consult your BlackBerry or something?”

“This must be your lucky day. I get one weekend off a month. It’s one of the few perks of an administrative position. This is my weekend.”

“How old are you?” she blurted. He didn’t look old enough to be a doctor, much less one in an administrative position.

“What age would make me an acceptable candidate as your escort?”

Damn, he saw right through her. She hated that. “How old, Chance?”

“How insulted would you be if I ask you the same question?”

Pretty damn insulted, but this didn’t stop her from planting a fist on her hip and glowering at him while she waited for his answer.

He plowed a hand through his shoulder-length chocolate-brown hair and finally grumbled, “Thirty-seven.”

So she hadn’t lost her touch, and he wasn’t totally immune to what Angela called her L&D—Lethal and Deadly—look. And 36

Gracie C. McKeever

evidently, he was some sort of prodigy to be a chief resident at so young an age.

“So what? Am I too young? Too old?”

He was too everything! Not only was he drop-dead gorgeous and sexy, he was drop-dead gorgeous, sexy, and eleven years younger than her. Not to mention he was some sort of vegetarian, and she loved meat. He was just wrong for her on
so
many levels.

But now that she had started with the interrogation, there were so many other questions she wanted to ask him, so much she wanted to know, not the least of which was whether he had Native American blood in his family. Not that it mattered. She was just curious. His eyes had an exotic slant, and along with his perpetual bronze complexion and high, pronounced cheekbones, they denoted more than just Caucasian ancestry to her.

Wouldn’t Angela just have a field day with him?

She should have stuck to her original plan and gone stag, just suffer whomever Angela had fixed her up with for the evening—

because she knew that’s what the
celebration
was all about—and be done with it until the next time. Going out with Chance, however, someone she actually liked, was not a good idea. Going out with him would start something that she wasn’t sure she could easily stop.

“So, Donna, are we on for tonight?”

She raised her eyes to his. “If you still want to go.”

“I’d be honored.”

She pasted a grin on her face that didn’t quite reach her heart. She felt too doomed, but still managed to croak, “Me too.”

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37

His hands wrapped around her throat and squeezed—tight,
tighter, tightest—until her eyes started to tear. He was no longer in
control of his actions, had lost it somewhere around the middle of her
endless harangue, one he had heard a million times—a million times
too many.

The red veil of anger that had settled over his vision wavered and
intensified, changing shades from crimson to the palest rose and back
again until he couldn’t see or hear anything except the voice in his
head that wanted all his attention and her complete silence. She
needed to be quiet, just this once in his life, and he promised he would
be a good son, the best son she could ever have and not the no-good
bastard like the man who was his daddy.

Her gurgling pleas dragged him from the deep vortex of fury to
where he had descended minutes before. He had tried to fight off the
urge, had been successful so many times before, but not this time. She
had gone too far, driven him over the edge. It wasn’t his fault. It was
hers.

No wonder his daddy left her. What man could take all that
yacking and yammering? What man wanted to have his faults pointed
out to him every minute of every day? What man could take it without
finally breaking? Not him, that was for damn sure.

He was doing the world a service. No one would miss her. She
was a bitter fishwife who didn’t have any friends, and was it any
wonder?

Couldn’t she see what she was doing to him, that she had caused
this, brought this on herself? It wasn’t his fault. It was hers,
her
fault.

38

Gracie C. McKeever

“That’s right, bitch. Die. Shut up and die!” Her eyes bulged now
as he pressed his thumbs against her hyoid bone and shook her. He
felt the bone give way beneath his fingers, and she finally went limp.

He, however, remained as rock-hard as when the thought of choking
her first entered his mind. Maybe he was as perverted and dirty as she
accused him of being.

Wow, killing her had been so easy, the transition from a cloying
torture of his brain to a clear head such a welcome relief he wanted
to cry. He should have done it a long time ago. But he’d tried so hard
to be a good son, the son she’d always wanted.

He released her and let her slide down to the dingy burgundy
living room carpet. He then stepped over her unmoving body and
walked to the back of their trailer home to go to the bathroom.

When he switched on the light and glanced at himself in the
mirror, he froze, examining the flat eyes staring back at him.

Were those his daddy’s eyes? He often wondered since his mama
always said he looked just like the no-good whoremonger, right
before she either slapped or punched him in the face as if to exorcise
the man from her memory through punishing him. He wasn’t sure if
he looked like his daddy or the man was a whoremonger. He’d barely
been walking when his daddy left, so long ago he didn’t remember the
man except for what
she
told him.

Maybe he wasn’t the bastard she had always made him out to be.

There were two sides to every story, and he had only heard hers. Now
there wasn’t even that side anymore.

Good riddance.

He glanced down at his arms where a trail of blood trickled down
them. She’d dug her nails into him trying to get him off of her.

He shook his head and pulled off his white T-shirt. Before
dropping the shirt onto the tile floor, he wiped the blood from his
arms.. He’d have to burn it, along with everything else, before he left.

“No one will miss her.”

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39

He listened to the voice as he went out back to retrieve the
container of lighter fluid his mama kept around for barbecues and
grilling. Those occasions were few and far between, reasons to
celebrate with her son dwindling as she aged.

He came back into the house with the container and left it on the
kitchen counter before going to the bedroom to pack one duffle bag. It
was about all he needed to hold all his stuff.

He stripped out of what he was wearing, left the puddle of clothes
on the floor, and took a quick shower before throwing on a fresh pair
of jeans and a T-shirt.

He crouched beside his mama’s dead body now and wondered
what his daddy had seen in her. Had she ever been a happy woman,
one who smiled and laughed at dirty jokes rather than frowning and
branding the teller a perverted heathen? Had she ever been someone
who would be missed by anyone except the son she bore?

Would he miss her?

He couldn’t honestly say one way or the other. She was all he
knew, had always been a part of his life—one he could do fine
without, he was sure.

He knew what had to be done now, that his life had changed
forever, and he would have to leave. Go far away.

* * * *

He woke with a start, trying to shake off the nightmare.

No. It wasn’t a nightmare, more like fond memories of how he had won his freedom.

He had these memories a lot when he first left home, but their frequency dwindled over the last eighteen years until the incident was something he only thought about once in a while.

He felt no guilt about what he’d done. He had better things to do and occupy his time and mind during the ensuing years. He had gotten married—twice. He had killed twice when the women hadn’t lived up 40

Gracie C. McKeever

to his expectations, each somehow reminding him of his mama in one way or another—mouthy, overbearing shrews who needed to be taught a lesson. They were women who needed to keep their mouths
shut.

They couldn’t accommodate his hunger, couldn’t do to him what needed doing. What use were they? He considered it his duty to rid the world, once again, of so much useless trash.

There had been women in between too, some pretty, some plain, some shy, some boisterous. Some women he had spared from his complete wrath and left alive, just a little the worse for wear. None of them were what he wanted or needed. Only in the last few years had he come to understand what this was.

He’d denied the realization when it initially dawned on him, fought it fiercely with every blow he rained upon a hapless woman who had the misfortune of thinking he was sexy and wanting to share his bed. But now he was coming to accept his sexuality, his needs, especially after he’d met and been with a man strong enough and willing enough to properly discipline him.

He hated that he’d kept his distance with John. As much as he’d loved John, as much as he’d wanted to submit and give himself fully to the older man, he’d been too afraid to step over that final line beyond sex, physical gratification, and give John emotional power over him—the ultimate power.

He’d been on his own too long, too used to fending for himself and being the one in control, calling the shots. By the time John came on the scene he had been so entrenched in the power he held over women that he barely recognized his desire and excitement when John exerted that same kind of power over
him
.

Now John was gone and he regretted every day that he had not taken the last step into a new reality and given his only real lover power over his psyche as well as his body.

John’s death was on his head. Had John not been frustrated with his stubbornness and stormed off promising not to return until
he
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41

came around to John’s way of thinking, John would be alive today instead of a vehicular death statistic.

His several months with John had not been nearly enough time to quench his thirst. The months had only intensified his hunger, so much so that he had not been with a woman since, not for sex. He wanted the dominance and punishment that a woman could not give him. Women were only good for one thing, and that was to be dominated, punished. But who did he go to when he wanted to be dominated and punished?

He used to go to John but this wasn’t a possibility anymore.

But there was Russ Merrick.

He’d realized almost from their first introduction, their first handshake, that he wanted Russ. Russ was his missing link, inhabited John’s strength and poise without looking a thing like him. But the physical dissimilarities didn’t matter because it was Russ’s spirit that he recognized, Russ’s spirit that he connected with.

However, recognizing his desire, this mystical connection, was only half the problem. Russ didn’t want him, at least not yet. Russ was undeniably straight.

But he had been too once, before John. Who was to say Russ’s mind couldn’t be changed, especially if his body was engaged? And if there was anyone who could engage Russ’s body, change his mind, it was him. He knew he had something to work with already. There was something there in the way Russ looked at him, something there in how patiently Russ took the time to explain a project or teach him all the tricks of his trade.

He had never had a strong knowledgeable male, other than John, take a sincere interest in him. He had never had a man like Russ treat him like he was worth something other than scorn.

Russ treated him with kindness and respect. And even though he knew Russ was his boss and only being professional, he felt that there could much more than the professional between them. There was something beneath the surface, something dark and gritty about Russ 42

Gracie C. McKeever

that pulled at him, something that he knew he could draw out if given the chance, something that was meant for
him.

He was persuasive and persistent, but more, he too was patient.

He had put up with the physical and emotional abuse from his mama for seventeen long years before making a move. He could wait for his intended to come around. He was good at waiting. He knew that good things came to those who waited. And if waiting didn’t work, then he would resort to persuasion.

He vowed he would not make the same mistake with Russ that he had made with John.

He would give himself to Russ completely.

He would not let Russ get away.

* * * *

Chance pulled up to the front of Donna’s brownstone in the Village, surprised that she lived in such a quaint side street with stunning rows of attractive houses from, at the latest, the nineteenth century. “Charming” and “romantic” immediately came to mind, two words Chance would never have used to describe Donna.

“Determined,” “driven,” and “passionate” were more her speed.

His heartbeat kicked up a notch as he turned off the engine and watched her descend the stone steps outside, a vision of sexy tomboy in snug jeans and a blue-and-white jersey worn beneath a black leather jacket, not just any jacket, but proper safety gear—