“You taste like marshmallows,” he said back, and then he dove back in, brushing his tongue past mine.
“I love your accent,” I said, a minute later, pulling back a little.
“I love yours,” he said, leaning forward to catch my mouth with his.
“I love your ukulele,” I said another minute later.
“I love yours.”
“I don’t have a ukulele.”
“I don’t care.”
I wriggled around to get a better angle, and he wound up solidly on his back, me straddling him, and my palms flat against the floor on either side of his head, bodies pressed together.
“Are you sure you didn’t get hurt?” I asked then, still kissing him.
“I got a little hurt.”
“Where?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Does it hurt now?”
“Nothing hurts now.”
What was my goal here? Was I trying to seduce my physical therapist? I wasn’t even sure if I had been cleared for that type of thing! All I knew was, I wanted to get closer. I would have climbed inside his rib cage, if I could have. I wanted to devour him and be devoured back. Whatever tangled forest of feelings bloomed in my body every time I saw him—I just wanted to get lost in that forest and never find my way out.
I did get lost. I brought my mouth down to his neck, nuzzling in and biting a little, and he ran both his hands up my back, stopping short, bringing his hand around on my nonburned side to guide my mouth back to his.
For a moment, the two of us, just like that, made up the entire world. Nothing but longing, and closeness, and warmth.
That’s why I didn’t hear Kit and Fat Benjamin clomping up the stairs. Or trundling down the hall. Or turning the squeaky old door handle.
No. The first I noticed Kit and Fat Benjamin, they were pushing open the door and flipping on the lights and discovering the two of us down on the floor.
“OMG!” Kit said, slapping her hand over her mouth to cover a giggle. “This room appears to be taken.”
“Get out, Kit!” I said, in a classic annoyed-sister voice.
“Sorry!” Fat Benjamin said, giving us both a little salute of apology.
They stepped back out of the room and slammed the door shut behind them, leaving the overhead light on.
“Wait!” I heard Kit say on the other side of the door. “Were they hooking up?”
With that, all the moonlight disappeared.
Ian blinked at the doorway where they’d just been, like he was waking up from a dream. I still sat astride him, trying to catch my breath, wondering how to get the moonlight back.
But he was up on his elbows now. “Oh, God, Maggie,” he said, twisting sideways to move out from under me.
I shifted onto the floor beside him as he stood and turned to scoop me up.
He lifted me to the bed.
I held on to a doomed little hope that maybe we were just moving to a more comfortable location.
But once he had me securely settled, he turned away and walked to the window. He touched the curtain idly for a minute, delivering his signature silence. Finally, when he spoke, he said, “Maggie, I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry for?”
“I shouldn’t have done that.”
“You didn’t do anything. I kissed you.”
“I shouldn’t have kissed you back.”
“Because,” I guessed, “messing around with patients is against your code of ethics?”
Ian was pacing a little bit now.
I tried again. “Because if Myles ever finds out, you’ll lose your job?”
“If Myles ever finds out, I’ll lose my license,” Ian said. “But that’s not it.”
“What, then?”
“It wasn’t fair to you.”
There was nothing I wanted more than to be back in his arms. “I think it was fair. I think it was very fair.”
Ian shoved his hand into his hair. “You’re not qualified to judge.”
“I’m not what?”
He turned to look at me for the first time. The overhead light seemed awfully bright. “You’re not in a fit state to judge.”
“You’re saying I don’t know the difference between what’s fair and what’s unfair?”
“I’m saying—”
“Because my fiancé crashing a plane that I didn’t even want to go anywhere near and paralyzing me while he walks away without even a Band-Aid? Obviously: unfair. You coming here and playing ‘Happy Birthday’ on the ukulele and giving me the best kiss of my entire life? I’m going with fair on that one.”
“That’s just it. It wasn’t the best kiss of your entire life.”
I raised my eyebrows in disbelief. “It wasn’t?”
“You just thought it was.”
“Pretty sure that’s the same thing.”
But he shook his head. “When a person goes through something like what you’ve just gone through, when your whole world is ripped apart, it takes a long time before you can see things clearly again. Months. Years, even. The trauma leaves you vulnerable in ways you can’t even feel. I know all about this. I’ve been trained on it—read textbooks, taken tests. It’s against my code of ethics for a reason, Margaret—a good reason. To protect you.”
I was Margaret now? I noticed tears on my face, but I had no patience for them. I smeared them off with my sleeve. “I don’t care about any of that.”
“But I have to. For your sake.”
“But you—” A big, shaky breath interrupted me. I hesitated to go on, because it felt like a big thing to admit. But I had to try. I had to at least speak honestly. I took another breath, and said it: “You are the only thing I look forward to all day long.”
He closed his eyes in what looked like a wince. Not the effect I’d hoped for. “That’s exactly what I’m trying to tell you,” he said.
“I don’t understand.”
“The things you feel about me mean that you are not safe. I shouldn’t have come here. I knew there was a risk this might happen.”
So he knew I liked him before he came. I pulled in a ragged breath. “Don’t you like me at all?”
Ian shoved his hand into his hair again. Then he walked to the bedroom door, turning those navy-blue eyes to settle them right on me. “I hate everybody,” he said. “Except you.” He pulled the door open to leave, then added, “And that’s another reason you’re not safe.”
“Are you leaving?” I asked. He was clearly leaving the room. But I meant, “Are you going back to town?”
“No. Of course not. I’ll stay the night to look after you.”
“I don’t need looking after.”
“You want me to leave Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee in charge?”
Not really, I supposed.
He continued. “I’ll make sure you get back safe tomorrow.”
“You’re not going to switch me to some other PT, are you?”
“That’s up to you.”
I couldn’t even imagine anybody else. “I don’t want another PT.”
“Then I’ll stay.”
“Are you still going to come for tutoring?”
“Yes, if you like. But I’ll come after supper—just to keep things clear.”
“No goofing around?”
He shook his head. “It’s best.”
What could I say? It’s not best, it’s worst? There was no way to win. He had decided I wasn’t qualified to know what was right for me. And from the sound of things, he didn’t trust himself too much, either. Was he rejecting me? Was he uninterested? Could you kiss a person like that and not feel something, at least? I knew there was longing there—but maybe it was just a general longing for anyone at all. Maybe he was so lonely, any live girl would do—even a broken one like me.
He was still standing at the door, staring down at his hand on the knob. He looked up. “I brought a present to give you tomorrow,” he said then. “But maybe you don’t want it now.”
I turned my eyes to the window. “Just throw it away,” I said.
I heard the door click closed behind him, and then he was gone.
I stayed awake for a good while after that—waiting to hear Kit creep back to her bedroom, because I needed to pee and I’d be damned before I asked Ian to take me. Maybe I’d be better off without him. He certainly seemed to think so. But in all that time of thinking, I could not for one second imagine how.
Twenty-two
THE NEXT DAY—my actual birthday—did not shake down the way I expected.
I expected to wake up and work my way through an awkward breakfast with Kit and Benjamin all lovey-dovey while Ian stared out the window with a face of stone.