She went back to the kitchen to stare at the cupboard with the pregnancy test. “It’s fine. I’ve already forgotten about it.”
“You have?”
“Of course.”
“That makes exactly one of us,” he said and hung up.
She let her breath go in a long exhalation as she returned the handset to its cradle. She wasn’t pregnant, she told herself. She couldn’t be. They’d had sex once. No big deal. Sure, they hadn’t used protection, but other people got away with it all the time.
She argued with herself for another fifteen minutes but, in the end, she forced herself to retrieve that test and take it into the bathroom. There, she carefully followed the instructions and held her breath as she waited for the results.
It’ll be okay…it’ll be okay…it’ll be okay, she chanted to herself. But when the indicator turned pink, she knew it wouldn’t be okay at all.
Careful not to tear the thin newspaper clipping he’d been saving for more than a week, Oliver turned it over and gently pressed a glue stick along the outside edges, then pasted it into his binder as meticulously as all the other pictures he’d collected.
Afterward, he sat back and gazed at Skye in Detective Willis’s arms.
That photograph proved he’d been right from the first. Willis wanted Skye. It was obvious from how closely he was holding her, the expression on his face. And, apparently, there was nothing standing in the way. Willis didn’t have a wife anymore, just as Oliver had thought. Oliver had checked the county records this morning and confirmed that Willis was divorced.
Oliver studied Skye, wondering if she returned the detective’s interest. It was possible. Willis had a good build, was an attractive man. Oliver liked to imagine them sleeping together, but not as much as he liked the idea of making David watch him. There were drugs that rendered a person helpless, unable to move a muscle. With enough money, Oliver could get some of those drugs. He had a lead on some roofies already. The Internet was so amazing.
Picturing David slumped in a chair, unable to get his body to respond to the commands of his brain while he watched Skye being raped made Oliver rock-hard. More ready than he’d been since he’d come home from the hospital.
“Oliver? You in there?”
It was Jane at the door.
“What perfect timing,” he muttered to himself. Then he closed the binder, slid it between the headboard and the wall, stripped off his pants and positioned himself sideways in the chair to make the most of what he had to offer.
“Come in.”
She opened the door rather timidly. He’d snapped at her the last time she’d bothered him. But he hadn’t meant it. He’d always been good to her in the past. He was just having trouble adjusting.
Her eyes immediately dropped to what he’d exposed, but she didn’t smile or move closer as he might’ve expected after three years. He tried to ignore that.
“Where’s Kate?” he asked.
She blinked several times before answering, and when she spoke it took her a moment to find her voice. “Her friend—” she cleared her throat “—her friend Valerie invited her to stay the night.”
“So we have some time alone.” He gave her his most boyish smile.
“Are you sure you’re…feeling strong enough? I—I wouldn’t want to…hurt anything.”
That was why she was so reluctant. Now he understood. “What do you mean? I’ve been biking for the past three days,” he said. “It won’t hurt me. Come here.”
When she hesitated, he nearly lost his erection and felt the anger that simmered so close to the surface these days overwhelm him. Didn’t she realize how difficult this was for him? That he couldn’t even get hard without imagining she was Skye?
Of course not. Jane was too stupid. He used to love being the smart one, seeing that adoration in her eyes when he said something beyond her intelligence or used a word she wasn’t familiar with. But it didn’t seem so endearing anymore. The moment she came home, he left the house and rode up and down the bike trail on his new bike, just to retain his sanity. At least when he was on the trail he could relive the moment he’d first spotted Meredith, and Amber and Patty. He’d also ridden, several times, past the point where he’d first seen Skye sitting in a lawn chair outside her apartment, remembering how he’d waved and she’d smiled in response….
“You want to make love?” Jane asked.
“Don’t you?”
She nodded. “Of course.” But when they got into bed and started kissing, he went flaccid and nothing she did made any difference.
“Maybe it’d help if you let me tie you up,” he suggested.
“What?”
She sounded appalled, which made him want to scream at her. This wasn’t his fault. If she hadn’t let herself get so flabby and unappealing, maybe he’d be able to do it. “You know, it might be fun if we tried something a little different,” he said.
She leaned up on one elbow to peer into his face. “But we haven’t made love in the, ah, traditional way for more than three years, what with the trial and everything. You can’t be bored with it already.”
“So you’re as unadventurous now as you were before.” He didn’t hide his disappointment.
She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “I’m not unadventurous.”
“Then what are you willing to do?”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I told you. Let me tie you up.”
Propping herself against the headboard, she hugged her bent legs to her chest. “With what?”
“Sheets. That’s not too threatening, is it?”
“No-o-o,” she said slowly.
He hurried to raid the linen closet. But when he came back, she seemed even less sure about what he had planned.
“Getting tied up doesn’t excite me,” she said.
“I’ve been celibate for three and a half years, Jane. Waiting to be with you again. I just want to make this an occasion to remember. Can’t we make it different? Special?”
Finally she smiled. “Okay.”
“Turn over.”
She blinked in surprise. “Why would I turn over?”
“Because I want you to be facedown.”
“Then we won’t be able to see each other.”
And he wouldn’t be constantly reminded that she wasn’t the one he wanted. “A lot of people do it like this. Come on. I’m not going to hurt you. Have I ever hurt you?”