Doctored (32 page)

“And now?”

Madison started to blush as she realized she hadn’t acted much differently tonight.  “I guess I’m still afraid.”

“Madison…Maddie,” she whispered as she leaned in, “I love you.  I’ve always loved you,” she said before she gently kissed the redhead.

Madison closed her eyes.  The lips were still as soft as she remembered, the feelings they engendered the same.  Hearing that Deanna had loved her made her melt and she went with those feelings.  Her own arms snaked around the blonde, holding her in place so she could return the kisses.  They started so gently and quickly became heated. 

Deanna couldn’t pull Madison close enough.  She found herself hiking Madison’s dress up high on her thighs so the redhead could straddle the blonde on the back seat of the limo.  “Mmm, mmm,” she moaned into the kisses as Deanna caressed her exposed legs.  Deanna arched and their centers ground slightly together.  Deanna tipped her from her lap onto the seat of the limo and lay on top of her.

Madison loved the feel of Deanna’s weight on her, her fingers clasped the doctor’s buttocks to her as she ravished her lips, her tongue probing deeply to fence with the blonde’s.  She gentled the kiss by sucking on the tongue offered to her.

“God, I want you,” Deanna admitted.

“Take me home,” Madison breathed.  All these months had built up to this.  She had thought of making love to Deanna time and time again.  She knew, despite her fears, that she wanted to be with her.

“You want to go home?” she queried, confused again.

“Take me to
your
home,” she clarified, her hand reaching for Deanna’s to press between her legs.  “You’ve started something and I need you to finish it,” she whispered.

“Just a moment,” she gulped as she closed her eyes, feeling the heat beneath the palm of her hand.  She sat up and made sure her dress was in place before pushing the button to lower the wall that separated the front from the back.  “Could you take us to my house?” she asked the driver.  At his nod, she pushed the button again to raise the separator.  She looked down again at Madison, her Maddie, in her arms and looking up at her with lust-filled eyes.  “Are you sure?” she asked gently.

“Yes, take me,” she answered and leaned up to pull Deanna’s head down to kiss her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Madison woke and could tell it was early.  The sun was trying to come in the large windows, but it was the angle of the sun that told her it was still early.  For a moment she was disoriented as she looked around the huge room she was in.  As she looked at the bed hangings, she panicked for a moment.  Had she gone home with someone…then she remembered.  She was in Deanna’s home.  She was in Deanna’s bed.  She looked around at the four-poster.  It was amazing how the rich maple finish matched the walls of the bedroom.  It was obviously an old piece, as was everything she could see in the room, all antiques.  She looked around in the light of the early morning and could see the apparent affluence.  She hadn’t really noticed the night before, but then, she’d had other things on her mind.

Deanna had been so tender to her, so loving.  Madison had practically ripped her dress off in her haste to be naked with her.  She’d dreamed of this.  She’d finally admitted to fantasizing about the good doctor all these years.  Deanna was very physically fit, with a little paunch that surprised Madison as she caressed the body, almost a middle-age paunch.  She didn’t dwell on it long as her fingers touched and caressed and probed in response to Deanna’s own caresses and touches.  She could only think about getting closer, to feel her against her own skin, to love her…love.  Deanna had admitted to loving her!

Madison sat up in the luxurious bed.  What was she going to do?  Did she love Deanna again?  Yes, she admitted that to herself, she’d always loved her.  It was only her own foolishness that had torn them apart so long ago.  She could admit that too, since she was being honest with herself.  Having Deanna back in her life was wonderful.  That a brilliant, beautiful, and accomplished woman such as Deanna Kearney could love her simply amazed Madison.  She looked around the room again…such opulence.  There was even a chandelier in the bedroom!  How fancy!  Could she get used to this?  She realized then she was thinking about a future with Deanna. 

Could she openly live with a woman?  What would her friends say?  What would her coworkers say?  She’d lose their respect!  She knew what Scott would say.  She knew what her mother would say.  Her children adored Deanna though.  Wasn’t she allowed to have some happiness in her life?  Could Deanna make her happy?  That was an easy yes, she could.  Madison knew she wasn’t interested in Deanna’s money, not in the least.  She loved the woman, the amazing and dazzling woman that was Deanna Kearney.

“Oh, God, Kearney Pharmaceuticals,”
she moaned to herself.  Anyone in their right mind would think she was a gold digger.  She hadn’t known that Deanna was a Kearney when she originally fell in love with her though.  She had thought she was a Cooper.  That hadn’t bothered her in the least ten, almost eleven years ago.  It shouldn’t bother her now.

She did admit that people and what they thought still bothered her.  Could she get over that?  It was what she had allowed to break them up so long ago.  She hadn’t been strong enough to go against what people would think if they found out two women were in love.  Was she stronger now?  Times had changed.  Wasn’t it more acceptable nowadays?  Was she looking for justification?

Her thoughts were interrupted as the door to the master bedroom was opened.  “Mom?” a voice called.  In walked a young boy who looked curiously at Madison who was hiding her nudity in the sheets.  “Oh, pardon me,” he excused himself.  “I’m looking for my mother.”

“Your mother?” Madison asked, curious, studying his mullato features.  She began to realize who his mother must be when Deanna walked in the room.

“Roman, Aura has breakfast for you downstairs,” she said firmly as she sidestepped the young man.

“I’m sorry for my intrusion, ma’am,” he said courteously with a little bow as he left the room, closing the door behind him.

Deanna turned, carrying a tray with coffee, juice, and two plates on it.  She began to chew on her lip as she came closer to the bed, walking around a large chest at the foot of it.

“Is that your son?” Madison asked the obvious question as she looked at Deanna carefully.  She was already dressed for the day in slacks and what looked like a silk blouse.

Deanna set the tray down on the bed.  Bowing her head slightly, she nodded.  “Yes, I named him Roman.”

“You’ve been married?” she asked surprised.  They hadn’t talked about anything like that and she knew she would have remembered if they had.  She wondered how old the boy was, he seemed so…mature.

Deanna shook her head as she looked up slightly.  “Do you want some breakfast?” she asked instead.

“I’m curious…” Madison began, but Deanna cut her off.

“Could we talk about it after breakfast?  I’m starved.”

Madison nodded and reached for the coffee, only it wasn’t coffee, it was hot chocolate.  It brought back instant memories of Africa and Mamadu.

The breakfast was painfully quiet.  Instead of loving it was awkward, and they both picked at the plates of eggs and bacon Deanna had brought up.  Madison caught Deanna absentmindedly pulling on her eyebrow a couple of times.  The last time, she brought her hand up and said, “Don’t.”

Deanna looked at her, then at the hand touching her own, and she stopped immediately.  She shrugged in an almost ashamed manner.

“We’re not making much headway here are we?” she finally asked, indicating the breakfast.

Madison had to agree with her.  “I need to get dressed.”

“I brought you some clothes.  I thought you wouldn’t want to wear the dress home.”

Madison was pleased with the thought and then gasped, “My children…I never said I was going to stay out all night!”

“I called your babysitter and explained we had car trouble and you would be spending the night at my house.  I said that you would be home in the morning.  It’s only 7:30,” she pointed out.

“Car trouble?  In a limo?”

Deanna shrugged.  “It was the best I could come up with.  I didn’t want her, or them, to worry.”

Madison was grateful for that and pushed aside the plate of food she had barely eaten and went to get out of the bed.  It was then she realized how naked she was.  “Um,” she began.

Deanna realized her dilemma immediately.  She grabbed her robe from the foot of the bed and shoved it Madison’s way before turning with the tray and giving her some privacy.  She put the tray on a table in the room and by the time she turned back Madison had entered her bathroom and closed the door.  She sighed.  She had awoken with so many hopes and dreams.  To have Madison back in her bed had been a big break.  She had imagined they would talk everything out this morning.

When Madison returned to the bedroom, the bed was already made, the tray gone and Deanna was sitting in a rocking chair in the large bedroom.  She looked up as the redhead came out of the bathroom.  “We should talk,” she said, indicating another chair that looked comfortable.

“I should get home,” Madison answered, feeling uneasy and sensing she wasn’t going to like this.

“This won’t take long,” the doctor answered, feeling hurt.

Madison sensed the hurt in Deanna and wondered at it.  She took a deep breath and asked, “So, your son, is he adopted?”

Deanna shook her head.  “No, he’s nine and he’s all mine.”

Madison frowned at her, putting the numbers together and coming up with…  “Then you got pregnant…”

“I was raped, Maddie,” she said quietly.  She pushed Madison back in her chair when she would have gotten up to comfort her.  “You need to hear this.”  She looked at the redhead with fearful eyes.  “Roman knows the circumstances of his birth,” she added, “just not all the details.  I’d prefer it that way.”

Madison waited where she was, held at first by Deanna’s touch, and now by the pain she saw in her beautiful blue eyes.

“After you and the others left, we were a mobile medical clinic.  We were on the run for a very long time.  We were always under the threat of being overrun by guerillas fighting in the area.  They decided we should pull out and evacuate.  It was too late though and they captured us.  Dr. Burton was killed defending me and my honor, of all things.  Dr. Wilson was tortured and he is now in a clinic in Switzerland as a patient…permanently.  They didn’t let us go, but we managed to escape a week later.  I found out I was pregnant three months later when I was trying to work in the Amazon.  I had to get out of Africa, away from the memories....”  She looked at Madison searchingly.  “I couldn’t get rid of the persistent flu-like symptoms that I had.  I couldn’t believe my eyes at the results of the blood test I took.  I prayed I’d miscarry, but it wasn’t to be.  Against all the odds and sickness so great I should have died.”  At this, Madison again tried to rise, but Deanna held her arms down on the arms of the chair as she leaned in to tell her the story.

“Did you want to die?” Madison asked softly, the hurt she was seeing in Deanna’s eyes was real.

Deanna nodded.  “I’d lost you and then with what happened…” her voice broke.  The tears in her eyes welled up.  She swallowed and lifted the back of her hand to wipe at the tears.

“Shhh, don’t cry, don’t cry…If you don’t want to finish it’s okay,” she tried to tell her, tried to take her in her arms and comfort her.

Shaking her head, the blonde refused.  “No, I want you to know,” she swallowed.  Finding reserves of strength, she continued.  “I stayed for a while in South America….”

“With her?” Madison asked, feeling jealous and unable to control it.  She’d always felt it though, that woman had inspired love in Deanna long before Madison had met her.

Deanna looked at Madison through the tears, seeing all the insecurities that had plagued her.  Swallowing back the last of her own anxieties over this relationship, she bravely continued on.  “Yes, she nursed me back to health.  I stayed there until Roman was a little boy, until my mother insisted I come home.  I lied a little to you about coming home first, my father and sister died only a few years ago, not ten like I said.  With my father and sister gone, they needed me to organize the foundation.  She also wanted to meet her grandson.  My sister’s kids are spoiled, elitist brats.  They are simply waiting for their trust funds to kick in.  Little do they know that I am in charge of them.  They tried to make my life hell when I stayed with my mother.  They were cruel to Roman until I moved out.  I couldn’t stay, I was restless.”  She let Madison go and got up to pace. 

“We had so much to work out and I didn’t have to stay.  They wanted a board of directors…I didn’t want to give up my family’s autonomy.  I wanted to go back to the jungles, but how could I do that to Roman?  I didn’t want to do that to
her
again.  She’d saved my sanity when I might have done something foolish, and for what?  My virtue?”

“Did you consider suicide?” Madison gasped, realizing she could have lost Deanna and never have known.

Deanna paused in her pacing and looked at Madison.  “That, and worse,” she confessed.

“What is worse?” she wondered, but didn’t realize that she had spoken until the blonde answered her.