Undertow (25 page)

His words were sweet and lulling, but they fell on deaf ears. What I needed was to get as far away as possible from the inevitable hurt that was coming my way, and I needed to do it quickly. Images of his unconscious and bloodied body ran through my mind, immediately followed by ones of me standing before his gravestone. His and all the others. I would not sit around idly and wait for that to be my reality. I could not, and I couldn't believe he was all but asking me to.

“Not all of it,” I whispered back, our lips still lightly touching. My words were true enough; my life was not, and would not be, all about loss. Not if I had a say in it.

He kissed me once again before making his way into the tiny kitchen to find something to eat. Just like that, the matter had been solved, or at least it had for him. My mind, on the other hand, was already organizing a plan.

“What do you want to do today?” he asked, taking a sip directly out of the orange juice container.

“I'm really beat,” I lied, moving toward the bedroom. “I need to sleep until I can't bear to lie down anymore, and then I have some research to do tonight. We could watch a movie or something, but I'll need to be on the computer while we do that. Is that okay?”

“Sounds fine to me,” he agreed, leaning back into the refrigerator.

“Good. I'm going to go lie down now.”

Before he could add anything else to our conversation, I walked into the bedroom and shut the door, changing out of my scrubs quickly and slipping into my pajamas. Instead of sleeping though, all I could do was think of all the ways I could protect myself from further pain. I knew that I loved Decker, even I couldn't deny that, but it wasn't enough to override the future I knew I would have with him when he returned to the sea. Too much had happened for me to be able to pretty that up in my mind as I had when we first came together. With that unsettling future as fuel, I devised a plan that I knew could work. I had little time to pull it off, but conveniently, many pieces of the puzzle were already in place. All I needed to do was make a few phone calls.

Being the head of my class in med school had many perks, as did having stellar references from the Chief of Emergency Medicine at Grant Medical Center, one of the largest emergency medicine departments in the country. I had applied to do my second year residency at several schools and was accepted by them all. One in particular was disappointed when I opted to come back to Alaska. Transferring wouldn't be easy, but given the tension between Dr. Lewis and me, combined with my recent tragedy, I figured there would be room for extenuating circumstances to sway the powers that be.

Boston wasn't an ideal location, but it was just about as far away from the Bering Sea as I could get, and Mass General had an excellent reputation. I picked up my phone off of the nightstand beside me and hurriedly sent an email to my contact there, letting him know that I would be interested in revisiting my application for residency.

Five minutes later, he confirmed that the necessary paperwork would be in the mail the next day.

* * *

Decker

Watching her walk into our bedroom hit me in the strangest way. It was like watching my sister walk out of the visiting room in prison for the last time, never to return again. There was an air about her that just didn't seem right, and I just couldn't shake the physical response it drew from me. My heart sank, encouraging my mind to go down a road that I didn't want to travel. But it was nearly impossible not to. I'd seen that look in Shannon's eyes the day she left me behind in prison—the same one that Aesa had just given me when she heard I was heading back out to sea. To her credit, she recovered quickly. But not quickly enough. That momentary warning set my system on high alert, a reaction I thought I had long ago overcome. It turned out that Aesa wasn't the only one with knee-jerk reactions to things in her past. I was just less aware that mine were still present.

What I quickly reminded myself of was that Shannon had chosen to remain damaged goods. Aesa had recently made every attempt she could to mend her broken past and move beyond it. It was apparent that she was far from succeeding on that front so early in her battle, but she was a fighter by nature. If she decided to continue the war, she would stand her ground till the end.

I just needed to remind her of why she wanted to choose that path.

So that is what I did for the remaining days before I was to return to the fleet and sail off in search of Opilio crab with Robbie and crew. Every time I felt her distancing herself from me, I gently reminded her that her past did not have to dictate her future. Her reaction was always to involuntarily close her eyes and take a deep breath, visualizing something that I never bothered to ask about, but there was no need. The second her eyes opened, she was back, looking up at me the way she had that night on the dock. The night she saw that she could have something more than pain in her life—she could have me.

But would that knowledge be enough for her in my absence? Could she hold on to that and allow it to override the downward spiral that beckoned her—the undertow that threatened to drag her down? Those were the questions that haunted me at night as I watched her sleep, the tension in her face more plainly visible. Her subconscious battles waged on in the late hours, making me doubt the possibilities.

29

Aesa

“How was your shift?” Decker asked as I walked in the door, tossing my keys casually onto the mail pile on the counter. When I saw the letter at the top of it, my heart stopped suddenly. I tried my best not to snatch it up and hide it away, but I knew he'd seen it. What I didn't know was if he had paid any attention to what it was and where it was from.

“Messy, but good.”

“Sounds ominous,” he said with a smile, pushing himself up off of the couch. “Something came for you today—something important. I had to sign for it.” He indicated the large manila envelope in question, his expression unwavering. “Do you know what it is?”

I looked back down at it, knowing full well that it contained a contract from Mass General, the contract to my new life.

“I'm not certain, but I'm guessing it's maybe a headhunting package—for when I'm finished with my residency. I don't know why else they would have sent something so official.”

“There's a rather simple way to find out,” he countered curiously.

“Agreed, but this is our last twenty-four hours together, Decker. I don't really feel like wading through the mail. I'd rather go out, or stay in, or do anything that involves you.” I walked toward him, a seductive smile tugging at my lips along the way. “But, if you
really
want me to, I could sit down and open the mail, maybe pay some bills, return some emails, clean the room. It's your call.”

I leaned against him, inhaling him deeply, and I felt his body tense instantly. We hadn't been together since he was discharged from the hospital, partly because his injuries were still severe enough not to warrant any excess stress, but also because I just couldn't. By the time he was well enough to attempt it, I was doing my best to distance myself from him emotionally. I needed to in order to do what was in our collective best interest. But in that moment, I had no other cards to play. The second I opened that envelope from Mass General, I was busted.

“Do you have something in mind?” he asked, knowing full well what I meant.

“Do I need to spell it all out for you, or would you prefer that I just show you?”

“I've always been more of a doer,” he joked, pulling me against him. “But I know you're tired and probably starving. I think this can wait for a few minutes.”

“And I disagree,” I countered, sliding down his body to find myself staring at the zipper that separated me from my mission.

Without further debate, I unfastened his pants and slid them down just enough to allow me the access I required. Just as I was about to take him in my mouth, I saw the jagged, pink wound on his upper thigh that was still in the process of healing. I involuntarily traced my finger along its path. Its presence was only a reminder of what I'd almost lost—what I would lose the next day.

“Aesa,” Decker whispered, lifting my face to look up at his as he stared down at me with sad eyes. “You don't have to do this . . . ”

“I do,” I said softly, not really responding to what he was saying. My words were an affirmation of the plan I had to carry out.

Pulling my chin out of his grasp gently, I focused my attention back on the task at hand. Once I started, there were no further protestations from him, only moans and directive mutterings that were practically incoherent. He let my hair loose from its ponytail, winding his fingers through it as delicately as his wanting body would allow.

“Fuck—” he ground out just before he finished, pulling my hair slightly with his release. Once he was done, I stood to face him. His breathing was far more ragged than it should have been, indicating just how ill-prepared he was to go back to sea. It only further confirmed my fears and strengthened my conviction to leave.

“I'm going to go clean up,” I told him, giving him a chaste kiss on the cheek.

“I'll join you,” he added playfully, holding his pants up as he followed me down the short hallway.

“I'll be quick, I promise,” I said, turning to smile at him. “Just give me five minutes.”

He looked almost wounded, as though I'd said something terrible to him, but I closed the bathroom door and started the shower regardless. I pressed my ear against the cold wood of the door, hoping to hear him walk away. When I thought the coast was clear, I let the tears out that I had so willfully repressed. I stepped into the shower and curled up into a ball on the tub floor, the water hitting me fiercely on my back. The reality of what I was giving up could no longer be denied.

Though I knew I had to leave, I realized that I didn't have to like it, nor did I have to deny that fact. I needed for the whole thing to be over, and quickly. The suspense and growing guilt was too much to bear any longer. I let out all the emotion I had left, knowing that, afterward, I would be far better equipped to deal with the final hours I had to spend with him. Those would be the most demanding, and I needed to be prepared.

Purging all that threatened to betray me was pertinent.

30

After spending the rest of the day with him, foregoing sleep altogether in order to keep up the façade, the inevitable occurred. It was our final night together, a night I'd equally longed for and dreaded. At his request, we stayed in, opting to watch a movie together with takeout rather than go somewhere with more distractions. If it had been up to me, I would have chosen the latter.

Sitting beside him was nearly intolerable. I couldn't focus, my mind a jumble of questions that continued to run on repeat, never being answered. I needed him gone so I could think more clearly, his presence clouding my ever-wavering judgment. As the tension mounted, so did something else—my need to release it.

That was a familiar sensation, and one that I had learned long ago to detach from. Sex was something I did to exorcise my frustrations, emotions, and demons. That was what I needed from him in that moment, and he was going to give it to me—one final time.

Without warning, I pounced on top of him, straddling his lap as I pulled my shirt up over my head. My hair fell wildly over my naked chest, my breasts exposed and within inches of his face. I never gave him a chance to take them in because I grabbed his face in my hands and took his mouth in mine, kissing him fiercely.

Kissing him like I never would again.

My hips ground against him as I did, needing more from him—faster. Harder. My body couldn't keep up with its own demands, and I frantically clawed at his clothing, wanting it off and him inside me before he could see what I was doing and protest. He knew me better than he ever should have. If I didn't suck him into my web of sexual exploitations quickly, he was sure to blow the whistle on my actions, and then the jig would have surely been up. Decker was far from stupid.

When his shirt wouldn't give up easily, I ripped it open, buttons flying like plastic shrapnel across the room. It made sense in a metaphorical way. I was about to drop a bomb on him the next day; he just didn't know it yet.

“Aesa,” he mumbled into my mouth, my lips unwilling to budge from their position long enough to allow him to speak. “Slow down a second.”

“No,” I muttered in response, fumbling with his pants as I continued to rock against his lap in an undulating pattern that was clearly appealing to him. He wanted me as much as I did him.

“Aesa,” he said more seriously, trying to pull away, but I had him pinned to the sofa.

“We need this,” I protested, finally getting his pants undone. I struggled against those jeans, trying to pull them down. He did nothing to aid my efforts. Even in my sexual rage, I knew enough not to pull too violently on them. Though his leg was healed, I knew that too much pressure would still cause him pain, and I didn't want to do that.

I didn't want to cause any more than I had to—or was about to.

“
You
need this,” he countered, putting a hand to my chest to push me away gently but firmly enough to withstand my further attempts to get back to him.