Chapter 4 4

The word hung in the air between them. Mine. Like she was property. Like the silk sheets he'd ruined, the hotel room he'd paid for, the life she'd tried to rebuild in the twelve hours since she'd escaped him.

Joanna's eyes flew open. She tried to sit up, to confront him, but his hand was on her stomach now, pressing her back against the table with a gentleness that was somehow more controlling than force would have been.

"Don't move." His voice was still that clinical mask, but she could hear the edge beneath it. The same edge she'd heard in the dark, when he'd been inside her, when he'd made her scream. "The examination isn't complete."

"You're not examining me." Joanna's voice shook, but she forced the words out. "You're-you're torturing me. This isn't medicine."

His fingers paused. She felt the slight withdrawal, the moment of consideration. Then he straightened, stepped back, and she was cold where his warmth had been.

"You're right." He pulled off the gloves with a snap that made her flinch. "This isn't medicine. This is retribution."

He walked to the counter. Washed his hands with methodical thoroughness, his back to her. Joanna watched the muscles move under his white coat, remembered how they'd felt under her hands, how they'd bunched and strained as he'd-

She cut off the memory. She had to get out. Had to run. But her clothes were across the room, and he was between her and the door, and her body was still throbbing with a pain that made standing feel impossible.

He turned. Dried his hands on a paper towel. His expression was composed now, professional, but his eyes-his eyes were still that storm-gray she'd seen in the dark, still hungry.

"Get dressed." He nodded toward her clothes. "We'll continue this conversation in my office."

"I don't want to-"

"Ms. Santana." The interruption was sharp. Final. "You came here seeking treatment. I've examined you. I have a diagnosis and a treatment plan. Whether you choose to hear it is your decision. But-" He paused, his hand on the door handle. "If you walk out of this room without listening, I will find you again. And next time, I won't be wearing a white coat."

The door closed behind him.

Joanna lay frozen for a long moment, breathing hard. The threat was clear. Explicit. She should run-should grab her clothes and flee through the window if necessary-but her body was a traitor, still responding to his voice, his presence, the memory of what he'd made her feel.

She sat up. The movement sent a fresh wave of pain through her pelvis, and she bit her lip, hard. The paper gown crinkled as she climbed down from the table, as she crossed to the chair where her clothes waited.

She dressed quickly. Jeans were a mistake-the pressure against her swollen flesh made her gasp-but she pulled them on anyway, buttoned them with fingers that shook. The sweater was easier. Soft. Familiar. Armor against whatever came next.

She found his office by following the sound of his voice. He was on the phone, speaking in low, rapid tones that she couldn't quite make out. She knocked. The voice stopped.

"Enter."

The office was smaller than she'd expected. A desk, two chairs, bookshelves lined with medical texts and what looked like financial reports. He sat behind the desk, white coat gone, wearing a dark shirt that was rolled up at the sleeves, revealing forearms that she remembered gripping, scratching, holding on to as if he were the only solid thing in the world.

"Sit."

Joanna sat. The chair was leather, expensive, and it made her feel like a supplicant. Like she was interviewing for a job she didn't want.

He slid a piece of paper across the desk. She looked down. A prescription. Neosporin. Ibuprofen. And beneath them, in handwriting that was aggressive even in its elegance, three words that made her stomach drop.

Strict abstinence.

"I don't-" Joanna looked up. "I don't need you to tell me that."

"No?" He leaned back in his chair. "Then perhaps you can explain why you came to a gynecologist's office less than twenty-four hours after your first sexual encounter. An encounter, I might add, that left you sufficiently injured to require medical attention."

Joanna felt her face burn. "That's none of your business."

"You made it my business when you climbed into my bed." His voice was level, but she could hear the anger beneath it. The same anger she'd felt in his hands last night, the controlled violence that had somehow translated into pleasure. "When you let me inside you. When you screamed my name-"

"I didn't know your name!"

"Exactly." He leaned forward, hands flat on the desk. "You let a stranger fuck you, Ms. Santana. You gave me your virginity without knowing who I was, what I was, whether I was dangerous. And then you ran before I could wake up, before I could-" He stopped. Jaw tightening.

"Before you could what?" Joanna's voice was shaking, but she forced herself to meet his eyes. "Trap me? Control me? I'm not yours. I was never yours. It was one night. A mistake."

"A mistake." He said the word like he was tasting it. "Is that what you tell yourself? That the way you responded to me, the way you came apart under my hands-that was a mistake?"

Joanna stood. She couldn't do this. Couldn't sit in this room with this man who knew her body better than she did and listen to him dissect the most vulnerable night of her life.

"I'm leaving."

"Sit down."

"I said-"

He moved. Faster than she could react, he was around the desk, his hand closing on her arm, spinning her to face him. The wall was at her back. His body was against her front. She was trapped again, pinned again, and her traitorous heart was racing with something that wasn't entirely fear.

"You don't get to run this time." His voice was low, intimate, his mouth inches from hers. "You don't get to disappear and pretend it never happened. I felt you, Joanna. I felt you come around me. I felt you break. That belongs to me. You belong to me."

"I don't-"

His free hand found her chin, forced her to look at him. "If I find out you've been with anyone else. If I so much as smell another man on your skin-" His thumb pressed against her lower lip, hard enough to hurt. "I will destroy him. And then I will punish you."

Joanna's breath came in short gasps. The threat should have terrified her. It did terrify her. But beneath the terror was something else, something that responded to his possessiveness with a heat that made her ashamed.

"You're insane," she whispered.

"Probably." His mouth curved, not quite a smile. "But I'm also the man who took your first time. The man who made you feel things you didn't know your body could feel. And I'm not letting you go until you admit that means something."

The door to the office burst open.

"Cain! What in God's name do you think you're doing?"

Joanna jerked away from him, or tried to. His grip on her arm tightened, holding her in place. An older woman stood in the doorway-silver hair, elegant features, the same sharp eyes that Joanna had seen in the examination room.

Dr. Marion Evans. His mother.

"Mother." Cain's voice was calm, but Joanna could feel the tension in his body. "I wasn't expecting you back so soon."

"I can see that." Dr. Evans's gaze traveled from her son to Joanna, taking in their positions, the hand on Joanna's arm, the flush on both their faces. Her expression hardened. "This is my clinic, and that is a patient. Step away from her immediately, or I'm calling security. Release the young woman, Cain. Now."

For a moment, Joanna thought he would refuse. His fingers tightened on her arm, almost painful. Then, slowly, he let go.

Joanna didn't hesitate. She bolted for the door, brushing past Dr. Evans with a mumbled apology she didn't mean. She heard Cain's voice behind her, sharp with command-

"Joanna. Stop."

She didn't stop. She ran down the hallway, through the waiting room, past the startled receptionist and the woman with the Birkin who finally looked up from her magazine. She hit the door with her shoulder, stumbled into the hallway, and kept running.

The elevator was too slow. She found the stairs, took them two at a time despite the pain, the burning, the feeling that she was leaving pieces of herself on every step. She burst out into the lobby, into the street, into the anonymous crowd of the Upper East Side at noon.

She didn't stop until she was three blocks away, leaning against a parking meter, gasping for air.

Her phone was dead. She had no money for a taxi. She was lost in a neighborhood where apartments cost more than she'd make in a lifetime.

But she was free. She'd escaped him. Again.

Joanna closed her eyes and tried to believe that meant something.