What's Left Of Me (The Firebird Trilogy Book 2) Read online

  Alex drummed the pencil on the desk. Chewed on the eraser. His jaw hurt from clenching it all the time. “Why did she wait so long?”

  “There are a number of reasons people wait to report. Humiliation, shame, self-doubt…There’s a perception that other people will judge, blame, and question them. Gossip about it can make that worse, and when there’s a celebrity involved, many people dismiss the allegations outright.”

  “But I didn’t do it.”

  “We know that. The problem is that she’s convinced you did. Listen, I’ll talk to the media and make sure they get their story straight. You just do what you’ve been doing. No public statements. Do not try to contact her. Stay in touch with the police, talk to them when they ask, but not without me. All right?”

  “I don’t want to lose my family, Ed.”

  “You’re not going to lose anything. I’ll be in touch soon.”

  They disconnected. Alex left the phone in his office and walked down the hall to peek in on Anya as she napped. To marry Stephanie had been salvation; to become Papa had been rebirth.

  I’m really a father.

  One of the most important lessons he planned to impart to his daughter was how a woman ought to be treated, and in doing so to atone for his sins against them, even the ones he had never committed. If he did right by Stephanie, Anya would never settle for anything less than a man who honored and adored her. Not that he was remotely ready to imagine her being a grown woman. He’d keep her like this as long as possible, innocent, her daddy the only man in her life. Someone toward whom he could channel the protective urges Stephanie rejected in the sad irony that they made her feel unsafe. A terrible lie planted by her own father, a weed whose roots Alex had failed to destroy. Whatever he must do, he intended to teach her—and Anya—what a father was supposed to be.

  Stephanie was in the kitchen making ham and cheese sandwiches. He came up behind her and slinked his arms around her waist. She’d been perfect before, but the way she filled out her clothes, the extra curves of her hips and her plumped breasts, drove him wild. “Baby, I said I’d do it.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “You’re going crazy not working, aren’t you?”

  “A little. Another eleven weeks? How do people do it? Ugh.” She rubbed her temple. “I sound like a horrible mother. I mean, I guess we can do some of the projects around the house, finish planning Matt’s reception, maybe start that book we talked about? And power naps. Sometimes I’m so tired, I can’t feel my arms and legs.”

  “Maybe I can help.” Alex kissed her neck. They hadn’t made love in over a week and couldn’t until she had fully healed. Though they had been experimenting with extended foreplay during his dysfunctional phases, he ached at the thought of not being inside her.

  Stephanie twisted around and tugged at his bottom lip with her teeth. She worried the tip of her tongue at the corners of his mouth, where the skin was thinnest and most sensitive, then opened his jeans and massaged his cock through his underwear. So he wasn’t the only one who found the wait insufferable.

  “Do you want to take this upstairs?”

  “No.” She peeled off his shirt and cast it to the floor, lunch forgotten.

  And his erections were so capricious, he might lose it before they got there. She slid his pants and underwear down, closed her fist around him, and stroked. He snarled a hand in her hair.

  “Put it in your mouth.” He breathed in quick, sharp pants, praying he’d maintain it long enough to get off. “Sosi moi khuy. Please, baby.”

  “Close your eyes.”

  He heard her pump a bottle and rub her hands together. Then she was kneading his balls, her palms as slick as the mouth that engulfed him.

  She stopped sucking to pepper his stomach and thighs with kisses, helping him hold back a little longer. When she returned to his cock, she grasped the base and licked him from bottom to tip, her tongue vacillating from side to side along the way. With her attention focused on the head, which throbbed as if it would explode, she fondled and squeezed his contracting balls. His thighs and abs tensed, and he began to shiver with each lick. By the time she was sucking again, her tongue swirling sensuously around him, he could barely breathe. Each touch was a scintilla triggering fifty thousand volts.

  Stephanie softened the movements of her hands and tongue, slowed her pace as he thrust and shuddered, his nerves sensorial and his body completely under her control.

  Until he withered in her mouth. “Goddammit,” he muttered, and raked his fingers through his hair.

  “It’s okay, honey.”

  It wasn’t okay. They were twenty-seven years old, and they should be able to have sex like everyone else their age. Alex kicked his jeans and underwear away and steered her to the great room, tackling her onto the couch. He was more than capable of pleasuring her, at least. He ripped her shirt open; buttons plinked against the hardwood floor. Her creamy, pregnancy-ripened breasts heaved within a lacy black bra. He slipped one hand beneath her to unfasten it and tossed it aside, then, lying between her legs, sucked on her tongue and her lips. She ran her hands down his spine as he explored her chin, neck, and wrists with French kisses. But he could not stay away from those breasts for long.

  She arched her back and pressed against him, clawed at his ass. “Mmm…honey, what are you doing?”

  “Sucking on these beautiful tits.”

  She froze. “But they—I—”

  “I know. I want to taste it. Can I? Before it’s gone.”

  She remained silent.

  “Is that weird?” He hadn’t considered it until then, only that he naturally desired every part of her. Especially something so rare.

  “No, just…unexpected.”

  “I won’t if you don’t want me to. I’m going to taste something else soon, anyway.” He tongued the curves of her ribs, the letters of her tattoo.

  “I want you to.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “You’ve never done anything to me that didn’t feel incredible.”

  “So you don’t think it’s strange.”

  She laughed and ruffled his hair. “Do it before I change my mind.”

  Alex hefted her breast and teased her hard nipple with his tongue, then fastened his lips around it. After a few tender pulls, a thin and watery substance trickled into his mouth, followed by a thicker, creamier, slightly sweet fluid. He sucked harder. Stephanie gasped and moved his free hand to her jeans. He unbuttoned and unzipped them and wiggled his finger beneath the waistband of her panties, into her slit. For all they had shared, he could not think of a moment in which he’d felt so bonded to her, so nurtured by her love. And if it was strange to want such a union with his wife, then he hoped never to be normal.

  ***

  Stephanie

  They lay face-to-face in bed, enjoying the brief peace in which Anya slept by enjoying each other. Mutually pleasuring each other with their hands and mouths, or simply exchanging long, slow, deep kisses for the first time in months without her belly or her hormones intruding.

  She had let Alex suckle her again, when the notion of it as taboo subsided and she embraced the odd, startling sweetness of the act, never mind the bliss his mouth on any part of her body inspired. Profoundly sexual, a lover’s practiced sucking and licking. Yet the emotions flooding her limbic system were more powerful than anything sex alone could produce, creating breathtaking urges to shelter him from the repercussions of the life he’d once lived. From the people who did not understand or care about the real man beneath it all, the fragile creature that was crueler to himself than they could ever be.

  Stephanie held him close, his body hard and hot and his breath slowing against her ear. “I want to do something for your birthday,” she whispered. “You missed out, since we were still in the hospital.”

  He fit his fingers between hers. “You gave me my daughter. I’m not sure anything can top that.”

  “Father’s Day, then. What if we went away for a long weekend? Jus
t the two of us. We can get away from all of this for a little while. I’m sure Jacob and Nicole wouldn’t mind watching Anya for a few days.”

  With the Earthquakes rapidly falling apart and no cap space for a big trade that might have plugged at least a defensive hole if nothing else, they had placed Jacob on waivers. The Gladiators claimed him almost immediately. “They thought playing with Sasha might have rubbed off on me,” he’d joked. Now Alex would be coaching him on the second power play unit, which took some getting used to for both of them.

  “Well, at least it’ll be after your doctor appointment. Because I have plans for you.” Alex growled playfully and nibbled her neck. “Now that we’ve started our little hockey team.”

  She snickered and burrowed her face against his neck. “You make me so happy. You know that?”

  “I know I need to kiss you again.” He cupped the back of her head and dipped his tongue between her greedy lips.

  The baby monitor lit up as Anya announced her irritation with a high-pitched wail.

  “I’ll get her. Don’t go anywhere.” He braced himself over Stephanie and kissed her again. And again. “You, moya lyubov′, are delicious.” Alex swung his long legs out of bed and reached for his boxer briefs, then limped toward Anya’s squalling voice.

  Stephanie wrapped herself in her robe and padded after him. She stopped in the doorway of Anya’s room, where Alex was lifting their baby from her crib. He laid her on the changing table to check her diaper first.

  “Not wet. Are you hungry? Or just lonely? Papa’s here now.” He carried her to the rocking chair beneath the window and sang softly:

  “Sleepyhead, close your eyes.

  Papa’s right here beside you.

  I’ll protect you from harm,

  You will wake in my arms.

  Guardian angels are near,

  So sleep on, with no fear.

  Guardian angels are near,

  So sleep on, with no fear.”

  He fingered Anya’s wispy black hair and kissed her forehead. “You’re the best thing I’ve ever done. I love you so much, baby girl.”

  She closed her eyes, waved her fists, and yawned.

  This was real, his love, maybe the only real thing in the world. His eyes reflected Anya’s innocence, the boy Stephanie had fallen for regained through the tiny person they’d created together in a physical incarnation of that love. None of the Alex who had held himself together with solipsism. No fear that the damaged genetics on both sides might haunt Anya too.

  Alex flashed his stunning smile. “Hey. I think she’s asleep now.”

  “She’s a lucky little girl to have a daddy like you.” Stephanie knelt beside the chair and kissed the back of his hand. “And I’m a lucky woman to have him for a husband.”

  “Sometimes I think I’m having this wonderful dream. It comes after all the bad dreams, where everything inside me spills out and it feels like I’m breaking apart.” He wandered off for a moment, gazing at Anya and humming to her. Stephanie let him go. “Anyway,” he continued, “I’m always afraid I’ll wake up and still be in pieces, and none of this will have happened. Then I open my eyes and see this ring, and you next to me. And I remember that the only way I could grow was to be destroyed first.”

  She stroked his hair. She wasn’t naïve enough to think therapy and medication, or even she and Anya, wielded the power to dispel his darkness. He tended now to express it through his music, but it was always there. An apparition half-glimpsed around a corner or in a mirror, an evocative scent conveyed on the wind.

  “When I first saw you, I saw everything I wanted to be. Jung said, ‘The soul cannot exist in peace until it finds the other, and the other is always you’.” Alex laid Anya in her crib. “The one thing I’ve never quite figured out is how to tell you how much I love you.”

  Her throat grew thick and in it, her pulse ticked out a rapid rhythm. A career built on words, and she was the one lacking sufficient ability to express her love. “I think you just did.”

  His cheeks dimpled. “Come on. Let’s get some sleep while we can.”

  Chapter Three

  Alex

  “Pass!” Alex shouted from the stands. The Chippewa Icemen were leading by one goal with nine minutes left in the third period, and an insurance goal could potentially put the game away for them. “Right winger’s open!”

  Telling Stephanie how to play was what he considered good practice for coaching his own team, even if she despised him doing it. A little extra coaching never hurt anyone. He’d already spent much of his time studying video of the past season’s special teams, the main weakness that had locked the Gladiators out of a playoff spot. Both their power play and penalty kill, essential for a deep playoff run, had dwelled at the bottom of the league for the better part of the season. He had signed up for coaching training and development and read several improvement books as well. The next step was to get out on the ice himself. He had concentrated his recent workouts on lower-body strength training in preparation—lunges, squats, one-leg dead lifts, and ankle band exercises. While it wasn’t similar to actually playing, he’d spend enough time on the ice that maximum ankle strength was critical.

  The Icemen set up in perfect formation for a cycle that should have netted them a goal. From the point, since no shooting lane was available to her, Stephanie whacked the puck to her right-winger, who passed it to the center. She was rubbing her chest. Coughing. The puck sailed past her and into the neutral zone. She dropped to her knees.

  “Steph!” Alex leaped over seats and possibly several people, jumped down to the bench, and hurled the gate open, his ankle screaming. He skidded across the ice but righted himself before toppling into a face-plant. She was waving off teammates and the medic by the time he reached her.

  He knelt beside her and removed her helmet. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

  “I’m fine. Just short of breath.” She pounded a glove against her chest.

  “I’m taking you to the hospital.”

  “You’re overreacting. I just need to sit for a minute.”

  “Nyet. Jessica, can you take her to the locker room so she can change?”

  “Of course. Come on, Steph.” Jessica gripped her hand and hoisted her up, then skated with her to the gate and walked her down the tunnel. Alex gathered her helmet and stick and waited for her at the rink entrance.

  “This is ridiculous,” she said on the way to the city’s best hospital. Nothing less for her, even if he had to drive across town.

  “My wife collapsing on the ice is hardly ridiculous.”

  “I didn’t collapse. I just…lost my breath after that pass.”

  “Do you suppose that happens often to healthy twenty-seven-year-old women who have been playing hockey their whole lives?”

  She sulked.

  “If it’s nothing, then no harm done. But I’d rather be safe than sorry, especially with that cough you’ve had.” He pulled up to the valet window, handed over his keys, and helped Stephanie out of the car, into the ER. “Excuse me,” he said to the unit nurse. “My wife was playing hockey and started having trouble breathing.”

  “Your name, ma’am?”

  “Stephanie Hartwell.”

  The nurse gave Alex a split-second sideways glance, eyebrows lowered and lips tight. In return, he offered a teeth-baring smile. Fuck her and her silent judgments. She pressed a large green button that opened the door to the exam rooms. “Right this way.”

  Stephanie shot him a look: We don’t have to wait?

  He looked back at the people slumped in the waiting room’s chairs. Wounds, illnesses, probably more serious than Stephanie’s issue. People whose names did not serve as currency. He shrugged and set a hand on the small of her back as they entered the unit. What could they do about it?

  The nurse directed them to an exam room. “Someone will be with you shortly.” She tugged the curtain shut.

  “How are you feeling?” Alex asked.

  Stephanie hopped up onto the
table. “Okay. A little burning in my lungs.”

  “Ms. Hartwell?” Another nurse ducked into the room and fixed the curtain behind her. “What brings you in tonight?”

  “I was playing hockey, and I suddenly felt short of breath. I’ve had a cough for a while—about a month, I guess? I thought maybe it was bronchitis or walking pneumonia.”

  “All right. Let me get your vitals, and the doctor will listen to your lungs when he comes in.”

  Weight, temperature, blood pressure. Everything checked out normally. The nurse advised Stephanie to undress from the waist up and put on the faded cotton robe beside her, then assured them the doctor would arrive soon.

  “It’s freezing in here.” Stephanie chafed her pebbled arms. An exchanger hissed as it replaced air stinking of bleach, cleanser, and stainless steel with fresh air. The intercom reported codes and summoned doctors. A keyboard clacked. A wheelchair squeaked past the curtain. She covered her ears when the moaning began next door.

  Alex sat next to her and hugged her. He kissed the top of her head. “I’ll buy you a bottle of wine and some chocolate on the way home for being such a trooper.”

  “Mr. Volynsky!” the doctor announced. He stepped in and stuck out his hand. “I’m Dr. Cohle.”

  “Hi. I’m not the patient. As you can see.”

  “Right, right. Not feeling too well, Mrs. Volynsky?”

  She side-eyed Alex. Few things angered her more than the assumption she’d taken his last name. He’d known all along that she was keeping her own, despite its association with her father. And it hurt a little, that she’d prefer to use his name rather than starting over with a new one. Still, Alex understood her dislike of the tradition, the implied ownership, and he hadn’t put up much of an argument. “It’s Ms. Hartwell. I’m sure it says so in my file.”

  “Of course, of course. Having some breathing trouble?”

  “Yes. And my chest hurts.”

  “Let’s have a listen.” The doctor pressed his stethoscope to Stephanie’s chest. “Deep breath in, and let it out. Good.” He held it to her back. “And again. Definitely some rattling in there. I’m going to prescribe a cough suppressant. I’ll have that for you with your discharge instructions. The nurse will take you to X-ray.”