32

The bottles behind the bar weren’t blurring yet. This was an unacceptable set of circumstances. Donovan motioned the bartender for another Jack and Coke. The guy poured him another drink and set a bowl of peanuts next to it.

“That’s bartender code for pace yourself, doc,” Lane said as he slid into the seat next to Donovan. He looked to the bartender. “Can I get a Miller Lite?”

Donovan kicked back his drink. “What’s the good of calling a ride if you pace yourself?”

Lane smirked. “Because if you vomit in my new Corvette, I’m going to forget I like you and kick your ass.”

“Noted.”

“So why are we getting drunk on a random Thursday night?” Lane lifted the beer the bartender had plunked in front him and drank, eyeing Donovan. “And why’d you call me? I thought you were pissed at me for taking your girl out.”

“Maybe she should’ve stayed on that date with you. God knows she would’ve been better off,” Donovan muttered.

Lane frowned and set his bottle down. “Not that I’m going to disagree that I’m a catch. Because let’s face it, I totally am.”

Donovan snorted.

“But you know I never had a shot with Marin. She was great to hang out with, but she was with you that whole night. Even when she was in my arms dancing, she was with you.”

Donovan stared into his drink, the words like acid on open wounds. “It was just a fantasy role-play. She was caught up in it.”

“Mmm. That’s how you see it, huh?” Lane put his elbows to the bar top, not looking Donovan’s way as if sensing Donovan couldn’t deal with a face-to-face chat right now.

It was the truth. He couldn’t. It’d been hard enough to even call someone. He didn’t call people. Not for favors. Not to talk. He wasn’t sure what had possessed him to do it this time.

“You know,” Lane said, his tone suspiciously conversational. “At the club I belong to, we have ways of identifying which submissives and dominants are spoken for and which are available. Sometimes it’s obvious things, like collars or colored wristbands. I’m sure you’ve seen it. You volunteer at my club, right? That’s how you knew about me?”

Donovan shrugged. “I was there one night when you were doing a demo.”

“Right. So you know what I’m talking about. The markers.”

Donovan stared at the bottles again. Now the edges were getting fuzzy, the colors of the bottles blending. Good. “Yeah, sure.”

“Right. So those are the obvious ones. But then there’s another type that doesn’t have any physical markers, but they’re taken nonetheless. In my head, I call them imprinted. They’re not collared or in a committed relationship, but they’ve been marked somehow. Some dominant or some submissive has figured out their unique code and has punched those numbers. No one else is going to get in that door.” Lane peered over. “When I saw you and Marin together that night, that was my first thought. They’ve imprinted. It’s why I didn’t put up a fight for Marin’s attention. There’s no competing with that. I wouldn’t want to.”

Donovan closed his eyes, the wash of grief moving through him complete and crushing.

“That’s something special, doc. Worth protecting. Worth fighting for.”

Donovan’s fingers dug hard into his glass. “She imprinted on the wrong guy. I fucked it all up.”

“Then un-fuck it,” Lane said.

Heh. Like it was that simple. Like he could just say I’m sorry and make it better.

He’d lain in bed last night staring at her photo like he could rewind time. It’d been the only picture he hadn’t deleted from that night with the camera. Honest hazel eyes staring up at him with lust on her face . . . no, more than that. The first bloom of something real. Marin had looked at him that night like he mattered, like he was more than a lover in her bed, like she’d been searching for something and maybe had found it.

But he’d been the one who’d found it that night. He’d fallen hard and fast. Already gone before he even knew what was happening. He’d known then that he was getting in too deep, that he should back off, that he should be totally honest with her. But he hadn’t been able to bring himself to do it. Marin Rush had given him the most insidious disease of all—hope. It’d been planted and had grown and festered until he was so encased in it that he’d almost told her he was falling in love with her there in that office before Dr. Suri and Elle walked in.

He’d almost blurted out something about wanting a relationship. He’d been ready to take the leap. To risk it all. To see where this thing led.

But then everything had gone to hell. He’d walked into his house after talking to Suri and had found Marin in front of his medicine cabinet. He’d seen the look on her face when she hadn’t known he was watching. The utter fear. The shock. She’d held that bottle of antidepressants and had looked terrified. All the color had drained from her face, and her hands had been shaking. She could deny it until she was out of ways to say it, but he’d seen the truth. And he didn’t blame her. No one wanted to fall in love with a broken man. With a time bomb. Especially not someone who had spent her life picking up the pieces after mental illness decimated her family. So instead of admitting how he felt about her, he’d done what he knew how to do. He’d been cruel, tried to make her hate him.

And she’d called him on his bullshit. Hadn’t let him use anything as an excuse. You’re not a martyr. You’re a coward.

She’d been dead-on right.

She’d seen past the hateful words, past the cocky smart-ass, past the smarmy doctor, past it all. She’d seen him and had nailed his ass to the spot.

He was a coward. A bully. Pushing everyone away so that they’d leave before they mattered to him.

But she’d mattered to him from the start.

And pushing her away had done something to him that he hadn’t felt since that morning he’d found his parents.

Sadness. Devastation. Loss.

He’d gone through many rounds of depression in his adult life. He knew what to expect. They’d all felt the same. This numbness edged with anxiety. This free-floating sense of nothing mattering, of his place in this world being insignificant. Of being without purpose. He didn’t cry. He didn’t feel down. He’d feel nothing.

Walking away from Marin hadn’t made him feel nothing. It’d made him feel everything.

And the pain fucking sucked.

But he could almost hear Marin whispering in his ear, At least it’s real.

Maybe the first real thing he’d had in years.

“I can’t just undo it.” He pressed the heels of his hands to his brow, his head starting to pound. “I keep thinking, what would I tell her if she was a client in my office and she was telling me about this guy—about me?”

“And?” Lane said quietly.

He closed his eyes. “I’d tell her to run. That the guy would end up hurting her, letting her down. That he didn’t know how to not destroy good things or be happy. That she deserved better than that.”

Lane didn’t say anything for a while and then he blew out a long breath. “Come on, doc. That’s a lie. You would never make that decision for a client. I’ve seen you work. You would tell her to get that guy in therapy and make him work through whatever makes him fight so hard to be alone.” His voice got quiet. “What makes you fight so hard, Donovan?”

The statement was like a sharp blade in his side.

“You don’t have to tell me.” The sound of a beer label slowly ripping filled in the background. “But I’ve known you for two years, and this is the first time we’ve had a conversation that wasn’t about work. You needed a ride tonight, and I’m the closest friend you had to call. It’s something to think about.”

Donovan couldn’t lift his head or look at Lane. Everything felt too heavy, too . . . much. But the words sunk in just the same. Since that day he’d found his parents, watched his safe world burn to the ground, he’d locked himself inside the panic room. The person he’d been had curled into a ball and gone to sleep, hidden away from anything that could hurt too bad. And what was left had been this hollow version of himself, the man who’d gotten on the hamster wheel and gone full tilt, afraid to stop, afraid to feel anything at all.

This is what waking up felt like. Marin had ignored the man on the wheel and had broken the code on the door to get to the real guy. Now he had to figure out how to step outside the room without brandishing weapons and tearing her apart.

He didn’t know how to do that. He could feel machetes and machine guns within his reach. He’d used some of them on her yesterday.

Donovan shoved his drink to the side and managed to look at Lane. “Got any plans tonight?”

Lane lifted a brow. “What’d you have in mind?”

Donovan dropped bills on the bar. “Leaving.”