Free Medea's Curse by Anne Buist Page A

least give us some more information.’
    ‘Uh huh.’
    ‘You see abuse victims and prisoners…’
    ‘You think I’d turn them over to you to have the media splash their lives all over
the papers and some lawyer grill them till they break down?’
    ‘Identities are protected. You know that. I’m just asking you to keep your eyes and
ears open. Particularly for anything to do with pink bunny rabbits. Seems to be what
they entice or reward the girls with. Tell me if you hear anything I might be able
to use.’
    She hoped her look conveyed how likely that was going to be. Her patients struggled
talking to her about this type of issue, let alone to police and the O.P.P.
    By the second beer she remembered why she found him so sexy. His outward respectability
barely cloaked his edginess and the combination was compelling. She wondered what
it was about her that was attractive to him. Just settling a score? Bored with a
middle-class lifestyle? She started to wonder if he went for a certain type—if she
was like other women he’d had affairs with. She stopped herself. She didn’t want
to know. If something happened tonight it would be a one-off.
    ‘Dinner?’ he asked as their second drink was nearly finished.
    ‘Not hungry.’ Not for food at least.
    Liam raised an eyebrow.
    Their eyes locked and the brief glimpse behind the surface rattled her. She was a
psychiatrist for fuck’s sake. Why was she letting him get to her?

    As soon as the door closed in his room she knew why. Liam worked hard on hiding what
was beneath his veneer but in the bedroom, or at least in the bedroom with her, it
unleashed. There was a hunger in him that took her breath away, anger and passion
that she hadn’t felt in a lover before, and she knew it wasn’t him she feared as
much as her own response. If it had been ignited by a need to prove his dominance,
the same need was continuing to fuel it.
    They didn’t speak.
    Liam pushed her firmly against the door, his mouth hard on hers. He tasted of scotch.
Natalie pulled at his shirt as his hands pushed her dress up and went under the waistband
of her tights. They half-walked, half-fell across furniture, pulling at clothing,
knocking the lamp to the floor, bumping against the walls. Naked in the dark on the
bed, Natalie could feel his cock hard against her as his tongue was in her mouth,
then her ears; then he was biting her nipples. When he had pushed her need to a level
where she would have given him anything he had asked, he entered her. She came almost
immediately, and Liam followed only moments later.
    Her arousal had left no room to consider anything other than her own pleasure. But
afterwards it was not the physical gratification that she recalled, either then or
during the repeat performance in the early hours of the morning, but rather, how
he held her after they were spent. In those minutes was a lingering memory of what
was absent: the tension that infiltrated every part of her and had been there for
as long as she could remember. Without it, she was left unsure of who she was, and
for a moment believed that this was who she wanted to be.

    On Monday morning, Jessie was ten minutes late. The honeymoon was over already. She
slumped into the chair without speaking, still wearing her sunglasses.
    ‘Tell me what made your week so bad.’
    Jessie stared at her sullenly. She clearly wanted to talk but she’d spent a lifetime
learning it was dangerous to trust.
    ‘Everything.’
    ‘Hannah?’
    ‘Same stuff.’
    Natalie waited.
    ‘I got a call about my father.’
    ‘Your father?’
    ‘He’s in hospital. Second time in a month.’
    Natalie underlined this in her notes. Was this why Jessie was now turning up for
therapy?
    ‘The hospital rang me as next of kin. They thought I should take him home with me.’
    ‘Did you?’
    Jessie bit her lip, and angrily wiped a tear out of her eye. ‘Why should I? Bastard
preferred the bitch to me, never thought about what I wanted.’
    ‘You