Creep - Jennifer Hillier [51]
She screamed again. It turned into a gag. In the darkness, she felt the water bottle touch her lips. She turned her head away, her breath coming faster. The last time she could remember breathing this hard was when she’d signed up for a spinning class at the university athletic club two months ago.
“Come on, drink,” he said, his voice gentle.
Sheila shook her head.
None of this was happening. It couldn’t be.
He sighed and she heard him place the water bottle on the nightstand. “Let me know if you want it.”
“Who are you?” she managed to croak. Her eyes were not adjusting to the absence of light and she couldn’t see anything. “What the hell is this?”
“I already explained that to you. Do you want me to go over it again?”
“Are you going to kill me?”
A momentary silence. Then she heard him walk away.
An instant later, the lights were on, sending streams of pain into Sheila’s eyes.
He smiled at her from the foot of the bed. At the sight of him, the room spun and the bile in her stomach rose.
Taking her hand in his, he sat down next to her and caressed her fingers. “Hello, Sheila.”
“Ethan.”
It was the only word Sheila managed to say before she vomited all over him.
CHAPTER : 16
Morris’s first-class seat on Japan Airlines was reclined all the way back, but he still couldn’t get comfortable. No matter how he sat, he felt as if he were pinching a nerve. He was a big guy, and the only chair he really liked was his oversize Barcalounger at home.
Glum, he rubbed the hole in his sleeve where one of his lucky cuff links should have been. He still couldn’t seem to pinpoint when, exactly, he’d lost it, and it was driving him nuts. He should have known that losing it was a sign of more bad things to come, because everything had gone to shit afterward. The Okinawa deal had taken longer than normal to finalize, he hadn’t been able to make love to his fiancée, and he’d had to listen to Sheila’s painful confession about her sex addiction . . . which, as it turned out, wasn’t even the worst of it.
She’d had an affair with her student. She’d cheated on him. It wasn’t as if she were addicted to porn, or a compulsive masturbator. Yeah, he’d read all about those types, and he might have been able to handle something like that. But she’d had sex with another guy under his nose.
She had broken his heart.
Morris pushed the call button above his head. In an instant, a pixie-faced flight attendant appeared.
“Everything okay, sir?”
Her English was flawless and he wondered where she’d gone to school. Morris had been out of Texas for more than ten years and his damned accent was still as strong as ever.
“Suki, my back’s killin’ me. Do you have any ibuprofen?”
“Certainly. I’ll be right back.”
In a flash, she returned with a two-pack of Extra Strength Advil and a minibottle of Aquafina. Morris accepted the painkillers, but shook his head at the water.
“Bloody Caesar, please, Suki,” he said, holding out his glass, which was still red from the other Bloody Caesar he’d just downed. He’d already had two.
The flight attendant’s lovely Asian features showed concern. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to drink if you’re taking—”
Morris held up a beefy hand. “I’ll be fine, darlin’.”
Suki looked doubtful but didn’t argue. They never did in first class.
Morris leaned back and tried to get comfortable. His seatmate, a small Japanese man, was curled against the window and snoring softly. They’d chatted earlier and the man told him he’d been married for almost thirty years. Morris had shaken his head in wonder—long-lasting marriages seemed almost as impossible as finding love in the first place.
Morris had loved Lenore, his first wife, but not the way he loved Sheila. He would never have married his college girlfriend if she hadn’t gotten pregnant during their sophomore year at the University of Texas. Sure, they’d been dating for a year and it was somewhat steady, but, hell, Morris was gunning for the NFL. He was an All-American offensive lineman and had a promising career as a pro football player—the last