My Husband Never Touched Me, So the CEO Doctor Took Off His Gloves novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Chamomile

Pamela pours out Colin's tea, Lacey visits and knows where the tea tin is, and Pamela burns alone in the dark until Colin knocks.

Colin was home by seven, and the kitchen smelled of chamomile.

He stood at the stove in his gray quarter-zip as the kettle clicked off.

He smiled at me, the same smile as always.

"There she is. Lacey told me everything. How's my girl?"

"Tired." I put my bag down. "I went to see a doctor."

His hand stopped on the kettle.

"A doctor?"

"The nurse at work."

I had never lied to Colin before, and it came out easy.

"She said it's stress and told me to rest."

"Thank God." He laughed and poured the water. "I told HR you needed a month."

He set the kettle down. "I'll bring you breakfast in bed. You won't have to lift a finger."

A month of that, I thought. A month of him watching.

He set the mug in front of me and kissed my forehead.

His lips were dry and brief. I waited for the burn, and it didn't come.

Nothing came. His mouth on my skin was only dry and cool.

I had been married to this man for thirteen months.

He was the one person whose touch I couldn't feel at all.

"Drink up," he said.

I held the mug. It was warm and smelled sweet and a little bitter.

"Too hot," I said.

"I'll wait."

He leaned on the counter with his arms folded and watched me.

Quincy Delamere had said, Especially not him.

I blew on the tea and took a mouthful.

My stomach turned over at the taste, and I held it in my cheek.

When Colin looked at his phone, I turned my head and spat it back into the mug.

"I'm going to take a bath," I said. "I'll bring the rest up."

"Finish it first. It helps you sleep."

"It's making me feel sick, Colin."

His pleasant face went very still for half a second.

Then he smiled again. "Okay. Take it upstairs, then."

In the bathroom, I poured the whole mug down the sink and ran the tap until the smell was gone.

The doorbell rang at eight.

Lacey stood on the porch in her camel cardigan with a tub of soup and a paper bag.

She hugged me before I could step back.

I clenched my teeth through it. The burn went off low in my stomach and left me shaking.

"Oh, honey, still?" She stroked my arm. "I brought chicken and rice. And I picked up your tea."

"My tea?"

"The chamomile. The kind you like."

She was already walking through to the kitchen. "You're almost out, look."

She opened the cupboard over the kettle and took down the tin from the back of the second shelf.

It was behind the cereal. I had never once seen where Colin kept it.

She tipped fresh leaves in from the paper bag and pressed the lid on with her thumb. Her ponytail swung.

"There," she said. "Colin loves taking care of you. You're so lucky, Pam."

"I know," I said.

She patted my cheek and I held my breath until her fingers were gone.

When she left, I stood in the kitchen for a while and looked at the tin.

It was a plain gray tin with no label.

I told myself she had been over a hundred times and just knew where things were.

I put it back.

Colin said goodnight at ten, in the hall, with a hand almost on my shoulder and never quite there.

He went into the guest room and shut the door.

I lay in the big bed and listened to the house tick.

My body wouldn't settle.

It was the wrist, the place he'd held.

I could still feel two bare fingers against it, warm and certain.

I pushed the covers back.

My hand went down my stomach and under the waistband of my pajamas before I'd decided anything.

I was already wet. That was what shocked me most. I was so wet I made a sound at my own touch.

I closed my eyes and I wasn't in that room anymore.

I was on a padded table with the paper crackling.

A man in a charcoal vest was holding my wrist, and his other hand was bare too.

I rubbed slow circles, then faster. I bit the pillow.

I thought about his pale, chapped knuckles. I thought about his eyes dropping to my mouth.

I imagined those fingers pressing where mine were, steady and sure, and his deep, low voice saying, Breathe through your nose.

I came so hard I curled up around myself, with his name in my mouth.

I buried the noise in the sheet.

It had been a year since I had felt anything like that.

It had been a year since I'd felt anything at all.

I was still lying there, breathing, with my heart pounding, when the floorboard in the hall creaked.

A soft knock came at my door.

"Pamela?" said Colin. "You're awake. I made you another cup."

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