Absolutely, Positively

“No, I suppose it isn't. I just wondered if there were any, uh, complications.”

    “Complications?”

    “The sort you and I had,” Olivia said brusquely.

    “Ah, yes. That sort. As I recall, you said I made you nervous.”

    “There's no need to be sarcastic. I'm only trying to help.”

    Harry eyed her with some surprise. “How?”

    “I've told you that I think you're suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder because of the manner in which your parents died,” Olivia said quietly. “It's not an unusual reaction to serious trauma. I wish you would call Dr. Shropton. He's had a lot of experience treating the disorder. And there's medication that can help.”

    “I'll keep that in mind.”

    “You're not going to do a damn thing about it, are you?” Olivia asked in a burst of fresh anger. “You won't seek professional help. You won't discuss your dysfunctional behavior. You won't even admit you have a problem.”

    “Look, Olivia—”

    “Let me tell you something, Harry. As a professional, I can guarantee you that your problems won't get any better if you persist in denying their very existence. They'll ruin your relationship with Molly Abberwick, just as they ruined our relationship.”

    “Thanks for the warning,” Harry said. “But I don't think we can blame my personality defects entirely on the fact that our relationship fizzled.”

    “Don't you dare try to tell me that you ever loved me, Harry. Whatever you felt for me, it wasn't love.”

    He stilled. “Did you love me?”

    “I tried,” Olivia whispered valiantly. “I really did try, Harry.”

    “Noble of you.” He knew of no way to tell her that he had tried to love her, too. She would never comprehend that it was his very attempt to do so that made her flee the engagement.Moments of stark terror .

    “It was hopeless,” Olivia said. “You're not free to love anyone, Harry. For a while I thought perhaps we could work things out. I thought if you would only learn to communicate. If you could develop some empathy. Share your feelings. Get out of denial. But it was impossible.”

    “Yes, I suppose it was.”

    “And then the sex got…well, it got weird, Harry. You know it did.”

    Harry felt his insides grow cold. “I'm sorry.” There was nothing else to say.

    “I know you didn't intend to scare me, but you did. At first you were so distant, so cold in bed. I felt as if a robot were making love to me, not a man.”

    Harry closed his eyes.

    “And then, that last time that we were together, you seemed to lose control or something. It was overwhelming.” Olivia groped for words. “Terrifying, if you want the truth. I realized afterward that we had to end the engagement.”

    Harry vowed he would not make the same mistake with Molly.

    He was well aware that women who became involved with him labeled him difficult. Over the years he had heard all the tearful accusations. He was too distant, too remote, too uncommunicative, too cold.

    Until Olivia, Harry's infrequent relationships had all floundered on the rocky shoals of boredom or exasperation. But with Olivia, he had given in to a growing sense of desperation. He was in his mid-thirties. The longing for a true bond with a woman had grown so strong within him that he had succumbed to temptation. He had carefully, cautiously, opened himself ever so slightly to Olivia.

    The result had been a disaster. She was right. The sex got weird.

    Harry knew it was his own fault. So long as he maintained a certain emotional distance in the relationship—so long as things were limited to the physical and the intellectual—he could keep matters under control.

    But there were those bleak moments when he craved something else, something he could not name. And those moments came with increasing frequency of late. More than any vampire hungering for blood, he longed for a dark consummation that he could not even comprehend.

    Not only were the moments of need coming over him more often, plunging him into darker moods than any he had known in the past, they were more intense. A fear that had once been remote and easily repressed, the fear of going insane, was beginning to surface with alarming regularity. Each time it appeared it took more strength of will to crush it.

    The kitchen phone rang just as Molly finished the last page of the final grant proposal. She reached across the table and picked up the receiver.

    “Hello?”

    “Did you get dinner?” Harry asked without