by Daryl Banner
“Sit here,” I tell him plainly, pretty sure he didn’t catch what I was saying on the way to the couch. “I’m going to rebandage your wounds.”
“No.”
“Yes. But first, a drink.” I leave him on the couch with a frustrated expression, helping myself to his fridge and searching for something safe to drink.
My eyes land on the tequila.
I return with the bottle and two shot glasses. He eyes me suspiciously when I set them on the coffee table in front of us. “To relax,” I explain to him with an innocent shrug. “Where’s your bathroom?”
He meets my eyes late, distracted.
“Bathroom,” I repeat.
He points to the hallway by the kitchen. When I enter it, I pull open the medicine cabinet and find a first aid kit. Upon closing it with a bang, I see my face in the mirror. I look so … tense. Who am I fooling, trying to act like I’m in charge? I’m about to rebandage Clayton Watts’s face. I’m in Clayton Watts’s apartment and I’m about to have my hands all over his face.
I take a deep breath in and blow it out.
When I return to the couch, I find Clayton sitting there with the two shot glasses in his hands, filled. Jaw tightened, he looks up at me with a severe look in his eyes, then offers a glass.
I sit on the coffee table across from him, take the glass, then clink it softly against his. “Bottoms up!”
He kicks his back in one animal gulp. I … slowly sip mine until it’s empty. Holy hell, that shit is strong. I turn my head to cough, my eyes watering instantly. It’s not going to take much, I realize. One’s enough.
But by the time I’ve recovered, he’s already poured us seconds.
“Oh.” My eyes widen. “I was just—”
“Bottoms up,” he says with a smirk, cutting me off, then kicks his second one back.
I give mine one rueful look, then slowly knock it back. Hissing afterward from the back of my throat, I find myself laughing and blinking away the burn. “Wow!” I shout.
When my eyes meet his, I’m instantly sobered. The intensity in his stare reaches deep into me.
Focus, Dessie. I set the shot glass down a skosh too hard. Popping open the little medical supply kit, I fish out a butterfly bandage and a tiny antiseptic wipe.
When I reach to take off his bandage, he recoils. I give him a warning look. His eyes flash challengingly. Is that a snarl on his lips?
When he finally relaxes, I gently peel the bandage off. Why does this feel like I’m negotiating with some wild beast? I frown at the ugly gash underneath. I have this strange blessing of having an iron stomach; nothing makes me sick, not the sight of blood, nor vomit, nor even big gaping wounds. Maybe I’m supposed to be a nurse. Maybe I’ve missed my calling.
“This’ll sting a bit,” I warn him when I’ve taken the antiseptic wipe out of its package.
Clayton lifts a confused brow, having missed my words. Then I touch the wipe to his cheek and he hisses, flinching away.
“Clayton!”
He glares at me, then surrenders, relaxing himself back into position and letting me clean the wound.
I wonder if maybe my effort is totally insufficient and he should, in fact, see a doctor or get stitches. I’m no medic. The most of what I know is from movies and plays I’ve seen, like that one about the nurse in the ER where her love interest dies in the end from rust poisoning.
The thought freezes me. Let’s not kill Clayton.
“Bandage,” I say unnecessarily, applying it.
His eyes haven’t left mine, I realize. Suddenly, my confidence crumbles again. Now that I’ve finished the business of properly bandaging him, I suddenly find I have nothing left for my hands to do. We’re just staring into each other’s eyes, and that look of wariness in his has been exchanged for something far more sinister … something dark and needy …
Something hungry.
“Thank you,” he says suddenly.
The words tickle me somehow, a smile finding my face, perhaps to break the tension. In response, I bring a flat hand to the front of my chin, then let it fall outward—Thank you.
Now it’s Clayton who smiles. After a second, he repeats the sign back to me, except a little differently.
“Oh.” I watch him. “I was doing it wrong?”
He repeats it again.
I mimic the gesture back to him.
“No,” he says, then takes my hand.
The touch of his fingers running over mine sends electricity up my spine, touching the hairs on the back of my neck.
“This,” he murmurs so quietly, it’s hardly a word at all.
He brings my hand to his chin, slowly, then directs my hand outward, demonstrating the sign using my own hand. Even when he’s done, he doesn’t let go.
“I swear, that’s what I’m doing,” I tell him, my heart racing so fast, so potently, Clayton has to feel my pulse in my fingertips.
“Again,” he orders.
Instead of signing it, I take the fingers of his left hand and bring them to my chin.
Then, I bring them a bit higher, touching them to my lips.
His eyes lock onto mine. Oops. Have I awakened the beast?
Not yet. I part my lips, letting one of his fingers slip inside. It tastes salty. His skin is rougher than I expected, too. Seeing his reaction makes my heart race even more, how his lips part and an unblinking look of shock takes over his face, paralyzing him.
I gently nibble on his fingertip, staring at his dark eyes challengingly.
A growl, deep and wolf-like, escapes his lips like a warning.
A warning I don’t heed.
Then in one swift, powerful movement, he grabs my wrist with that hand I was tasting. I gasp, but I don’t stop him. I welcome him.
He jerks me forward, and our lips collide, catching one another’s clumsily, then locking.
His breath bathes my cheek, jagged and furious.
A hand reaches behind my head, tangling itself in my hair there and trapping me in place, holding me against his kiss. My arms are caught between our heavily-breathing bodies. I’m a prisoner to his mouth, and I’m not going anywhere.
Oh my god, he’s so strong and dominant when he kisses me. I have never felt anything more powerful. The way his lips make work of mine, it’s so like eating your favorite dessert that you have craved and been denied for so long. The power of his jaw alone …
And then his tongue … The taste throws me out of my mind, how perfect it is, how inviting he is …
My trapped hands find his chest. He is so firm and smooth that even through the tight shirt, I feel every ripple of muscle on his sinewy body, especially as they flex in his effort to destroy my mouth with his kiss. He is a mountain of meat and fury, and I want to explore every inch.
My fingers graze over his nipples daringly.
He moans in response, bucking under my touch.
Then his big hands grip me at the hips and, in one powerful thrust, he pulls me off the coffee table and throws me to the couch. I gasp against his kiss just as he pulls away, his animal eyes observing mine.
Is he asking permission?
Clayton Watts, you have it.
As if I need more convincing, he straddles me, then grips the bottom of his shirt. Oh god. He slowly tugs, sliding the material up his torso and giving me a show. Inch by inch, I’m exposed to a spread of abs—yes, there’s six of them, the whole sexy pack is there—and then his two hills for pecs that are simply perfect. The tattoo that crawls up his neck also crawls down his chest in a thorny nest of ink that makes him look exotic and dangerous.
He casts the shirt to the side, and the sight of a shirtless Clayton atop me is too much to behold. This kind of stuff doesn’t happen to me. This isn’t real.
His slender, dimpled hips disappear down into his loose-fitting jeans, drawn tight over the meat of his big thighs, which trap me in place on the couch.
I am utterly pinned and totally at his mercy.
Then he bends down and nibb
les on my neck, sending shivers of joy up and down my body as I squirm against him in pleasure.
The weight of his body presses down on mine, nearly taking the air out of me. I’m so dizzy with what he’s doing to my neck that I hardly notice. In fact, I welcome it, clinging to him in an animal effort to somehow fuse our bodies together.
Pressed against him, I experience a split second of wondering if we’re moving too fast.
The next split second, I’m crying out, “Oh my god!”
Clayton’s worked his way up to my ear, his tongue tracing my jawline. When he reaches my mouth again, the animals are reunited and I throw my arms around his shoulders, crushing his face into mine.
“Dessie,” he whispers when he pulls away for one fleeting breath.
“Clayton,” I agree to nothing in particular, each of our breaths blasting against the other’s face, before plunging our mouths back together.
Our lips locked, he lifts his chest and runs his hands down the length of my body until they reach my hips. His fingers tease under my top, tickling the sensitive skin there.
Oh god.
Slowly, cruelly, his mischievous fingers work their way back up, taking my top with it.
I sit up for one moment.
My top’s gone the next.
His face hovers over me as his hand trails down from the top of my lace bra to my exposed stomach, then traces the waistline of my jeans, flirting with the buttons. I feel a quiver of anticipation below. My legs squeeze together and I feel a jolt of excitement.
“Wait.”
Clayton saw my lips move. He lifts his eyebrows, breathing heavily.
“Wait,” I repeat, placing a hand on his warm, bare chest. “Wait, wait, wait.”
He obeys, his dark eyes locked on me and waiting, for whatever reason, he doesn’t yet know. The only sound in the room is our erratic breathing. I watch my hand rise and fall as his chest does with his every breath. His body is so perfect, I can’t even compare it to anything or anyone. The shape of his pecs, the definition of his abs, the subtle ripples of muscle that work down his sides, his artful tattoo … There’s just too much for my eyes to drink in all at once.
“Too fast?” he breathes.
I nod once, warily looking into his eyes.
What I see isn’t frustration. In fact, he seems to agree, like a thought or two has worked through his brain. He holds himself up with a hand pressed into the cushion on either side of my head, his face over mine as we each catch our breath.
His lips twist into a smirk. “Can’t handle me?”
I laugh, despite our circumstance. “You are a lot to handle.”
He pulls away, giving me room to sit up. I fetch my top from the floor and slip it back on. It doesn’t escape my attention that Clayton watches my every move. At some point, he had managed to undo the top button of my jeans, so I fix them up as well.
I give him a smirk of my own. “Quit staring.”
He shrugs. “I like what I see.”
After a moment of staring into his eyes, feeling oddly powerful, I grab his shirt and throw it at him. He catches the sleeve with his teeth, biting it like a dog and growling at me.
I can’t help but laugh.
Clayton holds up the shirt. “Put this back on?” I nod in response. “That’s a first,” he says teasingly.
I love the way his teeth, tongue, and lips form the word “first”, a hint of Texan accent in it and the “s” muffled slightly.
“Well, unless you want me to hold a conversation with your chest …” I tease him.
He throws an arm over the back of the couch, the shirt dropped to his lap and forgotten.
I sigh with pleasure, unsure if he heard me or not. My eyes are helplessly glued to his muscles. “Fine,” I say breathily. There are worse things I’ve been subjected to. “You going to tell me how you got that thing on your face?”
Clayton’s forehead screws up. I assume he didn’t catch what I said, so I indicate my own cheek, then point at his expectantly.
He sighs and looks away, biting his lip. I slap the couch, drawing his attention back. “I know you didn’t just … ‘fall’.”
He shakes his head no, confirming my suspicion.
“So?” I prompt him.
It seems to take a measure of effort for him to even think about it, which casts a lightning bolt of worry through me. Finally, he pulls his phone out, taps a bit on it, then shows me the screen:
Some punk assholes
from the corner store
followed me out n jumped me.
“Oh my god!” I blurt out as I read it. “Why??”
“Bad attitude,” he answers quietly. “Dumb.” He shrugs, all the muscles of his shoulders moving with him. His eyes linger on my lips.
I remind myself that he’s staring at my lips for the functional purpose of grasping what I’m saying and urge myself not to be so damned turned on by it.
“You don’t like to talk much,” I observe, though I meant it as a question.
His eyes detach from mine, caught in a thought. Then, with a short sigh I’m not sure he meant for me to hear, he types into his phone again. I watch his face work through a bunch of different word choices as he struggles with how to say whatever it is he’s typing. With a pinch of reluctance, he shows me the screen:
I’ve always been weird
about talking out loud
since I can’t hear myself.
Been this way
since I lost my hearing :/
I nod slowly, then take his phone from him, earning a snort of protest as I delete what he typed and write my own message. I reveal the screen:
I like what you sound like.
Not that you need any more boosts
to your insufferably large ego.
He grins, and half a laugh escapes his lips, all his pearly whites shining. He meets my eyes with his head still tilted down to the screen, his forehead scrunched up in an adorable way.
“I like what you sound like,” I repeat, shrugging.
His eyes harden. “I … wish I could hear what you sound like.”
“My voice is pretty boring,” I assure him. “You’re not missing much.”
“I doubt that.” His eyes brush over my face, a hint of curiosity in them. He reaches for the tequila and pours two more shots. When he offers me one, I shake my head and gently push it away. To that, he shrugs and downs them both, one at a time. His face visibly loosens, his eyes turning watery. “There’s a lot about you I’d like to learn, Dessie.”
I put an arm over the back of the couch. Utterly incapable of enforcing discipline on my hands, I find myself curious about his tattoo. The moment my finger touches his neck, he seems to freeze in place, staring into my eyes intensely as I observe his ink, tracing the shape.
“Why the tattoo?” I mouth to him, hardly using my voice.
“Mmm.” He gives it some thought. “Tattoo,” he mumbles, his mind seeming to go somewhere far away. “Had to watch my back all through high school. When I turned eighteen, I … I decided I wanted to look like a bad-ass no one should fuck with. So I … wanted to …” He sighs and takes his phone out of my lap, typing into it as I continue to trace the ink on his neck. I wonder what that’s doing to him, if anything.
Then, he shows me the screen:
Ur finger is driving me nuts
I grin. He glares at me playfully, but I see the tightness in his jaw. I might be waking the beast again.
My finger reaches his earlobe. I study it curiously and find my mind arriving at a question I’d wanted to ask for quite a while, the most obvious question.
“How long have you been deaf?”
He squints at me, the humor in his eyes traded quickly for solemnity. I wonder if he understood the question, due to his lack of response. I let go of his ear and take the phone back, typing into it:
How long have you been deaf?
He hardly looks at the screen before he murmurs, “Since I was twelve.”
&n
bsp; “How?”
“Measles.” He mumbles the word so bitterly that I almost miss what he says. “It spread to my ears, shitty parents, lack of medical treatment, lucky to be alive, blah, blah.”
The sensitive topic seems to have brought him to a dark place. Maybe it was that and the tattoo. I regret ruining the mood, if that’s what I just did.
“Sorry,” I murmur. “I was … I was just curious.”
“It’s okay.” He takes a quick breath, his eyes not leaving my face. Then he forces a smile. “Touch me all you want. Another drink?” He reaches for the bottle.
“No,” I say at once.
He freezes, studying my face. “You sure?”
A flutter rushes through my stomach. For some reason, I find myself thinking of all the warnings people have been giving me. Is Clayton trying to get me drunk so he can continue having his way with me? Am I just tonight’s girl, and tomorrow there will be someone else on this couch being talked out of her clothes? His roommate Brant nearly slipped, laughing at the idea of Clayton ever settling down with one woman. Is that because he sees all the tail Clayton catches?
Am I an idiot for staying here, entertaining some idea of a relationship with him?
“What’s wrong?” he asks softly. He obviously reads the tension in my face. He’s remarkably observant, even when buzzed.
I type another message, then show it:
So you said there’s a lot about me
you want to learn?
Like what?
He studies my eyes long and hard. After a second, he reaches and gently takes a tangle of my hair, then brings it to his face demonstratively and sniffs. “Like what shampoo you use,” he moans.
I slap his hand away and laugh.
He looks at me. A brief moment of gravity hardens his face, and then he reaches for the tequila. “I’m gonna need another,” he says without looking at me.
I touch his wrist, then pinch the fingers of my other hand in the air twice by his face, sort of like the universal gesture to indicate a person talking.
He squints at my hand, reading the sign. “No?”
“Too much,” I say, to which he snorts. “I don’t want you falling asleep on me.”