TOTALLY TORMENTED
(Addicted To You #5)
Lucy Covington
Copyright 2013 © Lucy Covington
LINDSAY
Justin was hurt.
Not as bad as I’d first thought, but it was still bad.
After I’d helped him up off the floor, he seemed to be doing gradually better. He assured me that he’d just gotten dizzy, and it happened sometimes after a tough fight.
He was bruised all over, his cut was gashed back open, and his right eye was puffy and swollen. I walked him back to his bedroom and made him sit down on the bed.
I turned on the light and he winced.
“What the hell happened?” I asked as I surveyed the damage. The cut over his eye looked horrible -- it was definitely going to leave a scar.
“A few guys tried to mess with me.” He gave me a wry smile. “Didn’t know what they were getting themselves into.”
I shook my head. He was trying to be brave, but I could tell it was an act. None of his injuries looked like anything horrible by themselves, but all together I could only imagine what they felt like.
“No, seriously,” I said. “What happened?”
“My new gym,” he said. “I had to prove myself.”
“The guys at your new gym did this to you?”
“Yeah.” I wanted to say that his new gym didn’t sound like it was the best place for him, if the people there would beat him up like this. But something told me this wasn’t the right time. The last thing I wanted was to start some big discussion about his gym. Right now he needed help.
“Your cut needs to be cleaned,” I said. I reached up and touched the skin around his eye, and he inhaled sharply.
“I’m fine,” he said, shaking me off.
I shook my head. “No, you’re not fine. If you don’t clean it, it’s going to get infected. And then not only are you going to have a scar, you’re going to be in a lot of trouble.” I looked at it. “You should probably go back to the emergency room and get it re-stitched.”
“Fuck that. I’m not spending all night in the hospital.”
I sighed. “Then you at least have to let me clean it.”
He grinned. “Fine. I’d love to play doctor with you.”
“I’m serious, Justin.”
“I am too.” He reached for me, pulling at the belt loop on my shorts. “Come here. Come to bed.” He tried to pull me down next to him, but I resisted.
Every part of my body was telling me to get out of there, to leave, to walk out of that apartment and not look back. When he’d said he’d needed me, a thrill had flown through me. But I was also terrified. I felt like I needed him, too. I couldn’t stop thinking about him, even when I wasn’t with him. And when I was with him, I felt like I could lose control at any second -- of my mind, my body, my senses, my life.
“You need to let me clean your cut,” I repeated firmly.
“After we nap.”
“No.” I shook my head. “If we lay down, we’re going to fall asleep. You need to let me clean your cut.”
He sighed. “And then you’ll spend the night?”
I hesitated. I wasn’t sure what he was asking. Did he mean spend the night spend the night? Like have sex with him spend the night? Or did he mean just spend the night the way we’d been doing?
Either way, it didn’t matter. I wanted to be with him.
I nodded.
He took my hand and led me to the bathroom.
“Do you have any peroxide?” I asked.
“Yeah. In the medicine cabinet.”
He started to take his shirt off, and my heart started racing. Why did he have to take his shirt off to get his cut cleaned? It was way too dangerous for us to be in such close quarters while he was bare-chested.
I found the peroxide and grabbed it, along with some cotton balls.
I uncapped the bottle. My hands were shaking, but somehow I was able to get some peroxide onto the cotton ball without dropping anything.
I turned away from the sink, and Justin took a step toward me, until he was so close that I could feel the heat coming off his body.
“This might sting,” I warned him.
He rolled his eyes, like he could take it. He kept his gaze on mine as I dabbed at his cut, being careful not to dislodge the stitches that were left. “You really need to get this re-stitched,” I said. “You’re going to have a scar.”
He shrugged. “Scars don’t bother me.”
They didn’t bother me either. In fact, I thought they were all kinds of sexy. I thought he was all kinds of sexy. We stood there like that for a long moment, his eyes never leaving mine as I cleaned out his wound.
I was finally getting a good look at him, now that we were in the light, and my eyes moved down to his stomach. There were bruises blooming on his sides, and I couldn’t help myself. I reached out and trailed my fingers lightly over his abs, marveling at how flat his stomach was. His skin felt cool, but the bruise was hot.
“Does it hurt?” I whispered.
“I’ve had worse.”
Something about the tone in his voice made me think he wasn’t just talking about physical pain. There were other things, other damage lurking beneath the surface, other hurt that I didn’t know about. I wanted him to tell me. I suddenly wanted to know everything about him, even if it was bad and horrible and scary.
I swallowed hard. A jolt of attraction moved through my body, and I imagined what it would be like to kiss him, to have him touch me all over, how it would feel to have his hands moving over my hips, my back, my breasts, between my legs. What would it feel like to have him moving inside me, slowly, while he kissed my face, my eyes, my mouth?
I took a step back toward the sink, turned away from him and grabbed another cotton ball. “We should clean the scrapes on your elbows, too.”
“Yes, Dr. Cramer,” he said dutifully. How could he stand there joking around like that when all I could think about was him doing things to me that I’d never let myself imagine before?
I took an extra second to calm myself before turning around.
“Ow!” he yelled as the cotton ball hit the scrape on his elbow.
“What?” I automatically pulled back, alarmed. “Did I hurt you?”
“Ha,” he said, grinning. “Just kidding.”
I rolled my eyes. “There,” I said, chucking the cotton balls into the trash. “That should be good, at least for now.”
He bent over the sink and looked at his cut in the mirror. “Looks good.”
“No, it doesn’t. But it’s the best we’re gonna do if you refuse to go to the hospital.”
“Hospitals are for the people who can afford them.”
“I met you at a hospital,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, because my coach made me. But guess what? That dude’s not my coach anymore.”
I wondered again if that was such a good thing, but I kept my mouth shut. I needed to get out of this enclosed space with him. We were standing way too close together. It was starting to get hot in here, and I needed to breathe. Of course, out there was the bedroom, which wasn’t much better.
But maybe we could find something to do, something that would distract me from his burning brown eyes and the hard lines of six pack. Maybe we could watch a movie or something, a cheesy comedy that would keep my mind off anything having to do with sex.
“So do you want to watch a movie or something?” I tried. “You should probably rest.”
“No. I don’t want to watch a movie. And I’m not tired.”
“Oh. Well, are you hungry? We could order from –”
He acted like he didn’t hear me, and instead, reached over and turned on the shower.
“What are you doing?” I aske
d in alarm.
He was opening the cabinet in the corner, pulling out two fluffy blue towels.
“Starting up the shower. I need to clean up a little.”
“Oh.” I thought that’s what we’d been doing. But I guess I could see his point. It wasn’t enough to just take care of his cuts -- he probably wanted to get his whole body clean.
He pushed the shower handle over so that the water was almost as hot as it could go, and steam began to fill the room. I was already feeling breathless, and so this made it even harder to breathe.
“Okay,” I said. “Well, um, I’ll just wait for you in your room?”
I started to move around him toward the door, but he stepped in front of me.
“Why?” he said. “Don’t you need a shower, too, Pip?” His finger reached out and traced my collarbone, moving the collar of my t-shirt over as he found the strap of my bra. He pushed it down my shoulder just a little, teasing me.
“Oh, no,” I said. “I’m not dirty. I mean, I’m clean enough.”
“You sure, Pip?” he said wickedly. “I think you’re plenty dirty.”
“I’m not showering with you.” But my voice didn’t sound convincing, even to my own ears.
“Why not?” He puffed his lip out in a pout, like he was upset that he wasn’t getting his way. It was so damn adorable I almost couldn’t deal.
“Because,” I said firmly.
“Because you don’t trust me?”
“And now why would I not trust you?” I asked sarcastically. “You’ve done nothing but prove yourself to be completely trustworthy.”
His face darkened for a moment, and I had the feeling I’d said something wrong.
He took another step toward me, his chest pushing against mine, my breasts flattening out against the hardness of his pecs. He grabbed my shoulders. “I would never do anything to hurt you, Lindsay. You know that, right?”
I nodded. But I wasn’t so sure. It wasn’t that I thought he would try to hurt me.
It was that I could feel myself starting to get consumed by him. I was giving him the ability to hurt me just by letting him get so close. It was like tying yourself to a train track, just waiting to get run over. It wouldn’t be the train’s fault if it couldn’t stop in time – but you’d get hurt anyway, because you’d be lying there, like a sitting duck.
“Come on,” he said, running his palms down my arms until he got to my hands.
He intertwined his fingers with mine and then pulled them up so they were at eye level.
It was totally sexy, and yet he made it seem somehow innocent, like we were playing a game of paddy cake or something.
My breathing was accelerating and my heart was pounding. How could he stand there seemingly so cool while we were talking about showering together? Was it because he did this with tons of girls, all the time? No doubt he was more experienced than I was.
He had a body that was built for sex, and I was sure girls were throwing themselves at him whenever and wherever they could.
“I can’t.” I shook my head. But my will was starting to crumble.
“Please,” he whispered. He wasn’t joking around anymore. Instead, he sounded intense. I wondered if he was as turned on as I was, not that I could imagine being any more turned on. My body felt like it was going to explode.
“Justin –”
His hands wrapped around my waist, then slid up under the back of my shirt, stroking my bare back. “You can keep your underwear on,” he said. “What can be so bad about that? It’s just like wearing a bathing suit.”
His hands pulled me closer to him, his fingers moving higher and higher up the back of my shirt. Goosebumps had broken out on my arms, and I took a deep breath. I didn’t say yes, but he must have taken my silence as permission, because his hands moved around to my stomach, stroking my abdomen before slipping down and unbuttoning my shorts.
He looked at me, his eyes questioning, and I slowly nodded. He slid the zipper of my shorts down slowly, agonizingly, and then pulled my shirt over my head. Then he dropped his own shorts so he was standing there in just his boxers before he took my hand and pulled me into the shower.
I told myself it was no big deal. We’d been in our underwear together before, when we went swimming in the ocean. But something about this felt different. That was swimming. This was showering. Something about it was more intimate.
The steam had filled up the room, and when we stepped into the shower, I felt a little light-headed. The moisture warmed my skin, and Justin stood under the spray, beads of water collecting on his skin. I still had goose bumps all over my arms, and I was hoping that the hot water would make them go away before Justin noticed.
He was staring at me and his tongue licked his upper lip. I almost groaned out loud, that’s how sexy it was. I tried to think of anything except the fact that we were standing here, almost naked together. I tried to think of baseball, or amusement parks, or my psychology paper, or the fact that I still might have a chance at becoming Dr.
Klaxton’s research assistant. But my mind couldn’t focus on anything except his pecs, his stomach, his biceps, his smile, how gorgeous he looked with his hair all wet.
“Hi,” he said, and smiled at me lazily.
“Hi.” I glanced around the shower, desperate for something to keep my mind off his almost nakedness. My gaze landed on his shampoo.
“What’s with the generic shampoo?”
He turned around and picked it up. “What’s wrong with my shampoo?”
“Nothing.” I shrugged. “If you’re okay with generic. I guess it’s different for guys.”
“You’re a shampoo snob!” he said.
“No, I’m not!”
“Yes, you are.” He pulled the bottle down and popped the top open, squirting some into his palm. Then he turned around and started soaping his hair. His back muscles flexed, and I averted my eyes. When he turned around, sudsy water slid down his face, and he grinned. “Come here.”
“What?”
“Come. Here.”
“Why?” I was instantly on guard.
He rolled his eyes. “Relax,” he said. “I’m not going to do anything.”
“Then tell me why.”
“Lindsay,” he said calmly. “Do you trust me?”
I opened my mouth to say hell no. But something in the way he was looking at me, and the serious tone in his voice, made me think that if I told him I didn’t trust him, he was going to be disappointed. Very disappointed. And I didn’t want to disappoint him.
“Yes,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure it was true. “Yes, I trust you.”
“Then come here.”
I took a step toward him.
He gave a big sigh and then raised his eyes toward the ceiling in a look of exasperation. “How come every time I ask you to come here, you take half of a step?”
“I don’t!” I took another half step toward him.
“I thought you said you trusted me.”
“I do!”
“Then prove it.”
The look he was giving me, like he didn’t think I was going to do it, made me so angry that I pushed myself right up against him. For a moment, I saw the want flash in his eyes, saw it burn so bright that I was sure he was going to have his way with me right there. But then he moved behind me in one fluid movement, pushing his chest up against my back.
“Close your eyes,” he whispered into my ear.
My breath caught in my throat, and I would have thought I stopped breathing altogether except for the fact that my heart was beating so fast it felt like it was going to burst out of my chest.
I closed my eyes. For a moment, all I could feel was the spray of the water pounding against me. And then, I felt his hands.
He gathered my hair, pulling it behind my shoulders so that it was hanging down my back. And then he started to wash my hair. His touch was soft and gentle, which I hadn’t expected.
He took his time, massaging my scalp and neck. I stayed
still under the spray, just enjoying his touch, the way his hands felt on my skin.
When he was done, he leaned in toward my ear. “Turn around,” he whispered, and I did what I was told. I stood under the spray, facing him, until the shampoo washed out of my hair.
“See?” he said. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
I wasn’t sure if he was talking about the generic shampoo, or the fact that I’d had to trust him. I shook my head. “No,” I said. “It wasn’t so bad.”
“Stay here,” he said. “I’ll get you a towel.”
And then he stepped out of the shower.
***
He gave me a towel and one of his t-shirts to wear, and then left the bathroom so I could get dressed. My pink bra and panties were completely soaked, and when I cleared a spot of steam from the mirror, I noticed for the first time that they were almost see-through.
Jesus. I might as well have not been wearing anything. I shook my head, reminding myself that from now on I should make sure to wear dark underwear when I was with Justin. I never knew when I was going to end up without my clothes on.
I hung my wet stuff over the bar in the shower, then pulled on his t-shirt. It hung down to my knees, but I had nothing on underneath it. And I was supposed to sleep in Justin’s bed with him dressed like this? But what else could I do? My only other choice would be to sleep in my clothes.
I towel-dried my hair and then walked back to Justin’s bedroom. He was wearing a pair of gray American Eagle sweatpants and, of course, no shirt. He was sprawled out on his back, flicking through channels on the TV.
“Hey, Pip,” he said when he saw me. His eyes did that thing again – the one where they moved up and down my body, checking me out. The sides of his mouth tugged up into a grin when he was done, like he liked what he saw. I blushed and then climbed into bed with him.
It was warm in the room, but I was cold from the shower, and I shivered as I snuggled up to him. He smelled like soap and shampoo and his sheets were soft. He put his arm around me and I laid my cheek against his chest, listening to the beat of his heart.
He flicked through the channels lazily, passing by sitcom reruns, infomercials, an Adam Sandler movie, and Sports Center.
“What do you want to watch?” he asked. He was stroking my hair, and I felt so relaxed that I let my eyes close for a moment.
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