“I find your intelligence incredibly sexy, in case you were unaware. However uneducated I might be, I’m smart enough to know those guys aren’t choosing to work with you just because you’re hot, which makes me justifiably nervous when you’re around them.” I couldn’t believe I was admitting this shit. I pretty much just told her I was insecure. It took her only a fraction of a second to process my inadvertent disclosure, reinforcing how bright she was.
“But you’re brilliant.”
“I barely finished high school.”
“That was circumstantial. You and I both know that doesn’t mean anything. Some of the most renowned geniuses had difficulty in high school. Look at Einstein.”
“I’m not Einstein.”
“No, you have better hair.”
“I don’t even know why we’re talking about this,” I said, uncomfortable with the topic. “The issue is your nipples. They’re practically poking my eyes out. You need to cover up.”
She looked down at her chest to verify her nipples were indeed quite pokey. “I have a jacket.”
“But you’ll take it off,” I pointed out.
She threw up her hands and turned around, heading back to her room with a huff.
“Wait.” I unzipped my hoodie and shrugged it off. “You can wear this.”
She scanned my shirt, her mouth turning up in a cynical smile. “Do people actually ask that?”
“You’d be surprised.” The shirt had been a gift from Cassie. It read, “YES. It hurts. Any more stupid questions?” I held out the hoodie, and she pushed her arms through the sleeves.
It was too big on her. I rolled the cuffs twice before her hands appeared, but it did the job, covering her braless chest. And it was loose, which made it doubly effective. I admired the way my hoodie looked on her; STRYKER was emblazoned on the back in giant black letters, bordered in gold and set against red fabric. Now she was marked by me both under and over her clothes.
“It’s huge.”
“But it works.”
She rubbed the sleeve on her cheek and inhaled. “It smells like you.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“Good. I like the way you smell.”
“As much as I like the way you taste?” I asked, using her hips to pull her closer.
“Hayden,” she admonished, her palms flattened on my chest. Her protest was feeble and a little breathy, so she didn’t mean it.
I leaned down to kiss her. There was no way I would make it a week.
* * *
Tenley was surprisingly lucid under the influence of Tylenol 3s. Although, based on the severity of her accident and the contents of her medicine cabinet, she’d taken a multitude of much stronger prescriptions for quite some time before moving to something less potent. T3s knocked me on my ass. Although I rarely took medication for anything.
Tenley gave me one of her nippy kisses when I dropped her off at school. Between bites I promised to pick her up in the same place around five. She took the stairs slowly, cautious today, thanks to the fresh ink.
Once she was out of sight I parked in the nearest lot. I backed into a space, angling my car in such a way that no one could use the space beside me. There was no way I would risk some twit dinging the door or damaging the paint job. The attendant came over, bent out of shape and nervous, so I paid for both spots without putting up a fight and assured him I’d only be there for an hour at most.
I headed for the building Tenley had entered when she’d had her meeting with her advisor. I looked over the directory and found Calder’s name. A horde of students waited impatiently for the elevator, so I took the stairs instead.
Calder’s office was at the very end of the hall. The nameplate affixed to the closed door touted his educational accomplishments in a series of acronyms. I debated whether I should knock. I wanted to see this guy to assess the threat he posed to Tenley’s fragile state. It turned out I didn’t have to come up with a lame-ass excuse to enter, because the door swung open. A girl in her early twenties nearly collided with my chest. She looked up at me, startled, her face turning a telling shade of red. I’d seen her before when I’d picked up Tenley from school the first time. She was the one with the jeweled talons for fingernails who couldn’t read social cues. She was perfectly made up, apart from her lack of lipstick. Her mouth was swollen, her skirt off-kilter.
The balding, middle-aged man sat at his desk, looking relaxed. His satiated expression and the smell in his office confirmed what I suspected. He adjusted his tweed jacket, checking the button that strained against his paunch.
The girl didn’t look back as she slipped around me. I watched as she rushed down the hall, her unease obvious in the set of her shoulders. She straightened her skirt as she hurried away. I had to wonder how many of his students earned their way through his graduate program like this. What I wanted to do and what I did next were two different things.
“Can I help you?” he asked, his cold stare focused on me.
“Nah.” I pinned him with a hard glare. “I must be in the wrong building.”
“Evidently,” he said, dismissing me as he started rifling through the papers on his desk.
I turned and pushed the release bar, forcing my body away from his door and into the stairwell. I didn’t want Tenley to know I’d been scoping out her advisor. Beating his ass with one of the books on his shelves would be a dead giveaway. I needed her to talk. If he was pushing her for favors, I wasn’t above giving him a demonstration of what real deviant behavior looked like.
22
HAYDEN
On Sunday afternoon I came out of Tenley’s bathroom to find her sitting on the couch. Her laptop was perched on the arm, a document on the screen. She had a pink highlighter behind her ear, a pen between her lips and book in her lap. She often spent time working on her thesis while I channel surfed in the evenings.
She didn’t have to work and neither did I, which meant we had a whole day ahead of us with no concrete plans. Not good, considering how fucking horny I was. I should have been able to manage a week with no sex. I’d done months of no action prior to Tenley, but something about forced restrictions made the impulse harder to control.
The coffee table was covered with articles on deviant behavior, the likes of which made me seem like a Boy Scout. I knew, because I’d read them all. There were highlights and Post-it notes stuck to everything, a blanket balled up on the floor and two glasses, both of which were empty beside it. While the clutter drove me nuts, Tenley’s state of dress was far more distracting. She was decked out in her apron and shorts, the swell of her breast peeking out the side. It had been three days since the tattoo session. I was losing my mind. There was no way I could sit next to her all day and pretend to watch TV without eventually caving.
“I need to get out of here,” I barked.
“What’s wrong?” She glanced at the coffee table. “Is it the mess? I can clean it up.” She started shuffling papers into more organized piles and I immediately felt bad. She tried to keep her apartment tidy. For most people it wouldn’t have been a problem. I wasn’t most people.
I put my hand up to stop her. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I want to take you out.”
She stared blankly at me. “Out? But you just brought over groceries yesterday. My fridge is full, and TK has lots of food.”
In the past two weeks I’d spent almost every night in her bed, and the only time we’d been out in a public place, beyond Serendipity or Inked Armor, was to get groceries. I was an ass. “I want to take you somewhere, but only if your back is feeling okay and you don’t need to work on other stuff.” I motioned to the mountain of paper. I really hoped she could take the day off from that.
“I can do it later. As for my back, it’s itchy and tight, but fine otherwise,” she said slowly.
“Why don’t you get dressed, then?” I suggested, relieved. “Only if you want to, though.”
The smile that lit up her face made me feel both awesome and sh
itty. I should have thought to do this sooner.
“Okay!” She jumped up off the couch and practically skipped to the bedroom.
While she changed, I tidied up. Twenty minutes later she reappeared in a gray shirtdress and purple tights. She’d put on makeup, which wasn’t necessary, because she was gorgeous without it.
I helped her into her coat, being extra careful as she slipped her arms through, and rested it on her shoulders. While the tattoo was healing nicely, it would still be tender for a little longer. We walked across the street and headed through my building to the underground parking lot so I could get my car. She’d offered to take hers, but I’d declined. I was taking her out, not the other way around. Her car also sucked, but I wouldn’t tell her that. I didn’t really have much of a plan in mind until I started heading toward the Chicago Harbor.
“The Art Institute?” Tenley asked when I pulled into the parking lot.
“Is that okay? We can go somewhere else if you want,” I said, suddenly unsure.
I’d never done the date thing. Unless I counted that one time during senior year that I took a girl to a drive-in. I couldn’t remember her name, or the movie we saw, but I had a very vivid recollection of the blow job and her excessive use of teeth. It was before my parents were murdered. Afterward, dating hadn’t been a priority.
“No, no. This is great. I haven’t been to a museum in ages.”
“Me either.” I cut the engine and hustled around to her side, opening the door before she had the chance. She got out gingerly, likely because her back was still sore. She smiled up at me, all cute and unassuming and beautiful as I laced my fingers through hers.
“My mom used to take me here when I was a kid,” I said, holding the door open for her and ushering her into the foyer.
“Really? Is that where you got your artistic side from?”
“My mom was more about sculpture, but yeah, she was the one who exposed me to this kind of thing. My dad wasn’t much for art, or anything that didn’t involve stocks, really, so I got to go with her when there were exhibits she liked,” I replied as we reached the concession desk.
Tenley tried to pay for herself, but I handed over my credit card. I grabbed one of the brochures so we could plan out what exhibits we wanted to see and in what order.
“When were you here last?” Tenley asked as we headed for the photography exhibit.
I thought about it a minute, trying to remember the last time my mom took me. “The summer before junior year? So almost ten years ago? We usually went at least once a year. But the summer before senior year I told her I didn’t want to go. She went on her own. I felt like shit about it afterwards.”
Tenley squeezed my hand. “You must miss her.”
“Yeah. All the time.” I looked down at her, glad I had someone I could do this kind of thing with again.
“Does it get easier?” she whispered.
“I don’t know. I mean, I guess in some ways? It’s been seven years, so I’m used to not having her around, but I don’t know if the pain ever really goes away. I think you just learn how to deal with it. That probably isn’t what you want to hear.” I smiled sadly and brushed her cheek with my fingers. “But I have you now, so that helps.”
“Really?”
“Definitely.” I leaned down and gave her a lingering kiss, heedless of our public venue. “Come on, let’s check out some art.”
Tenley in a museum was a trip. She loved the modern exhibits, drawn just like I was to the darker pieces. Occasionally, when I was taking too long or she wanted to move on to the next painting, she would lean into me, rub her boobs on my arm, and whisper, “How long before we can stare at the next one?”
I stood behind her with my hand on her hip as she contemplated Wood’s American Gothic. “Wonder what she’s thinking?”
Tenley pressed a finger thoughtfully to her lips before she turned her head, looking up at me with a grave seriousness. “Probably something along the lines of ‘How much longer do I have to stand here baking in the sun looking pissed off?’ ”
I snickered. “What’s he thinking?”
She crooked her finger. When I bent down, putting my ear to her mouth, she whispered, “ ‘My balls are sweaty.’ ”
I burst into laughter, scaring a bohemian couple two paintings to the right. They shot me a dirty look, and Tenley broke into a fit of giggles.
I led her to the next exhibit. “So was your mom or dad the artistic one?”
“My mom, I guess,” Tenley said, stopping to stare at a work by Dalí. “Although she was more about photography, and even then it was just a hobby, kind of like my drawing.”
“You could have gone to art school if you wanted,” I said, kissing the top of her head. Being in a public place made it easier to be affectionate without succumbing to the urge to take it to the next level.
She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “My parents never would have gone for that.”
“Why not? You’re insanely talented.”
“Hardly,” she said with disparagement.
I turned her so she was facing me, not the painting. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you how gifted you are?”
Her eyes dropped and her fingers moved along the exposed ink on my forearm. “I’m really not.”
“Hey.” I waited until she looked at me. “You really are.”
I stared down at her, wondering what she had been like before the accident. Had she bent to others’ whims in order to avoid disappointing them? It was entirely possible. She treaded a very careful line. Her piercings were subdued, pretty even. Her clothes stayed firmly within what would be considered “acceptable,” but she was edgy, at times even eccentric. It came out most when she was in the comfort of her own space. She still grabbed people’s attention, though. Not because she sought it but because her inherent beauty made it impossible not to be drawn to her.
“That’s sweet of you to say.” She rose up on her toes, and I dipped my head so she got my lips instead of my chin. She smiled and took a step back, breaking the connection. “But it’s just something I do for fun.”
“You must have taken art classes, though,” I pressed.
“Sure. All through high school and college. But I majored in sociology because there were lots of career options after I finished my degree. Then I got accepted into the master’s program at Northwestern, so that was that. Come on, I want to check out some of the medieval paintings.” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Sometimes there’s nudity.”
I dropped the art school discussion, although I had a feeling there was more to it than she was willing to divulge at this point. Tenley was passionate about art; it was obvious in the way her eyes lit up when she discovered a piece that really spoke to her. Even the articles and textbooks she was using to research her thesis had some foundation in art forms, alternative or otherwise.
After the museum, I took her out for dinner and drinks at a little pub close to home. The guy who served us wouldn’t stop smiling at her, beyond what I felt was necessary. After he dropped off our drinks I moved from the spot across from her to the one beside her, tucking her into my side just so he knew where things stood between her and me. When our dinner came, I fed her the French fries because it embarrassed the shit out of her and turned me on for some strange reason. Maybe because they were phallic? Who knew?
I liked taking her places, watching her get excited. It was the perfect way to get to know more about her apart from the painful pieces of her past. From what I learned about her, she struggled with who she was and what she wanted from life, but then, who didn’t? Beyond that, doting on her felt good. I liked that I could take her out, buy her dinner, even stock her fridge with groceries. It was archaic and totally contradicted my previous ideas about relationships, but I hadn’t really had one before, so it had all been theoretical. It made what we had more real, like she was mine and I was hers. My only problem was that I couldn’t take her home and claim her the way I wanted to.
Not for another four days. Talk about delayed gratification at its most extreme.
23
TENLEY
Hayden folded after five days. His ability to hold out that long had been commendable. After our date I cranked up the heat in my apartment and strutted around in shorts and a threadbare T-shirt, hoping it would be enough to push him over the edge. Unfortunately, this was not the case. On the fourth day I pulled out the big guns in the form of frilly underpants and donned the cupcake apron thinking maybe he would cave, but once again he didn’t. In fact, to get back at me, he refused to stay over. I liked it better when he was taking up two-thirds of the bed. I was well behaved the following night.
I discovered his ultimate weakness unexpectedly. In his haste to vacate my apartment after I brought out the frilly underpants, Hayden left behind his STRYKER hoodie, the same one he lent me the day after he completed the outline. I liked being able to steep in his smell all day. It made me feel safe. Letting me wear his hoodie felt like a show of protection as well as possession. It didn’t bother me the way it might have before the crash.
Connor had given me things like jewelry and clothing. At times I’d felt like a showpiece for his family’s prosperity rather than his fiancée. I’d never expressed that to Connor because I hadn’t wanted to offend him. His intentions had been good; we’d just had different priorities.
After work on Tuesday night, I stripped out of my tights and dress. The tensor bandage Hayden insisted I wear to cover my chest found a home on my dresser. T-shirt, shorts that actually covered my behind, and Hayden’s hoodie were the outfit of choice. Then I set about tidying up so he didn’t feel compelled to do it for me. The coffee table was still disorganized, but the rest of the place looked decent. I settled into the corner of the couch and picked up my thesis so I could work on it while I waited for him to arrive.
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