They were the bane of my existence.
I’d had five surgeries over the last five years. I’d lost friends in hospitals. I’d lost family in hospitals.
Hospitals were evil.
They gave me an itchy feeling on the back of my neck that never quite went away.
“Ten?” A raspy voice coughed from behind me. She was shortening my name now.
I turned to face Tasha.
“You feeling okay now?” I wondered.
She nodded.
“Was that my sister?” she confirmed, gesturing to the phone that was still in my hand.
I shook my head. “Mig. But they’re on the way.”
Tasha closed her eyes and smiled, stretching slightly.
She quickly froze, realizing that any movement hurt.
“Help me sit up, please?” she pleaded.
I walked over to her bed, placing the button that dispensed the meds into Tasha’s bloodstream down beside her.
Then I lifted her up, one arm around her legs, and the other around her shoulders, until she was sitting more straight up in her bed.
“Better?” I tested.
She nodded.
“You scared the fuck out of me,” I told her.
Her head lolled to the side.
“Sorry,” she croaked.
“You want water?” I asked.
She nodded, and I braved the nurse’s station one more time.
I came back moments later to find Tasha reaching for her phone.
“It’s been buzzing off the hook since I got in here,” I told her. “But it’s not your sister or parents. It’s that same number you showed me the other day that sent you that weird text.”
Tasha grimaced.
“Whomever it is won’t stop texting me. It’s getting old,” she grumbled.
I picked up her phone and started to scroll through the texts.
One after the other, getting more and more urgent.
Are you okay?
What’d he do to you?
I’ll rescue you.
Found you.
You’re okay.
I’m glad you’re okay.
Did you like the flowers?
That last text had been only moments before, and I looked up from the phone in my hand to see a huge vase of flowers sitting on the windowsill that hadn’t been there earlier.
I placed the phone down gently on the bed beside Tasha’s hand.
“Motherfucker,” I breathed, standing up to go to the flowers.
“What’s wrong?” Tasha stammered.
“Motherfucker’s sending you flowers. How does he know where you’re at?” I prodded, turning to her.
She shook her head.
“I’ve never even responded to him,” she vowed worriedly at my back.
I picked up the card, then immediately wished I’d not touched it without gloves on.
I’ll love you forever. Can’t wait for you to come home. Get well soon.
I stared blankly at the wall for a few long moments while I tried to process the words in front of my face.
What. The. Fuck.
Chapter 5
It’s hard to find a sister that’s caring, loving, sweet, generous, and a good listener. So be gentle with me, and try not to lose me.
-Tasha to Annie
Tasha
“This is absolutely ridiculous,” I growled to the shit head’s back.
Casten turned around.
“Listen, it’s not like I want another female in my home,” Casten threw up his hands. “But you’re not staying at your place. We’ve already given you the options of your parents, Mig’s or my place. You chose my place. Let’s please not do this again.”
Casten was a little bit pissy.
I was invading his territory, and he didn’t want me to.
In fact, he wanted me there almost as much as I wanted to be there…and he’d told me so. Repeatedly.
And I think on a vindictive whim, I’d chosen Casten’s place just because he was being such a douche bag.
“Fine,” I growled at him.
But he was no longer there.
He was inside, and I was left on the sidewalk looking into his house through the open front door.
“Infuriating, no good, very bad, asshole man,” I snarled, stomping up the steps.
The movement pinched my healing incision on my lower belly, but I didn’t stop.
No pain, no gain, and all that shit.
I walked into the house and looked around at my surroundings.
Nothing much had changed from the time I was there a couple days ago.
It was now Monday afternoon, and the only thing I could tell that was different was the fact that there were no people here, except for the two women watching me from the couch.
“Hello,” I waved to them.
“Hello,” both of them echoed.
I pursed my lips, walking into the room with my arms across my belly, resting higher up than I normally would’ve liked, due to the incision from where my appendix had been brutally ripped from my body.
Well, not brutally.
I was sure it was taken quite nicely and all but that was neither here nor there.
“My name is CeeCee,” the older of the two women introduced herself, standing up.
She offered me her hand, and I shook it out of habit.
She looked vaguely familiar, but at this point in time I couldn’t quite place her. That might be due to the pain meds clouding my brain, however.
CeeCee had long brown hair the color of Casten’s, and she had his dimples.
But that was where the similarities ended.
She was small, much smaller than me.
In fact, if I had to guess, she was around five foot two or three inches compared to my own five foot nine inches.
She had her hair cut short around her shoulders, and she had the most beautiful green eyes I’d ever seen.
The other woman stood as well and offered me her hand, so I switched to her, studying her as inconspicuously as I could.
“My name’s Rhea, everyone calls me Rhea, and you’ll have to excuse Ten. He’s a grump when he misses lunch,” Rhea replied warmly.
I grinned at her.
“My little Storm Cloud never said he was hungry,” I teased.
Rhea’s smile widened.
“Storm Cloud. I like it,” she snickered.
CeeCee snorted.
“Your little Storm Cloud is on the back porch with Koda,” CeeCee pointed outside.
There I saw him throwing a ball for the dog, which I assumed had to be Koda.
“You know why I’m here?” I asked, turning my gaze back to them.
They both nodded.
I sighed and sat down on the couch. Gently.
“I wanted to go home,” I told the two of them.
CeeCee smiled.
“You’ve made the very short list of people Casten has to take care of,” CeeCee explained. “You’ll have to get used to it…and from what I understand, he has a reason to be nervous.”
Apparently, he did, but I didn’t really know for sure.
“Yeah, that’s what he said, anyway,” I told them.
CeeCee pulled out her phone.
“He sent me these pictures of your place,” she started, but I waved her off.
“I’ve already seen them,” I muttered.
I was going to be sick.
My place had been trashed.
The only thing left viable had been my bedroom and clothes, and even then they all needed a good wash and bleaching since the guy had decided to have his way all over my clothes.
I’d thought about throwing them away, but I didn’t have the money to replace them.
And not all of them were soiled, only some of them.
My sister, the nice woman that she was, had taken all of my clothes to a laundromat and would return them once
they were cleaned of any nasty business from my intruder.
“Who do they think broke into your home?” Rhea questioned.
She looked so innocent, and I really didn’t want to talk about the man that had taken a fancy to me.
CeeCee, however, didn’t seem to notice my reaction to the question.
“Her place was broken into while she was in the hospital having her appendix removed,” CeeCee explained. “And Mig and Casten seem to think it’s related to that person who has been sending Tasha a lot of text messages.”
My stomach rolled.
Casten, however, saved the day by coming inside and walking past the three of us straight to the kitchen.
Koda, however, stopped directly in front of me, then dropped the most disgusting tennis ball covered in dog slime and dirt into my lap.
“Ewwww,” I frowned, rolling the ball off my legs with a single finger.
Koda picked it up and placed it right back into my lap.
“She thinks you’re playing with her,” Rhea giggled.
Well, I wasn’t.
I wasn’t a big dog fan, and I missed my ferret and cat.
My sister had taken them for me, for the time being, because Casten had refused them entry into his home. I guess I should feel privileged that he even let me into his home.
“Anybody want pizza? I seem to have run out of everything essential to make any kind of meal,” Casten drawled from the doorway that led into the kitchen.
My stomach growled, and he smirked at me before looking at his sisters.
“No, we just ate all your food,” Rhea waved him off. “But if you wanted to order extra, I’d eat it for lunch tomorrow.”
Pizza sounded heavenly.
“I could eat,” I told him.
Hospital food sucked.
Like bad.
In fact, I thought I might have lost the final fifteen pounds that I’d been wanting to lose. But I didn’t have my clothes to try on my skinny jeans to test that theory.
“What kind do you like?” He turned his gaze to me.
“Buffalo chicken with that buffalo sauce drizzled on top. Pepperoni and mushroom as well,” I answered him.
There was a slight pause in the room, and I looked at them all.
“What?” I looked around.
“That sounds disgusting,” Rhea was the one to answer.
I shrugged. “Y’all asked what I liked. What? Did you want me to lie?”
Casten just shook his head, then walked to his phone and ordered the pizza.
I found that I was really happy he didn’t make fun of me.
I wasn’t the most conventional of women, and it was nice to have someone not question those things that most people found weird about me.
***
“You get any more messages?” Casten asked.
I shook my head. “No. I haven’t.”
He grunted. “I gotta check your belly to make sure there’s no seepage.”
I wanted to throw up a little bit in my mouth at his use of the word ‘seepage.’
I lifted my shirt, and Casten got down on his haunches so he was eye level with my belly. I had been instructed to leave the bandage off after the third post-op day to check for infection.
“Looks okay,” he murmured.
I saw the moment he realized, and I prayed that he wouldn’t say anything.
My prayer wasn’t answered.
“What’s this?” Casten asked, running his finger along the scar on my belly that wasn’t from having my appendix removed.
I stiffened and turned away, pulling my shirt back down over my belly.
“Nothing,” I lied.
I wasn’t ready to talk about that yet.
In fact, I’d probably never be ready to talk about it.
It’d been well over eight years, and I still got cold sweats when I let my mind touch on the subject.
“Sure, it’s nothing,” Casten snorted. “You want to go to dinner?”
I turned around and scowled at him.
“Maybe. Where are we going?” I asked suspiciously.
He shrugged. “You pick. I gotta change my clothes.”
I pursed my lips as I watched him walk out of the room, surprised that he’d just let the whole scar tissue drop and then had asked me to dinner.
What had happened to his ‘I don’t date’ vibe he had before I’d gotten sick?
And on that subject, was I still invited to his mother’s wedding?
I moved like an old lady as I made my way to the door, pausing in the entranceway as I looked down the hall.
Casten’s house was actually kind of cool, the way it was set up.
The whole side of the house that we were in was made up of bedrooms. There were four of them in total, and I was in what he used as an office when he wasn’t at his actual office.
My room was right next to Rhea’s, and Rhea’s was right next to CeeCee’s.
Casten’s, though, was at the very end of the hall, and my door faced his door.
So I got to see as he shucked his pants and went for a different pair.
I watched as his muscles shifted and bunched, mouth going dry as he turned to start looping his belt into the belt loops, giving my first good look at his body without a t-shirt covering him.
He had amazing, rippled abs.
A well-defined chest.
And that beautiful V that led straight down to his crotch.
But what had my complete and total attention was his nipples.
They were pierced.
“Oh, my God,” I whispered.
He looked up and over at me, making me freeze like a deer in headlights.
He turned slightly, lifting his head to face me, then placing both hands on either side of his door.
“What are you looking at?” he rumbled.
I went momentarily blank at the picture he made.
God, he was sexy.
Standing there, leaning against the door frame, he looked like a man ready to pounce.
My nipples pebbled and my breathing sped.
And I wasn’t even going to get started on the things that were happening in my pants.
“Your nipples!” I blurted.
He looked taken aback by that.
“You’re lying,” he snapped.
I moved forward, only then becoming aware that my belly hurt.
But I kept moving, putting one foot in front of the other, until I stopped just inches from his face.
“You want to bet?” I challenged him.
“You were looking at my scars,” he hissed.
I laughed in his face.
“I don’t even know what ‘scars’ you are talking about. All I’m able to see,” I said, lifting my hand and placing it just under his nipple. “Are your fucking piercings. Wanna know why?” I asked.
He looked at me with raised brows, not answering.
He didn’t believe me.
And I smiled, crisscrossing my hands across my chest to each lower corner of my shirt, and I pulled it up and over my head.
I caught my bra along the way and bared my upper torso. I nearly laughed at the stunned look on his face.
“Now, do you see why I like your pierced nipples so much?” I asked.
He lifted his arm from the door frame, but I stepped back before he could touch.
“No touching,” I said. “These babies are only for people who like me.”
He looked up at me, his storm gray eyes clashing with my brown ones, and stared.
“What makes you think I don’t like you?” he asked.
I tossed him my shirt to hold while I maneuvered my sports bra back on, then held out my hand impatiently while I waited for him to give me my shirt.
He kept it.
“Casten,” I snapped.
“Answer me,” he ordered, pulling the t-shirt behind his back when I went to grab for it.
I narrow
ed my eyes at him.
“I’m only going off the vibe I get when you’re around me. You practically scream, ‘Don’t touch me!’ And I don’t want to even get into the fact that you had some woman hanging all over you the day you asked me to go to that wedding with you,” I crossed my arms, glaring really hard.
I was sure that’d make him give it back.
Because I’ve heard my glare could peel bark off a tree.
I was known as Coach Kickass to the students at the school, and I kind of liked it.
Casten, though, didn’t seem to be affected in the least.
I frowned. He must be immune because he was more of a badass than me.
“I’m not dating her…and I haven’t fucked her,” he chuckled.
I wanted to laugh.
“Out of all that I said, you got that I cared that you fucked her?” I tilted my head to study him.
He glared back.
And yep. His glare was better that mine, too.
Times ten.
Or maybe times two hundred and seventy.
“Are you feeding me, or should I go sit down? I’m tired,” I groaned, crossing my arms over my chest.
He handed me my t-shirt, albeit reluctantly.
I slipped it on, not missing the way his eyes lingered on my chest.
“Now, where are these scars you speak of?” I asked.
He turned around, and I managed to withhold the gasp that wanted to burst from my lungs.
His back was terrible.
It looked like a hunk of his left shoulder was just gone.
Like some shark had come and bit a chunk out of him.
He had other scars, too, but they weren’t anywhere near as bad as the one on his shoulder.
“Satisfied?” he asked, watching me in the mirror that I just realized was there.
I shrugged. “I’ve seen worse.”
He laughed humorlessly.
“You have not,” he challenged.
I shrugged.
“My best friend in the world, when I was sixteen, was burned in a house fire. He lived, but couldn’t live with his scars after it was all said and done. Killed himself when I was seventeen,” I blurted.
That painful memory ripped through me.
Jet Jones had been my best friend in the whole wide world.
He’d been my confidant. My first lover. My everything.
I thought that Jet and I would be together forever.
Then the fire had happened. And the Jet that came out of that fire wasn’t the same man that went into it to save me.
Vodka On The Rocks (The Uncertain Saints Book 3) Page 6