Breathe Me (A 'Me' Novel) (12 page)

“Can’t? Or wont?” I crowded her space and caught her eye, fucking daring her to lie.

“What’s the difference? I just don’t want to go.” Her eyes pleaded with me to let this shit go. Fuck that.

“Why?”

“Why what?” she asked, almost impatiently now. Cute, she was trying to get mad.

“Why don’t you want to go? Obviously you are in pain, so why not?”

“I don’t have insurance,” she blurted, like that was going to deter me.

As the light changed and I shifted gears, I called her on her bullshit. “You’re lying.”

“How the hell would you know? You don’t even know me,” she challenged.

“And yet you let me stick my tongue in your fucking mouth.” Yeah, she had shit to say.

“You kissed me,” she accused.

“I know.” I pulled up to the clinic and parked, then turned to her and leveled her with a knowing look. “I also know that your nipples got hard and heavy and were begging to be touched, that you had an ache in between your thighs, and that I could have found your pussy just as wet and willing as your mouth had I pushed it. And I also know you’re fucking lying to me about your back, and I’m not letting you out of this car until you agree to get checked out. So yeah, I may not know you, but you don’t know me either. Don’t push me. I push back.”

She stared at me without blinking for so long I thought I broke her, then she exhaled a long breath and gave me this defeated, resigned look.

“I can’t go here. I’m not trying to be difficult, but this place will take all day and I really need to work. If I miss a day…I just can’t. Please, can we figure out something else?”

I looked her over, the way she was sitting without her back touching the seat, the pain she must’ve been in trying to hold her body in that position but still trying to negotiate this. Who was this girl, and why was I suddenly doing a 180 and flipping who I was for her?

Don’t get involved.

That’s my motto, my slogan, and what I had been solid on. My life was full of enough chaos. I didn’t need anyone else’s shit added on to my pile. Except with her, I wanted all her shit and then some. I wanted to fuck someone up, anyone who would fuck with her like this. When I looked at her, I felt so many things. New, different things. I wanted to help her, fuck her, and save her all at the same time. Shit, I was turning into a punk.

I got the fear—I did—and you couldn’t push someone on it. Fear was a powerful bitch that grabbed you by the balls and twisted, so I knew what her hang-up was about being checked out. She was scared of him, of what that fucker would do if he found out or called work and she wasn’t there. If I could, I would roll up on his ass and take care of it, but I didn’t want to leave her. Exhaling, I turned on the car and began backing out and heading in the opposite direction, not saying a word.

She seemed to relax the farther and farther we drove away from the clinic. It wasn’t until we passed the turn for her job again that she said something.

“I told you I can’t miss work today. Where are you taking me?” Panic laced her question.

Fine, she didn’t want a professional at a clinic checking her out, cool. But someone would.

“My house,” I replied and accelerated.

Chapter 17

Harley

His house? Shit, shit, shit! I was not prepared to go to his house. I was not prepared for agreeing to let someone help me, and I was definitely not prepared for the things he said and how they made me feel. I should’ve been focused on other things, my back, me being late for work, my monster. But I was stupidly obsessing over him saying I had a great pair of tits. And that I was wet and willing when he kissed me. Those words did something to my brain, turned it to goo and made me want to do things I had only dreamed about. His voice was like a warm summer’s day, wrapping me up in a blanket of warmth and making me too hot all at the same time. My overheated, sexed-up brain was probably the reason why I had agreed to let him take me some place to get looked at.

He didn’t say anything as we sped closer to the edge of town where the well-off people lived, and I had to wonder if he lived there, why did he ever leave? I wasn’t naive enough to think that money could buy happiness, but I was sure it made life cushy.

Afraid to protest, I just sat there watching as we passed one fancy house after another, probably filled with families about to head off to work, some having breakfast, doing things I was envious of.

We slowed as we neared a large two-story home that had more front windows than I could count. The lawn was a plush green, and as we pulled into the circular driveway, I noticed a fancy-looking car parked to the side, along with what I knew was Matt’s truck. I tensed, and he must have sensed it because he looked from me to the truck and bit out a low curse.

“Look, I’ll ease you up to my old room through the back. He won’t even know you are here,” he said as he took the keys from the ignition. I braced myself, because this could go only one of two ways: Matt would pick that moment to come out of the front doors and see me and assume I was there to fuck his brother, or he could catch me in the house and notice the stiffness in my walk and would know something was off about me, and then my phone would blow up with texts and phone calls from Ember. Neither one of those things I was rooting for.

With carefulness, I eased myself out of the passenger seat and placed my bag in front of me like a shield. I followed Deklan around the house to a side door, which he unlocked with a key that had been hidden somewhere in the bushes. We stepped into a spacious and modern-looking kitchen with black and brown accents and a large island in the middle that was so shiny I could have used it as a mirror. I tried not to gawk at the expensiveness of everything, but it was kind of sensory overload for me.

Deklan walked directly to the small set of stairs just off to the side of the fridge. I followed his long stride up the stairs and past two closed doors, all the while trying not to stare at the wide set of his shoulders or the muscles in his arms flexing as he reached for another door and turned the knob.

He turned to me with an expectant look on his face, and I scrambled inside and watched him shut the door quickly behind him. Turning to me, he pulled out a desk chair and waved to it casually.

“Kick it up for a bit. I’m going to go get someone to take a look at your back. You wanna tell me some things before I go, though?”

I said nothing. I didn’t even know where to start if I wanted to. How do you start off telling someone your mom hates you? So instead, I examined a thread in the plush carpet at my feet and waited.

“You’re gonna talk, babe, whether it be on your own or me fucking it out of you. One way or another those pretty little lips are gonna start spilling your secrets.”

At the mere mention of him getting me to talk by fucking me, my head popped up—in alarm or anticipation, I couldn’t tell you which one, and neither could he, as he was already out the door with a “wait here” demand.

Feeling more than a little out of place and left with nothing to do but sit, I did what any girl in my position would do. I snooped. Or rather, I looked around. His room didn’t have much in it as far as personal things went. No pictures of half-naked women on his walls, no sports posters or trophies displayed. Weren’t guys supposed to have stuff like that in their rooms? I had never been in a guy’s room before, and I found this one kind of plain. Considering whose room it was, I figured there would be wrestling trophies or football memorabilia. Even though he had left home, normal parents kept things like that around, right?

Looking around at the spacious and bare room, I took in the bed, with its plain blue sheets and pillows, made nice and neat. The desk was made of a smooth oak and had a pencil holder, stapler, and tape dispenser on top, just waiting for someone to do work there. I tried to imagine Deklan coming home from school to a mom who had a snack made for him while he sat at this desk and did his homework. I didn’t want to be too jealous of the fact that while he was getting pampered, I was getting nothing short of tortured. I didn’t belong here. I couldn’t believe I’d let him talk me in to this.

“Exit, exit, exit,” I chanted frantically, searching for a bathroom. There was no way I could just leave. I wouldn’t even know how to find my way back down the stairs. I needed to regroup before he came back. Pulling on one of the three doors in the room, I prayed the first one would be what I was searching for but stopped short. In front of me were stacks of comic books and books. Books! Forgetting my bathroom quest, I carefully pulled out the first book I could reach.
To Kill a Mockingbird
, interesting. The second was
The Catcher in the Rye
, another eyebrow lifter. This couldn’t be his room. There were some heavy classics mixed in with The Flash and Hulk comics. If I could bend without pain, I would have sat and gone through all of them, picking out my favorites or ones I’d lost, then beg Deklan to ask whomever they belonged to to let me borrow them or possibly have them, since they were just stuffed in a closet. Who stuffed books in a closet? They were made to be read, lived in, explored.

I dropped an Avengers comic when the door suddenly opened. I turned and saw Deklan standing in the doorway, staring at me for a moment. Then he came over and took the comic from me, put it back, and guided me out of the closet, quietly closing the door.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. I was looking for the bathroom,” I started to explain. The last thing I wanted was for him to think I was trying to steal it or being purposely nosey, even though I was doing the latter.

“Relax. Greta here is gonna check your back.” I noticed a woman in cat-print scrubs standing behind him. She had a slightly graying blonde bun and a small smile on her face. She held gauze and antiseptic in one hand and gloves in another. Um, was his mom a nurse or something?

“You really didn’t have to go through all this trouble. Really, it’s just a scrape.” I was nervous about going to the clinic and people judging me, and those would have been strangers. But this was his mom, and he didn’t act like he was going to leave, so he’d see my back too and would…think things. I couldn’t deal. I tried to walk around her and head for somewhere, anywhere, but the room felt like it was closing in on me.

“Sit the fuck down, babe. Let her see,” Deklan said calmly—almost too calmly—and I knew I was fucked. No way out of this. Shit.

I glanced at Greta, then back at him, then at the floor and let out a resigned sigh. I looked him in the eye. If this was happening, I would not feel bad or guilty about it, but I would take it for what it was. He felt sorry for me, and once this was over, he would be gone and I would be…the same, only different.

“Can we have a little privacy?” I asked in a strong voice when I was feeling anything but.

He chuckled, like I had told a joke, then walked out and closed the door behind him.

I breathed a little easier.

“I’m Greta, Mrs. Kane’s nurse. You want to lift your shirt so I can see where you’re hurt?” she asked, her tone gentle.

This wasn’t his mom? That made me a little less nervous, so I turned around and stood with my back to her. I tried to peel my shirt off without help, but when it was apparent it was too painful, her gentle hands moved mine aside. She told me to life my arms as best I could and helped me remove my shirt. Her sharp intake of breath had me fearing it looked a lot worse than it had this morning. I tried not to let the shame wash over me when she tsked and then donned her gloves and went to work dabbing at the tender spots and the ones with the small cuts. I tried to hold strong and pretend the stinging from the antiseptic didn’t hurt like I was getting hit all over again. The weight of shame was bearing heavy on my shoulders, and I hung my head when she asked me what had happened.

“I fell,” I let out flatly, and her answering hum told me she knew I was a dirty liar. It took her twenty long, stinging minutes to clean and dress my back, then she helped me shrug my shirt back on. But just as I had gotten it over my head, I heard the door open. I scrambled to quickly pull my shirt down the rest of the way, but I knew it was too late. He had seen.

“What the fuck, Harley? Who did that?” His voice was hard and angry, and it made me feel like I had done something wrong. I didn’t want to turn around and see the angry face that I knew went with that voice. I heard Greta tell me that some aspirin would be laid out for me downstairs and something about changing my dressings in a few days. When I didn’t hear her anymore, I assumed she’d left, not wanting to aggravate him more.

“I asked you a goddamn question,” he said.

I couldn’t understand why he sounded so angry. Who was I to him? I was some chick he met by chance, and now he was playing my knight in shining armor? No one was nice like this unless they wanted something in return, and if I listened to my mother’s words that were always rattling around in my head, I had only one thing to offer.

“Why do you care?”

“What the fuck does that mean?” he asked, pulling a face.

“Exactly what it sounds like? Why do you care? You hardly know me. Look, I appreciate what you’re doing here and all, but I’m good. You don’t have to be nice to me because you’re my best friend’s boyfriend’s brother. We might fit the cliché perfectly, but it can’t happen.” I squared my shoulders and waited for a “You’re right, what the fuck was I thinking?” from him. Only it didn’t come.

“And what am I doing that you appreciate so much?” He pronounced “appreciate” like the word disgusted him. He stepped into my personal bubble, very close to my rapidly rising and falling chest, and placed his hands gently on my hips. Why did he have to be so close, knowing that it sent me into a nervy panic mode?

“You know.” I shrugged, unable to look up at him, scared shitless. This fear was a different kind of fear. This fear made me feel alive. “This…being nice to me, helping me, kissing me.” I whispered the last part, hating to admit that was why he’d kissed me.

“You got it all twisted. I’m not sliding up to you because I want this.” He gripped my hip with one hand, and before my mind comprehended what was happing, he lightly cupped my sex in his other hand. I was so shocked I barley registered the fact that I was very…turned on by his touch. The sudden uncomfortable feeling in my panties was enough proof. This was no-man’s-land. I had never even ventured there, and the fact that I was letting this stranger do it sent red flags up all over the place boasting DANGER!