Hothouse Flower (20 page)

My mom would have never known about Lily’s sex addiction.

She would have never shouted it to the fucking world.

No media.

Daisy would sleep peacefully.

Lily wouldn’t feel so fucking ashamed.

Connor and Rose wouldn’t have their sex life distributed
online.

And my brother—I think he’d still be drinking.

I take a deep breath, the night saddling me with more regret
than I’m used to bearing. “I haven’t always done the right thing, Connor,” I
say. “I’m not perfect. But I’m trying so hard to look after my brother and her.
But if I’m hurting them, then you need to tell me right now.” I meet his gaze—no
pretenses. No jokes. The severity in our postures makes it hard to breathe. And
I tell him something from my fucking soul. “I don’t want to ruin anyone’s life
by being in it. That was never my intention.”
 

Connor lets out an exhausted laugh, and tears actually brim
his eyes. “
Ryke
…” He shakes his head and rubs his
lips. He drops his hand. “You
ran
with
her in your arms for over three miles. Your brother’s existence caused your
parent’s divorce, and yet, you gave up most of your time and energy to help him
through his sobriety. How can you possibly think you’re a pain in their life?
What you’ve done for them, it’s nothing short of heroic, and if you can’t see
that, then you’re blind, my friend.”

A hot tear rolls down my cheek.

I’m so fucking tired of being alone. I was scared that he’d
tell me to fucking leave. Because that means going back to a life I can’t see
for myself anymore. Daisy has changed that for me. She made me comfortable to
share my life with someone else, to live for happiness in the company of
others. My solitary future looks bleak. But my future filled with my brother,
my friends,
her
—there’s nothing
fucking brighter.

She’s the sun. I’m the dark.

If she’s gone, I can kiss that fucking light away.

Without her, I know I’ll never see it again.
 

< 27 >

DAISY CALLOWAY

I open my eyes, disoriented. My vision blurs,
everything out of focus. I blink sluggishly, my arms and legs heavy. My mind
hasn’t processed anything beyond my physical abnormalities—the lightness of my
head, the numbness along my face, the tingling in my fingers.

I make out shadows, dark and light, first. A figure rises
from a chair, standing closer to me.

I’m not waking up after a night terror.

This feels so different.

I try to recall my last memory, the last picture I had
before this—before lying down.

It’s not coming as quickly as I’d hoped. It’s just fuzzy.

Thankfully my ears are working. “Daisy,” the deep familiar
voice says, still rough but full of unbridled concern. “Can you hear me?”

I try to nod. I think I’m nodding. I blink two more times,
and then my vision clears.
Ryke
towers beside a
hospital bed.
My
hospital bed. But I
focus on his features, the scratches along his cheeks, the bruises that blemish
his eyes and jaw. The stitches on his eyebrow.

“
Ryke
,” I whisper, raspy.

Tears build in my eyes. I’ve never seen
Ryke
so battered before. My hand instinctively goes to my mouth to hide my emotions,
but the movement tugs an IV stand. I glance down to inspect the source. Tubes
are stuck in the top of my hand, running across my lap.

Ryke
takes a seat on the edge of
the bed, by my legs. He rubs them, even though they’re underneath a light blue
blanket. “Do you need water?” He’s just as overwhelmed as me, his features
hardening to hide that burgeoning emotion.
 

I shake my head. “Can you…come closer?” I reach for his
hand, but I grasp air. I try to sit up in the bed so I can see more of him, but
my whole body is sore like I was hit by a truck.
Was I?
Did I accidentally run into traffic?
Please tell me I didn’t do something stupid that got him hurt too.

I burst into tears because I’m terrified that’s what
happened.

“Daisy, don’t cry,” he says. “We’re going to get through
this.”
We.
I focus on this one
pronoun while he presses a button on a remote. The bed groans as it rises to a
sitting position. Then he scoots forward so he’s beside my thigh.

I let out a breath to stop the waterworks, and then I reach
out, my fingers skimming his cheek. He watches me inspect the damage with a
trembling hand, and I zoom in on the stitches. “Your eyebrow…”

“It’s fine.” He clasps my wrist to stop me from poking at
it.

“It’s going to scar,” I murmur.

His face almost breaks. He shakes his head repeatedly. “I
don’t fucking care.”

I smile weakly, but the motion stings.
Why does that hurt?
My lips fall. “What happened?” I ask.

His Adam’s apple bobs. “You can’t remember?”

“No,” I breathe. “Did I…did I do something stupid? You
didn’t…you didn’t follow me into traffic, did you?” The fact that this could be
a possibility, I realize that reflects poorly upon me. I can be unthinking and
selfish when I try to live fully. But I’ve always loved that
Ryke
never stops me.

Whatever wild thing I do,
Ryke
Meadows does too.

Down a ski slope.

In an ocean, caged with sharks.

Off a cliff.

Off a cliff.
I was
fifteen. I dove into the water. He jumped in after me. I couldn’t imagine any
other guy willing to do that for someone they hardly knew. In that moment, I
had fallen for
Ryke
. Literally, figuratively—I knew,
if we couldn’t be together, he would be my friend.

Here we are now.

In a hospital. “Maybe I should have left you alone,” I
whisper.

“What are you talking about?”

“You wouldn’t be hurt…” I scrutinize the way his muscles
tense, sitting rigidly. I grip the bottom of his white T-shirt—that doesn’t
look like one of his.

He holds my hands, stopping me. “Daisy,” he says with force.
“I’m fine.”

“Take off your shirt.”

“No.”

I smile again.
Ow
.
“I must be the
only girl you’ve rejected.”

“That’s so fucking
not
true,” he growls. He glances at the hospital bed, me in it, and then he
sighs heavily, giving in. He lifts the shirt off, and my mouth plummets.

My hands zip across the yellowish purple bruises that mar
his abs and chest, some bleeding into his phoenix tattoo. “Turn around,
please,” I say softly.

He rotates only halfway, and I see even worse ones, deeper
yellow, deeper purple. I want to kiss the wounds, but as soon as I lean
forward, he puts a hand on my collar and leans me back against a fluffy pillow.

“What’s the last thing you remember, Dais?” he asks me
seriously.

I strain my mind. “The bar.”
We went to the pub next to the hotel.
“Lo…”
He drank alcohol.
“Christina—I saw her in the pub and…”
Ian.
“You didn’t…did you guys…”
Did they fight?
“Ian…” I blink a few
times, the picture starting to form. No, that fight ended early. That’s not
what happened. “I was outside with Christina. We were about to go to the
hotel.”

Flashes of the next events ripple through my mind. I was
watching these two big guys screaming on the sidewalk, pushing each other in
the chest. One punch flew, and then I was swept in a hurricane of drunken men
and violent acts. I immediately shoved Christina back, and someone’s jacket
zipper caught in my long hair. I was dragged backwards.

“
Ryke
…” The fear as I fell on the
pavement returns, and the heart monitor’s steady
beep, beep, beep
picks up pace. Feet clobbered around me, on my
stomach, my legs, and finally I yanked my hair free, only for it to snag in
something else. This time, it pulled hard near my forehead. The pain seared beneath
adrenaline.
 
Beepbeepbeepbeep
.
 
 

“Daisy, look at me,”
Ryke
says,
his hand sliding on my thigh, holding me tightly.

I meet his concerned gaze just as the last memory hits me. I
picked myself off the concrete. “I saw you,” I whisper. “You were right there.”
I remember meeting his eyes. And they were full of anger, full of desperation,
full of gut-wrenching pain.

He screamed my name. I heard it only once before something
hard met my face.

My face.

For the first time, I raise my hand to touch my cheek. All I
feel is tape, gauze, maybe. But whatever lies underneath it—that’s what hurts
each time I begin to smile.

BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP!

“Take deep fucking breaths,” he tells me, rubbing my arm.

Someone knocks twice, and then the hospital doors open. A nurse
in pink scrubs sticks her head in. “Daisy, you’re awake.” She smiles, and then
she turns slightly to whisper to someone else. “Can you go let her friends
know?” She shuts the door behind her and pads closer to me. “My name is Janet.
How are you feeling?”

She pours a cup of water and passes it to me. I take a sip
and hand it immediately to
Ryke
. “Can I have a
mirror?” I ask her.

Beepbeepbeepbeep
.

I can’t articulate my feelings beyond panic. I just need to
see my face first to understand these emotions that blow through me.

“Do you want me to call the hospital psychologist first?”

What?
“
Ryke
.” I turn to him with widened eyes.

“Can you just give her a mirror?” he asks Janet with a hard
gaze.

She nods. “Okay.” Janet tentatively picks up a handheld mirror
from a drawer, and I take it from her.

I raise it up to my face.
BeepbeeepBEEPBEEP
.

Bandages cover my left cheek down to my jaw. But my lip is
swollen, and dark purpled bruises sit beneath both eyes. I look…so much worse
than
Ryke
, no wonder he stared at me like
stop fucking talking about my injuries.

I start picking at the tape, to uncover the bandage, and
Janet swats my hand away. “Don’t touch.”

“I need to see it.” I don’t even know what
it
is.

And then another nurse in blue scrubs waltzes in with Connor
and Lo.

“Hey,” Lo says with a weak smile. “How are you doing?” He
touches my feet above the blanket. I want to return the smile, but it hurts too
much to do so.

“Okay,” I say.

Connor just nods. “Has anyone told you what’s happened?”

“Sort of,” I murmur. “I want to see what’s wrong with my
face.”

“She doesn’t know?” Lo frowns and glares at
Ryke
like it’s his fault.

“We’re fucking getting there.”

“Let me help,” the other nurse says, sidling to the bed. “We
have to put new dressings on the wound anyway.”

Ryke
stands up while both the
nurses hover over me. He joins Lo and Connor at the foot of the bed, and my
heart rate stays at the same
beepbeepbeepbeep
pace.

Janet slowly removes the tape, peeling back the bandage that
clings to a few stitches…no wait, a
lot
of
stitches.

“It was a deep gash,” Janet explains in the kindest way
possible. “You’ve had an MRI. Everything came back normal. The doctors said you
may have a slight concussion, but otherwise, you’ll be fine in about two weeks,
no more stitches. Just a—”

“Scar,” I finish for her. They free my face of gauze and
tape, and there it is: a reddened gash that runs from my temple, across my
cheek, to my jaw. I move my tongue in my mouth, along my gum, feeling the backs
of the stitches, as though my cheek was cut open at one point.

“How…”
BEEPBEEPBEEP.
I
look up at
Ryke
, my eyes like saucers.

“You were hit with a fucking two-by-four. The doctors think
there was something sharp on the board that sliced you.”

“You were given a tetanus shot,” the blue-scrub nurse
assures me.

Janet says, “We can get the psychologist in here.”

Because I’ll have this scar forever. Because I’ll never be
the pretty Daisy Calloway in magazine spreads or down runways. I am no longer a
model.

I am no longer the person my mom aspired me to be.

But I am more me now than I was before.

I shut my eyes and lean my head back. And my heart rate—it
slows. I take a deep breath. What feels like my very first one ever, and silent
tears fall. A pressure so heavy begins to rise off my chest.

“It’s okay to be upset,” Janet tells me.

I open my eyes and shake my head, a weak laugh escaping.
“I’m not upset.” My chin quivers. I wipe the tears and I say, “I’m relieved.”
My gaze meets
Ryke’s
. “How sick is that?” And then I
burst into tears because I know I shouldn’t feel this way.

He’s by my side in seconds, and I wrap my arms around his
chest.

I didn’t realize how trapped I was until this very moment.
Until something so horrifying could actually feel good.

And I know I’m partly to blame. If this doesn’t tell me that
I need to stand up for myself, then I don’t think anything could.
 

< 28 >

DAISY CALLOWAY

Pain medication conks me out. It’s been a new type
of sleep. Not exactly better. I always feel lethargic, drowsy, and I still ache
for that perfect sleep that I used to have before the media. Luckily
Ryke
supplies me with an energy drink on my last day in the
hospital.

I sip the Lightning Bolt! while I dig through my suitcase
that he brought. The guys have already checked out of the hotel for me and
gathered our stuff.

“Did you call your agency?”
Ryke
asks.

“Yeah, I quit last night.” The final day of Fashion Week, I
called Revolution Modeling Inc. and said, “I don’t want to model anymore. I’m
sorry, but you’ll have to find someone else for the runway tonight. And I won’t
be working for the next three weeks or in the future.” My voice wasn’t as
confident or ballsy as maybe Rose’s would have been. But I look at it as a
trial run for the phone call to my mom.

They asked why.

I said the biggest truth of all: “I don’t love modeling.”

No cop outs. I’ve had two days in the hospital—of quiet
nights left with my endless thoughts—to come to this conclusion. My career has
ended because of my face, but it should have ended so much sooner because of my
health, my emotions, my happiness. It has taken a near-death experience and the
end-all of modeling for me to realize this. Blaming it on the scar—it seems
like the easy way to deal. I know I won’t feel better unless I do it the way I
was always meant to.

I find a pair of jean shorts and a shirt that says:
I’m a fucking mermaid.
“How’s this?” I
ask
Ryke
, flashing the V-neck at him.

He almost smiles, which sells it for me.

I zip up my bag. “Can you close the curtains while I
change?” I give him a single look like
you
don’t have to leave.

His features are hard to gauge. I can’t read much behind his
brooding eyes. I’ve tried not to question if he’s going to break up with me
over my face. He did say,
We’re going to
get through this.
I just wonder if he’ll be helping me as a friend or as
something more.

These thoughts tear holes inside my stomach.

I guess I’m about to find out where his head is at. Connor
and Lo are waiting in the rental car for us. So we’re alone for the first time
since I initially woke up. I don’t think Lo is worried about leaving us
together. I can tell he’s trying to trust his brother, especially after
screwing up and drinking.

I also talked to Rose and Lily, stopping them before they
flew out to Paris. I don’t want Lily to miss college or Rose to cancel meetings
for her fashion business just to see me. It took some convincing and a two-hour
argument, but I won out this time. Although, Rose made me Skype her, but I
refused to show the wound beneath my bandage. I told her that she’d have a good
look at it every time she saw me for the rest of my life. So she can wait a few
more weeks.

I watch
Ryke
whip the curtain
around the ceiling track, enclosing us in the room for extra privacy. I set my
jeans and shirt on the end of the bed, the hospital gown hanging on my body
like a thin sack. The silence speeds my heart. Luckily I’m no longer hooked to
any machines, but my shallow breath replaces the
beep
beep
beep
.

I can’t tell what he’s going to do, and that mystery
instantly draws me to him. I take a couple steps forward and then stop halfway,
a few feet separating us. He stands tall, his masculinity so apparent in his
build and hard jawline. I think I could live underneath
Ryke
Meadows, under his weight and protection, and be satisfied for life.

The thought pulls my lips upward. I ignore the pinch in my
cheek, the slight pain of the motion. I want to smile, dammit. So I’m
gonna
smile.

He watches me closely, all my small movements under
scrutiny, and then he steps forward. One foot near. I inhale strongly, smelling
his woodsy scent, like water and earth. I’m too curious about his thoughts and
actions to touch him first.

His eyes meet mine and then fall to the collar of my
hospital gown. He never looks at me like I’m half of myself, too beaten to
love, too fragile to handle. Instead, his gaze rakes me like it’s our first
time being this close again.

One more step and his chest brushes against mine with each
deep breath. He leans forward, and I go rigid. His lips tickle my ear. “You’re
so fucking beautiful.”

I smile wide. Those words mean so much more now than they
ever did before. “Say that again.”

“How about I just fucking show you?” His hot breath warms my
neck, and then he kisses that very spot, deeply right away. Just like that, my
body responds by curving towards him. He holds the back of my head, sucking the
nape of my neck with such diligence that every nerve lights.

“
Ryke
,” I breathe softly, a
high-pitched moan following.

My arms slip underneath his, holding his back like he
belongs to me. I can’t believe I’m turned on after being cooped up in a
hospital. But my sore limbs loosen like jelly at his possessive touch.

He unties my hair, slipping the band on his wrist. Then he
messes the long locks with a rough hand, as he’s done so many times before. It
dizzies me, and my heart palpitates.

His lips return, trailing my collar. He fingers the ties on
the back of my gown. I only wear panties, having put them on as I started
dressing earlier. The hospital fabric slips off me, the cool air nipping my skin.
Goose bumps run along my bruised arms and legs. I stiffen, thinking he’s going
to pull away at the sight of all the purple blemishes, but he only gently
kisses around them, being careful with me but not so much that he’d let me go.

I wish I could kiss him back. Even if it didn’t hurt,
Ryke
would never allow my lips to near him, not wanting to
cause me pain. But his kind of TLC is the best kind. His hands slide along my
hips, edging towards my yellow cotton panties, daises printed on the
backside.
 

My mouth opens as I watch his kisses descend to my boobs,
already exposed for him, no bra to unclip or fling off. His head lowers to the
top of my right breast, and as he nears my nipple, I have a flash of what
happened with Ian. The sharp pain. Biting.
Blood.

I jerk back in fright, and
Ryke
says nothing about the panicked flinch. He just lifts me up to his waist, my
legs wrapping around him, and then he brings me to the bed. I lie on the soft
blue blanket, and
Ryke
hardly misses a beat. He
splits my legs open, kneeling between them before he kisses the same spot
beside my nipple.

Only this time, he watches my expression as he sucks the
sensitive skin, his eyes on me the whole time, studying my response. So that’s
why he moved me. I like this position better. His pelvis is right up against my
pelvis, and I
hook
my ankle around his to secure me
to him.

I hold my breath as he kisses my nipple, his tongue skimming
the hard bud with only a desire to light my body. It works as soon as his other
hand kneads my left breast, and a sharp cry entangles with my gasp.

He sucks a little harder, and I tense, so he slows, which
feels… “
Ahh
,” I cry again.
Wow.
His forceful passion stays, pulsing the spot between my legs
with new need and want. I ache for something harder. An ache I’ve never
experienced to this degree.

“I want you so badly,” I say with another gasp. I claw at
his back, his shirt riding up. My hips are thrust upwards against him with so
much pressure that he groans, the noise deep in his throat.

He strokes the sweaty hair off my forehead, and then he sits
up, his hands running along my long slender legs. He stares at the length of
them with a newfound hot and heavy lust. “I love so many fucking parts of you,”
he says huskily.

I clutch the blanket on either side of my hips, grinding
harder into him. “Take off your jeans,” I practically whimper. Usually I want
the guy to keep them on, for the uncomfortable moment to end faster. This is so
foreign. And I adore every single second.

“We’re not having sex yet, so store that fantasy for later,
sweetheart.”
Sweetheart.

I smile. No pain. It’s drowned beneath my arousal.

Ryke
says sweetheart with so much
force that it conflicts with the mildness of the word. I wonder if that’s us.
Soft to his hard. Sweet to his rough. Wild to his stone.

I like it.
 

He grabs my ankles, unhooking them from him, and he bends my
legs. He pauses once, listening for the silence, hearing my breath, and I think
he’s discerning how much time we have before someone catches us. We are in a
hospital. A public place. But he has a way of making it feel like the most
private, safe place on Earth. Thankfully he looks satisfied to continue.

He kisses the top of my knee, and then his intense gaze
meets mine. He takes two of his fingers and slips them in
his
mouth for a short moment. Just watching that—my hands dig
harder into the bed. With my head on the pillow, he’s too far away to clutch.

His hand glides underneath my panties, and his two warm
fingers enter the pulsing spot, I clench around him almost immediately. I moan,
my mouth permanently open. The corners of his lips rise, and he unlatches one
of my hands from the bed.

“Have you been this wet before?” he asks me. He presses my
fingers to the same spot that he’s inside, and my cold touch feels worse than
his warm. I am not
just
wet. I am
soaked. And I feel so swollen with need.

I shake my head. “You’ve done what I have trouble doing to
myself.”

“It’s time for that to fucking change, don’t you think?”

I smile wider.

“Don’t smile,” he says. “I don’t want to fucking hurt you.”

“There’s no way you can.” He’s only ever been the opposite
in my life. The most positive force there ever was. He’s like that to everyone
he meets. I’m sure of it.
 

“Still,” he retorts.

I bite my lip to keep from grinning, and he lets my hand go
as soon as he begins moving his two fingers inside me, finding a sensitive
place that I’ve been searching for, for years. I wish I could see his hand
beneath my panties, his fingers so deep in me. That’s a visual I’d keep planted
near the front of my brain.

I don’t want him so far away. I slowly sit up while he fucks
me with his fingers, and he gives me a stern look like
you can’t fucking kiss me.

I rest my forehead on his chest and stare down at the way
his hand moves beneath the cotton. He has to adjust a little inside me, but he
finds the right place again. He holds the back of my head with his other hand.
Out of need and instinct, I rock my hips, driving him deeper. I cry at the new
sensations.
 

“Easy,” he whispers, but now that I’m so close, he pulls my
panties down to my thighs, showing me what he’s doing.

Just seeing
Ryke
, his hand, right
between my legs, his fingers all the way inside me, it nearly sends me over. “
Ryke
,” I gasp. “
RykeRykeRyke
.” I
clutch onto his back and keep rocking my hips in sync with the movement of his
fingers. I am climbing a gorgeous mountain that I have never even neared
before. And he’s the one taking me there.

He leans my back on the blanket again, but he doesn’t pry me
off him, so in result, I’ve taken
Ryke
with me. He
hovers over my body, so close to me. Even if he’s fully clothed and I lie
naked, I feel safe in his possession.

“Don’t stop,” I cry. “
Ryke
.” I
grab his bicep for support.

I meet his wanting gaze once before my toes curl, my spine
arches, and my eyes roll back. Every part of me explodes like a thousand
fireworks inside my head and body.

I go off.

And I come for the very first time.

Finally.

He keeps me full while my breath slows and I clench a few
more times.

I laugh because that was one of the best things I’ve ever
felt. Period. And he hasn’t even pushed his cock inside of me yet.

“Better than chocolate?” he asks, wiping my lips that stay
parted. His forearm rests beside my head, propping up his body as he stares
down at me.

“I don’t know,” I pant. “I think I need to test this out
five or six more times to make a definitive answer.” I smile playfully.

“I have a strong fucking feeling that we’ll hear your answer
quickly.”

“I love your strong feelings,” I tell him.

“I love watching you come,” he says like it’s a simple fact.
But it’s not simple at all.

“How much?”

He kisses my good cheek and then whispers, “More than you’ll
ever fucking know.”

Damn.
He slips his
fingers out of me, wiping them on the blanket, and then he slides my soaked
panties off my legs at an extremely slow rate. So slow that my body clenches
all over again. When they’re off my feet, I turn on my stomach and moan into
the covers. “Just take me now,” I say into the muffled blankets.

He’s on his knees, and he lifts me by the hips so I’m on
mine too. “That’s not how I take women,” he says, squeezing my ass.

“You torture them,” I say, turning my head. “I can’t come
twice before we have sex.”

“Want to fucking bet?” he says with narrowed eyes.

I grin. “Yes, I do. Let’s test it out now.”

“We don’t have time,” he says, shutting it down. It was
worth a shot. He wipes between my legs with the blanket, and then he swiftly
grabs me around the waist and sets my feet on the floor. Completely naked. I
watch as he grabs a clean pair of panties from my bag.