Spectacularly Broken (12 page)

“Thank you,” he said.

“Anytime.”

Lexa stood up from her chair. “I should go to bed. We all should, really, or else green group will be half-asleep tomorrow.”

Nicky pouted but was smart enough not to protest. Jarett grabbed his blanket and pillow and sleepily wandered out the door behind Nicky. Lexa went last and closed the door, and suddenly it was quiet.

Finally,
finally
I allowed myself to touch Cai like I’d been wanting to all evening. I smoothed my hands over his pajama top, caressed his pierced nipples through the fabric. I carded my fingers through his hair. I pressed my lips to his throat and pushed him down onto the bed while my lips traced his carotid artery. He responded to me with a slow, languid moan filled with longing.

“What do you need, baby?” I whispered against his earlobe. I registered the fact that I’d just used an endearment and filed it away to freak out about later. Right now I had better things to do.

“This,” Cai sighed and slipped his hands under my T-shirt, running his palms sensually up my back as he began a slow grinding motion against me. “Oh God, this.”

I obliged him. My shirt hit the floor, and he took immediate advantage, touching me more freely. My lips and tongue took their time exploring his throat—I didn’t want to stop, because Cai seemed to love it. After a short while, I managed to coax a series of soft, breathy moans from him when I licked beneath his jaw and ear. He pushed up, pressing his body flush against mine, undulating his hips and making me grow impossibly hard. I could feel him too, pushing insistently into the hollow of my hip.

He sucked in air, shuddered.

“Please.” He was nearly sobbing. I could feel his breath hitching. “Please.”

“What do you need?” I asked again.

He took a series of ragged breaths. “Ride me,” he managed then.

I wanted to, badly, but there was one immediate obstacle.

“I don’t have a condom, baby.”

“Left pocket,” he forced out.

I dragged my hand down his body to the pocket in question, then slipped into it and felt for its contents. Apart from the rubber, there were also two lube pouches.

Cai smiled at me when I gave him an amused look.

“Was hoping,” he murmured and shrugged.

I placed my bounty near his head and started working both his pajama pants and my shorts down our legs. Cai helped—or tried to—his legs tangling and untangling with mine. Eventually I managed it and lowered myself again, my cock touching his, the small motion making both of us moan. He was hot and silky against my skin. I slid down his body, intending to take him in my mouth, but he stopped me with his hands on my back.

“No,” he muttered. “If you suck me, I swear I’m gonna come. Want to feel you.”

“Okay.” I kissed him gently. My hands were already busy unwrapping the condom, and I rolled it on him, being mindful of the piercings. Then I topped it with the contents of an entire package of lube, making him slippery before I rose and lined myself up.

I knew this was going to be slow. He wasn’t small, exactly, but I was a pro at this, and I was confident I could take him without prep. The tip of his cock settled against my hole like it belonged there, and when I lowered myself and allowed him in, Cai gasped as though he’d been holding his breath for a minute flat, and his body arched up elegantly.

“Oh Jesus,” he breathed, sounding broken.

I rocked myself carefully lower. Cai’s eyes were squeezed shut, his mouth open in an expression of bliss that excited me as much as it unsettled me. Nobody I’d ever fucked had looked quite like this, I was sure. Then again, this wasn’t exactly fucking. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it felt very, very different.

Ripples of excitement spread through me as his piercings slipped into me one by one. The stretch of his entry was just on the right side of painful pleasure. Soon, I was seated, and Cai was buried inside me all the way.

I kissed him thoroughly, ravaging his hot mouth before I started to roll my hips. We moved as one, almost serenely. He held tight to my shoulders while I set and held the slow pace for as long as I could.

Eventually, though, he shuddered beneath me and arched up again.

“Close,” he panted.

I was too, I realized with some surprise. The hypnotic slide and drag of him inside me had masked my impending climax, but it wasn’t going to take much to get me there.

“Close.” He sobbed the word this time and tossed his head back. “Oh God, please. Please. Please.”

I lowered myself faster, once, twice, three times. After the third time, he trembled, cried out. I could feel him thickening and pulsating inside me, spending himself as he shook, and he looked so stunningly beautiful as he did it that I could no longer hold back. Long ropes of semen landed on his belly and chest, staining his shirt, and I kept moving and kept coming, over and over, feeling so mellow and at the same time so intense that I thought I was about to cry.

Then I collapsed on him, and he held me tightly.

Part of me knew I should be freaking out, but I was too sated and exhausted to even make the attempt. All I knew was that sex had never felt like this before. Ever. I liked it hard and fast and rough, and gentle was for guys who couldn’t take a little pain with their pleasure. That was how it had always been. That was how it was supposed to be.

So why was I lying here with tears in my eyes, clinging tightly to someone who wouldn’t even trust me enough to take his shirt off in my presence?

I had a feeling the answer to that might really scare me.

* * * *

I woke in the middle of the night because Cai was screaming.

We’d fallen asleep together without Cai even bothering to move, let alone clean his shirt, me with my back against the wall, spooning him after I’d turned off the light. It had been comforting and warm, and I had drifted off almost instantly. And all that had lasted until Cai suddenly bolted upright.

He wailed and gasped for breath. I could feel him trembling. He was soaked with sweat. I didn’t dare touch him too roughly, had no idea what I could do to help, and so I repeated his name, completely unnerved myself, and tried to get him to realize that he’d been dreaming.

Eventually he collapsed in on himself, still shaking, his chest still heaving, his hand finding mine and clutching it so tightly I could feel my joints pop. He kept saying something, repeating it over and over until I could finally make out “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” I stroked his back through the damp shirt. “You’re okay now.”

He tried hard to get his breathing under control. However well he managed, the shivering just kept getting worse. He leaned into me, seeking my warmth.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, lips trembling. “I should have warned you. That happens a lot.”

I rubbed slow, calming circles on his back. “How often is a lot?”

“Every other night, just about.” He dropped his head. “I told Nicky on the first day. Poor guy got woken up like this twice this week. He’s been really good about it, though.”

“You want to talk about it?”

He shook his head. I leaned forward to kiss his temple, then studied his face. The full moon shining through the window allowed me to see the tear tracks on his cheeks.

“Damn, baby,” I muttered.

He relaxed against me. “I like it when you call me that.”

I liked it too, which was more than mildly terrifying. Sliding my arm around his shoulders, I pointed out reluctantly, “Your shirt is soaked. I know you don’t want to, but you should really change out of it.”

He nodded after a moment’s consideration.

“Just…don’t say anything,” he requested shakily. “Don’t ask.”

“Okay.”

He reached back and pulled his shirt up over his head. As he balled it up and tossed it to the floor, I watched the smooth play of his muscles and studied the mass of patchy, silvery scar tissue illuminated by the moonlight. Whatever had happened to him, it couldn’t have been anything but horrific. The evidence of it stretched over much of his back, up to his left shoulder, which featured a thick and uneven welt just over his collarbone, and to his left elbow. Some of the scars were thick and fleshy, others spidery and delicate.

I wanted to ask very badly, but I didn’t. Instead I kissed his neck and pulled him close, holding him until he finally managed to go back to sleep.

Chapter Thirteen

The next day was “Activity Day,” which made no sense, really, because activities were all we did in this place. But what it meant was that, after an entire week of therapy and more therapy, we apparently deserved a little innocent fun.

Those who wanted to were taken to the nearby town to go shopping. I’d have gone, but I didn’t have money, because Finn had my wallet, so that would have been a bit of a pointless trip. Instead I elected to stay and hang out with Lexa, who was painting. She had set up an easel near the lake. While she recreated the landscape with a skilled hand on canvas, I watched and chatted away. She said a word here and there but was mostly silent. It was a very comfortable silence, however, and she seemed to enjoy listening to my ramblings.

After about an hour, when I was busy complaining about people who wore white ties with black shirts and paired UGG boots with anything, I heard a throat clearing off to my right. I turned and saw Finn wearing an absolutely hideous purple-and-white tie-dye shirt with one of my favorite pairs of white jeans, and flip-flops. I just about had apoplexy.

“Oh holy mother of mercy,” I moaned when I finally managed to speak. “Just don’t tell anyone we’re related.”

“Shut up,” he said and shuffled closer, looking curiously at Lexa. “Um…hello.”

Lexa glanced up at him. She nodded minutely and went back to painting.

“This is Lexa,” I introduced. “She doesn’t talk much. Lexa, this is my, er, cousin. Lysander.”

“That’s really good.” Finn was gawking at the painting.

I could no longer hold back. “Sugarplum, where in the name of love did you get that shirt, and why haven’t you burned it yet?”

“Shut up,” he said again and looked down at his chest. “I made it. Go purple group, you know.”

I groaned.

He came even closer, making a halfhearted attempt to elbow me in the ribs.

“You mind if I watch too?” he asked Lexa. “I’ve had a hundred people talking to me for the past few hours. I’m all peopled out.”

She only shrugged, but she didn’t look opposed to it, so I made space for Finn on the log I’d been using for a lounge. I couldn’t help but keep glancing at the terrible shirt, though. It was just that much of a nightmare.

“Stop.” Finn shook his head and waved in the direction of the manor. “Go make your own. I’d love to see what you come up with.”

“Nothing tie-dyed, that’s for sure.”

Lexa looked at me and nodded her approval.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Go. I’ll keep her company until you get back.” Finn got comfortable on the log.

“Okay. Don’t hit on Lexa,” I warned him. “She’s too classy for you.” Then I wandered off.

The tie-dye station was a nightmare of rainbow-colored hippie insanity. Kelly was overseeing it, guarding a huge stack of fresh white T-shirts like a mama bear.

“Shirt?” she asked me brightly.

“Oh yes.” I eyed the stack up and down. “What’s the smallest size you have?”

Ten minutes later I was absolutely engrossed in creating fashion. One of the three shirts I’d talked her into giving me was floating around in the green dye. The second was on my body—size S, which fit me like a glove, thank you very much. The third was currently falling victim to my scissors. I was busy cutting it into thin ribbons and trying to create some kind of pattern or design by knotting them back together. Eventually I started braiding. Kelly was watching me in awe.

“That’s
so
creative,” she kept saying.

“I know,” I replied modestly. Quite frankly, at first I hadn’t been sure if it would work, but I liked what I was turning the fabric into.

An hour and a half later I was working on my third design. This one was the now forest-green shirt, freshly rinsed, still moist and about to be transformed. For some reason I had Lexa in mind as I started cutting, though she would probably never wear it. Still, she was the inspiration that led me to cutting a delicate wing pattern into the back. Kelly had found me a box of black markers and some much sharper scissors, which allowed me to be more efficient and accurate. I was also having a ridiculous amount of fun.

I decided to take a break eventually and passed by a large group playing volleyball on my way into the manor. There was supposed to be iced tea somewhere inside, and I was thirsty.

“Haze.”

I heard my name—well, not
mine
, but you get the point—in the foyer and turned to see Cai, apparently just back from his trip into town. He carried a plastic bag and was studying me with interest as he came closer.

“Where’d you get that, and why don’t I have one?” he asked.

I was wearing the braided shirt now. I’d had to finish it on my body to make sure it fit me right.

“I made it,” I said, not without pride.

He reached out and ran a finger along the braided pattern, which curved over my right shoulder, among other places. When he brushed against the skin of my throat, I couldn’t help the shiver that ran through me.

“I’d have made you one, except I didn’t think…” I didn’t need to finish the sentence. The shirts were short-sleeved.

“Yeah,” he said. His face darkened a little.

I tilted my head as a thought occurred to me. “You willing to trust me with one of your shirts?”

His eyes widened a little, and then he smiled at me, which made me feel pleasantly warm.

“Yeah, absolutely,” he said. “Let me just put this away, and I’ll grab one while I’m up there.” He lifted the plastic bag. “I’ll be, like, ten minutes.”

“Okay. Find me in the middle of the tie-dyed fashion victims.”

I went back to talk Kelly into letting me work on yet another T-shirt, which I stuffed into the blue dye bucket. Cai stopped by, like he’d promised, and handed me one of his black, long-sleeved shirts.