AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I gasped. “Erica!”
Dr. Green gripped my shoulders and massaged my muscles. “She’s fine. She locked herself into the bathroom and he left before the boys got there. He never got close to her. Somehow he rerouted into the woods and ended up at your house.”
“He said he saw you guys leaving my house,” I said.
He nodded. “Figured as much. He didn’t know where you lived before. He was on a rampage looking for you. He found your clothes. He got to Erica because he thought Nathan might be at Kota’s.”
Out of reaction, I checked the closet, but everything appeared to be in place, so if Mr. Griffin had been in here, they must have cleaned it up. I wiped at my forehead. I needed to collect myself before I thought about this anymore. “I need a bath.”
“That’s fine. You should use the other bathroom though.”
“Why?”
“Mr. Griffin broke a lot of things in this house. Nathan’s bathroom is messed up. Toilet is busted. The shower got ripped apart. We haven’t had a chance to fix it yet.”
I nodded and then looked around, checking myself out again. “Am I good?” I asked. “Is the stuff out of me?”
“I think so,” he said. “We found the sample you had in your book bag. We’ve managed to figure out the sequence so we can compare it. Your blood work was normal. I think you slept for so long because you’ve been weak for a while. You took it really hard.” He backed up, heading to Nathan’s low dresser. He picked up two bottles. He shook both in his hands. “You should eat, but here. I want you to try these.”
“What are they?”
He twisted the cap off of one bottle, and then shook out two gummy fruits into his palm. He handed them to me.
“Candy?” I asked.
He laughed. “Try it.”
I did, chewing on them both. They were sweet strawberry flavored. I swallowed them down.
He followed up with two orange tablets. I chewed those, expecting orange, and got a papaya flavor. They were really sugary, like PEZ candy.
“Vitamins,” he said. He shook the bottle again of the gummy pieces. Then he shook the other one with the orange tablets. “And papaya enzyme. That should help with the stomach aches.”
“Sugar,” I said. “Mr. Blackbourne approved it?”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m a doctor,” he said, pointing to himself with his thumb. “If I prescribe you something, you have to take it.” He went back to put them on the dresser and then combed his fingers through his hair. Then he smiled at me and walked over. He planted a kiss on my forehead. “Welcome back to the land of the living, by the way.”
I sighed and smiled at the same time. I raked my fingers through my hair, trying to comb out the snarls. “I really need a bath.”
Dr. Green smiled again and was going to say something but was interrupted by a hard knock at the door.
We both turned. The door opened and Nathan appeared. He spotted Dr. Green first and then his eyes landed on me.
His lips went taut. He stared for the longest time. His reddish brown hair was mussed all over. He wore dark blue jeans and a red T-shirt. He was barefoot.
No school? For either of them? Were they faking being sick, too?
He looked back at Dr. Green and narrowed his eyes at him. “I need to talk to her. Get out.”
“Nathan,” Dr. Green said. “She doesn’t—“
“I really need to talk to her,” Nathan said, cutting him off. “Please.” His tone was even, deep. He was asking, but he really wasn’t.
Dr. Green looked at me. “You ready for this?”
I wasn’t sure what I was ready for. I nodded anyway. Nathan needed to say something to me. My heart was in my throat wondering what he had to say that Dr. Green couldn’t hear.
Dr. Green squeezed my hand gently, reassuring me.
Nathan held open the door for Dr. Green as he left. He closed it behind him and then snapped the lock. Nathan leaned against the door for a moment. He stared quietly at me.
“Nathan?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”
“You okay?” he asked, though his voice was different. Deeper.
I nodded. “I’m better. I feel kind of gross.” I said this while wiping at my skin. It was cool to the touch, but I still felt the film of sweat and from not bathing for a couple of days. It was like I really had been sick with the flu and was getting over the fever.
Nathan moved away from the door. His eyes were firm on my face. His jaw clenched. I’d seen this before, when he approached others ready for a fight.
I startled at his swiftness, backing up half a step. My hands went up protectively, not understanding. I trusted him, but I didn’t understand what he wanted from me. “Nathan?”
He grabbed my hips and backed me up further. I followed his lead, putting my hands on his chest to stop myself from falling over.
My back met with the wall. A karate poster behind me crackled as my head rolled against it.
Nathan zeroed in on my mouth.
His lips enclosed around mine. They parted and he took up every available space. His palm at my hip released me and then pressed against my cheek. The other joined it on my other cheek. He held me by my face, tilting slightly one way and then the other. His lips followed everywhere he turned me.
I gasped against his mouth. My eyes closed. I gripped at his T-shirt, hanging on to it, and when it didn’t have enough support, I hung on to his shoulders.
He shoved himself against me and my arms went around his neck. His face rasped against my cheeks as he kissed me. He hadn’t shaved again.
I welcomed it. I don’t know what had gotten into him but I needed his touch. Was all the craziness really over? I’d been so stupid on those drugs and I barely remembered it, but the pieces I did remember, I was an idiot blurting things out. He forgave me?
His hands lowered again and he gripped my hips. He scooped me under the thighs and lifted me.
He guided me to circle my legs around his waist, hanging on to me. My hip bone met his. I gripped him with my legs.
He pulled me away from the wall, never breaking the kiss. He consumed my lips and carried me.
My back met the bed. He released my hips and lowered himself against me.
I sucked air hard through my nose, finding it hard to breathe. He was overwhelming. When my mind started to work again after the initial shock, I tried to back my head up to catch a breath. He chased me. I’d get a pocket of air and he’d clamp his mouth down against me again. I was dying for air. He was dying for me.
He needed me that much – that he couldn’t let go.
He kissed me long and hard once more before he finally released my mouth, but his lips never left my skin. He trailed along my cheek, wetting my face with his lips. He suckled at the apple of my cheek. He found my ear and nipped it. He kissed along my jaw, avoiding my neck.
“Nathan” I breathed out when I finally managed to get some air. “You...”
“Been wanting to do that for so long,” he whispered against my skin. He closed in on my ear. His lips clamped down around my lobe. He kissed it and then nipped it with his teeth.
“There was a rule,” I said. I didn’t really want to say it but I thought someone should.
“Fuck the goddamn rule.” He grunted and then pulled back. He locked his lips against mine again, harder now. Nearly bruising. He backed up just enough to whisper, “You’re more important.”
I opened my mouth, thinking I should say something, but he crushed a kiss against my lips and never gave me a chance.
I gave up. I didn’t have much of an argument. My heart was spinning. Everything was happening so fast. He was kissing everywhere and I was trying to keep up. When his lips closed at the end of the kiss and he inched his head back, I tried to mimic and he dove in again ahead of me.
He shifted above me. His broad chest muscles mashed against my breasts. He curled an arm under my neck, cradling me. His elbow on his other arm held him up as his fingers ran through my
hair.
After another minute, he tore his lips from mine. He breathed heavily enough his chest was squashing my breasts.
He licked his lips and swallowed. He kissed my nose. “You and me, Sang,” he said. “I told you I’d take care of you.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“This wasn’t your fault.”
“No,” I said. I didn’t know where to start because I needed to say so many things to him. “I mean, I’m sorry about ... I told Marie I’d try to move out. I told her we wouldn’t stay there anymore.”
He nodded and then kissed my nose again. “I know.”
“I don’t know where...”
“You’re staying here with me,” he said.
