Leonard takes advantage of my sudden slack muscles, writhing around until I limply slide off him. He mutters some curses at me, climbing to his feet, but I pay him no attention.
“I’m the only one that loves you, my precious little child. This is what people in love do to each other. This is how lovers touch each other. Isn’t it nice?” He’s making me uncomfortable. He’s too close, he’s touching me and I want him to stop but then something happens in my body, and I’m too startled to say that I don’t like it.
“See this?” He points at the part of my body that is responding, the part he’s touching, the part that hasn’t ever been hard before but suddenly is. “This means you love me too; that you like it. This means that you want me.”
A brutal impact followed by a blinding pain in my bruised spine makes me choke on a scream, silencing it with a clenched jaw. My back arches instinctively and my head swims. I feel the throb on my bruises where someone just hit me, but I don’t let myself wallow in the pain before I’m on my feet, trying to protect my weak spot by backing up … into Young-gi. He takes my elbow to steady me for a second, and I don’t flinch away.
I’ll analyze that later.
“Cheap shot! Cheater!” Lexie is howling, pointing her dainty finger while Kira gasps and runs to my side of the ring. “Gregory hit him after the match!”
“I didn’t know the time was up,” Gregory protests, not at all convincing but going for it anyway.
I’m holding my breath and I’m starting to get dizzy, so I let it out in hissing little spurts, like one of those arm inflating thingies that measures blood pressure at the pharmacy. Hiss, hiss, hisssss the air out so I can try and inhale without screaming.
“Hey, what! Where–wait!” Gregory’s stuttered protests get my attention, and I watch in stunned silence as Young-gi drags both brothers to the ropes and pushes them up and over.
“Get out,” Young-gi orders, stern and biting and scary. “Before I decide to call your parents and let them know you’ve upset me.”
That, apparently, is a terrifying threat because not just Gregory and Leonard leave, but every single person there except for Kira and Lexie. Brian pauses at the door and sends us all a look dripping with vitriol and hatred, and the darkness in his eyes lets me know this isn’t over, then he leaves.
The girls beckon me over to them, so I take my gloves off and leave the ring. Just hopping to the ground hurts, now. Bastard hit me good.
“Tommy, are you okay?!” Kira asks, tears in her eyes. “Your poor back! What happened? Why is it bruised? I can’t believe he’d hit you like that, oh Tommy, I’m so sorry!”
“I’m alright,” I kiss her head and pat her like her uncle does. “There there, darling.”
She huffs a laugh and brushes my hand away, only to change her mind and grab my hand in hers, looking at me earnestly. “Tommy, I’m sorry that happened. We can call a nurse–”
I laugh at that, and pull her into an affectionate, probably-too-sweaty hug. “You’re too cute,” I giggle. “A nurse? What, am I five? I’ll be fine, I don’t need–”
“I have a kit,” Young-gi’s voice interrupts me.
Kira, Lexie and I turn to see him straddling a long bench with a big red first aid case beside his foot. He looks at me, and just like that he’s got me on a hook. His face says ‘don’t fucking test me right now’, his eyes say ‘I won’t repeat myself, so you’d better do as you’re told the first time’. I look away quickly.
But his stern voice is saying things, too. One word.
“Sit.”
I swallow hard, hearing the echo of our night in the library in my head.
“Let Mr. Sokolov take care of you,” Lexie insists, pushing me over toward him none-too-gently, then grabbing Kira. “We’ll go make you a breakfast plate, I’m sure you’re starving!”
“But I want to–” Kira tries.
Lexie hisses something into her ear that has Kira blushing as they leave, hustling up the stairs and out of sight. I sigh, but give in to the inevitable. Without any argument, I march to Young-gi like he’s about to execute me, and plant my butt on the bench in front of him, my back facing him.
“You got an ice pack in there or something?” I ask, not liking how charged the silence is.
“Bruise cream,” he says.
“There’s a cream for bruises?” I ask, then bite my tongue. I’m feeling too much like myself right now, but I need to be Tommy Claremont. Tommy Claremont probably knows about things like this.
“Mm.” Young-gi doesn’t seem suspicious, but when I hear a lid being twisted off a jar, I glance over my shoulder. When I see him dip his fingers into some white balm, I suddenly realize that he plans on rubbing cream all over my back. I whip my face backaround to the front, staring without seeing at the bench in front of me, every piece of me anticipating his touch.
Suddenly, I’m all for getting bruise cream. The wait feels like forever, but also like it takes no time at all. Before I know it, he’s touching me. Young-gi istouchingme.
Oh shit.I freeze. His fingers are warm, the cream cool. He starts between my shoulders in a long swipe that spans my back: slow, deliberate strokes with such soft pressure that it doesn’t hurt at all. It just feels… nice.
