Spectacularly Broken (15 page)

“Having trouble?” Cai asked eventually.

“Yeah. Hey, what have you written so far?”

It was the lamest excuse in the world, and I knew I was acting totally ridiculous, but I couldn’t help myself. I slid over until my shoulder touched his and practically put my chin on his shoulder as I tried to look at his paper.

And the worst part was, Cai totally noticed. He leaned away a little, turned his head, and looked at me with a bemused frown. “
What
are you doing?”

He softened the impact of the question by smiling at me, but I still blushed, because…well, because I was acting completely bizarre. I had no idea what was wrong with me.

“Nothing?” I offered sheepishly.

He lowered his paper in mild exasperation, and I prepared myself for his inevitable move away from me. But instead, after he got to his feet, he dropped down behind me and put both arms around me. Suddenly the world was right again.

“You could have just said if you wanted to cuddle,” he said into my ear.

“Mm-hm,” I replied, but the feeling of embarrassment had flown away like it had never existed. In its place burned a wild, completely nonsexual heat. I breathed deeply, inhaling his familiar scent as I leaned into him, and found myself wishing we could sit like this during every group session.

As a side effect of the closeness, his breath kept brushing my neck, making it almost impossible for me to concentrate. After several failed tries, I growled. “This is dumb. I can’t think of anything.”

“Me either,” Cai sighed. “And you know what? Right now I totally don’t care.”

* * * *

I stormed into Dr. Pierce’s office like a tornado, never even bothering to knock.

“Does love make you totally stupid?” I demanded to know loudly.

Both she and the girl she was currently talking to whirled around and stared at me.

“Well?” I whined.

“It…can,” Dr. Pierce said carefully.

“It does,” the girl weighed in. “It definitely does. Every freaking time.”

“Fuck,” I said succinctly and stomped back out.

* * * *

“Why are you watching me?” Cai demanded to know.

“’Cause you’re pretty.” I ducked, and the shorts he’d just stripped off missed me by inches. “What? It’s not an insult.”

In fact, I’d been enjoying the giddy, fluttery feeling that started up inside me whenever I looked at Cai, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. Man, that feeling really was addicting.

“Yeah, right,” Cai scoffed. He slipped into his silk pajama pants and then draped the pajama top over his arm. His other hand reached for his toiletry bag, and he started for the door.

“You can change your shirt in here, you know.” It burst out of me before I could stop the words. “I won’t stare. And I won’t say anything.”

Cai exhaled deeply. He briefly touched his left shoulder, the spot where the scarring was worst. “I know,” he said. “Tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay.” I let him go and threw myself onto my bed. I was perfectly willing to count that as a win. My head bumped against something hard and pointy. I felt for it with one hand and realized Cai had left his book next to my pillow. So far he hadn’t made any motion toward using the top bunk for anything at all. Even though it was a bit of a tight fit, I was okay with that.

We could probably stack our empty luggage up there, I thought, and idly flipped through the pages of Cai’s book. It was a thick volume. Something caught my attention between the pages. I flipped back and took out what had to be an older picture of Cai. In it, he had the gauges but no facial piercings, and none of his clothes were black at all. He was half sitting on a couch. What was most astonishing about the picture was Cai’s expression—he had a radiant smile on his face, and his brown eyes shone with some playful inner joy I’d never seen on his face before.

He was stunningly gorgeous.

The door opened, and from the corner of my eye I saw that Cai had come back from the bathroom. He was now wearing his pajama top and tossed his shirt into a corner.

“Hey,” I said, unable to take my eyes from what I was holding, “that’s a really nice pic—”

He ripped it out of my hands and put it back into his book in one lightning-quick, furious movement.

“Don’t touch my stuff again,” he snarled.

I stared, wide-eyed, and scrambled off the bed.

“I mean it. Don’t.” He took the book and laid it in his side of the closet before slamming the door shut.

“I’m s-sorry,” I stammered. I was completely blindsided by his sudden anger. He had his back to me, but a second later I saw his shoulders slump.

“It’s fine,” he said, sounding hoarse but a little more calm. “Just please don’t do that.”

“Okay,” I said meekly.

“Damn it.” He wheeled around. Before I knew it, he had grabbed my shoulders and pressed me up against the wall. His lips smashed into mine, demanding and desperate. The entirety of his solid body was suddenly against me and holding me in place while he attacked my mouth. It was a punishing kiss, full of heat and anger and a host of other emotions for which Cai didn’t seem to have an outlet.

There was biting and grinding and intermittent gasps for breath. Cai’s kiss was driving me up the wall both metaphorically and literally—I was suddenly on the balls of my feet with his thigh wedged between my legs. The moan he released into my mouth was steeped in desperation, and his grip on my shoulders was bruising me.

The sudden intensity was frightening, yet somehow, in my messed-up brain, that translated into a major turn-on. I wanted to take everything he gave me. I wanted to scream. Hell, I wanted to hold him and take away the agony that was so very evident in the death grip he had on me.

Eventually there was a break, an opportunity for me to gasp for air as Cai pushed away from me for just a moment. His hands moved to frame my face, thumbs sliding over my cheekbones, his glazed eyes locking with mine.

“Need you,” he rasped. “Oh
fuck
, Haze.”

The blatant desire in his tone made me shiver. I reached for him, pulled him close again. His hands closed over my shoulders, and I stumbled forward, barely catching myself before he shoved me on the bed. Then his weight was on top of me, his breath hot in my ear, his hands tearing at my clothes.

I didn’t mind him using me to exorcise his demons. God knew I’d done it plenty of times before, with other guys. And I loved his possessive grip on me, the haste with which he ripped open a condom. I barely managed to spread my legs before he was pushing into me.
Jesus.

A deep groan tore from my throat. I had to grit my teeth to keep from screaming out at first, when the pain threatened to overwhelm me despite my experience and penchant for rough sex. His hands were back on my shoulders, pushing me down into the mattress. I gripped the sheet hard, and then we were riding that razor edge between pain and pleasure as he took me furiously and fast and hard.

I surrendered to him. Small whimpers reached my ears, and I realized they were mine, all the begging and pleading I had breath for. He moved his possessive grip to my neck as he drove deep.

“Need this,” he grated out, breathless, desperate. “Need it so bad.”

I knew he did. I used what little leverage I had to push back against him, amplifying the harsh sensations, letting him lose control. He cried out as he came, and flushed with heat and filled with overwhelming need, I drowned in the rush as well.

Chapter Sixteen

Something was wrong with Nicky. According to Jarett, he hadn’t been his usual chatty self since the previous day, and during our group meeting that became even more obvious. He kept looking at the floor, face serious, and barely participated.

“Something on your mind?” Cai asked him when the three of us were teamed up for a drawing exercise. Each of us was wielding two colors of crayons, and we worked on the same picture. I’d been industriously coloring the sky, but when Cai asked his gentle question, I glanced over to Nicky.

He was pale as he shook his head.

“You’re not okay.” Cai sounded worried. “What can we do?”

“Nothing.” He stared into space, mechanically moving his crayon over the page.

“No pressure, okay?” Cai looked at him sharply. “But we’ve all learned that whatever’s on your mind, it’s usually easier to deal with if you tell someone. And you already know we won’t break your confidence.”

“But I’d be breaking someone else’s.” Nicky bit his lip, hard. “I think. I really don’t know what to do.”

I shared a look with Cai. Neither of us had ever seen Nicky so agitated, not even when he’d been feeling bad about the chair incident.

But now that I thought of it… “You’ve been weird since Kelly pulled you out of the group session yesterday. Did something happen when you went to talk to Margaret? Did she say something to upset you?”

He shook his head. When I looked down at our drawing again, I realized the last few lines he’d made were jittery.

“Babycakes,” I said, dropping my crayon and folding my hand over his. “Whatever is wrong, it’s really eating at you.”

Nicky stopped drawing and squeezed his eyes shut. “Not here, okay?”

“Okay,” Cai said calmly. “We’ll talk later. For now, don’t worry. It’ll be okay.”

Nicky shook his head, but he didn’t protest.

He seemed more and more preoccupied as the morning went on. I guessed that whatever had him upset wasn’t something he could dismiss from his thoughts. By the time lunch rolled around, he looked literally sick. I had half a mind to skip lunch and make for some secluded spot with Nicky and Cai to figure out how we could help him, but that plan was foiled when a hand clamped onto my upper arm and wouldn’t let go.

“You were supposed to come find me last night,” Finn said, his tone accusatory.

“Sorry. I was busy.”

“Uh-huh.” He gave me a meaningful look.

“What?”

“Is that what the kids call it these days? I saw you holding hands with what’s-his-name thirty seconds ago, you know.”

“Cai,” I supplied automatically.

“
Cai
.” Finn’s eyebrows rose. “Okay, what’s the story there? You said his name like…”

“Like what?” I suddenly felt defensive.

“Like, all adoringly.”

“I did not.”

“You totally did.” Finn grinned broadly. “Come on, what’s going on there, Mister ‘no way would I limit myself to one guy’?”

“I never said that!”

“That’s a direct quote, you pinhead.”

“I disagree.”

“You…” Finn shook with laughter. “Okay, you officially lose at arguing. Now tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“About Cai,” he said, exasperated.

“What about me?” Cai asked rather sharply. I’d thought he’d gone to check on Nicky again, but apparently not.

“Oh.” Finn scrutinized Cai like he was going up for auction. “Hi. I’m Lysander.”

“Gee, I had no idea,” Cai drawled. “Thank you for that very important information.”

Finn was taken aback, I could tell.

“Um, yeah, okay, you’re…welcome?”

“Of course I am.” Cai fished for my hand and tugged me away from Finn. I made a semiapologetic face in my cousin’s direction.

“What was that about?” I asked when we’d reached our seats. Looked like we were the first members of green group to arrive in the dining hall.

“What?” Cai asked innocently.

“Come on.” I propped my chin on my hand and looked at him. “What do you have against my cousin?”

“He’s just a tool, that’s all.”

“You don’t even know him.”

“Yeah, well.” Cai shrugged. It seemed like he wasn’t willing to say anything more, so I decided not to dig. But a few seconds later, he grabbed his cup with both hands and started rolling it from one side of his empty plate to the other.

“Katherine Vega is one of my favorite actresses, you know.”

For some reason, it gave me a jolt to hear my mother’s name from his lips.

“Yeah?” I forced out.

“Yeah. It’s a shame she died so young.” He stared at his rolling cup. “I wasn’t even born yet when that happened, but my mom loved her. I grew up watching
The Heartless
and
Fall of Life
and
Hidden
and all of that stuff. She was really amazing. A lot better than her husband, that’s for sure.”

I wanted to reply, but my throat had closed up. I didn’t talk about my mother much. I’d seen the movies and the show Cai had listed, of course, as well as every other she’d made, and I had a million photographs, but my dad had never spent much time telling me about her. As a result, I had no real sense of who she’d been. I probably knew as much about her personality as Cai did. And that was painful, so I didn’t like to dwell on it.

“Anyway, I guess I just…” Cai frowned at me. “All you ever hear about Lysander these days is how he throws around money. Like that Castor Hotel thing a while back, when someone got a hold of his bill and it was absolutely fucking ridiculous.” Cai waved one hand and put his cup upright again with the other. It was a good thing he was preoccupied, because that meant he didn’t see me wince.

Okay, yeah, Castor Hotel hadn’t been my best moment. It had been Grayson’s twenty-first birthday, and Sawyer and I had overdone it a little on the execution, which had included chocolate sculptures, furniture covered in bubble wrap, and live ducks swimming in our hotel suite’s bathtub. Neither of us had seriously considered the possibility that the hotel staff might not keep their mouths shut.

However, I was still convinced that everyone should play tag with champagne-filled water balloons at least once in their life.

“I suppose it could be worse, but I just don’t think he’s a credit to his mom’s memory. I know that’s not exactly charitable, but it’s how I see it.” Cai shrugged dismissively. “If he’s got even an ounce of her talent, he could be doing so much with it, and instead he lives like every other spoiled little rich kid on the planet. Katherine’s probably spinning in her grave, if you think about how little he’s making of himself. Frankly, I don’t get why he’s here at all and not in some fancy psychiatrist’s office.”

That hurt. Especially coming from Cai, that hurt a lot. I had never made any apologies for my life and the way I chose to live it. Anyone in the public eye got criticized to hell and back on every occasion—I’d learned that very early in life. And I
was
in the public eye, no matter how much I tried to avoid it, simply because of my parents’ level of fame and the circumstances of my birth. I’d had to learn to let it all roll off my back. I didn’t care what the haters thought.