Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

Lyssa

Ohhh, this is a horrible turn of events.

As I watch my best friend hightail it to the safety of an upstairs bedroom, I can feel John’s burning gaze sweeping down my neck and settling on my breasts. Throughout the course of the meal, I’ve become astonishingly wet. So much so that the seam of my shorts is soaked and I can’t stop riding my hips forward and back, trying to give my clit friction from the stitched ridge of denim.

This is bananas.

In my entire high school and college career, I kissed a sum total of two boys. One of them had just eaten an onion bagel. Hello mood killer. The other grabbed my hand and shoved it against his crotch, before we’d even been kissing longer than ten seconds. Hello jumping the gun. Truth be told, I didn’t even want to kiss those dumb boys. It was more a product of peer pressure than anything else. Guys my own age have never interested me. Guys any age, really.

When I was attacked, any budding interest I had in the opposite sex was cut off. The thought of letting anyone make me vulnerable was scary.

It’s almost like my body has been accumulating my missing sexual impulses and has decided to unleash it all for this mammoth of a man. I don’t know what to do with myself. I’m aching in places I’ve never touched, even with my own fingers. I’m uncomfortable in my clothes and I just want…to sit on his lap and confess to everything. The lie I’ve been perpetuating with Mason. The attraction I’m battling. And then I want him to hush me, kiss me and make everything better.

Is it crazy to think he would?

John will make everything better. I won’t mind being vulnerable for him.

He’ll treat me with care.

My brain and my hormones seem so positive of these facts.

John is Mason’s father. I’m supposed to be Mason’s girlfriend. If I can’t pull off one measly night on my best friend’s behalf, I’d be a terrible person. I can’t let Mason down. Not after all the times he ran interference for me at bars and parties, or at school.

I rise from table table and carry my empty bowl to the sink. John stands and joins me in the kitchen, towering over me with his giant, muscle-packed frame. “Leave this here,” he rumbles. “I’ll clean it later.”

“You cooked. I can clean.”

He makes quick work of tying back his mass of hair, securing it with the rubber band around his wrist. “No. You’re a guest.”

I let him take the bowl out of my hands and with nothing else to do, I fiddle with the hem of my tank top. “Do you…have a lot of overnight guests?’

Shoot me now.

I seriously can’t believe I just asked him that. Why not just wave a freaking banner with Hot for John emblazoned across the front?

His deep brown eyes twinkle with amusement and my heart wings up into my throat. Good gravy, he’s stupidly hot and male and…God, beautiful on top of it. There’s a scent of the outdoors clinging to him, something that calls burning firewood and earth to mind. Who knew that would appeal to me on such a level?

“I don’t have guests, Lyssa.” His gaze meanders over my breasts and lower, tightening the flesh between my thighs. “Doesn’t mean I don’t know how to treat one.”

“Oh.” Is he telling me he knows hot to treat a woman or am I imagining it? “That’s good of y-you.”

For a brief moment in time, I swear he’s going to advance the final few inches separating us and kiss me. And I want it. God, I want it. My apparent weakness for this man makes me a bad friend, but I think if he ordered me onto my knees right now, my body would obey before my mind issued a protest. I’m almost shaking, I’m so turned on. By his size, his voice, his hands, his eyes, his scent.

I should find somewhere to hide until tomorrow, but I stay rooted to the spot, my neck tilted back so I don’t have to break our heated eye contact.

“Um…” Battle back, Lyssa. Come on. “Do you want to show me your stick?”

He raises an eyebrow.

“Sticks. Plural. Walking sticks.” I press my hands to my face. “Can we do a fifteen-second rewind?”

“Sure thing, sweetness. It never happened.” He gives me a curious look, before turning and exiting the kitchen. “I can pretend if you can.”

My brain doesn’t have the room to interpret his odd tone, because I’m perched on the edge of implosion after hearing John call me sweetness. Is it possible for an endearment to cause an orgasm? Signs point to yes.

With a stabilizing breath, I follow John out of the kitchen, through the living room and down a poorly lit hallway that leads to the back of the house. He enters a room and turns on a light. I hesitate briefly before following him inside. When I see the contents of the room, my jaw drops. There are hundreds of walking sticks in neat rows along the wall. Wood shavings litter the ground, so much that none of the floorboards are visible. An industrial table is pushed up against the wall, covered in tools I don’t recognize and a pair of safety goggles.

John clears his throat hard in the middle of the room, his ripped arms crossed over his huge chest. “Take your pick.”

Still in shock by the magnitude of his operation, I cross to the closest wall and carefully pick up one of the walking sticks. It’s an absolute work of art. The handle of the one I’ve selected has been crafted into the shape of a dragon head. The details are stunning that I discover something new every time I turn it over. “John…”

He exhales in a rush.

Because I used his name?

“Who are you making these for?”

“It’s just a hobby.”

I give him an oh please look. “Who are they for?”

His resting scowl face is firmly in place, but I don’t take back the question. “Wounded army veterans,” he says, finally. Reluctantly. “Soldiers who are having difficulty walking.”

The urge to hug him, touch him in some way, is so strong that a tremble moves through me. “How do you find the men in need?”

“Military hospitals. Veterans associations. Things like that.”

“Have you ever thought of putting them online? Giving family members of the wounded a chance to buy them—”

“I don’t charge anything.”

“Oh.” This man. Who is he? “Maybe you could charge a small amount and donate the profits to wounded veterans.” I shake myself and replace the walking stick, picking up a new one, examining it. “Sorry, I’m majoring in marketing and I should really learn to turn my brain off. They’re just so incredible. People should get a chance to see them.”

John grunts. “Your idea. It’s good.” He scans the wall of walking sticks. “I wouldn’t mind charging as long as the money went somewhere worthy.”

“I can help you,” I whisper. “When or if you decide…”

Several beats pass before he nods.

Knowing I should keep my distance, I ignore my common sense and move closer to John, taking my phone out of my back pocket. “There is a really good website dedicated to handmade items…”

I unlock my phone, intending to open my internet browser.

Instead, it opens right to my Instagram page.

Mortification streaks through my middle. Must I really employ duck face so often? When am I going to outgrow mirror selfies?

I’m scrambling to close the dratted app, when I notice John has gone tense beside me. Slowly, I look up at the man to find his gaze rapt on the screen of my phone. Doing a mental catalogue of the pictures on display, I realize there are more than a few taken in my bathing suit. Even more in sports bras and yoga pants. Mason is the instigator of this. He’s always snapping shots of me and insisting I, “Put them on social asap or it never happened.”

I do the same for him. It’s what Generation Z besties do best.

John’s breathing changes, deepening and accelerating. I love him looking at me in my abbreviated attire, I realize. A heavy throb begins between my legs, my lower body squeezing painfully when he takes the phone out of my hand and starts to scroll through the photos, tapping on certain ones and growling roughly at the full-sized versions. Take the phone back. What is wrong with you?

“You shouldn’t be looking at those,” I manage. “This is wrong.”

He cuts a harsh look in my direction. “No more wrong than what I’ve been thinking since you showed up.”

“John.”

With a muttered curse, he hands me back the phone and backs away, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers. “Go to bed, Lyssa. Take one of the upstairs guest rooms and for the love of God, lock the fucking door.”

I flinch at implication that he would enter my room and have his way with me. I’m mostly seriously turned on by it. But there’s another part of me, the part that’s still reeling from my attack, that identifies his words as a threat, even though my heart and instincts are positive John would never hurt me. Still, the memory of that night is already being let in and I can’t avoid it.

John comes toward me, his irritation slowly giving way to concern. “What’s wrong?”

My headshake is so rapid it makes me dizzy. “Nothing.”

“Bullshit.” He runs his hands up my bare arms. “Christ, you’re shaking.” I’m pulled into his all-encompassing embrace and I sag. My sudden, boneless state is involuntary, but God, he’s just so warm and reassuring. His big hand cups the back of my head, his heart pounds in my ears and I never want to leave. “I’ve got you. The safest place you’ll ever be is with me.”

“I know,” I say to his chest, snuggling closer. I’m so wrapped up in the sturdy male feeling of him, something slips out without my permission. “I wish you could have been with me when…”

His hand pauses in the act of stroking my hair. “When what?”

I shake my head.

“You got scared when I made that crack about locking the door,” he rasps. “I want to know why.”

“Are you always this demanding?”

“Yes.” He tucks hair behind my ear, our lips moving closer in orbit. As if pulled by an unseen force. “I can be a mean son of a bitch, but not so mean that I wouldn’t apologize for scaring such a sweet girl. You forgive me?”

I bite my lip and nod, his gentleness making it impossible not to tell him the truth. “Right before I left for NYU, I was attacked in stairwell of my building. I’d just come home from the library and I had my nose in a book…or I would have noticed the man loitering outside the building next door. He caught the door before it could close and lock.”

Cold rage transforms John’s features. “Lyssa. Did he—”

“No. It was close, though. We struggled for what felt like forever and I couldn’t…I couldn’t get away.” I hold up my index finger. “Until I jammed this in his eye, kicked him in the balls and ran like hell.”

Affection radiates from John. And stark relief. “That’s my girl.”

His words bring reality back into sharp focus. That’s my girl.

As much as those three words rock me with joy, I’m supposed to be Mason’s girl. Yet here I am standing in John’s arms, his mouth dangerously close to mine.

You’re betraying your best friend.

With an iron will, I wiggle free of John and flee to the door, phone in hand. I rest my forehead against the doorjamb, the sound of our heavy breaths filling the room. “Did they catch the man who attacked you, Lyssa?”

I turn to find John staring into the distance with a menacing expression. “No. All I remember is he was medium sized and had a Tweety Bird neck tattoo. The police couldn’t find anyone that fit the description…and eventually they gave up.”

A piece of his black, gray-dusted hair falls free of its knot, shielding his eyes. But not before I see them blaze with purpose. “Go to bed. You’re safe.”

“Good night.”

I all but stumble from the room. Every part of my body that touched John is on fire. Yearning like I’ve never experienced pervades me. I want to return to the room and beg for kissing, for touching, for his naked body on top of mine. The thought of being pressed down would have terrified me this morning, but the safety he’d given me allows my brain to break free of the shackles it’s been locked in since the attack. I want to experience so much with John—but I can’t.

I won’t.

And that means I’ll be needing a cold shower before bed.

At the top of the stairs, I quickly deduce which room Mason is occupying as there’s a light emanating from beneath the doorframe and Shawn Mendes plays softly amid the sound of keyboard clacking. Better not disturb him, I guess.

It wouldn’t be a great idea for him to see me this flushed and horny, either, now would it?

Instead, I find an empty bedroom with an en suite bathroom and I duck inside, undressing quickly and stepping under the icy spray. I have no idea my life is about to be threatened. Again.