Read Online Never Been Kissed by Molly O'Keefe - Free Book Online Page A

sit up and then stand. She shifted away from his touch, because she was angry that she needed it, wanted it. Because in this her lowest moment, she wanted to be stroked and touched and held against that naked chest and told that she would be okay.
    But there was no one in her life to do it.
    No one but him.
    And he’d been paid.
    “I can do it myself,” she muttered, because she had to say something. Lie if nothing else. She attempted another smile to show him she wasn’t angry. Wasn’t irrationally upset by his near-nudity. His presence.
    He was silent. Of course. Walking like a gorgeous ghost beside her as she shuffled to the bathroom. Hishands were loose at his sides but she knew he would catch her if she so much as wobbled.
    So she didn’t wobble. She made sure she didn’t give him any reason to touch her, because that would no doubt send her right over the edge of this terrible emotional cliff she was on. Wincing, she kept her palm to the wall, feeling the cool plaster, the occasional cracks in the paint, following it around a small corner, past an inexplicable boat motor resting on the ground—to the bathroom.
    “Where are we?” she asked, looking around the tiny apartment cluttered with signs and beer kegs and boxes.
    “Arkansas.”
    “But …” Next to the boat motor was a stuffed fish. “What is this place?”
    “The apartment above my brother’s bar.”
    She looked at him. “You have a brother?”
    How … mundane. How normal. He wasn’t, in fact, a military cyborg.
    “I do” was all he said.
    “And he owns a bar?”
    “He does.”
    “What’s it called?”
    “The Pour House.”
    “That’s a good name for a bar.”
    She turned back to the bathroom and flicked on the light, thus ending the most inane conversation of her life.
    Light fell across white porcelain sink and tiles, making the small room glow like an egg. There was a big claw-foot tub in the corner, painted sky blue on the outside. A faded tan striped shower curtain hung crooked from two remaining hooks.
    The mirror over the sink, across from the tub, was to be avoided at all costs. She wasn’t ready for that.
    “Do you—”
    He was going to ask if she wanted help peeing. Pullingdown her pants. And it was just too much. Too much Brody in her life at the moment.
    “No,” she said, and shut the door behind her, suddenly remembering her post-kidnapping credo.
All doors would be shut.
    It had been over three weeks since she’d gone to the bathroom without knowing that a man was watching her.
    It took her awhile to pull down the loose Capri pants she wore. And then situating herself over the toilet was an advanced lesson in physics and human anatomy, but she got it done.
    Yay for baby steps.
    Shaking, she pulled up her pants and flushed the toilet.
    Brody knocked on the door and she struggled to turn the doorknob, between the slice on her arm, which stung and pulled, and her bruised ribs, which throbbed in time with her heartbeat, she was limited and apparently too slow, because the door eased open before she got the knob turned.
    “You okay?” he asked.
    “Fine.” She sounded mean, nasty, but he didn’t flinch.
    “Would you like something to eat? There’s some fruit. A banana?”
    Her stomach clenched hard at the thought of food, which made her wince and shake her head.
Ixnay on the food.
    “You need a painkiller?” he asked.
    A little too much enthusiasm went into her nod and her brain splintered.
    “You need to eat with it.”
    She glared at him, resentful that she was being handled—manipulated. He lifted his hands, shrugging, all that beautiful brown skin stretched taut over muscles and bone, gleaming like brown river stones in the light. “I don’tmake the rules,” he said. “You have to take the pill with food.”
    “Fine.” She was all kinds of peevish. “Give me the food.”
    She stood in the small hallway, watching him in the open kitchen, the futon he must have slept on was still down, a thin blanket