Celeb Crush (18 page)

“Andi—”

“I said get out!”

I reach blindly for something to throw at him.  My questing fingers find my phone.  I hurl it at his chest.  Luke catches it before impact and puts it back on the table.  He opens his mouth as if to say something, but I jerk my head to the side, staring resolutely at the wall.  Only when I hear the door open and close do I relax my rigid posture.  I lie back down, pulling the covers over my head.

My heart is beating so hard I actually have to check to that I’m not hovering over the bed.  Part of me wants to die in mortification—but a bigger part has never felt so alive.  I can’t believe that just happened!  I can’t believe that even drunk and half asleep, he had the moves to make me come like a freight train.  What the hell do I feel about this?  Should I feel violated?  I don’t.  In fact, I want to remember waking up and feeling so completely sated for the first time in my life, for the rest of my life.

This is so confusing.  I lie there for a long time, wondering what I should do.  The light of the morning sun finds me before any answers do.

Chapter 15

Luke looks terrible.  Well, terrible for him—which is still stunning by normal standards.  I find that I can’t look him in the eye as he apologizes profusely to me.

“—and I know that there’s no excuse for what I did to you.  I’m just—I’m so fucking sorry.  Please, please forgive me.”

I’m leaning against the railing, turning my head to hide my heated face from him.  He’s standing a safe distance away from me, like he doesn’t want to scare me. 

I let the soothing sounds of the crashing surf calm me before I speak.  “It’s fine,” I finally mumble.  “Let’s just pretend it never happened, okay?”

“How is it fine?”  Luke’s tone is grim.  “I assaulted you in your sleep.”

I inwardly sigh at the self-recrimination in his voice.  Reluctantly, I turn to face him.  “Look, I’m alright,” I say briskly.  “I know you were still drunk and half-asleep when you…did what you did.  But I’m okay.  I’m not traumatized or anything.  So just drop it, Luke.”

He’s silent for a while.  Then he says quietly, “If you’re so fine, why can’t you look at me?”

“Because it’s fucking embarrassing, okay?!”  I glare up at him, finally meeting his eyes with my own. 

He shakes his head, confused.  “Why would you be embarrassed?  You did nothing wrong.  I’m the one who took advantage of you.”

“You know why.”  I cross my arms over my chest, scowling.  I’m not going to say it out loud.

A fierce unidentifiable expression crosses his features.  It’s gone in an instant.  “I’m sorry,” he repeats helplessly.  He exhales harshly, running his hands through his hair.  “I never should have come to your room last night—not when my control is hanging on by a thread.  And I damn sure shouldn’t have come drunk.”

"Whatever.  I forgive you.  I'm not gonna sue you for sexual harassment, so forget it."

"I wouldn't fight you if you did."  One side of Luke’s mouth curves up in a self-deprecating smile.   "I've given you plenty of reasons to over the past couple of weeks."

“Try the past couple of years,” I mutter.  Then I make an irritated gesture with my hand.  "Can we just never talk about this again?  Great, thanks.”

I push past him, but he grabs my hand, turning me back to him.  “Just tell me one thing,” he says, and now he’s the one avoiding eye contact.  “Did I fuck up for good this time?”

“Of course not,” I say.  Then I turn away before he can see that I’m lying.

I spend the day running more errands for various family members.  I have no idea what Luke is doing to occupy his time.  I know he has to be in Anaheim tomorrow for a children’s charity event, and then he has to go to Malibu for a photo shoot.  He’ll be gone for a few days, and I’ll be grateful for the reprieve.

At times like these, I wish I had a female friend to talk to.  I guess I could talk to Ellen, but I don’t know how to bring up the topic of mind-blowing orgasms without it getting weird.

I end up having lunch at Libby’s Diner with Dr. Pawlak.  I like to think of it as an informal therapy session, though he keeps insisting it’s not because I basically sat down across from him while he was eating his sandwich, and refused to leave.  I plan to pay for his lunch when the bill comes so there are no hard feelings.

He doesn’t say very much as I spill my guts to him.  Occasionally, he’ll say something like, “And how does that make you feel?” or “Please stop telling me these things.  I’m not your therapist.”  It’s okay, though.  It helps just to talk about it, and have someone listen, no matter how much they try to ignore you.  I don’t tell him about what happened last night, though.  I don’t think it’s appropriate to bring up anything remotely sexual to a recovering porn addict.  At least, I hope he’s recovering.

When I look at him expectantly, Dr. Pawlak sighs, and relents a little. “It’s not healthy for individuals with destructive and obsessive personalities to be in a relationship without—”

“We’re not really in a relationship,” I quickly interject.  “Wait, which one of is obsessive and which one is destructive?”

He stares down at his half-eaten sandwich, looking nauseous.  “I really have to go, Andi.  My lunch break was over a half hour ago.”

“Okay.  No—let me get that.”  I snatch the bill from the waitress.

“Really, it’s not necessary!”  Dr. Pawlak blinks rapidly.  I’m starting to think it’s a tic of his.

“Please.”  I wave his protests away as I take out my debit card.  “It’s the least I can do.  You really helped me figure some stuff out.”

I ignore his feeble protests.  After I take care of the bill, I walk him out to his car.  I want to ask what he’s been up to since at lunch it was all me, me, me.  But Dr. Pawlak is weird about divulging any personal information.  I guess that’s just a shrink thing.  Gosh, he walks fast.

We get to his silver Mercedes, and he looks so relieved to see his car I think he might just kiss it.  “Well, it was nice to see you again, Andi,” he says politely as he slides behind the wheel.

“You too, Dr. Pawlak.  Hey, um…”  I glance down at my hands, twisting my fingers together.  “Thanks for listening.  I don’t really have anyone else I can talk to about this.  Most people—I don’t know how to talk about stuff that’s important to me.  I know I’m not your most favorite person in the world, and I get how weird this is for you.  So…sorry.  And thank you.”

I look up to find his softened expression, the skin around his eyes finally relaxing from their tense squinting.  He even reaches out of the car to pat my hand.  Wow, physical contact!

“We all need a sympathetic ear every now and then,” he says kindly.  “I know of several wonderful doctors in the Los Angeles area that I could refer you to if you’d like.  I think it would be very beneficial to you if you contacted one of them.”

“Oh,” I say after a surprised pause.  “Well, okay.  I might take you up on that.”

“Great.  Well, I really have to go now.”  He smiles in relief as he starts the engine.

“Right.  Hey, uh, Elijah?  I was thinking maybe we could go out sometime.  We could have dinner, or go dancing—”

Dr. Pawlak drives off so fast, he almost runs over my foot in the process.  I don’t even get to tell him I was joking.  Stupid Andi.

I sit in my car in the parking lot of Libby's Diner, trying to decide how I feel about what happened last night.  I’m glad no one’s around to see my red face, because thinking about it gets me hot.  I mean, it makes me warm.  Overheated.  And also mortified.  I’m starting to recall this dream I had and…

Oh, my god…wait.  Did I…?  Oh, no. 

I’m pretty sure I was the one who grabbed Luke’s hand and shoved it down my pants.  There was touching, also.  I mean, I touched him.  And moaned his name.  Shit…wait!
  I
sexually assaulted
him
!

Well, this changes everything.  I have to leave the country now.  But I have to tell Luke the truth.  I’ll text him after I move.  Just the thought of admitting what I did makes me feel sweaty and claustrophobic, and like I might have a heart attack. 
Run away, run away,
a voice in my head screams.  Yet when I ask it where to, it only repeats itself.

I take deep breaths while holding my hands over my ears to drown out the sound of the voice.  Once in a while, I’ll have a minor meltdown.  Feelings are just so chaotic me, so this is my way of coping.  It’s usually preceded by a rash act.  Once—I don’t remember what set me off—I tried to shave a triangle into the side of my head.  I nicked my scalp, bled like a stuck pig, and passed out.  Later, I wrapped a bandage around it and pretended that I had a head wound for, like, a month.  It was pretty awful.

  I have no idea what I’m going to do this time.

I’ve been ignoring Luke’s calls and texts.  I really have no idea what I’m going to say to him.  Maybe I don’t have to say anything.  Maybe he’s forgotten about the entire incident. 

Yeah, right.

He finally tracks me down at the church, two and a half hours later.  I’m helping Bran transport delicious cakes and cookies for the bake sale they’re having here.  I actually volunteered for the job.  Not out of the goodness of my heart.  I’m not sure I have one of those.  Goodness, I mean.

I’m standing there, eating a white chocolate chip cookie when I spot Luke coming toward me.  I am so freaked out that I let out a little yelp and start to choke.  Bran pats me on the back, looking concerned.  Through my coughing fit, I notice Luke’s gaze land on him, and I’m surprised by the look of strong dislike on Luke’s face right now.  It’ gone so fast that I have to wonder if I imagined it.

The urge to run is instinctive.  But Luke is there standing in front of me, before I can even turn away.  He looks absolutely miserable, and I feel a painful flinch in my chest knowing that I’m the cause.

“Can I talk to you?” he asks me in a low intense voice.

Before I can reply, he just grabs my hand and starts towing me away.  I catch Bran’s curious gaze, and shrug in return.  Bran takes a little limping hop towards us, but I quickly shake my head at him.  I’m pretty sure he thinks Luke is pissed at me.  I don’t know what Bran thinks he can do about it, though—Luke could stomp him like a bug with one hand tied behind his back.  I would have said that Luke wouldn’t do that, but then I remember that fleeting expression when he looked at Bran.  So who knows.

Luke takes me through a heavy swinging door which happens to lead to the kitchen.  Why does a church need a kitchen?  It’s commercial grade, with big stainless steel sinks and a walk-in refrigerator.  Thankfully, no one’s in it at the moment.  The kitchen, not the fridge.

I lean against the counter, watching Luke pace back and forth like a caged tiger.  Finally he stops right in front of me.  “You’re avoiding me,” he blurts out, pinning me to the spot with those intense dragon green eyes.  “Tell me what I can do to fix this.”

“It’s not because of what happened last night,” I say unconvincingly.

“Bullshit!”

Luke slaps the palms of his hands down on either side of me on the counter top, hunkering down so he can look me in the eye.  “I know what I did was fucking awful—but talk to me!  Hit me, throw shit at me, poison me—but don’t run away from me, Andi.  I can’t handle that.”

Isn’t that what every girl dreams of hearing from a hot famous actor?   I must not be like every girl, then because his words make me itch under my skin, and I feel like I can’t breathe.  The truth is I don’t want to inhale his familiar warm summer scent because I’ll drown in it.

I finally gather up the courage to look up at him.  “About what happened last night…”

Luke looks pained.  “There’s no excuse, I know.  I still can’t believe I did that to you.”

My shoulders hunch guiltily.  “It’s not a big deal,” I insist.  “You weren’t awake.  We all do weird things in our sleep.  Not because we subconsciously
want
to.  Sometimes, it’s just a random thing.  One time I woke up holding pliers and a banana.  I don’t even like bananas!”

Luke’s expression remains grim, his jaw clenching.  “You and I know both know that it wasn’t just a random thing.  On some level, I must have known what I was doing.  I—”

“Not necessarily,” I interrupt desperately.  “You could have been caught up in a crazy doesn’t-mean-anything dream.  You probably thought I was one of the many girls you slept with!”

He shakes his head impatiently.  “There’s no way in hell I could mistake you for another girl, Tiger,” he says with so much intensity that I gape at him.  “I’d know it was you even if I were in a coma.”

“Well…”  My gaze drops, and I’m momentarily at a loss for words.  “Like I said earlier, we should forget about it.  I, uh, forgive you.”

Luke cups my chin with his hand, forcing me to look up.  “I took advantage of you when you were asleep and vulnerable,” he says heatedly.  “How can you forgive me for that?  I’ll never forgive myself.”

Damn it.  Why can’t he just let it go?  I can’t let him continue to blame himself…can I?

Ugh.

“It was me,” I grudgingly admit.

He frowns, moving his head closer to mine.  “Sorry, what?”