Spectacularly Broken (8 page)

The room was silent when I finished.

“That’s depressing,” Jarett said eventually.

“Yeah. Sorry.” I shrugged, feeling uncomfortable with how much I’d just shared. That memory felt personal. I remembered that bird like I’d seen it yesterday, and it still broke my heart.

Jarett drew a purple skittle. “I’d lose some weight if I could,” he said promptly. “I’m too fat.”

I found that almost more depressing than my bird story. I mean, it was true—he could have stood to lose a few pounds—but it sucked that he was so obviously unhappy about it. And thinking of him like that made me feel shallow.

Hell, I probably
was
shallow.

“You’re strong, though,” I pointed out. “You could probably bench-press me.”

He looked me up and down. “Yeah, probably,” he said and brightened a little.

I felt stupidly good about myself after that happened.

* * * *

Dinner that night marked the first time our group didn’t eat in silence. Lexa still didn’t talk, of course, but she listened with interest, and Nicky talked for two anyway, so it worked out. Jarett eyed my dessert brownie, and I considered handing it over but then thought about how he’d said he wanted to lose weight. I didn’t want to be an enabler. Then again, I also needed to watch what I was eating because I’d had a nightmare about no longer fitting into my pants once I got them back from Finn. Finally I split the damn thing in half for both of us.

Man, being supportive wasn’t as easy as it sounded.

Cai did no more than glance at me occasionally, but there was a hunger in his eyes that gave me pleasant shivers. It was obvious that he was looking forward to our after-dinner kitchen punishment as much as I was. I was pleased with how this was turning out. I definitely had use for a mutually beneficial arrangement that allowed me to keep from crawling out of my skin. Some form of a regular high was definitely needed if I wanted to survive four freaking weeks in this place.

But before I could get my tantalizing reward, I had to work for it in the form of kitchen cleanup. Cai and I worked in silence next to each other while blue group demolished the dirty dishes—holy hell, were they efficient—and then, as if by unspoken agreement, we hurried to get the silverware sorted and the omelet ingredients measured out.

Eventually I got bored with the silence. “How come you don’t like my cousin?” I asked.

“Huh?” Cai grunted.

“When you insulted me yesterday, it didn’t sound like you were all that fond of him either. Have you ever even talked to him?”

“Oh. No, but I’ve listened to him talk. Have you? Because if so, I’m shocked you’ve never punched him.”

“Why?” I hadn’t actually spent much time at all studying Finn’s version of being me, so I was lost as to what Cai meant.

“Oh, come on. He opens his mouth, and it’s all yachts and BMWs and diamond-encrusted toilet seats. The guy is shallow as a kiddie pool.”

Huh. Apparently Finn was getting a little too much into character.

Wait, was this how I sounded to people? Fuck, no way in hell. I had to be more interesting than that.

“You might change your mind if you get to know him,” I tried.

“Right. Because underneath the bejeweled shell, he’s all fuzzy and lovable.”

“I don’t think he’s very fuzzy. Our family doesn’t really do body hair.”

“Your family is a nuthouse,” he said.

“Shut up and let me blow you.”

He dropped a handful of forks and hauled me to the pantry. Once again I had him slammed against the door, hastily undoing his pants while I lowered myself to the floor. I liked being on my knees, a lot. I liked the flavor, liked having my lips stretched taut around a hot shaft and driving guys crazy with how well I could suck.

And with Cai, I really liked it. It was the way his dark eyes met mine, looking dazed with lust yet somehow still arrogant. It was those hot-as-hell piercings on the underside of his shaft that created such an exciting texture for my tongue to explore. It was because he so obviously got off on watching me take him into my mouth, because he had no compunction about thrusting hard and fast and deep and using my mouth to make himself come.

And because we were in a goddamn pantry. That part was hot too.

I sucked him deep and then pulled back for a moment, pressing my tongue into his slit and making him hiss in reaction. I swallowed him, letting my throat muscles massage him, then focused on manipulating his piercings. He was fun to play with. He was even more fun when he lost it completely and forgot to keep his voice down as he flooded my mouth with semen. His harsh groans reverberated through me, stroking my ego and making me ache with need.

He barely took the time to catch his breath before he ordered me to get up. With his help, I managed to get to a standing position, and he switched our spots, then pushed me against the door as he got to his knees in front of me.

Oh hell yeah.

His mouth was hot and moist and gloriously tight on me. I didn’t have piercings for him to play with, but instead his fingers found my balls and the sensitive skin behind them and explored both thoroughly. I happily hummed my approval while trying to keep the thrust of my hips marginally under control—as opposed to me, he appeared to actually have a gag reflex, and it occurred to me that triggering it might be a rude thing to do. And it certainly wasn’t necessary. He knew damn well what he was doing, he sucked like a Hoover, and soon he had me teetering on the edge of bliss.

“Fuck, please,” I moaned, breaking my resolve to remain silent. “Oh fuck. Oh God, that’s good.”

His deep groan vibrated around me, igniting me, teeth scraping gently. I buried my hands in his hair and pulled hard as he dragged me over the edge and made my world go blurry.

I loved how eagerly he swallowed. I loved the way he looked as he did it too, eyes closed, lips still tight around me, throat moving and moving. It was fucking hot.

“Jesus,” I hissed when he finally pulled off with an obscene
pop.

“No, it’s Cai,” he teased.

“Stop ruining my afterglow.”

He just grinned and took care of adjusting our clothes. As he straightened, his lips inches from mine and his breath hot on my skin, I moaned with unabashed longing. “You need to share your cigarettes, jerk.”

“Yeah? Whatcha willing to pay for one?”

“Um. Skittles?” I offered. He burst into laughter. “Or sexual favors. I’m very creative.”

“I believe it,” he assured me. “But I look forward to having you prove it anyway.”

Chapter Nine

On our way out of the kitchen, we ran into Angie, who appeared delighted that we had put our differences aside. I was just glad she didn’t take a closer look at our flushed faces and notice our swollen lips or blissed-out expressions. Because I hadn’t checked in with Finn all day, I stopped by his room on the way to mine.

“Oh, hi,” he said, opening the door wide and allowing me into what had once been his room but was now one giant walk-in closet. There were clothes everywhere—on the bed, on the table and the two chairs, hanging over the closet door and from the lampshade and wire hangers, lying on the floor. My heart started weeping.

“When I told you to be careful with my stuff, this was not what I had in mind,” I whined.

“Oh, calm down. I’m just sorting through it all.” Finn peeled off the pair of pants he’d been wearing and added them to the stack on the table, which wobbled precariously.

“Why?”

“To figure out how much of this crap I can actually wear without feeling like an idiot. I’m trying it all on, and I’m sorting it into piles.” He pointed. “Wearable, Maybe, and Oh God Kill Me Now.”

“You’re so ungrateful.”

“No, I’m sane. Who the hell wears powder-blue leather pants?”

“There’s a shirt they go with.” I waded through the sea of clothes to look while Finn tried on the next pair of pants, hopping on one leg. “So what’d you do all day, apart from insulting my taste?”

“I had another counseling session. I was gonna ask you about that anyway. Are you a sex addict?”

I wheeled round and nearly lost my balance. Finn grabbed my arm to prevent me from falling into a pile of shirts.

“Wait, what?”

“Seriously. The sorts of questions I got asked today were…interesting, to put it nicely.”

“How the hell does Dr. Brookhard even know all this stuff? That’s bullshit.”

“I hate to say it, but I think your dad might have made a list before he sent you here.” Finn grimaced in a way that was probably supposed to be sympathetic.

“Fucking hell.”

“Yeah, well, we can’t do anything about it now. So. The sex?”

“I like sex. Last time I checked, that wasn’t a crime.”

“I’m not saying it is. I just…I want to make sure I don’t fuck you over in these counseling sessions, okay? I’m trying to be as vague as I can, but I need a little background.”

I sighed deeply. Discussing my sex life with my cousin did not sound like my idea of a good time, but I got his point. He had told me about his issues too—though, to be fair, I really didn’t consider this one an issue. It was sex, for fuck’s sake. Of course I liked it. Who didn’t?

I dropped onto the bed, not caring about the fact that I landed in a sea of socks and underwear. “What do you want to know?”

“Crap. I don’t know.” Finn bit his lip. “I have no idea where to start.”

“Well, I don’t either. What kind of questions did he ask you?”

“Let’s see, uh…” Finn abandoned his attempt to wrestle yet another pair of skintight pants over his hips and sat down next to me, denim gathered round his thighs. “Whether I thought it was normal and healthy that I started being sexually active so early.”

“That’s none of his goddamn business,” I growled.

“I told him I’d think about it.” Finn arched an eyebrow at me. “How old were you?”

“It happened on my twelfth birthday.”

“Holy fuck,” Finn croaked.

“It’s not that early.”

“Um, yeah, Lys, it kind of is.”

I shrugged, thrown by his obvious shock. “Didn’t feel early.”

“Jesus, are you kidding me?” Finn stared at me. “You’re serious. You were
twelve
.”

“So was the guy who fucked me,” I pointed out. “No, wait, he might have been thirteen. I don’t really remember.”

Finn buried his face in his hands. “That’s really disturbing.”

“Seriously. It’s not that big a deal.” I bumped his shoulder with mine. “It wasn’t bad. I had fun. I didn’t regret it. I honestly don’t see the problem.”

“Christ, Lys, you weren’t even a teenager yet.”

I just shrugged. I had no idea how else to explain it. I’d clearly bloomed early, but that was all there was to it.

“Why?” Finn asked eventually.

“Why what?”

“Why the hell did you decide to have sex on your twelfth birthday?”

“Oh. Because my father was in Hawaii,” I said like that explained everything.

He stared. “And?”

“And it was my birthday, and I was really, really angry he wasn’t home. Well, technically he came home at eleven that night, but he had stuff going on early the next day, and I was supposed to be in bed by then, so he told me not to expect to see him.”

“So you were pissed off and had sex.”

“So I stayed up with our gardener’s son and seduced him in the living room at eleven p.m. sharp,” I explained proudly.

Finn made a croaking sound and fell backward onto the bed.

“This was a bad idea,” he muttered eventually. “This switching thing. ’Cause I hate to break it to you, but I think you really do need therapy.”

“I hate talking to shrinks,” I assured him. “I can guarantee you I wouldn’t have told Dr. Brookhard any of this stuff. Talking to you is easier.”

“Well, I guess that’s something. So what happened?”

“With what?”

“Did Uncle Joel really walk in on you having sex?”

“Yup.”

“Oh God. What’d he do?”

I sighed. “Sent me to bed, fired the gardener, and went off to do a promo tour. Never mentioned it again.”

“You know,” said Finn, “I think that explains a lot.”

* * * *

I spent much of the next day in a particularly bad mood because Angie had decided to become our career counselor. She had us write down yet another list of what we liked to do and were good at, and goddamn it, I had no idea.

“Swimming,” I repeated for the tenth time, staring at my otherwise empty sheet.

“I need you to write something more,” Angie repeated patiently. She was looking over my shoulder because I had chosen to lie on the floor again. I liked it there, and I wasn’t the only one. “I don’t believe there’s not a single thing that comes to your mind except swimming. Come on. Something you do, that you like to do. I don’t care if it’s lawn darts. There’s got to be something.”

“Yeah, well, apparently I’m just that pathetic,” I ground out.

“No, you’re not.” Angie shook her head at me and patted my shoulder. “Keep thinking. Jarett, what do you have so far?”

“I’m good with electronics,” came the prompt answer. “I like video games. I like to read too.” Jarett seemed happy to be contributing. He often seemed unsure of what to say, but this appeared to be fun for him.

“I can juggle,” Nicky called out proudly. “And I kick ass at Ping-Pong.”

I failed to see how either of these skills would help him find a career, but I wasn’t about to be a downer by pointing that out.

Lexa had long since finished writing her list, and since she never seemed to mind us reading what she’d written, I approached her and looked over her shoulder.

“I figured you’d say drawing and painting,” I told her. “You’re freaking amazing at it.”

She smiled, looking pleased. I read past jewelry making, which was cool too, and then stared at—

“Drama? Really? You’ve done acting?”

Her face darkened, and she scratched it out before I could stop her.

Shit.

“I didn’t mean… I was just surprised,” I tried to fix my slipup. “You’re probably really good at that too. I’d love to see you act sometime.”

Her expression remained unchanged. I tried to figure out what else I could say to make her feel better, but then my attention was taken up by Cai, whose voice had suddenly increased significantly in volume.