Desperately Devastated (Addicted To You, Book Nine) (4 page)

Not cool.

The reply came immediately.

Neither is you letting that douchebag put his hands all over you.

“Lindsay?” Carter called from a few feet ahead. “You coming?”

I slid my eyes over the crowd once more, but I couldn’t find Justin.

“Yes,” I said finally. “I’m coming.”

JUSTIN

Despite the fact that I was kind of annoyed after seeing that guy put his hands on Lindsay at the airport (and then I’d had to sit apart from her the entire flight), things had improved when I’d gotten to the hotel and she’d texted me almost immediately.

You can come up to the room now.

I’d been starting to think she might try and make me wait all night. But within minutes, I’d made my way up and gotten inside. Finally, we were together again.

The door shut behind me, and I gave the place a once-over, taking it all in.

“Just the two of us,” I said, walking to the window and peeking outside. The view wasn’t bad—a bunch of other tall buildings and the city streets below. Everything in New York City was twenty times the size of Boston, and I’d forgotten how big the Big Apple really was.

“Yup, just the two of us,” Lindsay said. “Well, three, if you include this computer.” She was sitting on the big Queen sized bed and already opening her laptop.

I turned away from the window. “What are you doing with that?”

She glanced up at me as she powered it on. “This is called a computer,” she said.

“I use it to do my work.”

“I know what a computer is.” I rolled my eyes. She was looking at me with nervousness, and I didn’t like it.

“You do realize I’m here on a work trip. I warned you that I would be doing a lot of work, not just hanging out.”

“I understand the concept of a business trip, Lindsay. I’m not a total idiot.”

“Okay, I’m just making sure you get that I’m going to be…” Suddenly she was looking at her phone. Somebody had obviously texted her.

“Who’s that?” I asked, walking closer to the bed.

She didn’t answer at first. Instead, she picked up the phone and started texting furiously back—as if she was writing a novel on her cell.

“Lindsay, who is it?”

“It’s just Carter.” She sighed. “Shit.”

“What did he say?”

“He said that Dr. Klaxton is still on the warpath. God, that man is a complete egomaniac.” She shook her head.

“I guess that makes them a good fit for each other. Two complete egomaniacs.”

Lindsay went back to her laptop. “Carter’s nothing like Dr. Klaxton. Carter’s actually nice. And I told you, he’s not interested in me. It’s just his job to take time to explain things to me.”

“Oh, I bet it is,” I muttered.

Lindsay wasn’t listening anyway. She was back on her laptop, doing something very intently. I watched her for a few seconds, the way you can watch someone when they don’t know or care that you’re looking at them.

Her eyes were beautiful, I decided. Like genuinely beautiful. Her entire face was just so…bright, alive, intelligent. Yes, she was also sexy as hell—but staring at her, I knew that it was far more than sexiness that had gotten me out of Boston and all the way to NYC in the blink of an eye.

And even though it was frustrating that she was here with a total jag like Cramer or Carter or whatever his dumb name was—I loved that she had passion for something.

She really loves this stuff, I thought, as I watched her typing away on her computer.

I had to respect it. I was kind of in awe of it, really.

I left the bedroom and went into the bathroom, just to check it out. There was a big shower with a tub that had jets. The first thing that went through my mind when I saw it, was me and Lindsay in there, naked, drinking champagne together.

I could picture her smooth skin glistening, my hand caressing up her thigh…

I came out of the bathroom with renewed energy. Of course, Lindsay was still on the bed, hunched over the computer. I could see the screen from this angle. She was working on some kind of slide presentation, and the slide on the screen had a picture of a scale, and then in big, bold letters, it said AVERAGE WEIGHT LOSS AMONG

CONTROL GROUP.

I didn’t know what it meant. “What’s a control group?” I asked.

Lindsay turned around like I’d startled her. She pulled the screen down, nearly shutting it completely. “Excuse me,” she said.

“Excuse you? Why?”

“It’s just… I’m sorry, but this stuff is supposed to be confidential.”

The look on her face was partly bugging me, but partly turning me on for some strange reason. She looked both cute and uptight, her lips pursed, eyebrows arched. I jumped onto the bed next to her, causing both her and the computer to fly a few inches off the mattress.

Lindsay yelped and grabbed at her laptop. “Justin!” she cried.

“Ooh, it’s confidential,” I mimicked her. I couldn’t help but laugh. “What is with you tonight?” I reached out and grabbed her wrist lightly. “Can’t you even chill for a second?”

“No, I cannot chill for a second. I’m supposed to be working. We talked about this and you promised you wouldn’t bother me.”

“I’m not bothering you,” I said, giving her my best version of puppy dog eyes.

“Am I?”

“Yes!”

I laughed again and pulled her closer, nipping at her neck, grazing my lips across her skin. She exhaled sharply, letting me know that I’d definitely gotten her attention.

“Come on, Linds.” I leaned in again, this time kissing her neck for a second.

“All work and no play…”

She sighed again and her body started to relax. I pulled her closer, and brought my lips closer to her lips. Her eyes locked on mine and I knew I’d finally broken her down. That stupid Carter and the stupid slideshow she was working on wasn’t going to beat me—beat us. We had a connection, we had a spark, and I was going to make it my mission to turn that spark into a raging inferno tonight.

But just when I was about to really kiss her for the first time since I’d arrived at the room, I heard an obnoxious buzzing sound, all too recognizable to be anything but Carter texting her once more.

She pulled away from me again and reached for her cell.

“Come on,” I moaned. “Can’t you at least let the guy wait a minute before answering?”

But she was already back at it, texting away with a fury.

My good mood soured as I watched her eyes intently scan her phone as the two of them corresponded back and forth.

What could that jerk be saying to her that was so important? I wondered.

But she didn’t think I needed to know what was so important, apparently, because she never bothered telling me what they were texting about. Instead, she pretty much just ignored me.

I sat there next to her on the hotel bed, watching her have this intense conversation with some other guy in front of me, treating me like I was invisible. And my blood started to boil.

I could feel it happening. My shoulders tightening, my face getting hot, my jaw clicking as I grit my teeth together. This was the way I got before a fight—before a tough sparring session at the gym. I wanted to hit something.

Or someone.

Hard.

I closed my eyes and tried to calm down, but that was the thing. I’d always been best at fighting—calming down wasn’t really my strong point.

Still, I did my best. What had someone once told me? A teacher had said that you should take three deep breaths if you were getting angry. I’d usually punched the other kid before I’d had a chance to even take one breath.

But now I did my best to take a few deep breaths, because I knew what would happen if I flipped out on Lindsay in the hotel room during her work trip. She would hate me for it, hate me for lying to her when I said I wouldn’t bother her—hate me for messing things up for her.

I needed to try and get some perspective.

And somehow, some way, I actually did it. I felt my hands unclench and I opened my eyes. I’d calmed down enough that I wasn’t about to run over to Carter’s room and jack him in the face when he opened the door.

But I still wasn’t happy, as I watched Lindsay continue to text with him. She shook her head. “I just don’t get how we’re going to ever finish this presentation in time,” she said. “It’s going to take all night.”

“Come on,” I said. “Take a break for two seconds, Lindsay. You’re going to drive yourself crazy.” I flashed her my most charming smile and she finally looked at me and smiled back.

“I think you’re the one who’s most in danger of going crazy, between the two of us.”

I grabbed her hand and pulled her toward me again. “Maybe if you’d let me kiss you I’d snap back to reality.” She came willingly this time, her body soft and warm against mine.

I leaned in and kissed her lips, slowly, knowing that I wanted to take it slow with her. Every time I kissed Lindsay seemed like the first time, somehow. I’d never had that experience before with any other girl. I still got that same electric spark, that charge that went off throughout my entire body, every single time we touched each other.

That has to mean something, I thought. It can’t just be some random little fling that we’re having.

It’s more than that.

I held her close, kissing her lips and then slowly sliding my tongue into her mouth. She moaned ever so softly.

I could tell that she was losing her will to work on that ridiculous slide presentation. Who cared about slide shows anyway?

Nobody actually paid any attention to that crap, at least I never had when I’d been in high school and people had given those stupid lectures.

She rolled over onto her back, knocking into her computer. It slid a foot or two toward the edge of the bed, but Lindsay didn’t seem to mind, and I definitely wasn’t going to stop kissing her to rescue it.

I climbed on top of her, pressing my chest against hers as I kissed her more forcefully, and her tongue entwined with mine. She moaned again, a little bit louder this time.

I stopped kissing her for a moment and looked into her eyes.

Lindsay looked back at me, and it was just the two of us at that moment—just us—I knew that we had something special. There was something powerful between Lindsay and me, and I had to be an idiot if I were to let that go.

And then I leaned in to kiss her again, and her whole body seemed to push up to me, like a magnetic attraction pulling our two bodies together.

At that exact second, when it seemed like the whole thing between us was going to explode and finally go out of control, in the best kind of way—there was a series of knocks on the door.

Lindsay’s eyelids snapped open like window shades.

“Lindsay?” came a guy’s voice from outside the room. More knocking followed.

“You in there?”

She sat up and put her finger over my lips.

“Just a second, Carter!” she called out, and then sprang out of bed and pulled me with her.

“What the hell,” I whispered, and she shook her head violently, shushing me again. She grabbed my arm and dragged me toward the bathroom.

When we got inside the bathroom, she glared at me, her eyes fiery and intense.

“Do not even breathe in here,” she whispered. “Do not make a sound.”

I stared back at her, folding my arms. “Why are you so afraid of him knowing about me?”

“Justin, I can’t argue right now. Just be. Quiet.” Then she walked out of the bathroom, shutting the door as she went.

I felt the blood rushing to my head and my fists clenching. Why should I sit in that bathroom in fear of being discovered? What did I care if that asshole knew I was in her room?

She was the one who cared.

That’s because she’s ashamed of you. She thinks you’re a loser. If you were
some med student with a bright future as a prestigious doctor, do you really think she’d
worry about this Carter dude seeing you in her room?

I began pacing back and forth in the bathroom, like some kind of caged animal. A tiger, thirsty for blood, and I was ready to jump out of my skin and pounce on that Carter dude if he said the wrong thing.

When she opened the door and let him inside, I could hear everything the two of them said to each other.

“Sorry this presentation is turning into such a problem,” Lindsay said.

“It’s not your fault,” Carter said.

I put my ear to the bathroom door so I could listen to them even better.

“So, what’s up?” Lindsay asked.

“We need to put our heads together to deal with the slides on the PK curves and the TK results. They’re confusing and I’m worried that the physicians are going to start making it into a bigger deal than it is.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Lindsay said.

I listened to them, my anger building, even though I had no idea what they were even talking about. All I knew was that they were out there acting like kissing cousins and I was stuck in a goddamn bathroom like some fool.

I
was the fool. I’d never been the fool before and I didn’t like it. At all.

I stopped listening to them after a couple more minutes of scientific mumbo jumbo. They were working on the slides and it didn’t sound like they were going to stop anytime soon.

Just go out there and put an end to it, then. What are you so afraid of?

But I’d promised Lindsay that I wouldn’t embarrass her, would stay out of the way, hidden from view.

If I busted out of the bathroom and told her geeky friend to take a hike, I’d be sent on my way about three seconds behind him. She wouldn’t want anything to do with me if I pulled another crazy stunt--she’d seen me do enough crazy stuff already.

So I kept my cool, just barely, and walked quietly around the bathroom, counting paces, shadow boxing, and reminding myself not to blow it with Lindsay.

Only, my patience started to wear thin as the minutes dragged on and on.

Eventually, I sat down on the floor and looked at the scar tissue on my knuckles.

Thought about Quarry, the FBI, and how my life seemed to have spiraled completely out of control in a matter of weeks.

Don’t forget about Brooklyn. What if she isn’t just late—what if she’s pregnant?