Ten minutes later, he was dragging me through the woods in the back of Mirna’s house. The same woods I’d ran through when I ran from him weeks ago. “And you wanted me to wear heels?” I asked, stepping over a fallen tree branch. “Where are you taking me, anyway?”
“NOW you ask?” Preppy asked, turning around with a look of surprise on his face. “There is a man dragging you through the woods, with god-knows-what on my twisted mind, and now you think to ask where we’re going? I hate to say it again, Doc, but you’re kind of shit at this life thing.”
“Working on it,” I muttered.
“I’ll help you,” he said, ducking under a low growing bush. “First lesson, don’t go into the woods with men you don’t know because more than likely they have plans that end with your parts being scattered across several counties.”
“No following strangers into the woods,” I said, summarizing his lesson. “Check.”
“Number two, no candy from strangers.”
“What if they’re in a really cool van and parked by my playground?” I asked, with mock stupidity. “And they have Reese’s?”
“Well, then that all depends.”
“Depends on what?” I asked, as we finally found our way clear of the jungle of foliage.
Preppy stepped out into the clearing, turning his face up to the sun. “If the creepy guy in the van is me or not.”
Where most of Logan’s Beach is flat, the clearing was rocky on all sides with a large pond in the middle. Jagged rocks and piles of hard shell created a slope to a rocky perch ten feet or so above my head and twenty feet above the water below.
Preppy took off running up the slope but I stayed put, wondering what on earth he was up to.
I thought our funny banter about life lessons was a good step toward having a good time. I was ALMOST looking forward to the rest of the day, but the second Preppy pulled off his shirt I knew it was all a big fucking mistake. Even with only his naked back in view while he set his shirt neatly on a nearby rock, I knew I was screwed. But when he turned around and I was given a full view of his upper body, I considered heading back to the tower for another dose of a life reality check.
Because he COULDN’T be real.
He was complete and utter…perfection.
PAINFULLY so.
Colorful tattoos were inked over most of his skin. His defined abs flexed when he stretched his arms over his head. His biceps and forearms were lined with veins. He even had one of those V things that ran into his jeans and had me licking my lips like he was a steak and I was a hungry lion.
Which I wasn’t. I was the weak hurt lamb, wasn’t I? How the fuck did that movie go again?
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me? I thought, unable to tear my eyes away from the man, who with the removal of one item of clothing, had turned from looking like a hipster-professor type…into walking sex.
“Why am I kidding you?” he asked. That’s when I realized I’d not exactly kept that thought to myself.
There was no way to hide my staring, and since I couldn’t rip my eyes away from his body I decided to go with the truth, no matter how painful it was. “Seriously, THAT’S what you’ve been hiding under your LEAVE IT TO BEAVER clothes?” I asked, as he stood on the very edge of the ledge where the sunlight highlighted every bit of his perfection. He looked like one of those tattoo models on the cover of INKED magazine. Was it too much to ask that he have lopsided nipples or a beer belly?
“Like what you see, Doc?” Preppy asked, rubbing his chest, slowly sliding hands down his abs, gyrating his hips like some sort of erotic dancer. A move I’d never found attractive…until right then. Shit, there wasn’t much I’d found attractive before Conner and I started on our road trip to hell, and the first stirring of any kind of desire in over a year comes courtesy of the devil in a bow tie.
Man, I really was fucked up.
“God, no” I said, finding my voice. “I mean, what kind of person would like that?” I asked, twisting my face in disgust. “What I meant was that you’re like seriously disgusting. You should just cover…” I waved to his bare chest, “all that up,” I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes. “If we were in public, there would be people puking everywhere at the sight of you. So gross.” By the time I was done with my rant, Preppy’s smile had grown so big it was blinding.
Without warning he shoved down the waistband of his pants. I quickly turned around so he wouldn’t see the redness creeping up my neck at the thought of him without his pants on, and I kept rambling, “Do a sit up for Christ’s sake, before you go flashing your flabs all over the place.”
Preppy’s chuckle echoed over the water. “What was that, Doc?” he called out, “You want to sit on my face?”
“I am so fucking screwed.” I muttered, keeping my voice low, but he heard me anyway.
“Not yet, anyway,” he said.
“What the fuck?” I asked, turning around. “Do you have fucking sonic hearing? Or maybe sonar, like a dolphin?” Preppy was perched at the edge of the ledge, dressed only in a pair of black boxers.
With one last wag of his eyebrows in my direction, he held his nose and jumped off the rock, hugging his knees tightly to his chest. “Cannnnnnnon Baaaaaaaalllll!” he yelled, until he connected with the water, sending a huge splash raining down over me. I guess I wasn’t staying dry after all.
I was wiping the water from my eyes and realized that was a huge mistake when my eyes began to sting. “Shit!” I said, stumbling around blindly.
I heard the water dripping onto the rocks and Preppy’s feet as he padded over to me. “Here, stop,” he said, taking my face in his hands and tilting my chin up so he could inspect my eyes. “The pond is salt water, it connects underground to some of the canals around here and salt water is a bitch on the eyes. Open your eyes and blink as much as you can and as fast as you can,” he ordered, and I listened. It stung at first, but after a minute the stinging sensation eased up as a mixture of salt water and tears dripped from my eyes.
“Thanks,” I said, focusing on the man above me, his hair and beard dripping with water, droplets beading on his chest.
He kept his hands on my face. “You’re next, Doc,” he said, in a low suggestive voice. “I want you to get nice and wet.”
“Do you ever say anything that’s NOT dripping with innuendo?” I asked, pulling away from him and turning around to pull my now wet hair into a high ponytail. I heard Preppy padding back up to where he’d hung his jeans, and then the sound of his buckle as he got dressed.
I made the very big mistake of whipping around too quickly, not realizing that Preppy was standing right behind me, and again I slammed right into his hard wet chest. Even worse, when I put my hands out to cushion the impact, they landed low. TOO LOW. And right on something very large and VERY hard in the front of his pants.
He shrugged. “Probably not, but I can’t say for sure, being as I don’t really keep track of that kind of shit,” he answered, following my gaze which was still locked on the crotch of his pants and the huge bulge pushing out the fabric.