He's back up in a flash and coming at me again. I surprise him with my fist to his left eye and then his stomach. He keels over, holding his stomach, before puking on the floor at my feet.
"Owen." I hear Chelsea's voice over my shoulder. She's caught me by surprise, and as I look over my shoulder to where she's standing, my dad plows into me and knocks me to the ground.
"Chelsea run! Run and keep going until I come for you! Run now! Run!"
Bliss
Sitting straight up in bed, I listen intently. I know I heard something. Someone was yelling, but I don't hear anything now. Laying back down, I roll to my side, stare at my door, and continue to listen. It's silent in the apartment, aside from the sound of my beating heart. Our apartment. Mine and Owen's. It's weird that I'm sharing an apartment with a complete stranger, and the fact that he's a guy makes it that much weirder. I still can't believe that my father hired him.
There it is again. It's even louder this time. It sounds like Owen is yelling at someone, so against my better judgment, I jump out of bed to see what the hell is going on. When I open my door, I find the entire apartment is dark, and the only sounds are coming from Owen's room. Did he have company come over after I went to bed?
As quietly as possible, I tiptoe toward his bedroom and press my ear against his door. I’m met with silence. I can't hear anything. Waiting for a few minutes before pulling back, I finally turn to leave. That's when I hear him again. He's telling someone to run. He keeps screaming and it sounds like he's struggling to breathe.
I check the handle and find his door is unlocked. Peeking inside, I make out a dark figure flailing on the bed. Moving closer, I reach out and gently touch him on the arm. He bolts upright in his bed, his sheet sliding down his chest, barely covering his lower half. Damn! He sleeps naked.
It takes a minute to force myself to look up at him, to make eye contact. When I finally do, I find he's staring at me, but he doesn't appear fully awake yet. There's a far away, lost look in his eyes. He was obviously having a nightmare about something that's torturing him. I wish I knew what it was so I could try and help him.
"Owen. Are you awake?" I ask softly.
"Yeah. Did I wake you?" he asks, clearing his throat.
"Are you okay?" I don't want him to feel bad about waking me up, so I avoid answering his question.
"Yeah. Fine. You should go back to sleep. You have a full day of classes ahead of you tomorrow." He turns away, breaking eye contact before he speaks, a classic sign he's hiding something, but now is not the time to ask about it. Whatever it is, it's fresh on his mind, and the wound is wide open.
Nodding my head, I turn and head back to my room, quietly closing his door behind me. I wait a few moments before walking away to see if I can hear anything. Nothing. It's silent behind his door, so I retreat back to my room. Sleep eludes me. All I can focus on is the sadness I saw in Owen’s eyes.
I'm still wide awake, my mind attempting to process last night, when my alarm sounds, signaling the start of my last year of college.
I should be excited, but instead, I'm exhausted and overwhelmed with concern for someone that I don't really know but want to. We have all year. Literally, every hour of every day until I'm done with school. That’s more than enough time to get to know each other, for me to figure out what caused him to have such a disturbing nightmare, and I plan on doing just that.
Figuring out Owen Hudson.
Our ride to class the next morning is quiet. He's barely spoken to me this morning and is avoiding eye contact. I'm starting to get the feeling he's embarrassed about last night. He shouldn't be, but I can't find the right way to tell him that. I’m guessing he wouldn't listen to me even if I tried.
My first day goes by in a blur. Owen is with me for everything, but at a distance. I can feel him watching me and watching my every move. I may have started swaying my hips a little more after having lunch with Avery. Listening to her talk about him, drool over him, and tell me every naughty thing she wanted to do to him made me want to stake my claim on him. Not that I can claim him as mine, but after listening to her go on and on, I was wishing I could.
I’m pleasantly surprised when we make small talk on the way back to the apartment. Not wanting to push my luck, I escape to my room until dinner. Hoping for light conversation, I’m surprised he's withdrawn and quiet the rest of the night. The next day proves to be more of the same, as does the next. For almost two weeks, we talk on the way to and from campus but rarely speak when we’re alone at home. Finally, I reach my breaking point. Either we are going to be friends or this isn't going to work. If he has to be by my side every second of every day, we need to have some sort of relationship. Talking and feeling comfortable around each other is step one to building a functioning relationship, at least in my opinion.
Trying to find the perfect moment, I wait until Friday after classes are over and we are on our way back to the apartment. The car is silent except for the radio softly playing a little country music in the background. It feels like the tension between us has increased over the last few days. If you tried to cut through it with a knife, you would need it to be incredibly sharp.
I'm not really sure what I want to say. I've been thinking about it all day, and I've come up with jack shit. How do you even start a conversation with someone about wanting to have conversations with them? It even sounds ridiculous. Do I just talk to him? Ask him about his day? That won’t work. I know exactly how his day was. He was following me all day. How boring for him.
My gut tells me to ask him about the nightmare. He hasn't had one since that night or I haven't heard him if he has. I still wonder about it, and I'm not sleeping soundly. Any little sound wakes me at night, and I find myself outside his door, listening with my ear against the wood like a crazy person. I was going to tell Avery about it, but anytime I bring up Owen, she immediately starts talking about how sexy he is and how badly she wants to get in his pants. I haven't brought him up in a while for that reason, and I haven't invited her over for fear that she might attempt to get what she wants.
I’m aware it makes me a little protective of what's mine. Well, not that Owen is mine, or that I even want him to be mine, but I guess, in a way, he is mine. He's my bodyguard. He's my roommate. I feel like a selfish bitch, but I don't want Avery to have him. Not like that, not at all.
Time to quit stalling. I need to find a way to break the tension in the car, to start this conversation before we get home and he can attempt to escape me. That's it! We never go out and do anything. I'm not even sure that he's seen the city before. Aside from that first night when we went to dinner, we’ve barely left the apartment. Grocery shopping and my weekly study groups are our normal outings. We need a night out on the town. A few drinks might loosen him up, and maybe then we can get to know each other a little better.
Do I tell him we are going out, or do I ask? Owen seems like the kind of guy that likes to make his own decisions. He probably doesn't like to be told what to do, but if I ask him, he has the opportunity to say no. There's only one way to get him out of the apartment.
"I just wanted to let you know I'm going out tonight," I say, trying to sound bored with the idea. I turn and look out the window as I see him glance in my direction. Making eye contact may give away my ulterior motives.
"Are you sure your father would approve? Avery seems a little wild." He's dead serious. His tone almost matches my father's when he's trying not to scold me.
"My father's not here, and to be honest, I don't really give a shit. If he thinks he is going to keep me locked up my last year of college, then he's delusional." I don’t have to fake the irritated tone I’m taking with him.
"Where are you going, and how long are you planning on being gone?"
Shit! It sounds like he's going to let me go alone. "I was thinking the dive bar down the street. Avery isn't coming with me, by the way. She has a date tonight, so I'm flying solo. I don't know what time I'll be home. It just depends on how much I d
rink and if the band’s any good."
I wasn't planning on playing twenty questions. If I had known that I was going to have to describe my night to him, I would have thought this through a little better. The fact he's not saying anything right now makes me think that I have him on the hook.
"Fine. What time are we leaving?" You can hear he's not happy with me, but that’s what I was banking on. Wherever I go, he has to go. A dive bar in downtown New York City isn't exactly safe. He would be fired on the spot if my father found out he let me go alone.
"I'm not sure. I'll let you know." As I exit the living room, excited to dress up and get out for a change, I hear Owen call after me, getting the last word in as usual.
"I'd appreciate it if you let me know before you leave the apartment this time so I don't have to chase you down." He's referring to that first night when I left without telling him. He still thinks that I tried to "escape" him. I want to tell him that, in a way, he's right. I was trying to escape, but not from him. I was trying to escape what I was feeling for him at that moment.
His presence still makes me weak in the knees from time to time. I'm getting used to the feeling more as each day passes. I anticipate the butterflies every morning as I walk into the kitchen and he's brewing coffee for the two of us, shirtless. Those same butterflies go crazy when I get a whiff of his aftershave. On the very rare occasion that he walks in front of me and I get the opportunity to check him out, I sometimes feel like I'm about to pass out I'm so overwhelmed with desire.
I barely know anything about him other than his name. I have no idea where he's from, what secrets his past may hold, or what his dreams for the future are. I want to, though, and that's what tonight's about. I want to know more about him, my mysterious roommate, the sexy man that consumes my dreams while he sleeps less than twenty feet away.
4
Owen
She's going out tonight. To a dive bar. Alone.
Over my dead body!
I would be dead, too, if her father found out I let her go alone. If I let her walk out that door, unprotected and alone, I might as well sign my own death warrant. I don't want to do that. Not after the weeks of hell I’ve put myself through since meeting Bliss. If I'm going to give her father a reason to kill me, it's going to be a good one, and I'm going to die a happy man.
I can't think about that right now. I need to figure out a way to either deter her from wanting to go out, or I need to go with her. If I go with her, I have to tell her father. He has to understand that she's not going to stay locked in the apartment without a fight, not that he'll care. I'm the one that would have to fight her to get her to stay.
I'm dying to go out, too, so I get it. The spacious apartment we share, with two bedrooms and two bathrooms, feels about the size of a broom closet right now. We've spent almost all of our time there, and the walls feel like they are closing in more and more every day. I'm dying to get out, especially at night. I'm afraid that I'm going to have another nightmare, and there's no chance Bliss won't hear me.
She's leaving me no choice. I know she's not going to change her mind, so I'm going to have to call her father and tell him of her plans. Which also means I will have to go with her. It's not all bad, I guess. I won’t have to stare at the walls of the apartment tonight. I can grab a couple of beers and relax a bit. Not too much, of course, since I have to stay alert and still keep a close eye on Bliss, but I can have a couple. Yeah, I can do that.
Bliss darts toward her room the second we get home. Tossing her purse on the counter and her book bag on the floor, her shoes come off one by one as she makes her way across the apartment. She's left a trail of breadcrumbs in case anyone comes looking for her. I can’t help but smile at how excited she is and find her excitement is slightly contagious. I'm looking forward to getting out for a few hours, but first, I have to take care of business.
When I hear Bliss' shower turn on, I make the call. Ring. I'm not sure what I'm going to say to convince him that things will be fine, but I'm going to have to figure it out soon. Ring. Now. Ring. Right now.
"Cooper." Always so formal, yet his voice betrays him. Something is off.
"Sir, it’s Owen."
"What do you need? I'm busy right now if this can wait." He doesn't sound busy or even irritated with me. His voice is shaking, his words forced and uncertain.
"Well sir, Bliss would like to go out tonight to a bar down the block, and I wanted to let you know in advance. I'm going to be accompanying her for her safety." There. Instead of asking him, I'll just tell him what's going on so he knows I'm in control of the situation.
"Fine." Click.
He hung up on me. No speech about keeping his daughter safe? No warnings about screwing up or touching his daughter? He didn't even tell me not to drink. He may not have sounded busy, but something was definitely off.
I'm sitting on the couch, fresh out of the shower, already dressed and waiting for Bliss when my phone vibrates in my pocket. The number is private, so I let it go to voicemail. My phone starts vibrating again before I even put it back in my pocket. Private. Who the hell is calling me from a private number? I send the caller to voicemail this time. Hopefully, they’ll get the message I'm not going to answer until I know who wants to speak with me.
Surprisingly, they don't leave a voicemail, and they don't call back.
Moments later, Bliss walks into the living room wearing some kind of see-through top, jeans that are hugging her everywhere, and boots that make her a lot closer to my height. I can’t help but admire her beauty for a moment before I realize the effect her outfit is having on me. My body is taking notice of her hers, and if I stand, she'll be taking notice as well.
There’s no way in hell I can let her leave the house looking like that. I'll be breaking hands left and right trying to keep guys from touching her. I'm not looking for a bar fight tonight. I was hoping to relax, have a beer, and give her a little freedom to get out of the house. With her looking like that, there is no way I'll be able to relax, but how do I tell her that without sounding like a complete ass. Or worse, telling her she looks sexy. That could open a door I wouldn't want to close and she might want to slam in my face.
Honesty. I have to be honest with her. This is going to suck, and I hope I don't fuck it up. I need to choose my words carefully.
"Bliss, you look fantastic but"—I pause, not for dramatic effect but to catch my breath because she's literally stolen it with her beauty—"if you leave the house looking like that, I will end up in a fight, and probably in jail. I don't think your father would be very pleased with me."
Her smile tells me she knows how good she looks; I didn't have to tell her. She was trying to get a rise out of me. If she only knew the effect she has on me, how I crave to be closer to her at night. I dream of her on a regular basis, wake up in pain, and have to take an ice cold shower every morning. Bliss, in that outfit, will be the star of my dreams tonight. I'm sure of it.
She turns and heads back to her room, hopefully, to change. I wait until I hear her door close before I head to my room to take care of myself. She's waiting in the living room when I return. She's changed her shirt, but that's it. Instead of being see-through, she picked a low-cut sweater. I can deal with cleavage. I may still get in a fight, but my chances are slightly less now.
"Still dangerous, but better. Do me a favor?" I ask as I turn to grab by boots and slip them on.
"What's that?" Her voice is sultry, and her southern accent is deep. I'm starting to get turned on again, and I'm not even looking at her right now.
"Behave yourself, please," I say, looking over my shoulder at her. She lifts her eyebrow and grins at me as her way of answering.
I'm in trouble, and we haven't even left the apartment yet. I knew this was a bad idea.
The place is relatively empty when we arrive, but it's still early. If I can get Bliss out of here before the scum of the city shows up, this night might not turn out that badly.
I scan the room, taki
ng in our surroundings. One thing is for sure, Bliss was right about this being a dive bar. I've seen worse places, but not many. I have no idea how this place has survived in this neighborhood. It's like night and day. Outside, the building looks prestigious, as does the rest of the neighborhood. Inside is the exact opposite.
The wallpaper is torn in multiple places yet is still stuck to the wall, the ugly greens and oranges burning my eyes a little. The tables are all tilted in different directions, making me wonder if my drink might slide right off. The wood of the chairs are so worn and beaten, they look as if they may fall apart at any given moment.
"I love this place," she says as she brushes past me and heads in the direction of the bar.
"Really? And why is that?"
"Mainly because my father would shit his pants if he ever caught me here."
That's what I figured. Mr. Cooper doesn't strike me as the type of person that would frequent this establishment. I take that back. He's the type of person that would walk in, take one look around and walk back out.
"Two tall drafts please," Bliss drawls at the bartender.
He doesn't make a move. Bliss is leaning over the bar, her cleavage clearly on display for him. He's noticed and is now blatantly staring down her shirt. Bliss has to know what she's doing to this poor kid. When she looks over her shoulder at me and grins, she confirms my suspicions. I’m in for a long night.
Bliss
The first shirt I chose was intentional. I wanted to make sure I gave Owen a reason to notice me. He definitely noticed. Then he told me to change. I knew that if I didn't, he wouldn't let me leave. That would defeat the purpose of this outing. I searched my closet for something a little more sensible, but still sexy. I found this sweater way in the back. I haven't worn it in a while, but it still fits like a glove. Avery always says to flaunt it if you’ve got it. I've got it, so tonight I'm planning to flaunt it.
Saving Bliss Page 4
