“Are these the same guys who beat you up the other day?” I dipped a cotton ball in hydrogen peroxide.
“What the fuck is it to you?” he spat. He groaned as I put the cotton ball on his eyebrow.
“You don’t give a fuck about anything, do you?”
James didn’t answer, but he took my breath away with such an intense glare that it made me burn.
I kneeled on the seat to lean toward him.
“Lift up your chin,” I ordered, as James stayed weirdly quiet. The deepest cut seemed to be on his lip, but I was too embarrassed to look at him and see it. “Maybe if you turn toward me it’ll make it easier for me to finish up.”
James continued to ignore me, so I grabbed him by his T-shirt collar and lifted it up to his jaw.
“Fuck, do you really think this is appropriate?” He tensed when I leaned over him to finish the job.
“What?”
“Do you really have to straddle me like this?”
My eyes widened in horror. “I’m just . . . I’m not . . . Oh, forget it.”
I grumbled then started to get up, but he grabbed my sweatshirt. “Finish up.”
“All right. But this is gonna hurt a little,” I whispered, before blotting his mouth.
James didn’t make a sound, but he kept on staring at me. He stared at me so intently and silently that it made my insides twist and turn.
I almost preferred when he was talking.
“Why are you always such an asshole to me? I didn’t do anything to you.”
“I’m an asshole, White? Why don’t you open your fucking eyes every once in a while, huh?”
“What do you mean?”
I saw him tilt his neck back to adjust the sunroof. “If I was that much of an asshole, I wouldn’t’ve gotten the shit beat out of me.”
I sighed. “You didn’t have to do that, Hunter. They wouldn’t’ve done anything to me.”
“You never want to listen to me. I told you that it’s no place for you. You could’ve gotten hurt, and nobody would’ve given a fuck.
“No.”
“No, not no. They would’ve torn you to shreds in five minutes.”
I nervously pushed my hair behind my ear. “What do you mean?” I looked down at the tight T-shirt hugging his sculpted abs.
“You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for me. On top of me.” I ignored the malicious tone of his last few words and focused on the first part of the sentence.
“Would it kill you to say thank you?” I teased, without hiding a bit of sheepishness.
“You’re always being a smartass, meanwhile you’d be in tears somewhere if it wasn’t for me. So, yeah, you need to thank me, Snow White.”
“No,” I said.
“Oh my god, you’re so stubborn.”
He licked his split lip, stirring up a whirlwind of contrasting sensations in me.
