Chapter 5
“Stop moving!”
“It’s burning!” Jodi snapped back, slapping his hands when he tried to push her hands away as she frantically tried to wipe off the white goop that felt like it was burning her skin off.
“You need to take this off,” Danny said, sounding calm and in control when all she wanted to do was lose her damn mind, but he wouldn’t let her.
As soon as she’d realized that her skin was on fire, Danny snapped into action.
He grabbed the hose and hit her full force with a jet of ice-cold water, which may have started another round of screaming.
It also made the burning sensation a lot worse.
Before she could tell him that, probably because he’d figured it out by her screams, he’d dropped the hose, picked her up and ran inside, straight into his apartment and had her in his bathtub before she could put up much of a fight.
“No, don’t turn the water on!” Jodi pleaded seconds before a stream of hot water hit her.
“You need to get this off,” Danny said, still sounding irritatingly calm as she struggled against the urge to cry as the water caused the white slime on her body to heat up again.
When he grabbed the hem of her shirt and yanked it off, she didn’t even think about fighting him since she was too busy trying not to freak out over the likelihood that the goo from the trashcan was nuclear waste.
She barely noticed when he yanked off her shoes and socks or when he pulled her pants down, but she definitely noticed when he reached for her bra.
“Hey!” Jodi gasped, slapping at the offending hand.
“That shit soaked into the material,” Danny pointed out as her mind registered the burning sensation seeping beneath the bra. “It needs to come off.”
She opened her mouth to…
“W-What are you doing?” Jodie finally managed to choke out while she watched as Danny pulled his shirt off and tossed it out of the shower as he toed off his boots.
Then he bent over and pulled off his socks and tossed them out as well.
He stood up and quickly undid his pants and shoved them down, revealing a pair of tight-fitting black boxer briefs that left very little to the imagination.
When he stood up and ran a hand through his wet hair, her gaze raced to follow the move, taking in the puckered pink scar and the raised straight line that ran through it on an otherwise drool-worthy set of abs, up to the Marine tattoo that he had on his chest, the one that she may have found herself thinking about a few times, and finally, up to meet his gaze and immediately regretting it.
He looked serious, really serious, and determined as he sent her a hard glare.
“Your skin is covered in red streaks,” he began, taking her by surprise.
She looked down and sure enough, her body was covered in angry-looking red streaks and splotches right where her skin burned and itched like crazy. Swallowing nervously, Jodi looked back up at him and found a matching red spot on his shoulder, right where she’d nailed him with a handful of goop.
“Your underwear is coated in that shit and the longer that you keep it on, the more damage it’s going to do to your skin,” Danny said, sounding completely rational, which actually frightened her. “We need to get the rest of your clothes off and try to wash the residue off your skin. Now.”
As much as she wanted to argue with him, and she really wanted to argue this one, she couldn’t. With each passing second, the burning sensation tearing through her skin only got worse.
“Fine,” Jodi mumbled weakly as she reached for her bra strap, “but you don’t need to be in here. I can do it myself.”
“I’m not leaving,” the stubborn bastard said as he reached down and grabbed a large bar of white soap.
“Yeah, you really are,” Jodi said, wincing when a sting accompanied her attempt to remove her bra strap.
“Not happening, Tinkerbelle,” he said, gently pushing her hand aside and-
“Ow!” she cried out as he pulled her bra strap up and over her shoulder and as far down her arm as it would go. She had a similar reaction when he did the same with the other bra strap.
“Your back and legs fared the worst, Tink,” Danny said, startling her into looking down as he efficiently unsnapped her bra and what she saw had her swallowing hard as she tried not to panic.
“Are you allergic to anything?” he asked, sounding calm as he carefully hooked his thumbs in the waistband of her panties and slowly lowered them to the floor.
“No,” Jodi mumbled, only to release a pained gasp when his knuckles accidentally brushed against her skin.
“Are you having any problems breathing?” Danny asked, tossing her panties out of the shower.
“No,” she mumbled, trying not to lose it.
“Good,” Danny murmured behind her as she struggled against the urge to look back down.
Every inch of her body was covered in what appeared to be hives, large, angry-looking red hives that were noticeably raised.
There wasn’t a spot on her body that didn’t itch or burn.
Only the fear that she would make things worse was stopping her from scratching every inch of her body.
The itching she could understand, but she’d never heard of hives burning and-
“I’m sorry,” Danny said, cutting through her panicked thoughts.
“For what?” Jodi asked before a thought occurred to her and when it did, she was seeing red. “Oh, my God! Those bags were yours?” she demanded, moving to turn around and kick his ass when he answered.
“No.”
“Then what are you apologizing for?” she asked, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth as she snuck another peek down at herself and cringed.
“For this.”
“Wh-Ouch!” Jodi screamed as Danny carefully placed his soapy hands on her back. The pain multiplied, forcing her to slap her hands against the shower wall and grind her teeth together as she thought of another way to kill the bastard.
“Stop being a baby and just take it,” the bastard that had trapped her in his bathroom ordered, trying once again to force her to take the small cup of Benadryl from him.
“I don’t need it,” she stubbornly said even as she somehow resisted the urge to scratch every last inch of her body.
Thanks to the shower that Danny had forced her to endure, her skin no longer felt like it was on fire, but that damn itching wouldn’t go away.
If she’d been alone, she would have dropped the towel and scratched herself to her heart’s content by now, but she wasn’t alone because the jackass refused to let her leave until she took the medication in his hand.
She wasn’t taking it, no way in hell was she taking it.
“I don’t see the problem, Tinkerbelle,” Danny said, placing the small cup of medicine on the sink counter so that he could cross his arms over his chest and glare down at her, looking every bit the intimidating Marine that he probably once was.
The fact that he was naked except for the towel wrapped around his hips didn’t take away from the effect.
She could appreciate the concern over her well-being, she really could, but that didn’t change the fact that she shouldn’t take any medicine.
“Look,” Jodi said, sighing heavily as she reached up and pushed back her hair, somehow resisting the urge to scratch her face and neck as she did it, “I really appreciate what you did for me tonight. I do, but I don’t need any medicine. I’m fine.”
He didn’t say anything as he continued to stare down at her.
Not one to let some guy intimidate her, Jodi stared back, fully expecting him to back down. So, when a minute or so passed and he still kept that glare up, she couldn’t help but shift nervously even as she struggled to hold her own in this contest of wills. She would not lose, damn it!
“I-I don’t need it,” she heard herself stammering nervously before she could stop herself.
Instead of arguing with her, he simply continued to glare.
“I’m not even really that itchy,” Jodi rambled on nervously, absently scratching her right arm as she tried not to squirm beneath that glare that was actually starting to freak her out a little bit.
“I doubt that it would help,” she continued to ramble on.
“I’ll be fine in the morning,” Jodi added a moment later, needing to break the silence and hoping that he’d stop glaring at her.
When he still didn’t speak, or move for that matter, she added, “I react badly to medicine.”
An understatement, definitely an understatement.
Instead of asking her to elaborate, he just kept on glaring down at her until she couldn’t take it any longer and finally blurted out, “Fine!” She grabbed the small cup of medicine, downed it in one sip and slammed the small disposable plastic cup on the counter.
Furious that she’d let the bastard intimidate her, Jodi stormed past him, barely aware that he’d stepped out of her way and kept going.
She decided that it was for the best that she didn’t look back because if she saw even a hint of a smug smile on his handsome face, she was going to go outside, scoop up a handful of that white slime and shove it down his throat.
“Let the dream go, buddy, cause it’s not happening,” Danny absently told the erection tenting his shorts as he looked for something to eat to distract himself from the memory of running his hands over Tinkerbelle’s incredibly lush body.
With a snort of disgust, he slammed the cabinet door shut and moved onto the refrigerator as he cursed himself for reacting this way, especially over a woman who hated him.
He didn’t need this complication in his life, but he’d be damned if he could think of anything else right now. Those last two hours had been…
Pure hell for him.
He’d never been more terrified in his life.
Several times, he’d debated calling 911, but the fear that she’d take a turn for the worse during the time that it would have taken to get to his cell phone had kept his ass in the shower with her.
Not knowing what else to do, he’d let his training take over and he’d handled her the way that he would have if she’d been one of his men.
It had been a good plan, a solid plan, but there had just been one small problem with that plan.
She wasn’t one of his men.
Tinkerbelle was soft, curvy, and without question, a woman.
So, he’d tried a different approach, one that should have worked, especially with her.
He’d thought of her as a little sister since she gave off that little sister vibe, but the moment that he’d hooked his fingers in her panties and started to pull them off, all brotherly thoughts vanished and were replaced by thoughts that had him grinding his teeth and calling himself a bastard.
Thank fucking god for the pain in his shoulder and hands.
It kept him focused and helped his cock behave since the last thing that either one of them needed was his damn cock getting in the way.
He only wished that his damn vision could have been fucked up as well.
It would have made things a hell of a lot easier for him and spared him from fantasizing about Tinkerbelle’s small but oh, so fucking perfect body for years to come.
The image of her pert little heart-shaped ass, perfect breasts tipped with baby pink nipples, and soft blonde curls between her legs that he’d barely stopped himself from running his fingers through was going to haunt him for the rest of his life.
It was only the reminder that she hated him that kept him from trying for something more.
He wasn’t foolish enough to think that after tonight that Tink was going to suddenly forgive him and see him as anything more than the asshole next door.
He was a Bradford, after all.
To be honest, he didn’t want her to see him as anything more than the asshole next door. He didn’t need any complications in his life and he sure as hell didn’t need-
Someone knocking on his door tonight.
He was not in the mood to deal with his family, not tonight.
As much as he loved them and appreciated everything they’d done for him since he came back broken, sometimes he wished that they’d forget about him.
He didn’t need or want their pity. He was fine, more than fine, no matter what any of them thought.
He sure as hell didn’t need anyone to fix him.