Lazarus (The Henchmen MC 7)

So when my hands went up of their own mind and curled around each of his forearms, holding him to me, I didn't fight it. I didn't overthink it. I just did it because it felt right, because it was a small gesture of gratitude.

"Do you have a job you need to call?" he asked a long minute later, shocking me out of my weird little dreamworld where I wasn't an actively detoxing addict and he was just a nice guy in a bath with me. Nice things like that, I couldn't have that and I knew it. "I have your cell."

I did have a job.

But that being said, if I called, it would only make things worse for me.

"The office is closed," I lied instead, hoping it came across as believable. "Long weekend," I added for good measure. By the time I was done with the actual withdrawal, it would be Monday and I could just fake a call to my own machine at home and say I was sick.

Someone told me once that there was no better a liar in the world than an addict trying to keep the world from finding out what they were truly up to. It had never been true of me before since I never really had anyone I needed to lie to.

But I found that the lie came off as confident and easy, maybe proving that person right after all. It wasn't a fact I was happy to learn about myself.

And I really, really didn't want to think about having to face the person who told me that phrase that would eventually become true of me.

It wouldn't be a pleasant meeting, that was for sure.

My stomach twisted painfully, all but guaranteeing that there was going to be another date with my head and the toilet in the near future, making me pull against Lazarus' hold.

"What's the matter?" he asked, sitting up straight as I slowly stood, trying to wring some of the water out of my clothes- a useless task.

"I feel sick," I admitted, leaving out the fact that it was mostly my uncertain future that was causing it, not the withdrawal itself. It wouldn't help to complicate the situation.

"Alright," he said, standing as well, but reaching for his shirt and hauling it off, tossing it with a slapping sound back into the tub.

I knew I wasn't supposed to look.

He was my captor and, sort of, savior.

The situation called for gravity and level-headedness.

But my eyes didn't get the message and drifted from his stupidly good-looking face downward. He had a lot of scars. I had noticed them on his hands when he was touching me in the tub, but maybe wrote it off as something he got working on his bike or something. That was promptly discounted as the cause when my eyes drifted over his wide chest and sculpted abs and found more scars there- several carved across his chest, one huge long gash down his side. I didn't have to know to know that the big one was from a knife.

My eyes drifted over the outline of his abs, seeing the small trail of dark hair that disappeared below his jeans. But even as my eyes noticed it, his hands were there at the waistband, pushing the button through and pulling the zipper down. I should have looked away then too, but I didn't.

I was a total perv watching as the soaked jean material slipped off his hips and thighs to reveal a pair of black boxer briefs. And, being they were both tight and wet, I could make out the outline of his cock through the material, making an unexpected surge of desire break through the other numerous sensations flooding my system.

But only for a moment because then he was out of them completely and stepping out of the tub, reaching for a towel and quickly drying himself.

I watched that too.

Then I watched as he wrapped the towel around his waist and reached under to discard the soaked boxer briefs as well.

What the hell was wrong with me?

On that thought, my eyes flew up guiltily to find him watching me. And because he was watching me, I knew there was no way he missed my completely inappropriate eye-raping of him.

Jesus.

A flush worked its way up over my chest, my neck, then finally, my cheeks, making me, no doubt, red with embarrassment as his head cocked to the side slightly and a ghost of a smile toyed at his lips.

But, thankfully, he said nothing as he reached for another towel and walked toward me, putting it down on the edge of the tub.

"When you're done, we're gonna get more Advil and Pedialyte in you," he said, eyes dipping slightly and my own followed, realizing for the first time that I was in his tee. His white tee. And I was soaked through. You couldn't 'just barely make out' the outline of my breasts; they were on full freaking display.