Hothouse Flower (Addicted #4)(89)

No one brings up Ryke again, but after one minute, Lily winces. “Ow. Don’t pinch,” she tells Rose.

“I didn’t,” Rose snaps. “Stop rubbing up against the rock.” And then Rose’s gaze drifts to me, and her eyes slowly grow.

“What?” I say. “I know you don’t like my haircut, Rose—”

“It’s not that,” Rose says softly. “Lily, get out of the water.”

“What?” Lily says, and then she follows Rose’s gaze. “Oh…shit.” Lily motions to my neck and then she turns and crawls onto the rock. The moment she does, I see, on Lily’s back, what Rose is internally freaking out about.

Leeches.

We’re swimming with leeches.





< 38 >

RYKE MEADOWS



I chug a water bottle after finishing my burger.

Lo tosses his dirty paper plate into the fire. No one mentions how long the girls have been, but with every pause in our switch of conversation, it’s the unspoken thing that’s said. We ate without them because none of us wanted to eat cold f*cking food.

“Lily looks like she’s gaining more weight,” I tell Lo. She’s always really bony, naturally skinny and gangly, so it’s a good sign when she’s bigger. It means she’s getting healthy, not so consumed by her sex addiction.

“Her boobs are bigger,” Lo says, taking a sip of his water. He twists the cap, lost in thought for the hundredth time since the camping trip.

“Or Daisy’s are smaller,” I add.

Lo glares. “I shouldn’t even have to f*cking say it.”

“What? That I shouldn’t be looking at her boobs? It’s not like there’s anything there,” I say the f*cking truth, but I realize immediately that it sounds bad. I don’t need a girl to have big breasts in order to love her or find her attractive. None of that matters.

Connor arches his brow at me.

Yeah, this is exactly what he told me not to do. Fucking A.

Lo waves his plastic butter knife at me. “How many times in two years do I need to remind you not to talk about her boobs? Seriously? It’s f*cking weird.”

Now I feel like shit. I keep reminding myself that she’s my girlfriend, but it’s really f*cking hard when Lo is looking at me like I’m another Julian. “You were the one who brought up Lily’s tits. I didn’t say one f*cking word about them until you did.”

Connor wraps aluminum foil over the plate of leftover burgers. “You just used a kindergarten argument,” Connor says. “The he did it first isn’t a good rebuttal.”

I swear they love to f*cking gang up on me—probably because they know I can take it. “Thanks for the opinion, Cobalt.”

“Always,” he says. Then he checks his watch, glancing at the woods where the girls disappeared off to. It’s been a f*cking long time. I start to worry about Daisy. I don’t know where she was taking Lily and Rose, but she could have easily climbed a tree and fallen off a branch. My heart plummets to my stomach.

And then Lo shoots off of the chair, tossing his water bottle on his seat. “I’m going to go find Lily.” He spoke the f*cking unspoken words, and just like that we’re all standing, following Lo’s trail. We can leave the fire for a few minutes without putting it out.

Walking in the general direction of where the girls went, we hear the rush of water and figure Daisy would’ve been attracted to it. Voices echo the closer we near the stream or waterfall.

“It’s leeching all my nutrients!” Lily shouts. And Lo takes off, his walk turning into a sprint.

“Hold still,” Daisy says calmly.

Rose winces loudly. “I’m going to murder every one of these disgusting things!” Connor matches Lo’s pace, and I stay behind them, thinking Daisy’s fine.

When we come into the clearing, Lily looks like a deer caught in the headlights.

A naked f*cking deer.

I try not to look, but black leeches are stuck to her abdomen and arms while Daisy tries to pry them off…who’s also naked.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen her completely undressed. Last year. New Year’s Eve at Rose’s house in Princeton, Daisy had a scheming look on her face with this really playful smile. The countdown to midnight happened, and while her date, some f*cking Abercrombie model, was about to kiss her, she avoided his mouth by starting to strip, backing up towards the kitchen with each discarded article of clothing. She said that the new year couldn’t start off right without someone streaking.

Her eyes were on mine.

Mine were on hers.

And then the model she was with—he cut in and helped take off her bra.

I grabbed him by the shoulder, instinctively, a gut reaction out of irritation and anger. I didn’t want her with this fratty f*cking guy, a grade A douchebag. She finished undressing, and I caught a glimpse of her body before she sprinted outside, laughing in the cold. And then her date went off on me, yelling in my f*cking face, and my date—she shot daggers at me from across the room, holding a champagne glass in a tight hand.

I can’t even express how many months we both tried with someone else. But even seeing her now naked another time, it’s different. My concern is at a f*cking peak, heightened, revved to the max.

My brother has blinders on. He just goes straight to Lily without looking at anyone else.