Touch Me Not (Manwhore, #1)(40)

“Enough to keep you supplied in good food until we graduate.”

Nikoli held his breath as Lily stared, her expression terrified, but determined.

“Promise not to move,” she whispered.

“Scout’s honor,” he said.

She smiled and shook her head. “Put your hand out, palm up.”

Nikoli did as she asked and simply waited. She placed her hand on top of his. Barely. He felt her fingertips mostly, but it was something he didn’t think she could do, at least not yet.

“Your hand looks massive next to mine,” she murmured. She flattened her hand out and let it sit there on his. He felt it sizzle through every nerve ending in his body like a white hot branding iron. He wanted to pull her close, to kiss her, to tell her how proud he was of her, but he did none of those things. He held himself perfectly still until she pulled her hand away.

“You did good, Lily Bells,” he told her. “Very good.”

“I didn’t know if I could,” she said, her voice low and soft. “Thank you, Nikoli.”

“For what, Milaya?”

“For keeping still? For everything?” Her smile was tired, but she looked happy. “For being the manwhore that you are and making me do something I didn’t want to do, even if the girls are already texting everyone that we’re...”

He grinned. “Means my car stays with me if they all think you’ve lost already.”

“Not a chance, Kincaid.” She grinned right back. “That car is mine.”

He laughed and opened the door. There were several girls staring straight at him. “Her virtue is still safe, ladies. Little Miss Prude over there didn’t appreciate my joke very much.”

“I’m not a prude!” she gasped.

“Have sex with me?”

“No!”

“Prude.”

“Manwhore!”

The girls in the hallway were giggling like a bunch of twelve year olds, and that was fine with him. He’d done what he needed to and made sure they wouldn’t be spreading rumors around about Lily. She was fragile right now, and rumors might destroy all the progress they’d made.

“I’ll pick you up at seven, Prude,” he reminded her.

“Out!” she shouted, pointing her finger at him.

He chuckled and walked on down the hall to the elevator. Lily was coming along nicely. Yes, indeed.





Chapter Thirteen




Lily stood gazing out the window onto the street below. Traffic crawled by. Downtown Boston was almost as bad as New York City during rush hour. There was a good portion of the city that took the bus or walked. The bus was out of the question for her. She’d gotten Mike to bring her to her shrink’s office. After the last few days, she needed to talk. Badly.

The office door opened, and a middle aged man scurried out, looking emotionally battered. She recognized the look, having worn it herself more times than she could count after an office visit with Rebekha.

Dr. Rebekha Purdue popped her head out and smiled at Lily. She was in her mid to late forties, about the age of Lily’s mom, with chestnut brown hair and warm brown eyes. She reminded Lily a lot of her mother. Maybe that was why she had connected with her after seeing three other psychiatrists in the greater Boston area when she’d moved here.

“Lily, come in, come in.” Rebekha stepped back so Lily could enter. The office was warm and cozy, done in soothing shades of blue and gray, with a random yellow throw pillow nestled on one of the couches.

“Thank you so much for fitting me in.” Lily dropped down on the couch nearest the door and grabbed the throw pillow.

“Of course.” Rebekha took her seat in the armchair across from Lily. “It’s not often you call and ask for an emergency meeting. The last one was a year ago, I believe. Is everything okay?”

She’d been seeing Rebekha twice a week when she’d first started therapy sessions three years ago. Now she was down to a visit twice a month as needed. The last emergency session had been when Brian tried to hug her and she’d flipped out. Hiding her phobia from everyone after that had been impossible. All the guys she’d tutored had become extremely protective of her after Adam explained it to them. That was part of the reason they rode Nikoli so hard over her. Sometimes she thought they’d all adopted her as an honorary little sister.

“I met someone.” Lily stared at her fingers twisting the end of the pillow. Rebekha waited for her to go on. She’d learned from the beginning to let Lily talk at her own pace, something Lily truly appreciated. Talking about her feelings and her phobia was hard for her. “He says he can help me learn to deal with my phobia.”

“Help you?” Rebekha shifted in her seat and gave her a questioning stare.

Lily spent the next twenty minutes going over the last few days and told her about Nikoli and his crazy proposition, about all the crazy emotions she’d been feeling, and how Nikoli made her feel.

“That’s crazy, right?” Lily finally looked up. “I don’t understand why my panic level doesn’t skyrocket around him, or why he can touch me when Adam can’t.”

“It’s not crazy at all,” Rebekah assured her. “Lily, your phobia is not extreme or as severe as some of the other patients I treat. I have patients who can’t even leave their apartment because they are so petrified of physical contact. You are a functioning member of society. You have limits, yes, like cutting your own hair instead of going to a salon, but your fear is a controlled one. You don’t let it stop you. Let’s look at what we know about your phobia. Your fear is centered more around your family than the general public. You are afraid that showing them love or any emotion through physical contact can somehow cause them harm or even death. You think of Adam as family, don’t you?”