Oceans Submerged: Book Two, the Oceans Series (6 page)

I dug my nails into his shoulders just for the extra comfort. His lips were only inches away from mine and all I could do was stare at them, fighting to remember how they felt on my skin and everywhere else he loved to put them.

“Liv.”

“Huh?”

His intense frown brought me back to my painful reality.

“What? I didn’t hear you.” I said a bit too defensively without really meaning to.

“I was asking you if you were sure you don’t want me to call for Aunt Layla. I know you’re in pain Liv, your lips are trembling and your eyes go cross eyed with each step you try and take.”

I looked down at my feet that were covered in pink knee- high compression socks and then up to where the bathroom was. Sure…to a normal person who didn’t butcher their leg open it was a walk in the park but for me, it felt like walking down the hallway to hell’s gates. I’m sure I’d end up there eventually if the devil himself didn’t already own my soul after what I did.

I pulled my lips in biting on them and taking a deep breath in. “I can do this Ocean, just help me get into the bathroom. How did you do this when I was asleep anyway?” I asked, really wanting to know how exactly it was he bathed and kept me clean.

“I used my hands Liv, that’s all you need to know. Come on before Law, the bouncing idiot, comes back all happy and shit.”

I wanted to ask him why he said that, why he was so mad, and why he wasn’t happy. He wanted me to wake up and here I was but he wasn’t happy. He said he was waiting for me to come back but then I remembered him saying something about leaving too.

I looked down at the floor and nodded. “Okay, I’m ready.”

I let Ocean carry me into the small half space of a bathroom without a word or making eye contact. I stayed silent until his hand inched towards the butterfly IV’s decorating my swollen, black and blue forearms.

“Wait. Shouldn’t you call a nurse to have these removed?”

The look of complete annoyance danced smoothly over his forehead. “No. I’ll do it. Me and no one else. Just relax.” He gently removed the IV needles still stuck into my hands and arms.

Ocean used the alcohol pads to rub away the sticky residue from the tape that held my IV’s in place. I looked like a heroin addict. My arms and top of my hands were black and blue with several puncture wounds, I guess from moving the IV’s around.

I could feel the heat from his eyes when he would look at my face trying to read me, but I stood my ground by not making eye contact with him. That resolve I had last night to let him dish out his anger and hate towards me for what I did dissolved and disappeared as soon as he called me Zena this morning.

“Hey, you okay baby?”

At least he still called me baby
.

Instead of speaking, I nodded my head. I was afraid of what would come out of my mouth once I opened it.

In absolute silence he cleaned my wounds, washed my entire body, including my lady parts, being extremely thorough. I was afraid to look down because I always kept myself waxed.

I was afraid to see what kind of amazon forest had grown between my legs while I was unconscious. Even if that’s what Ocean saw, it didn’t bother him one bit. He groomed me, brushed my teeth, and dressed me without one complaint, huff or puff.

The soreness in my right leg was calming down the longer I stood up straight. Either that or my tolerance for the pain was building.

By the time Ocean was done with me in the bathroom, I was able to put eighty percent of my own weight on it. When he leaned me up against the wall to clean up and put my gown and things away, I pushed off the wall carefully concentrating on making it to the bed on my own. I was definitely my father’s daughter.

After just one step, I heard Ocean growl behind me feeling the heat from his eyes on my back.

“Liv stop. I’m almost done.”

I ignored him because I had something to prove to myself. In a couple hours, he would be dropping me off in a rehabilitation facility. I had to start learning how to let him go.

I was taking my next step, almost making it completely out of the bathroom, when the sound of Ocean’s phone ringing broke through my concentration. I took too big of a step with my injured leg and my muscles gave out on me.

As I felt myself crashing to the floor, Ocean’s hands grabbed me hard underneath my armpits keeping me from landing face first on the white cold floor.

“Fuck Liv! I told you to wait!”

Tears fell down my face as I felt the fresh wave of pain slam into me again. He picked my body up with his hands still under my arms like I weighed nothing to him and carefully laid me back onto the bed, propping me up so I was sitting up at a comfortable angle.

“What the hell was that for Liv? What the fuck were you trying to prove? What…you don’t want my help? Is that it?”

I refused to answer his questions because no matter what I would end up saying or how many times I apologized, all he would see would be the girl he loved that would rather die than be with him.

He was so wrong.
 

Chapter Ten

Ocean

I stared down at Liv watching her bottom lip quiver and her eyes water as she refused to answer me. I wondered if she was completely hell bent on showing me that she didn’t want me or need me for that matter. “Livie!”

That did it because her head snapped in my direction, narrowing her exotic fucking eyes at me.

God I loved making her mad.

I loved how her dark brown eyes would pierce right through me, shredding through every wall of defense I spend so much time building towards her and the rest of this fucking world.

“That’s not what it meant!” Her voice was still weak but it was no longer a raspy whisper. “I was trying to do it on my own because soon you and everyone else I care about is going to drop me off at a fucking rehab facility. You won’t be there to help me then Ocean! I was doing it for me.”

She balled the fist of her good hand, grabbing at the bed sheets as she cried.

Fuck!

I sat down on the bed facing her. “Come on baby, I’m sorry. Stop crying.”

She turned her head to look at the white wall of empty space.

“Liv please, look at me. I’m sorry. I don’t like seeing you in pain and I know you’re in a lot of fucking pain. I’m not stupid. You don’t fool me. You can’t just start trying to do things on your own just because you want to feel independent again. You’re just going to get yourself hurt.”

“So!” I could have laughed at her just then because her stubbornness shined through at the worst moments.

I watched as the pulse on her neck went wild as she tried to calm herself down. I ran my tongue along my bottom lip in desperate need to feel the one place on her body that gave me peace. “Liv please.”

She huffed out a breath, still refusing to give me what I wanted. Not able to fight the urge any more, I leaned forward brushing her long silky hair away from her neck.

When my lips finally rested on the place that soothed me completely, I scooted myself closer to her closing the distance between my chest and hers bracing my arms on either side of her tiny body. I kissed her neck softly as her crying stopped.

Her little hand ran up the side of my arm resting on my chest where my heart was pounding. She pressed her neck onto my lips and I smiled against her sweet skin. She still smelled like her vanilla conditioner even after spending all this time cooped up in a hospital.

“Ocean?” Her voice came out shaky and breathless.

“Yeah, baby.”

“Please don’t hate me. I know you’re mad and I know you’re angry with me. And I deserve it, I know I do, but if you still love me…if you still want me don’t...”

I kissed her neck again. “Don’t what baby?”

“Don’t abandon me. Don’t turn your back on me and leave me alone. Even if you have to hate me and be angry with me…I can take it, but if you walk away…”

I pulled away, grabbing her face to make her look at me. Her eyes were red and swollen again and her bottom lip was still quivering. I couldn’t even imagine how much pain she was in and all to punish herself for hurting my family and me. But I had to be honest with her.

Fuck, I had to be honest with myself.

“You’re right Liv; I am mad and I am angry. I’m pissed that you would rather die than let me help you. I don’t care what excuse you had at the time. I fucking hate the fact that I shouldn’t have let you go. It was my fault, not yours. But Livie I still love you. I’ll always love you more than anything. You’re mine and you will always be. I’m not walking away, not anymore. I thought I could once I saw you open your eyes and I would be able to look into them one last time…but fuck it, I can’t leave you.”

She opened her mouth to speak but I shook her off.

“But if you want me to stay Liv, I can’t promise you that I’ll be the man you’re looking at right now. Once your gone, I’m going to fucking lose it. I know I am. That can mean a lot of shit and none of it is good. Livie, I will always love you but when you get back, I’m not going to be the same and I’m not going to be good.”

She hooked her good arm around the back of my neck pressing my forehead to hers. “I don’t care Ocean, just as long as you don’t leave me.”

I licked the slight part of her lips and she opened her swollen lips a little more, sucking in a huge breath of air.

“I love you Liv,” I said as I plunged my tongue into her mouth, pressing her back harder against the bed.

She moaned into my mouth and I knew this was only going to make our goodbye worse, but she was mine and I still loved her. I still wanted her.

I heard the door click as it opened, but I didn’t care. All that mattered was the taste of the woman I loved on my tongue and the way she pulled me harder into her, knowing she was hurting like hell.

***

Lawrence

How the hell did I know I was going to walk in on them making out? Not even a fully, conscious for twenty-four freaking hours and they were trying to go at it. I couldn’t help but ruin the party.

Shit! I wanted time with my Sunshine to!
 

“Gross! Sunshine, what did I tell you about him. That’s just wrong!”

Of course, the son of bitch didn’t let up and I had to admit the sounds Sunshine was making had me horny as hell. Trust me, Ocean and I tag teamed plenty of pussy and never had I seen or heard a chick react the way Sunshine does to him. It was fucking erotic. My dick was getting hard and it as creeping me out.

I walked up behind Ocean and slapped him in the back of his big ass head. He reached back to push me away, but instead I grabbed his arm pulling him off the bed.

Fuck, the asshole is strong.

If I was going to have to deal with his wild ass once Sunshine was gone, I needed to get back into shape. I stepped up to see a very flushed and winded Sunshine sitting up in bed looking like she just had one too many orgasms.

I looked down at my watch it, was 9:00 a.m. on the dot. “You ready to go Sunshine?”

She bit the corner of her lip looking down at her clean pair of chucks.

“Come on Sunshine, don’t get all shy on me. You forget I’ve heard you two bumpin uglies. Cats out the bag. So you ready Sunshine?” I asked her, extending my arm to her to help her out of bed.

She smiled and blushed as she shook her head and rolled her eyes at me.

Damn I was going to miss my Sunshine.

Chapter Eleven

Livie

When Ocean finally let Law take me away, the void and emptiness started slowly creeping into me. Being apart from Ocean was going to be the ultimate test for me. He found me as a broken girl and he helped bring me back. I was still broken, but he loved me regardless.

Law took me downstairs to the registration clerk so I could sign all the hospital releases. Of course, all the expenses were already paid and everyone refused to tell me by whom.

Once I signed my soul away to the clerk, I was led out to the main lobby to be greeted by Layla. She was no longer in her nursing scrubs but had a very pretty floral sundress on. Her hair wasn’t pulled up into a bun like I’d always seen it. It was long and fell in loose waves around her delicate face that brought out her freckles.

Next to her was Ocean’s father, better known to me as Unk. Each time a nurse would walk by, he would openly check her out and it was cute because his cheeks would flush red.

“Hey Livie, good to see you up and about.” Unk pulled me into a hug but was careful not to hurt me, which I greatly appreciated.

I might have been wobbling on my own pretty good, but I still felt like my body was being shredded into tiny invisible pieces with each half step I made.

“Layla, you look beautiful.” I said smiling at her.

She rolled her eyes playfully. “Thank your pain in the ass body guard. Well one of your pain in the ass bodyguards. I am officially on vacation and not returning back to work until about a month after you come back home.”

She said it proudly. The enormous smile on Law’s face told me he had everything to do with it too. I laughed a little, leaning into Law for more support and he immediately swung his arm over my shoulders holding me in place.