Chapter Two
Nick Jonas cursed as he hauled his leg up one more step. He dropped his head between his shoulders, counting to ten and concentrated on keeping down the nausea churning in his gut. Not easy when his thigh was throbbing in unison with the stabbing pain at his temple and his whole body was so cold he was pretty sure he was about to lose several vital appendages to frostbite.
"You stupid idiot. This is your own fault," he hissed "What the hell were you trying to prove?" He winced at his words.
Great now you're talking to yourself too.
The mighty hadn't just fallen, they'd landed flat on their face, Nick thought grimly as he gripped his thigh in hands clumsy with the cold to force his leg up the final step. Pain shot through his knee. He sucked in a breath and panted as clammy sweat mingled with the salt water, making the cut on his forehead burn.
He swore and waited for the worst of the agony to pass. Unfortunatey, that gave him way too much time to contemplate just how much of an idiot he'd been.
Spending close to two hours proving that he'd never be able to surf again and practically getting hypothermia into the bargain hadn't been the smartest thing he'd ever done. Headbutting his own board and then having to having to get rescued by a lifeguard (and a girl one at that!) had added a nice thick layer of insult to the injury. But allowing the girl's sultry sapphire eyes, her slender but surprisingly voluptuous figure to taunt him into thinking he was capable of doing more with her than simply lose his temper had to count as one of the lowest moments of his life.
Maybe not as low as those first weeks in hospital, doped up to his eyeballs, drifting in and out of agony and anchored to his bed. And maybe not as low as the day, three months later, when he'd discovered it wasn't just his leg and his ego that had been damaged by his bike accident.
He'd felt the unfamiliar throb of arousal in his groin, had barely a second to rejoice at the surging heat before cold reality doused it, leaving him angry and bitter and humiliated all over again.
After they'd finished prodding and poking him, the docters had assured him the impotence was only temporary, brought on by the physical and mental trauma he'd suffered. And he'd believed them.
Until the summer evening in his New York penthouse when the look of pity and disbelief on Selena's face had made the truth inescapable.
One thing was certain: if a stark naked Selena Gomez with her expensive supermodel's body and her superstar 'i'm yours for the taking' act couldn't get a rise out of him, no pixie-faced, sultry-eyed girl clad in a full body wetsuit was going to manage it.
Pushing the ever present humiliation to the back of his mind, Nick stumbled forward and focused instead on getting to the house in one piece. His useless leg had seized up completely, forcing him to drag it across the rocky ground, his bare feet slipping in the mud. Each bump and slide had pain stabbing under his kneecap and tightening around his thigh like a vice.
He let out a shaky sigh as his fingers grasped the heavy brass handle and he putted open his pantry door with his shoulder. As she shut out the angry weather and lumbered towards the suite of rooms he used in his grandfather's house, trailing mud and water on the marble tiles, his rough humourless chuckle echoed in the darkened hallway.
If only the old man could have seen him now. In one of the many lectures Charles Jonas had given him as a rebellious teenager, his grandfather had warned him he would have to pay for his sins in the end.
Who knew the old fart would get the last laugh from beyond the grave?
This chapter is a lot shorter than my first one, i just didn't have time to do any more with it :/
The next chapter will be long i promise! :)
So what did you think? xoxo
