Never Been Kissed by Molly O'Keefe

into the white-tiled room. Water was filling the old claw-foot tub and amazingly there were bubbles.
    “Did bubble bath come in your bodyguard kit?” she asked, touching one iridescent orb; it popped under her finger.
    “Comes with the guns.”
    She smiled and turned, only to find him standing in the doorway. He was a man who lingered in doorways, always watching.
    “I found it under the sink,” he said. “It’s probably twenty years old.”
    “Thanks, Brody. I’ve got it from here.” Unable to take any more, she closed the door on his handsome face.
    She took off the blue sling, setting it down on the closed lid of the toilet and then she tried to pull off the tank top she wore, with the thin straps and the shelf bra, but she couldn’t get her right arm to work and the shirt got tangled over one of her shoulders, her head caught in a cloud of smelly white fabric.
    She was about to call Brody back in when it was suddenly tugged free, the tank top pulled away, and she could feel him, his breath against her neck, his heat against the naked, fragile skin of her back.
    She tried so hard to hold herself still that she actually shook.
    I am a bubble. Touch me and I will pop.
    But he didn’t touch her, he vanished as quietly as he’d walked in and she felt the absence of energy, the stillness of the air that surrounded her.
    She pulled off her pants, her cotton underwear, and turned toward the bathtub. Halfway there, she caught sight of herself in the mirror and she sucked in a horrified breath.
    Bones pushed against her skin. Her ribs were terrible mile markers, gruesome statues covered by giant blooms of purple and yellow.
    One side of her face was swollen, her cheek, her eye, the black stitches looked like Hollywood makeup for a horror film. Her hair … oh, her shaking hand touched the tangles and snarls.
    It would have to be cut. She knew it was just hair, but it still hurt, the idea like a nerve-ending being severed.
    I can’t do this.
    She wasn’t ready for reality. She wanted to float around in a painkiller haze until she wasn’t such a monster.
    She grabbed a towel from the stack Brody had left for her and wrapped it around her thin, battered body. Therehad been a time in her life when being this thin would have been amazing. A success.
    But all she felt now was frail. She missed her muscles and her belly. Her strong thighs that could walk her around the world. Her arms that could dig holes in the dust and clay of Kenya.
    She shuffled out the bathroom door, past Brody, who held a brush in his hands, a stupefied expression tilting toward anger on his face.
    “You can’t give up, Ashley,” he said. “You’ll feel better when you’re clean.”
    “I’m going back to bed,” she said, ignoring him. Ignoring the truth in his words, the pity mingling with anger in his eyes.
    “What about the press conference?”
    That made her hesitate but she couldn’t let him win. Didn’t want to let him win. So what if she didn’t see the press conference live, she could find it later online.
    She got to her room, closed the door, and was crawling into bed, still wearing the towel, when the door slammed open, startling her off balance.
    “You are tougher than this, Ashley,” he said.
    “No. I’m exactly this tough.”
    “Bullshit. You’re depressed. You’re not thinking clearly.”
    “I’m tired,” she snapped at him. “And you’re pissing me off.”
    “Good!”
    And then suddenly, she was off the bed, lifted in the air. Her legs over his biceps. The towel slipped, her breast revealed, but he didn’t look. Grim-faced, he carried her back to the bathroom. She snarled and fought as best she could, but she was weak and he subdued her like she was a kitten.
    “You’re getting in the bath.”
    “Make me,” she snapped, trying to bite him.
    She didn’t expect him to, the man who had stood ather door, eyes averted, wouldn’t pull a towel from her body, revealing her nudity.
    But he did it.
    The man who