The Temptation of Lila and Ethan (22 page)

He slants his head to the side, assessing me with a quizzical expression on his face. “Really?”

“Yeah. Why are you acting so weird?” I shield my face with my hand as the gleaming sunlight reflects off the metal roof of the apartment building.

He doesn’t say anything, opening his arms and stepping forward. “Are you really, really sure you think I look good right now? So good that you want to touch me?” He does this weird thrusting thing with his hips that causes all my attention to center on his manly area.

I roll my eyes even though I shiver on the inside. “You’re so weird sometimes.”

“Weird, huh?” He comes at me, giving me little to no warning.

I try to gracefully sidestep out of his way, but I step on my own toe instead and trip over my ankles. I stumble to the side and he catches me in his arms, laughing under his breath as he intentionally rubs his sweaty body against mine.

“Oh my God!” I squeal, wiggling, attempting to get away. “You’re all wet and gross.”

“You’re the one who said I look good.” He lifts my feet off the ground and I stay straight as a board, trying to maintain distance from his sweaty body. He rounds the back of his truck, heading for the passenger side and somehow he gets the door open without letting go of me.

“What are you doing?” I yell, trying to sound like I’m turned off by his sweaty touch, but the pleasure of the moment is evident in my voice.

He drops me down on the seat and then grabs the seat belt. He leans close as he moves the strap over my shoulder to buckle me in.

“You still think I look good?” he asks with a dark look in his eyes, his face so close I can see the faint freckles on his nose.

I nod slowly, swallowing the lump in my throat. “Yes, but I also think you smell.”

“I smell like a man,” he says, grinning at himself. He leans in, getting his chest closer to my face so I can get a whiff of his man scent.

“Blah!” I scrunch my nose, turning my face to the side, even though the smell of him isn’t that bad. He actually smells like cologne and sweat and heat. Very nice. Very manly. I discretely breathe him in, letting the scent of him saturate my lungs. He must notice the rise and fall of my chest, because he leans back and looks me in the eyes, sheer perplexity burning in his pupils.

“So apparently you like the smell of sweat.” He tries to joke but his voice cracks and I wonder why. Ethan never gets nervous. I’ve seen him hit on women many, many times, and he always gets them to come home with him.

I don’t say anything and I’m not sure why. I just keep staring into his eyes and it feels different—I feel different, giddy, alive, and not numb for once. That switch that always flips off stays on. I’m not sure if I like the feeling—the vulnerable, misplaced emotions swarming inside my chest—or not.

Without even realizing it, I hitch my legs around his waist. The need to feel someone close to me, connect with me, touch me, is conquering anything else within me. I haven’t been touched in a while and it feels good—better than good.

Ethan’s breath hitches in his throat and it startles me. He’s nervous. I’m nervous. I feel this strange shift between us, the heat between us intensifying, and I get excited, my nerves bubbling up inside me. Suddenly I’m a completely different person. I’m not broken. Lost. Numb. Confused. I’m a girl enjoying a moment with a guy I really, really like.

I close my eyes as he leans in. He’s going to kiss me. I can tell. And I mean really kiss me this time instead of almost kissing me. I’ve been waiting for this more than I realized and despite all my concerns about my new feelings, ones that I’m sure existed before this moment but I was too medicated to feel anything, I want him so much it consumes every part of my body. I can feel all the warm, hot, overpowering sensations, and I breathe in his delicious scent, taste the anticipation.
Kiss me. Please God, kiss me. Don’t back away.

I moan from the heat of his breath and trace my hands up his back as I arch into him. I wait for it. Wait for the kiss, feeling his cheek touch mine. He rests it there, pressing our skin together, and I know that next he’ll touch his lips to mine. I wait as he moans my name under his breath. And I wait. Seconds later his cheek leaves mine.
Break me. Throw me away. You don’t want me. Of course you don’t. No one does.

Even though I don’t want to, I open my eyes, feeling angry and humiliated when I realize he’s watching me. This is a first for me. Usually, when I get to this point with a guy, they’re staring at my breasts, ready to rip my clothes off, like I’m an object they’re ready to devour.

“We should get going.” That’s all he says.

I’m struck dumb. Speechless. And feeling more unloved and undesirable than I ever have. “Yeah, I guess.” I force a tight smile as I sit up, the inside of my body shaking with anger and disappointment. Tears actually start to sting at my eyes, something that’s never happened to me before. I’m not sure how to handle it as I struggle to suck them back, twisting the ring on my finger as I remembering everything I used to be.

“Are you sure?” He steps back from the door, farther away from me, and the sunlight hits his face. He looks sad and in pain, almost as if he’s trying not to cry, just like me, and very un-Ethan like.

I nod, adjusting my pink tank top over my stomach. I feel defeated, unwanted. Honestly, I have no idea what I feel and it’s scaring me. I’ve lived my life moving through a string of very similar guys, ones who are polite in public, buy me nice things, have nice cars, and always tell me what I want to hear, at least until we screw, but I’ve never felt a single thing with them. And now there’s Ethan. He’s poor, drives a truck, and I’m pretty sure that every word he’s ever said to me is real. He didn’t bail on me, even when things got tough—he actually tried to help me, something no one’s ever done. What does that say? That all this time I’ve been looking for the wrong person in the world? One who I thought I was supposed to look for? The type of guy my mother has always told me I needed. Is that what I’ve been doing all this time?

I feel like I’m about to burst into tears, not just from
rejection from Ethan or the lack of confidence flowing inside, but because I’m worried that all this time I might have been doing what my mother’s wanted and was too blind to realize it. All I want to do is pop a pill and make everything I’m feeling go away. I want my confidence back, at least my fake confidence. I want my blissful, numb, never-having-to-experience-shame state because it’s easier than reality.

Luckily, Ethan walks around the truck and climbs into the driver’s seat. This seems to break the strange, depressing desire bubble that’s formed around us.

“So to the store then, right?” he asks, turning the key.

“Where else would we go?” I say it softly as if it doesn’t matter, but somehow it does.

He nods again and then backs away and the simplicity that I’d been feeling just moments ago evaporates and I’m left with a massive void in my chest and only one thing will fill it.

One tiny, fit-into-the-palm-of-my-hand, forbidden pill.

Ethan

Things are getting weird between us, just like I guessed they would. I’m not even sure what the hell the problem is. I mean, one minute she’s taking a shower and for some damn reason I go in there, pretending I need to brush my teeth when really I just want to flirt with her. And then the truck thing. What the fuck? I seriously almost kissed her and then cried about it over all the emotions pouring inside me, emotions that I haven’t
felt since London. I have strong feelings for Lila and I know it; it’s getting hard to handle. And we live together now, which makes things even more complicated. What happens if we end up doing something? We just live together? Kissing and touching and fucking, and if relationships go how I’ve seen then, we’d ultimately end up fighting.

But for a brief second I look past the idea of turning into my parents and actually like the idea of Lila and me kissing all over the apartment… fucking all over the apartment… having a relationship.

No, I can’t go down that road. Yes, I want to help her, but as a friend, because that’s what both of us need right now. I need a break from all of this, my emotions for her and my overanalyzing thoughts. What I need to do is go back to what always helps me clear my head and go get laid, yet the idea of sleeping with someone else makes me feel guilty, and not over London. Over Lila, even though I don’t belong to her and she doesn’t belong to me. I’m free to do whatever I want, yet for some stupid reason, it feels like I’d be cheating on her if I hooked up with someone else.

This living-together thing is seriously screwing with my head.

After we sell off her clothes, we wander around the secondhand store for no other reason that it helps avoid awkward time alone in the closed-in truck and then in the apartment.

“Ethan, what do you think?” Lila holds up this really tacky pink fluffy rug with flowers on it. She flashes me a teasing grin,
totally trying to work through our awkward moment in the truck.

I make a face, but I’m seriously distracted by my thoughts, which are stuck back in the truck, wishing I’d kissed her. Yet at the same time wishing I could kiss London again. What the fuck is wrong with me? “It looks like a nineteen seventies shag rug that a lot of people probably had sex on.”

Awkwardness builds around us at my use of the word
sex
. She shifts uncomfortably and I clear my throat.

“So should we go?” I ask, stepping to the side as a man walks up the aisle. I grow anxious and I need to get the hell out of here.

She lets out a breath and then sets the used rug back onto the shelf, seemingly depressed. “Yeah, I guess.”

I feel like an ass. She doesn’t need this right now. She needs a friend.
Why can’t I just keep my hands to myself? Why can’t I just be her friend?
The answer that pops into my head frightens me to no end. Because I want Lila and not just as a one-night stand.

I try for a lighter mood and subject. “We could go get some ice cream before we go home.”

She shuffles to the end of the aisle, shrugging. “It’s fine. I’m kind of tired anyway.” She heads for the door, looking down at her feet, a broken version of the person I first met, and yet she’s probably even more whole now. The brokenness just isn’t hidden inside her anymore.

The drive home isn’t any better. It’s quiet and she keeps
picking at her nails and won’t look at me. I’m about to drop her off at the apartment, ready to bail out for the night and get my mind out of depression land and my stupid thoughts of being with her. It’s getting late, the sun is setting behind the sandy hills, and the Technicolor sky looks like a watercolor painting, beautifully unreal.

“Aren’t you coming?” she asks, holding the truck door open, ready to climb out. Her blonde hair is slipping loose from her ponytail, her tight white tank top and shorts showing off her curves, and her blue eyes looking sad.

I shake my head, pressing my foot onto the brake, ready to bolt. “Nah, I got somewhere to be tonight.”

Her eyes shadow over as she narrows them. “You mean you’re going to go find someone to fuck you?” Her voice is sharp and she’s clenching her fists so hard I think her fingers might break.

I feel like the biggest douche who’s ever existed, but I’m also very confused. About everything. How I got to this place where every rule I set for myself I’ve managed to break. Where I’m looking past London and my guilt and all I want to do is be with Lila. “Yeah, probably.”

She nods her head vigorously and then hops out, shooting me a heated look before slamming the door. I back away and before she even makes it to the curb I am spinning the tires. I head straight for the strip, parking as close as I can get and hop out. I wander over to the busiest section of the town, where the lights are glowing all over people’s faces and pictures
of half-dressed women litter the sidewalks. I search the crowd and nearby buildings for a potential hook-up. Because I need to fuck someone. Now.

I start searching for someone who looks like they’d be good for a one-night thing. There are too many people out tonight, so I end up going into one of the casinos and searching around the slots until I spot a group of women around my age laughing near the front of the building. I head over to them, knowing it’s not the best scenario because they’re in a group, but I need to clear my fucking head and screwing is the best way when my thoughts get this mixed up, because it distracts me. Not even the quiet will give me that right now.

A shorter woman with curves and tits that bulge out of her leopard-print dress starts eyeing me the closer I get. She whispers something in her friend’s ear and then giggles as she starts twirling a strand of her blonde hair around her finger. I’m trying to decide if she’s really my type, and if I even have a type anymore, when she starts to approach me.

“Hey,” she says, smiling at me. She has some pink lipstick on her teeth and her eyelashes are a little too long, but she’ll do, at least I think she will.

But as soon as I think it, my thoughts drift back to my apartment where there’s already a beautiful blonde. I wonder what she’s doing. If she’s okay. Why did I just leave her like that?

“Hello, are you listening to me?” the blonde in front of me says and I blink out of my daze.

“No, sorry, I can’t hear you over all the noise.” I gesture around at the machines flashing around us.

She nods, biting on her lip. “Well, maybe we could go somewhere quiet.”

I want to but all I can think about right now is how I bailed on Lila because my emotions were getting the best of me. Because I wanted to kiss her in the truck and then take her upstairs and fuck her again. I want to be with her and for it to be more than just a one-time thing. I want to break my rules for her. The last person I broke my rules for was London, and I wanted her to be my last, at least I did at one point in my life, but now I’m not so sure.

The sounds of the slot machines are driving me crazy, along with the music playing. I could go with this woman somewhere that’s less noisy, like a hotel room. Stay there for a few hours until I’m sweaty and temporarily content. Yeah, I could do that.