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“You, uh…” She tears her eyes off my crotch and gestures at the pendant. “Like it?”
“Uh, yeah.” I realize I’m still staring at her pretty tits, and it’s my turn to force my gaze away. “It’s a lion.”
“Yeah. I made it, years ago, when we left to go to Chicago.”
“You said you left because of the bullying.”
She flinches at the word, and unconsciously I reach for her. I pull her against my side, curling an arm around her slender frame, as if I can protect her from any hurt.
“Yes. My parents decided leaving would be best. And they were right. It gave me the space and peace I needed to rebuild some of my confidence and self-esteem.”
I tighten my hold on her, the thought of anything bad happening to her hurting like a jagged glass stuck in my chest. “Good.”
“That was when I started getting seriously interested in art and crafts. My dad, he comes from the East Coast, from Rhode Island. He had this stone he found on the shore when he was little and other kids picked on him. He was a scrawny thing, unlike me.”
“Good,” I tell her truthfully. “I like you the way you are. You’re perfect.”
She snorts, and I bury my nose in her hair. It smells of coconut and sunlight. “Anyway, he got the stone and convinced himself it was some sort of ancient talisman that could protect him from any violence. Its shape already roughly resembled an animal. He gave it to me, and I carved and polished it, hung it around my neck.”
“But you’re not wearing it anymore.”
“I’ve come a long way since then,” she whispers and leans her head on my chest, over my heart. I wonder if she can hear how fast it’s beating, what her closeness is producing in me. “When I realized I don’t need it anymore, I took it off.”
“It’s beautiful.” I chew on the inside of my cheek. “You know what I said, about a toy I had?”
“Embers,” she says softly. “You said it was the only thing you had from your childhood.”
She remembers. The realization makes my eyes sting, and I don’t know the hell why. “Yeah. I guess the color was golden, like embers from a fire. It was a stuffed animal. A small, filthy thing without eyes or a tail.” I glance again at the pendant. “A lion.”
She makes a small distressed sound, and I pull away to look at her. But before I do, she ducks under my arm and jumps on the bed.
Hiding from me, and I’m drawn to her more and more, and I don’t know why.
Maybe it’s the pain of her past, the bullying, the loss of her belief in herself. The move away from her childhood, the fear of losing it all. The fear of never being able to trust anyone ever again.
I know that feeling. I know that pain.
Fuck me. I think I know now why she felt so familiar from the start. I didn’t meet her before, and she doesn’t remind me of anyone else I know.
She reminds me of myself.
***
Teeth brushed, face splashed with cold water, I’m standing in Amber’s bedroom, leaning back on the closed door. Clutching my baseball cap in my hand, I hesitate, not sure what she expects of me. The buzz of alcohol is fading, and I’m hyper aware of her soft, sexy body curled under the covers.
She sits up, and the golden light of her bedside lamp catches the sweet curve of her cheek, her soft lips, the pale roundness of her breasts over the neckline of her blouse.
Mouth gone dry, I stare, my pants growing tighter by the second, my dick so excited you’d think I’ve never seen a chick before.
Ridiculous. Fucking hilarious. Jesse the manwhore, hesitating to jump into bed with a girl. Only, I’ve never been in a bed with a girl, and let’s face it, never a girl as pretty as this. As kind as this. As smart and funny, getting under my skin, making me fantasize about her. Making me feel.
Damn.
If I get into her bed, we’ll have sex. I know it by looking at her face. She wants it. Wants me. Her chest is rising and falling fast, her breathing ragged. As for me, if I climb under the covers and take her in my arms, I won’t be able to stop myself from taking her hard.
And then it will be over. She’ll be just another girl, another fuck.
I don’t want that, and it scares me shitless.
