I should slap him in the face. I should.
I shouldn’t feel a rush in my chest that beads my nipples to achy points or shift on my feet just to rub my butt against his Mustang.
And the fact that he can make me feel and do all these inappropriate, less than respectable, bad things makes me say, “You’re an asshole.”
At my curse – which was so effortless for me, dangerously effortless when it comes to him – he flinches slightly before growing even more furious.
“I am. And in case your four older, overprotective brothers forgot to mention it to you, assholes like me don’t play by the rules. Assholes like me take whatever they want, whenever they want. And I’m probably the worst of them all.”
My breaths have gone haywire so my next words come out thin and breathless. “What does that mean?”
“It means…” He pauses to bring his other arm up as well, putting it on the roof of his Mustang and making a cage around me. “That I’m the kind of asshole that keeps your brothers up at night. I’m the reason girls like you have a curfew. I’m the reason your mommy sits you down in your room and warns you about boys. She tells you how rotten they can be, how corrupt. How they’ll lie and cheat and do anything to stick their hands under your dress. I’m the reason your daddy locks your door at night. And he puts you in a bedroom on the top floor so no one can climb in. He bars your windows. He stands guard outside of your door on the off chance that I somehow still find a way in. And I fucking do. You know how?”
“H-how?”
He shakes the car again, making me teeter on my heels, unbalancing my world. “Because I’m the kind of asshole who’d break down any door. I’d climb a thousand stories. I’d climb a fucking tower. Just to be able to get into your room at night. Just to be able to see you. And I bet you wear those lacy white nighties, don’t you?”
“Yes, sometimes.”
“Yeah, I’d pull apart all the bars in your window. I’d fucking go to war with all four of your brothers just to be able to see you in one of those. Just to be able to get a peek of your creamy, dancer legs in something like that. Just to see if I can catch a glimpse of something else too, in your thin white nightie.” He leans in another inch as he continues, “You don’t want me to do that, do you? You don’t want me to force my way into your room at night, while your brothers are sleeping down the hall somewhere just so I could look at you, at your tight little body, in your white nightie.”
I do.
I so do.
I want him to force his way inside my room just so he can look at me.
And as soon as this thought flashes through my mind, I shake my head. “No.”
“Yeah. Because let’s face it, I get a peek of you in that thing and I won’t be able to stop myself from taking it too far.”
“Too far.”
His eyes are glowing now. “Yeah, I get a peek of you in your nightie, I’ll be doing everything that I can to fucking touch it. To somehow push the hem up your thighs and or pull the straps down your shoulders, just so I can get my hands on your naked body. But again, you don’t want me to do that, do you, Fae?”
Oh God.
How is it that I feel both relieved and restless that he called me that? How is it that I’ve been waiting and waiting for him to call me by his name one more time?
It’s a wonder that I can still shake my head and say what he wants me to say when all I want to say is yes. Yes, yes, yes.
“No,” I whisper and arch my body, up and toward him as if offering him to touch it.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. And why not?” he asks, the strings of his hoodie oscillating in front of me in a hypnotic rhythm. “Tell me why you don’t want me to touch you, to grope your fucking body like the villain that I am.”
I can’t remember.
I can’t remember anything right now.
But I guess all of this is so ingrained in my brain that I don’t even have to think about it, about the rivalry and soccer and hatred. My lips move on their own. “Because of my b-brothers.”
Satisfaction bursts over his features even as his jaw tightens for a second. “You wouldn’t want to betray them now, would you?”
“No.”
How many times have I said no now, I wonder?
And how many times have I wanted to say yes?