“Esther,” I said.
“I’m done pretending. I want you.”
Definitive. She’d left no question of what she’d meant. But I couldn’t accept it.
“Look, Esther, what we had was nice. We fucked each other, and very good. It was a decent time. But that’s all it can be. It’s over now,” I said.
This was new to me, so I imagined most women would have scoffed, been offended by my vulgarity and my tone, but I had been gone too long, let myself forget that Esther wasn’t most.
“The fucking was superior,” she said. Then she looked at me. Even though I kept my eyes trained on the road, I could feel her gaze on my skin, the most searing, most welcome stare. “But it was more than that and you know it.” She grabbed the hand that I didn’t have on the wheel, placed her fingers between mine. “I’m your girl. You said it yourself.”
For a moment, I squeezed her hand back, but then I pulled away. Parked the car and then, finally, turned to her.
“Maybe I just said that? A trick to getting your pants.”
She laughed, her round cheeks making her eyes narrow into slits. “Sorin Petran using tricks like that to get into Esther Jordan’s pants. Pants that he pretty much had twenty-four/seven access to?” She smiled even more brightly. “Doubtful.”
Then her face dropped, and she grabbed my hand again. “Sorin, I know what you’re trying to do, and thank you for it. But it only shows me the truth.”
I snatched my hand away again, trying to regain my will.
“You don’t know anything about me, my world, my clan. And you never will.”
“Come inside.”
Then she got out of the car, walked to the front door, unlocked it, entered, and left it open. And I sat there, weighing, debating before finally getting out.
Best do this now, I told myself. Make sure she understood that we could never see each other again.
When I entered the familiar dwelling, Esther stood in the entryway. And I stopped short, stared at her.
“Still struck speechless by how quickly I can get out of my clothes?” she said, gesturing at the shirt and pants that she had tossed aside, though I barely noticed because I was so busy drinking in her body, which, save her bra and panties, was completely uncovered.
“Don’t try to tempt me with sex, Esther. Are you so desperate that you’d throw yourself at me even after I rejected you?” I asked, though my voice robbed the words of any conviction.
“You haven’t rejected me. And no, I’m not trying to tempt you with sex. I’m merely out to prove a point. And unless you want the entire neighborhood to see, please close the door,” she said.
Then she pivoted, turned on her strong ankles and walked down the hall, her ass jiggling with the force of her steps.
The curiosity, the question, the challenge, all the things that had pulled me to her at first, did so now. So, despite my resolve, against my instinct, I closed and locked the door and followed her. I knew the path to her bedroom, and in the few steps it took me to arrive, I told myself to leave a thousand times.
She stood in front of the bed, and I drifted closer, moving before I realized that I had. The faint smile played over her full lips, and she lifted her hand, stroked it along my cheek, ruffling the coarse hair there.
“I always hated facial hair. But this little shadow you can’t be bothered to shave is perfect,” she said almost dreamily.
Her touch, light though it was distracting enough in her words almost seduced me, but her words, her voice, so airy, enraged me. I grabbed her wrist, stilled her hand.
“Is this some kind of game to you?” I asked, my voice a feral whisper.
She shook her head. “No. It’s my life.”
“Exactly! It’s your life. That’s what’s at risk with me.”
“I understand the risk, Sorin.”
“Do you?” I scoffed.
Her eyes flashed with anger, her face rigid. “Someone came here, into the place where I felt the most safe on earth. Took me away. Left me alone, cold, in the dark, waiting to die. Pointed a gun in my face. Would have pulled the trigger. I understand,” she said flatly. “And I accept it.”
I calmed and then my own anger spiked again. “Look. You think you understand, but you don’t, Esther!” I pulled my shirt over my head, pointed at my chest. “This is who I am. Forever. It will kill me. I won’t let it kill you.”
“You don’t get to make that choice,” she said.
“I do and I am,” I said.
She stepped closer, eyes on mine, fearless. “No you don’t. I make the choices for me. And I’m choosing you.” She lay a hand on my chest, then ran a finger down my sternum. “You and all that comes with you. I want it all, and you know I can be very persuasive,” she said.