"No, I don't want to go to the party. I decided that I'm going on a date."
"With who?"
"None of your business." She walked across the living room and pointedly opened the door. "So, thanks for paying for the pizza. I'll see you around."
When I made it out to the porch, I turned to say something else to her, but she'd already closed the door. I shook my head and walked down the steps and over to the 1968 Dodge Charger I'd rescued from the junkyard six months ago. The car was primer gray, with several beat up places on the body and it looked like hell. But what mattered to me was the 426 HEMI engine hulking under the hood. Bigger valves meant better airflow which meant it owned the road.
The old guy planning to restore it had died and his crackhead granddaughter junked the car for a few hundred bucks minutes before I saw it. My lucky damn day. I sat in the car and ran my hand along the steering wheel but I couldn't keep my mind from thinking about Tana.
If not Brett, which I'd make sure of, she'd still probably go out with an asshole who wouldn't look out for her. Some guy who'd use her, wouldn't even make sure he protected her. I knew a few of the guys sniffing around and they were more fucked up than I was. She didn't know that some of them liked to smack the hell out of girls. I don't know how I'd live with myself if she got hurt. Or how I'd keep from putting the guy who hurt her in the hospital. Slamming my fist against my thigh, I jogged back up onto the steps to knock on the door.
Tana jerked it open, her beautiful eyes startled when she saw me. "Ryan. Did you forget something?"
"Three rules." I ground out, trying to keep from hating myself for not being able to stick to saying no when it came to her.
She frowned, perplexed. "What?"
"First, you get on the pill if you're not already. Second, we don't ever talk about it afterward because we're not a couple and we'll never be together like that. Third, you don't fall in love with me."
She looked at me without speaking, her chest rising and falling in the skimpy T-shirt that showed off her slender figure. I could see the outline of her breasts and the nipples pebbling through the material. Defining moments of our friendship ran through my mind in the eternity her eyes locked with mine. I knew without a doubt that this was going to define it in ways that might scar her heart the way my body had been scarred by foster dad #2. Deep. Ugly. Everlasting. "Well?" I asked when she didn't say anything and I felt like an idiot.
"Agreed," she said softly, her face flushing, and then I could breathe again. She bit her lip. "Will you kiss me? I wanna see if it would be too weird. Because if it is, we'll forget it."
Kiss Tana. My head spun at the thought. "Okay. Yeah."
She stepped out onto the porch beside me, pulling the door shut behind her. "Umm..." She raised her arms and then lowered them, giving a nervous laugh. "I'm not sure what to do...I mean...I've kissed guys before...but this is you...and..."
"Shh..." I put my hands on her hips and guided her closer until her body was flush with mine. The effect when we connected was an adrenaline high. The cold bastard in my soul drank in the innocent sweetness of hers. I clenched my jaw, fighting myself. If I could, I'd kick my own ass. Every fiber of control in me was screaming at me to let go, to walk away, to never look back. Then she pressed into me and that wasn't an option I had any more.
She had great curves, ones that lured me closer to the edge. Her perfume surrounded me and the sweetness of her breath blew across my face when she exhaled. I deliberately dropped my hand to her sweetly curved ass and pressed her body against me, letting her feel how she affected me. Where she was soft and giving, I was hard and unyielding. Her eyes widened and she trembled.
Part of me wanted her to push me away and say she'd changed her mind. The other part of me, the part the system taught to look out for number one, wanted her against me for the thrill it gave my body.
She breathed out faster, her breath coming in small hitches. I lowered my head slowly, searching her beautiful face, giving her time to change her mind, hoping she would because the road we were on was slippery, coated with the ice of future regret. But she didn't move and then it was too late because I was going to take what she was offering. I was a man who'd fallen off the cliff. My lips touched hers for the first time and it tilted my world upside down. Her lips were soft and eager, her hands wandering across my back, her breasts pushed hard into me. The taste of her was like sunshine and summer and I couldn't get enough. My body heated up like a wildfire had me in its grip. I dove deeper into the kiss, pulling at her lower lip gently with my teeth. I wanted to pick her up, wrap her legs around my waist and dive into her.
When she whimpered and moaned my name, I knew I was thinking with my dick and was only minutes from taking her right here on the damn porch. No girl had ever made me feel so out of control. Forcing myself to stop, I put my hands on either side of her face. "Slow down," I whispered against her lips, shocked at how right kissing her was, at how badly I wanted to bury myself in her and not stop until neither of us could walk. The kiss drove home what a friendship- wrecking idea us together was and nagged at me to tell her I'd changed my mind. But I couldn't form the words that would push her away. This girl owned pieces of me that no one else ever had. Pieces I didn't want to examine too closely and that was dangerous for both of us. I couldn't let her fall for me. The people in my life always ended up damaged because of me and I'd rather break into a thousand pieces than to break her.
My body screamed at me, calling me an idiot for not taking the next step, but I ignored it and dragged my mouth away from hers.
"Wow," she whispered with a glow in her eyes.
Her expression was full of shooting stars and what-if fantasies. I had to crush the fairy tale, make her see that reality with me was cut and dried. Sex and nothing else. I injected as much arrogance in my voice as I could muster. "After you get on the pill, show me the proof."
She yanked her head back like I'd slapped her. A disgusted expression flashed across her face and she shoved against my chest. "You think I'm looking to get pregnant?"
"No, I don't think that." I glanced away from the accusation in her eyes. I'd meant to create distance to clear my own head and make sure she didn't think I could give her more, but I hadn't meant to insult her. Tana didn't know the drama that went on with some of my friends and I'd be damned if I was ever going to let myself end up as a father. With my fucked up history, I didn't have anything to offer a kid. There was no way I wanted to pass that legacy on.
"Fine." Her eyes flashed her anger. "I'll show you the proof. Anything else?"
A heavy awkwardness settled between us, coolness where there had been heat. I wanted to reach for her, but it was better that I didn't. "I'll let you know when I set up a place we can go."
Nudging a piece of cracked wood on the porch with the tip of a pink painted toenail, she sighed, the anger draining from her. She looked more unsure of herself than I'd ever seen her when she turned her beautiful eyes back up at me. "I know it's only sex and you said that we won't talk about it afterward but...could you like...not make me feel bad about it later?"
That stung. I wasn't anything like her damn father. He'd done some emotional damage to Tana as well as her mom and brother but I didn't play mind games and I didn't hurt women. I ran my hand through my hair in frustration. It had always been easy to talk to Tana before sex became the topic. "You really think I'd do that?"
"No." She gave me a smile. "I'm just nervous, I guess. I shouldn't be." She rubbed her hand across the tattoos covering my left arm. "Despite your fierce appearance, you've always been so gentle around me. Tough on the outside, sweet on the inside. It's one of the reasons why I love you."
Her words sucker punched me in the heart and the blood drained from my face.
Laughing, she patted my chest, her hand lingering for a sweet torture of a second. "Easy. You can breathe, Ryan. I would have been so crazy without you when we first moved here. You were my anchor. I didn't mean that I'm in love with you. I meant I love you as in you're my best friend."
"Oh." I took a deep breath and let it out as everything righted itself again. "Yeah. Sure. I'll call you later." I walked to my car, waiting until she was safe inside the house before I backed from the driveway. I didn't like the funny sensation coursing through my body. Like I was in a race car doing two hundred miles an hour headed straight for a wall and even knowing a crash was inevitable, I kept my foot on the gas pedal.