When in Paris... (Language of Love) (10 page)

“I have to go.” My voice is strained as I turn and hurry toward the door. It requires two clumsy turns of the knob before I manage to yank the door open. Cheeks ablaze, I hurry toward the red stairs sign, unwilling to risk the elevator taking too long.

I can feel Zach staring after me. Feel it all down my back, my hips, my thighs, all the way to the tips of my toes. But I’m strong and I don’t look back.

C
HAPTER
S
EVEN

ZACH

No one has ever accused me of being stupid. And not just when it comes to books. I know when a girl is into me. The signs aren’t usually hard to read.

I glance down at my crotch and feel lust tugging at my gut. My signs aren’t hard to read either.

I lift my gaze to the door Olivia just disappeared through and shake my head, knowing I hadn’t just dreamt the whole thing. My heart is thundering so loud in my ears, I can’t hear anything else for at least a minute. The minute it takes me to get control of my body and my breathing.

I walk to the living room and drop onto the couch, swinging my legs up until I’m laid out in a full sprawl.

What the hell just happened? I’m not exactly sure. The only thing I know is I don’t think I’ve been this turned on since my first look at the
Playboy
magazine I found under my dad’s mattress. Or was it
Penthouse
? Who the hell knows, all I do know is I was a horny thirteen-year-old.

I’d goaded her.
At some point I should have told her the truth. When she’d accused me of being fake, I’d responded the way I had because we’ve been doing the same thing for years—fighting a pretty intense attraction. If I’d ever been unsure about that, tonight laid any conceivable uncertainty I could’ve ever had to rest.

Inhaling deeply before releasing a long breath, I close my eyes and rub the palms of my hands over my face. What the hell am I going to do? I don’t even know what the right thing to do is. If I let myself get involved with Olivia, they’ll be hell to pay. My mom will see it as a betrayal, me cavorting with the enemy. I’m pretty damn sure that’s the way she’ll look at it.

But things are different now, I reason. I’m living on my own and I can do what I want to a large degree. Especially when it comes to which girls I go out with. Call it me being chickenshit but my mom will never know. And it’s not like I’m going to get serious with her and take her home to meet the folks. I’m your typical red-blooded guy who wants to get in her pants. That may be a slightly crude way to look at it, but it’s the truth.

I can’t forget the feel of her breasts. The contact hadn’t been long enough but its lingering effects are still playing havoc with my libido. I wonder what she’d have done if I’d kissed her, removed her sweater, her bra, and seen and touched what I’d only felt through the buffer of clothes.

“
Christ,” I groan when I feel my body’s response to the images in my mind. I consider the options of how to deal with my growing condition—a condition two minutes ago I thought I’d brought under control. After a brief internal fight, I rise from the couch and head for the shower. One I’m definitely going to be taking ice cold.

~*~*~

Trying to dodge phone calls from Ashley is futile. I learned that lesson months ago. And since school started, she’s bloody relentless. I can expect to get at least two phone calls and more text messages than I can count every
effing
day.

I have my phone set on vibrate most of the day because of classes and practice. What I should do is change my damn number…again.

The second time it buzzes and I see another text come in—the second since I woke up—I shove my phone in my backpack, zip it up and walk into the school cafeteria.

After over two weeks of classes, there’s still shit to eat in the apartment. Which is nuts since one of the main reasons I wanted an apartment was so I could make what I wanted and not have to live off cafeteria food. Yeah, sound in theory but in practice in order for food to get in the refrigerator and cupboards, someone has to buy it at the grocery store, something I recently discovered, I hate to do. But I’m going to have to suck it up and go tonight. The cafeteria doesn’t carry my favorite cereal and while Troy doesn’t seem to have a problem with it, I’m getting sick and tired of eating out every night.

Since I have an hour before my first class, I opt for a real meal: pancakes, bacon, toast, the works. While I’m waiting in line to pay, my gaze roams the dining hall. It’s only half full, with students scattered everywhere.

Toward the back of the room, I spot a girl with ash-blonde hair but her back’s to me so I can’t see her face. My pulse quickens and my senses go into overdrive. An avalanche of memories from last night crash down on me. Then I think about the fifteen minutes I spent under the spray of cold water trying—in vain as I’d eventually find out when I tried to sleep—to douse what Olivia had started burning in me.

“
Is that a double order of hash browns?”

At the cashier’s question, my thoughts are jerked back to the present. I nod and hand her my debit card. She takes less than a minute to ring me up and then I’m back to scoping for a table. Back to where the blonde is sitting.

“
Zach.”

I turn at the sound of my name to find April waving at me from a table close to the bank of windows on the southeast side. I glance back to the blonde only to find her headed toward the exit…and clearly not Olivia.

So I’ll have breakfast with Olivia’s friend. Worse things have happened to me. As I approach the table, she’s smiling at me and once again I’m struck by just how gorgeous she is. And not only gorgeous, she has a certain style about her—her clothes, the way she carries herself. Definitely more sophisticated than most girls our age.

“
Hey, I didn’t expect to see you here so early. I thought Olivia was the early riser and you were the one who likes to sleep in.” The minute the words leave my mouth, I fully understand the mistake I just made. And I can tell by the knowing smile spreading across April’s face, she realizes it too. I can only guess what’s coming next.

“
Hmm, sounds like you were expecting someone else. Don’t worry, she’s right behind you,” she says with a smug smile, directing a pointed look over my shoulder.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been so quick to turn around, but it’s almost instinctual when someone says something like that, right?

Sure enough, Olivia, tray in hand, is making her way to the table. And damn if she doesn’t look better today than she did last night. It’s her hair. Last night she had it up in a ponytail, today she’s wearing it loose and curled around her shoulders. She also has on a pair of those low-rise jeans that drive guys nuts, and a thick, knitted sweater that skims the top of her jeans. Her jacket is draped over her arm.

I drag my gaze up to her face where she has a smile pinned. The kind that makes me think she’s either nervous or embarrassed. I smile one of those casual smiles to try to put her at ease even though I know we’re both thinking about last night. I also try to keep my eyes off her breasts and let me tell you, that’s way easier said than done.

“
Hey, Zach,” she says, exchanging a furtive look with April. I’m sure it’s girl-speak for
what is he doing here
? It’s obvious I make her nervous. Oddly, I kind of like the thought of that. I also like the thought of having my hands on her again.

“
Hey.” I nod in her direction and place my tray on the table opposite April.

Olivia pauses long enough for me to see she’s debating whether to walk all the way around the table to sit beside her friend or park herself in the chair beside me. I pat the hard plastic seat. “C’mon sit. Don’t worry, I don’t bite.”

Her face grows pink under my stare as she laughs it off. Once she’s seated, I lean over and pseudo-whisper near her ear, “At least not very hard.”

April laughs and Olivia’s eyes widen. Her face is now hot pink. My work is done. It’s so easy to mess with her. Flirt with her. Want her.

Pulling her cell phone from her purse, April glances at it and then rises swiftly from the table. “Okay, kids, breakfast was short, sweet and fun. Now I gotta haul my butt to biology.” She grabs her tray and book. “You kids have fun.”

Beside me Olivia’s sputtering, “What—where are you going? I thought—” But she’s talking to air. Her friend is long gone. Fast as her long, gorgeous legs can carry her.

After a moment of silence, Olivia jumps to her feet, pushes her tray to the other side of the table and takes the seat April just vacated.

“
It would look ridiculous for us to be sitting on the same side,” she explains.

“
Right. Ridiculous.”

I dig into my breakfast and it takes about twenty seconds for me to notice she’s just staring at the strawberry yogurt, banana and orange juice on her tray.

I swallow. “Look, if eating with me alone makes you uncomfortable, I’ll leave.” Okay, it’s obvious she regrets what happened last night. But the crazy, hair-raising attraction between us is real. And maybe she doesn’t want to explore it but I haven’t been able to think about anything else since last night.

The sunlight catches strands of her blonde hair when she raises her head and looks at me. “Don’t be silly. I’m not uncomfortable with you.” And as if to prove it to me—and herself—she tears the foil lid off the yogurt carton, picks up the plastic spoon on her tray and begins to eat. But her attention is too focused on eating and her slender fingers look like they’re gripping the white plastic spoon hard enough to snap it. She’s aware of me.

I compress my lips to keep from smiling. Okay, so we’re not going to talk about what happened. But not talking about it isn’t going to make it go away. Not by a long shot.

A beat of silence elapses before she says, “About last night…”

***

OLIVIA

Last night will haunt me ’til the day I die. I mean, I forced Zach to grab me. Zachary Pearson had his hands on my breasts. The insanity of what I did makes me cringe in embarrassment. And what happened after…well I can barely think about it without getting uncomfortably hot in other places on my body for entirely different reasons.

But when lucidity returned in a gush of mortification on my way back to the dorm, hands cold and shaking on the steering wheel, I made a vow to forget not only my most recent debacle but our high school past.

Yet here I am, doing exactly that. Bringing up the past. Opening up my unresolved issues with him. And why? Because what April said to me was true. I won’t ever be entirely happy unless I know not only why Zach behaved the way he did toward me but what’s the reason for his change of heart.

Blame it on my stubborn streak but I’m simply not the type of person who can sweep hurts under the rug as if they never existed and move on. It would be a different thing if our paths had never crossed again. But that’s not the case. We’re going to be seeing each other on a fairly regular basis.

Looking across at him, I can tell I’ve surprised him. I’m sure he didn’t think I’d bring up last night.

“First, I just want us to agree that we won’t ever talk about what I did last night.” It’s hard to hold his gaze and I feel my face getting hotter. He has a tiny scar above his right eyebrow so I concentrate on that. “The only explanation I have for the way I acted is that that rumor has dogged me for years and I guess it’s still a sore point with me. I hope you don’t take it as anything else but me at the height of my frustration. I wasn’t, you know…”

“Coming on to me?” Zach asks when I pause.

I give a jerky nod. “Yeah.”

“So I was on the receiving end of years of frustration?”

Okay, that doesn’t sound right but his expression is deadpan so I don’t think he’s mocking me. “I guess,” I reply weakly.

The corner of his mouth kicks up in a wicked grin. “Then I’ll be more than happy to have you take out all your frustrations on me whenever you need.”

Well I walked blindly into that.

“And that’s the
only
reason you did it?” His voice is soft and knowing.

Of course not. He knows that as well as I do. “Of course. Now I just want to forget it ever happened.”

“So if a guy looks at you like this...” His gaze drops pointedly to my breasts. “You usually let them have a good feel to make sure they know they’re real?” he asks like he hadn’t just delivered the most facetious question known to man.

Game, set, match to Zachary Pearson.

A faint smile plays on his lips as he watches me from beneath thickly veiled lashes as I struggle to come up with something fitting to say. But except for a faint garbled sound that escapes my mouth that falls open due to my suddenly slack jaw, I have no audible response.

“Alright, if that’s the story you’re going with, I’ll go along. And I promise, you won’t hear a word about it from me.” He makes a mouth-zipped-shut motion with his fingers.

My body responds to the heat in his eyes and the gravelly quality of his voice but I’m determined to steer the conversation back to the reason I’d gone to his apartment in the first place so I try really hard to ignore his last two remarks.