Fighting (30 page)

"Night,"
I muttered.

"Night."

I
tossed him the remote and turned my back to him.  It was easier to fall asleep
than I predicted, but that's probably because I wasn't staring at his
half-naked body.

The
next morning, I opened my eyes and the first thing I saw was Ethan's face.  I
felt a shock to my system and then realized that he was three feet away in his
own bed, still asleep.  I remembered where we were and why we were there, and
turned onto my back to rub a hand over my face.  I checked my wrist watch and
noted that we only had an hour before check out time. 

I
rolled out of bed and shuffled over to Ethan.  He was on half on his back and
half on his side, still shirtless.  I took a moment to memorize the vision of
him asleep like that, and then snapped out of it because I felt like a creep. 
I leaned down and slid my palm over his chest.  I straightened as he blinked a
few times.  He took a deep breath that morphed into a yawn, which in turn made
me yawn.

We
left the hotel and grabbed some lunch at another local eatery.  We wasted a few
hours driving through towns, searching for a suitable place to hit the
jackpot.  We rolled into the upscale part of a town, and I told Ethan to pull
into the parking lot of a country club.  I hopped off the back of the bike and
Ethan didn't move to stand, but he did look at me as I stood beside of him and
ran my fingers through my hair to untangle my braid. 

"You
sure about this?" he asked.

I
stowed my glasses in my bag.  "We need money.  I would just get a job at
the local grocery store but we're kinda on the run, Ethan."

He
sighed.  I dug around in my bag and pulled out the red lipstick I got from the
drug store.  I put two fingers around his chin and angled his head toward
mine.  He was still sitting, so his face was an inch lower than mine.  I
released him and his lips parted a little as I leaned toward him to use his
reflective aviator glasses as a mirror to put my lipstick on.  I lifted my chin
up to find the right angle, which meant my lips were pretty much all he could
see. 

He
cleared his throat and said, "You don't need lipstick.  What are you
doing?"

I
checked for smudges and leaned away again.  "Standing out."

I
exchanged the lipstick for eyeliner and leaned into him again, so our eyes were
inches apart, though separated by his glasses. 

I
could feel him breathing on me as he said, "Babe, somebody sees you doing
this, they'll assume we're a couple.  Then again, you're not going in there
alone, so maybe we should be a couple."

I
finished with my eyes and raised an eyebrow.  "You think I can't take care
of myself?" I asked indignantly.

"I
think you take care of yourself a little too well.  I'm concerned for the
civilians," he deadpanned.  I felt his hand grip my hip and I swallowed
nervously.  It slid around to the small of my back, pulling me closer to him so
the front of my thighs were pressed against his leg but there was still space
between his hip and my waist.  "We don't do anything alone.  And anyway,
it'll attract less trouble if they can't fight over you."

"You
always flirt to get your way?"

He
shrugged and smirked at me.  "Is it working?"

Oh,
yeah.  It was definitely working. 

"Game
plan?" I deflected.

He
hadn't released me yet and I swear the weight of his hand was burning my skin
through my layers of clothing.  I was staring at myself in his glasses, so I
slid them up and off his face.  When I uncovered his eyes, they were focused on
my lips but they flicked up to my eyes when I got the glasses off.  I slid them
on the bridge of my nose to distract myself from thinking about how easy it
would be to close the distance between our lips. 

"Hustle
or steal?" he asked.

I
rested my hands on his shoulders and looked down at his jacket, black muscle
shirt, dark blue jeans and black boots.  Then I looked down at my jacket, dark
purple shirt, black skinny jeans and black combat boots.  Not to mention the
bike.

"You
and me, together?  We don't exactly look like Timmy and Susie, who just off the
bus from Pleasantville and looking to bet money on a game of pool we've never
played before.  We're not easy marks so let's wait and see.  And feel free to
act the possessive boyfriend bit against the rich boys in there, but I'm going
in there as an employee so don't start anything that will get me fired."

His
eyes darkened and he said, "What makes you think I would be a possessive
boyfriend?"

I
just stared at him in silence instead of answering and his lips pulled up in
one corner. 

"Is
that a deal breaker with you?" he asked, pretty much admitting I was
right.

"I
never said it was a bad thing," I said before I could stop myself.  What
is it with my mouth around Ethan?  It kept running away from me.  "As long
as you didn't try to control me or pitch a fit about me having male friends or
some shit," I said, making a joke out of it.

"I
wouldn't worry about that so much," he said confidently.

What,
like I wouldn't be normal enough to have any male friends? 

"And
why not?" I asked a little testily.

"Because
I'm not exactly Timmy, just off the bus from Pleasantville, looking to trust my
girlfriend to your loser friends who are just waiting for an opportunity for me
to fuck up so
they
can fuck
you
," he said ominously.

His
eyes were piercing into mine as if he could see right through me and into my
thoughts.  He had a habit of doing that, but it wasn't usually quite this
sexy.  I just stared at him as I felt certain parts of my anatomy wake up with
alarming speed and pulse vibrantly with life.  He moved his free hand slowly to
push the glasses off my face and into my hair, exposing my eyes that were
widened with shock.

"And
I would never try to control you.  Do what you want, just don't piss me
off," he said softly.  He was deadly serious and I was on the verge of
either jumping him or running in the opposite direction.  I knew it was all
hypothetical, but I wanted it.  All of it.

"That
definitely makes me want to piss you off," I quipped, not quite able to
make my voice as light as I intended.  It sounded a little husky, even to me. 
Not
good, not good, not good
, I chanted in my head.  He scanned my face and
before I gave it all away or could do anything stupid, I relaxed my expression
and said, "Let's go." 

I
pushed lightly on his shoulders and he released me to snatch the glasses back
from me.  I adjusted my messenger bag and turned around to leave.  I pressed my
thighs together to assess the damage.  I sighed.  Yeah, he made me wet just
from talking to me.  Oh, the things he could do to me.

Focus, Alex.

I
heard him climb off the bike and follow behind me as I walked.  I wasn't sure
why, but after escaping the compound, Ethan had let loose his darker side, and
it was making everything so much fucking harder for me.  He didn't realize what
he was doing to me, but half the time I wanted to either kiss him until my lips
fell off or take a swing at him until a gratifying bruise formed.  I'd never
been so frustrated in my life.

I
walked toward the back of the country club and checked the door knob.  When I
found it locked, I slung my bag around to the front and swiped my lock pick set
from my bag.  I turned around and leaned back casually so my upper back was
against the door and my hips were pushed forward.  My hands were at the small
of my back, working on the door knob.  There were voices of golfers in the
distance, so Ethan got close to me and put his hand on the wall by my shoulder
and leaned into me, like we were just two kids flirting.  This wasn't helping
the whole hands off mentality I was trying to keep, but luckily my hands were
busy unlocking the door. 

He
was wearing his glasses again, so I couldn't see what his eyes were aimed at,
but mine were on his stubble covered jaw.  The voices got closer and in
response, so did Ethan.  He leaned closer and I wanted to lick his jaw.  I
focused on the lock and tried not to lick my lips, or anything else for that
matter.  He was so close that our noses were almost touching and I was barely
breathing when I finally popped the lock.  I exhaled heavily in relief and
stepped into Ethan to move out of the way so I could open the door.  He stepped
back with me and put his hands on my hips to twirl me around to the entrance.

I
planned to have some kind of talk or set some kind of rules with him about the
touching thing.  He got the memo at the compound, but he seemed to have
forgotten about it because he might have hesitated now, but he did start
touching me again.  He would put a hand to my back to usher me in a building,
or like at the safe house in the bathroom, he would crowd me with his body. 
This was the first time that he had pulled me close to him, though, and that's
where I drew the line: when he was close enough to breathe on me and make me
react to him on a physical level.  That may be a normal thing for him to do
with someone he was talking to, but it was pushing my limits.

He
shut the door behind us and we separated almost immediately.  We walked down a
short hallway and he handed me his jacket and veered off toward the restaurant
section and I went to the ladies' locker room.  I pushed inside and there were
a few other women scattered around.  They all screamed money, even the naked
ones.  Probably something to do with the dollar signs tattooed on their eyes
and the plastic surgery they probably sold their children's souls to have.  I
didn't want to condemn the entire joint, but misery loves company and it was
swarming around this building like a wasp infestation.  The smiles on these
women's faces was as plastic as the credit cards I was about to steal.

I
smiled pleasantly and went to the far side of the room to the lockers against
the wall.  No one was hanging around back there, so I picked the locks on the
lockers until I found a full one and an empty one.  I took off my jacket and
purple shirt and put on the baby blue shirt I found in the locker.  I pulled
off my boots and jeans and slipped on the blue jean skirt.  It was a little
loose, so it hung off my hips, displaying a sliver of my stomach.  I shrugged
and stashed all of my clothing into the locker.  I didn't want to wear someone
else's shoes, so I untied my boots halfway down and unzipped the back to fold
them down on the sides.  Shooting for Rich Daddy's Rebellious Teenage Daughter,
I braided my hair in pigtails and applied extra mascara to go for the big doe
eyes.  I shut and locked both lockers and sashayed out and to one of the
usher's podiums, where I swiped a few suckers. 

The
usher's mouth dropped open in shock at what was probably the sluttiest outfit
he had seen that day.  Don't get me wrong, there were women left and right who
wanted to show as much skin as they could get away with and still be called
classy, but I'm pretty sure I was the only one in the whole building wearing
combat boots.  And while they were made for women, so they were slim cut, they
don't exactly scream
rich and dainty female
.

I
walked out to the bar area and spotted Ethan sitting at a table.  We made eye
contact and I stopped in my tracks unexpectedly.  Ethan was already surrounded
by two women!  And they were pretty.  They were also being super obvious with
their interest in him.  He was sitting back with that confident ease I loved,
with his arms resting on the table in front of him.  My eyes flashed over his
groupies.  One girl had her hand on his forearm and leaned into him eagerly. 
The other girl was biting her fingertip and trying to channel that sexy
aloofness that would draw him in. 

His
eyes scanned me from head to toe and lingered around my legs and exposed
stomach.  He betrayed a ghost of a smirk when he came back to my pigtails.  I
barely noticed because I was too busy feeling an irrational spike of jealousy
and grinding my teeth together to keep from saying anything cutting to the
girls.  They noticed that Ethan wasn't paying attention to them and they turned
to follow his gaze.  They openly gawked at me and disgust curled their lips
back. 

Right back at 'cha. 

I
smiled and winked at them, though I was looking right at Ethan, turned on my
heel and walked back behind the bar. 

"Whoa,
sweetheart, this is employees only.  Are you even of age to drink?" a man
asked.  He walked toward me with a rag in his hand and I nodded my head
eagerly.

I
brightened my voice with young optimism and said, "Yes, sir.  Just turned
twenty one!  Anyway, Daddy said I needed a job so I thought, why not work at
the country club?  Mark told me to show up, so here I am."

His
eyes were stuck on my boots and I stuck my foot out to model it better for
him.  "You like?  Daddy hates them," I stage whispered to him,
smiling widely as if that fact pleased me to no end. 

He
turned and scanned the bar area before taking a few steps closer to me. 
"Mark told you to show up?"

I
took a shot in the dark with the very common name, and was banking on it
working.  "Yep."

"Hmm. 
Well, he didn't warn me so I don't have any spare uniforms or anything for
you.  Why don't you wait on the guests in the lounge area?  It's more casual so
you would probably fit in better there until I can get you a uniform," he
said kindly.