Chapter Four
Tyler
I thought that this was going to be easy. I told myself that over and over again, with a cocky smile adorning my ever-so charming and talented lips as I made my way up to Ashley’s room that night.
I had heard she had an argument with her father, which was proven to be correct by the fact that she had refused to come down for dinner, or anything else.
Barely seeming to notice, her father and my mother had stared adoringly into one another’s eyes and ate their dinner as if we were all one big happy family. If I was a caring person, it might have bothered me, but I understood and accepted wholeheartedly that the relationship Ashley had with her father was really none of my business. All I really cared about was getting into those delightfully tight pants of hers. Personal matters didn’t really concern me.
When I approached the door, I made sure that I looked good, as always, by checking out the mirror that was conveniently placed in the door of the hall that led into the bathroom.
It’s almost as though this house was made to accommodate my charm, I thought with a sneaky, toothy grin. I turned around, assured that I looked irresistible, and knocked on her door. The bitch won’t even know what hit her.
“Go away!” I heard her yell through the door and I tried not to snicker. I liked a woman with a little bit of spunk.
“Damn, girl! It’s just me, Tyler. I just came to see if you wanted to talk about anything,” I answered in a cool, calm and collected way.
I heard a grumble of disgust make its way through the door before she rebuffed, “I thought you of all people would be against running personal welfare pleas for my father…or your mother.”
“Hey, I’m cool with personal welfare, but I am not up here because anyone told me to come. I don’t take orders from anybody,” I answered with a slight bite to my tone. I wasn’t the least bit insulted by what she said. In fact, I let it slide right off my back, but I certainly couldn’t let her think I was some pussy, going around doing errands for my mother, who doesn’t deserve the time of day, or her lovesick husband. However, I did recognize that this girl had a lot more spunk in her than her old man. I guess I had thought that since he was so easy to manipulate, she was going to be some dumb blond who would bend to my every whim. After all, I am pretty persuasive.
Yet, I was happy to see that this was going to be a little bit more of a challenge. That’s okay, I thought as I rationalized it all in my head, I need some fresh meat.
I decided to enact a little more force behind my approach. I grasped the door handle and pushed my way in.
Fully clothed, unfortunately, I saw her immediately as she leapt off the bed and screamed.
“What are you doing? Get out...”
“Nobody tells me what to do,” I answered, sneering at her, but then shrugged, thinking that I should ease into being a tough guy. “Shit…I just said I wanted to talk.”
“Get out, or I’ll yell for my dad and your mom…” She raised her eyebrows, as though that was supposed to scare me.
I laughed genuinely and answered, with a slight sense of cynicism, “They’re too busy fucking to give a damn…”
Her brow furrowed and her lips grew tight. I wasn’t sure if it was in reaction to what I had said, or my whole demeanor, but it amused me either way. She was so fresh, so renewed and so…delightfully different, that seeing her like this, standing up to me, giving no indication about her real feelings toward me, made me want to work all the harder to earn her trust and gain entry into her bed.
However, after a few moments in what was something of a standoff, I figured that I probably wasn’t going to get anywhere with the way that I was acting. I decided to change my approach yet again. I let my shoulders fall and I shrugged a careful, seemingly remorseful way and answered with a debonair appeal, “I heard your fight with your father…” I put my hand up, so that I could explain myself before she physically attacked me in a way that I didn’t exactly prefer. “I get it. He can be an ass, but I just wanted to say that if you wanted to talk to someone, other than your dad, or my mom, someone who knows what’s up…” I then gave a reassuring smile, before I said, “I’m always there.” I strategically turned around, but then stopped, mid-pivot in order to tell her, “And for the record, I don’t think that being an instant brother and sister is all that great to begin with either.” I allowed my eyes to travel up and down her body, as though I was frisking her with my sight, before I sneered in a devilish way and added, “Especially when you are so damn fine.”
At this, I received a reluctant smile before she rolled her eyes at me, but I had gotten what I had come for.
With women, it was all about the feelings. Where I had just one goal and a million different tactics to get that one thing, women had a million goals and only one real access point. However, like striking gold, once a man found that sweet spot in her emotions, it could lead him directly between her legs in a record amount of time.
Therefore, I figured I would leave her wanting more, so I shrugged and moved out of the room.
Now, it is time to initiate phase two, I thought to myself as I entered my room and closed the door slowly behind me, trying best to ignore the sounds of her father and my mother banging on the floor below us. I wasn’t joking with her about that fucking thing. The two of them went at it like rabbits, but I also had a sneaking suspicion that the sex was the only thing holding their marriage together.
However, I understood completely; I wasn’t going to put a ring on it to prove I understood, but I wasn’t judging.
Over the course of the next week, I tried my best to play nice and pretend that I really was a good guy.
I still refused to give up my sense of swagger, or my focus for exercise, since no booty was worth that much to me. After all, I still had an image to maintain, but I was nicer to her than I would have been if I wasn’t interested; especially after all of the disrespect she showed me.
I wasn’t used to being played, especially not by any woman. I tried to reach out to her, but she just shot me down. Lucky for her, I was enticed by the prospect of a challenge.
Even still, besides her quick to put down wit and annoyingly egotistical sense of self-righteousness, she didn’t give me much to go on.
Throughout the next week, she basically did whatever it was she did.
After the first night when I barged in on her, she discovered that the door locked and didn’t forget; not even once. I made sure that every time I went by, I checked.
I wasn’t trying to be perverted or anything, but I wouldn’t have minded getting a sneak peek at what I was working so hard for.
However, I did find it a little bit strange that she hardly ever talked to her father. After making it clear to everyone that he was the only reason she was here, I would have thought that she would have been a little keener to speak to him, or hell, even look at him.
Yet, in those rare moments when I did see her emerging from what was basically her little cave, which had, as far as I could tell, remained untouched, as though she was trying to preserve the memory of something, I did notice that she wasn’t as angry as she was sad.
If I actually gave a shit, even in the slightest, what the source of her sadness was, I might have had an inclination to ask. But I didn’t and therefore, I tried to stay as far away from the friend emotional approach as possible. She had scoffed at my offer to talk and therefore, I figured she would be the type that would get all sappy and wet when I finally burst that protective shield; and I didn’t want any of that.
So, I decided to just be nice to her and let her come to me. But after being rebuked for a week straight, my confidence was a little shaky when it came to Ashley in particular.
One hour on the beach was all I needed to score any perfect bikini bottom and size DD pair of boobs that I wanted, so I knew I hadn’t lost my magic lady touch; I had just found a very intriguing challenge.
Like any good hunter though, I realized after a week that despite what I had originally concluded, I was still trying to find that sweet spot; that weak link in her defenses that, if pulled with the right finesse, could cause the entirety of that fortress she worked so hard at maintaining to come crumbling down around her, leaving her vulnerable.
In short, I knew that I needed a different approach. It was time to go back to the basics.