Ryan
I can’t believe I agreed to be Dalila’s escort. What the hell was I thinking? It’s not like I don’t want to go with her. I just don’t know if I can be physically close to her without falling into something dangerous. As I lead Dalila inside the gym, I wonder how tangled up I am in her world of deception and power.
I just have to resist the pull she has on me. I have to keep my distance, literally and figuratively.
As we pass the boxing ring on the way to my room, she stops. “I think it’s really cool that you’re a boxer,” she says.
“Most girls I know hate boxing,” I tell her. “They think it’s brutal. You go in the ring and fight other guys and get sweaty and gross. Even after you shower, you can’t wash off the cuts or bruises.”
“Speaking of showers,” she says. She twirls her hair around her finger. “I think I need one.”
I cock an eyebrow. “You need a shower?”
“Yeah. Why? What’s the problem? It’s the end of the day and I feel gross.”
“There’s no problem. Come on,” I say, leading her to the lone bathroom in the place. “I’ll stand guard to make sure nobody bothers you, although we’re the only two people here. Nobody else trains this late.” I haven’t even seen the manager dude, Ocho, for a few days. “But just in case, I’ll stand outside the door.”
“Thanks,” she says, slipping past me as she enters the bathroom with her purple bag in tow.
I stand guard, leaning against the doorjamb. If I were another guy, I’d have made a move on her already. Hell, maybe in the past I would have been that guy. Then I hear the shower turn on.
My mind isn’t as chivalrous as I’d like it to be, because suddenly visions of her naked body being sprayed by the showerhead enter my brain. Images of her soaping her breasts and stomach and lower. If I were in there with her, I’d offer to . . .
Oh, hell.
Now my body is reacting, willing and ready to be called into action.
There won’t be any action, I tell myself. There would be consequences.
Like expectations that I could never meet.
Like commitments that I could never keep.
Like feelings I would refuse to feel.
This is torture.
I groan and bang the back of my head against the wall. This is not what I signed up for. I’m a boxer, here in this shithole in Mexico to train. I’m not here to fantasize about some entitled, beautiful girl who wants to guilt me into escorting her to her ailing grandmother’s house.
“You okay?” Dalila’s sweet feminine voice, which suddenly reminds me of thick honey, lands on my ears. I swallow hard as she appears wearing a small towel from the gym. A towel! Is she kidding me? Does she realize that I’m an eighteen-year-old guy?
Sure she does. She knows exactly what she’s doing. Manipulation, plain as day, is what’s going on here.
“Put your clothes on,” I say in a monotone voice, unwilling to give her any satisfaction.
It’s ironic. Usually I’m the one shirtless and she’s trying to convince me to cover up. Oh, how the tables have turned. But I won’t let her win. Nope. My will is as strong as steel. I’m not my dad, being selfish for a piece of ass. My will is stronger than his.
Dalila starts walking to the back room with that damn skimpy towel around her body and her girly bag slung over her shoulder.
“Obviously I’m going to put clothes on, Ryan,” she says in a sexy, flirty tone. “I just have to dry off first.”
The princess is playing with me.
I might have had a few too many hits to the head, but not too many to know that I’m being manipulated.
In my room I gesture to the gym mats on the floor. “It’s not much of a bed, not like what your parents have in their guest bedroom.”
She eyes my shitty bed but doesn’t give any indication that she’s repulsed. “It’s fine.”
My room is dark except for the square of light coming from the little window that teases me with a small breeze every now and then. Suddenly I feel like an inadequate dolt who can’t even offer her a decent bed to sleep on. No matter her motives, the girl doesn’t deserve to sleep on gym mats.
She kneels down and pulls out a small piece of clothing from her bag.
“I don’t own a blanket,” I blurt out.
She glances back at me before standing up, the movement edging the towel down a few inches. The tops of her full breasts are now in full view. “That’s okay. I don’t need a blanket. Can you turn around while I slip into pajamas?”
I’m standing here like a dumbass trying to act like a girl slips into pajamas in my room every day. She’s testing me, and I’m failing. My body is suddenly on fire and sweat drips down my forehead, but for once it’s not from the Mexican heat.
“I’ll be back,” I tell her. “Lock the door until I come back. Don’t open it unless you know it’s me.”
I head for the door, the entire time looking away so I don’t get a glimpse of whatever she slipped into.
“Where are you going?”
“To take a shower,” I say in a gruff voice. “A very cold one.”