Six times.

We had sex six times between last night and this morning.

Being with a nineteen-year-old had its perks.

I had to practically hose Ethan down to get myself out of his bedroom so I could start getting ready to head back to my place.  He asked me to move in with him—or to at least think about it—when we were eating breakfast and again when I was trying to leave.  I had refused to answer him.

Would it be so bad?

“Tell me more about yourself,” Ethan said.  He sat down on the bean bag chair and patted his thighs with his hands, encouraging me to sit.  “I want to know everything.”

“Like what?” I asked as I settled down in his lap.

“Well, I know who your father is,” he said, “but I don’t know anything about your mom.”

“I don’t know much about her either,” I said with a short laugh.  “She was never in my life much, not since I was very young.  She and Dad split up when I was three.  She had a huge inheritance from her mother, and she basically uses that to travel around the world, following whatever floats her boat at the moment.  I think she’s in Greece right now, but I’m not sure.”

“Do you ever talk to her?”

“Not much.”  I shrugged.  “She usually calls around my birthday.  She’s either a day early or a day late, depending on what part of the world she is in.  We talk for a few minutes about whatever she’s been doing and what she’s been seeing.  She doesn’t really ask about me.  Last year she was surprised to learn I was getting a master’s degree.”

“I’m sorry,” Ethan said.  He hugged me against him.  “That has to be hard for you.”

“Not really.  It’s hard to miss something you’ve never had.  Dad’s second wife lasted all of six months, and I barely remember her.  He was more careful about Vanessa.”

“That’s your stepmom, right?

“Yes.  She’s pretty good for him, and at least she was around for all the girly stuff when I was a teenager.”

I snickered and then covered my mouth, remembering that Ethan was still a teen himself.

“So, you like her?”

“She’s very strict and very socially conscious, but she’s always been kind to me.  Dad dotes on her, which she adores.”

“Does she work at your dad’s company too?”

“No.”  I shook my head.  “She does a lot of volunteer stuff and hosts a lot of social events, but she’s never had a traditional job.  Before she married my dad, she trained horses at her family ranch.  I suppose that counts as a job.”

“Horses are cool,” Ethan said.  “Did you ever ride them?”

“She took me there a few times when I was younger.  I find horses rather intimidating though it was fun to ride.  I just didn’t like riding fast.”

“No sense of adventure?”  Ethan grinned at me.

“I don’t know about that, but they’re so big!”

“I thought you rather liked big.”  Ethan threw his head back and laughed loudly.

“That’s not the same!”  I slapped his shoulder playfully.

My phone beeped.  The screen showed a message from Presley, but I was more concerned with the time display.

“Shit!” I said.  “I need to get going.  Class starts in an hour, and I need to run home first.”

“If you lived here, you wouldn’t have to make the extra stop.”  Ethan grinned.

I shook my head, pushed myself up off his lap, and began to gather up my things.

“Will you come back after your classes?” Ethan asked as I put my shoes on.

“I have a lot of work to do to finish my thesis,” I said.  “It’s mostly the conclusion I have left, but it’s barely started.”

“You could work on it here.”

“You are far too distracting.”

Ethan looked at the floor, his lips pressed together.

“I’ll call you later,” I said.  “If I can get enough done, I’ll come by tonight.”

“Take the key back, at least?” he asked hopefully.

“All right.”

His expression brightened slightly, and he gave me a long kiss before I headed out the door and down the elevator to my car.

As I drove home, I thought about what it might be like to live with Ethan.  A little fantasy played in my head briefly before I came to my senses.

“Get a grip, Ashlyn,” I said to myself.  My mind had been jumping back and forth the entire drive back.  Move in with someone I just met?  Not a chance.  Aside from the flack I would get from my family and friends, it was just a completely stupid move.  There were at least a thousand reasons not to do it—the first three being D-A-D—and the only reason I could think of to go ahead with it was because the sex was fantabulous.  I started mumbling to myself as I unlocked my apartment door.  “Mind-blowing sex is not a valid reason to move in together.”

I wrapped the strap to my bag around the hook by the door and stomped into the kitchen to get myself a glass of water.  My cell phone buzzed in my purse, and I realized I didn’t want to talk to anyone who might be calling, even if it was Ethan.  Talking to him was just far too…

Dangerous?

Tempting?

I didn’t know, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know right at that moment.  One thing I did know was that I would have rather stayed at his place another night, but I really needed to get some schoolwork done, and that just wasn’t going to happen if I were there.  I downed my glass of water quickly and then poured another, wondering if I was dehydrated from last night’s antics.

I yanked some books out of my bag and gathered up everything I would need for today’s classes.  I’d have to finish some editing before I could work on the conclusion to my thesis, which would also require a trip to the actual library.  Professor Lamon had a bug up his ass when it came to online articles and insisted on a certain percentage of research cited from an actual book.

After a big sigh and another glass of water, I finally opened up my phone to check my messages.  It had been Presley who tried to call, and I remembered I had never read the text message she had sent earlier.

You missed an awesome party after you left so early!  Call me!

There was no way I was going to talk to her right now.  I was on edge, confused, and moody, which she would notice right away and start with the barrage of questions I didn’t want to answer.  Presley was the most dangerous of my entire social group because I swear the woman was able to contact twenty-six people in about four minutes if there was something she considered gossip-worthy.  When Cole and I had split up, I had sent her a text message on my way out of his apartment.  He lived about an hour away, and by the time I arrived at the place I shared with Presley, there were about seventy people at our apartment, dancing and toasting my newfound freedom.

Okay, so Presley hadn’t been fond of Cole, and with good reason.  But still, my mom called while I was pulling into the driveway to make sure I was all right, as if she even remembered that I had been dating someone.  I told one person, and in under an hour, everyone I had ever known knew I was single again, including my absentee mother halfway across the world.  It was annoying, to say the least.  My preference would be to keep this information from Presley altogether, at least until I could talk to my dad…

Yeah, right.  And say what?

Growling audibly at myself, I went to the kitchen, dropped and broke the water glass in the sink, nearly burst into tears trying to clean it up, and then stomped off to take a shower.  As the hot water poured over me, and my mind drifted back to earlier that morning, I started thinking about Ethan.  I thought about his head resting back on my shoulder as I read to him and about the French toast he made for breakfast—twice.  His complete forthrightness and honesty was so out of the ordinary, I couldn’t help but admire how easily it seemed to come from him.  He was sweet, adorable, intelligent, and absolutely the most incredibly gorgeous individual I had ever seen in my life.

I stepped out of the shower and started to towel off.  When I glanced in the mirror, I noticed I was smiling.  I felt a lot more relaxed, and I didn’t think it had anything to do with the shower itself.  Just thinking about how we had spent our time together had calmed me down.  Even though I had been naked in the shower, always a prime place for a little self-pleasure, I hadn’t even thought about sex with him.  My teeth dug into my bottom lip, and I felt a new wave of panic come over me.

It wasn’t about the sex.

Oh shit!  What had I gotten myself into?

Before the panic could set in, my phone alarm went off, signaling it was time to head to class.  I dressed quickly, grabbed my backpack, and headed out the door.

Twenty minutes later, I rushed into the room just before class started.  Presley raised an eyebrow at me as I dropped down next to her.  Presley’s heart wasn’t in our economics class, but it fit in with one of her PhD requirements, and it was the only class we’d had together since undergrad.

“Are we going out tonight?” Presley asked.  She tapped her pencil on the desktop repeatedly as Professor Lamon walked up and down the aisles, handing out stapled packets of papers.

“I’m not sure,” I said, hoping to dodge the question altogether.  She’d been pestering me about my weekend constantly—where had I been, why hadn’t I joined them at the club, etcetera.  I really didn’t want to get into it with Presley.  For starters, she just wasn’t going to understand, and as soon as she heard a guy’s name, she was going to want every little detail.  How was I supposed to explain I spent the entire weekend with a brain-damaged, teenaged guy I had just met?  Yeah, that would go over well.  Besides, she would want to meet him, interrogate him to find his weaknesses, and then start exploiting them.

“Well, I know Isaac’s tending bar. Zoey and probably a few of her usual crowd are planning on being there.  Maybe she’ll bring those guys she met Saturday.  You blew us off all weekend.  I would think you’d at least come by for one drink.”

“I went out with you last night,” I said, reminding her.

“For like, ten minutes.  Then you bailed and missed all the fun, so it didn’t count.  What’s everyone going to think if you suddenly stop hanging when you’re expected to be there?”

“Maybe,” I said, noncommittally.

I ignored Presley as I took notes during the lecture.  At the end of the class period, Professor Lamon dropped one of the study plans for the economics final on my desk, and I started gathering up my books.

“I’d like to get started on the study guide,” I told Presley, “so I probably won’t go out.  This final is going to be a bitch.  It is a Monday, not a Friday, you know.”

“Who cares?” Presley rolled her eyes at me.  She tossed her things in her bag and wrapped it around her shoulder.  We filed through the classroom door and down the hall.  “You could skip the final and still graduate at this point.  You have your job, so why waste time studying?”

“Because if I don’t ace the final, I don’t end up with an A,” I said.  “I rather like my GPA right where it is, thank you.”

“One drink, Ashlyn!”  Presley knocked shoulders with me as we headed out the door and down the steps to the courtyard.  “You have time for…”

I didn’t hear the rest of her sentence.  At the bottom of the stairs—balanced on his bicycle and smoking a cigarette in all his beautiful, teenage glory—was Ethan.  Our eyes met, and he graced me with that smile.

“Hey,” he said—or maybe he just mouthed it.  I couldn’t hear him over Presley’s chatter.  I glanced over at her, but she was looking off in the other direction and apparently hadn’t noticed him.  I was only three steps from the bottom, and I’d have to either stop or walk right past him.  I had no idea what to do.  I wasn’t expecting him to show up here—on campus!  I wasn’t prepared.  What was I going to tell Presley?  She was definitely going to grill me, regardless.  Good lord, there was no telling what she might say to him right in front of me!  Would she notice how young he was, or would she not even get past the piercings and tattoos?  I couldn’t even think about the cigarette and the fact that he was on a bicycle.  Shit, Presley would have a fucking field day if she found out I had spent the weekend with him.  I was going to be torn apart if I even acknowledged that I knew him.  I wondered what he would do if I just walked right past him and pretended I didn’t see him.  Of course, we had already made eye contact, so there was no way I could do that, not without hurting his feelings.

I hesitated a moment, having absolutely no idea what I should do and then ended up stopping at the bottom of the stairs, caught in my own indecision.  Ethan twisted sideways and dropped off the bicycle seat before reaching out and hugging me against his chest.  I hadn’t even considered that he might do something like that.  I stiffened and glanced quickly over at Presley, who appeared to be trying to catch flies with her wide-open mouth.  Ethan immediately let go, his smile disappearing.

“I was going to call, but I figured you would be in class,” he said.  “I would have sent you a text, but my friends are all at work now, and I didn’t have anyone who could help me write it.”

Oh shit!  I couldn’t believe he said that.  I wasn’t ready to deal with this.  I just wasn’t.

“That’s okay,” I said.  I looked over at Presley and her bug-eyes, staring first at Ethan, then at me and then back at Ethan again.  I really hoped she was not so much on her game that she caught the meaning of his last comment.

“Ashlyn?” Presley bumped into my arm again.  “Are you going to introduce me to your ‘friend’?”

“Of course,” I said quickly.  I could feel my face getting hotter.  “Presley, this is Ethan.  Ethan, this is my friend, Presley.  She’s in my economics class.  Presley, I’m going to head on over to the library now and get started on the study guide.  If I have time and I’m not too tired, I’ll try to catch up with you guys at the club later.”

As if, I thought, but at least it might get her off my back.

“Hey, Presley,” Ethan said with a smile.  She definitely noticed that since her eyes bugged out even more.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ethan.  How long have you known our Ashlyn here?”

Our?  How many people did she think she was?  I really, really wasn’t prepared to deal with this.  I definitely couldn’t do this now and definitely not starting with Presley, of all people.  She could be absolutely vicious, and anything she discovered would be known by every man, woman, and grandparent in our social circle within an hour.  I needed a quick escape.

“We met just a couple of days ago,” Ethan said, blushing.  He tossed a shy glance at me, and his tongue popped out to spin his lip rings in a circle.  He practically had “my dick’s been in her pussy” sketched across his forehead.  Oh dear lord, she would eat him alive if he kept that up.  I would, of course, be her dessert.

“Did you now?” Presley turned her syrupy-sweet smile on me.  “Ashlyn hasn’t mentioned you.”

“Oh, well…um…”  Ethan stammered as he glanced at me sideways and then looked down at the ground.  His tongue popped out and ran over his lip rings again.  He placed his left hand behind his neck and rubbed at the back of his head, sending his hair flying all over the place in the light spring breeze.

Shit.

“Presley, I really need to get going…”

“Maybe Ethan can join us at the club this evening.” Presley continued to press.  My eyes widened in shock.  There was no way she would invite him somewhere without a completely devious plan in her head.  I absolutely, positively had to get both of us away from her as quickly as possible.

“Which club?” Ethan asked.

“Club Mania,” Presley said, increasing her smile to the point of looking rather maniacal.  There was no way Ethan could get in there, and I could tell by her expression that she knew it.  She was definitely doing this on purpose.

“Oh…um…I think that place is twenty-one and up,” Ethan said.

“Well, yeah!” Presley laughed.  “It’s bad enough we have to put up with the older undergrads!  I like a place that doesn’t allow any children.”

“Yeah, well…” Ethan glanced over at me again.  “I’m not an undergrad, at least, but I think I’ll pass.  Thanks anyway.”

“Presley, I told you I had studying to do…”

“You said maybe, Ashlyn,” Presley said, grinning at me and raising her eyebrows.  “Is there anything else you want to discuss?  Maybe your friend here can fill me in on where you were all weekend, hmm?”

“Drop it, Presley.” I glared at her through narrowed eyes.  My heart was beating so fast, she could probably hear it through my chest.  “I need to get to the library, and you need to get to your chem lab.”

“Well, we’ll just have to continue this later, won’t we?”  Presley resumed the insane clown smile again.  “It was truly a pleasure, Ethan.  Maybe we’ll see you at the club in a few years?”

She started laughing hysterically as she sauntered off with her high-heeled boots clicking against the sidewalk.  I glared after her for a minute and then tried to get my bearings.  Even with her now out of the immediate picture, I didn’t know what to do next.  Everything had happened so fast, and I had no idea how to proceed.  I glanced around the courtyard, making sure I wasn’t going to get ambushed by anyone else I knew.

“You didn’t want her to know,” Ethan said as soon as Presley was out of earshot.  He was looking at her retreating form and not looking at me at all.

“Ignore her,” I said quickly.

“That is probably good advice,” Ethan agreed, finally turning to me.  His eyes were dark, and his voice took on a level of venom that didn’t seem at all right coming out of his beautiful mouth.  “Do you ever take your own advice to heart?”

“What does that mean?”  Even as I said it, I knew exactly what he was implying.

“Obviously, you don’t ignore her.”  Ethan stopped and turned towards me, his darkened eyes narrowed a little.  “You were embarrassed.  You didn’t want her to see me.”

“Ethan, it’s not like that,” I said.  What was it like?  I didn’t know what to say.  “You’re just…a little hard to explain.”

“Why?”

“Presley won’t even recognize you as human if you aren’t a member of her father’s country club,” I explained.  I sounded frantic.  I was frantic.  How could I explain someone like Presley to him?  It’s not like I could do or say anything to make her less nasty.  Having known her most of my life, I understood why she acted the way she did and accepted her for who she was, but that didn’t help me explain why she treated people like that.  If I had been prepared, I might have been able to say something to her that wouldn’t have made this so painfully awkward, but he hadn’t given me the chance.

“I don’t really give a shit what she thinks,” Ethan said.  The tone of his voice had turned hard, the venom gone and replaced with something worse—something cold and nearly emotionless.  “Your being embarrassed by me means something, though.”

“Ethan, I’m not…”  I couldn’t even finish the complete thought because I knew on some level it was true, not necessarily embarrassment, but the idea of my friends seeing me with Ethan was pretty frightening.  All the questions they would ask—age, tattoos, lip rings.  For the love of God, I wasn’t ready to volley all those questions just yet.  I hadn’t prepared any answers.

“It’s okay,” he said quickly and suddenly.  “I get it.  Sorry to waste your time.”

Ethan was on his bike and pedaling away before I could even get a word out.  He was nothing more than a speck in the distance before it even occurred to me to call after him.  My chest tightened, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe.  Half an hour later, I realized I was still standing in the same spot.