Ethan
“Let me get this straight. You want me to deliver sandwiches or some shit to this Smythe guy, and snoop around, maybe take his phone if I get the chance. Give it to our friend with the computer talent to hack, and then sneak back in and put it back? And you want me to do all this, because some young thing has given you a case of blue balls?”
I want to smash Luka’s pretty face in. “She hasn’t given me a case of blue balls.”
“Pull the other one, mate. She’s got you all wrapped around her pretty little finger. I get it, she’s got that whole innocent, but sexy as hell thing going on. Like a less knowing Brigitte Bardot. I’d fuck her, but this? Why get involved?”
I slam my glass on the table, and despite being two thirds empty the beer nearly slops out of the top at the violence of the action. Luka merely raises his eyebrows. “Someone fucking hacked into her shit, and messaged me and booked me to do my special. This isn’t only about her. When they did that they involved me. I could be rotting in jail now. Do you understand?”
He smiles and holds up his hands. “Yeah, I understand, but I still think you’re doing this for her.”
“Fuck’s sake. She’s young, she’s on her own, her dad’s away. Would you leave her to deal with this herself?”
Luka’s face grows serious and he shakes his head.
“Exactly, stop being a twat about it and do me the favour, okay?”
“Done.” Luka shuts up and smiles and I follow his gaze to see Isla approaching our table.
As she nears, she stumbles slightly on her left ankle, going over on the platform heels she’s wearing and falling into a man. His lager splashes all over his shirt. His eyes narrow and he swings his head her way, already opening his mouth. I tense, about to get up, but the moment he clocks her, his face changes. It goes from livid, to interested. He eye-fucks her up and down her body, and smiles.
“I’m sorry.” She’s flushed and embarrassed.
He continues to eat her up with his gaze and gives a cocky smile. “It’s okay. I’ll let you off, pretty thing like you.”
Thing? What a wanker. Then his hands are on her, stroking down her arm, and she’s frozen looking at him with wide eyes. I’m moving before I’m even aware of it.
“Take your hands off her, now.” My voice is low and the idiot looks at me with his smirk firmly in place.
“Fuck off, pal.”
Luka’s by my side in two seconds flat. “I think you ought to do as my friend here requested. Let go of the lady.”
“You with these pricks?” The idiot asks.
Isla nods.
“Your loss.” He takes his hand off her arm but as she walks by he winks at his friends and slaps her arse. Isla gives a small cry and lurches forward and I’m done. I pull my fist back and punch him in the gut. I don’t go for the face because I don’t want to break anything. Getting done for grievous bodily harm is not on my radar for tonight, but he needs to learn a fucking lesson.
He doubles over groaning and I glare at his two friends. They both hold their hands up and back off. Right choice. I lean into the idiot’s face. “Slapping women on their bum like you just did is assault, dickhead. You don’t go around manhandling them that way, okay? I ever see you doing shit like that again, I’ll break your jaw. Understand?”
He looks up and nods, still trying to catch his breath.
“Come on.” I take hold of Isla’s arm. “We’re leaving.”
Selina walks by, and she gives Isla a knowing look as she passes on her way to the double glass doors. “Told you, honey. Definitely invested. But you’ll never know what’s real and what’s not. Pity.”
She looks at me. “Call me, if you’re back in the next few weeks. If not, I’d appreciate the name of someone good you can recommend.”
I give her a puzzled glance. “Of course, I’ll be back in a week or so.”
“Yes, but if not, don’t forget to send me a recommendation or two.”
Is she being purposefully stupid? I shrug because I don’t have the time for this, and head for the doors right behind her. Selina holds it open for me, Isla, and Luka. “Be careful, honey. Look after your heart.”
She kisses Isla on the cheek. Then click-clacks off into the night with her friends.
“What the fuck was that all about?” I glare down at Isla. I hate Selina being anywhere near her, it reminds me of what I do, and for the first time I hate that, too.
She hitches her shoulders up. “I don’t know, but I think she likes me.”
“Of course, she does,” Luka chimes in. “You’re eminently likeable. Nice to meet you, Isla. I’d kiss your cheek but I’m scared Mr. Neanderthal here will deck me.”
She giggles and Luka heads off down the road waving his hand at us as he goes. He shouts back to me. “I’ll get in touch when it’s done.”
I gave him Rick Smythe’s details while Isla was taking forever in the ladies, and the name of his company. I want to see what’s on the fucker’s phone badly, so I hope Luka can come through. I also hope Rick uses his phone for everything the same way I do. He’s in his fifties though, so maybe not.
We pull up at home, after a mostly silent journey with Isla seemingly deep in thought. I must admit that Luka’s right. She’s getting under my skin, which means I need him to do his stuff quick, so I can sort this out and get her back home. I don’t do relationships, I’m too messed up for that. And I certainly don’t do them with sweet, twenty-one year old virgins. Someone like Selina might work for me, if I ever decide I want to settle down, but never someone like Isla.
She’ll want gentle, boring sex, not just for her first time but forever. And I bet she wants kids, which I’m not sure about. Not with the state of this fucking world. We’re poles apart, and despite the fact I seem to have a permanent hard on for her, we’ve got nothing in common.
I park the car and we head into the house. She’s still quiet and introspective, and I think that’s one thing I like. We’re both quiet. Neither of us chats for the sake of it, unlike my sister. I bet Isla would be relaxing to come home to. I can imagine her curled up on the sofa reading a book, maybe asking how my day went, and then letting me decompress. Not the incessant need to talk like my previous girlfriend. Fucking hell, I’d come back from a literal war zone to three days of non-stop gossip about who was seeing who, who’d been dumped, and who was out of the group. No wonder it didn’t last. I can’t imagine Isla being like that.
Christ. I shake myself. I’ve no fucking business imagining Isla and me at all. None. I throw my keys onto the kitchen table and see a note from Ann.
Hey bro,
Katie has come down with sickness and diarrhoea. It’s supposedly a twenty-four-hour thing that is going around. I am hoping she’ll be okay tomorrow or the day after, but I didn’t want you guys getting it, so I’ve taken her home.
I’ll call you tomorrow.
Ann x
I sense Isla stood next to me and turn to see her reading the note, too. Shit. I don’t want her to feel unsafe.
“Look, I can take you to her house, if you want. So long as you avoid Katie, you should be fine. But if you want to stay here, I swear to you, you’re safe.”
“I want you to take my virginity.”
What the fuck? I stare at her, at a total loss for words. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” She nibbles her lip, and her cheeks have two bright spots of colour spreading across them but she holds my gaze.
“No. No fucking way, Isla. What the fuck? I mean…Jesus.” I stalk to the kettle and fill it up, my movements quick and angry.
I need to keep my cool, but fuck me. Angry and confused, I turn to her. “Don’t you remember your words to me earlier. You remember how we met, Ethan.”
“Yes, and I remember your counter. How you spent ages on that woman’s…on her, you know?”
I laugh, but there’s no humour in it. “You can’t even say the word. Say it.”
She flushes more and shakes her head.
“You want me to fuck you? But you can’t say the word pussy?”
“I don’t like the word,” she snaps back.
“Okay then, cunt.”
“Fuck you. That’s a disgusting word.”
Well, at least she said fuck. First time I’ve heard her properly swear.
“How about vagina. Say the word vagina.” I don’t know why I’m still pushing her.
She purses her lips and shoots me daggers with narrowed eyes.
“You can’t say the name for your own sex, but you want to have sex? I say you’re not ready.”
“I am ready. I’m more than ready,” she argues. “I might be a bit shy when it comes to talking about it, or more specifically, I should say, using certain words, but I’m twenty-one years old, and sick of being a virgin.”
“Honey, you need some nice kid your own age to experiment with. The last thing you need is me.”
“Why?”
“Because…I’m not your speed.”
She laughs and glances up at the ceiling before looking back to me. “What do you think my speed is?”
I don’t know why I say the next words. Maybe because I want to push her away, because frankly, she scares me. Maybe because I’m in my kitchen, harder than I’ve ever been in my life from her suggestion. Maybe because I’m not a bastard, and I still have a decent bone in my body and know I need to end this now. “I think your speed is vanilla. Safe. I think your speed is slow, and probably delicate. I’m none of those things. We won’t match.”
“Oh, why? Do you have a red room of pain somewhere hidden away? You like hardcore BDSM, and you’re about to tell me how you’ll ruin me.”
I snort at her words, and it’s a most unsexy sound. “I don’t have a red room of pain, and no I’m not into BDSM, or not in any big way, but I will ruin you.”
“You won’t. I’m not scared of you, big, bad, Ethan…what’s your last name?”
Her question throws me for a moment. “Foston.”
“Ethan Foston, okay. You don’t scare me, Ethan Foston.”
“I should,” I counter. “I’m not kind, or gentle, or sweet.”
She considers me. “I expect you can be, if you want to, but I don’t want those things. I don’t want the…you know, the rape thing. But, you don’t have to treat me like a porcelain doll. I want sex. It’s as simple as that.”
Fuck me. My dick wants me to say yes. If it could speak, it would be begging me about now. But my conscience is telling me to walk away. To tell her to go to bed and stop being stupid. There’s something between us. Some sort of weird spark. It makes no sense, but it’s there. I can sense it every moment she’s near me. And if we do this, it risks getting both of us tied in emotional knots we don’t need. We are totally unsuited to one another, and it’s best we don’t even go there.
“I’ll pay you.”
My blood runs cold. It’s as if she’s slapped me, or worse, spat in my face. Fury slams into me and I’m so fucking angry I daren’t speak. My hands ball into fists and I clench my mouth shut tight.
“What?” She looks confused. “What did I say wrong? You have sex for money, right? I want someone to take my virginity. I nearly got drunk a few months back and asked my friend to do it, but I don’t fancy him, and I don’t want to wreck our friendship. You have the money from my bank account. Keep it. I’ll pay you.”
“You don’t mind if you wreck our friendship.”
She laughs. “We don’t have a friendship.”
I stare at her for a moment. So angry I want to smash something. “Fuck you, Isla. Go to bed.”
I storm out of the room and head up the stairs. I can’t look at her a moment longer.