Chapter 7 Oh Fck #2
“What did you want to be?”
“You’d laugh if I told you.”
“No I wouldn’t.” My voice was ripe with certainty that I hoped he could pick up on. “I’m a dancer for a living, one of the most unstable careers a person can have! I promise you that whatever you wanted to be, it can’t be as laughable as what I am.”
Ethan moved his lazy stare across the walls of the living room until he landed on me, a faint smile dancing on his lips.
“A photographer. I wanted to be a photographer.”
Happiness pulled up wide on my cheeks. “No shit?”
It took a second to hit, but as I witnessed the surprise in Ethan’s eyes, the dread hit hard .
“I’m sorry,” I said, slapping my hand across my mouth. The disbelief that I really said what I said pumped through my mind, filling my head with that unending humiliation that always seemed to be around lately.
Ethan’s face broke out into the picture perfect definition of a question.
“Why’re you sorry?”
“I shouldn’t have—” I pinched my eyes closed. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
Jeez, now he was going to think his fiancé’s got a foul-mouthed, can’t do anything right, screw up for a sister. I rarely ever cursed.
Stupid alcohol. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
“What shouldn’t you have said?”
Absurdity cranked my eyes back open, settling them on a truthfully well-played out confused Ethan.
“You know.”
“No, I really don’t.”
I blanched openly at him, my shoulders sinking in exasperation as I realized he was going to make me say it.
“I cursed.”
Not even a blip of connection registered through Ethan’s acute gaze. “So?”
I waited all of two seconds before rolling my eyes back, chuckling at his nonchalant attempt to minimize the distaste of what I’d said. “Okay,” I spoke with enough cynicism dripping from that one word to make a whole other drink out of it.
“Why do you say it like that?” Ethan turned to face me with intrigue blossoming like dandelions beneath a baby blue sky.
Wait — is he not joking? “What do you mean?”
“I mean , why do you think you have to apologize for cursing?”
Oh my god. He’s not joking. I’m a complete idiot. Veer the conversation. Veer hard.
“I have a better question! Why haven’t you finished your drink?” Solid veer.
“Because you’re a hell of a heavy pour and I’ve already had two of your drinks tonight. If I finish this third, I might end up on the floor. Now, back to my question.”
Nooo.
“Why did you apologize for cursing?”
“Unfortunate force of habit?” At even the slightest slip of truth, curiosity shot between his high cheekbones, and lit up his whole face. I knew I needed to divert the conversation anywhere else, and fast. “How about a shot? Teach me how to make a fancy shot, like a lemon drop or a—”
“Alice.”
My feet stopped their escape back to the kitchen, the serious tone of his voice stealing all of my fight away.
Defeat sunk my shoulder blades together as I dropped my head back, knowing that I had to address what I said.
He wouldn’t let it go. I’d only known him for under two weeks, but I already knew better than to think he’d drop it.
He was a persistent and determined man, and in these moments, it was easy to see how well he and Monica meshed.
Moving on slow feet, I made it back around to face Ethan. “It’s not a big deal. My ex just didn’t like it whenever I cursed. Said it wasn’t attractive, so I stopped.”
“What? That’s bullshit,” Ethan spat.
“Yeah, maybe. It’s funny the things that stick from old relationships, I guess.”
“Well, he’s wrong and fuck that guy. Monica curses all the time, and it doesn’t make her any less attractive to me.”
“Maybe you’re the exception. I don’t know,” I laughed, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear as I steered my gaze to the floor. A few seconds of silence hung between us, causing a rise of tension to twist around my spine, forcing my posture back and perfect as usual.
“Come here,” Ethan said, and that tension in my spine reached out into every inch of my body, gripping it all in a stiff stance.
“What?” I lifted my eyes just barely to meet his, shock pile-driving through me to see he was already coming my way. His eyes were friendly, but his intentions were unknown, and the alcohol in my system made everything ten times more surreal.
“Come on,” he goaded. His hands were on my shoulders and moving me forward to the middle of the living room. I went where he pulled me until he positioned me directly in front of him, his hands still glued around my shoulders.
“I want you to curse.”
“Wha—”
“Don’t question it,” he cut me off. “Just do it.”
“I can’t just curse .”
“ Yes, you can. You can do whatever you wanna do. You’re an adult, right?” He looked at me expectantly, and the urge to slap him tingled through my fingers.
“Yes,” I answered with bite.
“And you don’t need someone telling you what you can and cannot do, right?”
Seriously, the rage simmering below my skin was boiling hotter with every second. “Yes.”
The brilliant blue of his eyes sharpened on mine, the intensity scorching brighter by the shared seconds. “So then you should be able to curse if you wanna curse, right?”
“ Yes.”
“So then say a curse word. Whichever one you want to say.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know what I want to say.”
“All right, I’ll help and we’ll start easy.” He paused, leveling his stare to mine. “Bullshit.”
“I’ve said that word before,” I challenged.
“Okay, so then say it now. Prove to yourself that you don’t still care what your ex thinks.”
I tried hard in my mind to not acknowledge that he had a point—a good point.
The fact that this entire cursing ordeal was even happening was my fault for believing anything that came from Jonah’s mouth.
If I wanted this ridiculous game to end without further embarrassment, I’d have to play along.
So, I prepped the word on my tongue and forced it into the air.
“Bullshit.”
“Good. Again.”
I couldn’t help the exhale that came next, sharing perfectly how absurd I thought this all was. “This is silly.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Again.”
“Ethan,” I tried, my gaze pleading with him to let this all be over with.
“Alice.” He shot back, and I could see in his pressing stare that there was no wiggle room to be found.
I groaned aloud but gave into him again. “Bullshit.”
“Come on, say it like you mean it!”
“Bullshit!” I yelled out, falling into laughter the very second the last syllable left my mouth.
“Good!” Ethan laughed with me, his eyes crinkling adorably at the sides. “Okay, next word. Dammit.”
“Aren’t we done yet?”
“Nope. We’re working our way up to the mother of all curse words. Keep going.”
I felt like screaming but instead did as he said. “Dammit.”
“Again.”
“Dammit!”
“Good! Now, goddammit!”
I stopped. “That’s a sin.”
He stopped as well, his eyes drifting down and surveying across my face in question. “Are you particularly religious?”
My shoulders shrugged up and down, still in his hold. “Not really.”
“Then does it matter?”
The feeling of a devilish smirk began to inch up on my lips, and I kept my eyes on his. “Not a goddamn bit.”
Ethan looked almost impressed as he raised his eyebrows to me. “ Very nice. I think you’re ready.”
“For?”
“Fuck.”
I inhaled without meaning to, the strength behind that one little word nearly knocking me back. I’d never said that word.
“I can’t,” I breathed.
Ethan paused, sinking his stare down as he rolled his lips together and spoke low, “I didn’t want to have to do this, but…”
In an instant, his hands were gone from my shoulders, and a ghost of a touch around my waist that sparked the immediate need to squirm through my body.
“You wouldn’t,” I tested.
He challenged me with a pop of his brow, and in that one motion, my confidence stumbled. “I would.”
My heart pounded harder as Ethan lowered his chin, intensifying the angle of his eyes on mine. “Fuck,” he instructed.
I couldn’t do it. I literally couldn’t get my bottom lip to move back and connect with my teeth to even make the F sound to begin with. A gasp ripped apart my lips as Ethan’s hands melted into my waist with his touch, and the threat of being tickled surged forward.
“Fuck,” he said again, slowly and sounding like a warning sin.
Swallowing down my anxiety to clear what room I could in my throat, I steadied myself in place and spoke in a murmur.
“Fuck.”
A smile lit Ethan’s eyes, and he nodded. “Fuck.”
My chest heaved each time the word fell from his lips, something about the way he said it searing a hole the size of a baseball through my stomach.
“Fuck.” I struggled to say the curse again, realizing how slow and labored my breathing was coming out. The air between us had turned humid and layered with creeping tension, weaving its hands and whispers along my body and making my head spin.
The touch of Ethan’s hands burned through my shirt and right through to my insides, turning everything to mush inside me as he pulled his bottom lip back over his teeth and said it again.
“Fuck.”
Every hot breath I let out as I breathed harder and heavier parched my lips, and I slipped my tongue out to wet them without thinking.
Just as I touched my tongue to my bottom lip, all of my air sucked right back in for the most sinful reason of the night yet.
For the smallest of seconds, Ethan’s eyes were not on mine.
But the lips I’d just dampened myself.
“Fuck,” I said, hoping to get his attention back on me rather than my mouth. Ethan ripped his eyes up from my dampened lips and back to my own, settling there with an unusual dazed kind of look taking up the space where his confidence usually sat.
All of a sudden, he felt closer than he was before.
His body warmth overwhelmed mine as the smell of the alcohol tinting his breath worked with the same affect.
Ethan’s eyes held mine in a grip I felt powerless against and too weak to look away from.
A spark of fire flickered to life in his gaze and entranced me in my intoxicated state.
The flame was beautiful, bright, and ignited the same kind of reaction within me but in a very different part of my body.
The heat of it traveled up my legs and into my stomach, pooling there as a familiar kind of desire that I couldn’t help.
I wanted to squirm and to press my legs together but knew that I couldn’t without it being a dead giveaway to what I was feeling at that moment.
The kind of feelings that I never should have felt with a taken man, let alone my sister’s man.
Shame tried to outweigh the desire burning in the pit of my stomach that I wanted more than anything to go away.
It didn’t, though. It relented, and it grew to a point almost painful, and all I could do was let out the quietest of moans as the ache between my legs tortured me as much as Ethan unknowingly was in that moment.
In the next second following my barely there moan, the hands on my waist tightened their grip and pushed out another breath of audible desire.
“ Fuck ,” Ethan cursed, restraint pulling back on his voice.
Keys on the other side of the front door jingled like an alarm, and Ethan’s hand and body were suddenly and noticeably gone from mine. I barely had time to catch my breath before Monica walked through the door, bags of paperwork hanging on her arms.
“Hey!” I said way too loudly for any normal person.
Monica took one look at me, another look at Ethan all the way on the other side of the room, and glanced behind me at God knows what.
“Are you two drunk?” she finally asked.
“No!” I lied, never having been drunk in front of Monica in my entire life. I felt my eyes widen in my head as Monica scrutinized me closer, like she could pry any answers she wanted right out of me. And honestly? She probably could. When it came to Monica, I cracked like an egg.
“You totally are!” Monica gasped and then laughed, confusing me at once. “Oh my god, my baby sister’s drunk.” She turned her attention to Ethan on the other side of the room. “Babe, you drunk too?”
“A bit.” Ethan’s voice sounded strangely detached as he answered her, but she didn’t seem to notice. Monica just walked inside, closed the door, and dropped her belongings to the floor with a triumphant expression masking her face.
“Well, looks like I’ve got some catching up to do.”