Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 97337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Is this really happening or had I fallen into an alternate universe? Why me? And why this… guy, I can’t call him a boy after that statement, but why had he chosen me? Though I don’t teach at the high school I’ve seen many of the young ladies about town and they’re mostly the proverbial high school knockouts.
Didn’t he have a girlfriend? It’s hard to imagine that someone like him didn’t. So what exactly was going on here? Am I a lost bet or a dare? All those thoughts ran through my head at warp speed as well as one other.
Why am I not the one in control? I’m the adult after all. Why can’t I open my mouth and put a stop to this before it’s too late? Before I destroy everything I’d worked so hard for, for what can only be a few moments of pleasure. But even though I knew the danger I couldn’t seem to open my mouth and tell him he had the wrong idea.
If I was going to do anything it would be now. But the longer I held my silence the more I was giving into him. Now he turned and looked down at me, and still without uttering a word, reached out and ran the back of his fingers across my cheek. My legs almost buckled beneath me.
“I don’t want you to get hurt. Though I’m old enough to make my own decisions, if anyone finds out about us it may cause trouble for you. I won’t let that happen to you, so we have to be careful.”
Was this his way of asking my permission, or was he simply stating a fact? It was hard to tell since he seemed less like an eighteen year old and more like an experienced man of the world. I was almost tempted to ask if he’d done this before as smooth as he was about the whole thing.
The way he spoke to me made my toes curl inside my shoes. There was a warmth building in the pit of my stomach that flowed to the rest of my body. It was a feeling I’ve never had before and the reason I couldn’t bring myself to call a halt to this madness. And then he pulled out all the stops and there was no more need to guess.
“Have you ever been in love Elizabeth?” He’d called me by my name. Now Elizabeth, now is the time you should put a stop to this. But in that moment all I could do was shake my head no as he looked away from the water once more to the top of my bent head.
He squeezed my hand and even in the dark I could see the smile on his face. We stood there together like that for another five minutes, both of us lost in our own thoughts. “Come, let’s get you home it’s getting late.”
DRAKE
Our first real conversation had told me pretty much all I needed to know for now. That shy reserve of hers was no act, it’s who she is and it only made me want her more. Hearing that she had no one, no family, made me want to share mine with her. Something that I’ve never done or wanted to before.
But there’s just something about her that brings out that side of me. If I were fanciful I’d compare her to a porcelain doll, like the ones my maternal grandmother likes to collect. Small and delicate with that soft kind of beauty that doesn’t really seem to exist anywhere anymore.
She’s the type of woman that a man should and would want to protect. I know I do. The more time I spend in her presence the deeper that feeling grows and it was now the source of my new worries and fears.
I’m not sure what you’d call the emotions that plagued me. This incessant need to shield her even before anything has happened between us. But her gentle quietness has made me want to stand in front of her, to make sure that nothing bad touches her. It’s a tough spot to be in.
On the one hand my physical attraction to her keeps growing by leaps and bounds with no real source. Like I still have no idea why she’s even on my mind since she’s so far removed from what I usually find enticing.
And on the other, I’m afraid of what something like this would do to her if we were ever found out. The thought of being the cause of any harm coming to her leaves a very bad taste in my mouth.
But I knew I wasn’t going to end my pursuit, it didn’t feel as though I could. The decision had been taken out of my hands because she’d touched something in me that I didn’t know was even there and therefore had never thought to protect myself from.