AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She turned back toward me, positioning herself so that we stood face to face. She looked up into my eyes. “Dylan, I have a confession to make,” she began.
My pulse began to quicken as I recalled the night I said those same words to her. “Good things rarely follow that statement.” I jokingly used her reply to me from that night in response.
The way those big, blue eyes looked up at me had me reeling in anticipation at what she wanted to say, and I could hear my throat swallowing down my nerves.
For what seemed like forever, or maybe only a few seconds, she stood quietly, searching my eyes. Then before I knew what happened, her hands were in my hair as she pulled my lips down to meet hers, the length of her body pressed against mine. I could feel the heat that now radiated from her body.
I froze momentarily, unsure of what to make of it all. I wanted to know that Zia’s feelings for me were real, and not just recklessness as a result of the traumatic experience combined with copious amounts of alcohol. I didn’t want to be a regret for her when she woke up sober the next morning.
If I gave in and let myself let this happen, I also wasn’t sure whether it would be considered taking advantage of her while she was drunk, since she was the one initiating it.
My hesitation didn’t seem to deter her, and so I let myself allow it for the moment, giving in to the softness of her skin, the urgency of her lush lips against mine.
I had waited so long to feel her soft, firm body beneath my fingers. I could hardly believe it was finally happening now. I circled my arms around her waist and pulled her in tighter. I let my lips dance passionately with hers.
Without breaking the kiss, Zia pressed her hands against my chest and began walking forward, backing me up against the side of her bed. Warning lights began flashing in my mind, but God, she was sexy. I didn’t want to stop her.
She raised one knee up to her bed, leading me to sit, and as I did, she straddled my lap. Her arms lifted to rest on my shoulders, her fingers in my hair, she pressed her chest to mine and I couldn’t keep my hands off of her. With her arms raised, her shirt lifted just enough to bare the skin of her stomach, and my hands gravitated there, pulling her tightly to me to deepen our kiss.
I gently sucked on her soft bottom lip, and as her hands came down from my hair to press into the hard muscles of my upper back, a moan of pleasure escaped me. At the sound of it, I realized I needed to decide how far I would let this go tonight.
“Zia…” I breathed against her lips, thinking of how I could bring myself to stop everything when it was the last thing I really wanted to do.
“Shhhh, don’t think about it. Just feel it,” Zia said, then pressed her hands to my chest and lightly pushed as though she wanted me to lie down. She was not going to make this easy on me, I could tell, and I groaned internally with my secret frustration.
I resisted her push as I remained sitting and broke our kiss. I cupped her face in my hands softly and let myself take in how beautiful she was, warring with myself between what my head was telling me to do and what my body was wanting me to do instead.
“Baby, you’ll regret this in the morning,” I reasoned as I brushed a strand of hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear. I could see the protest in her expression, but she said nothing for a moment as she searched for something in my eyes.
“Dylan, I want you to hold me,” she whispered pleadingly, and I wondered how much of these emotions were real and how much were just the alcohol talking. Would she be saying or doing any of this if she hadn’t had too much to drink?
“Baby, I don’t want to hurt you,” I tried to reason with her. “You only want this because you’ve had too much to drink. That isn’t how it should be. Not with us,” I tried to explain.
“Why? You can do this with any random girl you meet in a bar, with strangers; with girls who have no idea that you’re the kind of person who always does what he says, or always shows up on time, or loves to just laugh and enjoy life and be in the moment, or how much your family really means to you, or how brave or how generous or how kind you are, or how genuine your heart can be. So why not me?” I had never heard her say so much in one breath before. It was a lot more than I’d expected, and even though my heart swelled at the compliments, I could tell she was upset.
How could I make her understand? I knew she wasn’t rational at that moment, but there was no good way to point that out without completely pissing her off.
“I can’t do this. Not with you, Zia, not like this,” I repeated, trying to implore her to understand.
At that, she slid off my lap and crawled to the other side of her bed, lying down facing the wall and away from me.
“I’m sorry, Zia,” I said, but she just lay there silently, resigned, looking at the wall.
I went to her dresser and began rifling through the drawers to find her pajamas. I found a pair of pajama pants and a tank top; then I walked back over to her as she continued to lie on her bed. I put my arm under her to gesture for her to sit up, and when she sat and faced me, I brushed my fingers across her cheek to wipe away a tear.
I lifted her shirt up and over her head before replacing it with the tank top. I followed suit, removing her jeans and replacing them with the pajama pants. It was an intimate moment, innocent as it was. She was silent the entire time, and once she was redressed, I picked her up to reposition her laying her head on her pillow.
I pulled the blankets up over her, tucking her in, and kissed her gently on her forehead before switching off the lamp on the table beside her. “Goodnight, baby,” I whispered. Then I sat beside her at the head of her bed, my back to the headboard as I softly stroked her hair until I could hear the slow, rhythmic breathing that indicated she was asleep.
I stood to leave, feeling heartbroken that Zia had experienced something so awful that she felt the need to go to this extreme to escape her feelings. This wasn’t her… Zia was not one to get drunk like this, and anyone who knew her at all would know this about her.
As I stepped out of Zia’s bedroom, closing her door behind me, I turned to find Clara sitting on the sofa in the living room. It was dark, but she held her cell phone with the screen illuminating her face just enough that I saw her there.
“You really do like her, don’t you?” Clara said to me, not really a question.
I took in a deep breath and let out a sigh, then nodded my affirmation silently in the dark. I didn’t know if she saw it or not, but I took my leave before she said anything else.
CHAPTER 10: ZIA
