new girl meets bad boy

Chapter Seventeen.

"What are you doing?" Ethan asked me over the phone the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

My sister and her boyfriend had gone back home to Florida, and my dad went back to work. My mom was doing some last minute Christmas shopping, leaving me alone in the house.

"Wouldn't you like to know," I replied as I tightened my towel around my body. I was waiting for the bath to fill up.

"You're about to take a bath," He said.

"There's no way you can hear the water running, I'm in the next room," I said.

"You're right, I can see it," He responded.

"You can what?" I whipped around to look out the window. There Ethan was, sitting on the fire escape. "You creep!" I hung up the phone, pulling the window open. "I should punch you in the face right now,"

"Kinky," He smirked, slipping through my window.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, shaking my head.

"I missed you," He frowned, leaning on the edge of my bed.

"Clingy much?" I smirked. Underneath the leather jackets and black jeans, he was the biggest dork I'd ever met.

"You can get back to whatever you were doing," He plopped onto my bed, laying on his stomach and peeking at me through the pillows.

"You know very well what I was doing," I rolled my eyes. He was really a handful.

"Yes, and, get back to it," He waved me away.

"If you say so," I turned, walking towards the bathroom. As I stepped onto the cold tile, I dropped my towel. I knew Ethan was watching, because I could hear him gasp from my bed. Without looking back, I closed the door behind me, slipping into my warm bath.

About thirty minutes later, I emerged from the bathroom, feeling refreshed and clean. I had thrown on a pair of adidas track pants and a t-shirt to relax in.

Ethan was asleep on my bed, exactly the way I had left him before. With a small leap, I crash landed into the bed, disturbing Ethan's peaceful sleep. I must have frightened him, because next thing I knew, I was pinned underneath him.

"Not cool, princess," He pouted.

"I'm so terribly sorry, please forgive me," I gave him my most dramatic puppy dog eyes.

"Only if I can have a kiss," He replied.

"Well, what are you waiting for?"

It didn't take him but another second to dip his head down low enough to gently bite down on my lower lip, teasing me. Every time his skin touched mine, every cell in my body ached for attention. After what felt like an eternity of waiting, his lips found home in mine, locking in a gentle, yet heart fluttering kiss.

Satisfied with himself, he pulled away, easing off my body to rest on his side. He propped his head up on one hand, using the other to push stands of hair away from my face with baby soft stokes. The way he looked at my face with such a loving gleam in his eye almost made me forget to breathe. I was in so deep with this one.

"What do you want to do?" I eventually whispered, breaking the silence. I could've laid with him like that all night, but my damaged joints from years of sports screamed at me to adjust my positioning.

"Lick you all over," He replied, licking his own lips.

"As great as that sounds, I just took a bath and I feel very clean, so having the amylase in your saliva breaking down the proteins in the cell membrane of my epidermal cells is not on my agenda for the moment," I replied.

"I love it when you talk biology," He smirked and leaned down, licking the side of my face.

I laughed and pushed his face away. "If I end up looking like Freddy Krueger, you only have yourself to blame,"

"I'd still smash," Ethan grinned cheekily, causing me to playfully roll my eyes. I couldn't win with him.

"Talk to me," I said. "Tell me about your family, and friends, and everything. I want to know everything about you," I flipped onto my side so I was facing him.

"My family?" He frowned. "It's really just me and Mads, my parents are never in the country," He looked down at the bedspread between us. "They travel a lot and send us checks every couple of weeks. Madeline takes care of paying the bills and grocery shopping and all that stuff,"

"I didn't know," I shook my head. "Do you miss them?"

"Yeah, I guess. I mean, I know they love us, but at the same time, you want your parents there to see your soccer games, and yell at you if you skip school, and just be a parent. But that's hard to do when they're off gambling in Monte Carlo or wine tasting in Florence," He gave a slight shrug.

"I'm sorry, Ethan," I took his face in my hand, rubbing my thumb over his smooth skin.

"It's just practice for the real world, right? We graduate soon, and I'm going to have to figure it all out eventually, why not start now?" He turned his head slightly and pressed a kiss to my palm. "Besides, I'm a hell of a cook since I had to learn how to make my own meals," He added.

"Speaking of, you're making me that soup all the time now, okay?" I offered a slight smile.

"Of course, anything for you, princess," He smiled back.

"Why didn't I snatch you up sooner?" I asked, peering into his brown eyes.

"Because you're stubborn, and I'm terrible at expressing my feelings," He chuckled.

I heard Koda barking downstairs, and I practically jumped out of my skin. "Where did you park?" I asked.

"In the street," He replied. "What's wrong?"

"My mom is home," I could hear the garage door opening. "You've gotta go, my mom will flip if she knows you're here," I opened up my window.

"Say no more," He slid out and onto the fire escape. "Bye, Lola,"

"Wait!" I scrambled over to the window.

"What?"

"Un besito, por favor?" I asked him for a kiss.

"When you say it like that, fuck yeah," He leaned in to take a hungry kiss. He left me at the window, longing for more.

I watched him easily climb down to the alley between my house and the next before escaping into the night.

"I'm home, Lola," I heard my mom call from downstairs, and I pulled the window shut, scrambling to go greet her.