Barry made us sit in a tiny, neglected-looking sitting room. In addition, one of the windows had to be adjusted and drafts of freezing air froze my neck when I sat on an old worn-out sofa.
“ You must excuse me; I wasn't expecting you so soon. I still have to shop, fix the house. I'm doing my best, but with my hand in this condition I'm slower and clumsier than usual," the man apologized.
"Don't worry, Dad. Now I'm here. I'll take care of everything, okay?"
"But…"
“ But nothing. I'm going to go shopping now and prepare something for lunch. You can rest and ... “
“ I can't leave you to do everything for me."
“ Easton is with me. He'll help me, won't you? "
Being brought into question made me laugh. I didn't even know how to shop, and I never made coffee myself.
I just nodded and, as soon as we were alone in the car heading for the supermarket, I expressed my doubts about being useful to her.
Alice smiled at me and taking me by the hand dragged me into the department store, pulling a large cart behind her.
“ I don't have much money, so we have to make it enough. Today I will teach you what it means to be thrifty,” Alice said to me.
"But I think I will go wild and use my credit card," I said, taking a giant pack of peanut butter.
"I don’t want to."
"This is my money and I can do what I want with it," I clarified without specifying the origin of that account.
Eventually Alice gave in, and shopping was more fun than I could imagine.
When we got home, Barry paled in front of the number of bags that filled my trunk.
In an instant, Alice began to cook and insisted that I help her, just to play foolish jokes and dirty my face with flour or set my mouth on fire with the spiciest chili I had ever eaten.
It was fun and Alice's laughter also pulled at me and her father.
At lunch, Barry told us about his accident and his dismissal.
"Can't you sue him?" I tried to ask.
"Yes, but I can't afford it. I don't have the money to spend on lawyers. Besides, it would take too long ... and I don't know anyone who can help me. I prefer to spend this month looking for a new job, rather than seeing the door slammed in the face by lawyers who would not dare to turn against such a colossus for just an idiot who depends on the meager salary."
"If you want, I'll leave journalism and next year I'll enroll in law," Alice proposed.
“ Don't be foolish! To be a lawyer you have to be a person with strong nerves, capable of taking on even the thorniest challenges and cold enough to bet on other people's lives. You are too selfless and naive for that world of sharks. They would tear you to pieces,” her father chuckled.
Instead I was silent.
Barry's words had opened up a world to me.
I loved challenges and had never scrupled to get what I wanted, although this often led me to break the rules.
Being a lawyer and challenging the giants and multinationals had to be an adrenaline rush, and exciting. Of course, betting on a man's life was not easy when his dignity and freedom were at stake, but it was stimulating to think that one had the power to turn the cards over and change the fate of disadvantaged people like Barry or knock out a multinational.
I thought about law school. It would be difficult and demanding, but in reality, it didn't scare me because I had always had the gift of learning quickly. Even the psychologist who had followed me after my mother's death had declared that I had an above average IQ and that my learning ability was remarkably high but undermined by an emotional and precarious inner balance that troubled me.
We had worked for years on my balance and on the importance of finding a way forward, but we had never succeeded. According to him, I was missing a figure next to me who was able to instill serenity and stability.
If the idea of becoming a lawyer attracts me so much, then why haven't I thought about it?
For the simple fact that it was the profession already chosen by Jake, my older brother. I didn't want to follow in his footsteps. I had never forgiven him for leaving me alone with our father while he was making a new life at Stanford.
Furthermore, I had never thought long about my future. I wasn't interested. I was rich and didn't need to work.
In the end I had chosen economics only to leave home with my father's approval, satisfied to have a son who would soon replace him at the head of his company.
Poor deluded fool.
Economy was just an agglomeration of statistics, probabilities, calculations between supply and demand.
I was a genius with math but in reality, I hated it. It bored me to death.
I thought about law school.
I had two years to change my mind about the studies that it would take, and I knew that my uncle would help me to transfer at the end of that semester if I had asked him.
He knows this isn't the right way for me!
After lunch I had another totally new experience: repairing a window frame and patching an electrical system that fell apart. I worked under Barry's instructions, while Alice spent the whole day cooking kilos of food which she then divided into dozens of portions and froze so that her father no longer had to worry about cooking for a few weeks.
All three of us arrived dead tired in the evening. Only Alice had the strength to clean the house again and rearrange the whole kitchen after dinner.
To my surprise, I discovered that she had also made us a chocolate cake as a thank you.
"This is for the two most wonderful and fantastic people I know," she exclaimed, holding out a slice for us. "Happy Thanksgiving, albeit late."
It was incredible how in that drafty hovel, after a rigorously vegetarian meal prepared with extreme simplicity, I managed to feel that I was the luckiest person in the world.
Nobody makes me feel like you make me feel, Alice.
"Guys, I don't know how to thank you for all you have done for me today," Barry said, moved, before going to sleep. "Easton, unfortunately I only have one sofa to offer you for sleeping tonight."
"No problem," I reassured him. I liked Barry and I wouldn't have done anything that would upset him. He had welcomed me with great warmth and kindness, so that I felt like one of the family. Even better.
“ Dad, you don't need to. Easton sleeps with me, “said Alice, taking me by the hand and leading me to her room.
"When you told me Easton was important to you, I didn't understand that far," the man said uneasily, embarrassed.
"Dad, it's not what you think."
"Or ... ok. I guess you're big enough to decide who to share your bed with,” he mumbled awkwardly. "But Book will sleep with you."
"Done deal. Good night, dad. "
"Good night."
"Are you sure?" I asked Alice when we were alone.
"Yes," she replied, closing the door of her room, and hugging me gently. "Thanks for all you've done for me today. I can never thank you enough. "
"It is not necessary," I murmured almost uneasily in the face of all the tenderness with which she touched me and spoke to me.
"I'm serious. Thanks, Easton,” she said, staring straight into my eyes, before giving me a gentle kiss on the lips.
What was about to happen had to be obvious, because Book jumped out of bed immediately, leaving us free.
I felt as if they had injected me with pure adrenaline, while my hands ran feverishly over Alice's body and my mouth did not detach from hers.
All the tiredness for that day was gone, leaving only room for the excitement that started pumping through my veins like gasoline in an engine.
"I don't know if it is appropriate to do it with your father in the opposite room," I managed to say with the last glimmer of sanity, before taking off Alice's shirt.
"I have to tell you one thing first," she stopped abruptly.
"What?" I sighed, ready to curb the irritation that would result from that statement. Alice's wide eyes had already m
ade me realize that there was trouble in sight.
"I ... I'm a virgin, that is ... here, I've never done certain things," she stammered uneasily, her cheeks burning.
"What do you mean ‘certain things’"? I asked, feeling my nervousness skyrocketing.
"I mean ... everything. I mean, I've never been with a guy who went beyond a simple kiss on the mouth. "
"And you wait for now to tell me?!" I exploded, unable to contain my agitation. I had guessed that Alice was unaccustomed to sex, but not this far.
I didn't want to be angry, but actually I was! I was furious.
"I didn't know how to tell you. You are always so ... so ... instinctive and unpredictable. I ... I tried to ... "
"You should have told me right away! Do you know how much you risked going to bed with me? I am not a good boy with any qualms about sex. If I hadn't stopped, you would have been mine today."
“ That's not true, I would have reacted. Here, I ... "
"What do you mean! You never knew how to control me. It was I who stopped. You would never have succeeded! Do you know how many times you have been one step away from losing your virginity with me? How many times I have had to stop? "
"I would have been able to handle the situation," she blathered uncertainly. Even she knew she was lying.
"And how? You are so naive and pure that you never even realized what you were doing to me and how you provoked me! "
"I never provoked you!" she answered angrily.
"You're so inexperienced that you didn't even realize it, huh? Perfect!"
"I ... I can't do those things."
“ But you did. Every time you put your hands on my body, you caressed my side with your leg, you let me kiss you at the base of your neck or you breathed heavily, sometimes moaning, while I touched you ... What do you think I was feeling at those moments? "
"I ... I don't know. I never noticed ..."
"You’re crazy to stand beside me if you don't even notice the effect you have on me," I got angry, throwing her on the bed and appropriating her mouth with greed and possession.
Alice freaked me out.
"Tonight I will show you only a small part of what you risked by staying close to me," I threatened her, determined to frighten her and make her aware of the power that her body and her perfume had over me.
I kissed her for a long time, letting my hands wander over her body without fear.
After a few minutes Alice's breathless gasps made me guess that she was excited and ready for the next level.
I took off her pants and bra.
She immediately covered herself with her arms, but I pushed them away, leaving her breasts exposed.
"Easton, I'm embarrassed," Alice sighed, but I didn't listen to her. I wanted to punish her for her innocence and make her excited to the point that she wanted more.
I kissed the furrow between her breasts and with my tongue I traced her to the already turgid nipple.
I sucked it, licked it, and pulled lightly until she moaned.
Then I did the same with the other, while I took off her panties with my hands.
I stroked her smooth soft belly, her legs and then I went back up, passing between her thighs.
When my fingers touched the curls of her intimate hair, I felt her jump.
"Do you want me to stop?"
"I don’t know."
"Tell me you want it."
"I ... I ..."
"Say it," I ordered, returning to torture her nipples with my fingers and kissing her neck at its most sensitive point.
"I ... I want it."
Satisfied, I drew a line to her most secret and intimate point.
For a moment she tried to stop me by grabbing my wrist, so I went back to kissing her, letting my fingers slide up and down.
She was all wet and swollen with excitement. Her moist skin throbbed under my touch that caressed her with light brush strokes, more and more intense and deep, as I felt her close to orgasm.
"Easton ..." she whispered in a broken voice as her body began to tremble and contract with pleasure.
Hearing my name come out of her mouth as she came was pure enjoyment.
When her excitement finally subsided, Alice curled up on me, looking for my warmth.
She was so fragile and delicate.
I hugged her tightly to my chest.
"It was wonderful. I'm glad you were the first," she confessed shyly.
I kissed her head and stroked her until she fell asleep.
Left alone with my thoughts, I realized Alice's attachment to me, and it scared me.
I didn't want to lose her. I always wanted that power over her, but now that I felt she was becoming mine, I was terrified because she was too sweet and romantic not to come to the point when she would ask of me what I refused to let into my life, love.
16
ALICE
"Come here," Easton ordered me, sitting on my bed.
"I have to study," I snorted.
Since returning from Seattle three days earlier, I hadn't opened a book.
We had spent all the time together.
Easton had taken me ice skating, to a football game where his friend Logan was playing, and finally to the movies to see an action movie where a character was killed every two seconds.
I, on the other hand, had dragged him to a bookshop and then to see a theater show that summarized the story of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet , but with a completely different ending. On that occasion Kira and Lucas had also joined us.
In the evening, we had tried to go to a frat party, but as soon as a boy came on to me, Easton had dragged me out of the building by force and brought back to the dormitory where he had been forced to say good night, since Kira was there and he hadn't been able to sleep with me.
Also, Easton had decided that the time had come to face my fears.
Every day, late in the evening, he would take me to an abandoned parking lot half an hour's drive from campus.
"Drive," he said the first time, putting the car keys in my hand.
"I ... I can't," I replied, beginning to tremble, as always.
“ This parking lot is completely empty, and nobody will disturb us. I'm not asking you to drive on the freeway, just to get behind the wheel and drive the car to the end of this parking lot. It's a half mile journey and I want you to do it all. I will be right here by your side, with one hand on the steering wheel with you and the other on the handbrake, so that whatever happens, I can intervene."
The first time I had only managed to sit on the driver's seat. We had stood still for more than fifteen minutes while I tried to calm the tremors and tension before I was able to turn the key and start the engine, but then as soon as I heard the roar, my head started to turn around and I finally burst out crying.
Easton had consoled me, saying that it was all right, but I was no longer able to do anything.
The same scene repeated on the second day.
Only on the third day had I had the courage to put my feet on the pedals. The car had gone a meter or two before an anxiety crisis made me lose my mind and run out of the car.
Each time, Easton had not lost his temper and had shown incredible understanding. He had always hugged me and said that one had to go one step at a time, so never to feel guilty or incapable.
"I have good news for you," Easton erupted, bringing me back to the present.
"Tell me everything," I sighed, noting that I couldn't concentrate on studying with him nearby.
"Come here," he said, patting the mattress next to him.
Exasperated but happy to be with him, instead of sitting next to him I climbed up and straddled his lap, with my thighs tight around his hips.
Since we had returned from Seattle, we had had little time to be together intimately and a part of me was looking forward to trying again the pleasure he had given me.
"Speaks. I listen to you,” I whispered in his ear with a languid voice, while I left a trail of small kisses from his te
mple to the base of his neck as my hands memorized every curve, every muscle contracted under my touch, every angle ...
I wish I were good at drawing just to be able to reproduce him. Centimeter by centimeter.
God, how much I like to touch and kiss him!
"So?" I urged him, noting his silence and his increasingly breathless breathing.
"It wasn't that important," he decided, kissing me avidly and putting his hands under my shirt. "I just wanted to warn you that I found you a paid internship in the editorial office of a local newspaper and ..."
Internship. Editorial staff. Newspaper.
When I understood the meaning of his speech, I jumped.
"Why were you waiting to tell me!"
"So, we could finish what you were doing to me."
"Who cares! Oh my God! I will go for an internship! And they pay as well! That’s fantastic!"
"I know. That's why I thought you wanted to thank me. "
«Of course, sorry. Thank you, Easton! "
"I was thinking of something more concrete, really."
"A slice of cake?"
"Hmmm ..."
"Dinner then?"
"What we were doing would be perfect if you would stop talking and continued."
“ A job in exchange for ... sex? You are a degenerate! Here we are on the verge of corruption and prostitution!” I reproached him, making him blush with shame.
"You're always good at misunderstanding what I'm saying, aren’t you? Too bad you didn't understand anything!” he said offended.
I burst out laughing.
“ Look, leave it alone. In fact, call my father and tell him that the favor I asked him is no longer needed."
"Was he the one who got me the internship?"
"I asked him," he said irritably.
"You asked your father for a favor for me?" I was surprised myself, knowing the hatred between them.
"I wanted to make you happy, but instead I feel like I have been accused of obscene crimes."
"I was joking," I tried to dampen his bad temper, starting to kiss him again.
Broken Rules (Love Storm series Book 2) Page 11
