"What did I just say?" she quips, sounding like a school teacher reprimanding me. Instantly, my bodystarts to reactto the image planted in my head. Isla in a tiny little pencil skirt with nothing beneath it, the black bra she's wearing now with a sheer white button-up, the lace peeking through. Wire glasses and her hair piled up just like it is now.
Fuck, not again.
I fight the urge to palm myself, holding off for just a minute so I can escape to the bathroom a-fucking-gain. "You said the show we're going to start next week is the single best season of reality TV to ever exist. And that it's not an opinion, but a fact."
She raises a single brow, pushing my stupid little fantasy to insane levels. I stand abruptly, and she watches me with mirthful, false concern. "I'll be right back. Gotta go... check in with the mainland."
Her muffled laugh raises suspicion.
She'sdefinitelytoying with me, but there's something else, too.
I find myself wondering, not even for the first time today, if she's fucking with me somehow.
I can no longer tell if it's my own imagination conjuring images of her in decadent, sinful situations or if she's doing it, and I'm just picking it up.
Slammed into my bedroom, pacing the room like a manic animal, I try and fail to keep my mind clear of Isla. Try to keep my dick from jumping to attention like I'm a fucking teenager.
But again and again, images of us tangled together in the sheets break my mind, visions like hopeful premonitions cascading one after another in a sea of sordid bliss.
She's in my mind and my body like a fucking sickness. Something I would cut out at the root if I knew what was good for me, but I fucking don't. I like the poison, crave this illness like if I can just indulge it long enough, I'll become immune.
I have to get out of here.
I grab a pair of dark boots from my closet, along witha black jacket,before storming back to where Isla waits patiently.
The smell of popcorn wafts towards me, the screen paused just before the next episode of her stupid show starts. And there, popping up above the back of the brown leather, her hair pile sits, tendrilsof itunraveling like my resolve.
She turns halfway to me, her gorgeous silhouette lighting up, the straight slope of her nose, those fucking lips that she stretched around me lifting in a small smile.
"I need to go." The words leave my mouth, a bitter aftertaste to them as the joy in her face falls, and she turns to face me fully, her brows furrowing.
"Everything alright?" she asks, worry crossing her features.
"Yup," I pop the P farharderthan necessary, keeping it nonchalant. "Just need to check in with Kyle."
Confusion, disappointment, and finally dejection take turns twisting her face before she finally lands on acceptance. She knows I'm lying.KnowsI wouldn'tjustleave like this without notice unless I have a good reason.And I don't even have the decency tocome up witha good excuse. I can check in with Kyle without doing anything more than dialing his fucking phone number.
I'm leaving to get some space from her, and we both know it.
She just doesn't understand that I have to, for theexactopposite reason that she believes.If I don't get away from her right fucking now, she's going to be the next victim of my stupid sentimentality that's only ever served in getting people killed.
I don't date. I fuck, I had toldher, and now I'll plant that exact memory inhermind, letherthink I don't want to keep spending time withher. Let her anxious mind suspect I'm leaving to go sleep with someone.
Like a shutter closing, her expression turns blank, the dismissal evident in the impassive way she looks me up and down. "Have fun."
Then she turns, pressing play and watching our show without me.
My teeth grind, the need to sit with her, to fix the rift I've just created by playing with her mind an aching pull.
But if she hates me, it'll make it a lot easier when she can go back to her life. Eventually.
So I step backward, letting the Aether close around me,not ableto take my eyes off the back of her head until an entirely new surrounding engulfs me.
What Are You Wearing?
Isla
Of all the fucking days Bel could have done this, of course, it's now.
