It doesn’t take long for his tight grip on my thighs to loosen, his hands wandering elsewhere, somewhere new and risky. The kiss slows down as his focus switches from my lips to his hands. They hover by the hem of my shirt for a few moments, brushing the material as though he’s waiting for me to object, but I don’t want him to stop. I tighten my arms around his neck and pull his lips harder against mine.
Tyler gets the message. He clasps my waist beneath my shirt with one hand as the other finds its way to my bra, leaving the thrilling trail of his touch along my body. I don’t know how he manages, but he slides his hand inside the lace and cups my breast all in one swift movement. He tears his lips from mine, pulling back to meet my eyes for a moment, before moving back in again to plant a row of kisses along the edge of my jaw. His hands are still on my body, his thumb rubbing my breast in soft circles, his skin cold yet oddly sensational. Soon his other hand joins in and I suddenly grow self-conscious. I’m staring up at the ceiling through half-closed eyes, my face tilted to the side as Tyler plants kisses on my neck and cups my breasts. I’ve never been all that fortunate in that area, especially in comparison with Tiffani, and I suddenly grow paranoid that Tyler will burst into laughter any second, but he never does.
I can feel a moan rising in my throat, and I try my best to suppress it, already embarrassed enough as it is, but then Tyler sighs against my neck and his breath tickles my skin. I move my hands to his jaw and draw his lips back to mine, but before they connect once more, our eyes lock for a moment. We catch our breath as we stare at one another, comfortable in our embrace and unable to hold back the small smiles toying at the corners of our lips.
We shouldn’t be kissing on the floor of his bathroom and his hands shouldn’t be on my body and I shouldn’t be enjoying it. The scandalous nature of it makes it all the more exhilarating.
And all the more worth it.
Chapter 25
Tyler and I escaped from the confinement of his bathroom two hours later. Our parents returned home with a son bearing a fractured wrist only to find a second son desperately awaiting their return, wondering why he’d been left alone to fend for himself. Little did they all know, Tyler and I had been in the house all along, supervising Chase from afar. I could hear that Ella was furious, probably thinking I’d bailed on babysitting and disappeared again, but when they started calling us both, they discovered we were in the room right above their heads. We had to bullshit our way to freedom.
“I don’t know how it happened,” I said. Not only was I lying through the door, I was also lying through my teeth.
“Me either,” Tyler added.
“I was coming to find him and I fell against the door,” I said. Another lie. Beside me, Tyler was pressing the back of his hand to his lips to muffle his laughter.
Dad said he’d call the neighborhood handyman, Mr. Forde, to come over straightaway. But Mr. Forde obviously didn’t care too much about the standard of his customer service, because he turned up on the other side of the door forty minutes later. It took thirty bucks and a lot of picking and drilling to unbolt the lock, and finally Tyler and I sheepishly made our exit.
We didn’t talk to each other again for the rest of the night. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to speak to him. It was because he spent over an hour on the phone with Tiffani, his voice strained with the effort to come across soft and pleading as he tried his best to apologize for his “accidental mistake” that “happened in the spur of the moment,” which he “completely didn’t mean to do.” I could hear it all through the paper-thin walls that separate our rooms. He fed her lie after lie, stacking them on top of each other as he built up a cover story, claiming that a sophomore from Inglewood wanted to see his car when he was on his way to meet the guys, and somehow the fifteen-year-old ended up in his lap. Slightly far-fetched, but Tiffani believed him. His regret was so forced and so fake that I almost wanted to tear down the wall and ask him what he was playing at. But I never did, because I remembered that the Inglewood sophomore was really just me.
And so last night I fell asleep with my mind split in two. One half was drowning in guilt, but the other was floating, recklessly in love with the idea of Tyler and the secrets that are hidden within the depth of his being.
Because, somehow, I’ve managed to become one of them.
*
“And that’s why British guys are better than all these American scumbags,” Rachael announces, finally, after a five-minute speech comparing the two nationalities. According to her, British guys are better, because they have cute accents and use cute words and are just overall cute, and that’s as advanced as her arguments get.
Meghan voices her own opinion. She claims that the French are better because they kiss you at the top of the Eiffel Tower and whisper “je t’aime” while you share a bottle of wine.