Broken Promises

by S. K. Lessly

  I wrapped shaky fingers around the doorknob, took a few deep breaths, and opened the door. The second my eyes fell on Ethan, my breath got caught in my throat.

  Holy shit, he looked hot! He was dressed in pair of tan pants that fit him masterfully and a silky white button-down short-sleeve shirt that was slightly unbuttoned at the neck. The shirt revealed just the right amount of his perfectly muscled chest, enough to make my mouth water. There wasn’t anything special about what he wore, it was how he wore it. The way his chest filled out his shirt, how his slacks fell along his hips. How his white shirt brought out the glowing color of his skin. Damn, he was just…

  My eyes continued its perusal and I clocked the brown loafers he sported along with a gold watch and a sexy as sin smile. Jeez-us, I had to take a few minutes to catch my breath. He looked and smelled amazing.

  I cleared my throat after I realized I’d had a staring issue and brought my eyes to his face. What had me smiling a bit was the look on his face.

  I had caught him doing a slow perusal along my body, paying close attention to the apex of my thighs. I tried to concentrate on something, anything to prevent my thighs from tightening. However, I couldn’t stop my nipples from pebbling and showing him exactly how he was affecting me.

  Get yourself together, Alexis…

  I took a sizable breath, the boobs inadvertently causing his eyes to gravitate to them, and leaned on the door.

  “Is there something I can help you with?” I asked sardonically.

  Ethan caught my tone and finally met my eyes. I held his gaze not giving him an inch, though it seemed that didn’t matter. Ethan pushed me into my room and stepped inside.

  “Hey, you can’t—”

  “We need to talk, Lexie,” Ethan announced as he surveyed my room. I hadn’t been very neat today. There were empty food containers on the coffee table in front of the couch. Clothes were everywhere and my bed hadn’t been made. I didn’t care, though. I was too busy trying to get myself together. His presence was doing things to me.

  “Lexie, did you hear me?”

  I blinked. “What? Yeah, I heard you. You want to talk. You’re a few days late with that but okay. Better late than never, I guess.” I leaned against the door and folded my arms in front if my chest, hiding my hard nipples from him.

  He smirked at me as if telling me my attempts at hiding what he was doing to me was futile. I narrowed my eyes at him.

  “What are you waiting for? Talk—”

  “Yeah, that’s not going to happen here. Go and get dressed.”

  “Why not? My room is a perfect place to—”

  “—Get fucked,” Ethan finished, his eyes ablaze with fire so strong it threatened to scorch my soul as well as my clothes. He stalked forward and I straightened, panic starting to grip my chest tight. “That’s what’s going to happen, Lexie, if we stay here. I’m going to tear your fucking clothes off and fuck you on every gotdamn surface in this room, including the small ass balcony.”

  My eyes went wide from his promise and I knew he would do exactly what he said he would. It was written all over his face, his body. And hell, I wanted him to do that and more. I just… I couldn’t… he was right, we needed to talk. I just needed to get up the courage to tell him everything.

  I tried to breathe, tried to think of an escape, but once he made it to me, he caged me in with a pair of arms coiled with muscle. I closed my eyes, inhaling his delicious scent. He smelled of dominance, control, mouth-watering cologne and all man. I lost the battle of control myself and clenched my thighs together in an effort to thwart the pulsing between my thighs.

  It wasn’t working.

  Ethan leaned in closer to me, his breath tickling my face. I immediately turned away from him and placed my hands on his well-defined chest in an effort to push him away, or feel him up, whatever. He didn’t budge. If anything, he moved closer.

  “Ethan,” I whispered and tried again to push him back. The man was a freaking brick wall.

  I felt his lips hovering over my ear. He kissed me lightly and I shuddered.

  “You see, you’re not ready for what I have in store for you. And I’m not ready to give it to you just yet. But,” he placed a featherlike kiss just underneath my ear, “if we stay here,” kiss, “I guarantee you" kiss, “I won’t be able to keep my hands to myself.” Another kiss at the base of my neck.

  I swallowed hard, my pulse quickening, my pussy loving the words and promise coming from him, but the arrogant asshole was right. I wasn’t ready for him. I probably never would be, admittedly. However, I refused to cower. I lifted my chin, turned my head to face him and placed my very best “kiss my ass” look on my face.

  He smirked again. The bastard…

  “Oh, what’s that look for? You think you’re ready to get thoroughly fucked by me?” he goaded. I raised my head higher and met his eyes without fear. I hoped, anyway. But again, the jerk proved I had no idea who I was dealing with.

  Ethan dropped his hands from the sides of my body and went right for my hard as stone nipples. He pinched and pulled them, causing me to yelp in surprise and arousal. I pushed his hands away and moved past him.

  He laughed. “Yeah, I didn’t think so. Go get dressed, Lexie. You and I need to talk and as I just proved, we can’t talk here.”

  Once there was a good amount of space between us, I turned around to face him. I folded my arms again and tried to gain some type of control.

  “What do you want to talk about?” I asked him, knowing damn well I sounded lame. Ethan, however, didn’t make me feel that way he just responded.

  “Everything.”

  “And where are we going?”

  “To the festival.” When I frowned, he continued. “Don’t make that face. It’ll be fun. The music is great, the atmosphere’s neutral and it’s a beautiful night. We can sit at one of the tables they have out there, listen to some music and have a few drinks.”

  “Uhh drinks? You know that’s illegal outside of the motor speedway?”

  He winked at me. “Don’t you worry about that, I got it covered. Just go and get dressed.”

  I didn’t move, didn’t speak. Neither did he. We stared at each other for a long moment before I sighed and relented. He was right. We could use the festival as a great buffer between us. Plus, it was a beautiful night. Spending this time with Ethan would be amazing. A lovely end to the time spent together.

  “Alright fine. I’ll go get dressed.”

  I stalked toward the bathroom trying to think of what to wear when I received a painful slap to my ass.

  “Ouch!” I gripped my cheeks and sent a glower over my shoulder.

  The jerk didn’t look the least bit put out.

  “You have only fifteen minutes to get ready.”

  I frowned up at him. “Fifteen minutes?”

  “Alright twenty. Now go!” He went to swat me again, but I moved out of his reach. I still gave him my best pissed off look and again he dismissed it with a wink. He then turned away from me and headed to the open French doors. I stood there a moment longer just looking at his defined back.

  I wasn’t sure I was ready for this “talk”. I had to come up with a plan. What I needed to say would be hard. My past was something I wasn’t proud of and I hoped he’d understand my motivation for doing what I had done. It was for him after all. But deep down inside, I knew he would be pissed. Plus, I had questions about the promises he’d made and broken. We had danced around that for weeks. It was time for us to get everything out in the open. After that, we could see if anything was left of our friendship. Hopefully, I wouldn’t lose him. That would be devastating.

  I reluctantly made my way into the bathroom. The only thing I had to wear to match what he had on was a long white maxi sundress with a split up the side. I had purchased it when we went shopping at the mall in Christiana. It was a simple dress, but it did my body justice.

  The material hugged my curves as if the dress was made specifically for me. The front of the
dress made my girls look great, and the push up bra I had would add just enough cleavage to be sexy and not trashy.

  I had already taken a shower an hour ago, thank goodness. I had just enough time to get dressed, do something with my hair, and put on a little makeup.

  I accented the dress with some silver bangles, teardrop earrings, and a pair of three-inch wedged white sandals. I had flat-ironed my hair earlier, but the humidity turned it poufy. All I had time to do was wet my hair, wrap it around a ponytail holder to make a sloppy bun on top of my head.

  I knew drinking and humidity didn’t go very well, and I’d surely sweat anything of substance off my face, so intensifying my eyes with dark eyeshadow would have to do. I also added mascara and painted my lips with long-lasting red lipstick.

  When I emerged from the bathroom, Ethan was still standing on the balcony, my abandoned drink from earlier in his hands. As if sensing me staring at him, he turned around to face me and froze. He didn’t move, didn’t speak, nor did he blink. I wasn’t even sure he was breathing.

  “Ethan?” I called to him, wondering if something was wrong. Did he change his mind, or worse, did he not like what I was wearing? “Are you okay?”

  He blinked at me and ran his eyes all over my body, taking in every single curve, every valley I possessed. I was beginning to feel a bit self-conscious under his intense scrutiny. I looked down at what I was wearing and said softly, “If you want me to change, I can—”

  “No!” he blurted and I jumped, my eyes wide.

  He placed the glass in his hand back on the table and headed for me, his molten emerald eyes taking me in from head to toe. I started to fidget where I stood. The look in his eyes was so penetrating, so ravenous, I wasn’t sure if I should run for my life or strip and let him have me.

  Ethan stopped a few feet from me, his dark eyes growing darker.

  “Is this okay?” I asked hesitantly, not sure what to say but needing to say something.

  He breathed out and finally met my eyes, his face softening, melting me. “Yeah, baby. It’s good.”

  Goodness gracious! That word baby sounded amazing falling from his lips.

  Yeah, we needed to get out of here pronto.

  “You ready to go?” I asked, gathering as much strength as I could and stepping away from him. I grabbed a small, pale-yellow clutch purse with a handle for the wrist from a plastic bag sitting on the dresser. It was large enough to fit my room key, photo ID, credit card and phone.

  I heard a growl behind me and I turned to find Ethan’s searing gaze on my ass. There wasn’t anything special to the back of the dress, but from the look in his eyes, it didn’t matter.

  Yup, we gotta go.

  I opened the door to the room and turned around, waiting for him to get his shit together to follow. Ethan’s eyes were closed, and I could tell he was struggling to catch his breath.

  I metaphorically patted myself on the back for picking out this dress. I didn’t think I would get a reaction like this from it, but it really made me feel good to know Ethan liked it. And from the bulge in the front of his pants, I think he liked the dress very much.

  “Uh… I’m just going to wait for you by the elevator.”

  “Good idea,” he confirmed on a low growl, and I quickly closed the door.

  I waited for at least ten minutes before he came out of my room. I wondered, as he strolled up to me, if he uhh… handled his problem or started thinking about his mother or something to calm down.

  The notion that he could have masturbated to visions of me had me wanting to find out what else I could do to make him lose control. It also scared the ever-loving crap out of me. I had never had a man react to me the way Ethan had just done. Lionel, well I already knew what kind of man he was, but still, he was all I had to go on.

  Lionel had told me one day that I should stop trying to seduce him. It wouldn’t work. My looks and body didn’t do it for him. I couldn’t explain how awful I felt. It was that moment I had adopted the belief that our relationship would be built on mutual respect, not love and passion.

  I mean, we did have sex, but it wasn’t because he couldn’t control himself. It was more out of a need or convenience. More like a quick—wham bam, good riddance now, take the money on the nightstand and go—type of thing.

  But seeing how I affected Ethan… that was…

  “Woman, if you don’t stop looking at me like that…” he trailed off and I started to ask him what he meant but stopped myself when his fierce dark eyes met mine. I pushed the elevator button and when it arrived, I stayed far away from him, keeping my eyes to the closed elevator door.

  By the time we made it outside, we both had calmed down. We walked out of the hotel to his car, which was parked on the street close to the entrance to the hotel, to retrieve a small cooler on wheels. Once we grabbed the cooler and a small plastic bag, we made our way down the street to loud music and a bustling crowd, our fingers intertwined.

  Downtown Dover had a music festival every year during the first weekend in August around the same time the popular Downs music festival was happening at Woodland beach. The local bands that wanted to strut their stuff on a smaller stage signed up for the festival here, taking to the streets.

  Besides the bands that played in the square during the day, there were various booths set up for people to sell all types of merchandise to festival goers from clothes, to jewelry, to various types of art. Not to mention the various food vendors catering to almost every need you could think of.

  At night, the main street of the festival turned its black asphalt into a huge dance floor. There were tables set up along the sidewalk and the makeshift dance floor, i.e. the street. Streams of white lights adorned the light poles, trees and businesses along the street as well. I hadn’t remembered the town putting in this much effort to beautify the small downtown area when I was growing up. Everything really looked beautiful.

  Ethan and I found an open table a safe distance away from the makeshift stage and DJ. He settled the small cooler next to us and placed the bag on top. He reached inside the bag and pulled out a plastic white tablecloth and placed it over the table along with a small vase with two white silk roses inside it. I smiled at his efforts of bringing romance to this outdoor fiasco.

  He took out two Styrofoam cups from the cooler and filled them with champagne. See what I mean? Romantic.

  I looked around the crowd to see if there were any cops. I hadn’t seen any but that didn’t stop the nerves from taking hold of my body.

  “Relax, everything will be fine. I have tops and straws and everything.”

  I laughed shakily and accepted the cup from him.

  “Is champagne okay?”

  I nodded and waited for him to place a top on my cup and slip a straw inside for my drinking pleasure. He did the same for himself and once he was set, I raised my cup. “What are we toasting tonight?” I asked.

  “To a rekindled friendship,” he said.

  We looked into each other’s eyes as we clinked our cups and drank. The bubbly tasted great, despite me drinking champagne through the straw. I wasn’t much of a champagne drinker, but this would do for now.

  Ethan moved my chair closer to his side and placed his arm around the back of the chair and me. We sat there taking in our surroundings and watching everyone around us make fools of themselves dancing. We couldn’t help but laugh at the wannabe dancing and shared funny stories we remembered of the high school classmates we saw, which made us laugh harder.

  In fact, we were having such a great time, we managed to put away two bottles of champagne. Not too long after I slurped the last of my drink, Ethan broke out the hard stuff. Needless to say, I was feeling pretty tipsy already.

  “Jeez Ethan, I’m going to be crawling back to the hotel.” I watched as he pulled out a cute little Patrón bottle, removed the tops from our cups, and poured what could have been a double shot in each of the cups.

  “Don’t worry,” he told me, and smiled. “I’ll ca
rry you back.”

  I laughed and touched his arm. I kept my hand there and we locked eyes again. I wasn’t sure what in the hell I was doing. I could blame it on alcohol. But I wasn’t. If drinking was going to give me the courage to express myself, then so be it.

  Without a word spoken, we took our drinks back. I cringed and shook, closing my eyes and wishing I had something to chase the bitterness of the liquor away.

  “That was not smooth,” I croaked.

  He laughed.

  “I guess it wasn’t,” he replied, smiling. The smile suddenly faded and I was about to ask him what was wrong when he spoke.

  “Why are you marrying that fucking douchebag? Do you love him?”

  I put my head down and sat back in my chair. This was unexpected.

  I didn’t respond to his question right away. I thought about how to answer him instead. It was easy for me to tell him the truth, that I had broken it off with Lionel. But I wasn’t so sure I wanted to tell Ethan about it. I mean, why was he asking about Lionel? Was he jealous? Did he want me for himself or was he just looking to clear his conscience? Those were questions I needed answers to before I spilled my guts. What if all he wanted was to get me naked and have his way with me for only one night? That was something I wasn’t sure I could handle. I wanted it all, and I wanted it all with him. But if too much time had passed, if he didn’t want me the way I wanted him, then I couldn’t bring myself to accept anything less.

  “Alexis,” he called out firmly when I wouldn’t respond.

  I sighed audibly. “Ethan, it’s complicated, okay?”

  “Complicated how? Either you love him and that’s why you two are getting married or you don’t, in which case, I wonder why on earth you're doing it.”

  Play this cool Lexie, just play it cool…

  “I love him, okay? I do,” I admitted falsely, but I didn’t think Ethan caught on. I continued talking in order to prevent him from seeing right through my lie. “It’s just that… it’s not about love, it’s about respect and status. Lionel is a stable man and provider. I want to have kids someday and so does he. Knowing that our kids would be well taken care of financially is a great load off my back. Plus, we'd have a stable home. One that is filled with respect. That’s what’s important.”