The Temptation of Lila and Ethan by Jessica Sorensen Read Free Book Online Page B

rent so you can get let in? Because I’m not doing that.” But a voice inside my head laughs at me, telling me I’m full of shit. That I would pay it for her if she asks, that I’d do anything for her if she flat out asked me to.
    She sticks out her bottom lip and makes me soften just a little. “You can pick the lock,” she suggests, and when I start to frown, she grips the bottom of my shirt and clutches on to it. “Please, please, please. I’ll owe you big time.”
    “You already owe me big time, for being a pain in the ass and calling me all the time to come pick you up fromrandom guys’ houses,” I tell her, dragging my hand across my face. “And I don’t want you to owe me. I just want you to get a job or something so you won’t get kicked out of your apartment.”
    “Okay, I’ll work on getting some cash.” She bats her damn eyelashes at me intentionally—I can tell because there’s a smirk forming at her lips.
    Sighing, I stick out my hand. “Give me one of those pins in your hair.”
    She releases my shirt, plucks a pin out of her hair, and hands it to me. Grunting and pretending I’m more annoyed than I really am, I bend down in front of the door and quickly pick the lock. When I shove the door open, she jumps up and down, clapping her hands.
    “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” She throws her arms around my neck and embraces me tightly.
    “Don’t thank me,” I tell her, uneasy and kind of turned on, something I always feel whenever she hugs me.
Lila is off limits. She’s a friend. Just a friend. It’ll never work out. Relationships never work out. Look at the one that you had.
“Just pay your damn rent and quit losing your keys.”
    “Yes, boss.” She rushes into the house eagerly, leaving the door open behind her, and hurries toward the hallway. “I’m going to take a quick shower.”
    “What the hell am I supposed to do?” I ask, standing in the entryway of her two-bedroom apartment, which is muchnicer than mine: painted walls, a crack-free floor, and the carpet isn’t loose. “Sit around here and wait for you? Is that what you want me to do?”
    “Don’t pretend like you’re totally not enjoying the idea.” She pauses at the corner of the hall and grins. “Besides, you could just come join me.”
    I roll my eyes, suppressing a smile. “I’ve already told you a thousand times that you can’t handle me, baby.” I bite down on my tongue on the
baby
slipup. I don’t use endearing terms with women. Ever. My dad used to use them on my mom when he was trying to kiss up to her after he beat her and she’d always let him butter her up. It made me hate affectionate terms and affection in general.
    She turns around and puts her hands on her hips, arching her eyebrows. “And vice versa.”
    “Oh, I don’t doubt it,” I say, because I picture Lila as being extremely bossy and orderly in bed and I like women who get caught up in the moment, who love to do things without thinking about them first and who can completely and utterly let go of everything going on in the world. Who don’t care if they have money or material things. I like women who are like London. The problem is, she seems to be the only one of her kind and she no longer exists.
    Lila laughs and I roll my eyes again, feigning annoyance. Then I chuckle when she sticks out her tongue and I have to bite on my own because the movement draws all my attentionto her mouth. Despite the no-touching rule I made, I still can’t help but picture the many things I’d like her to do with her mouth that would require a lot of touching.
    Once she vanishes down the hall, I get comfortable on the sofa and start channel surfing, but I can find only three channels and I wonder if she hasn’t paid her satellite bill either.
    “Damn it, Lila,” I mutter and then take my phone out of my pocket. I think about just calling Micha and asking him to ask Ella, Lila’s best friend, to call Lila because she’s obviously gotten in over