Tempting (The Tempting #1) Read online

  “Shrimp Pad Thai, please,” I said as I handed my menu over. When the waitress walked away, I raised an eyebrow toward my lunch date. “Two bowls of soup?”

  Leo raised his arms over his head, stretching his t-shirt across his pecs. “Game’s in three days.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be eating a shit load of chicken or something right about now?”

  “No, that’s Tuesday night. I’m hydrating today, for the party tonight.” He grabbed the glass of water the waitress placed on the table. “The soup’s good. Now tell me what’s up?”

  I stirred the straw in my glass, watched as condensation started to form. “Nothing, really.” My thoughts trailed back to when I’d sent Nathan the provocative email and how undeniably silent my own email had been. After sending it just around midnight the night before, I’d woken up early that morning and found myself dismayed over my empty email inbox. And I’d looked at my phone often that day, feeling that same stone of disappointment settle in the pit of my stomach each time my email remained the same. No reply. No acknowledgement.

  I’m not sure what I expected, honestly. It wasn’t as though he’d explicitly expressed mutual interest, but I knew he felt it. Rationally, I knew baiting him with repeated sexually-suggestive emails would come across as less sexy and more Alicia Silverstone à la The Crush. Which was why I hadn’t followed up with another one even though I really, really wanted to.

  “Earth to Adele.” Leo interrupted my train of thought and I started, grabbing the straw more firmly and taking a sip to give myself a moment to respond.

  “Classes have really distracted me, is all.” It was partially true, given that the professor of one such class was the one distracting me. “What’s up with you?”

  He shrugged, that carefree movement defining Leo so perfectly. “Darcy texted me last night.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Booty call?”

  His lips twitched. “Probably. I didn’t reply.”

  I let out a whoop and held up my hand for a high-five. “Proud of you, Leo.”

  He slapped my hand and sat back, laughing. “Isn’t this supposed to be the other way around, Add? Shouldn’t you be telling me about the guy you’re hung up over and then announcing you’re moving on from him? I can’t pretend I don’t feel a little emasculated right now.”

  “It’s a big step for you, Leo. Darcy has had your balls in her tiny grasp, her glittery tips biting into your rocks with impressive control all summer long.” I tilted my head. “About time you reminded her whose balls they really were.”

  “First of all, saying my balls were in her tiny grasp means you assume I have tiny balls. I feel like I need to defend their more than adequate size.” I made a face, shaking my head no. “And secondly, I think you’re getting ahead of yourself.” Leo finished his first glass of water and started on his second, flagging the waitress for a refill. “I didn’t say I wasn’t interested.” He didn’t meet my eyes. “I just said I didn’t reply.”

  “Ugh,” I groaned. “This is why I don’t have girlfriends; I can’t deal with the back and forth.” As soon as the words slipped from my lips, I realized that it was similar to what I was doing with Nathan. “Are we going to that party tonight?”

  “If you’re up for it, yeah.”

  When the waitress brought our food, I mulled over going to the party. I wasn’t really feeling up for partying, but the alternative was moping around my apartment, checking my email obsessively.

  After our lunch, Leo walked me to my apartment, promising to come pick me up around eight that night.

  As I dressed for the party, my eyes drifted again and again to my email, flicking my eyes away when I saw nothing waiting. My fingers itched to send him another email, something haunting and sensual. And just as my feet padded across the floor, I halted.

  What was it about him that called to me, that made me want him to want me? I’d never chased a man, not once. I never waited for a phone call—or, in this case, an email—and I most certainly never pined for the unattainable. Why? Because men had never been unattainable for me.

  And I say that not to brag, but to illustrate that Adele Morello was a woman who pulled hearts from their chests, leaving them discarded on the floor without a second chance. Adele Morello didn’t want for any man.

  * * *

  There’s something to be said for the quintessential college party. “Debauchery” came to mind as we walked into the frat house and two naked women ran screaming down the hallway, followed by one naked man. “Disgusting” was an appropriate adjective for the number of times my shoe got stuck to something sticky on the floor.

  I wrapped a hand around Leo’s arm as he craned his head back to get a good look at the naked coeds and tugged him with me to the kitchen. A drink was pushed into my hand and I smiled a thank you before walking around the counter and dumping it into the sink, not willing to trust anyone who handed me a drink unless I knew their intentions.

  Grabbing the bottle of vodka on the counter, I poured a solid inch into the bottom of the red plastic cup and handed it to Leo. “That’s more than a shot, Add.” He raised an eyebrow in my direction after looking inside the cup.

  “Pour some Coke in it.” I gestured to the cans stacked on the counter. I poured the same amount in my cup and tossed it back, relishing in the burn as it coated my throat and slid down, mingling with the lingering annoyance in the pit of my stomach.

  After checking my email for the fiftieth time that day, I gave myself a little pep talk.

  Nathan does not have the only dick in town, Adele. Quit acting like it and catch another one.

  But upon surveying the choices in front of me, I remembered why I pursued the older guys, the ones with a hint of darkness, the esoteric men in a sea of predictable dudes with predictable habits. Guys who bought you a drink and acted like it bought them a ticket to your vagina. Who thought their mouths served one purpose. Men who treated the bedroom like a race instead of an amusement park.

  Just the thought of Nathan effortlessly flipping me from my knees to my back and sliding inside of me in one breath caused my arms to erupt in goosebumps. I leaned against the counter as Leo greeted a few of his teammates and brought a hand to my neck, where Nathan had bitten me. If I closed my eyes, I could remember his five-o-clock shadow scraping my sensitive flesh before his teeth bit down, releasing some pent-up primitive need within me. I’d launched myself on him every time he pulled away, legs and arms winding around him.

  He made me want to be savage. He made me hungry for something I didn’t know I needed, something I knew I wouldn’t find at this party.

  And as much as I’d thought being his student gave me an advantage, it most certainly didn’t. Because seeing him in such a professional atmosphere all week while my fingers had gripped my pen to the point of discomfort, left me aching for the night we’d had, the night that had ended too soon.

  “Add,” Leo’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. “This is Jeremy.”

  Jeremy smiled at me, no doubt expecting me to collapse in a puddle of hormones over his baby blues and dimples. “Hey,” he said, looking me up and down.

  “Hi,” I replied, not batting an eyelash. I glanced at Leo and gave him a Nope, not happening look before turning around and pouring a refill.

  “Leo says you’re a Creative Writing major.”

  Fucking Leo. If Leo thought this guy was remotely my type, he was assuming I was either 1) super drunk, 2) super desperate or 3) not the real Adele, the Adele who didn’t go after college dudes who reeked of drugstore cologne.

  “Sure am,” I said, tipping back the vodka.

  “That’s cool.”

  I barely resisted rolling my eyes. “And you?”

  “Oh, I’m still undecided.” He bobbed his head in a weird nodding way and looked around the room. “Five year plan, yeah.” When I said nothing to that, he seemed to take my silence as an invitation to tell me all about his life. “My dad threw some money at me and told me to go to school,
so I’m kind of just going with the flow, ya know, partying it up and stuff.”

  Leo was out of his goddamn mind.

  There wasn’t anything wrong with an undecided major, a person going to school with no direction. But it was so completely opposite of my situation that it felt like Leo was trying to piss me off.

  “Must be nice,” I commented, keeping my true thoughts to myself.

  “Oh, yeah. It’s something to do at least.”

  I thought of my tiny, practically barren apartment, my long hours at the cafe, and the scorn of my entire family for choosing to go to college for what they called a throwaway degree. “Why do you need to go to school to write? Didn’t you learn that in first grade?” It was the same thing they always asked, the entire reason I hadn’t gone home for dear daddy’s birthday and had chosen to go to this party instead. So I could talk to this guy about how bored he was living on daddy’s money.

  Great choice, Adele.

  Around the fifth generous shot of vodka, Jeremy was talking about his football stats. I made out something about one hundred yards rushing just as I tossed back the sixth shot and started feeling the warmth of the alcohol not only affecting my jelly limbs, but also my judgement.

  Jeremy wasn’t so bad, I thought. A second later, Nathan’s stupid face popped in my head, his lips curved the way they’d been when he’d gone down on me.

  “You want it?” he’d asked, breathing over my pussy. I’d squirmed, nodding furiously. “Do you?” he’d asked again. “Let me hear you.”

  “Yes!” I’d screamed, writhing wildly underneath him.

  “My favorite word,” he’d whispered as his mouth touched me where I’d wanted him so desperately.

  “Yes.” I hadn’t realized the word escaped my lips until the image of Nathan blurred, revealing the significantly less appealing Jeremy. His chapped lips split into a grin.

  What the fuck had I said yes to?

  He leaned forward, placing a hand on the counter beside me.

  Oh, no.

  And then he started leaning in, his beer breath encroaching on my space, inch by inch.

  Fuck, fuck, mother fucking fuck.

  As Jeremy’s mouth descended toward mine, my hands nervously shot up, my fist coming in contact with his nose as vodka spilled all over our faces.

  Chapter Ten

  “Get up.”

  The voice was a million miles away, pulling me from my nightmare. I cracked my eyelids open a fraction, letting in the tiniest ray of light.

  “Mother fuck,” I croaked, throwing an arm over my eyes and reaching for my blankets.

  “No, just Leo.”

  I groaned, pulling the comforter harder over my face. I felt his hands pulling it, but I wouldn’t let go.

  “Leave me alone,” I whined.

  “I hope you feel terrible.”

  “You have no idea,” I mumbled under the comforter. A thousand elephants ran across my skull. “What the fuck happened last night?”

  “You got black-out drunk.”

  I sighed, let go of the comforter when Leo gave it another tug. “Was I a mess?” I slowly opened one eye, winced and covered the other eye. Leo stood beside my bed in the clothes he’d worn the night before.

  “Um, yeah.” He nodded, pursing his lips, looking up as if in contemplation. “I thought you couldn’t top the time you barfed in their fridge, but I appeared to have underestimated your ambition.” He reached a hand for me. “Come on, I got you coffee and a croissant sandwich from that artery-clogging bakery downstairs.”

  Greasy food and coffee = cure for even the worst hangovers.

  I tumbled out of the bed, literally, holding onto the wall for support. I looked down, taking in my pants and shirt from the night before and was hit with the overall stench of vomit that permeated my clothing. “Fuck,” I muttered.

  “What do you remember?” Leo asked after I’d sat at my tiny counter and sucked down half my coffee.

  “I remember Jeremy trying to plant one on me and,” I closed my eyes and touched my forehead, “I think I splashed vodka all over him.”

  “Uh yeah, all over both of you. And then you needed me to wash it out of your eyes and then you started talking about how you said yes but not to him and he had no life plan and it wasn’t your fault.”

  Groaning, I dropped my head into my hands. “What else?” I knew more was coming.

  “Well, you broke his nose. I think on accident, not that he didn’t deserve it.”

  I almost smiled, but I knew that wasn’t all. I braced myself, eyes pinched tight. “And then?”

  “I got you out of there as fast as I could, but you ended up falling in the yard and that’s when the vomit started. It was almost impressive, Exorcist-style.”

  I still held my head in my hands, unable to look Leo in the face. “Did I puke on you?”

  “Yeah.” I lifted my head, taking in his clothes. “My shoes,” he said, pointing to the bag hanging on my doorknob.

  “Oh, God. I’m sorry.”

  Leo shrugged, the picture of nonchalance. “Not a big deal. But I need to get going. I wanted to make sure you weren’t comatose before I left.”

  “Thanks, Leo.” I stood up as if to give him a hug but he quickly jumped back.

  “Sorry babe, but you need a shower. Wicked bad.” His gaze moved up and down my clothes and I winced, taking in the vomit smell again.

  “Okay. Thanks for helping me home.” I looked around my nearly-bare apartment, taking in that Leo had tidied up the little mess I knew I’d left.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, halfway out the door.

  When he closed the door, I picked up my coffee and finished it in one gulp. Thinking of Jeremy and how he’d nearly kissed me made me want to shower more than the barf that crusted my hair.

  * * *

  After taking the longest, hottest shower of my life, I plopped down at my desk. I told myself I was just going to check the weather for that week.

  Yeah, right.

  I logged into my email, feeling my heart thunder upon seeing the notification of one new message. Impatiently, I tapped my fingers on the desk as I waited for the actual inbox to load.

  I didn’t even have to read who it was from once I saw the subject line. Most definitely not Nathan.

  From: Celeste Morello

  Date: Sunday, September 20, 2015 11:18 AM

  Subject: Dad

  To: Adele Morello

  Adele,

  I know you’re probably too busy being a drunk, irresponsible student to actually acknowledge my email and, more importantly, Dad, but the least you could have done yesterday was call. Mom was very upset. You should not have gotten her hopes up.

  Celeste

  • • •

  The blood roared in my head, the initial dissatisfaction that the email hadn’t been from Nathan being immediately replaced by absolute fury.

  My older sister and I had never gotten along, and at the very root of our acrimony was the father we shared. To her, he was Dad. To me, he was a father, someone who donated his DNA to help create me, but that was essentially all he’d ever provided me.

  I drafted three different replies before I finally decided on one.

  From: Adele Morello

  Date: Sunday, September 20, 2015 11:43 AM

  Subject: Re: Dad

  To: Celeste Morello

  You clearly know me so well Celeste, so I’m not sure why you’re surprised I didn’t show up. Especially since I never actually told you I was going. To blame me for Mom’s disappointment is ridiculous.

  Besides, I’m sure ‘Dad’ would have preferred my absence.

  Adele

  • • •

  I slammed my laptop closed and stalked away from my desk, not caring if Nathan decided to reply to my email.

  I crawled back into my bed, not caring about anything in that particular moment.

  * * *

  After an early morning shift at the cafe, I was regrettably lacking time t
o run home and wash the French roast scent from my skin before Nathan’s class that morning. I splashed water on my face and let my hair down in the women’s restroom, running my hand furiously over the back, straightening my strands.

  Staring at my reflection, I took in my skin—pale and void of color and my eyes—their green drab and lifeless, surrounded by the bruises that colored my skin underneath, the bags especially pronounced. I’d barely slept Sunday night after my prolonged nap, and the effects were wreaking havoc on my looks.

  I ran a hand down the black shirt I wore, over my jeans, smoothing the wrinkles and dusting away the grounds of coffee that lingered.

  My sister’s email had repeated over and over in my head, bringing with it a visual of my father, stern disapproval permanently etched on his face whenever he looked at me.

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I rid myself of the image. I straightened my shoulders, applied red lipstick to my lips and concealer under my eyes. My hair hung limply past my shoulders, there was no fixing it now.

  When I made it to Nathan’s class, I was later than usual. My front row spot had been taken up by someone else. I stared daggers into the back of her head as I collapsed into a seat in the third row, dropping my books loudly enough to cause her to turn around, taking me in. I gave her a saccharine smile, but I knew my eyes held derision. I wasn’t in the mood to have Nathan’s attention blocked today, especially after his non-reply over the weekend.

  Had he known the email was me? Alice Carroll was my nod to one of my favorite authors, the author who had essentially saved my childhood when I needed an escape from my father’s taciturn presence. But then I remembered the attachment, of my piercing. If the words in the email hadn’t clued him in, the piercing should. I remembered, distinctly, the care he’d taken with my nipple ring when we’d been together.