Free Mutual Release by Liz Crowe Page B

anything physical. Damn, he was fucked. He had to get past this.
    He grabbed the phone and dragged it out into the hall for a small measure of privacy. After asking her out on a date, he hung up and stared at the concrete block walls for almost an hour, his mind blank.

    * * * *

    “So, Evan,” the girl said, her shoulder grazing his. “That was nice.”
    He sighed and leaned back on the bench, draping an arm around her. The wine they’d shared over dinner had lubricated him to the point he felt, if not comfortable, at least not jittery to the point of seeming psycho. She’d been easy, breezy, doing most of the talking and making him laugh when they compared their experiences as varsity soccer players in high school.
    But now, sitting on a park bench on the outskirts of campus, the realization he knew what she wanted from him made him want to leap up and run away – after warning her to stay as far from him as she could get.
    When she rested a hand on his leg, he jumped. “Relax,” she said, leaning into his ear.
    Standing, trying to put some distance between them, he turned and found her right in his face, her hands on his shoulders, her dark eyes intent and full of one thing – the one thing he could read like a neon sign.
    “Listen, ah, Karen, I’m not what you think I am.” Lame. But he liked her. She was funny, had a rack like a centerfold. Very tempting. He shook his head. Going so long without female company had been a Very Bad Plan, he knew, but never so much as at this precise moment.
    She smiled and went up on tiptoes so she could reach his lips, surprising him with her forwardness. Her mouth was soft; her tongue breached his lips and made him suck in a breath. At the same moment he gripped her so hard she gasped. “That’s more like it,” she whispered when he grabbed her hair and gave it a slight pull.
    She was no sub. But he needed to get laid so bad he was nearly blind with it. He’d take vanilla, now that it was being presented to him. And he would leave it that way, forever. He would never go back to that previous life, no matter how “tame” Jack claimed they could make it.
    He ran his hands down her waist, to her hips and ass, clutching her as he walked her back so she was propped against a large tree trunk. Staring into her eyes, he resisted her signals, the ones that screamed “take me, show me what you’ve really got” to his psyche. He ran a shaking hand down her face and tried very hard not to yank her hands over her head and pin them to the tree she leaned against. He bit the inside of his cheek, grunting when she sighed and put a hand on his zipper.
    “Do what you want, Evan… please.”
    He kissed her then, dove into her, winding his hands in her hair and tasting every nook and cranny of her lips. She squirmed, pressed up against him. But he maintained control. He would not go to the dark room that had opened up in his head and was beckoning him, whispering its evil and reminding him he had no choice. He had to be what he was meant to be when it came to sex. He ripped himself away from the girl, breathing heavily, and took a few steps backward, nearly falling over a shrub.
    “Evan… are you okay?” Karen pushed herself away from the tree and closed the gap between them, but he held up a hand.
    “No, Karen. I… can’t. I can’t explain it, either. You are amazing, beautiful, sexy, and I want to…” He put his hands on his hips and looked down, the internal struggle making it impossible to breathe. He glanced back up, saw the sympathy in her eyes. “No, don’t feel sorry for me. I’m no good. I’m… bad. I’m an asshole, and I will do nothing but cause trouble for you.”
    But despite his warning or maybe because of it, she launched herself at him, wrapped her arms around him and bit his earlobe, forcing every nerve he had, not already at attention, to start tap-dancing with anticipation. Women. Tell them you’re no good and they were all over you. It made no sense