Page 4 of Ordinary Girl

She hesitates, almost as though she doesn’t really want to leave, and I’m not going to make her. She doesn’t have to go. But now I’m not so sure that, even if she stayed,thisnight would end in sex. I don’t want a swift goodbye, not this time,Jesus…!No. No, this isn’t what happens…

“I want to see you again.” The words are out of my mouth before I even realize I’ve said them, but I mean it. Idowant to see her again. Which is strange and quite alien to me, but I’m running with it anyway. Like I said, I like taking risks. It’s what makes me feel alive.

“Oh… okay, I… I’m not sure…”

She bows her head, starts playing with the delicate silver bracelet hanging elegantly from her wrist. I can’t let this one go. I can’t. I’m so fucking attracted to her it’s knocking the breath right out of me. I’ve never felt this shit before, and I don’t know if I like it, if I’m okay with it, but I take risks every day of my fucking life. This is just another one.

“I’m talking dinner here, that’s all.”

She slowly raises her gaze, and this time the smile is right there in her eyes. “Okay. What harm can it do?”

No harm.

No harm at all…

Four

Sofia

“Oh. My. God! I can’t believe you’re going on a date!”

I don’t know whether to be offended or amused by my daughter’s reaction.

“You might sound a little less surprised. I’m only thirty-nine, it’s hardly time to pension me off just yet.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Ana throws herself down on the bed and crosses her legs up underneath herself, watching me as I run a brush through my hair. “It’s just that, you’ve not been out for a long time, that’s all. With a man, I mean.”

“Because I haven’t wanted to.”

“So, what’s this one got that’s made you suddenly change your mind?”

“I don’t know.” I turn around and lean back against the dressing-table. “He just seems,” I shrug, “different.”

“How?”

“You do know that interrogating ismyjob, right?”

“Oh, yeah, I get that. Just thought you should know what it feels like to experience it from the other side.” She throws me a grin, jumps up off the bed and heads downstairs. I smile and turn back to face my reflection in the mirror. I look okay, I’ve faired pretty well, considering the shit Ana’s father put us through: left us with. Debts; people chasing us for money we didn’t have, for reasons I didn’t want to know. He just disappeared, left without a trace, we never heard from him again. It’s been seventeen years and I have no idea whether he’s alive or dead. I don’t care. He can rot in hell, he almost ruined me. Paying off what he owed has left me still struggling to getAna and I back on our feet, but she knows nothing of the crap her father left us in. She knows very little, she can barely remember he even existed. And there was no reason for me to involve her in the problems I had to deal with, because of him. I want her life to be a good one, not one marred by her father’s inability to be a decent human being. I didn’t want her to think she had to help me deal with any of it, I don’t want that for her. So, she doesn’t know how much I’m struggling. How close I am to losing everything.

I shake those dark thoughts from my mind and run my fingers through my hair, breathing in deep, and I think about something else. Someoneelse.

Skip Larsen.

I’m having dinner with him tonight, just two days after meeting him. And while I would normally take a lot more time to think about this, for some reason I’m just going with the flow, this time. I’m not over thinking anything, not self-sabotaging or putting invisible obstacles in the way, as I have done in the past. I’m doing something for myself, because I think I need this. It’s possible I might needhim.

Skip Larsen.

A man I’m strangely fascinated with. A man I barely know…

Skip

I want to sleep with this woman, so bad. So fucking bad. I’m no saint, I want to invade her beautiful body, make her scream out my name as she comes in my arms, I want all of that. I want all ofher. And I think she wants me, too. I can see it in her eyes, the way she smiles, the way her hand brushed against mine just now as she reached for her drink. And I’m no gentleman, either. I want her in the worst way, the need to see her naked underneath me is all consuming, but I’m not rushing this. She’s one I’m notwilling to scare off. When I live this side of my life I have to play the gentleman. The kind of man women like this want, not the tough-talking, tattooed biker they’d more than likely cross the street to avoid.

“Do you have any children, Sofia?”

She frowns. Have I asked too personal a question here? We’re supposed to be getting to know one another, so I would’ve thought that was a perfectly reasonable question to ask.

“I have a daughter. Ana. She’s twenty-two.”

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