Crossing the Line by Simone Elkeles

Author:Simone Elkeles
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers
Published: 2018-05-07T04:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Three

Ryan

I can’t believe I agreed to be Dalila’s escort. What the hell was I thinking? It’s not like I don’t want to go with her. I just don’t know if I can be physically close to her without falling into something dangerous. As I lead Dalila inside the gym, I wonder how tangled up I am in her world of deception and power.

I just have to resist the pull she has on me. I have to keep my distance, literally and figuratively.

As we pass the boxing ring on the way to my room, she stops. “I think it’s really cool that you’re a boxer,” she says.

“Most girls I know hate boxing,” I tell her. “They think it’s brutal. You go in the ring and fight other guys and get sweaty and gross. Even after you shower, you can’t wash off the cuts or bruises.”

“Speaking of showers,” she says. She twirls her hair around her finger. “I think I need one.”

I cock an eyebrow. “You need a shower?”

“Yeah. Why? What’s the problem? It’s the end of the day and I feel gross.”

“There’s no problem. Come on,” I say, leading her to the lone bathroom in the place. “I’ll stand guard to make sure nobody bothers you, although we’re the only two people here. Nobody else trains this late.” I haven’t even seen the manager dude, Ocho, for a few days. “But just in case, I’ll stand outside the door.”

“Thanks,” she says, slipping past me as she enters the bathroom with her purple bag in tow.

I stand guard, leaning against the doorjamb. If I were another guy, I’d have made a move on her already. Hell, maybe in the past I would have been that guy. Then I hear the shower turn on.

My mind isn’t as chivalrous as I’d like it to be, because suddenly visions of her naked body being sprayed by the showerhead enter my brain. Images of her soaping her breasts and stomach and lower. If I were in there with her, I’d offer to . . .

Oh, hell.

Now my body is reacting, willing and ready to be called into action.

There won’t be any action, I tell myself. There would be consequences.

Like expectations that I could never meet.

Like commitments that I could never keep.

Like feelings I would refuse to feel.

This is torture.

I groan and bang the back of my head against the wall. This is not what I signed up for. I’m a boxer, here in this shithole in Mexico to train. I’m not here to fantasize about some entitled, beautiful girl who wants to guilt me into escorting her to her ailing grandmother’s house.

“You okay?” Dalila’s sweet feminine voice, which suddenly reminds me of thick honey, lands on my ears. I swallow hard as she appears wearing a small towel from the gym. A towel! Is she kidding me? Does she realize that I’m an eighteen-year-old guy?

Sure she does. She knows exactly what she’s doing. Manipulation, plain as day, is what’s going on here.

“Put your clothes on,” I say in a monotone voice, unwilling to give her any satisfaction.

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