Page 9 of Love Complicated

Ridge, eager for me, moved his mouth down my throat, his arms around me keeping me securely on his lap. They clung to me tighter, straining me on his erection as he shifted his hips to meet mine again.

His hands slipped under my dress, an indication he didn’t want to stop, his palms slipping farther until they reached my underwear and yanked hard as they ripped from my body.

Ridge didn’t stop touching me. “Please let me.” His voice was just as rough as his breathing and movements. “Make me forget everything else.”

I didn’t breathe or say a word. I wasn’t sure I could. I didn’t want to say no. Scared, if I did, he would push me away.

Pulling my hair to the side, he used his teeth on my neck, barely brushing but enough to make me moan, his lips hovering over my ear. “Please?” It was then I noticed he was crying again silently, begging, loving, but it didn’t matter.

I could feel him against me, hard, straining against his jeans. My hands moved from his shoulders to grasp my dress. “We shouldn’t.”

Carefully he grabbed my hips and turned us, laying me across the seat. His knees spread my legs. All the while, his eyes were on mine, dark, pleading, and hurting.

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.” I didn’t. I had no real answer for him. Did I want him? Yes, I did. But I was scared the way I wanted him would be different than the way he wanted me.

He planted his right hand firmly on the back of the seat, his other rested by my head as he tried to maneuver himself closer. The muscles in his chest flexed and contracted with each movement. His legs moved, trying to gain room we didn’t have in the front seat of his car. “I don’t know isn’t an answer, Aly.” Meeting my stare, his eyes were regretful, on edge.

When I didn’t answer, he sighed, shaking his head, hands trembling, but said nothing more. Pressing his weight forward, his hips connected with mine again, his eyes dropped between my legs, watching.

I thought a lot of things in that moment: innocence, childhood, love, kisses under the grandstands, dancing in the red clay caked to our feet, sunrises, sunsets, rain, summer, tortured, pleading dark eyes, the roar of a sprint car, the taste of first love and this tormented boy who was crazy enough to burn down the town to prove a point.

With the window down, the rain pelted my face as I looked for something in Ridge. Something that would indicate he felt as much for me as I did for him.

I was scared of the control he had over me and of the desire I couldn’t let go of. Scared of where this was going and scared to love someone like Ridge.

Steadying his weight, his hips shifted again, shaking. Leaning down a little closer, flushed cheeks, I could taste the blood from his lips on mine as he kissed me hard but slow, deep, speaking for his desire he hadn’t let go of. I closed my eyes, trying to calm myself down, my hands slipping from his shoulders from the rain soaking us.

When he gave me all his weight, I panicked. “Ridge.” Pushing against his shoulders, I hesitated again. “I can’t do this.”

While his body hovered over me, he didn’t pull away. “Why not? Give me one good reason why you don’t want me.”

“What is this?” I hated how young I sounded, how pathetic the words felt leaving my lips. As if Ridge could love me. I hated how desperately I wanted him in that way, though I had no understanding of what it actually meant to have sex or the connection. I was fifteen. I didn’t know much of anything, other than the fact that I was madly in love with the town delinquent.

He showed me something, an emotion deep inside of him. Ugly as it was, it changed everything. “I only want to fuck you.”

I flinched at his words. “You don’t want to be with me?”

His words didn’t match his expression when he said, “No. I don’t.”

That was ugly, wasn’t it? Imagine being me!

Inhaling deeply, I force my shaking hands to remain steady on the wheel, though inside the rejection still weighs heavy on my heart. I take another deep breath, thinking about my fifteen-year-old self, alone that night, doubled over in my bed, erratic heartbeats with no one to look after my heart but me.

And yet he still. . . after ten goddamn years, Ridge still evokes emotions I’veneverbeen able to control in his presence. His voice, that bone-dry tone that lingers long after I speed away from the near slaying, much like it always had.

I haven’t seen Ridge since he left that same night. Henry, his cousin who’s married to my cousin, said he was working construction down in Santa Barbara and teaching natural history tours to camp kids. Other than that, nothing but silence, and especially no contact with me, the girl he left behind. I wasn’t sure if it was Ridge’s intention to leave that night he stole the car, but it sure was surprising, for me at least.

When Ridge left, I never got an answer as to why he said those things to me that night. A question a girl like me needs an answer to. And I’ll admit, part of me thought maybe after all this time I would finally get my answer.

The thing is, I wanted to see him again as much as I never wanted to. You heard what he said. But then again, I didn’t believe him. I knew the boy I fell in love with, and he didn’t mean what he said.

I tried to find him once. I drove down to Santa Barbara with Brie when I got my license, but I never did find him. I didn’t know what I’d find or how he would react to me, so I went back home and tried to forget. Eventually I started dating Austin, his stepbrother, telling myself I’d never fall for the bad boy again, but I never forgot about Ridge. I couldn’t. His memory haunted me. Part of me, the part that was still holding on to those eyes and that smart-mouth, couldn’t let go completely.

I know what you’re thinking now. Don’t worry, I didn’t think you’d miss that little breadcrumb of detail, but yes, Austin and Ridge are stepbrothers.

Though I met Ridge first, I became friends with both of them growing up and believe me, they’re nothing alike. Ridge was the trouble-maker, always into something, provoking and determined to piss off everyone, but always able to talk his way out of it.

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