Anna was dressed in a short plaid skirt and a plain white blouse, sitting across from him at his favourite café. Was she deliberately teasing him, attempting to embody the very fantasy of a seductive schoolgirl? Despite the angelic innocence suggested by her wide blue eyes, he would not put that completely past her. Her buttons were undone just enough to tease, to leave him wanting to tear at least one off.
In any case, she was no schoolgirl. More annoyingly, she was not even a collegegirl any longer. A matter Ethan intended to remedy by any means available to him.
He focused back on their conversation on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. "Honestly, Anna? I never enjoyed the star-crossed lovers."
The summer sun highlighted strands of her blonde hair just right as she tilted her head in that curious way he loved. She looked at him with singular focus and intent. At a moment such as this, she was his alone.
"But their passion, the forbidden--"
"It's a beautifully written piece," he said dismissively "but I have no patience for two stupid teenagers' fumbling attempts at romance incorrectly labelled as love."
He subtly swept his gaze over her chest, her cute white bra visible beneath the thin cotton shirt and under the sun's exposing rays. He hoped he was subtle, because he was simply unable to stop himself.
"It's meant to be Shakespeare's romantic masterpiece!"
"You may have your own opinion." He raised his dark brows, his tone playfully suggesting that she required his permission to form her own opinion.
She looked up at him beneath her eyelashes. The minx. She must know what she was doing to him. "You know," she mock whispered. "They got on my nerves sometimes too." She smiled mischievously.
Beautiful smile. He said quietly to himself "But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?" Perhaps Romeo and Juliet wasn't completely intolerable rubbish.
"Pardon?"
"I said, I knew there was a reason you were my favourite student. Excellent taste, as it happens to match up with mine." He paused. "Anna." He leant forward from his laconic pose, placing his hand on the table. "I wanted to see you and meet up for coffee even though you've dropped out of university now because you made me a promise."
He caught Anna's eyes flicking to his wedding ring. "Wh-Promise?" She replied, her voice slightly high and wavering.
He relaxed, smiled. "You said you'd show me your writing."
"N-now?"
"Then when? Yes."
"I, ah. It's at home. You could've told me, I would've brought it."
He threw down the money for their iced coffees and stood up. "Let's go."
Anna hesitated, looking up at him. She knew no one was at home. A dark female intuition warned her this was a defining, dangerous moment. Maybe even a crossroads in life.
A certain recklessness ceased her. She made her decision, standing up.
~*~
Nervousness had Anna's hands unsteady as she unlocked the door and entered into her home. She felt Mr. H's tall, dark presence behind her. Unlike other tutorial leaders at the uni, he had insisted he be formally addressed by the university students.
He closed the door behind him, his eyes never leaving her. There was an intensity to his gaze there she had only caught glimpses of before.
Suddenly, he'd grabbed her and her back was to the door. He looked down at her. She was a deer frozen in headlights, her breath coming in rapid pulls.
"You're such a tease, Anna." Deliberately, he locked the door. "Your little teasing looks. Your staying behind and endless excuses to chat with me." His eyes were drawn to her biting her lower full pink lip, nervously. "I'm going to give you what you want from me." He held her by hair, tugged so that he had better access, so that she knew who was in charge. "Don't resist me." He kissed her, hard and merciless and invading her.
He could tell she was pretty inexperienced and he was loving it. Loving the idea of completely corrupting her. Making her his. Loved taking what she was naively offering, without exactly knowing what she was asking for in her unsophisticated naiveté.
He ended the kiss. She was flushed, overwhelmed, her pupils dilated. He could tell she was not completely aware, both from shock and guilty attraction.
Anna had wanted him for so long. She couldn't believe he'd returned any of her desire. But she didn't picture him being like this with her in her childish fantasies.
"Your writing." Ethan's familiar sardonic tone brought Anna back from her shock. "Go."
Not knowing what to do with herself, she mindlessly obeyed. She found herself digging out her writing from the locked drawer in her desk, in her bedroom, without quite remembering getting there.
"Read to me." His voice, darker and deeper than usual, from her doorway. He'd followed her and she hadn't realised that in her scrambled state of mind. "Sit." He nodded up at her bed. He quickly looked around at her room, briefly pausing when he saw the bookshelf. Then he took up residence at the window, waiting, looking out. Apparently indifferent.
She hesitantly began to read, sitting on her bed. He listened to her for a while. Her beautiful sweet voice, mature for her age, but still unformed revealing her youth. Erotic and vulnerable all at once.
She felt helpless, nervous. What did he have in store for her? If he had anything in store for her. One moment he was almost violent and the other aloof. Perhaps that hard kiss was the totality of what he was going to do. Did she want more? "... and so Charlise finally accepted that her husband had to leave their little village to obey the call to arms. She sadly kissed him goodbye, wondering whether--"
He turned to her sharply. She stopped, startled at his sudden movement.
"Repeat that." He said, roughly.
"She sadly kissed—"
"Who were you thinking about?"
"Who?" she parroted, stupidly. "Um. The character—"
He moved toward her, his hands on the bed either side of her, looking down at her, forcing her to lean back slightly. "No. Who were you honestly thinking about then?"
"I-"
His stare was intense. "I know. We both know. The kiss. Who do you think about kissing? Admit it."
She looked at him, mute.
"Admit it." The atmosphere between became further charged with each moment.
A mere whisper. "You." She couldn't believe she'd come out with it.
