STOLEN SMILE

CATERINA

"I can resist anything except temptation."

-Oscar Wilde

†*******†

THERE COMES A POINT IN life when you know that what you want to do is wrong, and you have to decide whether to avoid the temptation or do it anyway.

I was doing it anyway.

Jennifer's words should have left a puddle of dread in my stomach. However, they had the opposite effect-sinking into my skin and sending a breathless shiver all the way to my toes.

She was rude, arrogant, and slightly psychotic.

The logical part of me didn't like her. But the carnal part-God, did it want to give her anything she wanted.

Which was a serious problem.

Only made all the more serious by the fact that her statement had sounded suspiciously like jealousy. The idea had left a thrill behind even as she slammed the door in my face.

It left a dangerous, dangerous desire to know for sure.

What I was doing was manipulative and slightly juvenile, but I didn't have time to spare. I wanted this new man's interest and I wanted it fast. Although, I might have been challenging the possibility of Jennifer's jealousy more than anything.

I had to know if this wasn't embarrassingly one-sided.

I didn't know what I would do with the results, but I wasn't thinking that far ahead. All I knew was that I needed to know.

So I was testing it.

Teasing it.

Taunting it.

It included a bathing suit, a scene inspired by Fast Times at Ridgemont High, minus the nudity unfortunately, and a certain female's attention.

Water dripped down my body as I pulled myself out of the pool, wrung my hair out, and sat on a lounge chair.

A light breeze blew through the yard, and the radio played seventies rock quietly. As I leaned back on my hands and let the sun warm my skin, I realized I was as weak as my face was symmetrical.

What I was doing could have been innocent enough, but why I was doing it was for all the wrong reasons.

I'd wanted to swim before Christian, Jennifer, and Papà came out to sit at the patio table with paperwork before them, but it became a priority after I'd noticed they had.

I wore a light pink one-piece. Papà would kill me if I strutted around in a bikini while he had guests over. But I liked to push it, especially because it was the only thing I could get away with. It was the most risqué one-piece I owned, with only two strings crisscrossing my back, and it was slightly too small, the fabric often riding up my ass.

Papà sat with his back to me, Christian at the end of the table, and Jennifer facing me. The latter's gaze was warm and thrilling each time it touched my skin. She leaned back in her chair and tapped her pen on her papers, her eyes coasting to me every once in a while.

I didn't know what I was doing. I'd never tried my seductive wiles before now. Before I met Jennifer, I only wanted to be as inconspicuous as possible.

Truly, I wasn't acting on rational thought.

I was running on some kind of innate feeling that pulsated in my chest and manipulated my actions.

Occasionally, Christian would glance my way, though it was more detached, as if he appreciated a woman's form but that was all. I guessed I would have to win him over with my personality, then. Cop or not, he was intriguing enough to get to know. With Christian, the darkness lingered under the cold, whereas Jennifer wore her on her sleeve. I wasn't sure which was worse.