How to Ruin Series Part 22

"We can kiss, can't we?" I say as I graze my lips down his neck.

"Yeah," he says in a strained, low voice, "we can kiss."

I don't want him to think about my age right now. I want him to enjoy the time and the kissing. Especially the kissing. I press my open lips to his, because I can't imagine right now not touching my lips to his. He deepens the kiss and I follow, only barely aware we've changed positions and are now lying down side by side.

Okay, I've never in my sixteen (almost seventeen) years felt like this before. It's as if I've crossed the bridge from being a girl to a woman just by experiencing the strange, unfamiliar, steamy sensations deep in my body. My bodily reactions have intensified tenfold as my knight with an Israeli accent caresses my back. I feel like I'll die if we stop and I sense he feels the same.

"I'm going to remember tonight when I'm in basic training," he says as he nips my earlobe. "When they try and wear me out, I'll recall this moment and get through it."

My body feels like it's enduring sweet torture and I want to learn everything about Avi and his body right now. I grab his head to bring it closer to me and then I caress his body with my fingertips. Our lips and mouths are exploring each other's and our hands are doing the same.

When I touch his back, his muscles tense beneath my fingers. My hand moves around to the front of his shirt and I pull the material up to feel his smooth skin and hard six-pack against my hand. His heart is beating fast; I can feel it pumping in an erratic rhythm.

Moving my hand lower, I reach the waistband of his jeans and glide my index finger inside the band. Slowly, my fingers move downward.

Avi groans softly and gently takes my hand and guides it away.

"We can't . . ." he says.

"Why not?" I ask breathlessly, still reeling from our intense kisses. I feel drunk (although I've never been drunk, I can sure guess how it feels) and out of control.

"Besides the fact your aba would kill me?"

Great, my dad's not even here and still he's able to ruin my life.

"I don't care about what Ron thinks."

"You may not," he says as he sits up.

"But I do. I don't want either of us to regret anything tomorrow."

I sit up, too. "I won't regret anything."

Ever.

He kisses me on the top of my forehead.

"Let me take you to your room. It's getting late."

25.

Approach me at your own risk.

"Boker tov," Avi says good morning to me in the breakfast buffet line the next morning. He leans forward to kiss me, but I pull away.

"What's wrong?" he asks.

Duh! He totally rejected me last night.

"Nothing."

I continue to place whatever is in front of me on my plate. I barely realize it's this creamy stuff with whole pieces of little sardiny-like fishes inside (with the silver scales attached, thank you very much). It is DEFINITELY not like sushi. It's gross, but now that I've put it on my plate, I'm going to have to stare at it while I eat.

Before I can add more to my plate, Avi grabs the dish out of my hand and puts it on the nearest table.

I put my hands on my hips. "Hey! That's my breakfast."

I realize I'm making a scene. I don't care.

He grabs my hand and leads me toward the exit. "It'll wait. We need to talk."

He leads me into the lobby and out the front doors. A blast of steamy, hot desert air smacks me in the face.

"Okay, talk. Before I melt, please."

He rubs his eyes in frustration. Next thing you know he'll be running his fingers through his hair.

He looks straight at me and says, "You think last night I stopped things from getting out of hand because I didn't want to be more intimate with you?"

"Bingo," I say sarcastically. "But I'm wiser this morning and won't throw myself on you anymore. Besides, it's not like we were going to have s.e.x or anything."

"Where you and I go physically, our emotions are starting to follow. I can't deal with that."

"You're right. G.o.d forbid we should be emotional people. We should just call ourselves 'friends with benefits.' Or, better yet, why don't we just call this whole thing off so you can find another girl to be non-emotional with," I say as I head back inside before my armpits get damp through the shirt I'm wearing. In hindsight, I'm glad I decided to borrow Snotty's tank top.

"You are so stubborn," he says.

I turn around and face him before I reach the door. "I am not."

"Amy, you're the most stubborn person I've ever met. You play games in your mind and create drama that isn't there just to p.i.s.s everyone off, including yourself."

I just stare incredulously at him.

He takes my hands in his. "Look at me."

When I don't he says again, "Look at me."

I raise my eyes and look into his, which are wide and sincere.

"I wanted more last night," he says.

"Don't lie to yourself and think I didn't. I beat myself up about a million times after I left you. Believe me, I want you to throw yourself at me. But this thing between us is more serious than we're admitting to each other. You're leaving in a couple of weeks whether I want you to or not. And I'm going into the army for three years."

I can't argue his points, so I just stand there staring into his brown eyes.

He lets go of my hands and says, "You want to call it off right now, just say the word."

Then he just stalks back into the hotel and leaves me here in the hot desert heat, sweaty armpits and all.

d.a.m.n. Why does Avi have to be so logical about everything? I hate being logical. But I'm too hot to have an att.i.tude and realistically Avi is right. We're getting too attached already.

Slowly I walk back into the hotel and enter the restaurant. Avi is sitting down at a table, talking to his friends. There's an empty seat next to him with my plate on the table in front of it.

I know for a fact I don't want to end it with him right now. I want to keep this thing going for as long as possible.

Our eyes meet and he gives me a short smile. The problem is everyone else is looking at me, too. Okay, I guess I deserve it for causing a scene. I want to cringe in embarra.s.sment, but I hold my head high and sit down next to him.

I avert my eyes from everyone around us, including Avi. But when he reaches for my hand under the table and gives it a squeeze, I squeeze back. I can handle this relationship I tell myself. Even with its ups and downs.

"Have you ever been to an alpaca farm?" Ofra asks me.

"What's an alpaca?" I ask.

"It looks kind of like a llama," Avi answers.

"Cool."

Ofra pats me on the back. "We're going right after breakfast so make sure you're ready."

By ten in the morning, we're parked at the entrance to the alpaca farm. Then we pay for bags of food to feed the tall, furry animals with long necks. I expect the alpacas to be in cages, but they're all running around. We actually walk into the large enclosure with them.

I regard the alpacas warily. They're all shades of brown, red, black, and tan. And their bottom teeth are so huge they look like alpaca hillbillies.

I watch avidly as Avi holds out a handful of food for a large speckled gray and black one. It eats it straight from his palm.

"Watch out," I warn. "He could bite your hand off with those ma.s.sive buck teeth of his."

"They're harmless," he says. "They won't bite you. Try it."

I look at the brown bag of food I've just paid ten sheckels for. Ten sheckels for the risk of getting a huge buck alpaca tooth in your palm. No thank you very much. I walk up to a small baby alpaca and just pet it. Its fur is soft, but a bit wiry. And I laugh when she looks at me with her big gunmetal eyes and large underbite. My orthodontist, Dr.

Robbins (otherwise known as Miracle Worker to his patients), could have a field day with this animal.

I feel like I can try and feed this one because it's small. And she looks at my brown bag the way I look when I see a good sushi restaurant. I reach in the bag and pull out some 'feed'. The little b.u.g.g.e.r can't even wait for me to situate the stuff in my hand before she noses it with her face and scoops it all up with her choppers.

"Hey, don't you have any manners?"

The alpaca starts chewing the food in a very unladylike manner; little pieces of food are falling out of her mouth with each chew.

"Watch out," Ofra says as she walks up behind me.

"For what?" I step back several steps, away from the animal. "Avi . . . Avi told me they're harmless."

"They are," Moron chimes in. "But they spit."

"Whad'ya mean, 'they spit'?" I say, moving farther back away from the buck- toothed spitter.

"Well," Snotty says. "It's more like a loud growling-like burp, then spit. At least they give you warning."

As if having the small alpaca after my brown bag wasn't enough, once they hear me close my bag the noise alerts about ten of the large ones and they come after me, too.

"I'm not an animal person," I say as I run toward Avi. "I'm not an animal person," I chant repeatedly until I reach him.

"They love you," Avi says. "Look, they're all following you."

I place the brown paper bag with the 'feed' (what exactly is inside this stuff to make it 'feed'?) into his hand and hide behind him.

The fearless Avi takes the whole bag and dumps it into one of his palms. As he feeds the things, I hear what Snotty was talking about . . . this loud growl-like burping sound. I crouch farther behind Avi in fear.

"s.h.i.t," I hear him say.

"What?" I can't see anything because I'm still behind him.

"It got me."

"Who got you?"

He turns around and I see, stuck in Avi's hair, a s...o...b..r-phlegm spot with little pieces of chewed-up 'feed' inside it.

"Ew, gross!" I say, stepping away from him.

"I got spit on trying to protect you from it."

"You're my hero, now get away from me. It's totally grossing me out," I say, then laugh at him.

"It wasn't that long ago I washed the snake off your foot. That was pretty nasty.

Now give me a kiss," he says, moving toward me.

I hide behind a laughing Ofra. "I did not ask you to kiss me after the snake incident."

He stops. And looks so cute all 'feed'

encrusted and vulnerable. I walk up to him, keep my distance, and pucker so it's just my lips touching his. Then I pull back.

"Now you have to wash your hair." Then I add, "Twice."

26.