Excerpt from Forever Elude Me by Ava Zavora
... He turns to me suddenly, his body touching mine. "Why do you think I’ll do this to you?" he asks as he bends down.
"Stop!" I say as I push him off. "I’ll kill you."
He is startled by my violence, but not frightened. He is clearly amused by my anger and distress. Apparently, I am reacting in a favorable way. Or perhaps no matter what I say, the fact that I haven’t left his side, the fact that I am still following him, however reluctantly, bodes well for what he wants.
"Kill me?" he repeats softly.
He tries to draw me to him again, not forcefully, but as if he is playing with me. All the tension he displayed in the café has vanished now that he’s told me, and he can be carefree and playful again.
"You can’t touch me." I say. "If you don’t touch me and I don’t touch you, then it’s still innocent." I know how ridiculous my logic is, but I am still clinging to any fiction, however flimsy, that allows me to be with him. "Isn’t it?"
"Yes." I can tell he’s not listening to a word I’m saying. I’m not listening either.
"Then don’t touch me."
Still smiling, he places a hand on the back of my neck and a finger touches a nerve, a highly sensitive part I didn’t know I had and a thrill of pleasure shoots through my entire body, making me gasp involuntarily.
"Oh," I say as I look at him astonished. "Now you really, really can’t touch me."
"Why?" he asks. My face, my body, nothing can hide what he has just done to me.
"Because," I groan as I try to walk away. I stop walking and look at him. "You’re driving me crazy," I say helplessly. "Do you know that?"
He doesn’t say so, but I can tell from the way he is smiling at me, at the expectant, territorial look on his face that I am no match. This man’s got me and he knows it.
He tries to pull me to him again and I say as firmly as I can, which isn’t very firm, "You cannot touch me. If I go with you, then you must not touch me. That’s the only way."
He nods his head, but doesn’t say okay. I don’t know how to wipe that victorious smile off his face.
"Do you not like it when I touch you?" he asks, knowing full well the answer. I look at him, stupefied and unable to deny anything when I am so transparent.
