Escalation Clause Read Online Free PDF

kept refusing to let him do any more than grope and kiss he had literally left her stranded in Fuller Park, her expensive dress a wrinkled mess, her carefully coiffed self melting into the grass from embarrassment. She’d walked to the nearest payphone, located in the emergency room of University of Michigan Hospital, across the street from the park. Jack had already come home from his last year of college before heading to Chicago for law school. He’d picked her up, face set in hard lines at the sight of her.
    She’d sobbed all the way to the house, but he had helped her sneak in without waking their father. He’d sat with her as she finished her blubbering, held her close, then gripped her arms and held her at arm’s length his voice firm. “Tell that asshole that if he comes near you again, I will fucking castrate him, then maybe kill him, or maybe just let him walk around dickless the rest of his life. I am serious, Mo, as a heart attack.” She’d nodded and leaned into his neck, never more grateful to have her big brother.
    By the following week, the supposed boyfriend was back, flirting in his jockish, annoying way. She’d clutched her books to her chest, stood with her friend Denise and delivered Jack’s message. He had backed away, laughing nervously. But, Jack had some measure of fame in the halls of Huron High, as a former star track and basketball player—a jock with a serious brain, the magna cum laude graduate of his class. So, she never encountered the jerk again. And, now, in a perverse reversal of logic, she was lonely. Although vowing she’d not surrender her virginity to a guy like him, she missed having someone around, paying attention to her. She sighed, swung her feet in the water, watching the fireflies dance overhead. Maybe she’d never lose it, never find anyone worthy. God knows Jack had made that clear to her—no one ever would likely be good enough for his baby sister.
    When a stream of ice-cold water hit her right in the nose, she tried to hold back the scream as she rolled over, the fight or flight instinct making her heart pound. She squinted into the darkness. “Denise?” Crickets and light traffic noises covered her whisper. She took a step forward, somehow knowing what she’d find. Strong arms grabbed and held her close; she pressed her face into the bare chest of Brandis Taylor, her brother’s best friend, fellow charmer of women, track star, member of the Air Force ROTC, and recent graduate of the University of Michigan. He held her close, nearly a split second too long, his lips on her hair, her cheek. She pulled out of his embrace and wiped her eyes.
    “Cut it out.” She insisted, pretending not to notice that he wore nothing but running shorts and shoes, his sleek brown torso shining with sweat in the moonlight. He smiled, made as if to run a finger down her face, then lifted the squirt gun and got her square between the eyes once more before taking off across the field of the elementary school adjacent to his back yard. “You asshole!” She ran after him grabbing a couple of tennis balls and heaving them at his disappearing, broad shoulders. Another stream of water hit her in the chest, soaking her T-shirt. “Damn you.” She gasped, slowing to a walk then stopping, hands on her waist. She crept sideways, hoping he’d circled back, and was about to hit one of the large trees that lined the field and clamber up into it when she was tackled, knocked to the ground and rolled around in the dry grass, being tickled until her eyes streamed with tears. “Stop! Uncle! Seriously!” She gasped, and finally he did.
    He pulled her to her feet and up onto his shoulders in a fireman’s carry, swatting her ass all the way back to his house. She ignored the instant burn in her core at his touch, reminding herself this was her brother’s “bad boy” friend. Damned if it didn’t feel good being carried in the dark over his strong back which she pretended to smack but in