Tainted Innocence

Chapter VI

And here it is: Chapter VI. I hope you'll enjoy reading it. :)

Chapter VI

At first Jeremiah Valeska simply hadn't noticed the subtle changes in his best friend's body. He'd always been too focused on his school career and later his studies to become aware of the fact that Lynn had stopped being the ten- year- old girl he became friends with.

Which was why the dinner party his parents held to celebrate his graduation from university came as such a shock to him.

Whenever they met, she wore washed out jeans and oversized hoodies under whose hoods she liked to hide her long, light brown hair.

Now, though, seeing her dressed in an emerald green evening gown that hugged her body in all the right places made him suddenly very aware of the woman she had become.

He found it hard to breathe.

Had she always been so beautiful?

"Are you alright?", she asked as she sat next to him, bending forward a bit to pull her chair nearer to the table, and thus giving him a perfect view of her cleavage. His throat constricted, and his mind was flooded with an array of unwelcome thoughts...

"Jeremiah?"

"Yes,", he hastened to answer while his eyes landed on her lips. He promptly found himself trying very hard to stop thinking of how kissable her full lips looked. "I'm alright. I... I just... can't hold my liquor, I think.", he stuttered like an idiot. This lie for sure didn't go as smoothly as he'd intended. Jeremiah flinched.

"You had one glass of champagne.", Lynn remarked nonplussed and blinked.

How long her lashes were... These big Bambi eyes.

Jeremiah shuddered and felt himself blushing instantly. Fortunately, he was spared an answer since dinner was served.

Dinner didn't give him the peace he'd hoped for, though. It rather felt like he was swallowing rocks instead of a perfectly done steak. Sitting so close to her did things to him he hadn't thought to be possible. He tried to avoid looking at her which wasn't exactly easy as she expected him to engage in her conversation about school. Even focusing on her eyes, what he thought was a safe option to save him from any embarrassment, proved to be almost painful, for he feared to get lost in the whiskey-brown that was sprinkled with golden flecks.

His inner turmoil didn't go unnoticed for his foster mother addressed him worriedly during dessert.

"Xander, dear. You look like you're about to be sick. Do you need to lie down a bit?"

Grateful for the excuse to flee from Lynn's suffocating presence, he stood up abruptly, knocking his chair over in the process.

"Indeed I do, mother. Don't worry, though. I think I'll be okay soon enough. This day was a bit energy-sapping." He bent down to pick up his chair.

"Do you want me to come with you?", Lynn piped up, rising from her seat, and bending down to help him. Looking up a bit, his eyes unintentionally landed on her snowy-white, full breasts again. Something stirred in his loins. Horrified Jeremiah tried to prevent what seemed to be almost inevitable.

"NO.", he practically yelled, making his parents wince with a start and the Parkers gasp.

"No.", he repeated more softly this time.

By now Jeremiah was sweating profusely, hoping beyond hope that he would make it out of this situation without losing his face in front of his foster and his best friend's parents.