Summary: He desires the unattainable.


Crave

*.*

Leah is the most beautiful girl Paul has ever seen.

He wishes he could pinpoint the exact day that she morphed from a little tomboy with a backwards baseball cap, chasing the guys around the neighborhood begging to be allowed into their pickup games down at the park, into a woman. But it just happens one day — he looks over and she has curves and flirty eyes and a smile like sunshine.

But Paul clearly isn't the only one who notices, because before long she has a skinny white boyfriend tailing after her, taking her out on dates and holding her hand while they stroll First Beach. Paul's boys shout at her in the courtyard, calling her coconut and names in Quileute that are far more cruel. Puffed up with the bravado of the boys, Paul strides over to her at lunch.

"You're doing the Quileute Nation a crime, doll," he purrs in her ear. "Come back to our side — I'll show you what a real man can do." His hand slides between her thighs and Leah is on her feet in an instant, head held high, long dark hair streaming out behind her. The sun highlights the apples of her cheeks and Paul has never seen her look quite so gorgeous.

"You're doing enough insulting of our race for the both of us," she spats, and plows through the crowd making her way inside the school. The boys whoop and holler and tease him. Paul scowls as he watches her go.

Later that night he stretches out in his bed and trails a hand down his stomach. He hates that even after completely shutting him down, he's more attracted to her than ever. His fingers coax himself into hardness in quick, brutal strokes. A small bottle of hand lotion that sits on his bedside table serves as lube, and the motions are so achingly familiar. But this time he forces himself to think about someone else — anyone else.

For reasons that he chooses not to dwell on, his mind settles on Bella Swan, the tiny paleface that volunteers at the Quileute school. He tells himself that it has nothing to do with the intensity of her stare when he read his assignment aloud, the only one who paid attention to him, that made him wish he had written something real. He tells himself that it's only because she's the complete antithesis of Leah. Pale where she is dark, skinny where she is curvy, long dark curls instead of pin-straight hair. That's why.

His orgasm rips out of him like the means to an end, offering little to no comfort, because at the end of the day he realizes that there is one common factor that Leah and Bella share — they are unattainable. They are too good for him, which only means that he will always want them.