Chapter Sixteen

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A/N: Okie dokie - here's the plan.  This is another unbeta-ed chapter.  All mistakes are my own.  We're shooting for a posting schedule this year of once a week or once every other.  And I'm going to let the beta catch up with these two chapters now, and get Seventeen ready, and then I'll post again.  We don't have a date for when Seventeen will go live yet, but it will be within the next few weeks.  :)



Chapter Sixteen


TPOV

I couldn’t contain my sense of contentment when I left her apartment.  I couldn’t remember a time when I’d felt this happy; or it’d been so many years, that I couldn’t remember what it felt like before.  I walked an extra eight blocks because I was so involved with my happy thinking that I basically blew past the street I needed to turn on to get to my apartment and wound up having to double back in a big square.  I thought about going to the diner and writing to Michael, to pour out on the paper the elatedness and euphoric sense of rightness that seemed to be overcoming me, but I was too jittery and excited to sit still long enough.  Instead, I sort of talked to him in my head.  And basically the entire conversation was based around the idea that I was pretty sure I was falling in love.  And the bittersweet part of it was that he wasn’t around for me to talk to about it.  My one-sided conversation with him was great for an outlet, but I couldn’t ask his advice, I couldn’t ask if he’d ever been I love, I didn’t even know if he’d felt this way about a girl; I’d been too young before he died to have these kinds of feelings.  It would be pointless talking to Aidan, regardless of how good a friend he was; Aidan didn’t really do love.  Aidan did a lot of fucking, and I have no idea how he really swung that either.  He was obnoxious and kind of annoying, but I suppose he had a certain charm.  But it wasn’t like I could sit down and have a serious conversation about it with him.  Asking my father was like the punch line to some massive cosmic joke, and it was just be weird asking my mother.  Our relationship didn’t really revolve around me asking her for love advice.  I seriously debated discussing it with Caroline, but she was really too young to burden with her screw-up brother’s love life.  

So I was pretty much on my own.  And I couldn’t come to any other conclusion.  

I was already in so far that I didn’t think surfacing was possible, and I didn’t want to.  I’d been attracted to her originally, stupefied by her attitude later, annoyed and angered, completely remorseful, and after that, I’d settled into this cozy place where everything just seemed better or right or aligned when I was with her.  I felt unbalanced when I didn’t see her.  I felt like I always left part of me there.  There was this ease to being with her that I didn’t normally find with people, much less someone I was attracted to.  

So over the course of the last few hours, I think I’d solidified that thought and feeling.  In the past, when I’d taken women home, there wasn’t a relationship there ever.  Sure, they slept in my bed and sometimes we shared it, but more often then not, I was gone long before they ever woke up; which made me basically a complete dick, but I didn’t want to get close to people.  It was easier to get the release I needed and show them a good time but not have the attachment in the morning.  I didn’t want that with Allison.  I liked feeling her next to me, pressed against me.  There was a warmth in bed with her that wasn’t there with other people; a warmth that never had been.  I suppose it was because I really felt nothing for those other women, but the pleasantness of just sharing the bed with her was sort of ridiculous.  

And when ridiculously pleasant, happy, opulent warmth was what one was feeling when simply sharing a bed space, they’d probably been smacked with the spirit of love.  

I couldn’t stop smiling, either.  I don’t know why exactly, what made today different, but I felt like she crossed some sort of barrier with me, like the trust I wanted her to have in me had been realized.  And it gave her the freedom to feel like she could really do or get what she wanted.  Just the simple showing of her mother’s picture—I felt an immense sense of gratification.  And I was gonna get her a frame for those pictures.  

It was just stupid shit like that; when I actually not only thought about, but wanted to go out and get her a frame, like, right now, that told me I’d been hit in the face with a brick of love.  I mean, who the hell wants to go out and get a frame at whatever hour of the night it was and seriously considers turning around and walking another ridiculous amount of blocks just to get one that same night?  Crazy-love-people.  

It was oddly liberating feeling this way, and still ironic that it was the most stable I’d felt in years.  It was probably odd that a relationship, which, I hadn’t even discussed with her if she considered it one, but I thought she probably did, that was highly irregular with two very… whatever kind of people we were, wound up being the thing in my life that felt most calm, most under control.  

I wasn’t even sure I had things under control in terms of the inner workings of the dynamics here.  I mean, she dictated whatever went on; I left that up to her.  And things were moving faster than I imagined.  It was sort of like when she learned to trust me, the hesitance went away.  And once she’d pushed past the first wall of things sexual, and we kept adding things slowly, now it was a snowball, and it kept getting larger the more it rolled down the hill.  I was fine with the pace; whatever it was, but I didn’t want the snowball to outpace the hill, either.  

I think she told me things she’d never told anyone else, and I felt both honored and slightly terrified by that.  Because I didn’t want to fail to have an answer for her.  And I think there was a lot in her past that I might not have an answer for.  I hoped that if that point came, my being there would be enough.  Nothing really surprised me.  I wasn’t naïve and even if I came from a different background than she did, I was well aware of what the world could be like.  So my reactions to what she told me were really important, and I’d learned my lesson the first time when she’d told me she was a stripper.  I wouldn’t make that mistake again and overreact to the point of near insanity.  I made a promise to myself, and to her without her knowing, that overreaction would not be my modus operandi, and I would try to keep understanding and rationalism at all times.  She couldn’t change her past and neither could I, and pasts didn’t need to ruin futures.  

So the reading thing didn’t shock me at all.  Every new bit of information that she gave me always seemed to fit into the larger puzzle.  And when she sort of panicked about reading aloud, I didn’t push, and I just tried to make it as easy as I could.  I think she actually enjoyed an activity that she normally loathed.  So that meant I’d done a good job.  I found I really enjoyed her questions when she asked them.  And despite what she thought, none of them were dumb.  

After dinner, I don’t think I can recall a time when I’d wanted to leave a place less.  I think she felt the same way, which made my elation level soar like some Jonathan Livingston Seagull reference that just made me seem more like a sappy, lovesick moron.  

I seriously considered telling her that I’d call in sick for work or come up with a reasonable excuse just to spend the entire day together again, but I didn’t know if suggesting that would be well received or not.  I couldn’t assume that just because she had another entire day off that she didn’t already have plans or shit to do, and that she’d set all that aside just to lie in bed with me all day.  And it wasn’t even the sex shit; which, God, I was so far gone already if I was admitting it had nothing to do with anything sexual, but it really wasn’t.  It was just being with her.  

I was in love with her and with being with her.  

~ ~ ~

It took me an hour to shelve a shipment of books that would normally have taken me fifteen minutes, and I totally caved and called her on my break.  I called under the guise of confirming our time, which was basically right after I was done with work, but I really just wanted to hear her voice and was so pathetically enamored that I couldn’t wait a few hours to hear it live.  

I didn’t bother going home after work; I just went straight to her apartment.  I still had my fucking nametag on when I knocked on her door and I really don’t think she noticed.  I was basically leaning in the doorway before she opened the door and the second it was open, I was through it, and I felt that sense of calm just settle over me along with some seriously amped hormones.  I couldn’t really reconcile how I could feel completely relaxed and at ease with her and still completely horny and crazy and excited at the same time.  All of those didn’t seem to relate well together, but it was just the way I felt.  The newness of everything with her, the feeling of her body under my fingers and her lips crashing into mine; it was seriously blissful intoxication.  

So basically two minutes in the door, I wanted to help her lose clothing and have her halfway to orgasm inside the next five, but fucking Jordan always seemed to have impeccably horrible timing.  

“So, can I call you lover boy yet?” she asked as we jumped away from each other like we’d been caught by our fucking parents.  Christ.  

I almost couldn’t even answer her back because Allison was wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and her lips were all swollen and my eyes were drawn only there and my brain was totally connected to only my dick and nothing else.  Fuck.  Focus.  I cleared my throat, stepping back closer to Allison. “You really gotta a new line, Jordan.  That one’s getting old.”

“Still works for me,” she said smugly.

“Nah, now it’s just getting pathetic.”

“Kiss my ass, Tyler.”

“Fuck off, Jordan.”

And what’dya know, she actually did.  Allison was smirking at me and I really couldn’t help myself.  I went right back to shoving my tongue in her mouth and sucking her lip in between mine, and there was zero resistance on her part.  She seemed to be as happy to see me as I was to see her.  I slowed the kisses, trying to remember that we had dinner to get to, and that we didn’t have to be all over each other every minute and I think she actually whimpered when I pulled back.  

I smiled. “Did you decide where you wanted to go for dinner?”

She sighed at me. “Ugh.  Yeah.”

I snorted. “We’ll get back to that.”

She nodded. “Right.  Yeah.  Uh, I thought maybe Italian.  There’s a place right around the corner that has really great food.”

“Great.  Grab your jacket.  Let’s go.”

~ ~ ~

The walk over was blessedly short; the restaurant was literally right around the corner from her apartment.  I lit a cigarette as we got to the street and I didn’t even have time to finish the whole thing.

We got a booth near the back and I ordered lasagna while Allison settled on spaghetti and meatballs.  While we waited for the food, she pointed to my shirt finally, noticing my nametag or at least acknowledging it.  “How was work?”

I grabbed the tag and took it off, wrapping it up and shoving it in my pocket.  I sighed. “I’m not sure really.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I was there, but I mostly just thought about you, so I was pretty much useless.”

She smiled for a second before the lip went behind her teeth.  “Oh.”

“What did you do today?” 

“I did a lot of that, too,” she said.  “Thought about you, I mean.”

I smiled back at her.  That was good.  Very good.

She cleared her throat as the waitress brought our drinks.  Her eyes met mine but she was waiting until she left to continue with whatever she was going to say. 

“Thanks,” I said to the waitress, completely preoccupied and clearly dismissive.  I didn’t really care though.  I nodded to Allison after she left, so she’d continue.

She shrugged slightly but there was a smirk there. “Uhm, not much, really.  I took a nap.  Tried to read a little.  Got off twice.”  She shrugged again, and actually wasn’t even looking at me when she dropped the little nugget about getting off twice.  Her mouth moved slowly down to her straw and she took a pull from her Diet Coke. 

She’d been so nonchalant about the whole thing.  Like that was just… I blinked at her, trying to sort that out.  “Wait…you… ok, first, you read without me?”  I huffed, trying for agitated and indignant and injured, but she could tell I was teasing.  “I’m so…offended.  I thought that was our thing.  And you just went on without me?”

She was smiling. “Yeah, I didn’t get very far, but I went a little bit father.”  She shrugged again.  “Wasn’t that big a deal.”

I shook my head. “Not that big a deal?  It’s awesome!  When was the last time you picked up a book before yesterday?  It’s great!”

She looked down at the table, picking up her napkin and twisting it.  “I guess it’s been a while, yeah.  It wasn’t as horrible as I remembered, but I think you had a lot to do with that.”

I smiled. “Good.”  I paused for just a second. “Then I won’t be upset that you did our thing alone.”

She shook her head, swallowing another sip of soda.  God, did she need to do that?  The straw sucking and her lips over it was not helping.  “No, something else is our thing.”  She said it quietly, but I swore now she was flirting with me.  Deliberately.  She didn’t do it a lot, but fuck, it was hot.  Plus she was throwing the hormones right back in my face, and my dick was more than happy to respond.  Heartily.

I blew out a breath slowly, trying to keep my shit under control because I really didn’t relish the idea of spending our entire dinner with a hard-on.  I decided I’d have to throw it back if I wanted to survive with any semblance of control.  “And yet you did that alone, too today…apparently.  Maybe you don’t need me at all.”

She nodded, completely unabashedly and blatant. “Twice,” she confirmed.

Fuck.  That hadn’t really worked the way I’d planned it. 

“Reading wasn’t horrible, but getting off and thinking about you was a much more relaxing use of my time.  I napped after the first one.  Didn’t really need as much thinking, or it was thinking of a different kind.  Just touching.  Imagining.  That fantasy shit is great.”

Oh, fuck.  Come on.  My breathing was picking up because she fucking knew that her telling me about it was going to make me start to imagine and envision, too.  I closed my eyes for a second and took a deep breath, but that was a bad idea because closing my eyes actually made the images sharper.  I snapped them open and started to wonder why the fuck we’d gone to dinner at all.  And I realized suddenly, when my eyes met hers, and she was fucking smug-smirking and shit, I don’t think she’d wanted to go to dinner at all.  I think she wanted to mess around with me just as much as I did with her from the second I’d stepped into the apartment.  If I had any lingering doubt, her food rubbing against my leg under the table, erased it completely.  Because her fucking shoe was missing, and she was slowly making her way up my leg and back towards my dick. 

My mouth went completely dry, and I shamelessly shifted towards the table more to help her get there faster.  Our eyes were locked like it was some kind of staring contest, and I didn’t remember her ever looking this…horny.  I mean, there was just no other word for it.  She was as horny as I was.  I was trying to keep it buttoned up, but the higher on my thigh her foot traveled, the more I was basically all-out panting at the fucking table.  My hands were flat on the surface and I could tell when I moved them they were going to leave that hazy imprint and it was all her fault. 

Her toes flexed so fucking close to my cock, inching upward, and she was almost there… just another inch or two.  Her tongue darted out to lick her lips and I fucking moaned right there at the goddamn table.  Her heel dug into my thigh and her foot arched and holyfuckingmotherofshit, her toes pressed right into the rapidly growing bulge in my jeans, and just the pressure alone and the feel of her toes bending into my dick was exquisitely wonderful.  And then the fucking waitress brought our fucking food right the fuck then.  I was so shocked that lasagna landed in front of me that my knee kicked up and hit the bottom of the table, rocking the drinks and clanging the silverware together, and her foot was just gone, and I fucking jolted back into the seat, panting. 

“Fuck,” I said, louder than I’d meant to.

“Are you ok, sir?” she asked, all concerned and looking at me strangely.

Allison started giggling and that sort of cracked me out of my anger over the goddamn lasagna.  I blew out a laugh as I watched her dissolve on the other side of the booth, her face red and her hands moving up to try to cover the laughs. 

“Fuck it,” I said, looking up at the poor waitress.  “We’re gonna need this to-go, like… yesterday.” 

“Uhm…”

Oh, she was going to try my already completely fucking horny patience.  “Just get us some containers, ok?”

“Was there something wrong with—”

“NO.  Just get us the goddamn containers.  We just need to go.”

Allison was attempting to stifle her laughter and just couldn’t seem to, and pretty soon I was just gonna leave the fucking dinner.  “Please,” I added.

Her eyebrows rose, but thankfully, for her own wellbeing, she backed up and went to get containers.  Or the manager.  I didn’t really care; I just needed us to get out of this restaurant. 

“Oh, my God, will you STOP?” I said, whispering to her, as though that was going to help anything at this point, and trying not to start laughing again with her because it was seriously contagious. 

She shook her head, waving me off, “I can’t help it!  All I can see if your face and you flying back in the seat like the fucking lasagna was gonna bite your dick off.”

I was still chuckling when the waitress brought back the containers.  “Do you want me to…” she trailed off, already anticipating my answer, I think.

“No, I’ve got it.  Just the bill, please.”

She sat it down the second after I asked.  Smart woman.  “Thanks.”

“Sure… hope you have a nice…night.”

“Oh, it will be,” I said, and Allison just started snickering again.  She was already putting her food in the container though, so while amusing, she was just as eager as I was to leave. 

I stood up and held out my hand. “C’mon, let’s go.”

She accepted my hand immediately and actually had to pull me back to get the food.  My brain wasn’t on food anymore.  We may have sort of jogged back to her apartment.  But she didn’t complain about the pace and I wasn’t dragging her along or anything, she was right alongside of me, hand gripped tight on mine.  We took her building’s stairs two at a time and the door to her apartment never looked so good.  I managed to let her tear herself away long enough to put our dinner in the fridge and then I couldn’t keep my hands to myself and by the time we actually got to her bedroom, I’d lost my flannel and halfway lost my tee shirt, and she was only in her bra which was quickly lost the second I kicked the door shut.  

Her hands were in my hair and scrambling over my shoulders before they came to rest on my chest, and I couldn’t decide which part of her I wanted to touch first.  Our mouths were already tangled together and I pulled her flush against me, groaning as the hard-on I’d only moderately lost on the way back to her apartment was back in full force with her so available now.  It was crazy that it hadn’t even been a full 24 hours since I’d last felt her like this and yet it felt like I hadn’t in years.  I didn’t think I’d ever get enough and we had so far to go yet.  

I pulled away from her mouth, moving to her neck and told her, “God, you’re all I could think about today.  All fucking day.  I was absolute shit for anything else.”

She pushed her neck into my mouth, one hand fisting in my hair, the other wrapped around my back.  “After you left last night, I wanted to call you and tell you to come back.”

I moaned into her ear. “Fuck, I wanted to stay, too.  I wish you would have.”

“Stay tonight?”

It wasn’t really a question, she didn’t phrase it as one, but I answered it anyway.  “Absolutely.”

I backed her up until her knees hit the bed and she pulled me back with her so we both ended up a tangled pile of limbs.  I rolled to the side so I wouldn’t squish her, and immediately started kissing down her chest.  I kissed over a nipple, sucking it in into my mouth as I pulled off and licked down the valley between her breasts.  I skimmed my lips the rest of the way down until I hit the waistband of her jeans, letting my hands trail behind me, palming the roundness of her breasts and flicking her nipples with my thumbs.  I ran one hand over her flat stomach and let a lone finger trace feather-light over her belly button.  

I stopped everything at the waistband, looking up at her.  “What do you want tonight?”

She didn’t hesitate at all, but her voice was scratchy and hoarse, “Your mouth.  I want your mouth on me.”

I nodded, smiling gently, my fingers hooking over the top of her jeans in the space between the material and her skin.  “Can I take these off?”

She nodded quickly, lifting her hips up and I popped the button and slowly pulled down the zipper and kind of felt like the perviest kid at Christmas, unwrapping some sexual gift.  I kneeled up to rid her of the jeans, glancing at her again for permission on her underwear, but her hips were already lifting again and she wanted them gone.  

I will admit, I was sort of hoping she’d ask for this soon.  Because I wanted to taste her, and see her, beyond the ways I’d already managed that.  I wanted the front row seat instead.  I eased the underwear off of her legs, and tossed them in some vague direction over my shoulder.  I forced myself to move back to her mouth for a bit, pushing my tongue along hers, while I rested my hand over her mound, my middle finger running up and down her slit.  Familiar with her was better before jumping into something else, even if she wanted to just jump in head first.  She was already wet, which I just couldn’t love enough, and she kept pushing herself towards my finger, so I dipped it inside, hooking it up right away since that worked so well last time, and watched as her body reacted.  I added a second finger, joining the first with pressing on her front wall and shifted my thumb up to her clit.  I loved when the orgasm snuck up on her.  She’d be happily writhing on my fingers one minute and moaning my name, her hands kneading on me, and the next her head would be thrown back, leaving the elegant column of her neck open for me to lick and suck and kiss and her lower body would be rolling on my hand while her mouth was either open on a breathless scream or moan or completely soundless.  I couldn’t decide which I liked better.  

I slid my fingers out gently, trailing her wetness up through the strip of hair over her mound and swirled it around her stomach.  Normally, that finger would have been in my mouth the second it was out of her, but I’d taste her at the source soon enough; and I liked seeing the evidence of her arousal as I spread it on her skin.  

I waited until her eyes opened and landed on me, still all heavy-lidded and satisfied.  She smiled widely at me through the satisfaction.  

“I’m gonna use my mouth now, ok?”

She nodded eagerly, the slow and sated look instantly gone.  “Please.”

I leaned over and pressed my lips to hers quickly, kissing my way down again, and I couldn’t tell if she was nervous about this or not, but I think it was more excitement and anticipation than it was the former.  By the time I was between her legs and shifting to my stomach, her head was craning up.  I smiled. “You wanna watch?”

Her lip went behind her teeth and she nodded.  

“Scoot back and use the pillows,” I suggested, waiting for her to get her head propped up.  Once she was settled, I moved closer, bending her knees and locked eyes with her. “You ready?”

“Yeah.”  She nodded.  

That was pretty much all I needed.  I made sure I touched her before just diving in with my mouth, tracing over her lips and rubbing her clit in circles with the pads of my fingers.  I wanted to be able to hold her eyes if she needed that, if it would help ground her or whatever, but I couldn’t just ignore the fact that I could see her entire pussy just laid out for me like a fucking buffet.  I had to take a few minutes just to appreciate that shit, too.  She was bare except for the strip above her mound, and the skin alongside her pussy was smooth and pink.  Her lips were completely swollen and parted, darker the more aroused she became.  Inside her lips was nothing but glistening wetness and more swollen pink flesh.  I traced through the wetness with my fingers, spreading it and massaging it into the heated skin all around her.  And I really couldn’t wait any longer, because the heat of her and the smell and everything… I had to taste her.  

I forced my eyes up to her and she hadn’t really been vocal yet, but I hadn’t really done anything that I hadn’t covered already.  She was starting to pant though, the anticipation getting to her and my looking up at her only made it worse because I think she could read the intent in my eyes.

I held her lips open and flattened my tongue starting at her opening and licked all the way up to her clit.  Her eyes squeezed shut and every muscle in her legs tightened, her lower body pushing back onto my mouth and the taste of her was completely inexpressible, but I repeated the same motion and I never wanted it to stop.  I could have tasted her forever and never been happier.  I kept my concentration on her opening and lips then, sucking her lips into my mouth and massaging them with my tongue before exploring her opening and pushing my tongue inside her.  Watching her from this angle was completely captivating because her body would jerk and respond when I did something new or she felt something new and it was like she couldn’t control the reaction at all, and I didn’t want her to.

I moved up to her clit, circling it with my tongue and wrapped an arm under her leg when she started to writhe, steadying her.  I slowly worked inward, coaxing her clit out from under its hood and smiling into her wetness when the moans started.  I think she’d been holding them back honestly and I didn’t really know why, but when I started in on her clit, she broke and out they tumbled.  I flicked my tongue against her clit, working up to more stimulation against it and chuckled when her hands started flailing for something to tether her.  When I flattened my tongue over her clit and sucked it into my mouth at the same time, she shuddered and came, her whole back bowing, and I trailed the hand not holding her to the bed up, and smiled against her again when she latched onto it like I was her last lifeline, her other hand fisting in the comforter on the bed.  

I didn’t stop though, I just kept it up, sucking her swollen clit quickly, but pulling off every time and moaned into her skin, which only made her moan louder as her body danced for me.  I pulled our hands down, because I was gonna need that hand in a second and dropped hers on my head, which may have been the best or worst idea I’d ever had because the more I did, the more she tugged at my hair and by the time I pushed two and then three fingers in her, hooking them up while I covered her clit with my mouth and flicked my tongue over it fast, rhythmic and completely direct, her hands were on either side of my head yanking while she started screaming my name.  Literally.  Apparently the volume wasn’t an issue anymore and it only spurred me on because it seemed to be the only word she could say at the moment.  

I have no fucking idea even how long I kept her there, but I couldn’t seem to tear myself away and she wasn’t stopping me either.  Her body was convulsing, and the only thing holding her to the bed was my hand.  Her hips circled and buckled and I kept my fingers in her, but stopped the continuous onslaught to her clit and slowly, her fingers lessened in my hair and her body stopped the spastic movements, rolling into gentler motions that followed my hand.  She was taking in huge gulps of air like she couldn’t get enough to stay in and I didn’t pull my fingers back until her body had settled into tremors.  

My mouth and my hand was completely covered in her and I dipped one last time to lap at the wetness that was literally just flowing out of her.  

She tugged once more on my hair, enough that I looked up at her, and she was reaching for me.  I tried to wipe the largest part of her wetness with the back of my hand, but that was mostly useless since my hand was covered in her, too, but she rolled into my chest and she didn’t seem to care.  Her entire body was trembling, like there was an electric current buzzing there, and I immediately loved when she wanted me to hold her.  

She settled eventually, the trembling falling off, and she nestled herself against my jaw, the top of her head pressing there.  I nuzzled into her hair and tightened my grip, and she let out the shaky breath, followed by a sigh that was just as shaky.  I craned my head down just before I felt wetness on my chest.  “Hey…” I said quietly.  “You ok?”

She nodded into my chest, but didn’t say anything.  

I squeezed her gently.  “Hey,” I said again, just as quietly.  

She sniffled, but she didn’t attempt to wipe the tears away or wipe them off of my chest.  I think she thought that would have meant she was ashamed of them or something, and neither of us thought that.  I gave her some time and a few minutes later she cleared her throat.  “I’m ok.”

“Ok,” I said back.  

She sighed heavily, her head pressing up into my jaw, “I’m sorry.  I…just…”  More sniffling.  “I don’t know what to do with it sometimes.  What you make me feel.”

I let that sink in for a second.  “You’ve never had a guy do that for you, huh?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Can I ask what they did instead?”

She shrugged against me. “Mostly they just got off.”

I chuckled and squeezed her again, so she’d know I was teasing, but there was an undercurrent to my question that I’m sure she’d understand.  “Who were you seeing that never got you off?  Or never gave you oral?  Did you only meet complete creeps?”

She chuckled back, but it was mostly a humorless kind.  She sighed, letting the breath out slowly. “I dunno, Tyler.  I guess.”

“Was it too much?”

“No,” she said quickly.  “It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever felt in my life.  I just can’t… sometimes I can’t deal with that very well.”

I hummed thoughtfully at her.  And tried to imagine being in any type of relationship with someone and never experiencing anything remotely…good.  It didn’t make a whole lot of sense.  What kind of selfish bastards lived in New Orleans, Texas, and Las Vegas?  I sighed, “Well…I dunno.  I hope you don’t want to stop because I plan on doing it all the time.  You’re beautiful and you taste completely fucking amazing.  So I don’t want to stop doing it to you.”  I waited for a minute but she didn’t say anything.  Hmm.  I didn’t know if I could go back to nothing oral once I’d done it to her now.  It’d be like putting a treat in front of a dog and asking the dog not to take the treat.  Ever.  At all.  Plus, she liked it.  I liked it.  Fuck.  I sighed again, but tried to keep it quiet, and the disappointment out of my voice.  “Hey, look, if it’s not something you want to do again, I’m not…” I didn’t really know what the fuck to say honestly.  I’m not going to plant my face between your legs?  That wasn’t exactly eloquent.  I’m not going to force you.  Duh.  Or I hope that would have been a ‘duh’ statement for her.  But I didn’t really want to say that I wouldn’t miss it now, or that I wouldn’t be frustrated if I couldn’t give that to her.  Shit.  It wasn’t about me though.  “If you don’t want to do it again, that’s ok.  You just have to give me a little direction then.  Because I’m not sure what you want.  I want to give you want you want.”

Aw shit.  Now she was crying again.  “Allison…”

“No, just…please, shut the fuck up.  Ok?”

She wasn’t pulling away from me, so I didn’t let her go.  “Ok.”

“Just hold me and shut up.”

So that’s what I did.  It took her less time to get herself back under control this time.  “I do want it again.  I just wasn’t expecting…”  She sighed. “This shit just makes me really fucking messed up.  Ok?”

“Yeah, ok.”  

I started rubbing her back.  She pulled back to look at me.  “Thank you.”

“For what?”

She rolled her eyes.

I smiled. “Sure.  That’s how it’s supposed to work.”

She nodded, looking down at the bed.  “Are you hungry?  I’m starving.”

“Yeah, I could eat.”

“Ok.  I’ll be right back.”  She shifted off the bed and scanned the floor for clothing.  “Can I borrow this?” she asked, picking up my tee shirt.

“Yeah, absolutely,” I said, smiling, loving the fact that it looked about four sizes too big but that she looked sexy as hell in my shirt.  And I really wasn’t sure what just happened there.  It seemed like we jumped from a really important discussion to food.  Which, I mean, I could let it go as long as she knew that she was ok, but I couldn’t help when I didn’t know what went on in her head.  

I shucked my jeans while she was gone and got under the covers, leaning against the wall and leaving her side pulled back so she could get in.  

She came in with the boxes of our dinner and two sodas, handing off one of each to me.  She didn’t say anything else and we just sort of started eating.  I didn’t know if it was better to just let it lie or bring it up again.  I went a different route instead.  

“Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah,” she said; an edge of tiredness there.  

“What do you consider us?”

She looked at me sideways.  “What do you mean?”

“I mean, like, is this a relationship to you?  Do you consider this a relationship?  Am I anything to you?”

She scoffed. “Of course you’re something to me.  What are you talking about?”

“Right, but what am I?  A friend?  A boyfriend?  Someone you just mess around with?  What am I?”

I didn’t think she was going to answer me at first.  Or she’d answer, but it would be a standard I don’t know, Tyler in that tired tone she got with me when I wanted to know her favorite something, or I asked for more than she wanted to give.  “What do you want to be?” she asked me back instead.  

“I want to be all of them.  In the scope of the boyfriend role.”

She took another bite and seemed to be considering that.  I didn’t want to touch mine again.  I didn’t really want to if this wasn’t what I thought it was.  I didn’t think I’d misread things that badly, and honestly, no matter what her answer was, I wasn’t going anywhere.  But I didn’t feel like eating more if…

“Yeah, I’d like that,” she said quietly, talking directly into her spaghetti.  “As long as you don’t mind that I’m basically a freak, and burst into tears a lot after really awesome sexual experiences.”

I snorted and took a bite of the lasagna.  She was right; they had excellent food.  And it tasted even better now.  “Better than tears because it sucked.”

She burst out laughing and I smiled as she looked over at me.  She kept the smile when she said, “I meant that.  About it being the most amazing thing.”

Well, I mean, way to stroke a guy’s ego.  “I’m glad.  Although I’ll have to do some research or something, because if you expect the most amazing thing every time, I’m gonna need some new material.”

She sighed and leaned against me.  “I think your material will be fine.”  She pointed with her fork. “How’s the lasagna?”

“It’s great.”  I held out a forkful and she moved closer so I could get it in her mouth.  

“Mmm.  You wanna try the spaghetti?”  She looked so cute, all excited to let me taste her meal still in nothing but my tee shirt.  

“Yeah, I do.”

She spent a minute swirling the noodles on the fork and getting a piece of meatball on the fork with it and then held it out to me.  It was incredibly methodical and adorable.  I nodded, chewing. “It’s good.”

We ate in silence for a few minutes, exchanging bites of food in between bites of our own.  Her eyes kept cutting to me every few seconds.  

“What?”

“Are you still staying?”

It took me a second to get what she meant.  I furrowed my brows. “Yeah, I mean, I’d like to.  Do you still want me to?”

She nodded. “Duh, yeah.”

I nodded back, smiling. “Then, yeah, I’d like to.”

She looked immensely happy about that, and more relaxed, and I could only assume it was the same reason I was.  It wasn’t always easy to tell, exactly, how she felt about things.  This one didn’t seem to need any explanation and I loved that.  

She took the rest of the leftovers out to the kitchen and poked her head back in. “Hey, I have an extra toothbrush if you want it…”

I smiled and threw the covers back to follow her.  

“Just because I know, ya know…you don’t have one…and you might…”

“It’s great.  Thanks.”

Definition of surreal: having the disorienting, hallucinatory quality of a dream; unreal; fantastic.  Also, standing in a bathroom next to Allison and brushing our teeth, smirking at each other in the mirror, around mouthfuls of toothpaste.  Me in nothing but my boxer-briefs and her in my tee shirt.  Aidan would never have to sell this girl a toothbrush; the fucking bathroom was going to be stocked with everything she could ever want or use if we were gonna start sleeping at each other’s places.  It was gonna be my first stop tomorrow.  

She hit the lights and we shucked the clothes and crawled back into bed, and sort of had this weird limbo thing again where we both were wondering how we were going to sleep.  

I smirked. “Anything I need to know about your sleeping patterns?”

Her eyebrows kicked up for a second and then down. “What do you mean?”

“Like, do I need to beware of flying limbs that might cause black eyes or kicks that will leave me with bruised shins?”

She snorted. “I don’t think so, but I guess I’m not sure.  I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever injured anyone while sleeping.”

“How do you sleep normally?”

“Uhm, I lie down and close my eyes, moron.” She snickered. “How do you sleep?  Hanging from the ceiling upside down or something?”

I chuckled. “I mean, are you a back sleeper, a stomach sleeper, side sleeper…normally…”

“Oh.”  She thought a minute.  “Honestly, I do all of those.  I don’t really pick one over the other.  I wake up in all different positions.”

I snickered.

“Shut up!”  She scowled at me.  “You asked!”

“So you’re a roller.  Hmm…”

“I’m a what?”

I chuckled. “You roll when you sleep then, I think.  I guess I’ll just have to take my chances.”

“Ya know, you’ve slept with me before, you jackass.”

“Well, yeah, but that wasn’t for the whole night.”

“You slept with me a whole night.”

I nodded. “Yeah, but that was different.”

“By the time you fucking figure out how we should be sleeping, we could be asleep already.”

I smiled. “Well, I mean, I could hold you.  Or you could sleep on my chest.  That seems to work well.”

She nodded. “Yeah, ok.”

What was that definition of surreal again?  Because I swear, we just had a conversation about what the best way to sleep with each other would be.  She rested her head on my chest and threw a leg over mine and that was kinda all she wrote.  Apparently settling in wasn’t difficult once the whole plan was in place.  

She sighed out a long breath over my chest as she settled and I would be lying completely if I didn’t think that was just about the best fucking thing ever.  Her hand was resting next to her face on my chest and I could feel her eyelashes fluttering as she blinked slowly until she closed her eyes.  The total sense of contentment was sort of remarkable.  

She pushed off my chest suddenly and sat up, looking down at me with this look of alarm.

“What?” I asked.

“Shit,” she said, shaking her head and moving a hand to rub over her face.  “I’m so sorry.”

And I was suddenly so confused.  “What are you sorry for?”

She looked down at me all incredulous like I should know this already.  “You didn’t get off!”

“Oh.”  Well, no.  “That’s ok.”

“No, it’s not!”

I waved her off. “No, really.  It’s fine.  I’m fine.”

“Do you want me to give you a handjob or something so you can get off?”

Ok, so…how does one answer that question exactly?  I mean, yes, of course I’d like a handjob.  Of course I’d like getting off.  But I didn’t need it.  “Do you want to?”

She shook her head. “That’s not what I asked you.  I asked if you wanted one.”

“Right, and I asked if you wanted to give me one.”

She huffed. “That’s no different than when you get upset with me when I don’t have a favorite or I won’t pick where we’re going for dinner.  It’s the same thing, Tyler.  That’s not an answer.”

Ok, she had a point.  Because I couldn’t expect her to give me shit like that if I wasn’t going to, too.  But…it was somehow different when she was asking me.  I never wanted to ask for something that I didn’t know if she was comfortable giving.  I mean, obviously, she was comfortable giving me a handjob; she’d given me one the previous day.  But it seemed out of place now.  And she’d been so emotional over the oral; I didn’t really want to add this to it right now.  It wasn’t like I thought she couldn’t separate the two or that she wouldn’t have wanted to right then, but…it just felt wrong.  

“Just answer it, Tyler.”

I must have taken longer to answer than I’d thought.  “No,” I said quietly.  “I’m good.”

She looked at me for a minute like she wasn’t buying it or I was trying to pull something, but she gave in at the end.  “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”  I nodded.  “I’m good.  Later.”

She nodded once.  “Ok.”  And then she was settled again, and I must have really loved this girl to completely turn down sexual gratification in lieu of her emotional well-being.  Funny though, I couldn’t really seem to care as I drifted off with her draped over me.  






One (Part One) (Part Two) (Part Three) |   Two   |  Three  |  Four  |  Five  |  Six  |  Seven  |  Eight  |  Nine  |  Ten  |  Eleven  |  Twelve  |  Thirteen  |  Fourteen  |  Fifteen  |  Sixteen  |  Seventeen  |