Chapter Thirty-Four

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Chapter Thirty-Four

APOV

Jesus Fucking Christ.  All I wanted was a fucking cup of coffee.  Just a cup of coffee.  Since when did that get to be such a big goddamn deal?  You order coffee, they give you a mug with shit that’s too bitter, and too hot; you wince when you sip it, and then drink it down until the dregs are left. 

What the fuck was a Venti toffee nut latte with soy milk?  Seriously, this bitch in front of me just ordered that.  I was afraid to even look at what she was gonna get. 

“Can I just get a cup of coffee?”

“What kind of coffee?” 

My blank look at the chick behind the counter made her add, “Brewed, latte, cappuccino, macchiato, mocha, Frappuccino... ?”

I felt like saying c-o-f-f-e-e really slowly.  Instead it kinda came out, “Just fucking black coffee, ok?”

Her eyebrows rose and she turned to the cash register. “We’ll go with just Pike Place Roast, then.  That’s our house blend.”

I just nodded, and shuffled, feeling really out of place in this fucking coffee shop.  There were more laptops than people.  The music was horrid.  I don’t think any of these musicians ever heard of a drum or anything other than an acoustic guitar. 

“Name?”

My eyes jerked back up to the chick. “Mal—Allison.”

She picked up a Sharpie and wrote my name on a thick paper cup with “Pike Place” under it.  What ever happened to actual mugs with waitresses named Lenore or Joanne, with bad dye jobs and huge boobs, snapping their gum while asking if you wanted a refill, hon? 

It’s permanent.  My coffee choice was written in permanent marker on a fucking paper cup. 

What the shit is this?  What’s happened to coffee?  There weren’t coffee places like this in any of the other neighborhoods I lived in.  You were lucky if there were those little creamers in the tubs, or flavored tubs if you were really lucky.  All-night diners with Lenores and Joannes, aprons, no music, no laptops, no permanent coffee choices.  It was easier. 

People here seemed… Lenores and Joannes worried about you without being pushy or judgmental.  They kept the cups filled and the coffee hot.  They asked if you needed a cab or to call someone.  This bitch behind the counter couldn’t have cared less.  It wasn’t the same.  These places weren’t the same.  I felt edgier here; like I had to be on guard.  Which was probably why I almost said Mallory instead of Allison.  I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. 

I collected my permanent Pike Place coffee when they called my name out between all the other random people in this place, and choose a seat that had a view of the street and the hospital, but kept me in a corner, too.  No one could come up to me without me seeing them coming at me. 

I didn’t know why I was even bothering to do that.  I hadn’t done it in months.  There wasn’t a reason to do it now, but it was almost like slipping back into something from NOLA or Vegas.  I wasn’t sure how I felt about that either.  I wasn’t sure how I felt about a lot of things at the moment.

I texted Jordan.  They’d been in there already for fuck knows how long.  I was worried about him; nearly spilled my coffee when she answered back about a surgeon.  I wished I could have gone in with him.  The wait wouldn’t have been as bad then. 

I wasn’t sure I’d ever thought this much about anything before.  I had so many things bouncing around, and I was worried about Tyler, worried about what he’d done to his hand, worried about what he did to the fucking landlord, worried about what the fucking landlord would do back…and that brought up thoughts about what had happened last night… And… And I think I was kinda fucked up about the whole thing.  Not about sex with Tyler; never that; that was the only truly great thing that had happened, period.  But…just about…everything else. 

He asked me before if fucking last night was the right time, for the right reasons, and if it was a reaction to the landlord.  And I wasn’t lying when I told him that it wasn’t just a reaction.  I wanted it—I wanted to have sex with him.  And that was totally something I hadn’t wanted before.  That was probably really fucked up, too—to never really want to fuck the person you’re with.  But that was business as usual. 

I don’t think I could really compare what business as usual was with what happened last night.  Probably because it was the first time I was really…there during sex.  It’s laughable to say I’ve had experience with fucking.  All I did was fuck.  I should be an expert, but with Tyler, it wasn’t a job, and when it’s a job, it’s not really an experience at all.  It’s mechanical.  No feeling.  And there’s nothing but feeling with Tyler.  In a way, it was almost too much.  So much more than I was ever used to, but it was so fucking amazing that I never wanted to go back now. 

It’s like there are two roads, right?  And on one side is all the shit I’ve seen, all the shit I’ve done, and on the other side is what everyone bullshittingly tells you is the way it’s supposed to be.  But when you’re on the shit side of the road, that other way is just a pipedream.  It’s not real.  It can’t be real.  And then Tyler comes along and he’s all in the middle of both roads trying to pull me over to the supposed-to road and it’s just all a little bit too good.  And the really fucked up thing is that I want it to be.  I want it to be too good.  I want it to really be that way. 

So then if that’s the way it’s supposed to be, why do asshole landlords still fuck with my shit?  And why did Tyler not see what assholes like the landlord do? 

I mean, I wasn’t stupid.  You don’t get by on being a whore without knowing things about the way of the world.  And normal people don’t pick prostitution as their job.  And guys like the landlord will never see me as anything other than what I was.  And… I was ok with that.  I don’t really give a fuck what they think anyway, and it wasn’t like we were going to be having conversations, ever, but guys like him in particular just pick up on who I used to be. 

And I don’t know if people can ever really lose who they used to be.  Maybe I’ll always be Mallory.  But Tyler never agreed with me on that. 

Telling him I was a whore was strangely not as horrible as I thought it would be from the start.  And I was just as strangely calm.  I think because by that point, after fighting off the landlord and having the fear of losing Tyler over whatever that last thing was going to be, there was sort of no point to hiding it anymore.  It was basically like throwing all your chips in because the outcome was either going to be the worst night of your life, and then might as well get it over with all at once, or it was going to go a better way, and like usual, he was just a bucketful of surprises.  I suppose I didn’t hide it as well as I thought I did.  He wasn’t stupid, and he was good with putting shit together.  But maybe that just meant that I didn’t hide my past as well as I thought I did.  Or maybe he was really telling the truth and it didn’t matter to him.  That’d be another first.  

He made me sloppy.  All of his patience and gentleness, everything about him and the way he made me feel made me so sloppy.  I would never have let the landlord into my apartment like that in Vegas.  Not alone.  You just didn’t do that shit.  But he made me feel like it was safer.  Safer to let my guard down a little. 

Funny, I couldn’t really say I was unhappy about that, or cared.  Feeling safer was actually so much easier than constantly being guarded. 

I wouldn’t want to go back to that.  Ever.  It’s so fucking tiring—watching out for yourself every minute of every day.  It basically becomes the only thing you do.  You spend your whole day thinking about how you can get out of this room, that cab, how this way home is safer, how this trick is more dangerous than most.  Life becomes reduced to eating, sleeping, pissing, and watching.  Always watching.  There wasn’t anything else.  Well there was fucking.  Fucking always seemed to force its way in there.   

I thought when I first met Damon that things might change.  I hadn’t hooked since NOLA.  He was a regular in the club and sort of just… He always talked to me, was decent in the club.  Hands to himself unless he paid for something.  He said he’d watch out for me, keep me safe, and it was nice, but probably pretty fucking naïve of me to buy his bullshit.  But he said all the right things, he was nice to me, he had money, and I thought he seemed powerful.  He definitely always thought he was powerful, and other people respected him.  It had always been about sex anyway—I don’t know why I didn’t see that from the beginning.  But I’d never had a real boyfriend; I didn’t know what that meant.  And trading sex for something expensive and nice, something I never dreamed of having before, how did I know that wasn’t dating?  That’s what he called it anyway.  It wasn’t like he ever got me off.  It was like an exchange—sex for dinner, sex for clothes, always sex for something.  It was more than I got from johns.

By the time it was clear to me it was anything else, it was too fucking late.  Turns out Damn had a lot of girlfriends.  Then dating meant he had a friend that he wanted me to see.  And it would be great if I could give this guy a blowjob so the business deal he had going down went smoothly.  What was fucking a guy for him if he paid my rent for a month?  He was always really fucking quick to point out the long list of other things he’d given me, what he provided.  He liked that word a lot. 

Of course eventually, what he provided meant I was supposed to do whatever he wanted whether I got anything for it or not.  I had a pimp without ever really knowing it was happening.  And by the time I realized, by the time he’d basically forced me back into hooking, I was stuck.  And anytime I said I didn’t want to, when he didn’t bring up the list of shit he was providing, he was quick to push drugs, or launch into his speech about getting someone else.  And given what I could have been making just stripping, the small cut I got was better than any regular job I could have gotten.  And the clients were higher class than what you got on the street. 

The rub was he knew what I liked; he was good at finding out what you liked when he was being the nice guy.  I watched him do it to other girls; watched him flirt and reel them in like the psycho-pimp fisherman he was.  Bait, hook, switch.  Hell, he’d done it to me, and that wasn’t an easy thing to do.  I thought I knew better.  Thought I was smarter.  But he was good at it.  And once he pushed K, I think he knew he had me.  Because I could always do a line and zone out, and he knew he could use it.  What the fuck did I care really when I wasn’t even there?  What did it matter if I wouldn’t remember it?  You just reach a point where you don’t give a fuck anymore.  It’s just what you do, it’s what is.  It’s reality.  So you might as well get whatever you can out of it. 

What’s fucking crazy is that even that, even that…regularity to the arrangement that Damon and I had, there was a safety in it.  I knew what was expected, what he expected, and I could sort of count on it.  He didn’t let clients get out of control; didn’t let them stiff on paying. 

But then he erased that, too.  He never pimped me out to more than one person before.  It was always one on one, maybe two blowjobs at a party, but never more than that.  That night… I had no idea.  Even when I agreed and he’d said a few friends… I had no fucking idea.  It’s better that I don’t remember a lot.  I’m not sure what I could do with it if I remembered more.  I just shut down.  I was high, and that point was probably the lowest of my entire life.  I didn’t fight back; I didn’t try to stop them.  I think I reached a point of just not caring and that night was just me completely dead inside.  It didn’t matter what they did really.  No meant nothing, so there was no point in saying it at all. 

It was sort of like that last bit of any safety net disappeared.  And while I probably should have been afraid of Damon all along, I wasn’t until that night that it all came crashing down.  And then I never felt safe again.  I was back to watching all the time.  And I knew I never wanted it to happen again.  Even if there was nothing else to hurt, nothing else they could really do to me, I knew enough that I didn’t want it to happen again. 

Jordan says I was a complete mess after that night.  I don’t really remember.  I don’t remember her finding me.  All I know is what she’s told me.  And the next thing I remember is telling Damon that I was never going to do that again, that he couldn’t force me to do it, and that if he tried, I’d leave. 

He didn’t take it so well.  Standing up in general was never a good idea.  I’d never seen Damon truly angry.  I’d seen him pissed enough to backhand other girls.  I’d seen the baseball bat he kept behind his desk that all he had to do was bring it out and set it on top of his desk and people caved.  I thought when he picked it up that it was all over, and he was gonna bash me in the head with it.  Instead he slammed it on the desk, splintering off a corner, and he smashed a picture on the wall less than two feet from where I was standing.  Glass fell all over the floor next to me.  I remember staring it at and thinking that could have been my head.  But then he was right there, all rage and crazy, pushing me into the wall.  I suppose I got off easily; it could have been much worse.  He smacked me around while yelling about how much money that made him; and that I should be grateful.  When he finally threw me down, I didn’t realize right away what the explosion of pain in my arm was about.  He’d broken my fucking arm. 

I’d never broken anything before that.  It was really fucking painful.  And he drove me to the ER himself.  I mean, I got the whole speech about the story I should tell, that I tripped and fell and he didn’t come in with me, but he took me at least.  Told me if I told the cops, the bat would come back and he’d find me.  That I could never leave him.  That I made him do this to me because I wanted to leave. 

He was strangely nice to me after that.  Gave me time off; no hooking, told my bosses at the club that I was going to be off of work for a while.  He paid for everything.  And it was sort of nice.  Like it had been at the beginning.  He didn’t even ask for sex.  I thought maybe things would be ok. 

Jordan didn’t seem to think so.  She calls it the “Are you fucking nuts?” speech.  Because those were her first words to me when I said he was being nice and things were back to how they had been.  She’d been planning to move to New York.  And we weren’t really friends; I didn’t have friends.  Friends were fleeting, and they got you nowhere.  But she sort of looked in on me after that night.  And basically told me that if I didn’t get out now, when he wasn’t expecting it, that he’d kill me eventually.  It was sort of slap to the face.  And she said I could come with her.  Help drive.  Get a place and start over in New York.  We hadn’t planned on being roommates really; I thought I’d pretty much never see her again once we got to New York.  But things were cheaper if you lived together, and we were both strippers, so it was easier than we thought to get a job in the same place. 

I think Jordan kind of laying it out for me is what really did it.  It wasn’t like I didn’t know what was going on, but having it put in front of you, having it shoved in your face is sort of wake up call.  And I never regretted leaving.  I think she was right; I think he would have killed me eventually.  Or I would have been so dead anyway, I might as well have been. 

It was weird, because with the landlord, my first thought was that it was just the same old thing.  Guys use and abuse, and it was easier to just let them get what they wanted and then be done with it.  There was really no point to fighting. 

But… I wasn’t a whore anymore.  I wasn’t soliciting, and the asshole had no fucking right.  I didn’t have to lie there and just take it.  I had Tyler, and Tyler cared about me.  And Tyler was the only one who got to touch me like this now.  I didn’t have to take this shit.  And I cared.  I cared enough for Tyler.  I didn’t want that asshole to take something that should be Tyler’s.  And I fought back in a way I hadn’t in a long fucking time. 

I texted Jordan again finally, fucking hell, is he ok?

She replied back: he’s fine.  full of charm.  doc just left.  we still have to make a follow-up appt and stop for a prescription.  i’ll text when we’re done at the pharmacy.  i’ve got all the info for what he’s allowed to do and shit. 

I sighed, frustrated.  I mean, I was kind of really pissed off at him for going after the landlord at all; especially after I told him not to.  He just wasn’t worth it.  And Tyler had a terrible temper; and a really shitty grasp on self-control.  I couldn’t claim to be any better really, but I thought I mellowed in the last few years.  I definitely thought twice before going off on someone and potentially getting my as ass arrested or dead.  

Jordan sent another text: they’re saying up to another half hour wait on the meds.  i seriously hope they’re fucking kidding.

Fucking hell.  I could only drink so much coffee.  I was probably going to be tweaking from the caffeine all night.  And for fuck’s sake, God forbid we ever have a real emergency.  I texted back people probably die waiting for shit there!

I asked how he was and wasn’t really surprised by her answer.  He’d been up practically all night with me, and we didn’t exactly get a lot of sleep then.  I thanked Jordan again and was really grateful she was my friend.  I didn’t make lasting friendships, so I was lucky she stuck around.

I don’t know if I zoned out or what, but it didn’t seem that long then and I could see them come out of the hospital doors.  They crossed the street and I just kind of waited for them to come in, waving them over to the table. 

Tyler plopped down in the chair next to me.  He had his hand tucked into his stomach.  The brace looked really huge for just a broken knuckle.  “Hey.”

“Hi.”  I nodded to his hand.  “Are you ok?  How’s your hand?”

He waved me off with his other hand.  “It’s fine.”  He did look really tired.  He made a slow grab for my coffee cup, and took a long sip.  “Your face looks worse.  Maybe you should have it looked at while we’re here.”

I shook my head.  “It’s fine.”

He smiled softly at me, pushing the cup back. 

Jordan stayed standing, and just launched right into shit.  “Ok, so basically, your boyfriend threw a shitty punch—”

“He fucking caught me off guard.  There was nothing wrong with my punch.”

She tisked at him and then ignored.  “And because of that, broke his pinky knuckle.”  She stopped to chuckle.  “If he does it again, he’ll do some more shit to it, and so he shouldn’t.”  She glared at him.  “Like, ever.  But for sure for like six months or something.  The important part is that he shouldn’t go around punching more people.”

Tyler said something under his breath, but I was trying to focus on Jordan.

“The brace thing is all angled so the bone heals right.  He’s supposed to wear it for three weeks, but he has an appointment for recheck next week, and then the doc will decide if he can take it off or not.”  She smirked at me. “His doctor was so funny.  And kind of a smart ass.  I loved him.”

Tyler sighed.

“Um, he’ll need some physical therapy after.  He can take the thing off to shower and then he’s supposed to move the fingers so they don’t get tighter.  Ibuprofen for pain, ‘cept he has these killer pills for the next few days.”  She handed me the bag.  “He can ice for pain, and he’s supposed to keep it up over his head if it hurts.”  She took a breath, sighing, and counted off on her fingers while talking, “No lifting, sports, picking shit up.  Can be painful and stiff.  And he’ll have that sunken shit in his knuckle forever, but it’s supposed to be fine function-wise.”  She twisted her mouth thinking.  “And yeah, just no fights.  Or he’ll need surgery and pins to fix that fucked up shit.”  She blew out a breath.  “There should be most of those instructions in with the ‘scrip, too, and the time when his appointment is, ‘cause there was no way he was taking any of that shit in, but that’s the abbreviated version.  The end.  Done.  Let’s go home.  I want a beer.  And my own ibuprofen.”

She turned and walked out, leaving both of us kind of just sitting there.  She turned when she was at the door. “Jesus Christ, you assholes, let’s fucking go.  We’ve been here forever.”

Tyler smirked. “I think I’ve worn out her patience.”

I shook my head.  “She doesn’t usually have any.”

“She was pretty nice to me…relatively speaking,” he said as we got up. 

“Relatively speaking?”

“I’ll tell you later,” he said when we got to the door. 

She was already hailing a cab when we got outside.  “You’re paying for the cab, lover boy.”

“Of course I am.”

I thought he’d say that more sarcastically, but they sort of shared this smirk that was just fucking weird to see from the two of them, and we piled in the cab, me in the middle. 

“You wanna just crash at my place when we get back?” I asked.

“No, of course not.”  He shook his head, grabbing my hand.  “We’ll go back to my place.”

 “K.”  I leaned over more, resting my head on his shoulder, and turned our hands over, running my thumb gently over his knuckles.  This hand looked like shit, but at least it wasn’t split open and broken.  I sort of forgot Jordan was in the cab, I think.  His cheek pressed into the top of my hair and I think we were both kind of dozing.  Jordan clearing her throat pulled both of us back to the present.  

“You two wanna cuddle in the cab all night, or you gonna come up?”

I couldn’t really put my finger on it, but something was different with Jordan.  Maybe Tyler would tell me later, but whatever they talked about, she seemed a lot less pissy with him.  She kept smirking all the time.  I felt like I was missing the joke.  

I packed some shit quickly; Tyler pretty much sat on the bed and zoned out while I moved around the room.  We cabbed it back to his apartment, too—it was just faster even if it was more expensive.  

I was sort of glad Aidan wasn’t home when we got there.  I liked him a lot, but I really sort of just wanted quiet, and he wasn’t exactly known for that.   

I hadn’t really paid attention, but I really probably should have had him change before we left my apartment.  His shirt looked like he’d been in an accident, and I was also kinda pissed that the bloodstains alone hadn’t gotten him seen sooner.  I suppose they weren’t that sympathetic when it looked like he’d been in a fight.  I was unpacking some of the shit I’d thrown in my bag at my apartment when he started trying the buttons on the shirt.  He was pretty much doing it one handed, and I moved over to help him unbutton it. 

“Does your hand hurt?  You want one of the pills the doctor gave you?”

“Nah, it’s still kinda numb from the shot.  But I can’t feel my other fingers yet either, so… ” he explained. 

“What shot?”

“He numbed it to move the bone back into place.”

I cringed.  “Oh, fuck.  I’m glad I wasn’t there for that part.”

He chuckled.  “Yeah, it made a pretty gross noise.  Kinda cool though, too.”

“Only a guy would say that—bones moving is cool.”

He shrugged, smiling as I pushed the shirt off his shoulders.  “Hey… How are you?”

“I’m fine.”

“Really, or are you just saying that?”

“Were you just saying your hand was fine?” I asked, grinning.

“No, my hand is fine.  Just broken.” 

“I don’t think I’m broken.”

He watched me for a minute before he answered.  “Ok.” He nodded.  “You wanna talk about it?”

I considered that.  “No.  I don’t think so.  I had a lot of time to think about it while I was waiting for you.”  I think the whole prostitution thing was enough for the moment.  

“Was that good?”

I shrugged.  “I dunno.  I guess so.  I think I figured some things out I hadn’t before.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m kinda pissed off at you.”  I said it while running my hand over the rather large bruise forming on his ribs.  

He watched me do it but brought his head up again.  “Why are you pissed at me?”

“Because I asked you not to fuck up the landlord.  And you did it anyway.”

He sighed.  “Ah.”  He started pulling my shirt over my head, which was largely useless because he was only using one hand, and I wound up with most of it stuck around my head.  I sputtered while taking it off the rest of the way.  His eyes moved over my body as well, his fingers tracing my own bruises.  “When I look at these, I’m not sorry.”

“No, I’m not sorry you beat him up.  I mean, there’s no love lost there.  I’m not going to pretend I didn’t like seeing him all bloody.  But you’re just really lucky all the time that you don’t start something with someone that can really hurt you.  He could have had a knife or a gun, Tyler.”

His eyebrows rose.  “Well I really don’t think he’s the type.”

“That’s really not the point,” I said, dropping my hand from him.  “I don’t want you getting hurt.  And when I ask you not to do something, it’d be nice if you didn’t do it.  You can’t solve everything with your fist.”

I turned back to my bag and he stepped behind me, pulling me back into him.  His hands rested over my stomach, the brace all bulky and awkward.  I rested my hands over it, leaning back more.  “It probably won’t surprise you that you’re not the first person to say that to me, huh?”

I blew out a chuckle.  “No, it doesn’t really surprise me.”

He nuzzled into my head.  “I’m not sorry that I fucked him up.  But I am that I did it when you asked me not to.  I promise I won’t do that again.”  He paused.  “No matter how much I might want to beat the ever-living shit out of someone.  If you ask me not to, I won’t.”

“So you’re only promising in terms of beating people up?”

I could feel the smile on his face.  “No.  I promise if you ask me not to do something, whether it has to do with beating people up or not, I won’t do it.  I’m sorry.”  He pressed a kiss into my cheek.  

“Thank you.”

He squeezed me and then let go, toeing off his shoes and dropping to the bed with a groan.  “Shit.  Not beating people up will save me a lot of pain.”

I smiled, watching as he lay back on the bed carefully.  “Yeah, it will.”  He popped the button on his jeans and pushed the zipper down, watching me watch him.  

“I should have taken your bra off when I was over there.  I can do that one handed.”

My smile morphed into something much more amused.  “Yeah, I’m sure you can.”

“Should I demonstrate?  You could come over here and I could show you.”

“What are you gonna do about my jeans?”

“That might require some assistance.  I’m good, but… Ya know, my hand’s numb.  You could assist with mine, too, if you were so inclined.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to turn down the needy.”

I tugged his jeans off gently, and tossed mine in a pile with them before crawling up the bed and over him.  He didn’t waste any time, flicking the clasp when it was in reach, and smirked up at me.  “I’m so impressed,” I said completely flatly.  

“Imagine what I could do with two hands.”

“I know what you can do with two hands.  You think you can keep up if you only have one to use?”

“I think I’ll do just fine.”

I shoved at his face, not really sorry that he hissed at the contact, and dropped to tuck into him, my head on his chest.  His arm curled around me, and it was just kind of funny how awkward the brace made that.

“Tyler?”

“Yeah?”

“What happened in the hallway?”

“I think you know.  I just snapped.  And all I could think about was hitting him.  It didn’t really matter to me that you’d asked me not to.  I never really thought about that at all.”

“Did it help?”

He took a deep breath, and let it out, and I loved the way it forced me to follow him, my head moving with his chest.  “I dunno.  Yeah.”

“Did you feel better?”

He chuckled, but it was one of those non-humorous kinds.  “Yes and no.  I still can’t change what he did to you.  But I’m glad the chances of him trying it again are pretty slim.  When I think about what could have happened… I can’t handle that.  I think that’s what sort of pushed me over.”

“If he’d raped me?”

I don’t think he liked how I just threw that word around.  He tightened his grip on me and I could tell his other hand moved up to his face.  “That, yes, but after.  What he would have done to you after.”

“What do you mean?”

“If he’d hurt you, and left you there just to bleed to death or whatever.”

“I don’t think that was his plan.”

“Plans fall apart.   He could have.”  He paused for a second.  “It doesn’t matter.  He might have.  And I can’t… I can’t… deal with the thought of losing you.  That terrifies me completely.”

“Losing you scares me, too.”

“I didn’t do this either.  I didn’t get involved with anyone because getting involved means you care.  And I’m fucked if I care.  Because caring means if they leave, or they go away, or they fucking die, then you’re just left with all that care and nothing to do with it.  And I can’t do that again.  I won’t lose it again.  I won’t lose you.”

“I didn’t have any kind of long-term relationship after Michael died.  Not in six years.  Aidan is the only person that I’ve kept anything long-term with and only because he won’t fucking go away.  I don’t get close to people.  I pushed them away just as much as you did.  I didn’t want to get close because leaving, or watching them walk away couldn’t hurt me anymore.  But I can’t do that with you.  I can’t walk away and I don’t want to.  And I don’t want you to walk away, but that’d be so much better than you just being gone.  I can’t handle someone else I love just being gone.”

Someone else I love.

“That’s what I thought of when I saw him in the hallway.”

I don’t think he realized what he’d said there.  And he didn’t press it, so I didn’t ask, either.  I really didn’t know what to do with that anyway.  I mean, I knew I cared about him, and I knew I had intense feelings for him, but another day.  “Ok.  I’m not quite as pissed anymore.”

He laughed and squeezed me again.  “I’m glad.”

“I don’t plan on going anywhere.” 

He sighed. “Good.  Me neither.”

I snuggled closer, rubbing my cheek into his chest before pressing a kiss there, too.  I felt one land on the top of my head in answer.  My hand had landed on top of his on this stomach while we were talking and I tangled our fingers together. 

Another kiss pressed into the top of my head.  “You wanna have sex with me?”

I snorted, because it pretty much came out, “Yawannahavesexwithme,” and I angled my head up to look at him, smiling.  “Yes,” I said quickly.  I liked a lot things about that.  I liked that he just flat out asked.  And the way he did it was quiet, sweet, and completely happy.  The smile he had on his face was lazy and playful, and had I said no, I don’t think it would have changed it at all really.  And I hadn’t been expecting it.  Not that I hadn’t thought about it—but I dunno, I guess I didn’t really know what the rules were for sex.  Or even if there were any.  It wasn’t that I didn’t want to ask, or that I was afraid to, or that I thought I’d be asking too soon or something… It was just really new, and I was grateful that he brought it up first.  I was comfortable with him, but I was still grateful. 

We sort of just laid there for a few seconds, just smiling at each other before I pressed my lips to his.  It seemed like such a simple thing, but I loved that I could kiss Tyler.  Just anytime I wanted.  Whenever the hell I felt like it.  The closeness and what you could do with a kiss was really kind of amazing.  And I think that was kind of the point—that it meant something.  Which is why I’d never done it before Tyler—I hadn’t wanted it to mean anything, it didn’t mean anything, and… I wanted that one thing, I think.  Just for myself.  I wanted to feel something when I kissed someone.  I wanted the stomach flip-flops, and the way my lips tingled when his pressed against mine. 

I licked at his mouth to get him to open it, and lapped at his upper lip.  I loved the expression on his face—the way his forehead would crinkle, and his eyes would close, the quiet moan he let out into my mouth.  The way his fingers tightened on my body.  The way he followed my mouth if I moved back, or seek it out if I pulled away.  The way he used his tongue to get my lips to open, too.  The way it felt like he could steal the air from me. 

I even loved the way we both had matching splits in our lips at the moment.  Mine was on the right; his was on the left—that was the only difference.  When I ran my tongue over his cut, there was still just a hint of that coppery taste of blood left.

I pushed my hand up his chest to cup his cheek, my fingers tangling in his hair.  He never pulled away or made it seem like he wanted to be doing something else.  My pace.  Always.

“You’re not naked.  And I’m not either.  This is a problem.”

I pushed off of his chest, sighing like it was really bothering me.  “I have to do everything, don’t I?”

“Well, not usually.”

“This is why you shouldn’t go around punching people, Tyler.  You’ve totally fucked up my new sex life now.”

He laughed. “I’m very sorry.  We’ll just have to get creative.” 

“Creative, huh?”  I pulled off his boxers. 

“Yeah.”  He shrugged, cocking his head to the side to watch me take off my underwear.  “Creative,” he said, as his eyes pulled up to meet mine again. 

“What does creative mean?”

“It means I really fucking hope those condoms made it into your bag, or we’ve got an even bigger problem.  And then, I dunno.  We’re both kind of fucked up.  We’ll figure out something that works with minimal pain on both our parts.”

I darted to my bag and tossed the box at him.  “It’s a good thing you’re a man with a plan.”

He nodded, setting the box on the nightstand before turning and hooking his finger at me.  “C’mere.”

I might have sort of leapt back on the bed, landing back where I’d been, and he flipped us almost instantly.  His good hand dropped between my legs; thumb busy rubbing my clit, fingers rubbing my pussy while he kissed me again.  I fisted my hand in his hair, legs spreading, already getting wet.  Fuck, he was good at this. 

All I could think about was having him inside me again.

He left my mouth for my tits, sucking each nipple into his mouth, tongue circling and flattening.  I couldn’t stop my hips from arching up into his hand.  He was right; he only fucking needed one. 

But I didn’t want to come this way.  “Please, Tyler,” I said, breathing all hitched and spotty, “Inside me.”

After almost an entire lifetime of fakeness, it felt so… honest and real to say that to him, and actually mean it.  Nothing put on; no lies.  Just truth and fact. 

He nodded, brushing his forehead against mine as his lips did the same.  I loved when he did that.  It was another simple thing; just a touch that said, I’m here. 

He rolled to grab the box of condoms, and I giggled when getting the box open didn’t work so well with one hand, and he wound up ripping the side with his teeth.  Then I just giggled more when he did the same thing with the wrapper, spitting the piece out.  Once he’d done all that work, he sighed looking at the condom. 

Packages and wrappers were bad enough; it was tricky to get a condom on with one hand.  I dissolved into more giggles while he smirked at me.  “Gimme that.” I held out my hand and put it on for him while he kept smirking. 

“Thanks,” he said, groaning at my lingering hand on him, and then rolled back over me.  I anticipated his next obstacle before he did—when you could only balance on one hand and couldn’t use the other one to line yourself up.  He dropped his head to my chest.  “Jesus.”

I snickered and reached for him, lining him up. 

His head came up again and he kissed me gently.  “Thanks.  Again.”

“No problem.”

One deep push inside, my thighs framing him, my hands on his sides—he felt so close—like the first time.  Because of the brace, he was balancing on his elbows and forearms, and he started so gently; everything reminded me of the first time.  The way he watched me would have been unsettling to me a while ago, but it didn’t feel that way now.  I don’t think I’d ever felt like someone knew me as well as he did.  The friction was so fucking amazing. 

He told me last night that he wanted me to find out what I liked, and to try whatever I wanted.  And when I moved to try something different, he’d just adjust and watch me some more.  I liked my thighs framing his more than my legs spread wider.  If he thrust really deep, hooking my ankles and locking myself around him was so fucking good.  Just such little things could mean a completely different feeling.  It sort of felt like if he wasn’t deep, then there wasn’t really a whole lot of point to it.  What was the point if I couldn’t feel him? 

He picked up the pace a little, sliding in and out faster, pushing in harder, his balls slapping against my ass.  He kept alternating between watching my expressions to find out what I liked for himself, and when he wasn’t trying so hard for me, I loved the way his eyes would close when he pushed inside.  I liked that it felt as good for him as it did for me. 

I came shaking, gripping his neck, and pulling him closer to me.  The rush of pure pleasure was still surprising to me.  I wondered if it would always be like that; if it would always surprise me.  

It felt like a lot more than just the physical release.  

He hadn’t come yet.  I think it was much harder to thrust this way—more tiring.  He had less leverage balancing on his elbows than he would have if he’d been using his hands.  And looking up at him, his face completely open with the tiniest of smiles breaking out, all I wanted was to know what he liked.  I wanted to watch him come knowing that.  

So I pushed at his chest.  “Flip us over.  On your back.”

For someone with a fuckton of experience with sex, I couldn’t say what any guy really liked.  I knew what got most guys off.  But this was different; for the first time I really wanted to know what he wanted, what would make him happy.  The easiest was probably to ask, but I wasn’t sure he’d flat-out tell me.  He was funny that way; he’d insist I ask for whatever I wanted, and was pretty fucking selfless, but if I asked him something along the same lines, he’d tell me it wasn’t important, or that he wanted whatever I wanted.  So I was going to have to be sneakier than that.  

I was sitting up on him; my hands on his chest, his on my sides.  I started running my hands down his chest, to his stomach, flicking my thumbs over his nipples, tracing back up to his collarbone and following it to his shoulders.  He just let me touch him for a few minutes, and it was amazing just how much different and intimate sex was when actual touching was involved.  It all felt so much more focused.  When his hand moved to knead my tit, I pushed it back down and shook my head, but I didn’t say anything.  He cocked his head a little bit on the pillow, silently questioning, but I didn’t give him an answer.  I dipped to press a kiss on his sternum and licked all the way up his neck, over his chin and up to his mouth, his moan disappearing in the kiss.  

I started to move once we were kissing again, slow strokes up and down on him, until his hands moved lower to help lift me on and off of him.  

That was my cue to move a little faster, a little harder.  I knew instantly why watching me during sex was so informative.  Because when you were the one being watched, you were just reacting, but when you were doing the watching, nothing could be missed.  In a way both watching and being watched were complete reaction.  Maybe that’s what sex was about anyway.  

But… I couldn’t let it go—I wanted to watch while I knew I was doing what he wanted.  I couldn’t really explain it; I just wanted him to have it.  I wanted him to tell me.  I slowed a little again, touching his face, thumb scraping over the stubble over his lip, on his chin—it was thicker on his chin than it was over his lip.  He never let it grow really long, but I wondered what he’d look like with beard.  He looked up at me again in question.  

“Hey, I want to know what you want,” I said quietly.  

“I’ve got what I want.”

I shook my head, smiling.  “With this.  Here.  I want to know what you want here.”

“This is good.   What you’re doing is good.  Whatever you wanna do.”

“No, see, it’s not.  That doesn’t work.  I want you to tell me.”

“Why?” He asked me that so…genuinely curious, it kind of took me a minute to figure out an answer.  

I shrugged, stopping the motion for a minute.  “Because.  Because I want to know what makes you happy.”

“You make me happy.  This makes me happy.”

I shook my head. “I don’t want just some blow off answer.  You never let me get away with that shit.  I don’t want you to hold back, or not tell me.”

“Ok…”

Honestly, I kind of wanted to know everything.  I wanted to know what kinks he had, what kinds of things he thought about.  I never really thought much about what assholes like Damon used to say were johns’ fantasies.  It was just my job to help them get off whatever way they wanted.  I never really thought about what I wanted, either.  Fuck, did I have kinks?  I think I was quickly figuring out what it felt like or meant to really, really want something, or want to give it to someone else.  And I think I got why Tyler was always so giving.  

“Right, so…whatever you want.  Don’t worry about what it is.  Just tell me.  No matter how fucked up you think it is.  Just blurt it out and don’t think about it.”  His smirk kept getting bigger the longer I talked.  “What?!”

“You think I have fucked up things that I want you to do to me?”

I shrugged. “No.  I just mean, if you think it’s fucked up, I don’t care, and it’s probably not, so just tell me.”

He chuckled.  “And if I do have fucked up things that I want you to do…you’ll do them?”

“Yeah, ‘course.”

He sat us up suddenly, kissing me quickly and pressed his forehead to mine.  He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.  “K, first, that’s really, really, really nice of you to offer.  And I’m not sure I have anything extraordinarily fucked up for you to do to me.  But we don’t have to do any of that right now, either.  Ok?  I mean, if you want that, whatever you want—I’m cool with that.  Just let me know.  But we don’t have to… We can just…be… We can just do this.  Be like this.  I’m really happy with this.  You don’t need to do anything special, or different.  I’m happy with just you.  I just want you.”

I couldn’t really respond.  Because if I opened my mouth, I think I’d just fall apart.  He was always able to do that to me when I completely didn’t see it coming at all.  And then I’d just be an emotional mess until I got myself back under control.  

I think he thought I felt rejected or something, because he kissed my forehead and tried to fix it like he said something wrong.  “I didn’t mean… Fuck.  If you want me to come up with something different, I can.  I just don’t want you to feel like you have to do something—anything—that you think is fucked up to make me happy.”

I waved him off, and realized that keeping it back when he’d just go on talking shit like that was pretty much pointless.  So I sort of let the breath I’d been holding just push out, and the sob that went with it come out, too.  The tears just kind of tumbled out, too.  

His eyes closed for a second and he let his own deep breath out, pulling me into a hug.  “Allison…”

I don’t know why, but that kinda just made me cry more.  

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, pulling back then to wipe at the tear tracks with his thumbs.  “I didn’t want to… Tell me how to fix it.  What can I do?”

“God, just… Shut the fuck up for a second, ok?”

He chuckled.  “Yeah, ok.”

I was proud that it didn’t take me that long to stop.  Mostly because I knew he totally misunderstood what I’d been crying about, and I wanted him to stop feeling bad.  I sniffed, and tried to wipe the last of the tears away.  “Ugh.  You didn’t do anything.  It’s just that, you know, when I think about all the shit that…” I stopped when I realized that I was about to just start blurting shit about being a hooker, and that might not have been the best topic during sex.  

“What?”  His eyes were all searching and intense, waiting.  “When you think about all the shit that what?”

“I don’t know if it’s the best time…”

“Allison,” he breathed it more than said it, in a sort of frustrated sigh.  “Just tell me.  I don’t care if it’s the best time or not.”

“It just might be kind of weird conversation.”  I gestured to us.  

His face lost the frustrated questioning look, and his lip went behind his teeth, trying to hide the smile.  “It’s probably not weird for us.  Just tell me what you were going to say.”

“When I think about all the shit that I was told to do, or had to do whether I wanted to or not, it’s just nice when someone doesn’t automatically expect something.”  I wasn’t looking at him.  I don’t know why.  I don’t think I could really talk about this yet that…freely or whatever, like it was just a part of regular conversation.  I spent so much time building around it.  “So for you to just say that—that I didn’t have to do anything special.  It kind of hits home—really hard…” I trailed off, shrugging.  Just me.  All he wanted was me.  No Mallory.  No one but just me.

“Oh.”

I smirked, a little laugh with it.  Oh just wasn’t quite the same as that last tear-pulling speech.  I ran my finger over a little mark by his shoulder; a freckle or something, focusing there instead of his face.  “I want you, too.  All of you.  Whatever it is.”  I wanted all his fucked-up-ness; if there was some.  I think I really did.  I wasn’t sure if that made me really warped myself, or not, but I wasn’t going to over-think that tonight.  

He pulled my chin up.  “That’s good then, right?”

I nodded slowly.  “Yeah.”

“Good.”  He nodded back, kissing me quickly.  

I moved my hands up to his neck, my fingers combing up through his hair.  I liked that his hair wasn’t a neat, straight line in the back, it sort of all came back into a peak.  I tugged on the ends of his hair while kissing him again.  “Tell me what you want.  Or tell me something that you like.  Something you like that I do to you.”

He moaned into the kiss.  “I like when you do that with my hair.”

I did it again, smiling as I pressed my forehead to his and started to move on him again.  I brought my hands forward, skimming my fingertips over his ears, and was surprised when the moan he let out was louder than before.  So I did it again.  And giggled when it got the same reaction.  

I felt… I don’t know how to describe it.  It was exciting—my stomach was all fluttery—and I almost felt impatient, like I had to hear more of those sounds.  I wanted him to make more of them, and needed to know how to get him to keep doing it.  I kissed the corner of his mouth.  “What else?”

“My neck.”

My fingertips dropped immediately, brushing lightly over the sides of his neck, behind his ears, and any rhythm that he was keeping with me while I moved on him stopped instantly.  I pushed us back to the bed, pressing my lips to the spots my fingers had just touched, and he actually shuddered under me.  I mean—there was nothing better than this.  I wondered if I did that, too.   Did I do that when he did something I liked?  

I made sure there was no part of his neck that didn’t get some kind of attention.  I licked behind his ear, and was pretty sure he was gonna be sporting a really huge hickey when I got a little too overexcited at the way he was reacting to me.  I nibbled on his earlobe and was actually really surprised that his ears were that fucking sensitive.  It just wouldn’t have ever crossed my mind to even try that shit.  

My hands had sort of just hovered around his shoulders while I was busy with his ears and neck, and he started pushing them down on his chest, stopping when they were over his nipples.  I took the hint and started rubbing my thumbs over them, and I fucking loved this.  I loved how he would nuzzle his face into me and lean into my mouth, and how his breath sounded all panted in my ear, and those amazingly sexy and fuck-worthy moans that made my hips move faster on him.  

And I loved that he didn’t really have to actually say anything—he could show me what he wanted.  That he just held my hips for a second and that I knew he wanted it a little slower without having to…order me.  Not that I would have taken it that way with him—I’d asked him to tell me what he wanted—but… I don’t know if it was because he was that aware of me and all my fucked up history that something like that had even came to mind, or if it was just the way he was, but it always felt like a silent conversation instead of something else.  

The best thing—other than knowing he was gonna come any second—was the way he said my name.  It was silly; it was just my name, nothing else, but the way he kept saying it, the tone and the deepness…or the way it would be all broken up between gasps and puffs of air, like he couldn’t get my whole name out without something else in there, too.  God.  It really wasn’t silly at all.  With all the others quiet noises he was making, the thing that came out the most was my name.  My real name.  Nothing fake and put on, nothing theatrical or dramatic.  Everything he wanted—he asked for so little.  So little always made him happy.  And he sounded so content.  The sighs were so content.  Because of me.  Not because of some fake hooker shit, but just because of what I was doing to him.  I’m happy with just you.  I just want you.

And I don’t know if it was just because I hadn’t been as focused on just him the other times we’d done this or because the scent was so much stronger here, but he smelled so fucking good right now.  It wasn’t like I didn’t think he smelled good all the time.  I liked the smell of whatever aftershave he used; it wasn’t overly strong or musky, but it was something that always mixed with the soap and shampoo he used, and was just something I started associating with him.  When I breathed it in, it was really calming; like Tyler himself.  Now though, I think the smell would remind me of this, and I’m not sure it would have the same calming effect.  I didn’t really give a shit; I think I kind of expected to want him all the time now, but it was just… Yeah.  

He pressed his cheek into me, breathing out harshly.  “Kiss me.”

I moved over to his mouth, lapping at his tongue and we got maybe two actual kisses in there before he started coming.  Then it was sort of open-mouthed; or his was, while he let out these low, throaty grunts they made me feel all tingly and kinda fucking proud at the same time.  I could feel his body all tensed and his cock pulsing, his eyes squeezed shut.  And I just got to watch it all happen, my fingers back to stroking behind his ear and down his neck, tracing his sideburn while keeping my mouth just near his, breathing in his grunts.  

 

He really liked all that shit with his neck—like we’re talking major turn-on if his orgasm was any indication.  The orgasm looked almost painful at the end, but he didn’t seem to be complaining at all.  I smirked and started kissing him again.  Little kisses, barely pressing my lips to his as his body lost the tension and he opened his eyes to look at me.  

He was all out of breath still.  And he kind of look surprised, which just made me smirk more.  “Fuck, Allison.  Jesus.”

“Well you should have told me that shit before.  All your orgasms coulda been that good.”

“Mmm.”  He smiled up at me, all lazy and fucked out.  I sat up a little, scraping my nails lightly down his chest to his stomach.  

His whole body seemed to shudder.  “Fuck.”

I giggled.  “A little sensitive?”

“That was amazing.”

“I’m really, really glad.”

He breathed out a sigh and cocked his head on the pillow a little.  “Did you come?”

I shook my head.  “No, but that was for you.  And I don’t care.  Because it was really amazing.”

He smiled up at me for a second, his eyes sort of glassy and unreadable.  I didn’t know what he was thinking.  “I wanna try something, but I don’t want you to be uncomfortable with it.”

I couldn’t think of anything with him that I’d find uncomfortable.  

“You wanna try it with me?”

I nodded, dropping to kiss him quickly, and moved off of him.  I watched as he tied off the condom and grabbed another one, getting this one on himself, and then got back on the bed, staying on his side.  I rolled back into him, shoving a leg between his and snuggled into him, back to kissing gently.  I wondered if this was what he wanted to try and why that would make me uncomfortable, but that really didn’t make any sense.  

He pressed his forehead against mine.  “If you’re ok with it, I was gonna have you turn around.”

Aha.

“So we’d be spooning, and I’d take you from behind,” he added quietly.  

The thought hadn’t really occurred to me at all, and I don’t know if I was surprised or not that the idea didn’t really bother me at all.  When I freaked out on him before, I really don’t think the position had mattered that much.  I mean, it has made a difference because I hadn’t been able to see him, but I don’t think at that point I would have been ready for him in any position.  

“You can say no.  I’m not going to be mad at you if you say no.  It won’t change anything.  And it’s not like this is something I’m asking you to do for me.  It’s more just something I wanted to do for you.”

He got the wrong idea sometimes when I was thinking, or when I reacted to something that normal people thought was, well, normal.  I suppose if I explained myself more, he’d understand more.  “No.  I’m not—I was just thinking that before I don’t think it was really that you were behind me.  I mean, that made a difference, but if I’d been looking at you, I don’t think I would have been any more ready then.  Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, of course.”  

I kissed him quickly and turned over, backing up into him again.  We slept this way sometimes, so it wasn’t a new feeling anymore, either.  I liked the way he felt pressed against me.  The way that I felt small, because I always felt that much more protected in his arms.  Probably something I wouldn’t have ever felt before—years ago the fact that he was so much bigger would have made me feel uneasy.  

My head was pillowed on his arm; the brace was hanging off the end of the bed, and his other hand curled around my stomach, holding me close, thumb stroking back and forth in a completely soothing manner.  It was so quiet now.  Much different than a few minutes ago when he was coming.  It felt like the air in the room had changed.  And when he pressed his mouth to my shoulder, inching his way to my neck, it had changed to something…calmer?  I don’t know if that was the right word really.  It felt stiller—not less intense really, just…relaxed.  

I got the impression he wanted to give me something back again.  It didn’t need to be given, but it was something I was finding I liked giving him, too.

His mouth was at my ear, voice like a whisper.  “Is this ok?  You sure you’re ok with it this way?”

I nodded, craning back to look at him.  “Yeah, I’m good.”

“You’re sure?”

I nodded again, reaching a hand back to touch his hip.  “Yes.  The head case is almost positive she won’t freak on you like before.”

I meant it to be funny, but I don’t think he took it that way.  Tiny kisses were peppered on my shoulder.  “You’re not a head case.  You’re amazing.  I was an idiot that day.  And you’re about the least crazy person I know.  I just don’t want you to do something because you think I want you to.  I want you to want it, too.”

I thought for a minute about how to answer him—to make him believe me.  “It’s different now,” I settled on.  

For some reason, that seemed to be a decent enough answer for him.  “Ok,” he said in the same quiet tone.

He didn’t waste time then.  Maybe he didn’t want to make me wait and have me change my mind.  Or maybe he thought less time for me to think about it was better.  It didn’t matter though.  It was different.  I felt like everything had changed.  I couldn’t really find one thing to pin it on; or why necessarily, but I just knew it was different.  

His hand slowly slid down from my stomach, his mouth licking and nibbling on my shoulder and neck as gentle fingers rubbed over my clit and dipped into the wetness between my legs.  I arched back into him, moaning as he concentrated on my clit, and I didn’t know if I wanted to clench my thighs together to keep him there, or spread them apart more to let him inside.  

I don’t think my neck was as sensitive as his was; but it still felt pretty fucking amazing.  Or maybe it was more what I was feeding off of him.  Knowing the feelings he had to be having to be breathing in my ear like that, licking over my skin like that, pushing his hips into me like that.  That was almost more of a turn-on.  

He moved a leg between mine, opening me for him, and asked, “You ready?”

“Yeah.  Yeah.”  I nodded eagerly.  

It was no secret; it wasn’t like I hadn’t been fucked in every position before, six ways to Sunday.  And it was never slow and easy.  So whenever he pushed inside me, really everything that he did gently, it was almost more shocking than anticipating a strong push in.  The fast entries were like ripping a band-aid off; it was over quickly.  When he did it so slowly, and with such deliberate care behind it, there was no way I couldn’t feel every part of him.  I loved it.  I loved every second of it.  And this push inside felt completely different.  We never fucked this way before.  He’d never been inside me this way…and oh my fucking God, did I like it.  I thought all the other times were good—the way he kept finding new places inside me—this was like that times a hundred.  It felt like when his fingers were inside me and rubbing my spot only this was stronger and better and more direct.  No one ever fucked me like this; like they wanted it to be this good for me.  

It felt like my entire body was burning.  His fingers made it spiral up to my tits when he kneaded them and pinched my nipples.  He made it spread over my stomach when his fingers fluttered there; and he made my body feel like it wanted to explode when he kept pushing at that spot and rubbed my clit at the same time.  All I wanted to do was clench on him—tighten my pussy around him when he pushed in, and hold him there for a second before he pulled back for the next one.  He liked when I did it, too, panting moans in my ear and nuzzling into my hair with his head.  The hand with the brace kept flinching, like he wanted to be doing more with it, but the brace kept preventing it.  When I started to come, I moved his hand away from my clit—it was the first time I think I ever had too much stimulation—and interlocked our fingers while I clamped on him, loving that I was pulling him along with me, his hips pressed as close as possible, our moans mixing together.  

I couldn’t imagine even what would have happened if he’d been able to do that the first time we tried it.  

He pulled back enough to ease out of me, and rolled to get rid of the condom, and I burrowed backwards the second he moved back.  He tightened his grip on me, just holding me.  I really didn’t know what there was to say.  For some reason, I thought…just by the way he was holding me, and the way he kept nuzzling his forehead into my hair, his breath hot against my neck, that he wanted to say something.  But he just squeezed me then, and nuzzled some more, and I dunno, I didn’t really want to talk yet.  I wanted to thank him, to tell him how amazing this had been, and really—I wanted to tell him how much my whole life was different with him.  How he’d changed everything, but I didn’t really know where to start.  

He cleared his throat quietly, kissing my neck.  “You ok?”

Figured that’d be the first thing he’d say.  Our fingers had gone back to being locked together over my hip, and I squeezed gently before bringing our hands up to kiss the back of his.  Bruises had formed fully over his knuckles and I kissed those gently, too.  “I’m great, Tyler.  Better than great.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

I could feel him nod behind me.  He was quiet for a second and then added, “I should have gotten two boxes of condoms.”

I burst out laughing, and flipped to giggle into his chest, before tipping my head up to kiss his jaw.  “Maybe, yeah.”

“I wonder if you can buy them in bulk…”

I looked up at him, smirking.  “Thank you.”

“For what?”

I scoffed.  “Well, fuck, I dunno—maybe making my life good for once instead of the clusterfuck it’s always been before?”

He scoffed back at me.  “I didn’t do that.  You did that.”

I pushed against his chest, moving to be eye level with him.  “No.  I got myself so far, but you changed it.  And I don’t mean that in like, some fucking Disney way.  I mean…”  Fuck.  I’m really not sure what I meant.  I hadn’t really planned this out, and I hadn’t really had an answer when I was thinking about it before.  “You’ve just made everything different.”

I pushed a lock of hair behind my ear.  “You’ve made everything different for me, too.”

“I don’t just mean that with the sex, either,” I clarified.

“I know that.”

My mind was sort of racing all over the place.  I wanted to tell him so much, but I couldn’t really find the words.  I wanted to tell him about a lot of things.  Admissions.  Confessions.  It felt like he was the only one it mattered to tell anyway.  I’m not sure why this came out first.  But I’m really not sorry it did.  “I did something the other night that I’ve never done before.”

“What’s that?” he asked, tracing the hair behind my ear again.  

“Fought them off.”

The tracing slowed and then stopped as he met my eyes again.  “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you reach a certain point that you just kind of… It’s a job, right?  So whether you’ve totally agreed or not, it’s sort of pointless to try and stop someone.  It’s easier and it’s safer for you to just get it done.”

He was quiet, but the tracing started up again.  I was going to keep going, try to explain more what I meant, that hooking wasn’t like a 24/7 rape-fest, but he asked, “Why was it different this time?”

I started tracing circles on his chest.  “You.”  He stopped again, just resting his hand on my head.  “I think I fought for you.”

“Why didn’t you fight for yourself?”

“I did this time.  I mean, I think it was both.  I didn’t want it for me, but I didn’t want it for you, either.  I didn’t want it taken away from either of us.”

“I’m glad you fought.  Whatever the reason.”  

I nodded.  “I’m glad I did, too.”

I snuggled into him more, rubbing my nose against his lightly.  And we started kissing again, softly, slowly.  I think we were done for the moment, but he didn’t want to lose the closeness any more than I did.  Except… I really had to pee.  And I might have been squirming more than a little bit.  

“You ok?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah, I’m fine.  I’m great.  I just… I…”  Fuck it.  “I really have to pee.”

He laughed.  “Well then go pee.”

“Yeah, but we were being all cuddly and I like it.”

He kept smiling at me, kissing me quickly.  “You can still pee.”

“I thought we were having, like, a moment—ya know?  Making out and shit.  I don’t want to ruin the moment.  I like having moments.”

He laughed again.  I think he was even more amused.  “Jesus, go pee already, and then we can go back to making out and having moments.”  He pulled me closer for a second and kissed me harder.  “The more you squirm, the more you’re just gonna turn me on and then we’re gonna have to have sex again, and I’m actually really kinda tired.”

I burst out laughing back at him.  “Ok.  So I’m really helping you out then by leaving the bed right now?”

“You’re allowing me to rest in the long run, yes.  So go pee, and then when you come back we can make out and cuddle some more and have another moment before I pass out on you.”

I giggled, slapping his hand away when he tried to pinch me.  “You start that shit, and you won’t be sleeping at all.”

“I can’t help it.”  

I threw my head back laughing my way to the bathroom.  

“You’ve got a great ass.  Have I ever told you that before?”

“You’re going to make me blush,” I threw back at him over my shoulder.  

“God, you should be naked all the time,” he added, groaning.  “But then I’d never get anything else done.  Which wouldn’t really bother me.”

I shut the door to that one, still happy and chuckling; and I think he was pretty much talking to himself at this point.  

There was always this sort of unbelievable moment for me when I walk back into the bedroom like this.  And he’s sort of unaware of me coming back in, so he’s even more unguarded than he would be normally.  And I sort of want to fucking pinch myself because Tyler naked and all sacked out after sex on the bed… Well, there’s not much else I could think of that would be better.  And everything is mine.  He’s all mine.  And doing nothing but spending time in bed with him wouldn’t really bother me, either.  

He never notices me standing there at first.  And tonight, his eyebrows were scrunched while he fiddled with the brace and tested the movement in his hand.  “Does it hurt now?” I asked quietly.  

His head jerked in my direction, and he knew he was caught, there wasn’t anything he could do about that now.  He sighed a little, but the slightly guilty look he had a second ago was completely replaced with something else.  He smirked.  “I like when I get to watch you walk back to bed naked.”

I rolled my eyes at him.  “Uh huh.”  I smiled though.  “Probably about as much as I like seeing you in bed naked.”

“Is that a fact?”  Mischief.  Mischief dancing in his eyes completely.  

I nodded.  “It is.”  I waited for him to answer me, but he didn’t so I asked again.  “So?  Does it hurt?” I pointed to his hand.  He’d obviously push it off if I didn’t ask again.  

“A little, yeah.”

“I’ll get you a pill.”  I didn’t wait for an argument, but there wasn’t one.  I brought him a glass of water from the bathroom and handed him one of the pills.  “The numbness wore off finally I guess, huh?”

“Yeah, a while ago.”

“You should have said something.”

“I had more important things to do then.”

“Mmm, like what?”  I took the glass back and wasn’t really watching, so I was happy it actually made it to the nightstand and didn’t smash all over the floor.  

He considered it a second.  “Mmm, like…giving you orgasms.  Shit like that.”

“So selfless.”

“Well, I mean, there was some giving back on your part.  I can be a taker if necessary.”

“You’re supposed to keep it up,” I said, moving his arm up over his head to rest on the pillow, leaning on his chest.  “I’m glad you’re so balanced.  It’s a very attractive quality.”

“I try.”

I pressed a kiss to his chin.  “Does that feel better?”

“With you all pressed against me, I hadn’t actually noticed.”

“You trying to get laid again?  Because in case you haven’t noticed, I kinda like fucking you.”

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