Still Rattled

by Charles, Jane

  Just like I felt safe with Alex last night. He could quickly become as important to me as Brandon was, which scares the hell out of me. Just as I couldn’t give up another child to adoption, I don’t think I could stand to lose someone again. My heart is in danger of being handed over, and I’ve only been with him a few weeks.

  Crap, only a week, not a few.

  What the hell am I thinking, and what will happen when he’s gone or gets tired of not having sex with me?

  It’s going to happen. Like Alex said, he’s not a robot, so the day will come where we’ll have the talk I’ve had before, which usually ends with me walking away after the guy tells me to either give it up or there is nothing else for us.

  Maybe I should just pull back now, before it’s too late. Why invite the heartbreak, when that is the only way this will end?

  So, why am I still lying here in the bed? Alex is curled around me, holding me close, his breath on my neck. It’s comforting, safe and wonderful.

  And with each heartbeat I melt a little more.

  The longer I lay here, the more I’m in danger.

  Trying to move as little as possible, I scoot away, but his arm tightens around me and pulls me back.

  “Where are you going?”

  “It’s morning,” I answer. I could have sworn he was sound asleep.

  “So.” Alex nuzzles my neck and then kisses the side of it.

  My boobs get heavy and my nipples tighten. I’m in deep trouble.

  “I love morning cuddles. Warm bed, still a little sleepy, and soft bodies.”

  Not all of him is soft, and it’s getting harder. In response, my clit is beginning to ache. Damn, I love morning sex. Or, I did once upon a time. Back in another life.

  I’ve got to stop sleeping with Alex.

  “This isn’t safe.” I push away from him and get out of the bed.

  “Because I’m not a robot?”

  “Because I’m not either,” I retort, angry at myself for wanting what I swore I wouldn’t even consider until there was a ring on my finger. And that possibility is so far in the future I can’t even see it. Hell, I might not ever have sex again. And, if I do, there’s no guarantee that it will be with Alex. We’re still getting to know one another.

  “Obviously.” He grins, but is looking at my chest.

  This t-shirt is so thin that there is no hiding my hard nipples. I’m just glad he can’t see my panties, which may or may not be damp.

  Grabbing my clothes, I dash out of the room and head for the bathroom. I’ve got to get out of here because I don’t trust myself to stay. Not with Alex looking at me with those deep, cobalt blue eyes. Damn, I’ve always loved his eyes, even when I hated him, but those same eyes, with that barely clothed body lying in a rumpled bed, is making me so hot. If I don’t move immediately, I’m going to toss away all my careful planning and jump back in the bed.

  No girl has ever bolted from me the way Kelsey just did.

  At least I know it wasn’t because I disgusted her.

  Quite the opposite, I grin and roll over.

  Unless it was my breath. The only drawback to morning cuddles.

  A girl’s nipples don’t lie. Unless it’s cold of course, then it’s a guessing game. But, this room is not cold, and it certainly was warm in the bed, which could only mean, her body wants mine as much as I want her.

  Except, she won’t give in, and it’s unfair of me to want her to. I would never pressure her that way, but I’m not going to hide the fact that she makes me hard either. There’s going to be honesty between us, if nothing else.

  Unfortunately, I’m afraid there is something bigger between us. Something that not even a priest can exorcise. Hell, I tattooed his name on her chest. To be there always and forever.

  “Hey, I’m heading downstairs,” Kelsey says after she pops her head inside, but is gone before I can call her back.

  She’s running and I’d better hurry, before I lose her for good.

  After a quick, bone chilling shower, I get dressed and head downstairs.

  Kelsey’s not in the living or dining room, but people are in the kitchen. Dylan is probably feeding her again. He feeds everyone, and I expect to find her at the island with Joy.

  Except, it’s only Zach and Joy. “Where’s Kelsey?”

  “Gone,” Zach answers and he adds coffee to the filter.

  “Gone?”

  “Popped in, said goodbye and headed out the door.” Joy grabs a cup from the cupboard. “In a hurry and a bit frazzled.” Then she turns to me. “What did you do?”

  “Do? Nothing?” Well, except get a hard on and think a lot about the sex I wouldn’t be having with her.

  “Well, something was bugging her.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Joy and Zach look at each other and my stomach tightens.

  “Well, I did ask her what you guys were going to do today.”

  “And?” It’s not like we made plans. Hell, she was out of the room before I had a chance to ask.

  “That she had no idea what you were doing and didn’t know when she’d see you again,” answered Zach

  “Or if she should.”

  “She said that?”

  “Well, she mumbled to herself, really, as she was leaving, but I do have excellent hearing.”

  Joy could probably hear a pin drop in the next room, so that doesn’t surprise me.

  Kelsey was running. I’m just not sure if she’s running from me, herself, or back to her memories of Brandon.

  “Well, the coffee is taking too long, and I gotta go.” Joy goes up on her toes and gives Zach a kiss. “See ya later, babe.”

  “Bye sweetums.”

  “You two are disgusting.” I sit down at the counter.

  “You’re just jealous.” She gives me a peck on the cheek as she heads out of the kitchen.

  “Somebody didn’t come home all night,” Mary sings from the kitchen. Leave it to my roommate to state the obvious. “Coffee?” She holds up a cup.

  “Please.”

  She pours the dark, rich liquid into a cup and hands it to me. “Sooooo. Tell me what happened.” She’s grinning like she can’t wait to hear the juicy details.

  “Nothing. Walked around, ate dinner, watched old movies.” I shrug.

  “You didn’t come home,” she reminds.

  “Up late talking with the guys, his roommates, then it was just too late, so I slept there.”

  “With Alex?”

  “Yes.”

  “In his bed?”

  “Yes.”

  “With him?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “We slept.”

  She throws her head back and groans. “Kelsey, what am I going to do with you? Hot, sexy guy in bed and you sleep?” Then she blinks at me. “Unless that’s all he wanted to do. That is, sleep, then there is something seriously wrong with him, and you may just want to cut him loose.”

  Oh, there is nothing wrong with Alex, at least not physically. Hot body and hard cock that had me rethinking every decision I’ve made. And, the very reason I got out of that house as fast as possible. “Oh, that’s not an issue.”

  “So?”

  “I’ve known him a week.”

  “You’ve known him since high school.”

  “I hated him in high school.”

  She slowly smiles. “Well, you know what they say about those love-hate relationships.” She wags her eyebrows at me.

  “We had the hate, but love is quite a stretch from where we are now.”

  “I’m not so sure. I’ve seen the way he looks at you and you at him.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s not necessarily a good thing.” I grab my coffee and head into my bedroom. It’s my intention to just shut my door, be alone and think, but Mary, being Mary, doesn’t let a shut door stop her. Hell, it was barely closed before she was pushing it open again.

  “I get that you are saving yourself.”

  That’s about all Mary k
nows. Not the reasons though.

  “And, it is too soon, for someone like you.”

  “Should I be offended?”

  “No.” She laughs and sits in the chair at my desk. “You move slowly. I get that. It’s a good thing. But I really like this Alex.”

  “I do too.”

  “So, maybe…”

  “I won’t fuck him.”

  She sighs. “Fine.” She takes a drink of her cup of coffee. “If we aren’t going to discuss the deliciousness of Alex, let’s talk about another delicacy.”

  I lift my eyebrow and stare at her over the rim of my cup.

  “Hottie with the yellow gloves.”

  “Dylan?”

  “Mr. Scrumptious. What’s he like?”

  “Nice guy.”

  “Duh! He cleaned our oven. I didn’t even know they were supposed to be cleaned.”

  “Which is why the two of you would never mesh.”

  “Huh?”

  “Once you start making your bed more often than just when you change your sheets every other month, we’ll talk.” I don’t want to talk about Alex, and I don’t want to talk about Dylan. What I want is a shower and to crawl back into bed. It’s only nine in the morning and I don’t feel like I slept at all.

  I drain my cup of coffee, hoping the caffeine will sink into my bloodstream by the time I wash my hair. “I need a shower. We’ll take up this conversation later.” Like in about ten years.

  “Fine!” Mary whines and stands. “For now, anyway.”

  Mary isn’t going to let this go, which is why I plan on taking my shower, then heading out somewhere with my laptop. Maybe the library where I can study in peace. And, if I’m lucky, not think about Alex.

  Mary buzzes me in after I tell her who I am. She’s waiting at the open door to the apartment, grinning at me.

  “Kelsey come back here?”

  The smile slips. “Yeah. Didn’t you know?”

  “She didn’t exactly tell me goodbye.”

  Mary just shakes her head and rolls her eyes. “Coffee?”

  “Thanks.” I look around. “Where is she?”

  “Shower.”

  Given how she ran out of the house, I doubt she’d be happy if I went into her room.

  A door on the opposite side of the living room opens and some guy wanders out, scrubbing a hand over his face. We just watch him walk to the front door and leave. He didn’t even look at either of us.

  “Another one bites the dust,” Mary sings quietly, and I choke on my coffee.

  The guy did look tired and drained. At least someone had a good time last night.

  “Is he gone?” the roommate calls. I’m not really sure which one. I only met them once.

  “Yep,” Mary answers.

  “Glad that is over,” the blonde says, coming from her room, wearing a thin, short, green robe.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” she asks when she sees me.

  “Shelby doesn’t like visitors,” Mary says.

  Shit. Should I go?

  “Never mind her.” Mary passes me a cup of coffee.

  “Excuse me. I do live here,” Shelby argues as she walks into the kitchen and grabs a mug.

  “Cut another one loose?” Mary asks with a smirk.

  “As if I want a relationship with a guy who majors in history.” She takes a drink of coffee. “I just wanted to know if he was a good fuck.”

  I nearly choke on my coffee.

  “Shelby only keeps guys around long enough to fuck them. Lets them treat her to movies, dinner, whatever, drawing them in until they’ve earned a spot in her bed.” Mary’s lips quirk. “If she were a spider, she’d drain their blood when she was done, toss their carcasses from her window, and move on to the next.”

  “Very funny,” Shelby smirks then glares at me. “This isn’t a waiting room, as if you have an appointment or something. Some of us live here so if you want to visit with Kelsey, do it in her room.”

  “Excuse me.” Either Shelby’s the biggest bitch I’ve met in my life, or she is in dire need of coffee. Or, the guy she just wasted time on sucks in bed.

  I knock on Kelsey’s door, but there’s no answer. I knock again and wait.

  “Go in or leave,” Shelby snaps at me.

  Since I have no intention of leaving, I go into Kelsey’s room to wait. I can hear the shower running and just stand there, not sure what to do.

  “I’ll print out a list of house rules and leave it on the counter. Read them before you come back.” Shelby slams Kelsey’s door behind me.

  The shower shuts off and I look for a place to sit and wait. The bed is probably not a good idea, so I grab the chair.

  Kelsey’s only wearing a big towel, and rubbing her wet hair with another when she walks into her bedroom. She stops when she sees me. “What are you doing here?” she asks slowly.

  “You never said goodbye.”

  “Really? You didn’t strike me as being that sensitive.” She disappears again. I get that she probably doesn’t like the surprise of me just showing up in her room, but I didn’t like her just leaving like she did.

  Kelsey comes back a minute later wearing a thick, long robe. “Look, Alex. I just needed to get home. That’s all.”

  “You had some place more important to be?”

  “I’ve got to study.”

  A perfect and available excuse I’m not buying. “What’s really going on, Kelsey?”

  “Nothing.” She shrugs and grabs a comb off a dresser.

  “Don’t lie to me. Things were great last night, but you practically ran out on me this morning. I want to know why.”

  She sinks onto the bed and looks me in the eyes. “This isn’t going to work.”

  I’m being dumped. “Why?”

  “We’re not going to fuck.”

  “I know!”

  “You want to.”

  “Yeah!”

  “So, eventually, you’ll get tired of not getting any and things will end.”

  Now, I’m pissed. “What kind of guy do you think I am?”

  “A guy with a cock.”

  “Well, I certainly don’t think with it, or feel with it. I’m not an animal that’s going to jump on you the first chance I get.”

  Her shoulders slump, and she looks down. “I know.”

  “And, I can assure you, that if whatever this is ends between us, it will not be because you wouldn’t sleep with me. So what’s the real problem?”

  She looks up and her brown eyes meet mine. “Me.”

  “Oh, the ‘it’s not you, but me’ speech.”

  “What?” Then she shakes her head. “Yes. No. I don’t know.”

  “Or, is it a ghost?” I have to ask the question. There’s no point in even trying to talk to her if Brandon is always going to be there.

  “Ghost?”

  “Brandon.”

  “What’s he got to do with this?”

  “You said his name in your sleep last night. Then you couldn’t wait to get away from me. I’m not sure if it’s because you can never be close to anyone else, you are still in love with him, or you’re keeping him alive and preventing yourself from living.”

  Kelsey just blinks at me, as if I’ve just spoken a foreign language. “This has nothing to do with Brandon.”

  “You dreamed about him,” I remind her.

  “I sometimes do, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Are you still in love with him?” I need to know before I try and figure out the us part.

  “No.”

  I believe her, only because of the conviction in her voice and the sadness in her eyes.

  “A part of me will always love him. He was my first love. Father of my child. I miss him and the friendship we shared.”

  Is it more than she’s willing to admit to herself?

  “A part of me will always miss him, but I’m not going to stop living too. I was a kid. Besides, even if I was holding onto Brandon’s memories and not moving forward with my life,
he’d haunt me and kick my ass.”

  I am so relieved to hear her say that, but it still doesn’t explain her sudden change from going to sleep and waking up. “So, it’s not Brandon that’s between us?” I clarify.

  “No. Just me.”

  “His name is tattooed on your body,” I remind her.

  This time she smiles. “I wanted a foot. You put it there. Remember?”

  I wonder how long that decision will haunt me.

  “He is my past. A very important part of my past. Yeah, I’ll have those memories always. I want them. He still lives in a small part of my heart, and I freely give him access. Brandon and Brandy live there together. But, that doesn’t mean I don’t want to belong to another person again someday.”

  The tension I’ve been holding begins to let go. “Okay.”

  “Is that what this was about? You thought I was holding onto a ghost? You were jealous of Brandon?”

  “I didn’t know what to think, Kelsey. You’re the one who ran out.”

  She turns and walks back to the bed and sinks down on it. “It is me and not you.”

  Shit. Here it comes.

  “You scare me. I scare me.”

  “I’m not so scary.” Alex leans forward and smiles. “Care to explain?”

  Why couldn’t he just let this go?

  I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Damn he’s stubborn, but he isn’t going to get it until I put it all out there. “You may be fine with the no sex for now. But, the day will come when you want to take that step and I’m not going to be willing.”

  “I think I’ve already told you that isn’t a problem.”

  “That’s easy to say now, but it’s happened before.”

  “So, you are judging me by the past assholes in your life?”

  I wince. It’s exactly what I’m doing, whether it’s right or wrong. “I was fine with those breakups, not that they were serious or anything, and only a few weeks of dating, if that. But I already like you more than I did them.”

  He grins at me. Damn his cocky confidence.

  “They were easy to say no to. I’m afraid of falling for you and you walking, leaving me hurt. Or, giving into the temptation that is only you and then stressing each month until I get my period.”

  “I knew you couldn’t resist me.”