Never Been Loved

by C.M. Kars

  She pushes her glasses up her nose and asks, “Do you want something to drink, eat?”

  “You’ll let me know when you need anything? All right. Lemme get the movie started.”

  She brings over her glass of water to the living room, moving out a coaster that has her blushing for some reason. I have a crazy need to snatch it from under her glass and see what’s on it. Is it porn?

  Looking through the glass as she moves to her DVD player after nabbing the disc, I see it’s just a character from Star Wars – a movie I apparently need to see as I take my seat on her couch.

  Watching her move is a kind of torture. I want to touch, and I curl my hands into fists that have my knuckles cracking. She’s so beautiful, so strong, and she has no clue, no fucking clue.

  “Whose shirt are you wearing, baby?”

  Good job, MacLaine. Your mouth didn’t consult with me when it spewed out that shit. What don’t you get about ‘going slow’, asshole?

  It’s none of my business. None at all. What the hell did I just say?

  “Uh, mine. You like?” She turns back towards me, and fans it out away from her body so I can see the whole design of it. There’s no need for her to do it, since the thing only says SAMCRO on her chest. Christ, why does she have to be so cute?

  “Yeah, but I want to know who it belongs to.” I’m going to jump out of a window. Goddamn it, what the hell is wrong with me? She’s got me so twisted up inside, I have no idea what’s going on. I have no claim on her, none. Doesn’t matter whose shirt she has on.

  Unless this has all been a game, and I’ve been teased into believing I could win.

  I clench my jaw. She frowns at me. But I need to know. Is she playing me, like everybody else has?

  “It’s mine, Hunt. I’m not a klepto.”

  “Whose was it before it was yours?” Hey Big Man. I need your help. How about you strike me dead? I’m being an asshole again, and I don’t want to be. Help me out?

  “I don’t actually know.”

  I lean forward, planting my elbows on my thighs, getting closer to her. She’s frozen at her spot near the TV and she’s looking at me like I’ve gone and done something equal parts stupid as hell, and adorable. Give me more of the adorable look, baby. Please.

  “Did an ex-boyfriend give that to you?”

  She tumbles on her way over to me, catching one of her feet on mine, and crashes into me. I get an instant of softness—fuck, her breasts up against my chest, her flesh on top of me—and I have to remember how to swallow.

  “Are you serious? I wear my shirts big, Hunt. I got it online, actually. Sweet deal, too.” She laughs, scrambling upright, hands on my thighs and looking up at me from on her knees. She leans in and lightly kisses my cheek.

  I’m paralyzed and alive all at once.

  “Why is that so funny? You’re wearing a man’s shirt. It was a logical assumption.” Even I hear the change in my voice, the softness, the way the edge to it has left. I have no right to ask these questions, but how else am I going to know?

  “You’re right, it was,” she says. It’s like she’s talking to Matty. She gets up and sits next to me, palming the remote in her hand and staring at the black screen.

  “You wouldn’t like it if I had Aly’s shit lying around at my place.”

  Big Man, put me out of my misery. Why do I keep fucking this up? Why?

  Because you think it’s what you deserve, MacLaine. You know you’re not good enough for her, and you’re terrified she’s going to come to her senses and realize that yeah, she needs to upgrade to a better version.

  She turns her head to look at me then, and I swear, she knows exactly what I’m thinking. How can’t she?

  She keeps looking at my mouth and I check the need to lean in and kiss her, like we almost nearly did the night before.

  She drags her eyes away from my mouth and says, “Hunt, if you’re wearing her shit, then we’ve got problems.”

  You just got schooled, asshole.

  I start laughing, abs doing the rocking and rolling, and I’ve got her curled into my side with some pressure of my arm, and my lips are on top of her hair and everything is fucking stellar, for once.

  “Ten points to Gryffindor,” she mumbles against my chest.

  I grin down at her perfect face, and keeping her close, turn to look at the screen. You have to add Harry Potter to your list of shit to do.

  “As soon as Captain Jack comes on screen, it’s quiet time. No interrupting. I get really into it, so I might fidget or make noises, or whatever. No judging allowed.”

  I kiss the top of her head again, because I want to, and she gets even closer to me. This could be one of the better days of my life.

  Johnny Depp is a mastermind when it comes to acting. I mean, I didn’t know it until just now, since Blow was the only movie I’ve ever seen with him when I was younger. I might admit to Sera that I want to be a pirate, just to see her smile, watch her eyes get all big and interesting.

  When the movie’s done, Sera checks her phone, and starts moving to her kitchen to make something to eat. She opts for calling the person, and I look around her kitchen trying to figure out without a map where she stashes all the pots, pans, and everything else we’re gonna need.

  I’m going to make her my specialty: grilled cheese sandwiches. I get the butter from the fridge, the pan from the cupboards and some bread and Singles ready to go.

  “Sorry, Hunt, I had to take that,” Sera says, walking back into the kitchen, all smiles. It feels like she’s opened up my chest cavity and grabbed onto my heart – I’m still living and breathing at her command. I get a wave of dizziness that I can’t really explain – is it the sugar, or something else?

  She looks down at the flipped grilled cheeses, and licks her lips. Then she frowns at the food and looks up at me, worried.

  “Is this enough food for you? Do you have more protein next door? I ran out of everything – I have to go grocery shopping tomorrow.”

  She’s amazing. Absolutely amazing.

  I’ve never had anyone be so accepting of what I have, of my limitations; it’s all easy with her, so damn easy.

  “I’ll be good. I’ve been to the gym already, and you only have brown bread so the sugar intake goes down some.” I’m not embarrassed talking to her about it, I never thought that would be possible.

  She gets plates, moving around me while I man the stove, squashing down the sandwiches so the cheese will melt. Sera pulls down four green glasses, and I realize they’re Ninja Turtles like the old cartoon I used to watch when I was a kid.

  Nerdy all the way through.

  I love that she snags away her favourite and leaves me to decide. I grin down at the glass, watching Raphael’s mug stare up at me.

  She gets the beer, and we move to the living room, sitting down on the couch. She’d pulled aside a stack of DVDs before I finished up the grilled cheeses and I’m shown some pretty awesome movies, watching her watch them like it’s the first time.

  She practically lives the stories along with the characters and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more beautiful. I also notice the shit out of her having drunk three beers. She keeps smacking her lips and her cheeks have gone pink.

  She’s going to kill me, I know it.

  “Hunt, you wanna play a game?” she asks, moving in her spot practically plastered to me. Ah, fuck, I’m going to die. She’s going to end me right now.

  Drink up, asshole. You’re going to need it.

  Chapter 23

  “Depends,” I say, drawing it out. Sera’s tipsy, and she’s looking at me like she knows what she wants. The beer might just give her that little push to take a chance on me, a real chance.

  Wouldn’t it suck if you kiss and you’re utter shit at it?

  “How about you be the teacher and I be the student?”

  She can’t be doing this to me. Not now. Flashes of her body on top of mine, under mine, left and right as I watch her come over and over again by m
y hands and mouth.

  I’m panting like I’ve gone hard at the gym for a solid hour.

  It’s all in her hands now.

  While she’s looking at me, and she knows who she’s with, I have to be sure. I won’t be a substitute for an alcoholic haze. Fuck that.

  Her hands reach out and fall on my cheeks. I’m sure she can hear the thing in my chest sprinting against my rib cage, and her eyes are glued to my mouth.

  Fuck, baby, please. Please.

  “I don’t know what you want,” I whisper, as she moves closer and closer to me. Fuck this, just plant one on her.

  Shut up! This is her call!

  I want to taste her—fuck, do I. I can’t tear my eyes away from her mouth.

  “I want to play a game. You’re going to pretend to teach me how to kiss.”

  Shit.

  A smile tugs my mouth, and I stare at her, eyes drooping. My dick twitches and I’m going to have serious problems real soon. Fuck, what is she playing at?

  “Baby, just kiss me. You can’t do anything wrong.”

  She moves to her knees, swings a leg over and makes contact with my thighs.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck. We’re in trouble.

  I clench her thighs while my lips pull back from my teeth.

  She’s going to kill me.

  “Sera, how much have you had to drink?”

  I know exactly how much she’s had to drink. Didn’t know that she needed some liquid courage to get this close to me. But something happened to her in the past, something I don’t know about yet, but hopefully will. All I need to do is erase it from her memory and replace it with something better.

  Starting now, with her on top of me, and me barely keeping my shit calm.

  “I’m good, Hunter mou,” she purrs, and says the last word with a wicked smile. My stomach clenches, and my dick is really throbbing now. I swallow past my dry throat, and try to take a deep breath.

  Don’t move your hips, don’t fucking move. Just watch how it plays out.

  “I really am. I just want to play. You’ll let me play, won’t you?” Sera’s hands are at my throat then around my neck. Christ, I didn’t know it would be like this.

  She’s so beautiful, so alive, so healthy, and for some odd fucking reason, she wants me to kiss her.

  If I was a cheesy bastard, I’d say dreams come true.

  She gives me another slow smile, licking her lips, knowing exactly what it’s doing to me, how it’s making me lose my calm. I want her, I want her right now on this couch. Then the bed. Repeat five times.

  “I don’t get it. Just kiss me. We don’t have to play games,” I say, wondering what the hell is going on.

  Her fingers tighten around my neck, and she stares at me for what feels like years.

  I chew on my lip and watch her eyes flare at that, her breathing coming faster. She sits more firmly on top of me, pulling us closer, and like a fly caught in a spider’s web I follow along to my destination. I move my hands to sit at her ribs, thumbs inches away from the paradise of her breasts, but I check myself, again.

  Be a good boy.

  “I’ve been told I’m a really bad kisser.”

  Well, shit. I didn’t see that coming. Then again, maybe I did.

  Sera’s been skittish since the beginning, nervous around me like I’m going to assault her. But maybe it was training, years and years of training in the form of verbal abuse.

  I’ll hurt them. I’ll hurt whoever did this to her. I’ll hurt them all.

  I scowl at her, hit over the head with disbelief. Who the fuck made her believe that?

  “And I want you to teach me how to be a good one.”

  Fuck, we’re in so deep, there’s no reason but to go full steam ahead. Just don’t fuck it up. Don’t fuck it up, MacLaine.

  I clench and unclench my hands from around Sera’s waist, trying to relax enough that I can do this for her. She squirms in my lap and waits for my answer. I let out a growl that probably has me sounding like a crazed animal. Who the fuck cares?

  I have a goddess sitting in my lap and she’s asking me, me, to give her something good, something she’s never had a chance at.

  Yeah, I’ll do what you want Sera. I’m going to be the man you can count on, I’m going to be the one who will be honoured when you’re mine.

  “Baby, good kissing is about wanting to kiss me.”

  Sera shivers on top of me. I nearly come in my jeans.

  “Do you want me?”

  “Yes,” she moans, pulling on my neck and moving me closer until we’re glued together from the hips up. Her hips jolt closer to me, and she almost – fucking almost – settles right on top of Junior, and stars explode behind my eyes.

  She moves even closer, so that her upper arms are on my shoulders, and we’re staring at each other, eye-to-eye. She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

  “Good, baby. Now come a little closer—uck.” I groan when she settles on top of me, and growl, “And give me your mouth.”

  Her mouth trembles under mine, so I go slow, I go easy.

  Sera’s body shakes under my hands, trembling – because of me?

  Everything’s riding on this, but fuck, we’re mouth-to-mouth and it’s exactly where I want to be.

  I pull back, and make eye contact.

  “Do you want me?” I ask, breath tearing out of me. I jump and fidget underneath her, ’cause I need her closer, I need us to do this longer, better, fuck, forever.

  She nods, pinching her eyebrows together again, and I’m floored all over again how cute she is.

  “Then show me. Kiss me like I’m the only one you’ll ever want.”

  Smooth, asshole. That was smooth.

  She’s nervous, completely nervous. I’m going to kill the person who did this to her. A slow, long death, with a hell of a lot of torture.

  “That’s all I have to do?” she asks, her voice shaking.

  I hold her hips a little tighter, and keep my movements slow. I want her to be okay with this; I need her to be okay with this.

  “You promise you won’t be an asshole if I suck at this?”

  Anger lights up my chest cavity, burning through me. But she needs something else, not that.

  “Baby, you’re not going to suck,” I say, my fingers digging into the flesh at her hips. Shit, don’t leave bruises. Be careful!

  “You better remember that after what comes next.” She closes the distance between us and makes me smile. She’s being bossy and I love it.

  “You’re really cute when you’re nervous.”

  “I don’t wanna be cute. I want to be sexy.” Sera practically pouts. I need to taste that bottom lip and spend some quality time with it once we’re kissing.

  “Cute is sexy.” I move my hands to her back, and stroke the ends of her tied up hair, trying to calm her down. She shivers in my lap and I have to keep a tight rein on whatever self-control I have left to keep the peace.

  It’s just me. It’s just me here.

  “If you say so.” She looks doubtful, and taking a deep breath through her nose, says, “Okay, okay. Ready? Here goes nothin’. Three...two...-”

  I don’t let her finish. I kiss her, moving slowly, slowly, slowly until the need to taste her overcomes common fucking sense.

  I want you baby. Kiss me like you want me back.

  Fuck, her mouth starts moving, and soon we’re kissing, the best kiss I’ve ever had. Christ, she wants me.

  I feel her palm at the back of my head, moving us closer, and air doesn’t seem all important right now. She moans into my mouth and I haven’t even done anything to her yet, but she’s so sweet, and so damn perfect, and the way she presses herself against me makes me want to howl to the moon.

  I swipe my tongue along the seam of her lips, and when she opens – Christ – her taste, the smell of her, the way she’s moving on top of me, the way we’re breathing together, shit, it makes me believe in -

  She tangles her tongue with mine, giving what she’s ge
tting and I’m about to explode.

  She pulls away abruptly pulling in air like it’s her last. My head’s on fire, every inch of skin is burning. I can’t get a good breath.

  My mouth does the talking for me.

  “It was that fucker Tommy, wasn’t it?”

  She shakes her head, slowly. “I’m not following.”

  She’s pulled away from me, still on my legs, but there’s no way in hell I’m taking my hands off of her. Not when I’ve finally been given the chance.

  “That fuckwit, Tommy. Your friend with the mouth. He said you were bad?”

  Shock makes her mouth pop open. “You think...? You think...Tommy and I? No. It wasn’t him.”

  “Which one of your boys did it? Who lied to you?”

  Dead. They’re all dead.

  “Not...not them. I swear. We’re just friends. We’ve never... that’s never happened. Ever.”

  Who did it to you then, baby? Tell me who?

  “So... the verdict?” She looks like she’s holding her breath.

  What? Oh. Her game. Right.

  I run my hands along her skin, pulling her closer to me. I watch her, the way her face is scared, her lips are white against her face and she looks like she’s swallowed some of my bad cooking.

  “It’s fine. Let me get up, Hunt. Just... let me get up, would ya?”

  “Sera, stop. Stop for a second.” Idiot, of course she’d jump to conclusions. The one time your mouth doesn’t get involved and now you’re in deep shit.

  She looks at me, completely broken by what’s been implied.

  “By the power of Grayskull, let me go! Please, just let me go. I want you to leave.”

  Ah, Christ, she’s crying. She’s crying because of me.

  Never again.

  “And here goes thinking you were perfect.”

  At least she’s stopped moving. “Are you high? What the fuck are you smoking?”

  I cradle her face in my hands, like I did the other night, and her eyes are so green, her tears like drops of crystal falling to her cheeks. She’s been hurt, bad.

  “I wasn’t complaining. Nor will I ever complain. You can use that mouth on me anytime you like.”