by Vi Lily
And honestly, I’m tired of living life in theory, or through others. I want to live my life in actuality.
It’s now or never.
“No, I’m not cold. You make me… uh, warm, actually.” Gawd, this is harder than I thought it would be. If he laughs at me — well, not laugh, cuz this is Alex we’re talking about — but if he pushes me aside, or tells me I’m an idiot or something…
My heart isn’t going to recover. That I’m sure of.
I take a deep breath. It doesn’t help. He’s still staring at me with those beautiful blue eyes and I wonder what he’s thinking.
“I… that… um, that shiver was cuz you touched me. I do that a lot when you touch me, actually.” My cheeks are hot at my admission, but at least I got it out.
Now the ball is in his court. I just hope he doesn’t take that ball and go home.
He swallows again and if I’m not mistaken, he’s nervous. That’s really weird, honestly. Most teen guys would be all on a girl who admitted she liked them, right? Maybe he really doesn’t like me. Or, worse, thinks of me as a little sister.
I immediately want to deny what I said, to turn it into a joke. But I fight that urge down. I’ve been spending my life in the shadows, watching others living while I was just existing. I’m done with that. From now on, I’m going after what I want. And if what I want doesn’t want me, well, at least I was honest and willing to try.
Alex continues that weird stare that makes me nervous, but I don’t look away. In fact, I’m pretty sure I don’t even blink. I want him to know that I’m serious and it’s up to him what he wants to do about my admission.
In about three more seconds, I have my answer when Alex releases my hand, then slides off the coffee table and kneels before me. His hands then move to the sides of my face and I feel his fingertips on the back of my skull. It’s a reminder of how large he is, how much he is capable of overpowering me.
It makes his tentative, gentle touch even more endearing.
He’s going to kiss me and I’m nervous. It won’t be my first kiss; there were lots of those back when I was popular — and what I now realize was seriously inappropriate groping for tweens — but it will be the first kiss I’ve had in years.
And I’m worried that I’ll suck at it.
Alex doesn’t give me much of a chance to stress out about my kissing ability when he leans forward and touches his lips to mine. At first, it’s just a soft meeting of flesh, as chaste as between a parent and child. But within seconds, he tilts his head to the side and I feel his tongue slide along the seam of my lips.
And then his tongue touches mine and I moan.
I can’t help it; it feels so good. And it takes me less than a second before I’m meeting his oral thrusts with my own.
If a kiss can define a moment, then our kiss has now changed my future. As we softly dual with each other, gently brushing our tongues together, testing previously unknown feelings and desires, I know that I’ll never have a kiss like this. Nothing will come close to this moment, when I admitted my feelings and then discovered that they were returned.
I’m in love with Alex Johansen.
The thought doesn’t even startle me when it flits through my lust-numbed brain as our tongues sweep against each other. It’s been coming on for a while, this knowledge that I’m in love with the near-man who saved me.
I suppose that it’s some sort of savior-victim dynamic driving my feelings, but I don’t really care. All I know is that Alex is the one I want to be with. The one I want for my first lover.
I’ve come close to having sex before. I was only thirteen, but Robert Thomas Poulsen III was the guy of my middle school, the one all the girls wanted. He was beautiful, with light blonde hair and dark chocolate eyes. He had an easy smile and a throaty laugh that made all the girls sigh.
And he wanted me. It was mutual.
So, at Suzanne Hampton’s birthday party, Robbie and I slipped away from the others for stolen kisses in one of the mansion’s bedrooms. I think it was a guest room, since the decorations were muted and simple with nothing personal to indicate it belonged to a real person. I remember to this day the silk bedspread and its pattern that looked like pyramids.
On that pretty silk bed covering, I nearly gave my virginity to rude, obnoxious, snobby, but seriously cute Robbie, and the only reason I didn’t was because Suzanne’s family maid heard a noise and investigated.
Robbie told everyone that we’d had sex though. I started high school at the Academy with a rep for being a slut. And just months later, I was called a skank.
Alex’s hands slide gently from my face as his lips leave mine, trailing heat down my jaw to my neck. His lips are soft, gentle, and he’s moving so slowly that I almost scream in frustration.
I want more. I want his hands on me and his mouth everywhere.
When his hands slide down to the top button of my school blouse, I plant my hands on his shoulders. Finally, we’re getting somewhere! I want to cry in relief because my body is tingling all over, demanding… something. Hell, I’m not even sure what.
Alex’s delicious and talented mouth moves along with his hands, kissing each peek of skin he exposes. When the shirt is finally opened all the way, he pushes it off my shoulders, pinning my arms and then proceeds to kiss all the skin he’s just exposed all over again.
My entire chest is on fire from the heat his amazing mouth is trailing across me.
All except where I really want it. He leaves my bra and my wrap on, further frustrating me and I decide to remedy that immediately. My breasts are aching for his touch and especially his kisses, so I try to shimmy out of my blouse so I can unhook my bra to speed things along.
But the movement causes yet another sharp pain. Thankfully, I don’t faint this time, but I do suck in a breath. Alex’s mouth and hands still immediately and he pulls back. I want to grab him by the ears and yank him back to me, but I know better. For one thing, I’d hurt my damned ribs even more, and for another, he probably wouldn’t appreciate it.
“Are you okay?” he asks me, his voice even deeper than normal. It causes a shiver, for some reason. He sees it, assumes I’m cold again, and the jerk gently pulls my blouse back up over my shoulders.
“I’m fine,” I assure him, even though I’m gritting my teeth against the pain. Thanks to Devon’s constant abuse over the past few years, I’ve gotten pretty good at sucking up pain, but I have to say that broken ribs are the worst ever. They hurt nearly constantly, but whenever I make a certain movement with my arms or move my torso, it’s freaking excruciating. Like a hot blade stabbing me in the side.
Alex frowns. “You don’t look fine,” he argues. I reach out — slowly, don’t want to hurt myself again — and put my hand on his cheek.
“That was the best I’ve felt in… in ever,” I admit.
It must be a trick of the light, but I can swear his eyes darken at that. Trick or not, I can tell that he’s as aroused as I am. Especially when he stands and the very obvious evidence of that arousal is at my eyelevel.
I swallow. That thing looks… scary.
He bends down to pick me up. When I’m in his arms, he stares at my chest, then bends down to kiss the tops of my breasts. My breath hitches and my fingers slide through his hair. He straightens then and starts around the coffee table.
“Um, where are we going?”
Alex glances down at me as he carries me up the stairs. “You’re going to bed. You need rest.”
I’m pretty sure my bottom lip sticks out at that. “I don’t wanna go to bed,” I whine at him. “I want more of…” Damn, I didn’t realize how embarrassing it was to discuss sex.
I stare at his strong jaw that looks like it’s clenched. I know it’s not from carrying me; he does it so easily, it makes me feel like a ragdoll.
“I want more of, um, of what we were doing.”
Alex looks down at me then as he reaches the top of the stairs and turns toward his bedroom I’m occupying.
&nb
sp; “Didn’t say you were goin’ alone,” he drawls.
Chapter 4
Alex
A S MUCH AS he really wanted to pound Ari into the mattress, Alex refrained. But only because he didn’t want to hurt her ribs even more. He really hated knowing she was in pain.
He wished the stupid things would hurry up and heal already.
Ari was making him crazy. Since she’d cleaned up and started gaining weight, there was no denying her amazing beauty. In fact, his phone was full of pictures he’d taken of her doing all kinds of things — eating, laughing, sleeping on his lap when she’d fallen asleep watching a movie. But his favorite was the picture he’d taken of her after he’d brought her to an orgasm.
She was breathtaking.
But he knew it wasn’t just the outside that was drawing him like a June bug to a porch light; it was her sweetness. And her appreciation of everything, even stuff normal humans took for granted. It was the way she cared about him. And Ogre. And even Steve.
It had been over a week since he’d carried her to the bedroom, laid her carefully on the bed and proceeded to show her that there were other ways to make love than just what she thought. While her body wasn’t ready for a good mattress pounding yet, she had definitely been ready for some pleasure.
And it had been Alex’s pleasure to give it to her… and every night since.
Unfortunately, her inability to do much more than lie back and enjoy herself left him in need, to the point he was spending twice as long in the shower as he used to. And usually more than once a day.
He’d never been cleaner.
Ari had insisted he move back into his room, but she had no intention of moving out, which made him happy. Secretly, of course. While he was discovering that he could let down his guard with Ari, a lifetime habit of making sure he didn’t show any emotion was hard to overcome.
But the feeling of her head on his chest while she slept was enough to make his heart smile.
She’d returned to school on Wednesday. One and a half days of rest was all he could coax out of her, and while he really hated to do it, he’d asked Vato to watch over her since they shared a lot of the same classes.
He was rethinking his future plans too. The thought of leaving Ari behind — especially with Vato — was making him crazy. Alex had been contemplating ways that they could stay together, but with him supposedly graduating in a few months and his mom putting an end to his housing arrangements at that time, it was either college or get a job.
Alex wasn’t kidding himself; other than wrestling, he had no useful skills. If he didn’t go to college and learn how to do something, then he was looking at low-level jobs for the rest of his life, and those kinds of jobs didn’t support a family.
And that thought startled him. Why the hell he was thinking about a family was beyond him. After growing up the way he had, the last thing he wanted to do was repeat the abuse cycle. He doubted Steve was ever going to procreate, but even if he did, their father hadn’t abused Steve like he had Alex. Alex figured if he didn’t have kids, the cycle would most likely end with him.
But for whatever reason that he didn’t want to think on too hard, he could no longer envision a future without Ari in it. It was really weird, how he’d gone from a grumpy loner who didn’t want to even talk to anyone, to someone whose every thought was consumed by a tiny girl who needed looking after.
Alex knew now how Ben Penn had managed to get pussy whipped.
Thanks to Ari’s help, Alex’s grades were starting to come up a little bit. The Academy had a website that showed daily progress and he was on it obsessively, checking to see where he stood.
He was just under a two point oh, but Ari assured him that he could get that up “in no time.”
It should have amazed him that he was still on the wrestling team with grades as bad as his, but he knew that the Academy didn’t want to lose him, not this close to going to State. Coach Bellevue had taken him aside last week and warned him to get his GPA to a two point three before the tourney.
Even though his grades were so bad his senior year, he’d been doing pretty good up to that point. The boarding school in Germany had individual tutors who made sure he stayed on top of his courses, despite his learning issues.
Thankfully, his counselor had been American, so he knew all about the NCAA requirements, and he had made sure Alex took all the classes that were required for college sports participation.
But once the Biology teacher, Herr Kunzler, had tried to make Alex his latest boy toy, that was the end of that.
Alex had been struggling ever since.
He still had scholarship offers on the table and thankfully, the NCAA looked at early high school grades, so Alex figured he might still be able to get into college, if it wasn’t too late. But that still left the question of Ari and leaving her behind.
It was something he couldn’t even think about.
He wondered if he could talk her into going with him wherever he ended up. She did seem like she was getting pretty close to him too, so maybe she’d want to leave Bearing and follow him wherever he went.
Alex frowned then. She was also close to Vato, although he knew she wasn’t having any kind of sexual relationship with him like she was with him. There was the possibility that she’d want to stay in Bearing, stay at Athole, and move into Vato’s cabin in the woods.
That thought made him throw Collins a little harder than he meant to.
“Dammit, Johansen!” Coach Bellevue yelled from across the mat. “Don’t be taking out our middleweight!”
“Sorry, Coach,” Alex mumbled, then helped Collins up.
“I don’t know where the hell your mind is today but get it here where it belongs!” Coach yelled.
Alex apologized to Collins as he helped him up. Alex only outweighed the guy by about thirty pounds, but when he yanked on the guy’s hand, he pulled him up and off his feet.
He muttered another apology, but Collins shrugged. “‘S’kay, man,” he laughed. “Figure you’re getting a lot of weight training in, carrying Ariel around all the time.”
Huh?
Alex frowned at his teammate, but the guy had already moved off to join Coach and the others. Practice had ended five minutes before, but Alex and Collins were still in the middle of a grapple and hadn’t wanted to stop.
Coach gave out a bunch of instructions for their upcoming match in two days, then the guys went their separate ways; some leaving school, others to the locker room for a shower. Collins headed to the locker room, so Alex followed.
“Hey, what did you mean by that? I mean, by saying I was carrying Ari around.” It was worrisome, to think that others knew about him and Ari living together. If her brother found out…
Collins glanced at him over his shoulder and smirked. “You’re kidding, right? Everyone knows y’all are into each other.”
Alex snorted as he followed him into the locker room. Collins was also from Texas and Alex always found his accent thickening whenever they talked. He watched as the guy sat on the bench in front of a row of lockers.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Alex snarled. He propped his forearm against a locker as he stared down at Collins while he unlaced his shoes. Collins laughed up at him as he pulled his shoes off, then stood and opened a locker. He took out a bag, set it on the bench, then peeled his singlet down his body and stepped out of it.
He rolled the uniform into a ball and stuffed it into his bag. “Dude, it’s clear that you’ve got it bad for Ariel. And the way she looks at you…” he laughed but didn’t elaborate. It made Alex want to put his head into the locker and slam the door closed. Several times.
“How does she look at me?” He didn’t mention the other part Collins said. Alex was just starting to realize himself that he “had it bad” for Ari. It kind of sucked that others noticed though.
Collins’ eyebrow rose as he pulled a hoodie over his head. “She’s got baby eyes,” he shrugged as he yanked on a pair of sweats.<
br />
“Baby eyes?” Alex asked. He had no idea what the hell Collins was talking about. The guy just laughed again.
“Yeah, baby eyes. You know, she looks at you and see babies in the future.” He reached out and whacked Alex in the chest with the back of his hand.
“Better keep your junk double-wrapped, just to be safe.” He laughed harder and slammed his locker closed, then sat back down to put his shoes back on.
Alex mumbled some stuff about Collins being crazy, then left him to change his own clothes. He needed to hurry up and get out of there, because Ari was making dinner and he promised he’d pick her up in the library by five. It was already four-forty-five.
He rushed to get there before the librarian kicked her out. The school library was open until five, but they didn’t cut students any slack. If you were there after five, your butt was out in the cold. The last thing he wanted was for Ari to be standing outside in the freezing cold, waiting on him.
Alex took a shortcut across campus and was rounding a corner when he heard voices. He recognized one of them as Ari’s. Alex stopped; he and Ari had agreed to keep a low profile at the Academy, not wanting others to know they were living together. While it was perfectly plausible that he was there just to give her a ride after school, Alex knew it could also look suspicious.
He stood there, contemplating his options.
“I don’t know what game you’re playing,” he heard a girl’s voice say, “but there’s no way Alex is going to fall for you. Once a skank, always a skank.” He realized then it was Raine who was talking to Ari. Of all the bitches on campus, it had to be the biggest one of all…
“I’m not playing any game,” Ari replied. “I’m just trying to live my life. I don’t put my nose into your life, and I don’t know why you’re putting yours in mine.”
“I seem to remember you ‘putting your nose’ in my business back in seventh grade when I liked Robbie Poulsen, but you threw yourself at him like the whore you are. I still can’t believe you lost your virginity at thirteen. Seriously, even the biggest sluts wait until they’re fifteen.”
