by Jessica Roe
“Mm hmm,” is all I can get out. My body feels like a limp noodle.
“You look all sleepy and satisfied now.” He grins, and there's something so sweet about it. Almost shy. “I love making you come. You're so beautiful.”
Laughing, I slide my hand down between our bodies to reach for his belt, because I can feel how rock hard he is against me. I love that getting me off turns him on so much. But he shakes his head, kneeling up with his legs on either side of me and pulling my hands away. “No, not now. That one was all for you.”
Sitting up, I kiss his chest. He sucks in a breath at the feel of my lips on his skin. “But I want to.”
“We will,” he assures me, winking. “Later. I just want this one to be all about you. You had a shitty day, I wanted to make you feel better.”
I blink, taken aback. My heart clenches almost painfully in my chest because he's just. . .he's just extraordinary. For a moment I'm not sure what to say. The things he makes me feel, the way he cares about me, it just blows my mind.
Whipping his t-shirt over my head, I lay back down before him. “Okay then. You do it.”
He tilts his head to one side as he regards me, confused and intrigued. “You want me to. . .” He glances down at his erection before looking at me again questioningly.
His eyes darken as I cup my breasts. “You need to get off,” I say simply. “So get off. I want to watch.”
A corner of his mouth tilts up as he warms to the idea. “You seriously want to watch me?”
“Seriously.”
“You are so. . .” He shakes his head, his mouth opening and closing. “So sexy. So fucking sexy, Ivy, that I can barely believe I get to. . .” His eyes meet mine, so filled with heat and desire and hunger, and he just. . .he has power over me. A power that I'd never even realized I'd given him. I'm unable to look away, unable to do anything but lay here and wait. His belt comes off and then slowly, his fingers move to the button on his pants. He flicks it open easily, sliding the zipper down before pulling himself free of his boxer briefs. He's so hard. His erection strains towards me and I want nothing more than to touch him, but I keep my hands to myself. The two of us, we're under a spell right now. A naughty, kinky spell, and as much as we'd both enjoy it if I touched him, I also desperately want to see him do this.
His breaths come out heavy as he begins to move his hand up and down slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. “Do you like watching this?” he murmurs roughly.
I bite down on my lip and nod, teasing my nipples with my fingers. “Move faster,” I command, and he does what I say. It dawns on me then, right at that moment, that I have as much power over him as he has over me. More importantly, he's letting me have power over him. It's a heady thing. “Squeeze tighter.”
“Shit,” he rasps, enjoying both the feeling and me telling him what to do. His eyes close briefly before opening and meeting mine once more, like he needs to be looking at me while doing this. His strokes quicken and his breaths come out harder as he gazes down at me with hooded eyes. He's wild right now, it practically vibrates out of him in heated waves.
“Come,” I demand. “Right now, Nash.”
“Fuck,” he roars, dropping forward over me. Holding himself up with one hand so that the rigid muscles in his arm strain, he pumps his dick with the other. His head bows over mine as he gasps and comes all over my stomach and breasts.
He stills for almost a whole minute, the broad expanse of his shoulders rising and falling with his labored breaths. Finally his head rises and he looks at me, his expression a mixture of disbelief and awe. “Fucking hell, Ivy. No one's ever made me. . . Jesus.”
“I think that makes you my bitch,” I tease, and we both fall about in laughter because that's really all we can do right now. What just happened between us, it was intense on a whole other level and we didn't even have sex.
“That was hot as hell,” he tells me, sitting up and reaching for his shirt to mop up the mess from my chest. Standing, he kicks off his shoes and socks and drops his pants and boxer briefs to the floor.
I lift an eyebrow curiously as he slides in behind me, slipping an arm beneath me and tucking me against his chest. He grabs the throw from the back of the sofa and drags it over us. “What are you doing?”
“I wanna finish watching the dragon movie,” he explains, as if us laying naked on the sofa together is just a regular ol' occurrence. “Actually, wait. We missed all the good bits. Take it back to the beginning.”
Smiling softly, I do as he asks then snuggle contentedly back into his solid chest. He sighs happily and brushes the hair back away from my neck, kissing the side of my head tenderly. Almost absentmindedly, his hand moves down to find mine and our fingers entwine as he loses himself in the movie.
Being wrapped up in him like this, I feel safer than I ever have. Not just physically, but mentally, emotionally. I feel really and truly happy for the first time in a while. I feel secure, wanted. I feel the peace of contentment yet the thrill of excitement. I feel. . .
I feel. . .
I feel.
My eyes widen and my whole body stiffens. Everything around me fades away as my heart begins dancing furiously behind my ribs: the movie, my sleepiness, Nash's fingers trailing lazy circles over my belly – all forgotten.
Because I feel.
Oh crap.
+++
It doesn't take long for Nash to fall asleep. With the combination of a long day at work and then getting off, he's out in less than thirty minutes. As carefully as I can so as not to wake him, I pull myself from his strong embrace. His arms tighten around me for a moment, as if even in sleep he can't stand to let me go, but then his hold loosens and I'm able to roll free.
Grabbing up the abandoned t-shirt, I shove it over my head and lean back against the coffee table. I pull my knees up to my chest and then just sit there for the longest time, watching him sleep with this fear turning my heart icy cold. He looks so peaceful in sleep, his features softened and the shadows under his lashes brushing against his cheeks. I'm afraid. I'm afraid because I want to touch his stupid face and kiss his stupid cheek and smooth his stupid hair back. My hands ache with this need, so bad that I have to clench them against my knees. I shouldn't want to do those things. I shouldn't feel this tender. Terror like I've never known it courses through my veins. This can't be happening. This can't be happening to me again. Didn't I learn my lesson?
He snuffles in his sleep, and my heart just stutters as I watch him. My heart isn't supposed to stutter!
It dawns on me that my feelings towards him, they're no longer simply friendly, platonic. And they're not just sexual either, not anymore. With a jolt, I realize that in the two weeks that Nash and I have been sleeping together, I've barely thought about Lambert once. And now when I do think about him, my chest doesn't constrict like it did before. I no longer feel like I'm about to fall apart. Not because of him, anyway.
My pulse picks up again as I silently freak out. This wasn't supposed to happen. I can't be having these. . .romantic feelings towards Nash, towards my friend. It's not what I want. It's not what either of us wants.
Quietly as I can, I climb to my feet and tiptoe towards my shower, desperate to get out of here before he wakes.
I need space. I need clarity. I need someone to help me understand what it is that I'm feeling because I. . .I haven't got a clue.
+++
“I'm sorry I'm so frazzled,” Heather says as she rushes about her kitchen, simultaneously trying to feed a fussy Daisy her bottle while checking on dinner. I don't know why I came here really. I just felt like crap and wanted my big sister. “Bailey will be home from work any minute – he had to stay late tonight because there was an accident in the office and since he's the manager he-”
“It's fine,” I assure her, getting up from the wooden kitchen table. “Just. . .sit down or something. Please. Let me check on dinner.”
She eyes me doubtfully, because no one should ever trust me to cook, but she must
be desperately tired because she takes my vacated seat with a relieved sigh. Moving over to the stove, I poke a wooden spoon into the sauce and try to act like I know what I'm doing.
“If I'd known you were stopping by I'd have tried to tidy the place up a little more,” Heather continues, her eyes darting about the kitchen guiltily. There are days worth of dishes stacked in the sink, a mountain of laundry that needs ironing towering over the kitchen table, piles of dirty laundry waiting by the washing machine, and the trash most definitely needs taking out. And that's just the kitchen.
“Are you kidding?” I chirp, because she looks like she's on the verge of an emotional breakdown. “You've got a baby, sis. A little mess is totally normal. Trust me, no one expects the house to be sparkling when you're on twenty four hour mommy duty.”
She smiles, but it's watery and there are dark rings under her eyes. “Thanks, Ivy. And I don't mean to be so rude. You know you're welcome here anytime, night or day. But I am surprised to see you. . .”
I turn away as she trails off, concentrating on the pans over the stove as she waits for me to elaborate. Suddenly telling her about my problems seems impossible. Mostly because she has enough on her plate already, but also because I've never been the kind of girl able to do this, able to talk about her feelings and analyze her love life and just be a general girl. It was never me. “Just felt like stopping by, that's all. I missed you guys.” I find myself twirling my hair around my finger and immediately drop my hand.
Unfortunately my sister knows me much better than that, and I can sense her getting ready to interrogate me further when we hear the front door open and close. Thankfully it distracts her. An utterly exhausted looking Bailey ambles into the kitchen. He glances over briefly, surprised to see me but too tired to even comment on it. Nighttime feeds op top of a full time job must be taking its toll.
“Did you pick up the diapers?” is the first thing Heather says to him in place of a hello.
His eyes close in frustration. “Shit. I'm sorry.”
“Bailey! Don't swear in front of Daisy!”
He heaves a sigh. “It's not like she has any idea what I'm saying, Heather.”
I stir the sauce robotically, trying to make myself look as small as possible as they continue to argue because I really don't want to be here right now. Heather and Bailey, they don't fight. Not ever. In the five years they've been together I've never seen them bicker or even disagree. They're sweet and romantic and sickeningly in love.
It must be the exhaustion of a new baby making them antsy and irritable, and I have to wonder once again why people do this, why they do it to themselves. Is having a baby really worth all this crap? Worth all the exhaustion and the mess and the relationship strain? Is this really the cost of having a family?
I never want this. I don't want to do the whole family thing. And God, I don't want to do the whole relationship thing either. I don't ever want to put my heart into somebody's hands, I don't want to give them the power to destroy me just because I made the mistake of loving them. Why would I want this, when it is this hard? If having a family can bring so much trouble to Heather and Bailey, the sweetest couple in the entire freaking world, then I don't have a chance.
No. I cannot do the feelings thing with Nash. I won't. I won't be that stupid.
“You guys,” I interrupt their bickering. “I'll run out and pick up the diapers, it's fine. You should both just sit down and. . .I don't know, chill or something. Stop fighting. It's weird, I don't like it.”
They both sag gratefully, so I smile and pretend that I'm doing it to be nice and not because I need to get out of this house.
+++
It takes almost an hour to get back from the store, mostly because I had no idea which kind of diapers to get and when I asked a nearby woman with a kid she spent at least twenty minutes telling me the pros and cons of each brand, but also because I wanted to pick Heather up a few more groceries because it seems like she isn't getting enough time to get out to the store at the moment herself.
No one answers when I knock, so I let myself in through the back entrance and drop the groceries on the kitchen counter. The house is suspiciously silent, and for a moment I contemplate whether they were pissed enough to, you know, murder each other and stuff.
The pans have been moved to one side and the stove turned off, but it doesn't seem like dinner has been eaten, just abandoned.
“Hello?” I call, leaving the kitchen and making my way through the house.
It doesn't take me long to find them in the living room, and I pause in the doorway to watch them. Heather and Bailey are curled up on the sofa, Daisy cuddled up between them. Even fast asleep Heather and Bailey's heads tilt towards one another and their hands are clasped over Daisy's stomach like they sought out each others touch in their sleep. They look so peaceful now, serene, happy. All of the tension from earlier is gone, because. . .because they really love each other and when two people love each other like that they just. . .make it work. Even when things get hard.
“Oh,” I sigh to myself, because that's when I realize. This, this right here, is why people do it. This is why they suffer through the terror of falling in love and why they exhaust themselves starting families and why they wade through all of the hard crap every single day just to make it work. For moments like this, and all of the other moments together that make life truly worth living. The hard stuff. . .the hard stuff is worth it in the end, I guess.
Oh.
+++
It's beyond late when I get home. After I'd tucked the three of them under a throw and turned down the lights I'd washed the dishes and thrown in some laundry and tackled that mountain of ironing. Not gonna lie, I did a less than stellar job, but I don't think my sister will mind. The whole time I kept telling myself that I wasn't doing it to avoid going home to Nash, but it turns out that it's kind of hard to lie to yourself, especially when you're surrounded by nothing but silence.
When I get home I find myself digging that stupid shoe box out from under my bed, the one filled with Lambert's doodle napkins. I hold it in my lap as I pry the lid off, picking up a handful of them and letting them drift back down again.
I never loved him.
That thought, it hits me like a punch to the gut.
How could I have loved him? I'd barely even known him. I've seen so many different kinds of love – sweet and caring like Heather and Bailey's, firm and everlasting like my parents', strong and forgiving like Nash's mom and dad's, tested yet beautiful like Silver and Blair's – and what Lambert and I had, it didn't even come close.
I was entranced by him. Wildly attracted to him. Infatuated, intrigued and charmed by him. But I never loved him. Not really. Because the whole time I was with him, he never made me feel a fraction of what I feel when. . .when I'm with Nash.
Shoving those doodles in the trash isn't as hard as I'd imagined it would be. In fact, it's pretty freaking easy, and after I feel freer than I have in a long time. I'm letting him go, and it feels so, so good.
I undress and put Nash's t-shirt back on, just about to climb in bed when he shuffles into my room clad only in a pair of boxer briefs. He pauses in my doorway, rubbing his sleepy eyes adorably.
“Did I wake you?” I ask.
“Where'd you go?” he wants to know, ignoring my question and stifling a yawn. “I woke up and you were gone.”
“I went to see Heather.”
He nods, but he's still half asleep and I'm not even sure he really hears me. Stepping closer, his large body surrounds mine as he folds me into his arms and rests his cheek on top of my head. His skin is warm from his bed, wonderfully so, and I can't resist rubbing my hands over his back. He shivers as my fingers trail over the bumps in his spine.
Capturing one of my hands in his, he tugs me down into my bed and switches off my lamp. “Night, Ivy,” he mumbles, curling his body around mine from behind and burying his face in my neck. His hand slips beneath the t-shirt to rest on my belly as he holds m
e securely against him.
“Goodnight, Nash,” I whisper, but he's already fallen back asleep. I, on the other hand, am suddenly wide awake. Nervous energy is coursing through my veins, my fingers are tingling and my brain is working way too fast.
Because this. . .this is happening. This has happened.
I wonder if he even realized, as he climbed into my bed, that this is the first time we've slept together without having sex. And I wonder why that suddenly seems to mean so much.
Chapter 15
Nash
“Where the hell have you been?” Nathan demands when I join him in Corbin's Bar for a drink after work a week later. It's seedy as shit in here, but Nathan has always liked it. Probably because he is a seedy shit.
“Sorry, got caught up at work.” I'm not sorry and I didn't get caught up at work. Ivy stopped by the office to drop off a folder I'd left at home and we'd ended up having a quickie in the back of my car like a couple of teenagers. It was fucking awesome.
“Doesn't matter,” Nathan says easily as we grab our beers and sit down at a table. “See that chick over there by the dance floor?”
“The brunette with the cowboy hat?”
“Hells yeah. She's been sending me filthy looks for the past thirty minutes. That cowgirl wants me to take home tonight for sure.”
Squinting, I tilt my head as I try to get a better look. “You've already taken that cowgirl for a ride.”
He gets a goofed out, gormless expression on his face as he stares at her, trying to remember. Jesus. And I thought I was bad. “You sure about that?”
“Pretty damn sure. Last summer, I think. She was with a bunch of girls having dinner at Merry Fairburn's.”
“Wait, was she wearing a cowboy hat then too?”
I shrug, taking a sip of my beer as I wait.
“Oh, shit.” Nodding, he turns his back on her and grimaces. “Yeah, I never called her back.”
“Don't think those are looks of lust she's shooting you, bro.”
