Paper Dolls [Book Four]

by Blythe Stone

  I wondered how she’d feel about getting married somewhere else. Would she even go for a trip to some country where a marriage between us would be allowed?

  I just didn’t need to rush her. I hadn’t lied about that. I was already devoted.

  I was deathly curious about where we would be in one month or three or five. I was shit at being a good wife.

  I thought that PTSD was something I would notice. Avery in a daze seemed normal to me. Who knew she was legitimately crumbling before my eyes. Being taken away.

  God, I'm so stupid.

  Of course, it's so obvious now.

  It wasn't about Skylar or swimming. Even when she was with me she got lost.

  I just should've known.

  “Will you take me to bed now?” I asked. I'd already freaked out on her enough.

  “Or…” I remembered what she'd said early. “It's probably coming near sunset,” I said. “You can take me out back.”

  I wasn't sure what she wanted. She seemed emotional and weak. All my truths and all my playing had done things to her.

  A few minutes ago I was ready to eat her up but she needed to sit down and rest. Everything was too overwhelming for her right now and I understood that because I kept feeling that too.

  I had to be careful. Avery wasn't usually so sensitive. This was all very very new. She was very raw right now and it made me want to be soft with her.

  I remembered seeing an electronic trivia game.

  “Let's go soak for awhile,” I said. We’ll have time enough for getting lost a bit later.

  I hadn't written and played to get her to want to fuck me.

  “Yes. I think I need a little soak time,” Avery said. “I feel like a mess and I never have enjoyed that feeling. Like I could break and spill out without much reason.”

  “Awww, baby, come on,” I said, moving to stand and tug her hand. She was all poetic today, all soft and drippy like a delicious juicy peach.

  We left the room as it was. I took Avery’s letter, it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever read. I needed to tuck it away somewhere so I could read it over-and-over. She had no idea how addicting she was.

  I pulled her along, making a detour to the game closet and pulling out that trivia game.

  “Do you want a suit?” I asked.

  “No, it’s fine.”

  “K,” I said, knowing I wasn’t about to go get one either. We didn’t have to worry about that stuff here. No one else would stop by and the house wasn’t close to anything populated.

  I walked to the fridge in the kitchen and pulled out some bottled water and the basket of strawberries I’d been picking at earlier.

  Avery followed quietly behind me. Every now and then she would sigh.

  When we got out to the tub I walked her to the edge and let her go so I could turn on the jets.

  The sun was getting close. We’d spent a lot of time playing music and trying to be normal.

  Now we could just be calm and relax.

  I don’t think Avery understood that sometimes it really was best for me to just shut my fucking mouth.

  She took offense when I said things like that but I was always saying things I didn’t need to say, making mountains out of mole hills, as the saying goes.

  When I got back to the tub I pulled my shirt off and pushed my underwear off too.

  Avery had already gotten in.

  I felt a little vulnerable as the wind had become cool and brushed past my skin.

  I walked in and felt out of it. The warmth was good but right now it was too much heat. We’d had a very hot day.

  “Maybe we should be in the pool,” I sighed.

  “No, it’s good,” Avery said, pulling me back to sit between her legs.

  I instantly relaxed. Her body felt so amazing behind mine.

  She brought the fingers on one of her hands up to my neck and started massaging it. I felt her other fingers beneath the water, tugging my body back into hers by my hip.

  “Fuck,” I said, relaxing into her. Too amazing. Her fingers were like magic. All that talk about my dexterity? I had nothing on her.

  Every touch of hers lit me up.

  “Hey,” I said, stopping her hand on my neck and pulling it down. “I should be taking care of you. You’re the one all broken and cracky.”

  I loved her touching me but I had so much to make up for.

  “You are. This is taking care of me. The way you react to me and the way you feel makes me happy and relaxed,” she broke me so easy.

  “Babe,” I sighed. She kept touching me, kneading my muscles. I put my hands on the tops of her thighs to try and brace myself but she felt too fucking good, I ended up rubbing her and nearly hissing in the pleasure as I took in one long breath.

  The view out in front of us of the dark blue pool and then the clean deck around it and then the drop down into the valley and the hills off in the distance. The sky, the sun, it all felt like magic again.

  “You’re a fairytale,” I said. Happily ever after in the garden of simple, right? “You’re a dream…” I mused.

  Talk of dreams was tricky now. I brought my hand up behind me and touched on Avery’s face to warn her I was about to lean back and kiss her.

  She caught my lips so effortlessly as I turned. I moved my head up, kissing her lazily since her hand was on me below the water and making me tender for her, holding me still. Kissing was like happily sinking down in the ocean.

  When I pulled away I felt curious again. Curious to know her. She’d been so open on this trip, more open than before, not distracted.

  “Did you have a type before me?” I wondered, tasting her still on my lips. I scanned her face, noticing again how fucking beautiful she was. “Some person you thought you’d end up with?”

  Talk of before was always enlightening. Perhaps Avery was like me and thought she’d end up alone all on purpose. Or perhaps she really did want what we had. I never knew I wanted this. I never wanted this before her.

  It was fun to fantasize and imagine myself in different places with different people. Fun to imagine all the different paths, at least, it used to be. Now I had tunnel vision.

  Before, I’d often muse. I’d seen so many pictures of celebrity lives. It was enjoyable to imagine myself with my favorites when one of their pictures was too candid or too bold.

  Maybe Avery did that too…

  Or maybe there was a time when she thought about Ben really loving her…

  “I never thought about it,” she said. “I figured that I didn't want anyone that close. The future wasn't really something I liked to concentrate on before you.”

  “Okay, that's really creepy,” I said. The bubbles from the jets elicited the lightest of hum and the music from my phone was so relaxing. “It's strange how similar we were in some ways. Sometimes it really gets to me. Things like that. What were you attracted to though? What got you interested in say Daisy or Ben or anyone you spent time on? I know for me I could be interested in a stranger, just watching them be alone… I don't mean that in a creepy way. Humanity sometimes can be horribly attractive. The way we think and are. We're all solitary, all just living…”

  I remembered what it used to feel like to always be alone. I used to watch people a lot, spend days in pondering on what this person was thinking or feeling. “Emotions attract me,” I said. “When I met you I kept most of mine in… Emotions were personal for me. I didn't want people seeing them. You saw though. That was new. I didn't hate you seeing me. That was new too.”

  I felt her hands snake around my stomach, her lips came closer to my ear and she happily sighed. My stomach sucked in out of pleasure as she pulled my body in tighter.

  “Seeing you excited me,” I said. “Not just this,” I touched her face lovingly. “This,” I said, scratching my fingers up into her hair and scalp to signify her thoughts and her brain. Avery's emotions were intense. Even the ones she didn't voice.

  “It is a touch creepy,” she said. “We are either rea
lly, really, alike or vastly different.”

  She got quiet and I let her think. The interplanetary hum of the water took over until she finally spoke. At times our conversations were the height of intimacy, everything else so big while we felt secret and small.

  “What really attracted me was that I couldn’t ignore you. It was impossible. You got to me. If I didn’t see my friends from school again in my entire life I’d be okay. You were different. After one week I wouldn’t want to live without you. I was afraid that wasn’t normal but then I didn’t care because neither am I. You made me see the possible future.”

  It was hard to breathe when she said things like this.

  “I like everything,” she went on. “You’re serious and you have ambitions and intelligence, but you’re also sweet and funny.”

  Okay, she needed to stop.

  “I just want to drown in you baby,” I laughed awkwardly. “If I could do one thing with my life. Just one… That's all I’d want. It's not healthy,” I added on. “I don't care about that.”

  “I don’t care either. I know what I feel. I know what I want and that’s rare. I can’t care what anyone else thinks. Just you.”

  I turned in her arms, moving up on the seat to trap her legs beneath mine, her thighs beneath my center. Reaching up, rising up, I pulled her in for a kiss with both my hands at her face. No amount of talking could convey what I felt for her. When I touched her though, that’s when I knew she could read me inside.

  “When you kiss me like that it makes me forget where I end and you begin. I hate that I missed some of this.”

  “Don't think about that,” I said, searching her. I moved for her lips again, wanting them. So much of what she did was healing for me.

  When we talked we were just making our way back to this feeling. Trying to find it fully. This was so much easier. It was just more dangerous, a fully realized force. It overwhelmed words, shut them down.

  “Physically though, what’s your favorite thing about me? The most attractive thing,” she asked, dazed. We both had that need, to keep learning, keep asking things, keep driving this on.

  “Choosing is hard,” I said, running my hands along her skin. I tested her features, playing with her. I squeezed her breast and kissed her neck. After that I moved my eyes up to survey her face and ran a hand up into her hair, tugging so she'd open her lips up and gasp as I stared. “What do you think?” I asked. The choice was so easy.

  Her eyes. Obviously, her eyes.

  She had a crazy hot body. She was athletic, but more than that, she was beautiful. She wasn’t a stick of a person, my arms, my whole body was smaller than hers. She had substance. As much as I hate the term: curves in all the right places, that’s exactly what I should say. Her hair had natural blonde highlights and because of the pool and the sun she looked like a surfer all golden and made for and from the Earth. The dimple in her chin was addicting. The tiny mole right over her top lip. Her perfect perfect forehead. The way her cheekbones helped her smile. Everything about her was attractive to me.

  But her eyes easily won… Her eyes were the first things that held me. The first things that asked me. The first things that begged.

  “What do I think you find most attractive about me? Or what do I think is most attractive about me?”

  I sighed in amused frustration. “What do you think I find most attractive? About you,” I clarified.

  I stopped flirting and rest my lips on her shoulder, just hanging onto her for a short while.

  “Ahh, the harder of the two,” she sucked in air through her teeth, considering her answer.

  “Well, despite the fact that I have great boobs I’m going to guess either my dimple or my eyes because one you find cute and the other you can see things in.”

  “Hmmm,” I hummed, moving over her legs to straddle her higher. “I do love your little dimple,” I said, kissing it and then kissing up the side of her face. I liked being ontop of her like this; for once I could be taller than her, find her lazy and pour down on her with strength.

  “But yes,” I said, leaning back and touching her face with my hand and staring into her eyes. “Your eyes kill me.”

  “Ah, why? Is it the color? People always compliment my eyes because of that but I don’t think they’re that special color wise.”

  “Your eyes hold secrets,” I said. “Pain… Hunger…” How could I even explain? “Right away I saw so much of you in your eyes. They arrested me.” I moved my arms around her neck and leaned my forehead down on hers to close and rest my eyes.

  “They didn’t even read you your rights first,” she kissed me.

  I laughed, my eyes opening near the end of the kiss.

  I felt her arms wrap around me again as I looked down. “No, they certainly did not,” I confirmed. “They’re just like the rest of you. Perfectly criminal.”

  I pushed my hands into her hair and really kissed her. Talking felt so cheap. Delicious but cheap.

  She leaned into my hands, moving so they were touching her head even more and sighed as she ended the kiss.

  “Speaking of criminal, you with the kissing. You could win a worldwide competition for that.”

  “Sorry,” I smiled.

  I wasn’t sorry really. She kept talking though which made me think I should stop trying to touch her so much. I wanted her to have the kind of moments she wanted. I moved to get off of her, unsure of whether she wanted me to stay.

  “Where are you going?” She asked.

  “I don’t want to bother you,” I laughed, stopping since her hands forced me to.

  “Don’t make me force you to stay,” she half joked.

  Her hands wrapped around my wrists tight and she tugged a little, giving me something to think about.

  I would love her to make me...

  “Unless you want to go and then you can take me with you,” she was being far too cute.

  “I don’t want to go anywhere,” I said definitively. Sometimes she said things and did things that made me think it was too much. She kept on breaking our kisses. It confused me. I think she just wanted to love me both ways, with her words and her touches.

  “Sit down,” she pulled me back over her legs and swept me up, kissing me hard.

  My head spun and I felt a smile on my lips before she took me over.

  I felt her everywhere inside. My entire body instantly woke up and cried out for her. She couldn’t hear it or feel it but she was all inside me right now.

  She kept the kiss going and we wavered, our weight leaning from one side to the other. Water splashed around us and she kept me upright with her hands, pulling me closer and pulling my head back a little with a hand tugging at my hair.

  There was so much pleasure in this I could never say.

  Little things she did tied me to her, wrapped me up.

  “Fuck,” I breathed out, completely done for. She didn’t even have to try.

  “You make that word sound different. Better.”

  She kissed my neck, trailing down and across my chest.

  “Fuck,” I said differently. “You take my breath away.” I loosely held her head to let her go where she wanted but also let her know that she was breaking me, teasing me right.

  “That’s bad. I need you to breathe. Maybe I should stop kissing you so much. You know, to keep you alive.”

  “I’d rather die a little,” I said, breath hitching as a few of her fingers brushed over my thigh with light pressure.

  “Can you die partially?” She urged me to keep touching her with her hands on mine.

  “Fuck,” I couldn’t stop saying it. It was the only word that could survive what she did to me.

  “I take that as yes. You’re the Scientist. I figure you know better than I.”

  She adjusted so I was higher up on her lap. “Your body is too much sometimes.”

  I looked down on her, seeing everything. Who gave her the right?! “No,” I said, shaking my head. “The way you touch me is too much.”


  I shut my eyes as she ran her hands up my sides.

  “Like this?” She let her fingers slide in and out along my stomach to my back over and over, ending at the bottom of my sternum. She painted me with pressure.

  “Or should I touch you like this?” She raked her nails down my stomach and over my legs.

  I couldn’t stop my shocked gasp.

  “No, right now, I want you softly,” she said.

  Her fingers came back, soothing over the scratches with light caresses until she reached where she had started.

  “Is it bad that softly hurts more?” I asked, desperate.

  To be loved was still a little hard to take.

  “I don’t know if it’s bad. I know it makes sense to me,” she kissed my chest.

  “You being gentle means you really care,” I said.

  “I do. I want to take care of you. Wrap you up so nothing can harm you or make you sad but that wouldn’t be fair.”

  “The more I think about it,” I said. “The more I realize I’m quite simple… I’ve never let anyone touch me the way you do.”

  Polite touching, friendly touching… Ben was probably closest. I let him hug me sometimes and I wanted that up until the end. Avery though… Avery blew that divide into deep space. Nat wasn’t allowed to be nice to me, it was always sexual. She probably could’ve been nice. She just knew I wouldn’t let her. Nat read my desires, like a psychic. What I wanted from her was very different.

  Avery... I wanted for her to be the one. She always felt like the one. So when she said yes and when she touched me even better than I could imagine anyone else touching me it buried me deep, sharp claws sinking down into roots. I let her take me. I completely gave in.

  She stole me away and there was no going back. Even my body language with others has changed since then. I’m more open now, less aware. Touching reminds me of her. It’s a good thing now, she’s opened me up.

  “I’m glad. It’s selfish but I’m glad. I’m the one that gets to make you feel all these things. It makes me feel even more. Your reactions to everything I do are unbelievable sometimes. That I could affect someone so much, it makes my head explode.”

  “Don’t explode,” I said, pulling her up by her chin and dipping down to taste from her again. Her hands moved up my thighs, she cupped my ass and pulled me into her. My whole body shook from the impact at my center. “Ah-” She knew how to break me. I held my hands at her neck, pushing my upper-body away from her, using that as my pressure point as I finally breathed in.