by Bethany-Kris
One of his friends moved forward.
John hit him, too.
Somebody’s face was bleeding.
Somebody else wasn’t moving.
Shit.
She was pretty sure John wasn’t supposed to be getting in trouble while on parole. And yet, he didn’t seem to think about that at all as his fists rained down, and another guy jumped into the mix.
It was like his judgement was gone, right alongside his inhibitions. Did he even realize that getting caught up in an assault charge would probably revoke his probation? Did he think about that at all?
Siena didn’t know.
“John!”
He didn’t hear her the first time, so she moved in to physically put her hands on him, and see if that would help. She grabbed the back of his jacket, and swore she could feel the way his muscles coiled tighter.
“John, that’s enough!”
He spun around fast, and damn near knocked Siena off her feet. His gaze landed on hers—wild and pissed—but he relaxed. Not a lot, but just enough to take a fucking look around.
At the security coming closer.
At the girl behind the counter on the phone.
At the cameras up above.
“Shit,” he hissed, “we have to get out of here.”
Yeah, she figured.
“Siena,” John murmured from behind her.
She ignored him as she unlocked the door to her apartment. Sure, she wanted to talk. Oh, she had a lot of things to say to him.
Just not right now.
“I’m sorry, Siena.”
Finally, the goddamn door unlocked, and she pushed it wide open. Siena stepped into her place, and threw her bag aside. She couldn’t get her coat off fast enough, but once she did it too was tossed aside.
Turning around, she found John was still waiting outside in the hallway.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“You’re not sure?”
Her tone came out as a harsh hiss. John winced a bit, but still he didn’t move an inch.
“I’m not sure if you want me to come in,” he said.
Siena shook her head. “Well, I sure as fuck don’t want you standing out there. I don’t think my neighbors care to hear us talk, John.”
“All right.”
Taking careful steps, he came into her place. Yet, he didn’t remove his shoes, jacket, and he didn’t move beyond the entryway once the door was closed behind him. She wasn’t sure if that was because he meant to leave, or perhaps he thought she was going to make him go.
Honestly, she didn’t know what she wanted to do.
“They were just idiots making stupid comments,” she said.
“Maybe,” he replied.
He didn’t sound like he believed it.
“What would happen if tomorrow someone knocked on your door because one of them decided to press charges against you, John?”
He stuffed his hands deep in his pockets, and glanced beyond her. “I suppose—”
“It would be a violation of your probation. I don’t even need you to tell me the details of your probation to know that! Why would you do something like that?”
“A person can’t let shit like that slide, Siena.”
“Yes, you can!”
“Fine, then I can’t let it slide.”
Siena let out a harsh sigh, because at that point, she didn’t know what else to do. His responses to hers were so flippant. Words he tossed out with an indifferent tone, as though it didn’t make a difference to what had happened at all.
“You have to use a bit of judgement, John,” she told him.
John’s laugh came out dark and bitter. “Right, okay. I should let some fucking idiot come up on my girl, and then when he insults her, I should just use judgement to decide whether or not he needs his face fucking broken in. All right, sure.”
For a long while, Siena simply gaped at John like a fool who suddenly forgot how to speak. Mostly, because she didn’t know what in the hell to say to him.
John shrugged. “I get it, Siena, I crossed a line.”
“No, I just …”
She couldn’t figure out what she needed to say to make him understand. The words stuck to her throat like tar.
John came closer, and tipped his hands over like he was offering them to her. It took her all of a breath to reach back. Palms pressed tightly together, and fingers woven, he tugged her to his chest. He pressed his mouth against the top of her head, and held her tight. Neither one of them spoke, but she didn’t have much to say, anyway.
Just like that, her anxiety simmered down to low, and she tried to let go of the rest. Because this—with him—was better.
“Maybe it scared me a little,” she whispered.
John used a single hand to brush a few stray strands of her hair out of her face when she tilted her head back to look at him. “I’m sorry for that.”
Siena frowned. “But not for the rest?”
“Shit like that can’t slide, babe.”
“It has to when it means worse things for you.”
John’s lips curved into a semi-sneer. “I’m not really concerned about shit happening to me, Siena.”
“Well, what about me, then? Aren’t you worried about what it does to me, or how I would feel if you were taken away?”
He hesitated, and his grip on her tightened. She didn’t need him to reply, not when she felt it in the way he stiffened all over. Still, he gave her the right answer. In a way.
“I hadn’t considered it,” John said, “or thought about it like that.”
It was something. She only needed something to make sense of the rest. Something worth it, anyway.
John was worth it.
“Think about it now,” she urged.
John dropped a soft kiss to her forehead. “Yeah, I get it.”
“Okay.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know, John.”
He cleared his throat, and asked, “Do you, uh, want me to go? I ruined the movie, and all.”
“No, I want you to stay.”
Amusement lit up his gaze. “That so?”
“Yeah. Besides, we can find something to watch here. And you can make me popcorn. I may even have chocolate for you to drizzle on it.”
“I guess that sounded good to you, huh?”
“You guessed right. So, is that a deal, or what?”
“Deal,” John said with a chuckle.
It was only later, once the sky had darkened, and they were halfway through a movie that both of them had already seen a few times over that Siena noticed something …
John was still keeping his distance. He sat across the couch from her, even though he had stretched his arm across the back, and played with the strands of her hair. He kept his gaze glued on a movie he clearly wasn’t that interested in. His responses to things she asked or said were quiet, and short.
Like he was pulling away, maybe.
Is that what he does to others, too? She wondered, is that how he protects himself … or them?
Siena didn’t like that at all.
“Hey,” she said.
John looked over at her. “Hmm?”
She moved fast, then. Crossing the space between them, and climbing into his lap. She grabbed his face, and dipped down for a kiss as his hands landed to her waist and grabbed tight.
“You’re too far away,” she whispered against his lips. “I don’t like that.”
John’s nose skimmed hers when he replied, “Sometimes, that’s just easier.”
“Don’t pull away, John.”
Something unknown warred in his eyes. She was seeing that from him more and more lately, and sometimes, she could hear it in his voice. She didn’t know what it was, or how to fix it.
Then again, maybe it wasn’t something that could be fixed. Or rather, it was something that didn’t need to be fixed.
It was just another part of him.
�
��Siena—”
“Don’t,” she interjected. “It’s okay, John.”
“Is it?”
“It is. I told you it was. I’ll never say something if I don’t mean it.”
His lips curved into one of her favorite grins. “Yeah, I got that. I’m never going to be able to let something like that go, though. Somebody insulting you, or fucking with you. I can’t—they’re lucky a beating is all they got from me. I can’t change that, love.”
“You could be more careful.”
It was the best she had.
John just laughed. “Yeah, something like that.”
She could still hear a lilt in his tone that suggested he still felt like he had to put up a wall between them. Keep the distance a bit.
Siena couldn’t have that.
Not now.
Her next kiss came down hard on his lips. Demanding and wanting from him, and taking more when his lips parted to let her in. The squeeze of his hands against her side only urged her on. Like a shot of heat and lust straight to her veins, she only wanted more.
Always more.
She knew then that she had him caught—his focus and attention was all on her. His needs would tangle with hers, and lead them down a better path.
It took no time at all for their clothes to be removed, and discarded. His fingertips drifted over her cheeks, and down her throat while she climbed back into his lap. The foil packet he’d pulled from his pants before taking them off was passed over, and she tore it open.
John’s mouth traveled a hot pathway under her chin, and down her throat. Her fingers shook while she slid cool, slick latex down his hardened length. He lifted her easily by grabbing onto her hips. She had his cock heavy in her hand, and hard between her thighs in the next breath.
Nothing was better than that first thrust. The way he filled her full, and took her completely. It was addictive—how he stretched her, and the way she soaked him.
Every single time.
It was always the same.
It was still so different.
Filled full of him, and feeling the way her sex clenched tighter as his hips flexed upward, Siena let out a happy little sigh.
“Love that,” she whispered.
John’s hand left her hip, so he could ghost his fingertips over her trembling lips. “What do you need, love?”
“You.”
His grin colored with sin.
His gaze only reflected her.
John pinched Siena’s chin between his forefinger and thumb to draw her closer. Their lips grazed while he pressed his forehead to hers. Her hair made a curtain around them. It blocked out the rest of the world, like it didn’t even exist in the first fucking place.
Just them.
Right there.
In that moment.
Together.
She only rode him when he asked for it, and came down harder on his cock when he pulled her into him. Every stroke of his length inside her brought her a little bit closer to the edge. It made the high already filling her mind that much better.
“Who’s my sweet girl, huh?” John asked in a murmur. “You’re all mine, aren’t you?”
His husky, rough words slipped over her skin.
Like a silken promise with sharp edges.
It wouldn’t hurt, though.
She knew that.
Pleasure snaked through her body, and assured bliss was soon to come. Every drag of her fingernails over John’s broad shoulders only made his muscles twitch against her touch. The way her name rolled off his lips in a groan was beautiful.
“Are you mine?” he asked again.
“All yours, John.”
At least, until he didn’t want her to be.
And even then, she thought …
She would still be his.
Siena rubbed at her sleepy eyes with the back of her hand. She was unsure if the sight in front of her was real, or she was still stuck in a dream.
She blinked.
Nope.
John was still there, doing exactly what she thought he was doing. For another minute, Siena said nothing, and simply watched John as he placed books back on the shelf. One by one, with careful hands, he arranged each book and pulled the spines out to the edge of the shelf.
“John?”
“Hmm?”
He didn’t even sound surprised that she was awake, and watching him. He didn’t turn around to see her watching him from the hallway, either.
“What are you doing with my books?”
“Fixing them,” he said.
Siena tipped her head to the side, and squinted. “Why?”
“Because they were a mess.”
“But they’re my books, John.”
He shrugged. “Figured it gave me something to do.”
“And that was what, exactly?”
John glanced at her over his shoulder, and then gestured to different shelves as he spoke. “I organized them by author—I take it the more you have by the same author, the more you like them.”
Siena nodded. “I mean, yeah.”
“So, your favorites are at the top, in alphabetical order.” John gestured at the shelves down below. “And the rest are organized in alphabetical order.”
“You know readers discover new authors who are favorites, but they only have one or two books, right?”
John gave her a look, and pointed at the third shelf. “Any books that seemed like you had thumbed through them a lot, or the spines seemed worn from being cracked open a few times, are here.”
She didn’t have any rhyme or reason to her bookshelves, and she wasn’t really overly particular about what to do with them. It wasn’t that it bothered her for John to reorganize something in her place.
Not at all.
It was something else entirely.
“When did you get up, John?”
“Two, or something. I took a run, too.”
She looked down the hallway where a small window overlooked the cold, white outside. “Outside?”
“Where else?”
“It’s almost the end of January.”
And it was cold.
“I needed a run.”
He said it so flippantly. His attention was already back on the books.
“And you’re not tired at all?” she pressed.
“Nope.”
He hadn’t looked tired, either.
She remembered things about bipolar disorder that she had found on the web. Sure, she didn’t think that it should be taken as gospel, but it was still concerning.
“Do you have to run over to your place this morning, or anything?” she asked.
John spun around to give her a smile. “Nope. I’m all yours today.”
“Not for anything, John?”
Like his meds.
John gave her an odd look. “No.”
“You didn’t want to sleep, or what?”
“I had things on my mind.”
“Like what?”
Slowly, John turned to face her. “Just … some things.”
Siena didn’t want to push, or pry. She didn’t want to do or say something that might offend him, or worse, make him throw up those walls of his. “You can tell me or talk to me about anything, John. You know that, right?”
“I figured that last night, yeah.”
“Is there something you want to talk about?”
She hugged the blanket she had brought from the bed closer around her shoulders. It smelled like him, and her. It grounded her for whatever he might say next. She needed that.
John’s easy smile drifted away, and so did his gaze. “There’s something, yeah. I didn’t know when or how to bring it up. I kind of have to, though. And if you want to tell me to go after, then I get it. Don’t feel like—”
Siena held up a hand. “Can I just … preface this with something?”
She had to be honest.
Especially if he was.
“All right,” John murmured. “What?”
&nb
sp; “Let me say first that it was accidental, and I wasn’t snooping. I don’t do that kind of thing to people because I don’t want them doing it to me. I stumbled on it by accident, and different things that I had heard made me look up some things.”
John’s jaw tightened. “Heard about me?”
“People say things, and sometimes I overhear them. That’s not what’s important, though.”
“Might be.”
“Not right now, John.”
His posture had stiffened, and he turned slightly like he wanted to put a barrier there between them.
“I was looking for something to put away the food I made at your place, and I found meds above the fridge. I didn’t touch them, and I didn’t go through them. I saw what a couple of them were, but that was it.”
“Wait, you—”
“No,” Siena said fast. “I didn’t go through anything. I wasn’t looking through your shit, or prying. I found them on accident.”
“No, I meant, wait and go back. So, you found my meds and didn’t think to mention it to me?”
“They’re yours, John.”
He blinked. “What?”
“The medication—whatever it’s for. That’s all your business, not mine. It’s personal, okay. So, I figured if you wanted to tell me, or if you needed to then you would. It wasn’t my place to get in your business, and demand answers.”
John cleared his throat, but he still wouldn’t meet her gaze. “And you, uh, said you looked some shit up?”
“It doesn’t matter. This is about you, and if you want to tell me something you think I should know, then go ahead and do that. Do it because you want to do it, and because you feel like I should know. Don’t do it because you feel like you owe me something. Not for what I found, or what you think I might know, or—”
“I was diagnosed with Bipolar I when I was seventeen.”
Siena thought hearing him say those words might make her suspicions all too real, but if anything, she was just … proud of him.
“Do you tell people that often?”
John shook his head. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because of the way people look at me after—you can see it in their eyes. Crazy. You know, my family doesn’t even use that word to me. Crazy, I mean. It’s been pretty much banned in the context of saying it to me like it’s a slur, or whatever.”