by Ashley Love
Hell, every time Blake's in the room, he seems pretty freaking peachy to me. Especially considering he's usually got his girlfriend with him. Which I refuse to get jealous about. I'm not jealous about it. Even those times when I walk in and Blake's got his shirt off and she's groping him and—I don't care.
Only I do. And what's even worse is that she's nice. She's sweet and polite, and she always offers to leave when I come into the room, because she respects that it's my room as much as it is Blake's. And I honestly fucking like her, but I wish I didn't. I wish I could hate her.
"There's no way he did that," Lucas says firmly. "Blake wouldn't call it off. He liked you too much."
Those words shouldn't twist my insides with hope and a bit of longing, but they do. So I squash it and say, "Yeah, well, he did."
"That doesn't make any sense." Lucas looks sincerely baffled. "Why would he do that?"
"Beats me." I shrug, reaching for the door. "And I really don't care either way. Can I go now?"
Lucas doesn't seem to hear me. He's too busy pulling out his phone, pressing buttons quickly. I take that as my cue to go.
When I get back to the couch, Cadence and Emma give me questioning looks. I shake them off and sink onto the couch between them. "He just wanted to know what happened between Blake and I."
"So would we, actually," Cadence says.
So would I.
"Yeah, well." I say it with finality, end of conversation.
Cadence and Emma won't stop looking at me after that, though. Looking at me like I'm something fragile that's close to cracking into hundreds of irreparable pieces. I can't stand it.
"I've got homework," I say abruptly. "I probably shouldn't put it off any longer. I'll see you guys later."
"Are you sure you don't want to stay?" Emma asks. "Criminal Minds is on next."
I shake my head. I love that show, but what I'd love more is to be alone. "I'm okay. Next time, alright?"
Because I have the worst luck (and roommate), the room is occupied when I get there. I push open the door without knocking, and I find Blake and his girlfriend on the bed, her straddling him. My heart sinks into my stomach, and I'm frozen for a moment. It's not the first time this has happened, and I figure it won't be the last. But Blake's meeting my eyes over her shoulder as she kisses along his jaw and neck, his lips parting in a silent moan.
It's more than just jealousy. It's this crushing, horrible pain in my chest because I never even got what she has. I never really had Blake. Sure, we fucked, but that's not the same as a relationship. That doesn't mean anything. Sex doesn't mean anything when you can't hold the person afterwards. When you can't kiss each other just because, without needing to progress things into something more.
As quietly as I can, I back away and shut the door, feeling a burning in my eyes. I only get halfway down the hall before Blake comes out of the room, calling my name.
I turn, finding him shirtless and panting, standing in the middle of the hallway.
"What?" I demand. I pray I don't sound as upset as I feel, because that war that me and Blake started so many months ago is still going. The battle's different, but the opposing sides are the same. And I refuse to let him beat me. Refuse to admit defeat.
"Do you ever knock?" he shouts at me. "God, you have the worst timing!"
"Sorry, but not everyone lives on your schedule, Blake!" I shout back. I wipe at my eyes as discreetly as I can, but the burning tears now feel like they're from frustration more than anything.
The door next to me opens, and the guy from the room next to ours peeks his head out.
"Great," he mumbles. "The people next door are fighting again."
"At least they're not fucking again," someone else in the room, hidden by the door, replies.
I go bright red, my hands clenching into fists. And, just because I can, I stomp down the hall, ducking past Blake and into my room. I flop onto the bed, completely ignoring the pretty blonde girl lying in Blake's, looking a bit lost, like she's not quite sure what happened.
"What are you doing?" Blake demands.
I shrug. "Lying in my bed, obviously."
"I have company over," he hisses.
"Really? I didn't notice."
"Aubrey," Blake groans. "Fuck off, honestly."
I sit up, extending my hand to the girl on the bed. "You know, I don't think we've ever been formally introduced," I say, because we haven't. We've spoken, me and her, but it was always in passing, nothing but a few pleasantries. "I'm Aubrey, by the way."
The girl takes my hand and laughs. "I know that. D'you know how often this one talks about you?" She jerks her thumb at Blake, who's as red as I had been in the hallway, only I had been that color out of embarrassment; Blake looks livid. Like a volcano that's about to explode and kill hundreds of civilians.
"Don't encourage her," Blake says. "And Aubrey, get the fuck out of here."
"I think I'd like to stay," I say cheerfully. It's an act, though. I still feel sick, upset, jealous, but it's easier to deal with that when I know I'm making Blake feel terrible right back.
"That's fine," Blake's girlfriend says. "I have to go anyway. I promised my roommate we'd do dinner." She gets up, pressing a kiss to his cheek that leaves sticky lip gloss in its wake. "I'll call you later, okay?"
"You don't have to leave," he says quietly. "Just ignore her. I do."
"It was nice talking with you, Aubrey!" she calls over her shoulder.
Blake locks the door behind her and stays turned to it for a long, long time. When he finally turns back around, he's got this look on his face that actually terrifies me for a moment. Me and Blake fight a lot, but I've never actually thought that he would hit me. For just a second though, I think it might happen. I think this time I've actually pushed him too far, tipped him over the edge.
Blake crosses the room, and his hand fists in the front of my shirt. I close my eyes, waiting for it, but he tugs me to my feet first. And then...nothing.
I blink open my eyes, a little thrown off. "What are you—?"
"I'm not initiating it this time," he states. "If you want it, you do it."
"You're not—you're not going to hit me?" I ask, surprised.
Blake's intense look morphs into one of complete disbelief. "No," he gasps. "God, no, Aubrey. Never. Fuck, I'd never—I wouldn't. Okay? I'd never, ever lay a hand on you like that. You might make me want to rip out my own hair and scream and throw things, but I'd...I wouldn't."
He wouldn't, and I feel like an ass for even thinking that he would.
"Okay. I shouldn't have assumed that you would."
"You shouldn't have," Blake agrees, obviously annoyed. His forehead rests against mine, a hand sliding into my hair, and I missed that. Missed the way he tugs at the strands until it almost hurts, but never crossing that line on purpose. He seems to only do it when we're caught up in the thick of things, because for some reason he's always careful with me even when he's being rough. "You're the most frustrating person I've ever met."
"Same, but...the other way around." I have obviously benefited so much from higher education.
"Shut up and kiss me," he pleads.
My gaze drops to his lip, but I notice the smudged lip gloss on his cheek. "You have a girlfriend, Blake."
"I'll feel guilty about it later."
So I kiss him. Kiss him the way I want to, the way we should have been kissing before. It's not a rough press of lips, it's gentle, hesitant and unsure. If this is happening, I'm going to do it the way I want to. Because Blake's already called it off once, and I'm sure as fuck going to get my fill while I have the chance.
Blake's lips part, and I slip my tongue into his mouth, gently brushing it against his. And all I can taste is this sickeningly sweet, artificial strawberry flavor.
"You taste like her," I groan, pulling back. My eyes narrow, and I shouldn't have said that, shouldn't have let Blake know how much that bothers me, but it does.
/> He pulls me back in, hand pressed firmly against the small of my back. "So kiss me until I don't," he challenges. "Kiss me until I taste like you."
I push hard against him, hands holding onto his shoulders to keep him steady. I lick into his mouth until that sweet strawberry flavor isn't so powerful. Until my head swims and Blake's tugging at my hair, no longer just sliding his hands through it. Until we're both breathless and I'm wet in my panties, trying to push us towards the bed because I like kissing him—no, love it—but I want more.
Blake steers us in the other direction, dropping us heavily onto my bed. I have only enough time to move up a bit, get more comfortable, before he kisses me. It's not us kissing each other. It's him kissing me, like he knows exactly how my mind works. Knows exactly how to move his lips and his tongue to drive me crazy. Sloppy and thorough and perfect.
It's been weeks. Weeks of us wasting time, when we could have been doing this instead. We were so, so stupid. How could we have ever thought stopping this would be a good idea?
Blake's lips move from my own, trailing down my jaw to my neck like they always do. My hands move up and down his back, fingertips kneading into flesh, loving how warm and soft his skin always is. But his lips are still moving downwards. He bites at my collarbone, pulls down the neck of my t-shirt to kiss the center of my chest, over the butterfly tattoo.
"Shirt off," he mumbles. He pulls back, resting heavily on top of me, towering over me. "Get it off, Aubrey."
"R-right." I nod and push myself up, trying to pull my own shirt off with unsteady hands. Blake gets impatient, pulling it off for me, and then it's gone and he's kissing my chest again, sending sparks through me with nothing but a whisper of those lips. "Fuck, Blake."
He moves lower, teeth scraping, tongue dragging over my skin, like he can't get enough of it. He undoes the button on my jeans, tugs them down in one easy pull because my hips lift obligingly, and then his teeth are nipping at my hipbone, his chin pushing my panties down a little farther. That heavy feeling settles on my chest, making it hard to breathe, but it's for a completely different reason. It's because Blake's looking up at me with wide eyes, finger hooked under the waistband of my panties, pulling them down, down, down.
"Blake," I say roughly.
He smirks up at me, lips on my inner thigh. "This okay?"
That is possibly the stupidest question in the entire fucking world, I think.
"Yeah, it's okay," I say.
Blake nods, stubble burning against my thighs, which sends jolts straight to my pussy. I want to fist a hand in his hair, want to push him towards that spot where I need him, but I'm happy to wait. Happy for anything he gives me, at this point.
I'm always sort of distantly thought that Blake's lips were obscene. They're pink and plump and they thin when he smiles. I hadn't taken a lot of time to really consider how they'd look on my pussy, and I'm not prepared for the sight of it when Blake's tongue snakes out, gently gliding over my clit before he's wrapping that mouth around it, one hand on my hip to hold me steady. And it's...it's overwhelming, pink lips puckered tightly around me, Blake's dark eyes looking huge as they blink innocently up at me, the warm wetness of his mouth, the drag of his tongue.
I'm not sure where I'm allowed to touch. Can I grab at his hair? Drag my thumb along his cheek? Trace the stretch of his mouth? I don't know, so I fist my hands in the sheets instead and try my best not to push up into his mouth.
I take back every single bad thing I've ever said about Blake in my entire life. The man's a gift. He's brilliant. Heavenly. He does this thing where his lips tighten around my clit and his tongue swirls around it while I moan, and my entire body shudders, mouth opening and closing in a silent, breathless gasp.
"What—what about you, though?" I force myself to ask, if only because this isn't how we do things. We never focus on one of us. It's always both of us, struggling to get ourselves off as quickly as possible. Right now, this is just Blake, all of his attention on making me feel good. And he's fucking succeeding.
The only response I get to that is his mouth sliding farther down me until he's licking at my entrance. When he slides back up to my clit, his hand replaces where his mouth once was, and he works on doing that tongue thing again while fingering me with a quick, spit slicked hand. And I shatter. That's what it feels like. It's not the normal tightening in my stomach just before I cum, and a wave of released tension and relief when I do. It's like Blake's torn me apart into ragged, broken little pieces. I don't even get a chance to pull him off me before I cum directly on his lips, vision darkening, head spinning.
There's a moment or two where I lose myself in the sensation, in the way Blake struggles to lick up every drop, mouth still wrapped firmly around me. But it gets to be too much, after a while. So much so that I whine, reaching down to push him off me. But he keeps swirling his tongue, I feel overheated, and I wonder if I'm going to black out when Blake finally pulls off me.
Which doesn't really help the situation, honestly, because his lips are puffy and red and slick and—
"Fucking Christ," I moan. I grab his arm. "C'mon, let me—"
Blake shakes his head. "I'm good," he says, kissing me gently, sweetly, despite the fact that I can taste myself in it, sweet and salty. "See? Now I taste like you," he says with a smirk right against my lips. When he pulls back, he falls onto the side of the bed so he's lying parallel to me. "Why do I get the feeling that I just gave you your first head job?"
That was not at all what I expected Blake to say. I go red, reaching for my panties. I tug them over myself and refuse to meet his eyes.
"Oh my God," he says. "Seriously?" He pauses, eyes getting so much wider. "Wait, shit, were you—was I your first? I mean, not just with this but... with everything?"
"You didn't take my virginity, Blake, calm down," I grind out. "Fuck."
"But then..." Blake's fingers dance over my stomach, scratching lightly every once in a while. "Then how have you never gotten head before?"
I don't really want to talk about this. And I have no idea why we'e still touching, because we don't do this. We don't do the whole post-sex cuddling and talking thing.
"My ex didn't...he didn't do that," I find myself answering anyway.
"Didn't do that," Blake repeats. "What, you mean he didn't eat pussy?"
And I laugh at that, but I just turn my head, looking away from him because yes, that's exactly what I meant.
"Wait." Blake props himself up, hovering just over me, eyebrows drawn together. "Please tell me you weren't with one of those guys, Aubrey. Come on."
"One of those guys," I say. "What does that even mean?"
"You know what I mean," Blake insists. "The type that... it's all about them. The type that doesn't care about you, all they care about is themselves, about getting themselves off, and afterwards they come up with an excuse not to return the favor. The type that use you. You realize that's what it is, right? Using you to get off and that's it. You deserve better than that. You—"
"You mean someone like you," I snap. I climb off the bed, reaching for my jeans. "That's exactly what you do, so don't sit there all high and mighty like you're better than him." I button my jeans expertly fast, locating my shirt where it hangs off Blake's bed seconds later. "Because this?" I wave a hand between us. "This is the exact same thing. So fuck you, Blake."
I almost run from the room. My blood is rushing in my ears, making everything sound hollow. I ignore Blake calling after me this time, just speed walk down the hall with my head ducked because I can't handle this.
And deep down, I know that what I said to Blake was right. Subconsciously, maybe that's why I've always hated him. He's so much like Max it's crazy.
Now that I'm apparently letting that train of thought continue down the tracks, it runs away from me, keeps going until I have no control over it anymore. I fall onto a bench outside and light up a cigarette as I remember a scene just like this, back in school, when I was in t
he eleventh grade. After school, actually. I was waiting for the bus to go home, and so was Max, and he was smoking even though he was still in his rugby uniform. His golden blonde hair was a mess, as it always was, and he'd smiled at me and offered me a drag.
And I had taken it, if only because...I wanted to impress him, for some reason. Wanted to seem cool.
The next day, Max had been there again. And the next. And on the fourth day he invited me to hang out at his house, and I had agreed because no one ever wanted to hang out with me after school, and here was the captain of the rugby team, the most attractive guy in school, giving me the time of day.
Max's parents hadn't been home, and we'd spent the next three hours kissing. I had never been kissed, before that, and I'd been worried about being bad at it, but Max promised that I was doing it right. Which is why it was a little off to me that we never did it again, the kissing thing. We did other stuff, though. Max taught me how to give a hand job in that bed. And then under the bleachers at the school, he'd taught me how to go down on him. And in my bed, when my parents weren't home, we'd had sex.
We never talked at school, though. In the hallways Max acted like I didn't exist. Would hang out with his friends and sometimes tease me because that's what they'd do. And he had a girlfriend, Naomi, who was all pretty red hair and long legs, and he kissed her all the time, freely and in front of everyone. He never did that with me.
He never did anything with me, though, except hook up with me when no one else was around. And when people were around, I wasn't good enough to know him. Every time I asked him about it, asked why we couldn't eat lunch together, or why I couldn't introduce him to my parents, all Max ever did was roll his eyes until, finally, I stopped asking.
Maybe that's why it was so easy to fall into this thing with Blake, because it was like history repeating itself. Hell, him and Max even looked similar, with their wide shoulders and tan skin and toned bodies.