Paper Dolls [Book Four]

by Blythe Stone

  “I think I’m bad with people,” I said, giving her an out. “I can have acquaintances but I’ve rarely had friends. Only older or younger people feel like friends to me. It’s a strange thing.”

  I tried to be friends with Skylar…

  Look how that fucking turned out.

  “You’re an old soul,” Holland said, smiling. “Nothing wrong with that.”

  “Kids my age think I’m a bitch.”

  “That’s because they don’t know you,” Avery said darkly.

  “No, it’s because I’m confrontational and not about making jokes about things I could care less about. I’m too serious for surface friends.”

  “If it makes you feel any better at all those are all reasons I love you,” Avery said.

  “Of course it makes me feel better,” I swallowed. “That’s why I’m marrying you, fool.” I used my Katherine Hepburn voice to tease her. “Think about that though,” I asked bothered. “You had a reason not to feel safe with people. What was my reason? I was just strange. I was at Huntington for 4 straight years and I didn’t make friends beyond teachers. I tried to make a friend and she kissed my fiancé. My best friend was a bona fide pervert who’s now in jail. Those odds are pretty disturbing. There’s sadly more to it than just being an old soul.”

  “You’ll make other friends. I hope I’m your friend now,” Holland said.

  “You’re just being nice to me because you have a friend you love,” I said, raising my eyebrow while raising my water glass and clinking it to hers.

  She shook her head and took a sip of water. “No, if I didn’t like you I’d just be polite and not say much beyond that.”

  “You’ve been pretty polite,” I decided to say. She did have those Avery-type P.C. comments that drove me up the wall.

  “No, you really don’t get it, babe,” Avery smiled knowingly. “She would have literally froze you out. You would know she didn’t like you. It would be obvious and she’d probably have kidnapped me.”

  “Interesting,” I said, staring between the both of them and deciding how I should feel.

  Holland took a chip and broke it in two, throwing one half onto her empty plate. “You’re complicated and real. There aren’t a lot of people who are just who they are without apologies. I like that. Avery needs someone who is committed and there and I know that you are. I could see it in the way you handled the whole Skylar mess. The moment you realized that Avery was in trouble you turned your needs and feelings off and took care of her. That’s when I knew you were alright.”

  “I love her…” I said, a bit murdered by that whole take on the situation. It’s strange but in the moment it almost felt like Holland wasn’t really there when all that happened. I think I was too far in it with Avery. Holland was there but she was watching me.

  A test…

  “I’m just glad that it was you two and not someone else that had my back,” Avery said. “I feel like such an idiot for drinking whatever that was. I could have really gotten myself into some shit.”

  “Yeah, we had you. Just don’t go around drinking weird drinks that random guys at parties give you again, yeah?” Holland commented.

  Skylar would’ve taken care of her. She wouldn’t have taken it beyond where it was. She just wanted Avery to know.

  I have to believe that…

  “Enough about all this depressing stuff. Let’s finish and get back. Maybe we can utilize the hot tub,” Avery suggested .

  “You can utilize whatever you want,” I reminded. I didn’t mean it in a dirty way. I meant the whole house was theirs and they could go anywhere and do anything.

  I placed some cash on the table and scoot out to signal we could leave.

  Avery and Holland followed. I let Avery drive back and she sped the whole way, scaring the crap out of me on the very last light.

  Being home felt right. I didn’t like thinking about how it would be tomorrow when Avery and I were alone. I was actually a little scared for that. I didn’t know where she was right now in her head. All that talk about having problems and being the one who needs to see someone.

  It was just all coming out of nowhere and it was hard to feel like I hadn’t pushed her into that mental space.

  I tried to block it out and concentrate on the now but the now was very complicated.

  Alone time with her right now kind of scared me after last night.

  Chapter Eight

  Avery

  All I wanted out of the rest of the night was to hang out and relax. I’d gone through every word that I’d said to Olivia earlier and parsed it for my real meaning. Most of the time, I just said things to her without thinking them through.

  It was a bad habit. We were so opposite in that. She always thought out what she was going to say and not say. I should learn something from that. I felt like I was getting better but then something like this would happen and I would be right back where we started.

  When we got home we all changed and got in the hot tub but Holland wanted to pack so after awhile it was just me and Olivia. I really did hate that I had shown my best friend such a crappy time but I was glad that she had been here to help Olivia when shit went down.

  “So, what do you think of Holland?”

  “She’s really sweet,” Olivia said.

  “Yeah, she’s always been the nice one,” I said, moving across the hot tub to settle in front of her.

  “She likes you. She said you were a good influence.”

  “I’m glad,” Olivia said. “That shows good character.” It was a joke.

  “Yes, it does.” I put my arms around her shoulders and pulled her in. There was no one around so I let one of my hands fall below the water and tease her stomach, just below her belly button.

  “I like what happens in your eyes when I touch you right here.”

  She smiled an open-mouth smile and I watched her cheeks flush.

  “They flare up because you know what’s coming. Sometimes I like to touch you there and then take my hand away.”

  “I don’t know what’s coming,” she said, correcting me.

  “Maybe it’s the possibility of what could come then.”

  “Maybe,” she said. She was holding her cards close tonight.

  I pressed into the side of the hot tub and moved so I was straddling her.

  “Can you guess what I’m thinking about doing to you, right now?”

  She dipped down in the water and hid her mouth for a second before coming back up. “Not really, no,” she confessed. That addicting intrigued smile of hers was impossible to resist.

  “Good,” I said, smiling.

  I moved my hands up her sides and looked down, concentrating on her lips, smoothing my thumbs over her breasts, wishing she didn’t have her top on.

  I kissed her very lightly and took my lips away, looking into her eyes.

  “Now?”

  She shook her head no but waited for me, searching me.

  “I’ll give you a hint if you want,” I teased, kissing her again.

  “Oh,” she said, trying to savor me. “I thought you meant, specifics.”

  “I do.” I took my hands out of the water, letting it drip down my skin before I pushed her hair back behind her ears and cradled her face, coming close again but not touching our lips.

  “Torturing me?” She asked airily. She said it like I was already doing it.

  “That’s not specific.” I ran my fingers over her face, tracing the lines. Pushing one of my fingers into her mouth and then taking it out.

  Her eyes flickered and then rolled at the touch of my finger on her tongue.

  “I can’t presume to read your mind,” she said, as still as can be. This whole time she’d barely moved and she wasn’t touching me.

  A smile ghosted across my face. I didn’t say anything, just outlined her lips with my finger and watched her. She was beautiful and I wanted to look. Mapping her face became my obsession. I wanted to be able to close my eyes and see it exactly as it was
in real life.

  So, that if one day I couldn’t see it I would at least have the image inside of me. Her cheekbones were easy as was her jawline. They were angled and perfect. Her eyes were harder to capture. The life in them burned. That was the place you could see her.

  I looked at each point, even pushing her eyelids down to feel them with my fingertips.

  “Are you having fun?” She asked, teasing me.

  “Yes, but more importantly I’m making a map. So, it’s very serious business.”

  “I have plaster inside,” she joked. “We can just make a mold.”

  “I can’t put plaster in my memory, silly.” She wiggled her nose as I measured its length with my finger.

  “What are you going to do with this map, anyway?” She badgered.

  “Find you.” I pressed my thumbs into the hollow of her neck, just a little and then brought my fingers up to her hairline, smoothing them along until I reached her ears.

  I felt her hands slide up my knees and rest on my hips as she pulled me in.

  “So smooth, Lockhart,” she teased.

  “No, I mean it.” I stopped moving my fingers, looking at her, my face softening.

  “When the thoughts come, the ones that I don’t like I’ll just replace them with your face. Not just the thoughts, the dreams too,” I finished, resuming my wanderings by touching her lips again.

  Olivia didn’t say anything. She let me trace her and take her in. Occasionally her eyelids would flutter and close. I felt her lightly touching my skin beneath the water, petting me.

  “I’m building waystations in my head. Little places I can go when it’s too much and you’re not with me. I didn’t know I needed them till Skylar kissed me.”

  “What?” She stopped me, coming to and sitting up.

  “When she kissed me and you saw and I felt so out of it because of that drink. I was not in a good place. It was like the dreams but I couldn’t move or see you. So, I’m trying to fight back for when it happens again. That’s why I was so mad at her. I felt betrayed and forced.”

  “It was just a kiss sweetie,” Olivia said, trying to read my face with her eyes, diminish the pain in me. “It was supposed to be a good thing. That’s all.”

  “Doesn’t matter. That’s how it made me feel.”

  I put her hands on me under the water again and leaned into her. “I’m just telling you. I know you don’t like it when I don’t.”

  I angled my head, taking her earlobe between my teeth and tugging and then releasing it to kiss where I’d just bitten.

  “Was it just a nightmare?” She asked carefully. “Dreams are hard to control. It’s not easy.”

  “You can have nightmares when you’re awake. Did you know that?”

  I kissed her neck, swirling my tongue over her skin.

  “It’s hard to control anything that starts out in your mind,” she said darkly. I could tell she went somewhere inside. “Was it the drink though?” She asked. “Or does this happen to you all the time?”

  “Yes,” I said, kissing her jaw. “Both.”

  “It can’t be both,” she said, needing an answer.

  “Things can always be more than one manifestation of the same thing.” My fingers followed her collarbone and I moved up, running my nose over hers.

  “The drink made it worse. I couldn’t focus or find safety.”

  “I want to live in you,” she said.

  “You do, just not all the way. I wish there was a way to put you inside of me or vice versa but there isn’t. I’ve thought about it a lot. Especially, when you cum. I want to feel what you feel.”

  She seemed rather helpless now, my words breaking her as she carefully breathed in and her eyes shut-up tight.

  “Maybe I’ll invent a way,” she said sweetly wanting it.

  “Please.” I kissed her eyelids twice each and watched her eyes flutter open once I’d left them alone.

  “I would be thankful. I do sleep but I know when the dreams are coming so I sometimes manage to wake myself up.”

  “I can watch you sleep,” she said loyally. “I can stop them. But if they’re waking dreams I can’t know. That frightens me.”

  “You’ll save me, whether you know it or not.” I moved my hands down to rest on her neck as I sat on her lap.

  “As long as I can finish measuring you.”

  “Oh,” she said, remembering how the conversation started from before.

  “But I’ll finish later when I can see all of you. Now, I’m just getting your face.”

  The aegis; that was Olivia. What she was, and what she felt for me, protected and kept me. Attacks could still come and I would panic but having those places, feelings, and memories I could draw on would help.

  She was watching me, trying to be everything.

  “You realize that this was meant to be, right?”

  I buried my hands in her hair, my palms supporting the base of her head.

  “It feels that way,” she said, exhaling. She was still watching me, still trying to see. Her eyes seemed to shake in her head at times like it was hard to look since she was so internally mixed.

  “I can feel the vastness and meaning of it but I can’t quite touch it yet. I know parts of what it means and I’m so happy but there’s an inherent sadness also. It’s not bad. It’s just that I can’t ever get close enough to you because it’s not physically possible.”

  Her eyes were focused on me, watching me take her in.

  “You are my world.”

  Her eyes shut and she swallowed painfully. My words washed over her.

  “That’s why love doesn’t seem like a big enough word.”

  If it wasn’t for Olivia I would forever skim the surface. I felt on such deep levels that it was hard for me to let myself feel anything without it being too big.

  “Why do you need to define us?” She asked. “I feel you everywhere. Call it love… Religion. But it doesn’t need to be called. It’s real.”

  “People use words to understand the meaning of things. I just don’t think they work. I’ve tried them all. There isn’t one that fits what you are to me. That’s the thing. I want to tell you but I can’t because it’s either actions or words and I’ve been afraid that neither of mine would be adequate.”

  “I don’t need you to tell me. I feel it too.”

  “Good.” I kissed her, exploring and finding her with my eyes closed until I had to stop and rest.

  I leaned against her, relaxing. “When I feel like this I can see it all. Everything is clear. So, I try to hang onto it. Right now, I know exactly who we are and why things are the way they are. I just know that at some point It’ll get washed away by the confusion again and I’ll need you up here as well as the real physical you.”

  “I wish you could keep me…” She said.

  “I have you. You’re mine. Forever.”

  That was a certainty that came when the leaves were gone from the trees in my head. I could see past the sharp lines of clean branches to the truth in the sky. We were a two star constellation. Different colors but so close that you could barely draw a line between us.

  “So keep me,” she pushed.

  “I am,” I leaned back. “Can we go to bed?”

  I didn’t mean to sleep. I didn’t mean anything except that I wanted to be with her and to feel her body. That would be easier if we weren’t wearing anything.

  “Of course,” she said.

  I got out of the water and stood, waiting for the warmth to wear off and for the cool breeze to make me shiver. Olivia handed me a towel and we dried each other. I started with her hair and squeezed the water out and wrapped the towel around her from behind, rubbing her body with it all the way down to her legs and up between, finishing at her neck.

  I left the towel there and turned around so that she could do the same to me. Her hands worked fast and I sucked in a breath when she came close to sensitive areas. When she was finished I pulled the towel tight and started for the guest house.r />
  Holland was inside, zipping up her bag.

  “We’re going to go to bed. You okay?”

  “Oh yeah, I’m good. I’m just going to watch TV till I fall asleep. I’ll see you guys in the morning.” She slung an arm around me and hugged my neck.

  “Let me know if I need to put my headphones in,” Holland whispered.

  I just shook my head at her and pushed her away. “Goodnight, Holland.”

  “Night,” she said back.

  We went into the bedroom and I took my suit off, Olivia went to the bathroom and turned the shower on. She walked back over to the door and spoke without really looking out.

  “I'm just gonna rinse,” she said, disappearing somewhere back inside.

  I gathered the suit and the towel and wrapped the latter around my body, thinking about joining her. I took my suit into the bathroom and looked at her silhouette through the shower glass. She moved so slowly when she was alone.

  I dropped the towel and opened the door, catching her just as she turned around and pushing her into the shower wall. I didn’t say anything or kiss her. I looked, drawing my eyes up and down her body and then I dropped to my knees, pushing her legs apart, and pressing my tongue into her sex.

  She wailed instantly, not even a second of hesitation. She'd been feeling me that whole time. It sounded painful, that wail.

  I sucked on her clit and put two fingers inside of her, pulling reaction after reaction out of her. I felt her hands on me, desperate. I didn’t stop. I had no mercy.

  After a while she was cumming, she couldn't stand. I could feel her sliding down the wall so I caught her and we slid to the floor. My energy was gone now and the water hit my skin but only where hers didn’t cover me.

  She started crying hard and I held her, knowing that I shouldn’t have. She lay in my lap and cried while the water ran until it was cold and I shut it off. I moved, taking her with me, pulling her body up against mine. I got her outside of the shower and dried her off with a fresh towel and put her robe on her, then wrapped myself in a towel and wrapped her in my arms, walking her back to the bed and putting her in.

  I crawled up beside her and pulled the covers up, making sure she could get warm.