by Rose, Ashley
“Jaz...” he growled quietly, drying his legs with a towel.
“Hmm?” she asked, languidly running her own towel over her breasts.
“Why do you always get my all hot and then start to play games?”
“Excuse me?” she teased. “You were the one who invaded my shower and started in with the hand job.”
He didn’t have a reply because he knew it was true.
She stepped closer and reached out to touch him. “I see that Little Travis has no problem with my games.”
“Little!?”
She laughed. He definitely wasn’t little. “You know what I meant.”
But he just grinned. “I’ll show you little.” He grabbed at her waist but she evaded him again, leaving the bathroom and hurrying naked through his living room.
He chased her to the couch, where she quickly spun around and pushed him onto it. He started to stand up but she leaned on his shoulders. “You don’t want to watch TV?”
“Hell no.” He looked down at himself, still fully erect. “Come on, baby.”
“Oh. All right.” She dropped onto his lap, straddling him, and putting him deep inside her all in one move.
“Oh...damn,” Travis breathed out.
“What?” She rolled her hips against his, working herself closer until their bodies were flush.
“Wasn’t...expecting that.” His hands came to rest on her hips, but she tsked at him and pulled his arms away, laying them out on the back of the couch like he was relaxing.
“My turn, don’t you think?”
“No fair,” he groaned as she resituated herself on him without actually pulling away. “That was just a hand job.”
She shrugged. “Do you want me to stop?” She contracted her muscles and swiveled her hip.
“God, no.”
“Good. Then just sit back and relax while I give Little Travis some fun.”
“Stop calling it that,” he complained.
She planted her hands on his shoulders and pulled off of him, before slamming back down. “What’cha gonna do about it?”
She could tell that he was holding in a sound of pleasure because his jaw clenched and his head dropped back against the couch. “I don’t know...spank you or something.”
“Ohhh,” she said, doing it again. “Now that has potential.”
“You kinky little shit.”
She grinned. “What, like this was news to you?”
“Very true. I alread—” He cut himself off as she began another tactic, one that pushed his hips into the couch in a steady rhythm. She watched as his eyes drifted shut, his mouth partly open and his fingers tightening on the edge of the couch.
She pressed a kiss on his unsuspecting mouth. “You like that.”
He made a sound of affirmation and then kissed her back. It took some concentration to kiss him, and keep her hips moving the right way, but that was why she was so damn good at this.
They kissed long and hard, one of her hands drifting up from his shoulder to sink into the hair at the back of his head. He may have been blown away by the sex, but his tongue still knew what to do. It was as dominant and skilled as ever, and his teeth knew just how hard she liked the nibbled on her lips.
Once she got going long enough, he couldn’t focus anymore and his head dropped back. She put all of her attention to bringing them to release. She knew his weak spots, and that just a hint of pain would really send him off the edge. So she pounded away at his hips mercilessly, until she felt him start to twitch under her. She let herself go at the same time he did, thanking the sex gods that gave her such control over her own orgasm, and dug her nails into his back at the same time.
He barked out a couple curse words and his hands had a white-knuckle grip on the couch. She closed her eyes and enjoyed her own orgasm while her hips worked on autopilot to carry him all the way through his release.
They both caught their breath, her arms loosely around his shoulders while his slid around her waist.
“Remind me why you don’t take control of sex more often?”
“Because you’re a control freak,” she murmured into the skin of his neck.
“Oh, that’s right.”
She relaxed on top of him for a bit longer before reluctantly rolling away, causing him to flinch as Little Travis was exposed to cool, unpleasant air. She got up and went for his dresser, throwing him a pair of boxers before digging for one of the several sets of underwear she knew that she’d left here over the months. Finding a black pair, she pulled them on, followed by one of his own T-shirts.
He was standing now too, boxers on, coming around the couch. “I love it when you wear my T-shirts.”
She just smiled and went for his bed. “Mind if I stay over?”
“Of course not; it’s late, and I wouldn’t want you walking back down anyway.” He got a glass of water from the kitchen, drank some, refilled it and then brought it over to her, setting it on the bedside table. “There is something I want to talk to you about.”
“Oh yeah?” She curled up under the covers, waiting for him to get in. “If it’s about Bishop...”
“It’s not.” He sat beside her on the bed, his hip against hers. “I’m pushing that aside for now because there is something I want to ask you.”
“Oh.” She snuggled down into the soft bed a bit more. “Shoot.”
“I want you to be my girlfriend.”
She blinked and then cracked a smile, followed by a laugh. She laughed harder and then realized that he wasn’t smiling. “Oh, you...you’re serious?”
“Yes.”
She furrowed her brows. “Why?”
“Because...” He shrugged and absently put a hand on her waist over the covers. “Because you’re hot, and funny, and confident. I like to have sex with you, and I like hanging out with you.”
“Yeah...but why does that mean we need to be in a relationship?”
He frowned. “I’m not sure, but things are changing with me, between us. I’m not okay with you sleeping around anymore—I used to be, but now...I don’t like the thought of you with other guys, and I don’t want to have to worry about other guys being...all over you when we do stuff. It grosses me out.”
“So...you want to try to force me to commit?”
“No, I don’t want to force you into anything.”
“But...if I don’t want to do this, then you’re going to cut me off, right? No more casual sex.”
“No, of course not, nothing would change. I mean,” he shrugged, “if that’s the only way I can have you, that’s what I’ll deal with, but I’d like you to be my girlfriend.”
“This is just too weird,” she said, sitting up. “You have just as much casual sex as I do.”
“I know, but sex with random people can get boring after a while. But I figure if I have sex with one person, we can fine tune our skills, make sex amazing.”
He had a point there. “Why me, though? Why not another girl?”
“You’re the only one who lets me watch basketball between sessions.” He grinned and Jaz knew he was mostly joking.
“I’m serious.”
He sighed. “I don’t know, Jaz—I like you, I guess. I don’t have much experience with that, and I’m certainly not saying that I’m in love with you or anything. I just wanna try it out. That way, we can have as much sex as we want, and then you can stay over without it being weird if you stay too long or if we get too cuddly. Plus, you can cook me breakfast like a good woman should.”
She laughed at his overtly sexist remark, knowing that he was anything but, and then seriously thought about his offer. It made sense—she did like spending time with him, whereas with the other guys it was just a physical thing. She could stand to spend time with Travis, and god, she’d love to draw him. Maybe if they were dating, she’d finally be able to show him that side of her. She could have just as much sex as normal, just with the same guy—what was wrong with that? And he was right, the casual sex thing had always put a sliv
er of uncertainty between them when it came to being intimate without the sex, like holding each other or kissing. It would be nice to not have to worry about that.
“And if I say yes…I don’t have to sign a contract or anything, do I? If I’m not feeling it, I can call it off?”
He grinned. “Yeah, that would be called ‘dumping me’.”
“Right.” She blushed a little at her absolute obliviousness of real relationships.
He gave her a bit longer to think but then nudged her hip. “So? What do you think?”
“Sure, I’ll do it.” She shrugged. “It’s worth a try, right?”
He grinned and leaned over for a kiss. “Sure as hell is.”
34
Lily
Lily had just finished her testing when Miles leaned into the room. “Lily?”
She pushed herself up into a sitting position. “Yeah.”
He didn’t look like he’d slept at all as he came toward the bed. He was wringing his hands, but then stuffed them into his pockets. “I had to sneak past the nurses. The doctors wouldn’t let me in because I’m not family.”
“Oh, yeah. That’s kind of how it works.”
He stopped several feet away from the end of the bed. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay now. I’ll have to stay here for a bit.”
“I didn’t...I mean, you kind of told me about your...stuff.” He looked down at the floor. “But I didn’t know it would be like that. Lily.”
“Not what you signed up for?”
His head snapped up. “What? No. I mean, yes, but it’s not that. I was just so unprepared to help you. I’ve never dealt with that kind of thing before. I was so scared that you were going to get seriously hurt because I didn’t know what to do. When you said seizures, I...I don’t know. It just wasn’t what I was expecting.”
“Not exactly like on TV?” She felt suddenly self-conscious with Miles standing over her, looking at her on this psych ward bed with its built-in restraints. But this was her element. He should know the truth. This was who she was.
“No. Not at all.”
“Well, I’m okay now.”
He nodded and took one step toward her. “Good. But we’re going to have to have a talk, when you’re better.”
She gulped. Even though she was going to break up with him, it was still hard to hear those words. Was he going to break it off first? Would that be easier, or harder? “I agree.”
“Not now, though.” He took another step, coming closer to her bed. “You don’t look well. You should rest.”
“I’ve been asleep for a while already. I’m not tired,” she lied. “We can have the talk now.”
“It doesn’t need to happen right now. You should just focus on getting better.”
She sighed. She’d already let this drag on. She just needed to do it and get it over with. There was no point in waiting. “Miles. What did you want to talk to me about?”
“The future, what I need to do if it happens again. I want to be prepared.” Another step had him at her bedside, and he looked so sincere it almost broke her heart to pull her hand away from where his was headed.
“I’m sorry, but I did some thinking.”
He waited silently, putting his hand back in his pocket.
“We can’t see each other anymore. It’s not going to work out.”
“You’re breaking up with me?” he asked slowly.
“Yes.”
Miles was silent for several moments, his eyes never leaving hers. His gaze didn’t let up and his searching look made her drop her eyes to the floor so he couldn’t see the truth.
“No.” It was just one word, but he said it with such authority that she almost thought her brother was back in the room.
“No? What do you mean, no?”
“I mean, no, I don’t accept it.”
She blinked. That wasn’t how it worked. She was supposed to say the words, and then he’d get some blast of emotion, probably anger, and storm off. But instead he stood there, hands in his pockets, denying her statement.
“You have to accept it. That’s...how it works.”
He shrugged. “Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to work. But you didn’t even give me any reasons.”
She scrambled for some good reasons. “Well, I don’t like you.” Her mind ran through a list of things that she recalled from one of the books she had read. The chapter was titled Executing a Clean Break Up. “I’m not attracted to you anymore, I don’t like your parents, and you aren’t good in bed.”
He just stared at her. After a moment, he cocked an eyebrow. “You’ve never met my parents, we’ve never had sex and I know that you’re attracted to me.”
She mentally face-palmed. That was pretty stupid of her. She forgot to check the list in her head against reality. “No. It’s true. I don’t like you.”
“Please, Lily, what’s this about? Tell me the truth.”
“That is the truth, Miles.”
“Lily. If you want to break up with me, at least have the decency to tell me the truth. I deserve that much, don’t I?”
He did. He deserved a lot more than that. He deserved a good girlfriend, not some freak like her. “You’re an amazing guy, and I’m just...” She ran a hand through her tangled hair. “Defective.”
Alarm appeared on his face. “Lily…”
“No.” She held her hand up. “I won’t have you wasting way too many hours of your life on me and my problems.”
“What are you talking about?” He seemed utterly confused.
“My brother did it...wasted so much time on me. I’m messed up. And all I do is complicate lives. I won’t have you ending up like my brother, with so much effort spent on me.”
“Lily, I don’t—”
“I’ll ruin your life, Miles. I won’t allow it.”
“You’re not ruining it, Lily, you’re changing it.”
“Same thing,” she muttered.
“No. It’s not.”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t even matter. I’m breaking up with you. It isn’t up for discussion.”
“And when did you get this high horse you’re sitting on? Relationships are two-way streets, Lily. I don’t know what happened to you during that seizure, but I’m not letting this happen. I like you. A lot. So I’m not letting your post-seizure, misguided judgment break us up.”
Lily closed her eyes tightly. This wasn’t going as planned. Why couldn’t he just act like a normal guy and hate her for what she said? She needed to consult her books again—she must be missing a step or—
Her eyes popped open as a warm hand cupped her chin. She caught a glimpse of his lips before they lowered onto her own. She was too stunned and confused to kiss him back. So all she did was stare at his closed eyelids while the taste of his lips seeped into her mouth.
He finally pulled away but didn’t let go of her chin. “I don’t know you very well. Especially this side of you, the one with the medical issues. But it’s a package deal. So stop insulting my decency by trying to break up with me for shallow reasons. I like you and that’s not going to change. Okay?”
As soon as the last word cleared his lips she felt the emotions bubbling up. Worry. Relief. Sadness. Fear. Exhaustion. “Why are you so nice to me?” she whispered.
“Just one of my traits, I guess.” He smiled lightly and the feeling of relief started to surpass the others. Could everything he said be true?
“I didn’t want you to see me like that...like this.”
“Why not?”
“It’s...horrible. The seizures, the hospital beds, the inevitable drooling and screaming.”
“It sucks I’m sure, but I think you overestimate it. It’s such a small part of who you are, Lily. It might have been a bigger part in your past but it’s so miniscule now. I don’t think you can see that.”
“If it’s so small, how can it affect me like this?”
He shrugged and slipped his hand around to tuck her hair behind her ear. “W
ell, it’s powerful, I guess. Kinda like you. Small but intense.”
She looked down and let him stroke her hair. “So...we’re not breaking up?”
“Nope.”
The relief grew, knocking the other emotions down until all that was in her head was Miles.
“Scooch over.” He nudged her hip and she moved over automatically.
He slid over the high side of the hospital bed and slid down beside her, propped against the pillows. His arms slid around and under her, pulling her against his chest. “We’re definitely going to have to work on our communication.”
She nodded against his chest. “Yes. I’ve read several chapters on it.”
“Yeah?” He kissed her temple. “Maybe I should borrow some of those books.”
“Are you kidding?” She looked up at him. “You’re such a normal person, though, totally acclimated to society.”
“Yeah. But then I’d know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh.” She put her head back down. “Yeah, that might be good.”
35
Jaz
Jaz rolled over and off of Travis, onto the soft carpet that separated his couch and bed. She wasn’t sure which one they’d been aiming for, but they’d missed both. She turned her head to the side and looked at Travis in all of his naked glory. His eyes were closed and his face relaxed—it was a post-sex face she’d become used to.
She lazily crawled over to the bedside table to fumble for her sketchbook, pulling one of his T-shirts on at the same time. Once she had her drawing material, she plopped down onto the unsuspecting Travis. He didn’t open his eyes but did shift his hips under hers.
“Again?”
“No. Stop moving.”
He cracked one eye open, saw her sketchbook, and closed it again. “You and your drawing.”
“Stop talking.” She waited until his face relaxed again before she quickly outlined his features. She’d come to love drawing him. It was challenging because he, unlike Bishop, didn’t have features that translated to paper well. But when she got it right, it was perfect.
Travis didn’t mind being drawn. He was lazy enough that he had no problem just sitting around while he sketched him. He always joked and said that she should be a sketch artist for the police.