Stay With Me 3

by Jessica Aniston

  “Well, we sort of are having sex all day,” Declan replies and smirks, a bit smug.

  They do still have an obscene amount of sex, it’s a bit ridiculous. It’s almost as if they’re both trying to cram in as much physical exploration of the other as humanly possible, about the same amount of fooling around they must have missed by not starting to sleep together when he was seventeen. He’s an angel, really. She never gets tired and he’s stubbornly not letting her wear him out, which is a fun thing to learn about him, alongside the fact that Boyfriend-Declan is like Best-Friend-Declan, only that he’s about twenty percent more protective when she’s operating a vehicle, sixty percent sweeter in the mornings, and about forty percent more careful not to be disgusting in front of her; so far, he’s only farted twice in her presence since they left the island and both times were accidents, and of course he’s now so much more sleeping with her than he had been before. Because they’ve been competitive with each other since forever about dance and running and everything else under the sun, they’re now obviously competitive about who can outlast the other in their horizontal exploits. So far there is no clear winner but she doesn’t mind that at all.

  “Exactly,” she grins. “And are the bloodhounds here? Or the lawyers? No.” She tilts her head at him, breathing long and deep, so he calms down with her, so he just enjoys the moment like she does. They made it, they’ve got each other now, everything else will be just fine. “Relax, we’re fine, and trust me, no one will care after we’re revealed as the fake couple. There’s no way anybody will give a damn about us after that.”

  She’s wrong, but she doesn’t know that yet.

  CHAPTER THREE

  D eclan Shelton doesn’t remember the day he met Karin Hanson, it was too long ago and he was too little. The only thing he does remember clearly is that she had this big roaring laugh that seemed too big for her tiny body; she still has that exact same laugh today, but it’s gotten a little harder to get it out of her. It’s the task of his life. Although he doesn’t remember the day he met her, Declan Shelton does remember, in perfect clarity, the day that he fell in love with her. It took him a while to realize it, but he knows now that it happened the night he took her to prom when she was fifteen. Technically it wasn’t Prom, it was a school dance, but it was the only school dance Karin ever went to, as the others thrown by her school she’d not attended for lack of dates and close friends, quite honestly.

  He had never understood why Karin struggled so much to make friends in Scanlon, until he had argued with her that she should not pass up on school dances simply because she didn’t have a date, so he declared he’d be the one going with her, and had actually met the people from her school. They weren’t especially terrible, in fact he had gotten along with them well enough for Karin to get a little short with him at the beginning of the night. Because there she’d been, struggling for years to make these people like her and he just swooped in and charmed them like it was nothing. This wasn’t near the truth but Karin felt like it was.

  No matter how much they liked Declan either way, they were fundamentally different from Rinny and him, stuck up in that uptown-way that didn’t leave gaps for anyone ‘beneath’ them to get into. Karin had tried, her earrings and shoes always as expensive as Darla could buy them, so she would look like the others in her school uniform, but they could always tell she was a fake. That’s what Karin had told him back then at least. It was what he had felt radiating off of her peers as he met them, too.

  He remembers the party, the dance floor and the music, the spiked punch and the way-too-short cocktail dresses on the far too young girls. Karin hadn’t seemed too young for him that night, but the others had. Immature and vain. Rinny had been anything but. Even if she would have had good reason to be vain. She had looked like an angel when he picked her up at Kimberly’s new apartment, where they were going to stay the night after the dance.

  He had been sitting with her sister in the kitchen, discussing the latest football scores when Karin had joined them, wearing a baby blue dress, with frills and glitter. It had almost looked like an elaborate dance outfit, the shade at war with the tone of red she’d dyed her hair recently but breathtaking all the same. She was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen in real life. It had always been. But until that point in time in Kimberly’s kitchen, he hadn’t really known. He’d known, alright, he just hadn’t - well, it hadn’t been obvious enough before, how his heart leapt and then stopped in his chest. That night, it would not be ignored.

  Hours later, he had pulled her to her feet from their seats at a table near the back and led her to the dance floor. They had danced around to a bunch of top 40 covers by the party band for a while, until the music shifted drastically into slow-jam territory and Karin had cast him a wavering look. They’d watched enough teen comedies together to know that this could be a ‘loaded moment’ but Declan wouldn’t have it. He had no use for being awkward with her. So he had just pulled her in. Her fiery red hair tickled his nose when she put her head beside his, dancing cheek to cheek to an acoustic version of a non descript song.

  Everything’s so blurry and everyone’s so fake ... but you could be my someone, you could be my scene.

  She smelled like milk and coconut body butter. He knew this precisely because he had asked her in the car what it was she had put on. Because he liked it, he liked it a lot. He liked the scent of it filling his car so much, he’d almost missed the exit for her school. She kept using it after, actually uses it to this day, but he won’t flatter himself thinking it has anything to do with him telling her how he felt about it, back during the slow dance. When the buttery scent of coconut and apricots wafted from her neck to his nostrils as the song went on and he found he didn’t want it to end ... because once it ended, he’d have to let her go.

  You know that I’ll protect you from all of the obscene.

  “You smell pretty amazing, Sunshine,” he’d told her under his breath, slowly turning her in tiny circles on the floor. “Better than all these stuck up girls here, and you look better too.”

  “As long as I keep my nose hidden in your hair,” she’d mumbled back, like she was making a funny joke, and he’d snapped, just a little.

  He’d leaned back, grappled to put her skinny face into his hands and shook his head gravely at her, staring at her with as much vehemence as he could muster, drawing heavily on his years of dancing dramatics.

  “Your nose is beautiful,” he had said. “You’re beautiful, Rinny.”

  She had smiled a little, her eyebrows knotting together, and then she’d looked down. She hadn’t believed him.

  She hopefully believes him now, he thinks, as he puts a strand of her now long and dyed dark brown hair over another, picks up a new strand and adds it to the first. Fishtail-braids come a lot easier to him than French braids do. She hums under his touch, her back leaning more against his knees where she sits cross-legged in front of him, both of them squinting into the morning light falling in through the blinds. He likes these mornings with her. To be perfectly honest, he likes all the time in bed with her.

  It’s just that the days outside of bed drag on and on. They’re nearly at an end, though, so that is something. It’s just two more days until he has to drive them out to Scanlon to assure the whole country one more time that they are the their biggest love story while simultaneously keeping Marietta and the rest of production convinced that they are anything but. He’s not certain that he’s looking forward to all of that but at least something will be happening.

  He’s getting antsy at the lake house, even if it’s just been about a week, he feels like they’ve been cooped up there forever, and as much as he would like to, he can’t spend all his time making love to Karin. But come to think of it ... today, so far, on this young morning, they haven’t done anything yet. So maybe that could be a fun activity, to shorten the hours before they can find out what their life will be going forward. Because, believe it or not, Declan Shelton, too, is curious t
o find out who the people will choose to be the winner of Heart Roulette.

  On the one hand, of course, he wants to win but on the other, he has a bad kind of feeling in the pit of his stomach when he imagines that they will. Something about being careful what you wish for, something about Karin and him pretending not to love each other, which seems more fantastical every day they spend wrapped up in each other at this lake. Regardless, he still wants to get there. The waiting around is making him restless.

  “Are you slightly bored or is that just me?” he mutters, once he has tied an elastic around the somewhat presentable fishtail he has made out of his girlfriend’s hair.

  “I’m good,” she replies, turning her head to look at him over her shoulder. “Want me to braid your hair?”

  Declan can’t help but chuckle. “Good luck with that,” he says, ruffling a hand through his locks. It’s longer than it used to be now, but nowhere near braiding length. “No, I was thinking we could maybe do something interesting.” ‘Interesting’ is code for sex and from the way she starts grinning, she understands as much.

  “What did you have in mind?” she purrs and then turns around, so they end up with their knees touching, facing each other.

  “Well, I thought we could tell each other ... you know, some stuff that we always wanted to do, exercise-wise.” There’s some more euphemisms Karin doesn’t need, but it amuses him to see her smirk when he makes them. “Then do it, maybe.”

  “Like circular training?” she asks him and winks.

  “If that’s what you're into,” Declan shrugs. “Except naked.” The idea isn’t new, he’s been thinking about quizzing her on her deepest, darkest fantasies forever, and now just seems like a good time. They have nothing else to do, so why not explore a little bit more what makes each other tick? Karin laughs, presumably at his latest joke and he grins at her, very pleased with himself.

  “Alright,” she grins back. “So what kind of thing did you always want to do?”

  “Oh, alright,” he stammers. He hadn’t expected to go first. His great big fantasy is kind of kinky, low-key kinky but kinky still, and he had rather wanted to hear Karin’s first. But Rinny gets what Rinny wants. “So … I would like to, maybe,” he coughs. Man up, Declan, he thinks. You’ve seen each other’s dirty bits, you’ve slept with her more times than you can count off the top of your head, she loves you. Tell her what you want to do. He clears his throat and wills his voice to be even. “Maybe ... tie you up,” he confesses shakily. “If you want to, that is.”

  “Yes,” Karin breathes instantly, her mouth sounding paper-dry. “Yes, we could do that.”

  “Oh alright, great, yes,” Declan mumbles. The idea that she’s up for it is making his throat feel tight and his boxer briefs feel tighter. “Let’s do it,” he tries a smile and hopes it’s not a lusty, pathetic grimace. “And you? What do you want?”

  “Let’s talk about that after,” she bites her lip, tilts her head so the braid falls from her shoulder and exposes her neck. That delicious neck that smells like coconut and apricots. Hmm, he wants to taste that. He wants to taste that when she’s tied to the headboard and writhing in pleasure for him, just for him. Shit, this was the best idea he could have had this fine morning. He even forgoes her suggestion of having breakfast before getting started because he’s that excited.

  “Just stay here and don’t move while I get some ropes or something else that will d the trick,” he tells her, clamoring out of bed so fast he almost tangles one of his legs into the sheets and trips out of bed, nearly landing on his face.

  Her roaring laughter carries all the way to the living room where Declan realizes there is nothing he can realistically use for ties, which is unfortunate because he would really like so much to tie her up. For a moment he deliberates using her uncles’ ties that he knows are in the dresser in the bedroom but that feels a bit wrong. He paces through the living room, then the kitchen, and then stops in front of the cabinet, having an epiphany. The dish towels. Those would work. Yes, that’s perfect, he thinks, picks two especially large ones from the assortment and takes them back to the bedroom.

  He stops short in the doorway when he sees that she’s completely naked on the mattress, blinking up at him with a smile.

  “Wow,” is his only, very eloquent response to that. “You didn’t wait for me.”

  “I assumed it would be hard to undress when you’re tied up,” she tells him. “So I took care of it. Are you going to do it, tie me up?” Declan nods, his mouth agape, like an idiot.

  Moved to join her, going to her on unsteady feet, he climbs up on the bed to see her scoot closer to the headboard and put her arms out, closing a hand each around the rods of the headboard, as far left and right as she can reach. It takes all Declan has not to just toss the dish cloths aside and go to town on her just for her eagerness to please him, entertain his silly cravings. But then again, she has been so very helpful already, getting into position and everything, keening up when he hovers over her, fastening the towel-ties around her wrists. It would be a shame not to do it now.

  “Is this fine?” he asks her once he’s happy with the bounds. “Not too tight?”

  “Just fine,” she grins, far too eager for him to stay even remotely calm, he’s already far too excited and she’s far too naked and far too tied to the bed, the image of one of his longest standing fantasies brought to life.

  “Do you ... ” he starts and then trips over his words. “Can I blindfold you?”

  He looks down at her, locks eyes, trying to catch his breath from how they twinkle. “Alright.”

  “Only if you want me to,” he hurries to say.

  “I want you to,” Karin promises.

  “Great,” he sounds like a kid who got a Play station for Christmas and he’s well aware. It’s just that all his dreams are coming true and he can’t really believe it.

  “Is this an old fantasy?” she asks him, merely grinning at his immature response, not commenting on it.

  “Pretty,” he replies, getting between her legs on his knees, unable to keep from smoothing out the skin of her inner thigh as he does, caressing her just a bit before he answers with a rasp. “It used to involve the ties from your Pointe shoes.” She draws in a sharp breath, her eyes pouring into his before she nods to the dish towels binding her wrists.

  “Close enough,” she breathes.

  “Are you comfortable?” he asks her gently, running his fingers from her hip-bone to just below her breasts to a faint nod from her, eyes trained on his hand. “You know, if there’s anything you don’t like, just tell me. Or if you’re not into it anymore, any of it, just tell me and I’ll stop.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you want a safe word?” He can’t keep his second hand away from her, brings it up to mimic the trail of his other one.

  “How rough are you going to get?” Her ribcage rises and falls heavily under his touch.

  “Not very, I don‘t think,” he muses. “But if I go a bit overboard, just say ... cherries.”

  “Creative,” she chuckles, the sexual tension paused for a moment, pushed aside for silliness.

  “Shhh,” he chides her softly and takes his hands off of her to strip out of his shirt. “I’m going to put this on you now.” She nods and the look she gives him just before he blindfolds her with his black sleep shirt, is so full of trust and anticipation, he finds it hard to breathe.

  Then he finds he doesn’t know where to start. Now that she is tied at her wrists and deprived of her eyesight, her legs already open for him, he is at a loss of what to do first. He sits there and ponders. Until it hits him. He’s just going to start at the beginning. He shuffles down, running his fingers down her body so she knows where he’s going. Once he’s down, he lifts her right leg, holds it as steady as his shaking hands can manage and puts his lips to the sole of her foot.

  There’s tension running through it as her toes wiggle and he grins and kisses the skin, from the bottom, around to the top, to
her ankles and up. Up, and up to her knees where he lingers, feeling her shiver, which inspires him to add a lick and a nibble here or there. Her scent gets more prominent as he works his way further to where he wants to be and he has to be careful to pace himself, to not heed his pulsing body that urges him to go faster, to bury his tongue in her folds. The way she squirms helps because he thinks she likes how he’s building her up and that gives him the grace to be patient. He licks more as he reaches her inner thigh and she breathes harsher, the first little sounds breaking from her throat. He hears the bedposts creak with her struggling against the restraints. Oh god, that’s even hotter than he thought it was going to be.

  He’s almost there. He can turn his face now, brush his nose against her skin and there she is. She’s so wet, her skin glistens in the morning light, enticing and beckoning, and he can’t wait anymore. He dives in, nose first, tongue second, works her open with his fingers, mapping her out, lingers where it makes her shake, goes in harder when her hips buck up and she’s whimpering. She tastes like sin. He fucking loves it. He loves it so much he growls, pushes her down with his palm flat on her lower abdomen and eats her out with vigor.

  “Declan,” she cries above him, making him groan and rut his dick against the mattress. To think that she can’t move her arms, can’t see a thing, only feel him move about her body as he pleases is turning him on beyond measure. The idea that he can surprise her with every flick of his tongue, every brush of his fingertips, it’s driving him out of his mind.