Chapter Ten : Welcome Back, Reality
“Spence...”
A voice so calm and sweet whispers into my ear, tantalizingly close, but it’s not enough to pull me from a pillow so soft and plush.
“Spence.” Voice urging, stronger now, but I only roll deeper into the bed, pushing myself closer to her, but never noticing the hot touch, far too sleepy to register anything surrounding this moment, “Come on. Wake up, Jellyface.”
However tired I am, that gets me, unable to hold back a smirk as I mumble, “Jellyface?”
“Mmhmm, like it?” She sweetly whispers, endearingly, and gradually, the memores filter through me, moments from last night rushing back. Hand holding. Ashley beside me. Ashley sleeping right next to me, mere inches away. Normally, these thoughts would terrify me, shooting me straight out of this bed. But this morning, they don't. This morning all I can do is immediately smile, brightly, with eyes still firmly shut.
“I do.”
“Good, I do too.” There's a smile inside her words, hearing it as she gently pokes me in the arm. “Now, listen to me and wake up!”
I really wish I could. I really wish waking up were that easy. But the fact is, I’m not a morning person, never have been. And it takes a whole lot more to wake me up than what she’s doing. A whole lot more.
And then she gives me a whole lot more.
My eyes are wide open now, finding her clasping one of my hands between hers, looking straight into my eyes with a sneaky, but warm, smile on her heartbreakingly beautiful and adorable face. “There you are,” Breathes from her lips, and pushes past mine. It hits me so hard, so deep, as she lowers her mouth to my hand, lazily kissing across my fingers. One by one. Inch by inch, covered with her soft lips.
And I’ve never been more awake in my life.
As if we’re only just meeting -- and after last night, we kind of are -- she shyly whispers, “Hey,” And as hard as I try to say“Hey” back, I can’t. I can’t find my voice, feeling as though it’s been swallowed up within my deep breaths.
Caught in a scorching and shivering stare, she keeps dragging her lips across my warm skin, one of my own fingers instinctively grazing softly over her hand. She rolls onto her back, away from me, holding my open palm between her fingers. Teasingly, she traces over my life lines and love lines, with the tip of her finger, no doubt touching every one of my lines on the inside. And she keeps moving, completely torturing me. Up and down, back and forth. Down and up, forth and back. All the while her eyes are on mine. All the while her eyes are all over me.
She’s never been this bold before -- probably because I've never let her -- and it's never felt so good. So tantalizingly terrifying.
Moving at a crawling pace, she lifts her face toward my palm, leaving the most delicate and wet kiss in the middle of it. Keeping her mouth right there, hovering, leaning into me, breathing against my damp skin, as if she were breathing me in. Which, in a way, she kind of is.
Taking her time, she finally pulls away, loosely lacing our fingers, holding them between us. With chocolate eyes roaming back to mine, she coats her voice in warmth and says, “Mmm. Love these.”
“Yeah?” Shyly asks from my nervous lips, as she smiles back at me.
“Yeah.”
Instantly, we get caught up in everything surrounding us, everything falling down on us. Somehow, it’s still the same everything from last night. Somehow, it’s still relief and it’s still pouring down, hard. Reality isn’t anywhere near this everything. Not yet. And we’re savoring it. We’re so savoring it.
“So...”
Trailing off, I don’t know where I’m going with it. Simply saying anything to keep this comfortable silence. Saying anything to keep her beside me, like this, for as long as I can.
She forms a wise smile and, in the goofiest voice ever, dramatically exclaims, “Buuutttooonns!”
“Hey!” Immediately rolling my lazy body closer to hers, I punch her arm with genuine force, “Stop butchering my lines!”
She’s laughing so hard, curling away from me and my defensive fist, dribbling between her giggles, “Hate to break it to you Spence, but that line was already butchered to begin with.”
Gasping, in serious offense, I pull away from her, crossing my arms like a bratty child. “Whatever.”
“Aww.” She’s moving closer now, extinguishing space and air, practically molding her body to the side of mine, “You know I adore every one of your lines.”
I’m still not budging. Not really that upset anymore, only wanting to see how far I can push her. Wanting to see how far she'll actually go.
“Jelly, come on.” Her hands tug at mine, as if she could fix the situation if she could only uncross my arms. “Don’t be mad.”
Now I’m just playing, teasing her for the fun of it. Teasing her cause she’s so adorable. Teasing her to see how much she actually cares.
“Ok, that’s it.” Before I can register it, she’s rolled over on top of me, legs pooled and tangled. Chests panting against chests. Her hands splay out on the bed beneath me, framing my body between them. Her smirking face, looking sexier than every beautiful woman combined, hovers above mine. Eyes dead set on my never-opened-wider eyes.
And suddenly it’s so very hard to breathe.
“Forgive me.” From upturned lips, she whispers her request. Her order, her command. Staring at me with so much intensity, with so much underlying her words, that all I can do is breathe “Forgiven” from somewhere deep in my chest that’s so tightly pressed to hers.
“Good."
It's murmured, huskily, as her dark dark eyes bore a trail into the features of my face, like she were marking her very own path. And suddenly my breath catches. My throat closes up, just slightly, finally registering her hips against my fingers, as if I were claiming my own territory. And my hands cradle her body between them further, gently holding her close, keeping her near. Right where I’ve always wanted her. And I wonder...I wonder if I’ll ever let her go.
Lowering her body slightly, she leans on an elbow to the side, letting her left hand rest on my panting chest. “This is nice.”
“Yeah.” My eyes flick over every inch of her, too scared or too overwhelmed or maybe both, to stay in one place. “Yeah, it is.”
And I mean it. No matter how beautifully unnerved I am, nothing has ever been better than where I am right now. Nothing has ever been as “nice” as laying squished beneath her.
“Wanna do it again tonight?”
Somehow, she’s lost my attention within seconds. Somehow, her lips stole it along with my eyes, holding both between them, threatening to never let them go, and all I can do is absentmindedly mumble, “It?”
She notices, without a doubt, where my mind is, where my eyes are, and she giggles because of it. “This. You know, me and you, just hanging out.” I finally glimpse back to her gorgeous eyes, falling into them as she sweetly continues, “Wanna come over tonight and do it again?”
“Why do we have to stop it in the first place?”
It’s so bold and forward, I'm tempted to glimpse around the room, searching for who's really asked it, but her chuckling draws me out of it.
“Well I’d love to,” Gingerly, she pokes my chest with every one of her words. “But someone has to go to work around here, and it ain’t me.”
With a throaty groan, I clasp a hand over my eyes, “Oh, man. It’s Monday, isn’t it?”
“Last time I checked.” Said with sly amusement, undoubtedly flowing from a beautiful smirk, she gently pulls my hand from my eyes. Naturally, easily, she threads our fingers together, making me realize just how much she loves hands, and just how much I love her because of it, how much I love them too, “Hey, now, don’t hide those gorgeous baby blues.”
I develop my own smirk, “Gorgeous, huh?”
A light blush forms on her cheeks, something so rare on her, something so never-before-seen, that it makes something ignite low in my belly. The same one molded against hers. The realization of how close we actually are in this moment. The realization that anything could happen right now just dawning on me.
And it looks like it’s dawning on her too. It looks like everything has caught up with us, the possibility of everything we’ve ignored for so long. She knows it and she feels it, and as she tentatively untangles her hand from mine, sliding it up to my neck, I feel it too. I feel it so strongly as she brushes a few strands of hair behind my ear, stroking my cheek. Shakily.
“I’ve wanted to do this for so long.”
She glimpses down on me, with eyes so hooded, so hazy, they could be black, and the air swallows itself between us. There are no more jokes. There is no more laughter. There's just us, bodies fitted together, in the most serious moment of my life. A moment that could change everything.
And we’re both not sure we’re ready for it. I can tell by the way she’s shaking above me. Matching my own quivers, tremor for tremor.
But it doesn’t stop me from sweetly, honestly, exhaling, “Me too.”
She looks down at me, like she's surprised. "Yeah?"
Like, she never believed this would happen. Like, she just couldn't bring herself to hope for something so unreachable.
And it makes me slowly nod my head, giving her that hope. Giving her that belief. Feeling her fingers gently tangling further in my hair, as a smile, so unbelievably sweet -- so outside of this very hot and very sexy moment -- crosses her face. I can't take my eyes off her. She can't take her eyes off me, and suddenly, there’s nothing between us. Absolutely nothing between us, and I know where this is heading.
I’m about to kiss Ashley. We are about to kiss.
Holy fuck. We are going to kiss. Because, now, she’s pulling my face, with one unbelievably smooth hand clasped around my rosy cheek. And her lips are drawing closer -- closer and closer -- dangerously nearing my mouth with every passing second. As if they were magnetic. As if we are magnetic. My heart is beating, wildly, breaking everything inside me. I’m sure she feels it against her breasts between mine. Her breaths paint a new world against my moist lips. A new world for me to discover. A world I’m so close to drowning in.
And then she’s gone. A loud beeping slicing right through the still thick air.
“Jesus, Spence.” She rolls back from me, as I grab my cell phone off the bedside table, “That scared the crap out of me. Why the hell do you have your alarm so loud?”
“Uh, are you just meeting me?” Turning off the blasphemous phone, I feel five tons of tension disintegrate inside me, “You know it takes a sledgehammer to wake me up.”
That gets her laughing against me, smiling internally at the way it vibrates against my bones, “Ah, yes, this is true. However, I think I’ve learned other methods for doing the same. Softer, better, methods. ”
Fingers sneakily crawl across my fore arm, barely there, but there just enough. And the tension is back tenfold, burrowing itself a permanent place in my stomach. One that will never leave, that I am sure of. Especially with those dark eyes boring through mine. Especially with those nails lightly raking across my skin. Up and down. Up and down.
“Well I guess I better be going.”
Wait, what?
“What, why?” I pout, unthinkingly, in a moment of pure unfiltered disappointment.
”Because, you, my dear, ” One quick tap to my nose, “Have to go to work.”
“Fine, mom.”
“Watch it.”
She holds a stern finger my way, and I lose myself in laughter. Laughter over how right things feel. How warm things are. And maybe she feels it too, cause she joins in with her own light hearted chuckles.
Lifting my heart so unbelievably high.
“Well,” Her body pushes up from the bed, leaving the space beside me far too empty and far too cold, “I hope you have an excellent day, Spence.”
“You know,” I remain splayed out on the bed, smiling softly at her, “I have a feeling I will.”
Standing before the doorway, she gives me her nose wrinkling smile. The one that carves her a permanent place in my heart -- as if it wasn't already there, as if it wasn't fitted for her the day I met her -- “You know, I have that same feeling.”
We stand there, like two ten year olds staring at their crush. We stand there like the biggest blindest fools in love. So oblivious to the train wreck barreling its way toward us. So unaware of the consequences falling all around us. Too wrapped up in everything, too wrapped up in the fools before us, to even care. To even think about anything else.
"So, I’ll see you later, yeah?”
She’s shy, adorably and uncharacteristically shy, as if I might change my mind. And I think I’m falling in love with her all over again. Falling in love in a different way. The right way.
“You will.”
One last lingering, heart-stopping, loving everything look, and she quietly leaves my room. Leaving me splayed out on a bed that’s never felt fuller. Warmer.
But really, she’s left me inside a body that’s never felt fuller. That’s never been warmer.
And I smile wider than I ever have before.
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The air is bitter, more bitter than it’s been in awhile. Winter is well on its way. The time of year for heavy coats and wool scarves is upon us. But I’m not dressed in either and I’m nowhere close to needing them.
Taking a deep breath, I walk towards her front door. The air whipping around me, the chill trying its best to push through me, but it doesn't. There’s not one bit of shiver running through any of my bones. There’s not an ounce of coldness residing anywhere inside me.
Because I ’m insulated in this mornings memory. I’m wrapped up in Ashleys sweetness. And I’ve never been warmer.
Anxiously, I knock and wait for her front door to open. Impatiently, I debate knocking again. Just needing to see her, just needing to feel everything again. It’s been long hours since I last saw her, but I haven’t left that high. I haven’t dropped from it at all.
I can hear footsteps hurriedly walking to the door, and it makes me even more excited. It makes me wonder if she feels how I feel. Maybe she needs to see me just as much.
After an eternity, the door opens, revealing her beauty-kissed face. And I’m so wrapped up in that distractingly gorgeous face, I don’t see the worry engraved beneath it. I don’t see the concern and stress.
“Spence...”
“Hey.” I breathe, stepping closer to her, cutting her off, pulling her into a hug. For once I feel so right. So natural. So brave.
Yes, I feel brave. And it makes me feel so strong. It makes me feel so proud.
“Hey, listen...” I pull away, and she’s speaking so fast, so hurried, that it still doesn’t strike anything in me, “I’ve been trying to call you, look, I’m so so so so sorry but-”
“Baby Sis!”
Oh. God.
Glen shows up from the shadows of the front hall, sloppily and mindlessly kissing Ashley on the forehead before he slaps her ass.
“Thanks for taking care of the ol' ball and chain this weekend.”
I want to die. I want to vomit. I actually think I might do both. And as I wearily, wetly, look into Ashley eyes, she looks the exact same way. She mouths a strong, heartbreaking sorry, as Glen disappears back into the kitchen, exclaiming over his shoulder, “Ladies, we eating or what? I’m fucking starving!”
And just like that, everything disappears. Everything has been lost. I can’t even look her in the eyes anymore. Because I can’t find her. Because I’ve lost her.
Because Glen’s finally home.
And so is reality.
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Chapter Eleven :: Throwing and Pulling