So Much to Learn (22 page)

And finally -
finally! - he seemed to hear me.

With a great
'whoosh' of released air, he collapsed against the punching bag,
his forehead and fists pressed hard against the leather. The
muscles in his arms, legs and back visibly unclenched, and he froze
so that the only sign of movement was from the little rivulets of
sweat which ran down his forehead and neck.

I waited until
it was clear he wasn't about to start up again and then said, in a
small voice, "Come and sit with me."

He stayed
frozen for a moment longer, but then let out a long, controlled
breath and began stripping off his gloves. Throwing them to the
side he ran his fingers through his hair, spiked with sweat, and
then made his way over to me, throwing himself down on the trunk.
Tipping his head back against the wall, he closed his eyes. As his
breathing calmed I reached out and entwined my hand through his.
His fingers tightened around mine and I felt him release the last
of his tension through that connection.

For a long
while we listened to the sounds of the night filtering through the
gaps in the shed, the croaking of the frogs, the rustlings of the
possums and the thumpings as wallabies and kangaroos jumped about
feasting on my dad's lawn.

"So you lied to
me, you know," I murmured when I felt it was safe to talk
again.

"I did?" Jack
asked, his voice husky as if the punching bag had stolen even his
voice.

"Yeah, you let
me think it was Matt who attacked Brad, but it was you."

Jack shrugged,
his head still tilted back, his eyes still closed. "I didn't lie
then, I just let you continue believing something that wasn't
true."

"Same
difference."

He opened his
eyes then and looked down at me just as a gust of wind blew outside
making the shed door swing shut with a bang and sending a draft
whipping past our legs. I shivered slightly and pressed myself
closer against Jack's side to protect myself from any other cold
gusts. The next moment, however, Jack had released my hand and with
a soft, "Come here," he tugged me up onto his lap. He was slightly
sweaty from the boxing, but also decidedly warm, and I snuggled up
against his chest happily.

"I should have
just kept walking," Jack said, after a couple of seconds. "Letting
Brad rile me up like that was stupid. It was just that the things
he was saying-" He tightened his arms around me as if trying to
protect me from the awful things Brad had presumably said. "Well
he's lucky I didn't break his bloody neck, that's all."

I tilted my
head and looked at him for a long moment before reaching up and
gently cupping his face. "You can be a little scary sometimes Jack,
you know that right?" He looked surprised at that, but I continued,
"I mean you can be so intense and you're so strong, I think
sometimes you don't know what you're capable of."

His expression
darkened and he pulled his cheek away from my hand. "And you think
I'm going to hurt somebody one day?" He asked, his tone incredulous
and a little bit hurt. "You think I'm going to lose it and, what?
Put somebody in hospital or something? Listen, I can't think of
many guys who would have been able to just walk away from Brad if
he'd been talking about their…friend like that. I only gave him a
scare."

I noted the
hesitation before he said 'friend' and briefly wondered if he'd
meant to say best friend's sister, but then thought better of it.
Still, I had more important things to think about at that moment
because Jack looked like he was considering dumping my arse on the
cold concrete and storming off.

Wishing I
hadn't said anything, but unable to back off once I'd started, I
shook my head and tried to think of how I could explain my fears to
him. "It's not that I think you're going to hurt somebody else
exactly," I said cautiously, "but rather that one day you're going
to hurt yourself."

He narrowed his
eyes at this but didn't interrupt so I continued, "For example,
when I came into the shed just now you seemed like you were out of
control and I was proper scared that you were going to…oh I don't
know, injure yourself I guess. And that was scary, Jack, much
scarier than I imagine you were with Brad. You're so much harder on
yourself than you are on other people."

Sighing, he
gave a little shrug. "I learnt a long time ago that you don't have
control over other people, the only person you can direct to do the
right thing is yourself. So, yeah, I am hard on myself, I reckon
most people are."

Realising that it was too late at night and I was too
exhausted for us to get into this discussion I nodded slightly.
"Fine, just please don't be
too
hard on yourself, alright? Sometimes it's even
harder to control yourself than it is to try and control other
people."

He realised
that I was relenting on him for the time being and I felt him relax
again. "OK," he murmured, kissing my temple and resting his head
against mine briefly, "I'll try and remember."

There was
another lull during which I tucked my head up under Jack's chin and
nuzzled closer in against him to keep the crisp air at bay.

"You still
cold?" He asked, his hand resting on the bare skin where my top had
ridden up, and presumably feeling the goose bumps that had sprung
up all over. I made a noncommittal 'mmm' noise because I didn't
want him to try and send me back to bed again.

"Here, let me
give this a try." Jack ran his hand down my right arm until his
hand was holding my wrist.

"What are you
doing?" I laughed as he rubbed his fingers over the skin on the
inside of my wrist.

"You lose body
heat through your hands, feet and nose primarily," he said
conversationally. "However, you can best regain heat through places
where the veins are close to the skin, pulse points. The best
places are your wrists, your neck and your groin."

OK, I'll admit
it, I did blush when he said groin. What am I? Ten years old?

"Therefore…"
Jack smirked at my red face and then brought my wrist up to his
mouth. Before I had time to ask what he was doing he breathed
gently over my wrist, the warm air tickling the sensitive skin.

Warm.

Immediately I
felt a warm glow roll up my arm and spread across to settle in my
chest, although how much of this was from the warming up technique,
and how much came from the incredibly exciting feeling of his hot
breath brushing against my skin, I couldn't say. He glanced
sideways at me and smiled at my expression which, I would imagine,
could only be described as dazed. Still looking at me he bent his
head to my wrist again, but this time placed a soft kiss on the
skin.

Warmer.

My free hand
clenched the front of his t-shirt convulsively as if I was falling
and I bit my lip to keep myself from making some sort of
embarrassing noise, I really didn't want him laughing at me at that
moment. He lifted his head again as if to check how well he was
doing. My look must have told him the answer was very well indeed
because the look he sent me in return was one of mixed pleasure and
smugness. Before I had time to recover he lowered his head a third
time, but this time laid his open mouth over my wrist.

Hot!

I think I might
actually have glowed in that moment. It couldn't just have been
blood coursing through my veins, it had to have been lava. Yeah,
lava with a good sprinkle of chilli. I closed my eyes and released
a little "Oh," noise despite my determination not to make myself
sound like an idiot. I don't know what it was about the feeling of
his mouth on that little patch of skin that made me react so much,
maybe because the wrist is so sensitive, maybe because it reacts so
strongly to heat, or maybe just because it was the single most
sensual thing I had ever experienced.

Jack lifted his
head once more and this time full on grinned at me. "Better?" He
asked, his eyes alight with a look I had never seen before.

"Much," I said,
wrapping my arms around his neck and pulling his lips down onto
mine.

There was an
urgency to this kiss that hadn't been present the other times. This
one had both time and passion on its side. Neither of us, it
seemed, were prepared to faff around with the slow or the gentle,
we had already done the warm up...literally!

The position we
were in, me sitting side saddle upon him, was restrictive in terms
of getting really close to one another. So, not breaking the kiss
for one moment, I twisted myself about until I was straddling him,
my knees resting on the trunk on either side of his thighs. His
hands gripped my hips and pulled me close in against him so I could
feel every ridge of his chest through the thin fabric separating
us.

Well, I
certainly wasn't cold anymore!

We continued
this way for a period of time, his hands hot against my hips,
holding me tight and my arms locked around his neck. I felt as I
had when we had danced at the club, as if there was little
distinction between where he ended and I began. It seemed that Jack
was also feeling like he had on a previous occasion with me,
specifically the Sunday when I had ended up lying on top of him.
And, again, as on the Sunday, I found myself delighted with the
intoxicating feeling arousing him gave me.

It was at about this time that rational thought obviously
decided it was a bit too late at night for it to be functioning and
sloped off to bed, leaving me in the not-so-capable hands of primal
instinct. It was almost as if I could physically
feel
the change in my
body as I went from perfectly happy to desperately wanting
more.

Removing my
arms from around Jack's neck I ran my hands down his chest until I
reached the hem line of his t-shirt. And then, reluctantly breaking
our kiss, I tugged the top over his head and threw it to one side.
I caught his lips again almost immediately, feeling bereft for that
one moment without them. I spread my palms flat over his chest and
revelled in the feel of his bare skin. His chest was like Jack
personified, hard yet soft, and incredibly, unbelievably hot.

Realising the
inequality of our situation I shrugged off my jacket, but wasn't
prepared to break the kiss again so soon to take my tank top off.
Still Jack had, quite rightly, taken my bold moves as a signal that
it was alright to touch me more intimately and his large, capable
hands slid beneath my top.

For a while he
simply ran his hands up and down the bare skin there, his thumbs
moving in slow circles across my stomach, but then he drew his
hands up until they rested just underneath my breasts. Tenderly he
traced the undersides of the curves with his fingers and then took
the full weight of them into his palms.

I was in a
complete daze, focussed on nothing but desire and the pleasure I
was receiving. So much so that when he brushed his fingers across
my nipples I had to bite back a scream as some far off recess in my
brain was still functioning enough to point out that that would be
a bad idea.

Riding a wave
of daring that had sprung up from God knows where, I let my hands
trail down Jack's chiselled chest, over his hips and down to the
tie on his tracksuit bottoms. Pulling the knot loose I was about to
dip my hand down beneath the waistline when suddenly I felt Jack's
hands leave my breasts and grab my hands.

"What?" I
asked, surprised out of the fog of lust I had sunk into. My face
heated at once at the position of my hands and what I had been
about to do and I pulled them away and crossed my arms.

"I don't have a
condom,” Jack said.

"You what?" I
exclaimed. "I thought boys kept whole packets constantly handy in
the unlikely event that some woman gives them the go ahead."

He smiled his
sweet lopsided smile and shook his head. "Not when they go out in
the middle of the night to box in a friend's shed they don't."

"So," I
unfolded my arms and rested them on his bare shoulders, kissing him
again lightly, "go get one."

"I don't think
that's such a good idea," he said, taking my hands off his
shoulders and holding them tightly in his. "But it's not because I
don't want to be with you," he continued, presumably seeing the
ever darkening hue of my face. "Think about it seriously for a
moment, perhaps it's a good thing that something stopped us."

"Yeah?" I
asked, through swollen lips, trying to get to grips with the
situation. "Why's that then?"

Jack was silent
for a second and I could tell he was trying to think of the best
way to put his next sentence. "OK, do you remember when I asked you
back at the flat what you wanted to happen between us?"

I nodded.

"Well, what was
it that you imagined that made you go about as red as you are now?
What did you see?"

"You and me," I
answered immediately, the picture conjured through the levels of my
subconscious and exploding vividly in my mind’s eye.

"Well that's a
good start," he chuckled. "But where were we?" As I looked at him
in confusion he continued, "I mean were we, for instance, in your
father's grimy, cold shed sneaking around in the middle of the
night?"

I shook my head
no, the image expanding until I could see quite clearly where I had
pictured us. "We were in your room at the flat," I answered him,
"clean, warm, and nobody was around to interrupt us."

My
embarrassment at sharing my fantasy was instantly made worthwhile
by the look of appreciation on Jack's face at my words. He dropped
my hands and grabbed me around the waist and, before I knew what
was happening, he was kissing me again. I was a bit surprised at
his reaction, but loved that I could almost taste his approval and
joy at my answer.

"There you are
then," he said, pulling away with a chuckle. "You deserve better
than a cold shed, Natalia Jane Davenport."