Stubborn Love (8 page)

She shuffles around so we
can get them off and then takes them from my hand and flings them across the
room, where they join her bra somewhere near the door. I can’t help but laugh
before she pushes her mouth against mine in a hard kiss that silences
everything. She’s grinding her hips against mine and kissing me like she can’t
get enough and although it’s hot and sexy as fuck, I need to make this last.
I’ve spent months dreaming about this and I don’t want it to be over too soon.

“Mia,” I beg again. “Go
slow, I want to go slow.”

“I need you now, Jared,”
she says urgently as she reaches for the condoms. “We can go slow next time.”

I swear my heart stops in
my chest at her words. At her needing me now, at her mention of a next time. It
makes me lose my mind and as soon as the condom is on, I’m rolling us over and
pushing inside her. The groan she lets out is sexy as hell, but it’s how she
feels that really gets me.

“Fuck Mia, you feel
amazing,” I growl against her throat. I’m kissing her skin, kissing all over
her neck, her chest, her lips, anywhere I can.

“Jared, please,” she
commands, and it undoes me completely.

I start to move; hard,
fast, giving her exactly what she wants. Mia is moaning against my mouth now as
she kisses me and it’s only getting me harder, getting me so fucking turned on.
I drive myself into her and her legs wrap around my hips, forcing hers higher
as she rises up to meet me. I move one of my hands down so I can touch her,
because at this rate, I am really not going to last much longer.

And then I don’t, and
neither does Mia.
Both of us coming together, the sound of
our groans the only noise filling the room.

Today, 1:33am – Mia

“We did find a way, which
was just as well, because apparently
just
kissing you
wasn’t enough,” I say, my hands covering my cheeks as I feel
them get hotter.

Jared smiles, threading
his fingers together as he rests his hands on his stomach. I glance at them,
picture my own hands resting in that exact same spot, against his hard flat
abs, his warm skin. I feel a flutter in my stomach.

“It wasn’t for me either,”
Jared eventually says, smiling at me still.

“It was good between us,
wasn’t it?” I eventually ask, lowering my hands to my lap.

Jared smiles at me. “Yeah
it was Mia, really good.”

“Even if it did get off to
that rocky start?” I suggest, smiling back at him.

Jared laughs a little now.
“Rocky? Maybe confusing would be a better word,” he says.

“Yeah, nothing like me
throwing my drunken ass at you and making a complete fool of myself as a solid
start to a relationship.”

Jared’s smile disappears
now. “You didn’t make a fool of yourself Mia,” he says, his voice serious. “I
just didn’t want you to regret it. And I didn’t want you doing it for the wrong
reasons.”

I watch, as he looks at
me, open my mouth to tell him that there’s no way I ever would have regretted
it, even if it had been the only kiss we’d ever shared.

“I wanted you to want to
kiss me and I wanted you to remember it,” he says, before I get a chance to say
anything. “Because Mia I knew, it was going to be a moment I’d never forget.”

I’m completely speechless.
I had no idea it was such a huge moment for him, that it had meant
that
much to him.

“No?” I say quietly.

Jared blinks. “No,” he
says. “Never.”

We sit in silence, both of
us watching the other and I can’t help but wonder, hope even, that maybe it’s
still enough for him. That
I,
am still enough
for him.

“You snuck out though,” he
eventually says. “That first night.”

“I know,” I say, moving my
hands and sliding them under my butt so I don’t reach out for him. “I was
nervous. I did want more, a lot more, but I thought it was a bad idea, I always
had,” I say. “I was scared of our connection, scared at how much I wanted you,
especially when I knew I shouldn’t even be thinking about it.”

“What, why?” he asks.

I look down and take a
deep breath, knowing I have to start right at the beginning if I’m going to
have any chance of him understanding where I’m coming from. He still might not
get it completely, but I know it’s where I need to start.

“Once,” I say, my voice
quiet. “Luke had this friend, some guy from school.” I glance up at Jared and
see he is still watching me, his hands still clasped together on his stomach.
“I was only sixteen at the time, so it was a year before he left, but I’d gone
to visit him at school. This friend of his, I don’t know why, but he’d taken an
interest in me.”

“What?” Jared says, his
head lifting sharply off the headboard to look at me.

“Not like that,” I tell
him, even though it probably was like that. “Luke and I had run into him while
we were out together and he’d sort of invited himself to join us. Neither of us
really wanted him there, but I guess Luke was just being nice, and I felt like
I couldn’t really say anything.”

Jared is watching me
intently now, listening as I tell him this story. I can see the wheels turning
inside his head, I already know he will hate Brian because I can already
imagine the things he’s picturing. Even now, it hurts just to think about it,
but it hurts even more when I realise what Jared is going to think when he
hears what this has to do with him.

“Anyway, we went out, got
some lunch together. This guy, Brian, spent the whole time talking to me. Asked
me a million questions about where I was going to go to school, what I’d major
in, blah, blah, blah. It drove me crazy because all I wanted to do was talk to
my brother, spend time with him.”

“Should have just told
this guy to fuck off,” Jared says, his voice low, but firm.

I half laugh, knowing
that’s exactly what I wanted to do, but being too scared to do it. “I know, but
I was only sixteen, remember?”

“Didn’t Luke say anything
to him?” he asks.

I breathe out. “Yeah, he
did, but you know what Luke’s like. Sometimes he’s too nice for his own good. I
don’t think he wanted to be rude to this guy.”

“So what happened then?”

I take a deep breath.
“Well, after we went to lunch, we decided to go and see a movie,” I continue,
nervous now.

Jared fingers unlock, his
hands sliding off his stomach as he pushes himself into a sitting position.
“And?”

I fix my eyes on his
chest, unable to watch Jared’s face as I tell him this. “And, sometime during
the movie, Brian tried to do something that I didn’t want him to do.”

“What?” Jared says now,
his body jerking on the bed. “Where the hell was Luke?”

“He was on the other side
of me, but it was dark,” I say quietly. “But when he noticed me jump away from
Brian, when he saw what was happening, what he was trying to do, well the next
thing I knew, I was yanked out of my seat and Luke and I were walking out of
the movie theatre.”

“He didn’t say anything to
him, do anything to teach him a lesson?”

I finally lift my eyes to
look at him. “Luke is not my father, Jared. He isn’t like that.”

Jared’s eyes close, a look
of regret passing over his face. “Yeah I know, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like
that.”

I reach out, tentatively
squeeze his feet to let him know I understand. I know he doesn’t see Luke like
that. I know that any other person, Jared included, would’ve punched Brian
because it was exactly what the idiot deserved. Hell, even I should’ve punched
him and if he’d pulled that stunt on me today, I would. But it’s just not Luke,
it never was and it never will be, and I get that too.

“If it makes you feel any
better, Luke did throw a soda at him.”

I watch as he tries to
laugh, but fails. His eyes open and they are watching me once more. “I would
have decked the fucking asshole myself, but yeah, I get why that didn’t
happen.”

 
I leave my hand resting on his feet, my
eyes still locked onto his beautiful blue ones. The care and concern is back in
them now and it melts my heart a little, gives me another tiny ounce of hope.

“Were you okay Mia, he didn’t
hurt you, this Brian guy?”

I run my thumb over his
toes. “No, he didn’t hurt me Jared, I was more shocked than anything,” I say,
half smiling at him. “The only thing that hurt was Luke losing a friend,
because of what happened that day, because of me.”

Jared is staring at me,
his hands moving so they are resting back on his stomach now. He takes a deep
breath as though he’s choosing his words carefully. “It wasn’t your fault you
know,” he eventually says. “Guys like that are born assholes and Luke would
have found out sooner or later.”

I bite my bottom lip,
wishing that was true. “Maybe, but to a sixteen year old girl who idolised her
brother, the one person who loved her and protected her from everything, I felt
pretty fucking awful for what had happened.”

“And that’s what you
thought would happen with us?” he asks, his voice hurt now.

I squeeze my fingers
around his toes, desperately holding on. “It’s not that I thought you were like
him, Jared. You’re as far from Brian as it’s possible to get. But…” I close my
eyes, nervous at what I’m about to say next. “…But, I was scared that one day
you would be forced into something, a situation that meant you had to pick one
of us and that you’d pick me over him.”

“It wouldn’t have been
like that Mia,” Jared says quickly, interrupting me. “I wouldn’t have done
that.”

“You don’t know that
Jared,” I tell him, knowing that in some ways, it did come down to that in the
end. “But I knew, I didn’t ever want to be responsible for Luke loosing another
friend. Ever again.”

I watch as Jared’s eyes
close as he starts to understand what I did, why I was so scared. Scared of
being with him because I didn’t want to come between his and Luke’s friendship,
scared of all the things that could mean.

If only he realised there
was more to be told.

Four years ago – Jared

I wake to the sound of
rain against the window. As I open my eyes, the first
thing
I see are four empty condom wrappers, lying on the floor. I smile at the
memory, at all the amazing things that happened last night. We might have gone
hard that first time, but we made up for it by going slow the second time.
Third time too, which was possibly the slowest and hottest of them all. The
fourth was faster again, both of us pushing each other as we exhausted
ourselves in the best possible way. I’m sure I fell asleep immediately; my body
curled around
Mia’s
and no doubt a massive fucking
smile on my face.

I have never met a woman
who’s made me feel like this. I always knew there was something between us, a
connection that couldn’t be ignored. And I knew that all of the things I feel
for her are more than what I’ve ever felt for any other woman. And because of
that, I always knew if anything did ever happen between us, it would be really
fucking good.

But last night, yeah shit,
last night totally blew my fucking mind.

Smiling, I roll over to
see if Mia might be interested in setting a new challenge today. I have no idea
what time it was when we finally did fall asleep and I’m still dead tired this
morning, but I know I won’t have any problem if she’s up for it.

Problem is, my bed is
empty,
Mia
is gone.

“Fuck,” I exhale, raking
my hands down my face in frustration. Had she seriously snuck out in the middle
of the night? My hand moves to the empty pillow beside me even though I know
she isn’t there. It’s not even warm on her side of the bed anymore. I wonder
when she snuck out, whether she even bothered to go to sleep or if she just
waited until I drifted off.

Annoyed that maybe last
night hadn’t meant as much to Mia as I had originally thought, that it hadn’t
meant as much to her as it had meant to me, I roll over to the side she once
occupied. Pressing my nose to the pillow, I try to drink in the smell of her,
remember what it had felt like to hold her, to kiss her, to touch her. Try to
ignore how much I want to do it all again.

I must have drifted off
because the next thing I know, a warm body is sliding into bed beside me,
pulling me from my sleep. I feel lips at my ear and warm breath that whispers,
“Luke’s gone to work, do you have to go to work today?”

It has to be a dream I
think, as I roll over and find Mia beside me again, dressed now in a t-shirt
and boxers that are both adorable and cover far too much of her.

“Not if you’re planning on
staying in here, I don’t,” I whisper, holding my breath and forgetting all
about the fact that she snuck out and left me last night, as I wait for her
response.

Smiling, Mia leans in, her
lips just a breath away from mine as she whispers, “I just wondered if maybe
you might be interested in another challenge?”

I groan loudly before I
slide my hands around her and pull her t-shirt off, kissing her hard on the
mouth and proving that yes, when it came to her, I was always up for the
challenge.

Six hours and many more
condoms later, we are still lying in my bed and this time Mia had been here
when I woke up ten minutes ago. As she lies in my arms, my fingers drifting
lightly over her warm skin, I can’t help but wonder what
is
going on here. Are we just fooling around or does this really
mean something more to her? Just as I’m about to find out, Mia speaks,
answering the question I’m a little scared to ask.

“We should probably get up
before Luke comes home,” she says, lifting her head from my shoulder.

As I push the hair back
from my face I can’t stop myself from asking it anyway. “We’re not telling him
about this, are we? It’s why you snuck out last night, so he wouldn’t find out?”

I watch as her eyes look
away from me, as she moves and presses her lips to my chest, avoiding me. Mia
takes a deep breath before finally answering, “That’s what I was thinking,
yeah.”

It hits me in the gut,
what she’s saying, but at the same time I sort of get it. I’m not too wild
about telling him either, not too sure how he’d react to the fact that I’ve
slept with his baby sister, many times. That I’ve done incredibly hot and
amazing things to her body, just like she’s done to mine. It’s actually kind of
laughable considering what I’d told Ben about Mia being a no-go area. Look at
the two of us now for fuck’s sake. But all that aside, I don’t want this to
just be a one-time thing. I don’t want her to think we finally got whatever it
was between us, out of our system, and that’s it, we’re done.
Because I’m a long way from being done, a very long way.

“So was this just a one time
only thing then?” I ask, trying not to sound too hopeful or desperate.

“Well technically it was a
lot more than once, Jared,” Mia says, her lips still resting against my skin.

I smile at her, as all
eight times now flash through my brain in very vivid detail. “Yeah, but is it a
never to be repeated
kinda
thing then,” I ask, my hand running down her back. “I mean, is it possible it
could happen again?”

Did it mean anything to you?

I feel her warm breath as
she exhales against me and I watch her, wanting to see her reaction when she
gives me her answer. We stare at each for what feels like ages.

“I’d never say never,” she
finally answers.

“So that’s a yes… it
could?” I ask
,
my eyes fixed on her face so I don’t
miss it.

Mia doesn’t say anything
for a long time and with every second that passes, I’m becoming more and more
convinced she’s going to say no. Finally she slides herself up my body, so her
face is above mine. Looking right into my eyes, I see her smile, before she
leans in to kiss me. My hand is sliding into her hair, ready to pull her
closer, but just before her lips touch mine, I hear her answer.

“That’s a fuck yes, Jared.”

And I can’t help but laugh
before I close that gap and kiss her, hard, sneaking in a quick number nine
before we are forced to get up and act like none of this ever happened.