Get a cup of holy water and settle in. x

after Thanksgiving break doing everything in my power to stop thinking about Jamie.

About how betrayed he looked when I told him about Levi. About how remorseful I felt in response. About how remorse betrayed my partiality—the partiality I shouldn't have had. That was the circular track on which my train of thought ran, and it was doing no-one any good. I couldn't change what had happened.

All I could do was wait.

Come to the end of football season, the Halston Foxes did about as well as last year, finishing seventh in the conference. Underwhelming, not that I cared much either way. True to my word, I abstained from all the WISA Game Day obligations—though I attended that wild first Game Day with the girls—during the football season. That earned me pitch duty in the last week of the semester.

Two weeks passed either studying for finals or methodically preparing a funding presentation to pitch to the Halston University Board of Trustees and Campus Life Department—there was too much on the line to do my usual last-minute cramming bullshit. Then, asymptomatic and optimistic, I visited the clinic to be tested. Waiting for my results—or rather, an elapsed period of no contact, which meant I was clear of STIs—took another week.

And do you know what I realised during that time?

Jamie and I were awkward as hell if we couldn't have sex.

Neither of us initiated any contact. No suggestive two-word texts. I didn't go to his room, and he didn't come to mine. We ate meals with our floormates, insulated by a wall of three bodies at any one time. When he came into the common room to brew more coffee, the conversation flowed like cement.

The situation didn't improve in group settings. The most recent was Krista's celebration party for quitting her job at Topaz and ditching med school. Jamie had been subdued, his eyes often glazing over like he was thinking of something else. Whenever he looked at me, I saw only green ice and lifeless glass, like the opaque surface of a frozen lake hiding the monsters underneath.

Either he was upset or mad at me. It had to be one of the two. Both cases made it extremely likely that he would call an end to our friends with benefits arrangement—which was a darn shame because I'd been missing his body.

Vivian: Clinic never called me.

Vivian: So I'm clear.

Vivian: Do you want to come over?

I knew Jamie was in the dorm because I'd seen him and Jake return from the gym, their matching sports jackets and black duffle bags dusted with snow. As he stepped into my bedroom in his Halston U t-shirt and trackpants, I wholly expected him to break off the affair between us.

I attempted a friendly smile, fisting my hands at my side to still their shaking. "Hey."

Jamie stepped closer, kicking the door shut without glancing behind him. "Hey."

"How's was the gym?"

"Good."

"Oh. That's good. And classes?"

Jamie shrugged noncommittally, his eyes shuttered. "Do you really care, or do you just want to fuck?"

My lips parted in surprise before I snapped them shut. I took a step closer.

Jamie wrapped his arms around my legs and my body instinctively jumped toward him, locking my heels around his torso. Suddenly I was six feet in the air, and his lips were on mine.

I let out a satisfied sigh against his mouth. The relief that Levi— no, that I hadn't scared him away, was cool and fleeting and quickly interrupted when the smooth plane of the door pressed solidly against my back.

Jamie's strong hands underneath kept me pinned in place while we kissed, his mouth setting the pace slow and languid. The way his lips stayed shut at length and then, minutes later, the control with which his tongue wrenched soft, breathy gasps from me hinted that he never tired of holding me up.

When he started kissing my neck, I could finally speak. "Can we go to the bed? I've been missing this."

My legs trembled, and I didn't know how much longer I could keep them clenched around Jamie. However, it seemed he didn't require my help to leverage my weight, because he simply chuckled against my throat.

"I'm taking my time tonight."

My core clenched hearing the unwavering determination in Jamie's voice. My legs unravelled from his waist, but he didn't let me drop an inch. His unrelenting mouth left harsh, hot, open-mouthed kisses down my throat, along my collarbone, at the soft flesh at the top of my breast, till I was squirming against the door. My hips rolled impatiently, yearning for some friction, some hard contact between my legs.

Finally, Jamie walked us to the bed and set me down. I rushed to strip my clothes off, but he caught my wrists and pinned them against the mattress.

His voice, deep and insistent, brokered no argument. "Let me."

My body relaxed into the sheets as Jamie climbed onto the bed, his knees between my parted legs. Something was different about him. Part of him was reserved, hidden by his blank features, and yet I felt equally certain that he was showing me a side that no-one else ever saw. It was thoroughly confusing, especially considering the disorienting haze of arousal he kicked up in my head.

Jamie shifted lower on the bed. Slipping his warm hands onto my hips, he tugged my shirt upward. Following the rise of my hemline, he placed a soft kiss on my hip, my navel, on each of my ribs. I lengthened my arms above my head as he pulled the shirt off. He deftly slipped a hand underneath my waist and snapped open the clasp of my bra, tossing it aside.

Jamie's expression darkened as he looked at me, bare-chested on the bed, staring up. Still, he didn't break. Resting on his forearm, he leant over me to kiss me slowly, till I was breathless. Then he dipped his head to my neck, sucking hard enough to leave bruises. When he shifted lower to draw my breast into his mouth, a moan slipped from my lips.

His mouth stretched into a brief smile before he resumed lavishing attention onto my body. It was torture, sweet torture, and I urged him to touch me lower by canting my pelvis towards him. Complying wordlessly, Jamie slid both my sweatpants and underwear down my legs, helped by the shifting of my hips. Being completely naked under his clothed body made me feel additionally vulnerable, hyper-aware of the rake of his jeans against my legs, the brush of his t-shirt against my sensitive breasts. My eyes fluttered shut.

When Jamie slid his fingers into my core and discovered how ready I was for him, he drew in a sharp intake of air. "Fuck, Viv."

My eyelids fluttered open, just wide enough to give him a lazy smirk. "What did you expect?"

I felt, rather than heard, the growl that ripped from his throat. He bit softly into my flesh, drawing a cry from me, before he laved my shoulder with his tongue and shifted lower on the bed. I steeled myself when I felt his hands snake around my thighs, spreading them open, and his warm breath at my core.

His tongue swept up the length of me.

"Oh, God," I squeaked, hands fisted in the sheets.

So began countless minutes of dizzying pleasure. He was unrushed. The pressure on my nerves built steadily. Once my legs stilled in their trembling, trusted to stay open, Jamie's hands wandered my body. I felt his touches everywhere. His fingers caressing my breasts, the soft drag of his palm down my waist, around to cup the swell of my behind. The satisfying stretch when he finally slid two fingers back into my centre.

Coupled with Jamie's adept tongue swirling around the nexus of nerves above my core, it wasn't long before I came undone on his face. He stroked and sucked even as my thighs clamped around his head, prolonging the tensing of my limbs and the spasms in my core.

When I rode my release to completion, I noticed Jamie hadn't ceased his movements. His hands and tongue stoked the pleasure, that had momentarily dulled, brighter and brighter. But this time it was harsh. It had an edge, piercing my head with the newfound sensitivity I had.

Jamie correspondingly slowed his movements, keeping me squarely balanced on the thin line between pleasure and something much darker. I felt proof of it dripping down my skin before long, cool against the air of the bedroom. He departed briefly to catch the drops with his tongue, before he sucked my nub back into his mouth.

I couldn't take much more. I needed something hard instead of soft, fast instead of slow. I strained my voice with desperation. "Jamie."

I only said his name. But he knew what I needed.

He tore his t-shirt off his chest while my fingers slipped under the waistband of his pants, sliding them off his hips. He pulled a square of foil from the pocket before shedding them completely, throwing them out of sight. I watched through hooded eyes as he rolled the condom down his length and braced his body over me.

Jamie slid home seamlessly, with all the expertise of a practised lover. His mouth caught the long moan that tore from my throat, kissing me silent, senseless. He rocked into me slowly, pushing me higher and higher. My legs wrapped around his hips, trying to pull him into me harder, faster. But nothing I did could sway him.

His rhythm remained controlled and agonisingly good. Each time he pushed to his deepest, my core clenched around him. Jamie intertwined his fingers with mine, placing just enough pressure in my hands to hold them still on the mattress. As our mouths moved against each other, the tip of his nose brushed across mine.

The air shifted. I felt when it did. Something about the extreme care Jamie was taking. The steady surge of his hips. The soothing brush of his thumb against my hand. The way he kissed me.

That tight, intense feeling in my chest mounted. Like unfurling, but against the will of my head, my logic. I wanted to run from the feeling, but it came from within. Something cracked in my chest, like the splintering of an iceberg, so strange and so familiar.

It was almost like I wanted to cry. Not out of pain or sadness.

Something else.

I didn't want to feel this way, let alone about him. Not again.

"Faster," I urged desperately. "Faster, Jamie. Please."

I needed it rough. Impersonal. But he didn't give it to me.

With a tortured groan, I wrenched my hands out of his. Jamie raised himself when I pushed his chest away from me, and rolled us over.

I refused to meet his eyes when I sheathed him in myself once again, throwing my head to the ceiling. I slid my hand lower to touch myself and zeroed in on what my body felt instead of my heart.

"Fuck," Jamie swore, his hands coming to rest on the flare of my hips.

He didn't fight me while I took my pleasure, slamming my hips down on him repeatedly. The half-formed release that he'd created in me quickly rose to the fore, spilling over in the next few minutes with blissful, unforgiving oblivion. I was distantly aware of Jamie's hips jerking up to meet mine, his breathing shaky as he finished inside me.

After I rolled off him, collapsing on the mattress, I turned to Jamie with accusatory eyes. "What was that?"

His bare, muscular chest rose and fell with exertion. His eyes narrowed at me. "I was going to ask you the same thing."

"You..." I caught my breath and tried again. "You've never done that before."

"You've never shut me out before."

So he'd noticed. I turned my eyes from him as I fought to get under the covers. Now that it was December, I cooled rapidly after our hookups. Jamie didn't join me, instead of redressing with a sombre face.

"I couldn't... I don't make love, Jamie. Not even with you."

"Not even? What does that mean?" he asked pointedly, sliding his pants onto his long legs.

I looked at the ceiling. "Nothing."

Jamie let out a frustrated huff. "You wouldn't have said it if it meant nothing. It meant something."

I knew I'd run from him, from what I really felt, a few moments ago. But I didn't appreciate the way he wanted to force his feelings onto me, into the open air. So what if I didn't want to confront anything? So what if I wanted to keep things casual?

Was self-preservation a bad thing?

Jamie gestured between us, him standing and partly dressed, me lying naked beneath the covers. "This means something. To me, at least. I want—"

He swallowed. When he spoke again, his waverless voice slid right into my heart and squeezed. That annoying pricking sensation at the corner of my eyes returned. Damn him. "I want you. All of you. I want you in public, in front of our friends—"

"No. That's not the deal."

"Fuck the deal," he growled. "You can't control other people's feelings by writing it down on a piece of paper. I like you—God knows why—whereas you just use me. You treat me as a walking dildo, conveniently lying by to get off on."

"I don't treat you like that! You're my friend. We hang out..." I trailed off, realising how pathetic my excuse sounded.

Jamie's unimpressed expression told me he thought the same. "Yes, where you ignore me and everything going on between us. We don't have proper conversations if sex isn't on the table."

These last three weeks had been the most stilted of our entire friendship. But if our platonic interactions had degraded, how was that my fault? He had initiated nothing but sex, either. We were both busy individuals. We had nothing in common. That's just how it was, how it had been since we met.

Why was he angry, like it was a recent development?

I pushed myself up to glare at Jamie. "It's called boundaries."

"It's called bullshit. I'm not good at pretending in the common room, or in the bedroom," he said as he pulled his trackpants up his legs. "I want all of you. And I know you want me, too. Enough to scare you. Enough to make you run and hide."

I'd seen videos of flowers being dipped in liquid nitrogen and shattered underneath a hammer. I wished such a procedure existed for emotions. I wished Jamie didn't see every inch of me and call it out. The spotlight he was shining into my deepest, oldest hurts burned with its truth.

I needed him to leave.

"Is this an ultimatum?" I asked scathingly, holding my composure in a vice grip. "Because you can lay it on the table and cut this tantrum short."

"I guess it is. All or nothing. That's the new deal." Jamie picked his shoes up in his hands, not bothering to wear them. His eyes weren't icy anym agreeore. They burned with a mixture of affection and anger. "You let me know when you have an answer."

His confession was just a warning of pain. An omen. Even with my regimented contracts and clauses, Jamie had gone and hurt himself, anyway. He was out of his mind if he thought a messy, doomed relationship would make things better.

"Why wait? I have an answer now," I grit out. "Nothing."

Jamie froze. A flash of hurt crossed his face, but then his stare became as lifeless as the past three weeks. "Fine."

"Fine," I shot back icily, glaring at the spot I last saw his head before the door slammed behind him.

What did he expect from me? Was I supposed to enter into a serious relationship with a man who shared none of my goals, interests or personality traits just because he developed feelings for me? What a joke.

As if our previous agreement hadn't been disastrous enough.

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If some of you agree with Jamie's reasoning and some of you agree with Viv's reasoning, that means I've done it right. There's no right and wrong when it comes to relationships (unfortunately. Major headache) but rather compromises and conversations that have to happen.

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Aimee x