Never Been Loved (38 page)

The towel is sliding on my dick and I wish I’d taken it off, begged her to leave her pants and panties on the ground and do this skin-to-skin. She’s gotten me even harder now, and I pull back to breathe.

All I can do is growl her name, and she somehow crushes herself closer to me. My hands sneak under her shirt, touching her everywhere I can, watching her face as her mouth’s open in that waiting-for-a-kiss look.

I’ve pulled down her bra and have my hand on her breasts, my thumb stroking across her nipple, and she arches her back, hitting another wave of lightning, until she’s gotten a hold of my mouth again, moaning my name against me.

I crush her even closer to me, feeling her hips working harder and faster, until I get a whimpering moan sighed into my mouth. She pulls away and gets that hot little mouth on my neck, running her teeth along a tendon I didn’t know would have my cock ready to explode. She’s still working her hips, slower now, as she pulls in air.

She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

I’ve got my hands running along her back, until she’s leaning back and getting off of me with flaming cheeks, and not looking at me.

Fuck, no.

“I’ll see you in bed,” she mutters, and I’m ready to start fucking yelling. Yeah, that was fucking great, but I was used. Used, like Aly used me.

Hold it, asshole, and keep that trap closed.

Sera walks out of the bathroom, shuffling more like it without looking away from her feet. Is she… ashamed of what we did here?

Does she hate me that much?

Read the signs, dickhead. Get your head out of your ass and pay attention to the details.

I look across the hall and Sera pulls the sheets away from my bed and lies down. She’s not going anywhere – I hope.

I decide to take a quick shower, and give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe I pushed her too hard. She said she wanted to sleep in the first place.

Fuck, I’m such an asshole.

I get out of the shower, towel myself off and head to the living room to shut off the TV. When I get to my room, she’s still got her back to me, so I drop the towel and scavenger hunt in my dresser for clean boxers.

I need to do laundry. I fucking hate doing laundry.

Getting into my bed on my side, I slide in close to her, wondering if her closed eyes actually means she’s fallen asleep. Somehow, I don’t think so.

“Sera? You awake?”

She mumbles something, and I think her eyes are open now.

“Can I give you this shirt to wear and you throw your nerdy one on the floor?”

“Why?”

This is going to sound stupid, but maybe she’ll go for it.

“For one, I love seeing you in my clothes. For second, baby, I’ve been waiting a long time for those nerdy shirts of yours to be on my bedroom floor. Please?”

She sighs, but moves to her back and fiddles around until she gets my shirt on her head. Okay, I feel better. It’s dumb as hell, but I feel better. Maybe I didn’t do anything wrong. Maybe this is all new for her.

Hell, it’s all new for me, too.

When she’s done, I get an arm hooked around her and haul her close, getting a leg between hers, rolling her into my side and practically crushing her with my body. I start nuzzling into her neck. The only way to do that is to give it to someone to help you share the load.

“You’re going to learn some bad things about me, Sera. Real shitty things about the asshole I used to be. I don’t want it to touch you, but it will. I want you to remember us, like this, before you run off on me.”

“Okay,” she whispers. I have a feeling she’s not taking this seriously.

“I’m being serious, baby. Judge me on the man I am now, and not the kid I was back then. S’all I’m asking of you. God, I can’t believe you’re in bed with me. And you’re letting me hold you like this.”

“Why wouldn’t I let you hold me like this, Hunter?”
Shit.

“You’re so good to me. You’re so good to Matty, even after all the shit that’s gone down, you’re still here. With me.”

“I gave you a hand job. That does not constitute me ‘being good to you’. You’re freaking me out. What does the past matter?”

Sera’s so unbelievably sweet. I lean in to kiss her but only get the corner of her mouth. “It matters, baby. It just does. I’ll tell you when I’m ready, all right?”

“Fine, whatever. Good night.”

“And the hand job was spectacular. I saw the sun at a close-range distance.”

She snorts, trying to hide behind the covers.

“You think Aly ever had a juice or candy for me in her purse? Sera, when you kiss me, you kiss
me
. I’m not a mouth to you; I’m not just a cock.”

She turns to me now, and it’s amazing. Everything about her is amazing. “You
have
those things, you
are
not
just those things.”

“Exactly.”

“I’m not following.”

I move some hair behind her ear, trace the skin of her cheek with my fingers, down over her nose, her lips. I don’t want to be telling her this, but she needs to know – for all our sakes.

“I’m a way to get off, baby. I’m also a paycheck, a guarantee of a cozy future.”

“Where does Matty factor into all this?”

“He doesn’t. She’d ship him off as soon as the marriage license was signed. Not gonna happen.”

“Yeah, over my fraking dead body. Who the hell does she think she is? Lilith?” She gets a hand on the side of my neck and I like that a hell of a lot. Also, I have no fucking clue what she just said? Who the hell is Lilith?

“Are you talking about one of your shows again?”

“You bet.”

I chuckle. I love how her shows get mixed up in the words she says. There’s always going to be something to talk about. Always.

“Which one is this?”

I learn about this show called
Supernatural
, which sounds stupid, but I keep my mouth shut. Sera tells me there’s these two brothers that travel in this solid1967 Chevy Impala across America fighting monsters and whatever baddies go bump in the night. But then she gets into it, what the story means to her, and she sounds like she’s almost in love with the two of them – and they aren’t even real.

Here I am, jealous again of fictional characters.

She gets into the story, talking about the apocalypse and about some angels and demons, and hell, even Lucifer, and some monsters I didn’t quite catch the names of.

“Aren’t you terrified of going to go to sleep every night? What if we lived in a world where all that shit existed?” I’m man enough to say I’m shit-scared of horror movies. My life’s enough of a roller-coaster ride, thanks.

“I already have packets of salt in my purse for such an occasion. Salt stops, like, eighty percent of things that go bump in the night. And, and, and the whole show is about killing these things. It’s basically like a manual. I know how to kill everything already,” she tells me.

“Fuck.”

“What?” Sera asks.

“I just pictured you in leather pants and a black tank. Jesus
Christ
your ass would look amazing in leather pants. Then I wouldn’t be able to let you out of the house, since every guy with a half a dick would want a piece of you.”

“I think only you see me that way.”

Don’t get pissed. She’s admitting something to you; this isn’t a game.
“Baby, it’s not my fault you haven’t noticed.”

“Right.” She yawns. “I’m tired, I want to go to sleep now. Would you shut up? Wait a sec, Hunt. Who’s Jules?”

I know she feels it, my hesitation, the way I’m strung tight. I was doing so well… and I can’t get into this now.

Not when Sera’s not mine yet.

“It doesn’t matter. She’s Matty’s mom and she died a long time ago. Sweet dreams, baby.” I kiss her, feel the distance between us even though I’ve practically molded my body around her. I’ve fucked shit up.

Again.

There’s a tug of war in the morning that I let Sera win. She gets out of bed, and even though I let her, I think we both know I’m in no shape to be getting up right now. My sugar’s high enough to make me feel like I should do nothing for the next forty-eight hours. It’s something like right after stuffing my face Thanksgiving dinner and feeling like a ton of bricks are in my stomach and sleep is the only thing that sounds good.

I’m foggy this morning, and when I open my eyes and blink a few times, my vision’s still blurry. Just another reminder of how diabetes is kicking my ass. And I was good yesterday, I really was.

I didn’t eat shit, and fuck, what Sera and I did, it’s pretty much like a workout at the gym. So I should’ve been cool. Maybe I’m going to have to adjust my insulin, keep tabs on how I feel with the new change.

Fuck.

Couldn’t I just be thinking about coffee like a normal person?

I hear Sera waking the kid up, tickling him awake. I haven’t heard him laugh like that in a long time. Shit, what am I doing here?

“What’s up, little man? What’s with the glum face?” I hear Sera ask him.

“Where did you come from?”

Oh, shit. Yeah, didn’t think of that when you were dreaming about Sera’s pussy, now were you?

“Well, uh, from next door, of course!”

“I don’t like Sundays,” he says.

“Nobody likes Sundays, kid. It’s a fact of life.”

“Tomorrow is Mondaaaaaay,” Matty whines. “I have to go to school tomorrow, and I don’t wanna!”

The kid’s legit crying. I need to get up, I need to get up.

My legs are solidified with cement, and my abs just won’t listen and contract to shove my ass up. I need my insulin, bad.

C’mon, MacLaine. Deal with one emergency first. Sera’s got this.

“Matty!? What the bloody hell is going on?!”

I shuffle out of my room, holding onto the wall ’cause my head is swimming. I get to the kitchen and listen with half on ear on the pair of them.

“Kids at school make fun of meeeeeeee. They say I can’t play with them because I can’t keep up. They won’t even let me
try
, Sera! Daddy says everyone gets a chance, sometimes even two! And they won’t give me one, ever! It’s not
fair!
”

“You know, kids used to make fun of me, too.”
There it is. There it fucking is.

“Is that true?”
Kid, she’s not lying. Can’t you hear it in her voice?

“Yeah. Everyone in my grade used to make fun of me. But I had some friends who made me forget about all that stuff for the day. They helped make me feel better. Do you have any friends at school who can help you like that?”

“You’re not sick.” The kid says ‘sick’ like it’s personally caused him harm. That’s my fault, too. I get a syringe ready and nab my insulin from the fridge. Squinting to get the dosage right, I think about going into Matty’s room and asking Sera to check it for me. I blink hard a few times, and the numbers come into focus.

I was right on the money. Plunging it into my thigh, gritting my teeth against the slight pain, I keep listening.

“It didn’t matter,” Sera explains. “People, anybody, they make fun of you because you’re different. It’s the way it is, little man, and I’m sorry about that.”

“How are you different?”

“I’m not... I’m not like everybody else. I’m not...I’m not beautiful like other girls. A lot of people made fun of me because of that.”

Yeah, Sera’s not going to be walking a fucking catwalk. So the fuck what? She’s beautiful. I need to tell her more.

“Who said that to you? I’m gonna – I’m gonna kick ‘em in the shin!”

That’s my boy. Is that okay, Jules? That he’s mine?

“Matty, I’m telling you this because I want you to know you’re not alone. Find a friend at school who makes you laugh, or who you can play hide and seek with and doesn’t mind if you get tired too fast.”

Shit. I woulda told him to knock the little shit kid down on his ass. That’s why Sera’s the brains in this duo, and I’m the dumb brawn.

“I don’t know anybody like that.”
“I bet you do, you’re just not thinking properly. I think you have a bad memory, kid. Any other boys or girls?”

“Candace likes Harry Potter, too! She told me one time, when we were sitting next to each other at lunch.”

“How do you know she likes Harry Potter?”

“She said his name, Sera.”

“Right,” Sera says.
I’m grinning now. This conversation has me actually smiling. Time to make an appearance.

“Good morning, kid.”

“Hi, Daddy! I’m hungry.”

“Eggs and bacon?” I ask him, looking at Sera, lying down next to him, one hand keeping her head up on an elbow.

“Uhhhhhh, are there sausages?” he asks. “I like sausages better.”

I smirk. He’s always gotta make me work for it.

“Yeah, I got that, Matty. Brush your teeth and come help. We’re going to make Sera breakfast today.”