Sometimes the unlikeliest people can become the closest of friends. Ex-honour student Kaelyn MacBrien and ex-high school stud Braden Scott seem the unlikeliest. But high school's over and so is college and life has taken its toll on both of them, leaving them in similar situations. So after one desperate night, they form a pact. They'll be each other's "significant other" to keep matchmaking friends and family off their backs. It's the most rational plan, after all, since there's no chance of anything ever happening between them, right?

There's still one lesson they've yet to learn: Sometimes the answers aren't nearly as complicated as the problems.

Chapter 1

The too shrill sound of birds chirping awoke Kaelyn from a wonderfully restful sleep. Her eyes told her that it was just past dawn outside her bedroom window and her brain recognized that she could sleep in since today was Sunday. One of her first thoughts was 'Darn birds!' followed closely by 'Why is someone else in bed with me?'

Her head swam a bit and images clouded her mind.

Being at Mary's party. Loud music and too much wine. Seeing everyone drink and dance and couple up. Lily with Mike, Tommy with Steffi, Mary with her flavor-of-the-week. A bunch of other people she only knew in passing but who all seemed to have someone to touch. Being the only single in a room full of couples. Seeing...

"Braden!" she called out, remembering.

The arm around her waist tightened slightly and the man behind her started, saying, "What? Five more minutes, Mom, k?" before falling back to sleep.

She smiled. Whew. It wasn't as bad as she first feared when she'd awoken. Even though the warm cocoon of her bed was pulling her back to sleep, the previous night came clearly back to her.

The party was suffocating. In typical Mary style, she’d invited more people than her apartment could hold and Mary’s prowess as a hostess insured that each and every invitee would attend.

 Mary’s small apartment barely held all the people, and Kaelyn had to slip passed little groups of friends and strangers chattering away and smiling, enjoying the food and the company. Usually Kaelyn was part of one of these groups, but not tonight. Tonight she wandered between the conversations, holding onto a wine glass that seemed to want to drop to the floor. She was glad she’d chosen the white wine instead of the red, she’d already spilled it twice and she’d never forgive herself if Mary ended up with a wine colored stain on her pale grey rug.

Usually Kaelyn loved these parties, but tonight, instead of seeing the smiling faces of friends, what stood out in her mind were the couples. Everyone seemed to be coupled with someone, making her – as one of only a few singles she saw – stand out in the crowd.

She was used to being a single in a couples’ world, but tonight just felt wrong for some reason. She didn’t want to be here, to be the only one not attached to someone else, the only one not holding someone’s hand and sharing secret smiles.

She’d been single a long time now and she intended to stay that way but tonight, just for a little while, it would be nice to have someone to – she didn’t know what. Just someone to touch, to take a moment of the loneliness away.

He was sitting in the corner by Mary’s dreadful orange lamp and half of his face was in shadows while the other half was thrown into stark relief.

He was beautiful, not a word she usually used for a man, but why try to find other words? That was the word that fit. She remembered having a tiny crush on him in high school, but they didn't run in the same crowds. She wasn't even in his league. Okay, yes, she'd filled out some since high school, but back then she was skinny with flat hair and freckles. He was...

He was Braden Scott, bad boy extraordinaire. He had the leather jacket, the motorcycle, the string of voluptuous girlfriends, the rap sheet. Everything necessary to get a teenaged girl's motor revving. Back then he'd had dark blond hair with waves that curled where it touched his shoulders.

He'd gotten it cut to something more presentable right after graduation, but not long after he got back from New York, he'd started sporting a short, slicked back style. And he'd dyed it platinum blond. Not a look most guys could carry off. But Braden? It just accentuated his gift-from-God cheekbones and made his mouth look like the perfect thing to eat you all up with.

But right now there were no girlfriends, there was no one beside him. He was sitting alone in a corner in her friend Mary's apartment looking like he wanted to be anywhere but here. She knew the feeling. She was here because Mary was her friend and when she threw a party, Kaelyn was expected to attend. This is was Mary’s yearly spring bash she threw for a hundred or so of her friends, relatives, coworkers and neighbors. He was here, she assumed,  because he now lived in their condominium complex. Oh, she remembered, and he was Mary's distant cousin or something.

She looked around again, it was getting late and everyone seemed to have someone to keep the night from being so long and lonely. She didn't want that. She just wanted someone to keep the party from being so long and lonely. He seemed to be in a similar frame of mind. She hoped.

"Braden?"

He stood quickly and the gentlemanly gesture surprised her and made her smile. "What can I do ya for, Red?"

He looked just as uncomfortable as she felt and she let out a breath, feeling a little less stupid.

Still, it took another look around at everybody else laughing and talking for her to get enough courage to say this. Emptying her wine glass didn't hurt either.

She sat next to him and looked him in the eye. "Look, I, uh, I know we're not the best of friends but-" She blew out a breath. "Ok, I'll just get to the point. Will you hold my hand?"

He looked like he was going to laugh for a moment, but then his eyes got serious and she could see that he got it - really got it.

He reached out his hand and took hers, saying, "How long's it been since someone touched you?"

He got it more than she'd hoped. Did she really look that pathetic? She tried not to think about that creep, she really did, but the words just slipped out. "Since Danny left."

He nodded. "I remember that. I'd just gotten back so I don't know the details but it must have been rough on you."

She glanced up at him from under her eyelashes. She shouldn't be asking him this, she really shouldn't - but he looked like he understood.

"How long for you?"

He cleared his throat and said, "Since Maggie. Um, fiancée , or well, girlfriend, she didn't say 'yes', in New York. Since I came back because she'd - well, yeah. One year, seven months and," he paused, thinking, "Eighteen days."

"Almost a month longer than me."

He met her eyes. "Yeah."

She looked at his eyes and saw such heartache there. She didn't know if it was still because of the woman in the city or if it was just severe loneliness. He had such expressive eyes, why had she never noticed that before? Probably because she never got close enough to him before tonight to see them this clearly. And they were the most amazing bright sea blue. Against his tanned skin, they looked like a lagoon in a tropical island; vivid and deep and -

"Did you say something?" she asked when her brain registered that he'd spoken.

He smiled, sensing that her mind had wandered.

"How 'bout we get out of here, Red. I'll buy ya some coffee?"

She felt a tap on her shoulder just then.

"Kaelyn, can I have a word with you?" her friend Lily commented curtly from over her shoulder.

Kaelyn knew what this was about. In high school, Lily's then boyfriend Gary had always been picking on Braden. His clothes, his hair, his father's job as the town's garbage supervisor, his house on the wrong side of the tracks - anything, didn't matter. Gary had a problem with anyone he considered inferior to his own father's wealth and position.

Near the end of senior year, Braden had had enough. He beat the crap out of Gary during an assembly. Braden hadn't been allowed to attend graduation, but he still got his diploma. Gary had attended, with a black eye, a broken nose, and two broken ribs.

Kaelyn had thought it was terrifically funny, not to mention just. Lily, not so much.

But high school was almost a decade ago and Gary was long gone and when Braden had left his girlfriend of four years and moved back to Ocean City, he moved into this complex and had just as much right to be here as anyone else. They weren't in high school anymore, the playing field should have equaled.

Kaelyn stood, still holding onto Braden's hand. "Lily, I'm tired, I'm going home. Braden has offered to walk me."

Lily glared at their joined hands.

Kaelyn sighed. "Get over it, Lily. We've all know each other since we were five years old. We're all friends here, right? Braden is a friend and he's walking me home."

Lily, not wanting to get into an argument right now, relented. She hugged Kaelyn and told her she'd see her tomorrow for their picnic at the beach.

"Oh, sugar!" Kaelyn swore, brought back to the present.

She turned and looked at the Mickey Mouse alarm clock that sat on her bedside table - it was after ten - and Braden was gone. She must have dozed off. Next to her bed was a glass of milk, a Pop Tart and a note.

Red,

Haven't slept that well in years, you're better than my old teddy bear. I was going to treat you to breakfast, but you looked so content snuggled up there, I didn't have the heart to wake you.

Thanks for everything, you're my new favorite person,
Braden

She giggled and ate her Pop Tart, thinking maybe today was going to be a not so bad day.

Chapter 2



"Tell me Lily's lying and you didn't really leave Mary's party with Braden Scott!?" Tommy squealed - in a manly fashion, of course.

They were sitting together on the beach, still a bit cool in the early Spring, on a huge square blanket provided by Mary. Her three best friends in the world were looking very eager for her answer. They got together like this once a month and had “Friends Time”, with no other acquaintances or even significant others. This was the time when the four friends, who’d been friends since grade school, bonded and kept their friendship solid.

Just Kaelyn, Mary, Tommy and Lily. And no discussion topic was taboo. Unfortunately.

Mary plopped down next to them on the blanket. "Yep, she did, I saw them leave, hand in hand!" She laughed.

Lily joined the conversation. "What was with that whole 'we're all friends' thing anyway?"

Kaelyn sighed; she'd known she wasn't going to be able to avoid this and she decided just to give them the unvarnished truth.

"Guys," she began, "You all have significant others - even if," with a nod in Mary's direction, "Your significant other changes every other week. I-I've been alone since Danny left and everywhere I go, everyone has someone to hold, someone to dance with, someone to - someone to touch. You're all great, but since Danny left, it's like I'm made of glass and everyone's seems so afraid to touch me, like I'll break. I haven't had one single human being touch me for," tears started to fall unbidden, "I can't remember."

"Aw, sweetie!" They all leaned in and gave her one big suffocating group hug.

"Uh, guys - need to BREATHE!" she croaked due to lack of air, but smiling.

They laughed and pulled back, but every one of them kept a hand on her arm or her knee or her shoulder. They loved her; they hadn't meant to let her down. But she was right, she and Danny had been together for so long, and she’d seemed so cool and collected when he first left. They’d been afraid to confront her about it because she seemed to be taking it so well and they stopped thinking about it after a while.

"And last night, I-I just really- really wanted someone to touch me. Just hold my hand, that's all. I was going to go home and watch Bull Durham and have a good cry when I saw Braden sitting there - just… sitting there. Lost in a fog. And he looked exactly like I felt. So I asked him to hold my hand, that's it."

Mary nodded. "He hasn't seen anyone since-"

Kaelyn turned to her, "That's right! Your mom and his mom are like distant cousin ma-thingies! What happened? Why did he come back? What happened with that woman in New York? Everybody thought they were going to get married!"

Mary looked around, stared Lily coldly in the face and said, "It's kinda private and I don't want rumors starting about him. He's really an okay guy, if you like motorcycles and smoking and the rude, unvarnished truth all the time."

Lily looked affronted, "Oh, like I'm gonna go spreading rumors about nasty Braden Scott. Who'd even care?"

Tommy, Mary and Kaelyn all glared at her.

"Oh, fine," she snipped. "Pinky promise." She licked the aforementioned digit and held it in the air. The others did the same and linked their pinkies together before they all recited, "I promise not to break the confidence or the others have the right to stick pokers in my eyes and knives in my spine." This was a time honored code of tradition that they’d kept since they were ten.

They sat back and waited for Mary to begin. She settled more comfortably on the sand and tried to decide where to start and how much to tell them; it really wasn’t anyone’s business but Braden’s. But a few details wouldn’t hurt.

"Well, you know that Braden went to Columbia to become an architect and he met this girl there who was getting her art history degree, right?” They all nodded. In a small town like this, everyone knew everything about everyone.

“They got hot and heavy real fast. And you remember Braden, never saw the same girl twice? Well, they got an apartment and Aunt Remmie said they were going to get married. Before this girl even got her degree, she was offered a job at MoMA and there are plenty of rumours about why she was offered the job, let me tell you! Aunt Remmie said Braden's roommate's girlfriend told her that she was sleeping with her professor and he was friends with a guy that's on the board at MoMA and he sent her over there and no one knows what happened but she got offered a job the next day!"

Tommy looked confused, "Moe-ma? What's Moe-ma?"

"Not Moe-ma, silly," Kaelyn chided, "M-o-M-A, the Museum of Modern Art, its in New York City."

"Oh. Oh! Now that all makes sense!" Tommy smiled genially at his faux pas.

Mary ignored him and went on with her tale. "So anyway, she's working at MoMA and he's a year away from his Masters and talking about getting his PhD, and he comes home to find her in bed with-" Mary paused dramatically and the others were leaning forward, holding their breath.

"Three guys and some gardening tools!"

They all started laughing.

"I'm serious! He left and never went back," Mary swore.

They stopped laughing and Lily started retching from the images that provided and ran for the public restroom.

"Oh my God. Oh God!" Kaelyn was numb. There was just no way someone would -

She stopped thinking about it. She focused instead on Braden. How he must have felt, what he must have been going through.

'And I thought finding Danny with one woman was bad! No wonder he hasn't been with anyone -

'How do you get over that? He must be -'

"Guys, I gotta go."

On the drive home, she thought about the rest of last night.

They'd held hands and gone for ice cream instead of coffee since the night was warm, talking about their lives since high school but nothing really personal. Where they were working and where they wanted to go from here, career-wise. He'd walked her back home and they walked past his door, down to hers. She asked if he wanted to come in, she hadn't been ready to end the night. It had been so long since someone had been close to her like this. Her friends had been sweet, but they had been treating her like she lived in a bubble. He followed her in, still holding hands.

They watched television for a while and he pulled her against him as they watched. They ended up spooned on the sofa.

"I just- just want to hold someone for a minute, Red, please?" his voice broke.

She snuggled into his embrace and sighed, feeling like this felt too good to be true. It had just been so long - too long - and she was desperate for someone to touch. A friend who didn't treat her like she was made of glass.

"Stay. Stay with me," she'd asked in a tiny voice. "Sleep with me. Just - just to sleep, just to hold me. Please."

It all sounded rather pathetic and silly now, but at the time it had felt so urgent.

He'd followed her to her room and she went into the bathroom to change into her pajamas. He took off his shirt but not his jeans and she told him it was all right to sleep in his boxers.

"Don't wear boxers."

"Oh. Well, jockeys are okay, I just won't look while you-"

"Don't wear briefs."

"Oh. Oh! Then, uh, jeans are good."

He smiled and it reached his eyes.

"This isn't about sex, you know," she told him, her eyes never leaving his.

"Then I'm leaving."

He didn't move, just stared at her like he knew her, like he knew what she needed - like he needed it too. Just needed to connect with someone, if only for one night.

She turned onto her side facing her night table and turned off the light.

"Night, Braden."

He got into bed and lay on his back then pulled her in next to him, cradling her head on his chest. His fingers ran through her long auburn strands, lulling her to sleep.

"Night, Kaelyn."

As she pulled into her parking spot at her condominium, she saw him pulling a grocery bag out of the storage compartment on his bike.

"Hi," she said, smiling and giving him a swift hug.

"Hi yourself," he said, looking truly delighted to see her. "I was just about to start dinner, wanna help? If you help make it, you get to help eat it."

"Mmm, sounds wonderful. But, um, I don't cook."

"At all?"

"Not a lick."

"Well, about time you learned then, isn't it?"

"Like this?"

He turned from the stove and looked, "No, I said diced. Watch." He took the pan off the heat and moved behind her. He wrapped his hand around the one of hers that held the knife. The other came around her waist and grabbed hold of the onion. He showed her how to cut almost all the way through the onion, but not completely so that it wouldn't fall apart. He turned the onion then, so that he could slice it the other way, forming nice, even squares.

Kaelyn heard everything he said and she really had watched him. Watched his hands work at his task.

But she hadn't been paying attention, not really. Not to his hands anyway. Her attention had been focused on the feel of a hard body against her. She didn't remember the last time she'd felt one of those. Someone solid to lean on and cuddle against.

"So, you think you can do it by yourself now?"

"What?"

He chuckled, "Where'd you go?"

"What?"

"Yeah, you said that, and I've diced all the onions myself. Think you can do the carrots by yourself? It's just slices."

"Oh! Oh, um, yeah. Carrots. Sliced carrots, I can do that."

He stepped back and looked at her, she seemed a little lost. "Are you all right?"

"Just peachy," she said as she picked up the knife.

~

Dinner was peaceful. They talked like they would if they weren't trying to impress each other, because they weren't. They weren't dating, they were barely friends. But they'd shared something beyond price last night - had done the unthinkable and trusted a virtual stranger with the honesty of their loneliness. After that, everything else was easy.

Braden confessed that his mother was constantly trying to set him up with women. Why couldn't anyone just understand that he didn't want a relationship? That he was perfectly happy being on his own and not committed to or responsible for another person?

Kaelyn shared her 'almost dating' disasters, as she called them. She too, was not going to be pushed into a relationship she didn't want. A few months after Danny left, Lily had tried to set Kaelyn up with a co-worker. Lily had promised that if the date didn't work out, there were plenty more co-workers where he came from. So Kaelyn had refused to date anyone they tried to foist on her, out of fear that they'd keep doing it.

So, for about a year, her friends would arrange "chance meetings" with men and then try to get Kaelyn to relent and date the poor sap. Kaelyn thought that if a guy had to resort to that to get a date, he wasn't worth dating.

Braden laughed and had to agree. He'd been lucky enough to not have been forced into a meeting with any of his prospective dates, he'd have to remember to thank his mother for that.

~

He sat on the floor in front of her; they had decided to watch a movie after dinner. They flipped a coin and she won the toss so they were watching Silverado.

"I've been wanting to ask, what's with the hair?" She ran her fingers through his short cropped, platinum blond locks, mussing it up. "Not that I don't like it, it's just that I remember the dark blond curls and I thought that looked pretty good on you."

He ran a hand through his hair and then down across a suddenly weary face.

"Have you ever hated who you are and wanted to be somebody else?" he asked her.

She remembered the first days after Danny left town for good this time; when she feared eternal loneliness because she hadn't been enough for him.

"Yeah."

"Well, when I first came home, I, um, was at Mom's, and I looked at myself in the mirror and I didn't like who I saw. So I put my fist through the mirror. Mom wasn't happy 'bout that one. So I went right out and asked Stevie at the barbershop to make me look as different as he could. Then I went to the hardware store and bought Mom a new bathroom mirror. It's not so hard looking at yourself when you're kind of surprised by what you see."

"Why didn't you like who you saw? I know we never hung out or anything but I always… well, I kinda sorta had a little tiny crush on you back in high school."

"You did?" He smiled and turned to look at her.

"So, back to the story," she told him, getting the attention off of herself.

He tried to figure out what to tell her. The truth was just… depressing. But then he thought about last night and how honest she'd been with him about her loneliness. She was a nice person and he thought it might be nice to have a friend again. If he even remembered how. So he went with the whole horrible truth.

"Maggie was… everything. She was… my world. I'd never loved anybody before, never loved anything before. Not like I loved her. Everything we planned, everything I ever wanted revolved around her. And then she…"

Kaelyn really didn't want to hear the sordid details of his ex-girlfriend's infidelity again, but she thought he might feel better getting it off his chest.

"She what?"

"I came home one day, and there she was. She usually worked late and it was three in the afternoon. Sitting at the kitchen table looking pretty as a picture. Pale blue suit, hair done up, perfect fingernails. She told me… she told me she didn't love me - had never loved me. I could never be enough for her, enough for her dreams and her plans.

"She'd used me, used me to get through college; she never was any good at math or language. But now she was on her way. She'd gotten in at MoMA, where she'd wanted to be and she was fast-tracked for the top.

"So she cut me loose, just like that. Had my bags packed for me and >everything. We'd…" he cleared his throat. "We'd celebrated our anniversary and made love the night before. I'd asked her to marry me; she told me she had to think about it. I should have known then."

This was so much worse than Mary's version. So cold and business-like.

"Oh my God, Braden, I'm so sorry." Then she reconsidered. "Actually, no I'm not," she said kindly. "Better she did what she did than you'd ended up married to that viper woman. I mean, I wish she could have been different from the beginning, but since she wasn't, I'm glad you don't have to put up with her anymore."

"There was never anything to put up with, she played her part well."

He finished his beer and walked into the kitchen, returning with a short wide glass and a bottle of Jack Daniel's. He poured about an inch into the glass and drank it down. He poured some more.

Kaelyn slid down off the sofa and put her hand over the glass.

"You don't have to drink to forget her. She's not worth it."

"What do you do?" he asked her, looking up into her face. "To forget him?"

She sighed and picked up the bottle. "I drink." She downed a swallow. She figured every swallow she took was one he wouldn't. And that excuse might work if she got drunk fast enough.

He watched her as she drank. He looked way too thoughtful for someone just getting drunk.

"What?" she asked, when she'd set the bottle back down on the floor.

"What happened? With Danny?"

He'd told her the plain truth and she should do the same for him. But she couldn't. Some things were just too painful.

"I caught him with another woman, he left. End of story."

He looked thoughtful. "How long were you together?"

She took another drink. "Seven years, off and on."

"More off or more on?"

Now there was a unique question. She thought about it. "For me, more on. For him, more off."

"Why didn't you get married?"

"He never asked me. I don't think I would have said yes if he had. Danny was… emotionally hyperactive. He didn't like staying with one thing or one person too long. He got bored of a relationship easily."

"But you always took him back."

She nodded and took a long swallow from the bottle.

"Why?"

She shrugged. "He was Danny."

"That's not an answer."

She stood and started pacing around the room. "It's the only one you're going to get."

He watched her for a few minutes, then patted the floor in front of him.

She sat. "What?"

He lifted his glass and as he did, he said, "Take another swallow first."

She did as he drained his.

"I have a proposition for you," he said, refilling his glass.

She took the bottle back and said, "Am I going to need to be drunk for this?"

"No," he assured her, "Although, tipsy wouldn't hurt."

Several swallows later, they were side by side with their backs against the couch.

"Do you want another relationship? Do you want to find somebody new?" he asked.

"Heck no!"

He turned and looked at her, "Don't you ever curse?"

"I don't think so, no."

"Hm. So, we got a deal?" he asked.

"I think my head is fuzzy, what are we dealing?"

"That you and me hang out together. Be each other's second. When you need to bring a date somewhere, you say, 'Ok, I'll bring Braden.' And when my mom asks why I haven't asked out Mrs. Polsky's niece Gertrude, I'll say it's 'cause I'm seeing you. I won't mention that I'm not seeing all of you." His eyes scanned her body, "Or…"

"So," she said, finally getting it, "We give each other as an excuse, and we give each other someone to touch in coupley situations."

He turned and licked her shoulder. "Touching's good."

She slapped his arm. "I meant holding hands, Braden. Like at the party."

"Yeah, like at the party. And… after the party."

"You want me to sleep with you?"

"I want to sleep next to you, Red. Next to you." His voice shook. "You know how lone- how it is, when you've slept beside someone for so long and then there's no one there. Last night was the first time I've slept in a year and a half. Please? Just - sometimes?"

He sounded so desperate. Usually that was not a good look on a guy, but he made it work. Or maybe she was just drunk and lonely.

Kaelyn stood and walked over to his bedroom door, finishing the whiskey as she went.

She looked in and saw a white room with bare, white walls and a double mattress on the floor.

"I'll sleep sleep with you on one condition. Tomorrow, we redo this room; it's pathetic and I'm not sleeping in here."

He smiled, he hated that room. "You're on."

By the time he turned out the lights and locked the front door, she was in bed, asleep, wearing one of his dress shirts.

"Looks better on you than it does on me anyway," he told her as he pulled a pair of sweatpants out of the closet.

"What's your favourite color?" They were standing next to his motorcycle.

"Um, blue?"

"You're not sure?"

"What's yours?"

"Dark turquoise. Now why aren't you sure?"

"Never really thought about it. Are we talking cars or centerfolds or skimpy little dresses or pen ink?"

"Centerfolds," she said, curious.

"Redheads," he said without thinking about it.

"Hm," she commented, remembering that Mary had told her that Maggie was a very dark brunette. He just smiled and shrugged.

"Okay," she said, covering his eyes with her hand, "You're walking down a white hallway and there's all these doors. You're tense and on edge and you just want to relax. You finally open a door and the perfect room is there in front of you, what color are the walls?"

"Green."

"Light or dark?"

"Dark."

"Blue-ish green?"

"No."

"What color is the furniture?"

"Black."

"Oriental?"

"No."

"Wood?"

"Yes."

"Who's in the bed?"

"Nobody."

She took her hand away. "Hey, you're good at this."

He shrugged. "Why did you ask who was in the bed?"

"Wanted to see if Maggie would still be in your perfect room."

"Red, it's Sunday, stop being a therapist."

"I'm not a therapist, I'm a counselor for a school system."

"Which is a therapist who just finished doctor school and hasn't started her own practice yet. So, where we going?"

"Furniture first, I think. Reilley's?"

"Sounds good."

"Maybe we'd better take my car. We'll need to buy stuff and bring it home."

He handed her a helmet, "We'll stop by and pick up Dad's truck. Hold more stuff than your Bug. And I can get the whole, 'Mom, I have a girlfriend now so leave me alone' thing out of the way."

"Oh, goodie, let's meet the folks."

~

They'd been to three places and nothing suited him. He said it was just bedroom furniture, he wasn't in there much anyway, he didn't care. If it mattered to her, she should pick it out. But she refused, saying it was his apartment and his decision.

She'd left him to go to the ladies room and he walked into the last aisle and stopped in front of a massive sleigh bed. It was dark walnut, almost black. It didn't have a lot of decoration, just enough to make it feel… indulgent. But what his mind pictured when he saw it…

"You like this one?"

Her hand on his shoulder made him jump. He blinked and looked back down at the bed. Empty.

"Yeah," he told her when his mind had cleared. "I want this one."

Teresa, the saleswoman who had offered assistance when they first arrived, seemed to have a sixth sense, because she appeared out of the blue as he said that.

"Very nice choice. This is a queen size, is that what you'd like?"

Kaelyn queried a look at him. He had a double now, but maybe he'd like more room if she was going to be staying the night occasionally.

"King size," he told Teresa. "More room to play."

Teresa smiled and winked at Kaelyn.

"Not me!" she quickly clarified. "He doesn't play with me!"

"No, I just sleep sleep with her," Braden told the confused looking woman absently as he went over to inspect the craftsmanship of the dresser.

Teresa raised an eyebrow at Kaelyn.

"Well, that part's true," she admitted. "But, only sometimes. The playing will be, I guess, on nights when I'm not, you know, sleeping with him." She stopped because the more she talked, the worse it sounded. "I'm going to shut up now."

"Do you want a nightstand?" Braden asked her.

"What?"

"Nightstand - table next to the bed. I was only going to get one but then I thought, with you there, you'd need one too. Give us two nightstands, Teresa."

"Braden, don't plan your bedroom around me. This is just, well, I don't know what it is, but its temporary."

He looked at her thoughtfully before saying, "Someday, maybe, someone is going to be there permanently. Or at least overnight. And since you're there now, if I think about what you might like, it'll be nicer for whoever that woman is sometime down the road."

He had a point.

"You've got a point."

He smiled. A real, genuine, make your spine tingle and your insides melt kind of smile. Her knees felt weak and she felt Teresa's hand on her elbow to keep her from falling.

Teresa muttered under her breath, "Temporary, my ass."

Kaelyn heard her but didn't comment.

~

It was after seven when they lugged all of their day's purchases into Braden's condo.

"That's it," Kaelyn said as she sank down on to the couch and put her feet up on the coffee table. "I've done my quota of shopping for the year. No more. People are just going to have to be happy with gift cards for Christmas."

"Red, it's only April," he said as he opened a drawer in the kitchen and pulled out some papers. He sat down next to her and showed her the take-out menus, saying, "Chinese, Italian, hoagies, Tai, or Mexican?"

"Jonny Chang's Garlic Eggplant," she told him without looking at the menus. "Extra spicy. Oh and tell him it's for me."

"Why? And how do you know his name is Jonny?"

"Because he'll use the good peanut oil instead of the cheap stuff and he'll put snow peas in the rice."

He lifted an eyebrow and looked at her, waiting for an explanation.

"His son Kim was in Danny's band and we used to go there all the time after rehearsal, or after a gig. He'd make whatever we liked. When Danny left, he didn't just leave me, he left the Dyslectic Puppies as well. The guys have been great to me, Jonny too. He brought me food all the time when I - well, I was in pretty bad shape right after Danny left. I lost some weight, I wasn't sleeping. We got to be friends, of a sort."

Braden smiled and picked up the phone, dialing Chang's.

"Hi, I'd like an order for delivery. Garlic Eggplant, extra spicy. And tell Jonny it's for Kaelyn MacBrien." He paused then smiled, "Yes, I'll tell her you all said hello. And an order of General Tsao's Chicken. White rice, yes. Snow peas? Sure, why not.

"No, we're just friends.

"Yes, she is beautiful, but-

"And very nice. No, we're -

"But, it's just -

"Friends, that's all. I'm not ready -

"She doesn't want -

"Okay, okay, I'll think about it, all right? Dorchester Condominiums, one fifty two. I'll see you in half an hour. Thank you."

He shook his head and put the phone down. Kaelyn had fallen asleep as soon as he dialed. Her head was in his lap and her silky hair was fanned out across his stomach. He had an almost irresistible urge to lift up his t-shirt and feel it against his skin.

"Just friends," he said out loud. "Someone to touch." His mind wandered back to the mini-fantasy he'd indulged in at the furniture store today and he groaned. "Not like that. Just… companionship. So the nights aren't so long. And my mother will leave me alone."

He watched her sleep and ran his fingers through her hair. They were so different. He drank and smoked and cursed - he thought about that. He hadn't cursed much in the last few days; not since being with her. Hell, he hadn't cursed at all. Hell - Oh good. A curse, a mild one yes, but still considered rude. He was afraid he might have forgotten how.

Another vision went quickly through his mind of Kaelyn, naked and sweating beneath him, begging him to fuck her.

He shook his head, clearing away the fantasy.

He'd slept. The last two nights he'd actually slept. And, in spite of her Little Miss Goody Two Shoes demeanor, Kaelyn was fun, and compassionate, and honest, and damn nice on the eyes. Having her as a friend, just to sleep with, wouldn't be so bad. He didn't think Kaelyn was the fuck-buddy type. She'd never go for 'friends with benefits' - and he hadn't had a real friend in way too long. Every moment had been spent on Maggie or on getting his masters degree.

He looked down at her peaceful face and felt a kind of peace himself. Another thing he hadn't had in way too long. Peace.

He might lust after her in his head, but he'd never do anything to ruin what they had - what they might be having.

Her hand under her cheek moved perilously close to his cock just as the doorbell rang.

'Oh thank fuck for doorbells,' he thought as he jumped up, almost knocking Kaelyn to the floor.

~

They ate and they talked, mostly catching up with the 'Where Are They Now's on people they'd gone to high school with.

After dinner, she said she was tired but had some files she had to look over before school tomorrow and he said he had to return his dad's truck, so they said goodnight at his door.

On the drive to his folks' house, he'd used Marilyn Manson and The Ramones to keep his brain from thinking too much, but his mother's incessant questions about Kaelyn and her maternal annoyance that they hadn't stayed long enough this morning to let them get to know her made him think of nothing else but her on the ride back.

He leaned on his motorcycle in the parking lot of the condos and smoked one cigarette after another. He didn't want to go back in there. He didn't want to face the nothingness of his apartment. He blew out the smoke and watched it dance and curl across the moonlit night. There was beauty in that. Life. Air and smoke and their desire to play with one another.

What did he desire? Nothing really. A few fantasies about his gorgeous neighbor were natural, but she wasn't his type and he certainly wasn't hers. There was no real potential there. A little cold comfort to help each other through the nights was one thing. But he didn't fit into her world and she certainly didn't fit into his. Dark pool halls and loud music were not on her 'To Do' list. And picnics with the in-crowd from high school certainly weren't on his. Hell, he didn't even have a 'To Do' list.

He was a glorified draftsman, one year from the masters that would allow him to become an architect. Maybe he'd go back to school and finish. He hadn't given Columbia a second thought when he'd left. Just wanted to get as far away as fast as possible. So he'd come home. Did what he had to do to get by. But that just didn't seem to be good enough any more.

He looked up and saw Kaelyn's light go out.

He dropped his cigarette and crushed it out with the toe of his boot.

He went to his condo and took a shower. He stood, still wrapped in his towel, looking at his white bedroom with its bare white walls and mattress on the floor.

Why hadn't he done anything with this room before? Why hadn't he done anything with any room in his condo before? Their apartment in New York had been comfortable, a nice retreat for when he and Maggie came home from their jobs or school. It wasn't big, not even as big as this place, but it was home.

This wasn't home. This was somewhere to sleep and he hadn't even been doing that. Home was with…

'No,' he was relieved to think, 'home is not with Maggie, not anymore.' It had been a year and a half and he'd been hiding in this bland hole trying to decide what to do.

The thing to do was to get on with his life. Hell, to have a life. Make his own space, make a place that could be his own haven from the world.

This definitely wasn't it. He looked back at the bed and knew there was no way he could face getting into it tonight. He slipped on a pair of sweatpants, grabbed a blanket and headed for the couch.

What was he doing? He didn't want to be there either.

He dropped the blanket and picked up his keys. Barefoot and shirtless, he let himself out and locked the door behind him. Walked the hundred and fifty feet down to Kaelyn's door and knocked.

It took about forty seconds for her to open the door, grab his wrist and pull him inside.

"Oh, thank God. I've been tossing and turning."

She dragged him straight to the bedroom and pulled him into bed. As soon as he lay down, she curled in around him and in two minutes she was asleep. It took him three.

Braden woke up and stretched, opening his eyes. 'Purple walls?'

He smiled, thinking 'Kaelyn's place.'

He reached out behind him but she wasn't there. He smelled coffee, so he got up and headed for the kitchen.

"We're going to have to get two alarm clocks," she told him, handing him a cup of coffee. She was dressed for work in a skirt and shirt and vest. "What time do you have to be at work?"

He looked at the clock on the microwave.

Seven-thirty.

"Nine, but now's about when I get up. What time you due at school?"

"Eight. Suki will be here in about-" she broke off because the doorbell rang. She smiled, "About now to pick me up. We switch off weeks driving. She's in three twelve."

Braden ran a hand through his hair, still mussed from sleep and a little curly. It was a really good look on him, she couldn't help noticing.

"I'd better be going," he told her, grabbing his keys. "Have to eat and change. And I don't have the luxury of working a mile and a half from where I live. See ya later?" he asked, opening the door.

"Yeah," she told him, catching the look on Suki's face because a six foot tall, bleached blond hunk of perfection dressed only in a pair of sweatpants was leaving Kaelyn's apartment at seven-thirty in the morning.

"It's not what you think," he told Suki, then gave her a grin and winked, making her think it was exactly what she thought it was.

"We sleep together, without, ya know, sleeping together," Kaelyn explained as Suki walked into the apartment and closed the door behind her.

Suki was still a little awestruck. "Hell, if you don't want him, can I have him?"

Kaelyn smiled, "And Kim would go along with this - why?"

Suki waved a hand. "Kim's always on the road. I've been thinking about dumping him anyway. He has a little tiny-"

"Stop right there!" Kaelyn said, putting her hand over Suki's mouth. "You remember us talking about TMI? Way too much information, Suki!"

Suki grinned. "Okay. But if you ever wanna share anything about tall, blond and dreamy, feel free. Anything at all, I'm here to listen!"

They both burst out in giggles.

Suki got a mug from the cabinet and poured herself a half cup of coffee. "So, just sleeping huh? What's the deal?"

Kaelyn explained and Suki sounded impressed. "God, I wish I'd had one of those after I kicked Jake out. I didn't sleep for-"

"Eight months," Kaelyn said, remembering.

Suki smiled and winked at Kaelyn. "Except for that one night."

Kaelyn smiled too, but took a step back. "Not that you're not lovely and all, Suki, but the next time a groupie slips me Ecstasy, I'm going to commit my first homicide. Besides, you lack one major feature necessary for a satisfied Kaelyn."

Suki sighed, "Yeah, you too. But if I ever decide to become a lesbian, you're the first one I'm gonna call."

Kaelyn smiled and picked up her purse. "The way my love life's been lacking, I may take you up on it. Come on, we're gonna be late for Conlin's morning pep talk."

~

On the way home from work, Kaelyn made Suki stop at the hardware store so she could have a key made for Braden. She didn't know if she was really going to give it to him or not, but she wanted it made just in case he might need it for something.

Suki speculated, out loud and in front of the middle-aged woman who was making the key, that Kaelyn was having it made so that Braden could sneak in in the middle of the night while she was asleep and fuck her. That way they could both pretend the next day that it had all been a dream.

Kaelyn had been mortified and scolded Suki right there in the store, but Suki wasn't put off. She knew Kaelyn too well and knew that she hadn't been too far off the mark. There was naughtiness in that girl that she kept well hidden.

They said goodbye at the stairs and Suki went on to her own place as Kaelyn turned right and went to hers, passing Braden's door on the way. She knew he wouldn't be home from work yet and they had a date to paint his bedroom after dinner.

'No, not a date. A… an appointment. That's better. An appointment to paint his bedroom.'

She was starving, she'd had a busy day and never had a chance to eat lunch. So she went home, changed into her Bite Me! t-shirt and a pair of overalls and went to the kitchen to fix herself a snack. She was almost out of food, she'd have to find time to go to the grocery store in the next couple of days. Checking the frig, she discovered she had both an onion bagel and cream cheese and decided today was a very good day. Cupboard's bare but she still had her favorite food.

She popped the bagel into the toaster and put on a kettle for some tea. When everything was prepared, she grabbed her goodies and walked into the living room, prepared to eat, watch CNN and then take a nap.

She ate, she watched CNN, but the nap eluded her. She always took a nap after school, why wasn't she-?

She remembered being held in strong arms and listening to a heartbeat as she fell asleep last night. And the night before. And the night before that.

She was sleeping again. She was getting what she needed at night, so her body didn't need to rest during the day.

She thought about that warm body she'd been snuggled against. Thought about those brilliant blue eyes that looked at you like they could see right through you. She felt an unfamiliar tingle in the pit of her stomach and realised that maybe she wasn't getting everything her body needed.

But oh, how wonderful it felt to be held in those arms while she was sleeping. No tingle in the world was worth giving that up for. Real, honest-to-goodness sleep. She decided to jump in a cool shower and told her libido to go back into hibernation.

~

Kaelyn stood in the middle of Braden's newly painted bedroom and said, "It's green. It's flat and it's green."

Braden laughed. "Bethany's coming by tomorrow while I'm at work. She's going to do something to it, make it look like leather, or suede, I'm not sure which she decided on."

Kaelyn raised an eyebrow. "She can do that?"

"Bethany's always been artistic. When she was seven, she took her fingerpaints and did this mural in her room. She made me hold her up so she could reach all the way to the top of the wall. I knew Mom would have a fit, but I was being rebellious, so I did it anyway. It's still there, it's beautiful. Primitive, but beautiful."

"How old is your sister now, anyway? She's in the high school, right? I see her every now and then."

"Seventeen. But thankfully more into her art than she is boys. At least, that's what she tells me. Not that that stops the boys, of course."

Kaelyn plopped down on the floor. "Seventeen? I feel so old."

Braden reclined on the floor next to her and rubbed her arm, consolingly. "You're not old, Red, you're only twenty-six. Still young enough to marry some rich old billionaire and be considered a conniving bitch." He smiled, so did she.

"Well, I guess that's okay then." She took another look around the room. "This room stinks - literally. Come on," she told him, pulling on his sleeve, "Grab your toothbrush, we'll head down to my place."

At her place, she took a shower, and then he did. She still had some green paint in her hair and he spent twenty minutes meticulously getting out every splatter. Sitting in front of him on the floor, while he sat on the couch and combed through her hair, relaxed her and she felt unbelievably sleepy. By the time he was finished, she had fallen asleep, her head resting on his knee.

She looked like a child when she was asleep. A sweet, innocent child. He lifted her up to carry her into the bedroom and her robe fell open. His almost instantaneous erection made him rethink the child part of that simile. But, still sweet and innocent. So he tucked her in bed, took another shower, this time very cold, and then fell into bed beside her.

Four nights later, they had given up all pretext of sleeping separately. Most of their evenings were spent in Braden's apartment because of convenience. Not only did he have the kitchen equipment necessary to make dinner, but his drafting table and computer were there and almost every night, he spent at least an hour working. Where they slept depended mostly on who got finished taking a bath or shower first. If Braden finished first, he'd walk down to Kaelyn's and vice versa if she would finish first.

Some of their neighbors had noticed all the traveling back and forth and made thinly-veiled comments that just begged for more information. Neither of them were inclined to give it. No one would believe them anyway.

They were just finishing loading the dishwasher when Kaelyn asked, "What attracted you to Maggie?"

Braden got very still. "What?"

"Braden, come on. I'm curious and maybe it will do you some good to talk about it."

They plopped down onto the couch facing each other and took a deep breath. "Maggie is… everything I'm not."

Before he could continue, Kaelyn asked with a grin, "Virginal?"

He swatted her leg and said, "Sophisticated."

"That too." She stuck her tongue out at him and he relaxed somewhat. This was Kaelyn - his friend, and he could trust her.

"Maggie is rich and beautiful and …"

"A viper?" Kaelyn asked.

"Apparently," Braden agreed. "But I didn't know that when I met her. When I met her she was looking for a math tutor and I was tutoring to help pay the bills."

Kaelyn laughed.

"What?"

"Bad boy Braden Scott tutoring his way through college." She laughed again. "If they could see you now."

He took it in stride. "Yeah, well, 'they' can say whatever they like. I got good grades and kept my scholarship and made it through." He shrugged. "Almost through. Still got a year on my Masters."

"So did you charm the pants off her that night or did you wait?"

Braden smiled. "Matter of fact, it was the other way around."

She lifted a brow. "Really?" She sounded disbelieving.

"Really. So tell me about your misadventures in relationship land. Anybody since Danny?"

"Nope."

"You sound happy about that."

"I am. I'm through with long-term relationships. I've learned my lesson. You only have to break up with me about twenty times before I take the hint that you don't want to be with me forever."

He looked thoughtful. "Why did you hang on so long?"

She shrugged. "I'm the faithful type. Plus, I'm lazy. Danny was easy; he did all the work in the relationship. He did the breaking up, he did the making up. I don't know. I've never been the marrying type, I think. I can't see putting all my energy into another person for my whole life. Usually, about the time Danny would break up with me was about the time I was getting sick of having someone underfoot all the time. So it worked. About the time he'd come back is about when I'd start getting lonely."

Braden studied her face, trying to see if she was serious.

"You're better than that. Maybe you just haven't met the right guy yet."

She shook her head. "No, Danny was the right guy. He was there when I wanted somebody and left when I didn't." She smiled.

"What about sex?"

"What about it?"

"In between Danny and since Danny. What did you do?"

"What do you do?"

He smiled. "I asked you first."

She shrugged. "Never been much for that anyway."

"Everybody gets horny, Kaelyn."

"Have you ever heard of batteries, Braden?" she teased.

He gave her a once over that he knew would make her hot. It always worked. "There's nothing like the real thing, sweetheart."

She laughed so hard she fell off the couch.

It almost always worked.

~

That night in bed, just before she fell asleep, he asked, "What really happened with Danny?"

It took her a few minutes and he thought she'd fallen asleep when she replied, "I'm really not sure. I thought we were good. I mean, we'd had our problems, but- I have trust issues, sometimes. And Danny, he wasn't Mr. Reliable. He used to complain that I didn't put everything I had into our relationship." She shrugged. "Maybe I didn't, but - with the band, he wasn't around long enough to- Anyway, I walked in and he was with another woman and he said it was my fault."

"Was it?" It wasn't a question he would ask anyone else. With any other friend, he would sympathise and say that the other didn't deserve you anyway. But Kaelyn wasn't just anyone. And maybe this was something she should talk about.

"I'd like to say no, but maybe. At least partially. I had problems with him, but I never slept with anyone else to try to solve them."

Braden smiled and pulled her close. "You're sleeping with somebody now to solve a problem."

She snuggled into his chest and smiled. "Yes I am. Goodnight, Braden."

"Night, Kaelyn."

At lunch two weeks later, he picked at his food. It was almost as bad as when he first came home and all he could think of was Maggie. Now, all he could think of was Kaelyn and he couldn't have her - shouldn't have her.

He prayed he was just horny, but he was almost positive it wasn't just that.

He liked her; hell, he liked her better than anybody else he knew. That was part of the problem. But that would be moving the relationship into territory it had no place being in. He was still a mess from Maggie and Danny had spent too many years teaching her never to trust men's motives that if they did cross that line, it would be a short trip to nowhere.

'Oh, but what a ride!'

George punched him in the arm. "Braden, dude, if you don't snap out of it, I'm going to have you committed, man. It's been a year and a half, more than that. She's not worth it. Get on with your frigging life."

George was nice enough, he worked on the same floor in the acquisitions department, but he never quite outgrew the surfer dude mentality he'd had in college.

"What?" Braden asked, not having any clue what George was talking about.

"Stop daydreaming about a woman you're never going to have."

Braden was taken aback, "How did you know?"

"Are you sick, dude? Everybody knows."

"They do not." It occurred to Braden then that he and George were talking about different women. "No, George, not her. I've been losing my mind because I'm lusting after my girlfriend."

"You've got a girlfriend? Congrats, man, it's about time you moved on."

Braden sighed and shook his head. "It's not what you think. She's not really my girlfriend, she's only a friend and we're pretending to be seeing each other so that my mom and her friends will get off our backs about trying to set us up with somebody."

"How do you pretend to be seeing someone?" George asked, truly curious.

"I took her home and introduced her to my parents, told them we'd started dating. And she had this group thing with her friends and they brought their significant others, so she brought me. And we went and bought furniture for my apartment because I'm a pathetic shell of a human being and hadn't done anything to it since I moved in. And I'm teaching her how to cook because she's a grown woman and can barely heat up soup."

George looked at his hands and then looked back up, "I hate to break it to ya, dude, but that's not pretending to be seeing someone, that is seeing someone."

"No," Braden disagreed, shaking his head. "We're just friends. A little hand holding in front of other people, but that's it. We talk, and man, it's nice having someone to talk to. I don't want to screw that up. We're friends, that's all. Hell, I've never even pretended to kiss her. The occasional friendly touch, but except for when we sleep, there's nothing intimate about it at all."

"Except for when you sleep? You're fucking her and you're saying there's no-"

"Hey! Keep your voice down," Braden interrupted, "Just sleeping, George, that's all. She had a bad breakup too, around the same time as me and- Anyway, I don't sleep, or didn't used to. And she didn't either. So now, we sleep, just sleep. But together."

George hung his head, "Braden, man, you're one fucked up dude, let me tell ya!"

Braden thought of Kaelyn's smiling face and her joyful green eyes. He thought about her ass every time she bent over or walked in front of him. "And don't think I don't know it George; believe me, I know."

~

Bethany had made when they told her of their plans for this room.

It was perfect. It was Braden. With a bit of her too, if she were honest. She turned to look at the rest of the apartment and saw him bending over to grab a soda out of the refrigerator.

'Wow, gotta love that butt!'

"Red? What's the matter? You look a little dazed."

"I think we should work on this room next," she said, because she couldn't tell him what she'd really been thinking about.

"Whatever you want, Red. This weekend?"

"Sure. Hey, I'm going to head home and take a bath, okay?"

He sat and focused on the television. "Take one here. You've got some stuff in the drawer you can sleep in. Or one of my shirts. You look good in my shirts. Why go home when everything's here? I even bought some of that soap you use."

"You went into Samantha's Boutique and bought some of their soap?" She couldn't believe Braden had just walked into the lingerie shop and bought some soap.

Yes, she could.

She pictured him walking in there, smiling that heart stopping smile at old Mrs. Ferris who owned the place and she'd have blushed and given him a tour. At least, it better have been Mrs. Ferris he talked to, because if it was either of the bottle-blonde, chest-enhancing, cleavage-showing bimbos that were there on the weekends, she'd just…

He looked up then and grinned at her, wiggling his eyebrows. "Been looking for an excuse to go in there. You see that black teddy they got right inside the door? Wow! You should buy that. You'd look dead sexy in-" He suddenly pretended fascination with the Discovery Channel once again, "In case, you know, you ever decide to date again."

Too stunned to speak, she headed for the bathroom.

Once she was gone, he took a deep breath and steadied himself. That had been close. Almost crossed the line. Telling her to go out and buy sexy lingerie? He'd never had just-a-friend of the female persuasion before, but he was pretty sure suggesting she would look good in sexy lingerie wasn't something that should be discussed. Especially if it gave you a boner to do it.

He heard the water run. He heard the water turn off. He pictured her in there, taking off her clothes, reclining in the tub. His tub. Kaelyn, wet and naked, not ten feet away from where he now sat.

'Me and my big mouth. Why don't you take a bath here? Why go home? So you can torture me and I can burst out of my fuckin' jeans!'

He stood up. "Goin' out to have a smoke," he called before storming to the door and slamming it behind him. As he reached the parking lot, he cursed having a motorcycle.

'Don't even have a car where I can beat off in peace.'

He rolled his eyes. This was going to be a long night.

~

Braden woke up earlier than usual. It wasn't that he wanted to be up. In fact, he'd been having this incredible dream. And he'd like to get back to it. But there was something…

Kaelyn seemed to be having quite an incredible dream herself. She was spooned up behind him and her hand was rubbing up and down his stomach - and every time it went down, it went down a little lower. She was murmuring in her sleep - and softly moaning - and it was killing him. He couldn't quite understand what she was saying. He lay there wondering what he should do. Whether or not he should wake her up, go back to sleep, maybe get up and take a cold shower.

But it had been so long since anyone had touched him like this. He felt incredibly guilty, but he laid there and enjoyed it for a minute just the same. If only he could get her to move her hand down just - a - little - lower. God, what he wouldn't give to have her touch him this way while she was awake.

But she'd never do that; she wasn't that kind of a girl. And then there was Danny…

He didn't need a cold shower any more, that one name was more effective than ten cold showers.

"Kaelyn, turn over, please."

Still half asleep, she did as he asked.

The following Sunday evening, they walked into his apartment after coming home from dinner at his parents' house. It had gone well, she thought, until they were about to leave.

"I can't believe she said that to me!" Kaelyn relayed, again, as she took off her shoes and threw them into the bedroom.

"'Its nice to see Braden's finally having sex with a good girl' is hardly a stinging put down, Kaelyn," he told her, laughing. "Mom's just… Mom. She says stuff like that. Don't worry about it."

"Why would she assume we're having sex?"

He lifted an eyebrow in her direction but she wasn't looking at him, her pacing was taking her in the opposite direction at the moment.

"Because my mother knows me, that's why! If I asked you out for a second date it's because we fucked on the first one. "

"You wouldn't date a girl who didn't put out on the first date?" she sounded appalled.

"Kaelyn, most of the girls I dated in high school put out before the first date. I'm not that guy anymore. Stop having a fit, will ya? We've been together over a month, I don't date anybody any more, you know that, so calm down."

"What about in college?"

"What about college?" he repeated, trying to buy precious seconds so he could figure a way out this mess.

"Did you only date girls who would have sex with you in college?"

"What does it matter now? Hell, I'm not dating you and you're not putting out anything so it all evens out, don't ya think?"

"Are you back on that good girl thing?" she asked, her temper flaring.

"Well, if the shoe fits!" he answered back.

He did the quizzical eyebrow lift again and this time she was looking at him.

"I've done bad stuff!"

"You don't even curse!"

"I can be a very bad person!"

"Oh?"

"Well, I've… I can't think of anything at the moment but…"

"Ever smoke pot?" he asked.

"No."

"Ever shoplift?"

"No."

"Ever kiss your cousin?"

She smiled, "No but I had a crush on my second cousin twice removed for about two years when I was eight."

He smiled. "Doesn't count."

"Ever make love standing up?" he went on.

Not that that would make her a bad girl, but he was curious and since she was answering questions…

"No."

"Have sex in public?"

"No."

"More than one person at a time?"

"Uh uh."

"Ever make love to anybody besides Danny?"

"No."

"How about good old-fashioned, hot, sweaty sex?"

"Are we talking penetration here?" she asked him. He figured she was talking her pre-Danny teenaged dating days.

He looked her straight in the eye and told her, "Baby, anything other than me being buried balls deep inside you is just foreplay."

It took them both a minute to catch their breath after that.

She blinked.

"What was the question?"

He smiled, sidled up next to her and whispered in her ear, "Ever have sex with somebody you weren't in love with?

She swallowed, "If it has to be penetration than Suki doesn't count, so no."

It took him a minute to process that. He took a step back.

"Say again?"

She realised then that what she said had affected him and since he'd been playing with her, she decided to play back for a change.

"Suki, remember her? Well, about six months after Danny left, I went to a Puppies show with Suki. She was dating Kim, the lead singer. We were backstage and this space cadet comes in and before Marc could take her out and do… whatever it is that Marc does with all the groupies, she slipped some Ecstasy in our drinks. Suki and I… played… while the guys watched. We didn't know they were watching at the time, but we found out later."

"The puppies?"

"The Dyslexic Puppies, Danny's old band? They were there – they um, watched."

"And didn't join in the fun?"

"Kim would have killed them if any of them had touched Suki."

He had similar thoughts about any of them touching Kaelyn while she was under the influence of the drug. Or anytime, really. Well, any of them except for Suki.

Visions of wet dreams to come went dancing through his head as he wandered across the room and sank onto the couch.

She smiled, happy she had finally – for once – said something that shocked him instead of the other way around.

She grabbed a wine cooler out of the frig and took it into the living room. She straddled his lap, needing to keep him in one place so she could get a straight answer out of him.

"So, now you have to tell me one," she said, taking a pull at her drink.

Her nearness distracted him and he didn't hear her.

"Well?" she queried.

"What?" he asked, obviously confused. She smiled and sank further into his lap.

"Tell me something embarrassing about you so I can blackmail you back."

His smile twitched, "I don't think I can top two-" he smiled, "Oh, yes I can. Remember Donna Sadowsky and Debbie Miller? They did everything together?"

"Yeah?" she confirmed.

He smiled, "I'm one of the things they did together."

Her mouth opened, "Really?"

"Really."

"Where?"

"Bobby Sanders' older sister's bedroom during a party."

She couldn't believe he'd had sex with more than one girl at the same time. People only did that in movies, in her experience. And even then, she didn't watch those kinds of movies.

"What did the other one do while you were… you know, with the other one?"

"Huh?" he was confused.

"You know, while you were… with Donna, what did Debbie do?"

He smiled, "You really are a good girl, aren't you?" He ran a hand down her hair as he said it and it sounded like he thought it was… nice, so she didn't take offense.

He cleared his throat and said, "What was the question?"

"What was Debbie doing when Donna was-"

"Sitting on my face," he told her with a grin. Then he up-ended his beer and finished it off while she gaped. He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her off his lap, plopping her down on the couch next to him. He got up and got another beer.

When he returned, she had somewhat recovered.

"That's still not something embarrassing," she told him. "I need something embarrassing so you can't go telling everyone about me and Suki."

He thought about it – he didn't have anything embarrass-

"Got one, but I swear I'll kill ya, Kaelyn, if you ever-"

"Scout's honor," she promised.

"Still got the Girl Scout uniform?" he asked, picturing her in it.

"What?" Sexual innuendo just went right over this girl's head.

He smiled, "Never mind."

"So, your something embar-"

"Once had a guy give me a blowjob."

"WHAT?"

"Didn't know it at the time, was the hottest looking girl at the frat party. I was really drunk and almost unconscious on this chair in the corner. This blonde comes up, gets on her knees, unzips my jeans and starts giving me amazing head. You think I'm gonna complain? I just sit there, moaning, trying not to scream it feels so good. And then she stands up, lifts her skirt and asks me to return the favor. I pretended I was passed out and he left."

By the time he was done his story, she was laughing so hard it hurt.

~

She'd drank too much, they both had. She looked at the clock. Four-thirty in the morning. She padded across the room in her socks, bumped a shin on the dresser because she forgot they were in his bedroom and not hers. She turned on the bathroom light and squinted at the harsh light; she was never drinking that much in one night ever again.

As she sat down, she heard a noise from the bedroom but before she could register what was happening, Braden walked into the bathroom. Then stopped.

"I have to pee," he told her, unnecessarily.

"Well, I am peeing, so – go –"

He wasn't listening. He turned toward the sink, pulled down the front of his sweatpants and peed in the sink. Then he pulled up his pants, ran the water and went back to bed.

She shook her head. She'll probably forget all about this by morning. She hoped.

When she got back in bed, she tried to lie as far away from the man whose penis she'd just seen as was possible.

Braden, who she'd thought was asleep, just chuckled and pulled her back to spoon against his chest.

"Night, Kaelyn," he said before falling back to sleep.

She felt him get back into bed.

"What's wrong?" she asked with a yawn.

"Can't sleep."

"Have you tried a hot shower?" she asked, concerned. She was trying to remember all the things she used to do when she couldn't sleep. Everything she had to do before Braden had come into her life and given her back the gift of a night's rest.

"Yeah," he told her, "Didn't help."

"Did you count sheep?"

She could almost hear his eye roll in the dark.

"Warm milk?"

He laughed, "You're kidding right?"

"It worked for me sometimes."

"No," he chuckled.

She sighed, "Well, what did you do before when you couldn't sleep?"

"Had insomnia," he told her grumpily.

"Okay," she said, sitting up, "Try to think of something you've done in the past and you didn't plan on it, it was just so relaxing, you fell right to sleep without meaning to."

One image came to him. God he hadn't thought about that in… If she wanted an embarrassing moment, this was it. But it was also decidedly erotic. He wondered if she'd see it that way.

He gave half a laugh. "You want an embarrassing moment from my sordid sex life? I had Sally Verton at the drive-in in my Dad's old pickup. We're watching the movie and Sally starts letting me feel her up. You remember her, she's got these nice, soft…" he broke off, remembering who he was talking to. "So I put my head in her lap and lean up and start sucking on them. And it's just… relaxing. So relaxing, I fell asleep. You want the kicker? So did she. We wake up when the ticket guy comes knocking on the window at two in the morning and I've still got her in my mouth." He laughed, then stopped.

She wasn't laughing. She was looking kind of misty eyed.

"Do – do you want to…?"

"Kaelyn, right now I want to more than anything. But you're half asleep and I'm so tired I'll say anything. We're friends, I don't want to ruin that; no matter how desperate I am to touch you."

"I – um, I trust you. It'll just be… that, right? Nothing – nothing else?"

He told her the truth. "I can't promise that." He stood up. "This conversation is ridiculous, Kaelyn. We're two adults, we're tired and we're lonely. Maybe I should just go back to my place."

"Braden. It – it's been a really long time. And I just, I'd like someone to touch me. Please."

He took a deep breath in through his nose. This had to be the singularly most stupid mistake of his life. He went to the kitchen and got a bottle of wine and two glasses.

"Drink this."

She did. Why wasn't he just doing… it?

He drank his glass down in one long swallow and then poured himself another.

"Braden?"

"Finish your wine." She did.

He got back into bed and told her to turn off the light. He lay on his back and pulled her close like he did every night when they went to bed.

"Do you still want me to touch you?"

He'd given her a chance to have second thoughts and she was having them. They were friends and friends weren't… intimate with each other. Well, that wasn't completely true. She'd been intimate with Suki and they were still friends.

"Will we still be friends tomorrow?" she asked in a timid voice.

He kissed the top of her head. "Of course we will."

He turned her onto her side facing toward him and moved down so he was even with her chest. He unbuttoned her pajama top. He forced himself not to read more into this than there was.

He told himself it wasn't personal, had nothing to do with her wanting him. Or him wanting her. He even tried to make himself believe it.

He pulled back the edges of her pajamas and had to remember to breathe.

"So beautiful," he whispered before he leaned forward and opened his lips just enough to fit a rosy tipped nipple between them. It was already hard and extended and he moved his mouth back and forth, rubbing it as lightly as he could between his lips. Then his tongue touched the tip and she gasped. He closed his lips around it and sucked.

He felt her rub her legs together. This was getting her hot and he wasn't allowed to touch her. That just might kill him.

He whispered into her skin, "Touch yourself, Baby, it's all right. I know its been a long time."

"Are you- Are you going to?" she asked, unsure.

"I already am," he said, rubbing up and down his hard shaft. He opened his mouth and took the whole aureole in, sucking greedily. He'd meant this to be relaxing.

Who was he kidding? His story was true, it had happened, exactly like he'd said. But he'd told her the story hoping for exactly this. This chance to finally touch what his mouth and his hands had been longing for.

And she felt even better than he'd imagined. And lord, he had a good imagination. Kaelyn was one of those women who was curvy in all the right places. A figure not quite in tune with the skeletal, prepubescent look now fashionable; but to any red-blooded heterosexual male, she was perfect. Full hips that made you want to fuck her from behind, just so you could get your hands on that ass.

And appetizing breasts, full and soft and made for the exact purpose he was now luxuriating in.

He pulled back, lifted a hand to cup her breast and licked the swollen bud again. "I think I'm starting to like that warm milk idea", he told her with a smile. He took his time with her, trying to remember every trick he'd learned in high school and college. He wanted to touch her everywhere, but that would change everything and she wasn't ready for that. He didn't think he was either.

He was amazed at how erotic it could be just taking his fill at a woman's breast. This was getting him off, really getting him off; and if the moaning and writhing was any indication, so was Kaelyn. He wanted to take her over – he wanted it to be him to make her come, not just whatever fantasy she was creating behind he closed eyes while he suckled her.

"Do you like that, Kaelyn?" he whispered against her skin. He cupped her breasts in his hands and ran the sides of his thumbs over her sensitive peaks. "Do you like when I worship you with my mouth and my tongue?" He stopped talking so he could do just that.

"Do you want it to be me, Kaelyn? Me be the one to touch you, me be the one to make you orgasm?" He was so close now he could almost see it.

"I can give you everything, Baby. I can touch you and taste you and make love to you. God, I want to taste you, Kaelyn. Taste you as you come on my tongue, taste you as I fill you every way I can. Hell, I want to watch you carry my child and then drink the milk from you-"

She was moaning now, her mind lost in the vision he was creating and he couldn't help it, he got lost in it too. He was going crazy with this; this was one that had been too taboo even for him. But he couldn't help it. One little joke about drinking her milk and she reacted and now he wanted it, wanted it more than anything at this moment and he had this need to make her get off on it. Make her want it too, here in the quiet of the night.

He suckled her hard, using his tongue to pretend to force out liquid that she didn't have. Not yet.

"You like that, don't you? Like to have your tits sucked? Like me to take you in my mouth and make love to your beautiful breasts? Imagine being even more sensitive to my touch, your body filled and overcome with the completely natural desire to have a mouth at your breast, taking the food that your body created."

His hands itched to reach between her legs and help her, and he had to force himself to remember her rule.

"When our little one's hungry, I'll feed her from a bottle so that I can come back to you and drink from your nipples. Full, aching breasts that need relief. Picture me there, Kaelyn, my mouth on you, my lips and tongue touching you in a way no one else ever has. As soon as I stroke you, you'll start to gush. Sweet white milk that flows into my mouth and I'll swallow every drop of it because when it's you, Kaelyn, I get off on it. Only for you. You feeding me. Giving me what I didn't even know I needed until I met you. Making me hard. Making you come. I want to drink the milk from your tits until you're empty and then I want to put my mouth between your legs and drink you there too. Every drop of you, Kaelyn, everywhere. Fuck, I'm gonna come just thinking about it."

He was so close now, he wanted to scream. But seeing her like this, breasts bared to him, in the throes of passion, gave him a thrill too. A buzz like nothing else ever had; that he could do this to her – to Kaelyn, with his words and his touches. He ran his thumb over the head of his cock and let his words erupt, just let go and let all the desires he'd never had before he met her spill out.

"You are so goddamned beautiful, Kaelyn. And to see you everyday? Every time I get a glimpse of you my mouth waters. Can I do this forever, Kaelyn? Can I lave you with my tongue until you come? Can I watch you swell with milk for the child that I give you and keep it all for myself? Have every bit of you for myself - your milk, your cum, all flowing across my tongue-"


He stopped because she was coming and so was he, and for the first time since he was in junior high, he was careless and shot his load all over his sheets. He didn't care. He'd sleep in the wet spot.

When they came back down, everything he'd said came back to him and he was terrified she might ask him about it. Hell, he didn't know where half that shit had come from. He was trying to get off; technically he should not be held responsible for what he said.

To stave off any conversation, he moved back to her breast and gently finished what he'd started. Pulled her close and put a gentle mouth to her breast and put them both to sleep.

It was surprisingly easy. Now.

When he woke the next morning, she was dressed and in the kitchen, drinking coffee. He knew Suki would be here any minute; they were at his apartment more often now than they were at hers. He saw her staring at her coffee, which was untouched. He came up behind her, put his hands on her shoulders in a friendly, we-didn't-just-share-something-intimate-last-night way and massaged her neck.

She sighed, "Braden? Last night… " she didn't seem to know where to go from there. She sounded so lost that he decided to cut them both a break and go for the easy out. He was a chicken, he knew it, but he didn't have the answers either.

"It was a fantasy, Kaelyn," he finished for her, softly. "That's all. It doesn't mean anything."

"But I never…" and she was at a loss again.

He knew what she was going to say. She'd never had fantasies about that before. Had never indulged in thoughts on that particular kink. Hell, she'd probably never indulged in thoughts on any particular kink.

He kissed the top of her head like he would a favourite niece and then poured himself a cup of coffee, because he had to stop touching her. "It's all right, Kaelyn. Nobody's ever gonna know but me and you. And I've already forgotten about it, okay?"

The doorbell rang and she picked up her purse and went to answer it.

"Thanks," she said, turning back to give him a half smile before leaving for work with Suki.

When the door closed, he said to himself, "Liar."

He never knew he wanted those things, but now that he'd said them out loud, he knew it was true. He'd never even considered children with Maggie, they were both so focused on their careers.

But last night, the fantasy he'd conjured up for Kaelyn – for himself; it had felt so real. He thought his soul was dead when he left New York, thought he'd never feel for anyone again, never want someone in his life again. But last night…

Last night he found that he did want something. He wanted companionship and passion; he wanted tenderness; he wanted love that would last a lifetime, and wasn't that as trite and clichéd as it could get? His grandmother would be so proud.

He wanted a wife fat and round with his child – and he just knew there was a special place in Hell for that, because the thought of Kaelyn pregnant was making him hard again. He wanted someone he could wake up with every morning and make love to every night. He wanted children to climb in his bed and wake him up and demand that he make them pancakes. He wanted to have fights with her over money and whether or not to go to his parents' house for Thanksgiving. He wanted someone to hold through the years. Someone he could love and protect. Someone to make the world go away. Someone he could curl up with and suckle at her breast until he fell asleep at night.

Not just someone – Kaelyn.

It was a beautiful fantasy, but that's all it was. Just a fantasy. It didn't mean anything.

~

'Yeah, Kaelyn, I know you're my best friend and you trust me to be honest with you but I'm living a lie. I really can't stop thinking about jumping your bones. Every time I see you my hands ache for you and my cock jumps. And that fantasy last night? I want that. I want to make it real. I want to spend the rest of my life getting you pregnant.' Yeah, that would go over well.

He wasn't ready for another relationship. That's what he'd told himself all day. He still wasn't over the heartbreak from Viper Woman.

He smiled. 'Viper Woman'. He realised with another smile that he hadn't thought about Maggie in days.

~

Kaelyn sat in her kitchen at three in the morning staring at the sink. It was clean and sparkly. So was everything in the kitchen. So was everything in the whole apartment. She'd come home from school and started cleaning. It was therapeutic. It kept her from thinking. Because not one of her thoughts today were good thoughts.

Danny had been her boyfriend in and after high school, off and on. They'd been perfect for each other, or so everyone said. He'd had the band; problems with life on the road caused them to break up a lot but they'd been doing well for a while and she'd thought maybe he'd been going to propose soon.

But she hadn't loved him. Not once, she'd just discovered. He was easy. He did all of the work in their relationship. The breaking up, the making up – heck, he even held the arguments by himself.

Kaelyn had never been good at making decisions; hated it in fact. It was the basis of many of her relationships. Danny for one. Lily for another. They were very much alike the two of them and Kaelyn used to spend time with Lily whenever Danny was on the road so that she wouldn't miss him. They were both moody and obsessive-compulsive and liked to talk and have people agree with them. Kaelyn was very good at filling that role in both their lives.

He got offered a deal to play bass on a reunion tour of a once famous rock band. It meant leaving the Puppies, but it also meant financial security. The night before he was to leave, she'd come home early from work to surprise him, and had been surprised herself.

He was in their bed – their bed – and he was with some leggy brunette with fake boobs who followed the band around for their gigs. He'd cheated on her with a freaking groupie! He'd made excuses until he was blue in the face but when he left the next day, he said he wasn't coming back. She told him good riddance.

So why had she spent so much time mourning the loss of a relationship she hadn't even wanted? Because she allowed herself to follow Danny's whims from the time she was a teenager. She'd spent seven years in an off again, on again relationship she hadn't even wanted because she never found anything else she'd wanted more. To be honest, she'd never really looked.

So what did she want? She was beginning to suspect it was Braden but that was an impossible dream. It was probably just residual lust from the crush she'd had on him in high school. Now that they were friends that was normal, right? And last night had been… two friends helping each other get through the night. Two friends keeping each other from being lonely.

Isn't that what they'd said they were going to give each other from the beginning? Someone to touch so the days wouldn't be so long and the nights wouldn't be so lonely. It wasn't sexual, it was platonic and safe. Last night not withstanding.

He'd told her that story and her breasts had just ached for someone to touch them. She shut off everything in her brain that was screaming that it was wrong and had just used him. Let him go to town and satisfy her urge. And then what he'd said. She couldn't even think about that.

Kaelyn shook her head, trying to clear away the fanciful thoughts. All of this was moot. It was over, it was done, he'd already forgotten about it. So had she.

She headed for the shower. Who was she kidding? She had half a mind to go down to his place and beg him to do it again.

The next night he taught her how to make fajitas. It was so easy, she couldn't believe she'd never discovered this before. They watched a movie, then Braden headed to bed while she looked over her notes for a meeting with a parent she had scheduled for the next day.

About an hour later, she took a shower and crawled into bed beside him. He spooned up beside her as usual, but unlike usual, he splayed a warm hand across her stomach before sliding it up to her breast. "Please let me touch you."

She needed this too, needed this connection so that in some weird way, she would know they were all right. That the other night hadn't ruined everything.

He never moved from his position spooned up behind her. He slowly brought her up to a boil, touching her, while rubbing his fleece-covered erection into her backside. Her hand moved to his hip when he touched her down there, but he told her to stop there, not to touch him back; he was having trouble holding onto his control as it was.

He brought them both to orgasm; a soft, slow burn that fell gently over the edge, but got there just the same.

~

The next night she knocked on his door after he got home from work. She had spent the day ecstatically happy and incredibly confused. This couldn't go on, something bad was coming, she just didn't what.

"Why didn't you let yourself in with your key?" he asked her.

"I, um, forgot I had it," she said very unconvincingly while she studied her shoes. "Do you… I mean, we have that… thing, tonight. With Mary and Tommy? Pizza and then the new club? If you don't want-"

"Yeah, I know, I was just changing, come on in."

He walked away, leaving her to come in and close the door, and headed for the bedroom. He talked to her as he changed, but it felt… off, somehow, to her. She sat on the couch and put her head in her hands, 'Maybe it's just me.'

Dinner went by in a buzz, with both of them seeming to say the right thing at the right time. At least no one commented on it if they noticed something wrong.

The club was loud and crowded and they both drank more than they intended to. A tall, thick necked guy who'd obviously lost all his brains to steroids, in Braden's opinion, took a liking to Kaelyn and kept asking her to dance. Since it meant she didn't have to sit at the table and not know what to say to her fake boyfriend, she accepted every invitation.

He wasn't as stupid as Braden seemed to think, in fact he had a rather intelligent sense of humor and he had her laughing on the dance floor more than once.

Braden had finally had enough, and took the opportunity, while Mary and her beau of the week were at the table, to suggest that maybe she should stop leading the poor guy on, since she was spoken for. After that, she got quiet and he got surly.

As designated driver, Mary drove them home and when they got to his apartment door, he took her hand and pulled her in behind him.

He sat her down on the couch and he sat in the chair across from her, just looking at her.

"I think we need to re-evaluate our deal," he said, finally. He sounded sincere, so she listened. "Someone to touch, remember? That's what we said we'd give each other?"

She nodded.

"Well, since neither one of us wants another serious relationship anytime in the near future," he paused here in case she wanted to contest this statement; she didn't say anything so he continued. "I think we were a little short-sighted when we made this arrangement."

Afraid he was going to put an end to their "deal", she braced herself for the inevitable.

He stood and started pacing, hoping that somehow, motion would make this come out better than he knew it was going to.

"That first night, at Mary's party, you said you needed to touch someone,” his eyes never met hers, never lifted to her face. “You needed physical contact, needed to reach out and feel skin. I did that for you, I gave you someone to touch.”

She nodded. She had no idea where this was going. Why didn't he just get to the part where he said goodbye?

"I'm finding that I need," he paused and took in a deep inhale through his nose and she could see the tension coiling in him. Here's the part where he says its not enough for him.

"I'm a man, Kaelyn, a normal human animal and every once in a while, humans need touch. They need to find release; they need to give in to their baser urges." He looked at her then. She looked confused.

'Oh, right. She's a good girl. Has no idea what I'm talking about, right over her head.' She was impossible. Why couldn't he have fallen in love with a nice, simple prostitute? At least she'd understand the sex parts. He looked at her. Because it had to be Kaelyn, that's why. 'God in heaven.'

"Sex, Kaelyn, I'm talking about fucking." Understanding dawned on her face, she looked down at her hands.

"So you need…" she couldn't say it. Couldn't say that she understood that he wanted to find someone to… do that with. She had a small fantasy that it could have been her, but even in spite of their late night touchy-feely sessions, this was Braden Scott! He had all kinds of experience, with all kinds of women. This was all his way of telling her that he was ready to get back to that.

He got down on his knees in front of her and made her look up at him. God, she was making this hard.

"I need someone to touch, Kaelyn. I need someone to touch me. I need to feel another warm body under me, in me, around me. I need to bury myself inside someone and make the rest of the world go away for a little while."

Okay, if he was going to break up with her, did he have to do it in a way that made her hot for him? That was just cruel. That thought made her let out a rather ill-timed giggle.

"WHAT?" he growled, upset that she was laughing at him.

She stopped giggling immediately and took a deep breath. "We're friends, Braden, remember? If you were unhappy, you should have just said so. I understand. I'll get out of your hair for a while; I'll leave you alone. But if you ever need a friend, just remember that I'm right down the hall." She stood to leave.

"Goddamnit, woman, you are the most infuriating…" he grabbed her hand and pulled her into his bedroom and adrenaline just took over. He grabbed the front of her dress and tore it open, then pushed her down on the bed. "I don't want to find somebody else, I want to fuck you!"

"Me?" she asked. She knew she should have been sure, what with her dress torn and all, but she'd never seen anyone get that… aggressive over her. Not that she'd ever given anyone the opportunity. It had just been Danny, and he'd never been one to…

Her eyes traveled down to the straining bulge in his jeans. Her eyebrows went up. "Is that for me?"

He pulled his t-shirt over his head and muttered, "Fuck, Baby, you're gonna kill me."

He dropped onto the bed next to her and his arms pulled her closer as his mouth went to her throat. Open mouth kisses and teasing bites made her moan. His fingers went to her bra to unhook it, but then he stilled his hands. He pulled back and looked her in the eye.

"Is this all right with you?" he asked. She made him half crazy with wanting her but he wasn't going to take her against her will. "This new… step… in our deal?"

"I've never…" she admitted. "Only with Danny. I don't…" she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to collect her thoughts. She wanted this, she really did. But at the same time, she didn't – shouldn't. And she had no idea how to go about it anyway.

"You're right," she told him, trying to think logically. "I don't… don't know if I'm ready for an emotionally committed relationship yet. Danny really... .

"But since then… yeah, I'm a grown woman and my body wants… certain things. And I couldn't just have… sex – casually, with a stranger, I mean. But if we, I mean, if I had someone I could go to… when I felt like… I needed something, maybe that would be all right? Because I know I can trust you. And I know you won't hurt me. So, maybe, yeah, we could try it and see."

He shook his head to clear it. "Does all that mean you'll let me fuck you or not?"

She smiled, "We'll try it this once and see how it goes."

He reached into his nightstand drawer and pulled out a handful of condoms.

"Okay, first of all," she inquired, "If you haven't been getting any, why do you have those?"

"Wishful thinking?"

She arched an eyebrow at him. He sighed. "You made me crazy the other night, Baby. I knew I had to fuck something, I just didn't know if you'd let it be you. Honestly, I thought I'd be spending another night with my hand. But I went to the store this afternoon on my lunch break."

She nodded, that made sense. He was a conscientious lover, anyway.

"Okay, next," and she sounded so business-like he had to smile. She didn't even notice.

"You… um, fooled around a lot in high school. And probably college until you met the viper woman." He smiled again. 'Viper woman.'

If he wasn't in love with her yet, he would be soon.

She was still talking, "…checked for diseases?"

'Oh. That. Right.'

"Kaelyn, I've never in my life had unprotected sex but yes, I had a complete physical about six months ago and I'm friends with Dr. Jennings' son Randy. He knows me and he thought maybe, considering my history, that maybe he should do the full range. I'm clean."

"Me too," she said, still sounding business-like. "I, um, got checked after I found out Danny was cheating on me. And I still get my Depo-Provera shots every three months. So, um," she tapped the stack of condoms in his hand, "You uh, don't have to use those if you don't want to."

His eyes opened wide and he almost teared up. Not only was she going to let him fuck her, he'd get to feel her around him while they were doing it! He threw the condoms over his shoulder and murmured once again, "Fuck, Baby, you're gonna kill me."

He fell on top of her, and he could tell that – for her – the mood had been broken by all this talk of diseases and such. He was honest enough to admit that as much as he wanted her, he was glad that all of that was out of the way, but it had broken the momentum somewhat.

He leaned his head into the crook of her shoulder and asked, "What am I gonna do with you?"

It was a rhetorical question, but she seemed to take offense at it. She stiffened. He just chuckled ruefully. He stood and pulled her up with him, taking her hand and pulling her into the bathroom.

"Take off the rest of your things," he told her as he turned on the shower. He sounded so much like her friend Braden and not the Lothario she'd been afraid he would turn into that she felt weird while she stripped, but she still did it. His jeans and boots hit the floor as well.

He stepped into the shower and then took her hand and helped her step in too. He held her in his arms for a minute and then turned her around and pulled her back against his chest. His arms went around her waist and he let the heat of the water seep into her skin, relaxing her.

He got some soap on his hands and used it as a facilitator to massage her shoulders and her neck. His hands ran down her arms, easing the tension he found there.

"You don't have to be afraid of me, you know," he told her, licking the water from her neck.

"I'm not," she assured him. She didn't sound very convincing.

"Just nervous?" he asked as his soapy hands massaged across her stomach.

"A little," she confessed.

"Why?" His hands were on her breasts now and she sighed and leaned back into him.

"Because I've never done this before."

"Never had sex?" he asked with a smile.

"You know what I mean." His hands were just kneading her soft flesh and she wished they could just stay here, doing this.

"Kaelyn, the other night…" She blushed hard and he felt her retreating again.

"No, Baby, come here," he said softly, pulling her back again. "I just wanted to say that, when you're with me, when we're being intimate together, you can trust me. You can say anything, do anything, feel anything you want to. Nothing that goes on between you and I will ever be repeated and nothing should ever make you feel bad. Give me all your secrets, Kaelyn, I'll take care of them. I want to learn them and make them come true for you."

"I – I don't have any secrets."

He smiled at that. "Maybe you just don't know yet what they are because you've never allowed yourself the luxury of exploring your desires."

"I – I don't think I desire anything, except you know, the usual."

Ever the good girl.

His fingers pinched her nipples. "And if I said I get hard thinking about getting you pregnant and drinking the milk from your breasts, would that fit into your definition of 'the usual'?"

His words made her ache in the pit of her stomach. "You promised you'd never bring that up," she said and she really had meant that to sound a little less overcome by lust.

"No, I promised I'd never tell anyone."

"Braden, I swear, I never had that thought ever in my life until you said it the other night. I don't know what came over me."

"Baby, the technical term is 'kink'."

She giggled.

"You're a child psychologist, Kaelyn, you deal with kids who have no idea if they're allowed to feel what they feel every day. Adults are like that too. When you're with me, you can feel anything, tell me anything. I won't judge you. Didn't I make you feel good the other night?"

"But – but I still can't believe I reacted that way. You must have thought I was such a pervert."

He laughed. "Kaelyn, you just laid there. I'm the one who said all that stuff. You have beautiful breasts, I got carried away. What do you want me to say? I'm not going to say I'm sorry because I'm not. I like your breasts, and I'd like to get to know them better."

She giggled.

"The other stuff was just… a flight of whimsy? I don't know. I felt things I've never felt before. It's not just you, maybe its just been too long for both of us. But whether or not the more intense stuff means anything is up to you, it's up to us. And we don't have to decide right now."

She nodded, but seemed thoughtful. "Would you really… I mean, someday, if you… would you do that?"

"I don't know," he answered honestly. "I've thought about it, so I'd probably want to try it. But it's not a presiding preoccupation. Hell, I don't think that particular kink had come to mind for years before the other night. But it would depend on the circumstances and the timing, I guess." He paused, then…

"Would you?"

"I – I don't know. God, what you said, it just… pushed my buttons, I guess. I mean, some parts pushed more buttons than others. Maybe it's just that it's been so long. I don't know, I never thought about it before."

"So, depending on the circumstances and the timing?" he said with a smile. She didn't even notice that he'd used the exact same words.

"Maybe someday. But, don't tell anybody, okay?"

"You can trust me, Kaelyn. I told you, all your secrets are safe with me."

He got them both towels and they put on their robes and he took her out into the kitchen and made some coffee. They sat at the counter drinking it, not saying anything, just… being. Together.

He put down his coffee cup and reached a hand out to the open V of her robe. He slid his hand inside and cupped her breast, then continued down, pulling her robe open as he did. He slid off his seat and went to his knees in front of her, now using both hands to open her robe and slide it off her shoulders. His hands kept moving until her robe hit the ground but his eyes never left her body.

As he kissed the soft skin of her belly, he thought of all the things he couldn't tell her. That he'd fallen in love with her and he wanted to be everything for her. That he'd never leave her, never cheat on her, never give her any reason to doubt him. All the things she wasn't ready to hear. Might never be ready to hear.

If he couldn't have her heart, he'd take the only thing she was offering – her body. It would have to be enough.

Maybe that's all this was. Maybe it had just been so long since he'd stuck his dick in anything that he wasn't thinking straight. Maybe he just needed a woman – any woman – but because Kaelyn was so close, his body had deluded his mind into thinking all these ridiculous thoughts.

"It's just sex, right?" he whispered to himself. That's all it had ever been before the viper woman.

She heard him. She wished she hadn't, but she'd heard him. This was the old Braden Scott, long buried but not dead.

'Well,' she thought, as his hands touched her so gently she thought she might shatter from it, so she blocked it out. 'Isn't this what you dreamt of in high school? One night with Braden Scott, just to see what it was like? See if that body really could make good on all it seemed to promise. Isn't this what you thought about when Danny was thrusting away inside you because he didn't have a clue how to make a girl happy? Isn't this just everything your little girly heart desired?'

She was moving.

He was holding her and leading her into the bedroom and she hoped he hadn't said anything important because she had zoned out there for a minute or two.

He didn't seem to want to talk anymore. He lay her down and was just touching her in ways that made her tremble. He lowered his mouth to her breast and she arched up into him before he had reached her. She knew how good this felt and whether or not this meant anything to either one of them, she craved it.

His hand slid down her body and her traitorous legs parted, giving him exactly what he wanted. His mouth opened over her nipple and she felt the flat of his tongue move across it.

She held her eyes tightly closed, thinking that if she didn't see it, maybe she could pretend later that this had all been a dream.

Suki, that rat, planting ideas in her head!

She moved her hands to touch him too, but he stopped her.

"Not yet, Kaelyn, let me touch you first, please?" He didn't want her touching him until she was doing it because she wanted to, not because she was lonely and confused and he had sweet talked her into sleeping with him.

His finger slid right into her because it seemed that all of the parts of her body were working independently of her brain and not obeying her commands to get up and leave this man who would use her like this. She moaned. Or, let her use him like this, she wasn't really sure which one would apply right now.

She felt his fingers touching places that hadn’t been touched in-

"OH!" she screamed as her body jumped at the sensation he'd just given her. He did it again.

"Ooooh," it was a moan this time. His… fingers…were… hitting…something…

"Oh, oh, oh, oh-" she knew there was something right there on the edge of her tongue that wanted to be voiced but she just didn't know what it was, so she just stuck with 'Oh'.

He stopped touching her like that and she heard him laughing.

Laughing!

She opened her eyes and lifted her head to look at him. Her brain was functioning again now that he'd stopped doing… whatever it was that he had been doing.

"Are you laughing at me?" she asked, disbelieving but knowing it had to be true, there was no one else here.

He lifted his head from her chest and smiled at her.

"Yup," he confirmed.

She tried to sit up so she could look a little more outraged than was possible sprawled across the bed, but he wouldn't let her. Held her down with just the fingers that were still inside her. Unmoving now, but still there.

"Why?" she inquired.

He pushed his finger back up and did that thing again. Her back arched and she screamed, "Oh –"

He stopped.

"I think 'fuck' is the word you're looking for, Kaelyn. 'Oh, fuck' " He was still smiling.

She looked at him like he was crazy. He did it again, watching her face this time. It took effort but she didn't call out.

He licked across the side of her breast and wiggled his fingers.

"Do you want me to do that again?" he asked, moving his fingers in and out of her, but not quite going far enough in to do that thing that made her crazy.

She nodded.

"Then say 'fuck'."

She shook her head, just for spite.

His thumb moved and started circling her wet clit.

"Do you want to come, Baby?" he whispered against her skin.

"Mmm," she answered, body growing pliant once again.

"Then say, 'fuck'," he said in a voice that she was sure had helped convince all those girls in high school to put out before the first date. "Come on, its all right, nobody will ever know but me." He sucked her into his mouth again. He bit lightly into her breast.

This time when he spoke, it was a low purr and she knew she was going to come just from his voice.

"That little spot is your g-spot, Kaelyn, and I have a feeling you two have never been introduced before. Now imagine if I were to touch that spot," his fingers moved by millimeters and barely skimmed the place he was talking about. Just enough to let her know he could take her there if he wanted to. "Imagine if I touch that spot while my mouth is wrapped around your pussy and my tongue is dancing on your clit." He moved his thumb just to prove a point.

"Oooh fuuuuck," she moaned and his thumb ground hard against her and her insides contracted and she came. He pulled his fingers from inside her and brought them to his mouth and licked them clean.

She just watched in fascination, she couldn't take his eyes off of him. After he'd swallowed, he told her, "I'll always want you to feed me, Baby."

Molten fire moved down her spine and she felt her nipples contract. He seemed to feel it and looked at them.

"Do you want me to suck on them, Kaelyn?" he asked her.

"God yes," she pleaded.

"Tell me what you want, tell me exactly what you want."

She looked quizzically at him, she thought she just had told him what she wanted.

He smiled, "One of these days, I promise, you are going to start understanding all the things I say to you." He kissed the side of her breast, but not the area craving his touch.

He moved his hands to her chest and cupped a soft mound in his hand.

"What is this?" he asked her. "We're having anatomy class."

She didn't answer him.

"Kaelyn, look at me," he said, his voice less of a throaty purr now and more like her normal Braden. "I want to touch you, Baby, I want to do this with you. But if I'm going to make you happy, you're going to have to have the vocabulary. Remember I told you to trust me?"

She nodded.

"Your body is beautiful, Kaelyn and made up of all these soft, sensitive parts. I want to touch you, to please you. And I want you to do the same to me. For instance-" he took her hand and wrapped it around his dick that was going crazy just from this conversation.

"The main one I'd like you to concentrate on is this. It's called a cock and believe me, Baby, you're his favourite person. He's not gonna hurt ya."

She giggled.

"Now tell me again, what's the name of your friend down there?"

She grinned, "Mr. Cock?"

A shiver went down his body and he groaned. He took her hand away from him, "We'd better leave Mr. Cock alone for a minute so that he doesn't finish this party without you. We'll move on with our anatomy lesson."

He was loving the way her mind was bent even though she'd never admit to it. She had kinks he'd be happy to explore forever.

He licked across her chest from one breast to the other.

"Now, these," he continued, following her lead, "Are the twins. They're very friendly as well, but apt to be a little distracting if I watch them too closely. They'll answer to just about anything but to save time we'll call them breasts."

"Breasts," she repeated, getting the idea of where this was going.

He smiled, "Very good! A gold star for our pupil!"

"Now, being the friendly sort, they like to party and have a good time. If you're very good to the twins and they start to like you, you can call them by they're nickname."

"Nickname?" she asked, curious.

"Yes, see, Breasts is their given name, the one you have to use in polite society. But our party girls like a little rough and tumble on occasion," he squeezed one and bit lightly into the other. "When I really want to get them dancing, I remind them that they're really naughty at heart by saying things like, 'I want to suck on your tits' or 'Your tits make my mouth water'. Tits is their nickname, you see."

"Tits," she repeated, giggling.

He reached out and caressed her left nipple very gently. "Now, these two may look like twins, but they're not."

"No?" This was news to her.

"No," he confirmed. "You see, this delicate little darling of a nipple over here-" he paused and she dutifully repeated, "Nipple," while trying very hard not to melt into a puddle of goo from the sensations he was causing by teasing her like he was.

"This little nipple over here is the serious one. The one that likes long talks and moonlit strolls and slow wet kisses."

She couldn't argue with that.

"This one," he said, moving to her right nipple, tries to fool you. She makes you think she's all sweet and innocent like her sister over there, but no. This nipple over here on the right," he paused again and she quickly said, "Nipple" wanting desperately for him to get back to touching her again.

"This little girl is not sweet and innocent – watch." He moved across it in the same light caress he had the other one, but instead of it melting her, it tickled. She laughed and her body instinctively curled in.

"Relax, Baby," he said soothingly, rubbing her back and she spread out across the bed again.

"This little nipple," he touched it again but instead of caressing it, he pinched it and it send shockwaves straight to her womb, "She likes a firmer hand. She's my naughty little dominatrix in sheep's clothing. We're learning to get along real well." He rubbed and pinched and -

"Oh fuck," she moaned because it felt so good it just slipped out.

How did he know these things about her body that she didn't even know? She had this strange urge to call Danny and ask him if he knew these things about her, but he really wasn't worth the time.

She was disappointed when his hand left her breast, but when it slid down her body and cupped her between her legs, she changed her mind.

"Now this little beauty," he continued as if she wasn't going insane with lust, "Has lots of different names but we're just going to stick with one. This little one has to be petted," and he did just that, "And taken care of religiously. We're going to call her Pretty Pussy, all right?"

She smiled. She never in a million years ever saw herself saying these words, let alone having this conversation.

"Pussy," she repeated with a crimson blush, because she knew he wouldn't let up until she'd said it.

"Pretty Pussy," he corrected.

She raised her eyebrows at him, he had to be kidding.

'Pretty Pussy,' he mouthed to her, daring her to say it.

She covered her face with her hands and said, "Pretty Pussy."

He went back to petting her.

"Let's use that one in a sentence, just to get a feel for it." He turned and looked her in the eyes and said, "Say, 'Tongue my pretty pussy, please.'"

He waited for her to say it. She didn't. He moved down between her legs, his mouth right in front of where it would drive her craziest.

Somehow, she knew what was coming.

"I want to drink you, Kaelyn," he told her, using that voice that was her downfall. The voice he'd trained and nurtured, for the soul purpose of getting women to spread their legs for him. And he was using it against her, using that secret shame that scared her and drove her wild at the same time.

"Want to take you in my mouth and suck you until your cum is feeding me, flowing across my tongue and I'm not going to do it until you-"

"Tongue my pretty pussy, please," she begged.

"Fuck, Baby, you're gonna kill me."

He opened her up with his thumbs and sucked her clit into his mouth. He moved and his tongue pushed inside her, licking inside of her body – she didn't know you could do that. In less than ten seconds, he had her screaming his name in her orgasm.

He made good on his promise. He stayed there, drinking her, sucking her up and moaning at the pleasure he took in it and it pushed those buttons again, the ones she thought were delicious but dark and wrong and she cried for real this time as she came again and he drank her again.

When he moved back up her body, he wiped her tears with his hands.

"You've got nothing to be ashamed of Kaelyn. There is nothing wrong with us, there's nothing bad or immoral about this. They are secrets yes, but not because they're impure. But because they're sacred. Something that only you and I were meant to share. Please believe me."

She calmed down. He was right – she hoped. As a psychologist she knew everything he told her was true. But as a woman?

He didn't love her. She was in over her head here and she felt like she was drowning.

She looked apologetic. "Braden, I don't think this is going to work. I don't know what you want from me. I've had sex with one man, one way and all of this – this is for experts. I'm not in your league, Braden. Maybe you'd be happier with somebody else."

He rolled his eyes; she was just never going to get it.

He moved quickly on top of her and slid his cock in fast and deep and filled her up. He just held himself there, not moving.

"Does that feel like I want someone else, Kaelyn?" His voice was just this side of angry and for some reason, it made her even hotter than the throaty purr had. "Does that feel like you don't know what you're doing?"

Her inner muscles quivered and Braden ground out, "Oh, fuck!" before he pulled out halfway, pushed back in – and came in a warm pulsing wave inside of her.

He dropped his head onto her shoulder and Kaelyn smiled. She held back the giggle for as long as she could. Braden didn't move. Her chest rumbled when a full laugh tried to fight its way out.

"Been a while, Braden?" She did laugh then, and thankfully, he had enough of a sense of humor to laugh with her.

He rolled to her side and pulled her up next to him.

"That really didn't go the way I hoped it would," he said, as if she didn't already know.

"Gee, I thought it was great. Really." She started laughing again.

He shook his head and looked heavenward. Where this woman was concerned, he didn't think he was ever going to win. But damn if she didn't make the struggle fun.

They relaxed for a few minutes.

"Kaelyn," he explained in the dark, his eyes never leaving the ceiling but his hand indulging in the feel of her hair. "I'm not trying to make you uncomfortable by making you tell me what you want, I'm trying to make you brave. I don't know what you've done before, what you've experienced. But I know how you react when I touch you and it doesn't mesh with that wide eyed innocent act you've got going on. The other night, the fantasy-"

She pulled away from him and stood up. "Braden, why do you have to keep bringing that up?" She grabbed her robe and headed out to the living room. "It wasn't me, I'm not like that."

He walked out after her and grabbed her arm, pushed her up against the wall.

"You damn well are! Don't you see? That's what I want from you – from this! I want to act out every fantasy you've ever had and then I want you to think up some more! I want to be able to dig down deep within me to see what's really there, what I really crave and I want you to be the one to give it me!"

She was watching him, watching his mouth and her breathing was getting heavy. She couldn't seem to make up her mind. Her brain kept telling her she shouldn't want this but her body kept interfering to tell her that she did.

"Tell me what you want," she told him. "Tell me what you need from me and I'll – I'll try to –" She couldn't finish. He was staring at her mouth. He looked like he was angry – or ravenous. She opened her lips and let her tongue peak out to wet them.

God, she wanted him to kiss her.

That's when she realised, he hadn't kissed her. Not once.

"What do you want?" she asked again, really confused now, certain she was missing something important.

He pushed her robe off her shoulders and grabbed both of her wrists in his hands. He pulled them up above her head, the motion jarring her and making her pull up onto her toes so that he didn't hurt her. He held them in one hand while his other moved down to her body. He cupped one of her breasts and smiled.

"Now that I've tasted you, I find I'm developing quite a craving."

He let go of her wrists, but said, "If you move them, you'll pay for it. You won't like the cost."

She was pretty sure he was only teasing - but wicked, unbidden thoughts of what the punishment might be flashed through her mind and she was both eager and afraid to drop them. She held them in place.

He leaned down and she let out a gasp as he put an arm under her bottom and lifted her. Her legs went automatically around his waist to keep her from falling.

He glanced up to make sure her arms hadn't moved and when they hadn't, he smiled and did that thing again where he looked like he was going to devour her mouth and said, "That's my good girl."

He pressed her up against the wall – hard - and she was sure he was finally going to kiss her when his head dropped and he suckled her breast.

She moaned and wanted to fist her hands in his hair, but she kept them held up. His arms were under her bottom, holding her up, lifting her so his mouth could have better access to her chest.

"I can feel you getting wet, Baby. You know you like this. You know you like the feeling of being dominated. " He left her breast and looked at her face. "Tell me your secrets, Kaelyn, give me your fantasies."

His mouth kissed its way up her neck and he bit her. Not hard, but it did the job. He wanted her to trust him, but telling her wasn't enough. He had to show her. He continued the game.

"You're mine - my prisoner, my slave. The only fate you have is the one I decide." His arms moved, her bottom was now in his hands.

He was getting into doing this for her, getting off on it. She seemed all right, eyes shining but not teary, face flush and excited. She was panting and every time he looked up at her face, she stared at his mouth.

She wanted him to kiss her. That was the one thing he told himself he wouldn't do. As long as she had a doubt, he wasn't going to give her that one last piece of himself. He remembered he was supposed to be role-playing and continued.

"I'm supposed to hurt you," he bit her again on the other side of her neck. "But I'm helpless, all I want to do is fuck you." Then dropped her down onto his stiff cock.

Her arms went around his neck then. She held on and listened as he grunted and talked and fucked her. And made her feel things she didn't know existed.

"You like being screwed up against a wall? I can feel you, Baby, your body can't lie to me."

She pulled him close and just tried to surrender to him.

"Oh, yeah. I can feel you, Baby. Feel you getting off on me fucking you like this. Having all your will taken away and having a man so ravenous for you that he'll only listen to your body and not your denials."

He felt her stiffen and he was afraid he might have confused her again.

He pulled out of her and carried her back to the bedroom, still wrapped around him.

He lay her on the bed and immediately climbed between her legs again and entered her. But gently this time. And he held her while he brought her back to the brink.

"It's all right, Kaelyn. It's all right to feel that way and to let me do that to you." He rained gentle kissed across her jaw. "Because its me and its safe and I will never let you lose yourself. I would never degrade you or let you fall."

He pulled back and looked at her face. She was okay, she was losing herself in the passion, not too upset by what had happened to be afraid of him.

"It's me, Kaelyn. I will always be with you, I would never let you get hurt."

She was so close, he could feel it, but she couldn't find that one thing – that one place where you just lost all reason and let yourself fall over the brink.

He leaned down and whispered in her ear, "Come on, Baby, come for me. Come for me and let me drink from you."

He was euphoric when she started chanting his name in his ear, because he was coming now whether she was ready or not.

She didn't fall over the edge, she was pushed. It wasn't fair. She'd never felt anything like that in her life. Her head was swimming and her body was soaring. It was the most incredible high.

He moved down her body and settled himself between her legs. He spread her open and started lapping up her release - their releases, just like he'd promised. That fire moved down her spine again. For some reason, the sight – heck, the thought – of this man taking anything from her body made her delirious with need.

And the jerk knew it too.

He smiled against her. He crossed his arms over her abdomen and settled his chin on his hands, his eyes laughing at her. Or maybe with her.

"I know what you're thinking," he told her. "But its not just you. I've been with a lot of women, Kaelyn you know that. And yet for some reason, only you have brought out this... eating fetish. I don't know what it is. I think its just that you look so delicious I can't help but get hard thinking about tasting you."

He moved back between her legs and had taken her over the edge four more times before he'd had his fill of her.

It wasn't until he was holding her in his arms and asleep that she remembered he still hadn't kissed her.

When he woke up in the morning, she was gone.

It was Sunday so she drove to her father's house in Morristown. She helped him clean out his garage and his basement and then she cleaned the pool for him. They went to dinner at her Aunt Lucy's house and as always, she had made too much and insisted that Kaelyn take some home with her. Lucy knew she had no talent in the kitchen at all and it was these dinners, more than anything else, that had kept her nourished and healthy before –

Before Braden came into her life and started cooking for her. Before Braden took her under his wing and taught her how to make scrambled eggs and French toast and how to broil a steak and how to tell if baked potatoes are done cooking or not. She could have told Lucy – and her father – that she didn't need the food anymore. That she could cook a few things, but most nights, she was with a friend and they cooked and ate together.

She could have, but she didn't.

She drove home without ever telling her family about her new relationship.

She got home around midnight and she let herself into her apartment very quietly. Sure enough, there was Braden, asleep in her bed.

She let herself out just as quietly and walked down to his apartment. She let herself in with her key and went to the bathroom and took a shower. She pulled out clean underwear and started to pull out a nightgown but put it back. She went to Braden's closet and pulled out one of his dress shirts and buttoned herself into it and curled up in the center of his bed and went to sleep.

She didn't even need him any more, just his scent would be enough to make her feel safe and warm and able to sleep. She thought of Braden, soundly asleep in her bed in her apartment. It must be the same way for him.

They didn't get a chance to talk Monday morning because he got to his door about the same time as Suki and they only said hello and then goodbye. She didn't say where she had been the day before. She told him that she wouldn't be by tonight because she had plans with Suki, but he could tell by the woman's eyes that she had no idea what Kaelyn was talking about. But being the good friend that Suki was, she lied and pretended they had plans.

He slept in his own bed that night, alone. The same for Tuesday and Wednesday but by then he wasn't sleeping again. Hello, insomnia, thy name is Kaelyn.

He called her at work on Thursday intending to apologise for seducing her but he chickened out and just asked if they were still on for dinner with her friends on Friday night. She chickened out too and said yes.

Instead of going home after work, he drove to Millennium Man and bought a new shirt and jacket for Friday night. If he'd been in a better mood and looked up as he was leaving the store, he'd have seen Kaelyn in the next parking lot because she'd just bought a new dress from Samantha's Boutique for the same occasion.

They both spent Thursday night alone and Friday they shared the experience, albeit at different locations, of feeling like butterflies were nesting in their stomachs. They didn't know what they were going to say; they didn't know what to expect from one other. They were both miserable.

He was at her apartment at eight-thirty and he didn't know if he should knock or let himself in with his key. He'd just decided to let himself in when she opened the door and said distractedly, "Come in, Braden", without even looking at him. She was twisted up trying to fasten a necklace behind her neck and he walked over without thinking about it and took it from her and fastened the clasp.

She turned around. She looked…

"Wow" he said, admiring her in the new dress.

"Same to you," she said, reaching out and adjusting the collar of his shirt.

They both started chuckling at the same time.

"I really expected that to go much worse than it did."

"Me, too" she laughed. She walked back in her room and slipped into her shoes.

"So, are we good?" he asked. He wasn't talking about going out.

"Yeah," she confirmed as she handed him her money and ID and he slipped them into his pocket.

Five and a half hours later, they were back in her apartment and they couldn't keep their hands off each other.

It had started innocent enough. They'd gone to dinner and had to wait for their table. Mary had found them some seats at the bar, but there weren't enough for everyone. Mary, Lily, Steffi and Kaelyn had sat in the seats while their boyfriends stood behind them. It was a long wait. Braden had leaned on the back of her bar stool and his hand had come to rest on her arm.

All throughout dinner, he kept putting his arm around her and tracing patterns on her skin with his fingers.

At the club they'd gone to, Kaelyn had found it much more comfortable to sit on the padded bench in front of Braden then on one of the small, metal chairs provided at their tiny table. He'd wrapped an arm around her waist and left it there. He had to keep touching her.

First her waist and then her hip. Then as they were all engrossed in a story Tommy was telling about something that happened at work, the hand at her waist raised a thumb and rubbed it against the underside of her breast.

While the others were dancing, they sat watching the band play and her left hand snuck behind her back and found the outline of the swelling erection in his jeans. One of his hands moved down her leg to the hem of her dress and moved to the inside of her thigh. The other cupped a breast and he molded it. He whispered in her ear, "I need you to feed me, Kaelyn."

She hopped up and told her friends they were leaving.

Unfortunately, on the way home, she'd developed an attack of conscience.

"We can't do this."

They were sitting at opposite ends of her couch, and every time he tried to touch her, she pushed him away. But not with much enthusiasm, he'd noticed. So now he was giving her a foot rub.

"Kaelyn, this can work, we just have to-" he stopped to take off his jacket. He wasn't playing fair.

"Braden, I'll admit I'm tempted, very tempted. But that farce the other night – that wasn't about me and you. That wasn't even about giving you someone to touch. That was about you and your own personal Fantasy Island. I could have been anyone."

His eyes got very cold, "Is that what you think?"

She got those same tingles she'd gotten the other night when he got all 'You're my prisoner' on her. She knew right then that he was going to win this. She didn't stand a chance. She was horny, her body had urges and frankly, there wasn't anybody else.

She stood up. "Fine. Look, I'm horny and you're here. I may as well get my money's worth out of this deal. It's just sex, right? Someone to touch?"

"Fine," he said as he started to unbutton his shirt, "as long as its nothing personal. That's what I'm here for ma'am. Just an anonymous fuck toy."

She walked into the bedroom and he followed her. She grabbed for the fastenings on her dress but he stilled her hands.

"I want to do it," he told her and he stepped up and placed a gentle kiss on the back of her neck. She blinked. Something had just changed. Meteors spinning out of orbit kind of changed. She didn't know what it was because his voice was just as it had been the other night, but –

It was as if the air suddenly got thicker.

"Let me get you some wine first," he said and he left and she heard him in the cabinet. She heard the clink of glasses and the gentle pop as the cork was pulled from the wine bottle.

And why all of the sudden did her senses feel like she was channeling Superman? She could hear everything. The crickets outside, the swish of Braden's shirt, she could practically hear the wine breathe.

He came back and handed her a glass and sat his down on the dresser. He pulled out his lighter and lit the candles she had around the room. He closed the bedroom door and the indirect lamplight from the living room was now gone and the room seem to glow, bathed in candlelight.

He stepped behind her again and his fingers found the hook and zipper for her dress that were under her arm. His lips caressed her neck as he lowered the zipper. He put his hands on her shoulders and he took hold of the dress, letting it fall off of her body. He held her hand to balance her while she stepped out of it. Then he took it over to the closet and hung it up.

When he turned around again, she forgot to breath. She felt like the whole universe had shifted in its orbit and everything now centered around her. Just from the look in his eyes.

He stripped off his shirt and once again he turned around and hung it in the closet. Since when had Braden become a neat freak? Granted, he was neater than her, but stopping to hang up everything now?

He walked back over to her as the earth spun off its axis and he held her hand again, this time turning her so he could sit her on the bed. He knelt before her and reached for her garters, unhooking her stockings from them. He smiled, "Next time we'll leave these on." His fingers ran down her leg, pulling the stocking down with it. She shivered at his touch; it felt like the slow descent of his fingers was awakening every nerve ending in her body. He took the stocking and laid it over his shoulder, then he made a return trip with his hands, from her ankles back up to her thighs. When her breath caught in her throat, he heard it and he grinned.

The same performance was repeated with her other garter, stocking and leg and she was amazed to learn that there were sensors in her body that his touch had missed the first time around because she had tingles popping all over her body when his hands made for her thigh the second time.

He folded the stockings and opened a drawer and laid them carefully inside. He stood her up and reached behind her, undoing the hooks on her garter belt. This too was folded and put carefully away.

"Lay down, Kaelyn."

There it was. That voice. That guaranteed-to-wet-your-panties voice that she had once overheard him use on a girl during a dance at school. That was the little tiny insignificant detail that had started her descent into Hell.

It still worked like a charm.

She moved backward onto the bed and he followed her.

He lay half on, half off of her. One leg between hers with his thigh putting pressure right where she needed it most.

He traced her lips with his finger. Then he kissed her.

All of those meteors and universes and spinning planets stopped in their tracks.

A soft and light closed-mouth kiss that went on forever. Then he pulled back to gauge the affect. He smiled so she must have done something right; although for the life of her she couldn't even remember her name right now so there was no way she could possibly guess what it might have been.

She watched his tongue wet his bottom lip, then, just to be fair, it wet hers as well. He leaned up onto his elbow and looked down at her. He took her hand and slipped her index finger between his lips before he raised his hand and put his index finger in front of her mouth. She obediently opened for him and he slid it in up to the first knuckle.

Within his mouth, she felt his tongue lick the pad of her finger, then stop. She did the same to his. His tongue circled her, she did the same to him. On and on. Tasting, teasing, sucking.

He opened his mouth and let her hand drop. He pulled his finger out of her mouth. He leaned in, his lips a hairs breadth away from hers before he whispered, "It couldn't be someone else, Kaelyn. If it wasn't you, it wouldn't be anyone."

He lifted her arms and wrapped them around his neck before he finally, after all these weeks, tasted her mouth in a kiss that made her want to die.

They kissed and touched, Braden being just as greedy for her touch as she was for his. He took his time, learning her body, learning all the secret places that even she didn't know about that made her tremble and moan.

And he let her learn his.

He avoided the places he'd concentrated on the last times he'd touched her. As much as he yearned to make her feels those things again, he wanted her to understand what it was that he wanted to say but couldn't voice out loud. The things screaming in his mind that he wanted to beg her to acknowledge, but - being Kaelyn, it all went right over her head.

He rolled them over until she was sitting on him, straddling his waist. She was still in her bra and panties and he wanted desperately to see her sitting just like that but completely open to his gaze.

"I want to see you, Kaelyn. See all of you. Will you show me?"

She reached to the front clasp of her bra and unhooked it, letting it fall to the floor. His eyes never left her face and by force of will, he wouldn't allow her to look away either.

She held onto the headboard and she stood, hooking her thumbs in her green lace underwear and shimmying them down her legs. She hooked them on her toe and dropped them to the floor as well. She stood over him again, legs on either side of his waist, getting ready to sit again. But she didn't, she stood there for a long moment.

"You're still wearing clothes," she told him, smiling. She wasn't completely naïve. She knew what this view was doing to him.

"Shouldn't I be?" he asked her.

She very slowly slid her tongue out and licked her top lip.

He grinned, "You're starting to get the hang of this, Baby." Without letting go of her gaze, he unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans and pushed them down his hips. A few twists of his legs had them on the floor.

"I want to taste you too," she told him.

He groaned, wanting to scream 'Hell yes' but thoughts of the other night came embarrassingly to mind.

"And you will, Kaelyn, but – later. I'm still getting used what you do to me, I don't want another embarrassing display."

She smiled, understanding.

"Are you ready for me?" she asked him.

He didn't even need the extra tug he gave his cock to make sure he was ready.

She lowered herself to her knees and then lowered herself onto his waiting erection. She actually let out a sigh as he filled her.

She sat there, not moving. It was almost enough.

"So," she said, piling on the innocent virgin look, "You're the big slutty expert here, what do we do now?"

He gaped, "Did you just say 'slutty'?"

She smiled and twisted a long curl of hair around her finger. God, that was turning him on. She looked like a teenage virgin out to take her first ride.

"Well, yeah," she said, in a little pouty voice, "But don't tell my dad, okay? He doesn't like it when I use language like that."

He grinned and pushed his hips up into her, "Fuck, Baby, you're gonna kill me."

She just smiled.

If she kept this up, this was going to last as long as their first disastrous encounter had. He needed a little more control.

He flipped them over and got her onto her stomach. He pulled her up on her knees. He got behind her and found her wet opening then slid into Heaven. He spread his knees to get some stability, then pulled her up onto her knees with him. One arm wrapped around her waist and the other hand found her nipple.

"You like that, Baby?" he asked her, softly.

"Oh, god, Braden. It's just- unghaa" her words dissolved into a moan. He used his hips to slide in and out of her, not letting her ride him even though she kept trying to take the lead.

He grabbed a pillow and dropped it onto the bed in front of her knees. He laid a hand on her back to urge her down. She went, now lying with her hips raised on the pillow. He was still inside her.

He leaned down on top of her and grabbed her hands. He laced their fingers together and held on tight as he angled his hips and pushed in deeper than he had been before.

"Oh – oh – oh, please, Braden-"

"Please, what, Kaelyn; what do you want?"

"I want – I want to come, please, please make me come," she was begging and it was a beautiful sound.

He pulled out of her and turned her again. He laid her on her side with her bottom leg straight down and bent her top leg so that he could kneel with a knee on either side of the straight leg. He entered her and wrapped the bent leg around his hip.

He could get inside the farthest like this. Be so far inside they wouldn't know where she stopped and he started. He started to move and she arched and pushed down into him, her leg curling around him, bringing him closer.

He leaned down, supporting his weight with his hands. Looked down at this woman he loved more than he ever though possible, but he couldn't tell her that. Because she wasn't ready for that kind of commitment yet. She'd been hurt too badly. So this would have to do.

She twisted slightly and looked up into his face. That did it. They both screamed out for each other, for God, for all that had gone into filling up this space inside of them they thought could never be filled.

When he began to breathe again, he pulled out of her, missing her body already. He fell to her side and pulled her face to his for a kiss. She was breathing heavy, trying to catch her breath.

Braden tried again to find the words to tell her how he felt. Words that wouldn't scare her or make her feel pressured. None came.

Instead, he pulled her close to him, pulling her to lie at his side, her head cradled on his chest. Then he turned to face her and moved down her body, until his arms were around her waist and his head was at her breast; he suckled her until she fell asleep.

The next day they walked around Home Depot picking up supplies to re-do his bathroom. Kaelyn was lost in thought and he figured it would be best to just give her time to figure out what she wanted to say so he didn't push it.

They disagreed about the accent colour for the tile. The main part of the wall would be grey but he thought the accent tile should be navy blue. She thought it should be dark green to match his bedroom since the bathroom was attached to the bedroom.

But it’s a completely separate room, he argued. Bath'room' – Bed'room' Each had their own room spelled out right in the name, they were two completely different rooms, they didn't have to match.

She just shook her head and looked at him like he was an idiot.

"You're an architect, Braden, you're not an interior designer. The reason you design buildings instead of decorate them is because you're a little boy who doesn't know what he wants so you're just wasting time playing house instead of moving on with your life."

She walked away.

Okay, he was absolutely sure that didn't make sense but he looked at the couple standing near him in the aisle to confirm it and they nodded.

He went after her.

"What the hell was that all about?"

"I can't do this anymore, Braden," she sighed.

He shook his head. "You don't want to help me re-do my bathroom?" He asked it as a question because he was pretty sure that wasn't it – but since he didn't know what it was, he was grasping at straws.

She turned and looked at him, eyes accusing. "What was that last night, huh? It was like being hit by a tsunami. You tell me you need someone to have sex with, so I have sex with you. But then it's not just sex, you want me to bare my soul to you and tell you things I haven't even discovered about myself yet! You want me to be intimate and open with you won't even kiss me!"

Bingo! There it was, now he knew what was wrong with her. But she didn't stop once he was clued in.

"And then last night, I relent. I admit to being human, I admit to having urges and I agree to your proposal of "It's just sex, right?'"

And problem number two jumps into the ring for a tag team match!

"And then you come at me and just make it all so perfect. You played me last night, Braden and I don't appreciate it one bit!"

It took him this long to notice they had an audience, but apparently that detail still escaped Kaelyn.

"I've had it. I'm not doing this anymore, Braden. Go peddle your kink to someone else. You said it yourself, I'm a good girl. Yes, I'm finding that there are some – different things I may want to explore, but I want to do that with someone who loves me. Someone who wants to be with me, not just someone who has an itch he needs scratching. I can't do – I don't want to do casual sex anymore! I'm not made that way."

"Casual? Casual??" His voice was louder than he'd intended, but he couldn't believe she could be that dense. Did she honestly believe that? Of course she did, she wasn't the type to lie about something like this.

"Kaelyn," he screamed - so loud that people came over from other aisles to see what was going on - "The very first time I touched you, you had me spilling my guts, worshipping your tits and telling you I wanted you to be the mother of my children! There's been nothing CASUAL about one single part of this, Kaelyn!"

She turned around and walked away and he was too angry to follow her.

She went to Suki's and cried. He went home and got drunk. Suki tried to convince Kaelyn that Braden really did love her, but she wouldn't listen.

Kaelyn went home before midnight and Suki really wasn't surprised when Braden turned up at her door before noon the next day looking like was Atlas, holding up the weight of the world.

"Come on in, you missed your girlfriend by about twelve hours."

He sank down in one of her big overstuffed chairs and she went to the kitchen and got him a drink.

"Here," she told him as she handed him the glass, "You look like you need this." He sniffed it, it smelled spicy and strong. And kind of like turpentine.

"What is it?"

"My friend Eddie's moonshine, guaranteed to make you unconscious in three sips or less."

He swallowed it in one gulp and was asleep before he finished his first sentence.

Kaelyn spent her Sunday confessing her sins to Mary, telling her about the "deal" that she and Braden had cooked up and why.

Mary knew Braden better than any of them and Kaelyn was hoping to get a line on why his actions seemed so confusing.

Mary couldn't help her with that. Men were basically mystifying to her and she usually got rid of them before the relationship got to the stage requiring any delving into their psyches.

Braden was, however, a good guy, according to Mary. He'd been so bad as a kid because his parents coddled him and treated him with love and affection and he'd felt the need to completely rebel against that once he hit puberty. Mary told her that Braden once confessed, over stolen barbequed chicken that they'd shared in his old tree house, that they reason he dated so many girls is because they just kept offering and if they were going to offer, he was more than happy to oblige them. He'd never had to chase after a girl in his life.

He'd lost his virginity in the basement of his church when he was fifteen – during Sunday morning services.

Kaelyn had no problem believing that. He seemed to take to kink like a baby to its mother's breast.

That was a really bad analogy.

Mary teased her and wanted to know why she was smiling and turning red but Kaelyn just urged her to go on.

None of the girls he'd ever "dated" ended up pregnant or came back at him saying he'd lied to them about his motives. He'd told Mary a long time ago, while they were still in high school and his still-virginal cousin was living vicariously through him, to never believe a guy's line. He'd said that most guys are so desperate for it that they'll tell you absolutely anything they think you want to hear in order to trick you into having sex with them.

Kaelyn harrumphed over that.

"What?" Mary asked.

Kaelyn just rolled her eyes, "That's one technique that didn't get rusty over the years."

Mary punched Kaelyn in the arm – hard.

As Kaelyn grabbed her sore arm and took a couple of steps back, Mary rounded on her. "Don't you get it, Kaelyn? Haven't you been paying attention? Braden is not like that! Braden is not every other guy with a line! Braden never lied, he never cheated, he never broke a promise! Braden is not Danny! If he said something to you, he meant it, every word. Braden is a decent guy who fell in love once, just once, and the bitch took his heart and threw it back at him. He was so broken he left six years work toward his masters without a second glance and came crawling back here where everyone still thought he was Braden Scott, high-school bad-boy sex-god.

"And did he take advantage of that by bedding every woman he could find? No. Did he start treating women like sex objects because one woman had proved she wasn't worthy? No. Did he sit in a hole for a year and a half and let the world go by without him until somebody finally managed to break through the din and put a crack in the armour he built around his heart? Yes, Kaelyn, he did. He let you in. He let you see him, warts and all. He showed you his soul and he offered to keep yours safe if you'd let him. And what did you do? You told him it was all 'casual'. Think about it, Kaelyn, really really think about it! No, he didn't say he loved you, he didn't say the words. But he showed you. Every word of what you told me made me want to cry for him. For HIM, Kaelyn, not for you. You, I want to slap! Now get out of here before I say something I can't take back."

Had she really been so stupid?

Suki said she had. Mary said she had. She walked around and went back over every word, every gesture.

Yeah, she probably had. Maybe.

But if he loved her, why couldn't he just say so?

She went to his apartment but he wasn't there, so she left him a note saying she had to talk to him and went back to her place. He wasn't there either. She hit the button on the answering machine, hoping the blinking light meant that he'd called.

"Hi, girl," came Suki's voice and she sighed, wondering where she could look now. The answering machine went on. "Tall, blond and dreamy showed up here a couple of hours ago looking like you'd ripped his heart out and force fed it to him for breakfast. I gave him some moonshine and he fell asleep before he could confess his undying love. Since he was probably going to confess his love for you – not me – I figured he was better off getting some rest. He's here, asleep on the floor in my living room, any time you want to come get him."

Kaelyn left so fast she forgot her purse.

He woke slowly, feeling like he'd died and someone forgot to tell him. He pulled Kaelyn closer and tried to go back to sleep.

Kaelyn.

He was pretty sure she shouldn't be here – unless that had all been a dream. No, he knew it had happened it all its gory Home Depot detail.

"Kaelyn?"

She turned in his arms and smiled at him. It was dark, but not black, there was light coming from somewhere.

"What time is it?" his voice cracked and she giggled.

"About three am."

He knew he wasn't in a bed, but he couldn't remember falling asleep.

"Where are we?"

"Suki's. Don't you remember?"

No, he really didn't.

"Um, no. What did I do?"

She turned in his arms and gave him a broad smile. "You made mad, passionate love to me and confessed your undying devotion."

He stopped and thought. "Today?" he asked, because he really was drawing a complete blank here.

She laughed and sat up. "That's what they've been telling me anyway." She sighed. "I'm sorry, Braden, and I think we really need to talk."

He sat up as well, it was a little difficult. He felt like he was moving through hot fudge.

"Can I take a shower first?"

She stood and offered him a hand up. "Sure, your place or mine?"

He thought about it. "Since yours is yours and mine is ours, let's go to mine."

She agreed but it took her several seconds silent contemplation after her agreement to figure out what she'd agreed to.

"Oh!" she said happily when she'd figured it out and they left.

~

She looked around the apartment and considered what he'd said while he was in the shower. It wasn't just bare white walls anymore. They'd made it into a home. They'd done the work and bought the furniture and it was as much her taste as it was his. Muted colours and warm woods, accent pieces and attention to detail that no heterosexual man would ever have thought of himself.

She sat on the sofa. Her sofa, since it had been her choice. He'd wanted the black one but she thought the caramel coloured leather would be warmer, more inviting. And he'd given in. Smiled that spine-melting smile and told her to buy what she liked.

God, she really had been stupid!

He'd been telling her, giving her signs and she'd completely missed all of it.

She was sitting with her head in her hands, contemplating her folly when he came back into the room, pulling a t-shirt over his head.

"Headache?" he asked softly.

"Yes," she told him, sitting back and looking at him. "And I'm really sorry I've been one. I didn't mean to be. Sometimes, you just have to hit me over the head with a brick, I'm that dense."

He smiled, but it didn't look like he meant it. He sat at the other end of the couch and faced her.

He blew out a breath.

"Kaelyn, I don't know what I'm supposed to say here. I didn't get a script for this one and I don't even know the plot. I thought I was being obvious; I thought I was being honest. I told you how I felt, I told you what I wanted from you. I told you that you could trust me and that I wanted to know you, wanted to know the stuff that you don't tell anyone except the one person in the world who's earned it. I thought I had. I never lied to you. I let you in even when my heart told me I was a fool to try again with somebody else after falling on my face the first time. I gave you secrets I never gave anyone, hell, I hadn't admitted half of them to myself and I handed them over to you without a second thought."

She tried to interrupt but he didn't let her.

"What did you think? That I was handing you a line just to get in your pants? My days of debauchery may be far behind me but I haven't forgotten how. If all I wanted was to get laid, I could have gone to a hundred other women who wouldn't have given me a thousandth of the trouble I had with you. I realise I may have done a little verbal manipulation to get you to see me as something other than just a friend, but I knew you weren't ready yet. I knew you needed time to get over what Danny did to you and I was trying to offer up myself in any way you'd have me. I was willing to wait but I wasn't going to be intimate with you and pretend it was just scratching an itch. I don't know about you, but I made myself naked in front of you, Kaelyn and I'm not talking about my body. I showed you everything I had and you still seem to think…"

He stood up and walked over to the window and watched the coming dawn. "Hell, I don't know what you think."

Kaelyn couldn't have moved from her seat if you'd put a gun to her head. What more could he have done? Maybe a dozen roses? That was nothing compared to what he'd given her and she'd been too blind to see it.

"I told you I was dense," she offered as an excuse. He didn't move. She cleared her throat.

"Braden, all I can say is I didn't know. Danny had been – and I'm sorry, I know this sounds like a pathetic excuse, but he's all I know, he's my only experience before you – Danny had always put his arms around me and hugged me and told me he loved me."

"Is that all? Anybody can do that, Kaelyn." He was still looking out the window. He didn't raise his voice, but every word he said sounded like it was being ripped out of him.

"You were with him for seven years, Kaelyn – seven fucking years. Tell me he was as intimate with you as I was. Tell me he took you to the depths that I did. Tell me he let you into his gut; tell me he was the most visceral man you've ever known or so help me God I'll -." He couldn't finish. He didn't know what he'd do. He wanted to believe Danny had given her all of that so that he could tell himself that he'd screwed up by not saying 'I love you'.

But he knew it wasn't true. Danny had never given her anything of himself. He'd said a few token words and that was all it had taken for Kaelyn to think he'd be with her forever.

He stopped thinking because she was moving. He didn't turn around, even when he heard the door close behind her.

That was his Kaelyn. Running away again.

She ran away to her dad's and stayed for a week; she almost lost her job. She managed to convince them it was a family emergency.

When she got back, she spent most evenings sitting at her bedroom window looking out at the parking lot, watching Braden lean against his motorcycle and smoke.

He smoked and watched her watch him. He'd never chain smoked so much in his life. If he got cancer, he was blaming her.

Surprisingly, they both slept really well at night.

He'd spent the week while she was gone being angry. Bethany had tried to talk to him, his parents had called and called and his mother brought him dinner every night just to spy on him and try to get him to confide in her about what he'd done to Kaelyn. Mary had left a message on his machine saying, "I told her she was being an idiot. Please don't make me have to say the same thing to you."

It took him a week to be able to talk about it because as long as Kaelyn was gone, he was lost. Even if she hated him, as long as she was still there, as long as he could see her, he felt better.

He'd been hurt that she ran away. Even more hurt than he had been by Maggie's lies. He knew Kaelyn was naïve when it came to relationships, he knew at the time that she wasn't going to understand what he was trying to say. But he couldn't seem to be able to just form the words and say it out loud. Even now.

She got back on Sunday night. He'd been out in the parking lot smoking. He spent a lot of his time out there while she was gone. She'd gotten out of her car and pointedly ignored his gaze until she hit the sidewalk. Then she turned to look at him and seemed to be waiting for something. He had no idea what. Then she'd smiled, winked at him and walked away. Winked! As if that could make everything better.

It almost did.

~

She really should have known he'd be there when she got back. At first, she was so nervous she didn't want to get out of the car. When she decided that she'd have to whether she wanted to or not, she started walking as fast as she could just so she wouldn't have to see his face.

But that was running away. And Aunt Lucy said she shouldn't run away from him.

Unlike Mary and Suki, her family had been very understanding of her actions - or lack thereof - when it came to Braden. They knew she hated confrontations. They knew her, knew she had always been content to go with the status quo as long as it meant she could avoid an argument.

But it was just that attitude that had put her life on hold while Danny flip-flopped about his feelings for her. She'd been too afraid of confrontations to put up much of a fight when Danny would tell her they should see other people and then change his mind a month later and say that he'd made a mistake and they were meant to be together. Only to change it again six months later.

Danny was always there with flowers and 'I love you's and the sorrowful eyes that made her forgive him.

He'd used her. And she'd let him. It had taken her a few days but she finally figured out, with her father's help, that the reason she'd put up with Danny's antics for so long is because she hadn't been ready for something more. She hadn't been ready for a day-to-day, in your face relationship that was messy and real.

With Danny, she'd been treading water. She'd spent so much time trying to get over a relationship she hadn't worked very hard at keeping. Shouldn't that have told her something?

Her father asked her why she had gone up to Braden that first night. Why had she asked him to hold her hand? Why him? There had to have been other single men in the room. Braden Scott was the boy who intimidated her in high school. She'd mooned over him yes, but she'd also been a little afraid of him.

So why did she pick him that night?

Her father said it was because she saw the other half of herself. Because there was this hole in her and it was the size and shape of Braden Scott and something in her heart knew that.

He hadn't been surprised when Kaelyn confessed that they'd slept – slept slept – together that first night. He'd told her that should have been her first clue. She'd never invited a virtual stranger into her home and her bedroom and her life before. And yet she felt completely peaceful when she did. Because it was right.

She'd glossed over the steamier moments – okay, she'd glossed over the whole thing – but she told her father and Aunt Lucy that they had made love three times and every time Braden would talk to her and try to get her to open up and show something of herself to him. She'd told them what he'd said about keeping her secrets safe.

Aunt Lucy had harrumphed over that. She'd said it wasn't fair of Braden to have expected that level of intimacy that soon in their relationship. Trust had be earned, over time. It couldn't be pushed. Aunt Lucy had said that Braden had come after her like a hunter going after a rabbit with a Panzer and if they were having troubles now then it was his own damn fault for having the subtlety of a brick.

Both Aunt Lucy and her father agreed that if he loved her, and they believed that he did, then he would wait for her. Kaelyn needed time to accept it, to take it all in and make it part of her. They urged her to be sure, very sure, before she went back to him. Because her going back to him was a given in their opinion, if he didn't give in and come to her first.

So she hadn't run away when she saw him in the parking lot. But she hadn't been brave enough to say anything either. She thought maybe she should apologise; but then thought of her aunt's Panzer analogy. Maybe he should apologise to her. If only there was a way they could both apologise at the same time.

That was what made her smile. And the certainty that this would all work out in the end was what made her wink.

~

The wink had been his undoing. He wanted to scream at her that this was a serious life-or-death situation and flippancy would not win any arguments here! She'd been gone a week!

He'd gone back to his apartment furious, ready to spend several hours banging his head against the wall. The phone was ringing when he opened the door and at Bethany's "Any word yet?" greeting he'd fallen to his knees and told her that she was home, she was safe and apparently, she wasn't mad at him.

Bethany asked him if she should be. They spent the night talking and Bethany had cursed at him over and over again for being a complete moron.

She'd said women need reassurance and while subtlety was all well and good, everybody knew Ms. MacBrien had been in a relationship with a guy who cheated on her after being together for years and years. Bethany said any idiot would have known she wouldn't appreciate being manipulated after that.

Bethany accused him of using his old "smile and make them wet their panties" approach to women, figuring that after a while, Kaelyn would – like all the rest – just give in and come after him. He might have added a few fancy words but he'd never told her he wanted a relationship with her, not a long term one. Had he ever talked to her about marriage or kids or even their future a month from now? Had he ever given her any indication that any of it was more than just an arrangement between two best friends who were trying to help each other through the night?

Braden hung upon her.

God, she was right and he hated her for it. He'd convinced himself he was being so honest. He'd convinced himself that all his words about confiding their fantasies would make her see that he wanted her to tell him about everything in her life.

Kaelyn wasn't a player. She was a sweet girl who'd had one boyfriend and he'd used sex to try to get her to love him. Because that always works.

He'd sweet talked her into his bed and overwhelmed her with naughty words and vertical sex and expected her to just get it. To understand that someone who had a reputation for having sex with every girl he ever met wanted something different from her. Something more permanent. And he'd proved it by… having sex with her.

How could he have been so stupid?

One day on their way to work, Kaelyn and Suki literally ran into Braden on the steps. He'd apologised to Suki but stood in Kaelyn's way, never saying a word to her. Her eyes sparkled up at him.

His eyes sparkled right back down at her.

"Tell me you love me," she said, smiling.

He wanted to. Oh, how he wanted to. He smiled back, "No."

"You know you do," she teased.

"I'm not saying you're wrong," he teased back.

Suki laughed and pushed him out of the way, telling him they were going to be late for work. He watched them go, feeling like he was back in seventh grade.

God, she was fun.

They didn't speak again for almost two weeks. But they spent every night together, her in her bedroom, he in the parking lot.

The first night after she got back, he went to the parking lot for a smoke. It was the first time he'd ever been happy about the no smoking rules in his building. It gave him an excuse to see her window, if not her. But there she was, sitting at her window. She looked like she'd been expecting him.

She had been.

She knew he'd need to smoke sooner or later, so she'd perched at her window with a book and waited. She didn't know yet what she was going to say, but she was going to try. She'd missed him so much that she spent the first ten minutes just looking at him. He was actually here – or rather there. But there was only twenty feet away and he was sitting on his motorcycle just staring back at her. A couple of times he'd looked like he was going to say something, but then he stopped.

She kept searching her mind for something to say that wouldn't sound completely pathetic. Nothing came. At midnight, he pointed to his watch and went inside. She had to go to sleep too, they both had work in the morning.

The next night, she'd been sitting at the window trying to get the courage to go to his place and talk to him when he came out to his motorcycle with a pack of cigarettes, a beer and a book. She smiled. Looked like he was in it for the long haul. He smoked, read and drank. She read her book as well.

The third night they spent staring at each other again and it was one of the most erotic experiences of Kaelyn's life.

The fourth night, he was back to the book. The next night he was on his cell phone when he got to the parking lot. He sat and smoked and talked. And looked at her. Whoever he was talking to, he was talking about her. After about twenty minutes he stood and walked over to her window. She was so nervous she couldn't swallow.

Instead of saying anything, he held out the phone. She opened her screen and took it.

"He loves you, you know," Bethany said in her ear. "Even if he's too damn pig-headed to say it."

She smiled and talked to Bethany. When she was done, she handed back the phone.

The next night, he came to the parking lot carrying a stack of magazines. He opened one – it was Penthouse. She couldn't believe he was going to sit there and read, or rather look at, porn magazines when he was supposed to be… whatever it was they were doing. But they were doing it together, darn it and Penthouse just…

He got to the center and started ripping it up. He unfolded a trash bag and put the torn pieces into it. He pulled out another page and ripped that up as well. Into the trash bag it went. He went through the entire stack of magazines like that. It took him hours. Ripping out one page at a time.

So they spent their nights together. Unconventional yes, but satisfying in its own weird way.

He sold his motorcycle and bought a beat up old '68 Mustang that ran but needed a lot of work. He got his tools from his parents' garage and spent a lot of time in the parking lot working on it. He gave up smoking.

With the days getting hotter, he started going outside in the evenings with no shirt on.

He knew he was wearing her down.

He was out there one evening when she came out and got in her car, which was parked next to his.

She was dressed in a white sundress and strappy white high heeled sandals.

He wiped his greasy hands on a cloth and watched her get into her car. He gritted his teeth and forced himself not to ask where she was going.

After she drove away, he seethed.

She's dating?!

No, whatever that was, it wasn't a date. She wasn't made that way. She wouldn't be asking him for declarations of love and seeing another guy.

It was just no fun being out here working if she wasn't there with him, so he gathered his tools and headed back to his apartment. Taped to the door was a note.

I don't have a date. It's Tommy's birthday.

Scared ya, didn't I?

Kaelyn

He smiled. Yeah, for a second, she had. He laughed and went inside.

~

On the first free day after school ended, she got a delivery. She was on the phone with Lily when there was a knock on the door. She told her friend to hold on and opened the door to a man dressed in white coveralls. The embroidered emblem said Greenwood Dairies.

"Kaelyn MacBrien?" he asked.

She nodded. "Mr. Braden Scott has purchased a years supply of our fresh off the farm milk for you as a gift. Here is our brochure; if you'd like to order any of our special butters or ice creams, just call that number. It's all included with your gift. Your delivery days are Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Today is your first scheduled delivery, what would you like and I'll get it for you from the truck?"

She started laughing and couldn't stop. She really did love that man.

~

He must have purchased a years' supply of milk for himself as well. Greenwood Dairies' wonderfully tasty milk came in glass bottles and Braden had been forgoing his usual beer for a quart bottle of milk when he worked on his car after work every night.

She wasn't going to be able to last out this one, she could feel it.

Right between her legs.

Unbelievably, it wasn't the sight of Braden drinking his milk every night that was her final undoing.

It was Lily.

They were driving home from the movies and Lily mentioned that she was glad Kaelyn wasn't with Braden any more. Lily had never liked him and she thought Kaelyn was better off without him.

"Oh, we're still together," Kaelyn said absently, searching though her purse for her keys.

And it was true. They were still together. In spite of all of this, they were together. They hadn't spoken in three weeks, but they were still together. She smiled and silently urged Lily to drive faster. When they pulled into her parking lot, she threw her arms around Lily and thanked her for helping to make everything clear.

Wondering exactly what she had cleared up, Lily followed Kaelyn over to Braden's car. He was leaning over the hood, jeans filthy with dirt and oil. Kaelyn tapped him on the shoulder.

He smiled and stood up, turning to look at her. It was about time.

"I love you. Will you marry me?" she asked without warning or preamble.

His eyes bugged.

He pretended to think about it.

He shook his head and wrapped his arms around her.

"Fuck, Baby, you're gonna kill me. I love you too."

"Is that a yes?"

"Yes, that's a yes."


The End



©2005-2009 Kathleen Murphy

The End