Chapter Text
KEELEY
23:13 PM
Tell ms welton to hold off on the lawyers please xxx
Wait why?
What happened??
Are you guys ok? Is she doing ok?
Should I come over?
Hello?????
Jamie!!!!!
Don’t come over
Everythings fine
Nothing happened just idk if she needs a lawyer anymore thats all
I don’t like the sound of that
Tell me what happened
Talk to u later x
I hate you so much right now
01:11 AM
Wait why would she not NEED a lawyer anymore
She only needed one because the reporter lied about you guys being together
Why would that have changed?
She didn’t take down the articles yet
WAIT
ANSWER YOUR PHONE !!!
THIS IS HOW YOU TELL ME
HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME
TELL ME EVERYTHING!!!!
omg I can’t believe this
I’m soooo HAPPY for you
Even though you tried to not tell me the news
We’ll talk soon
All 3 of us 😉😘
01:14 AM
I told you so btw
06:15 AM
What the fuck how do u even do that
Dont say nothing to her yet though
Weve barely talked about it
I don’t wanna fuck it up by having other people know if she dont want that yet
06:17 AM
Please
If she managed to forgive you for being the worst boyfriend on the
planet and breaking her heart I’m sure this will be a non-issue
06:18 AM
Do u ever sleep
Also. rude and unnecessary right now
06:19 AM
Not since u actually fucked the girl you’ve been dramatically rumored to have been dating and made my like a million times more complicated
I love you both
But now I have to think of a way to explain that the two of you were not dating,
then an article got printed saying you were together and
you fucked up the press conference denying it, and only after that did you start dating.
A way that doesn’t make me sound criminally insane btw
Sorry
If it makes u feel any better were staying in for a day or two
No press no pictures
Also we didn’t fuck
Not technically
Don’t ask for deets im not sharing
AAAHHHH FINALLY JAMIE
Deets now !!
Ugh fine 🙄
She can tell me herself when we talk
That’s fine
I got nothing to be embarrassed about
Gross
Gtg she’s waking up
Talk later and please don’t come over today xx
Aw that’s sweet
…message received geez
Alright we’ll talk soon xx
Tell her I said hi though and to call me if she needs anything
Wait
Are you gonna be like a good boyfriend now
You wake up slowly, and the first thing you notice is how warm you are. You usually wake up slightly chilly, the draftiness of your bedroom window revealing itself too strongly in the cold morning air, but today—you wake up and feel overly warm, nearly tacky with sweat covering your arms and chest. You grunt and try to roll over, try to kick the comforter off of you and check what time it is, and are forcibly stopped from moving by a heavy weight across your waist and over your back.
You still and open your eyes, unsure of what your next step would even be when you saw what was covering you, and immediately relax when you realize it’s just Jamie, just Jamie’s arm slung over your waist and snaking up your back, Jamie’s bodyweight keeping you in place and nothing else. You sigh deeply and cozy up closer to Jamie, still half asleep as you bury your face deeper into his chest and wrap your arms around his back, effectively molding yourself to him, no part of your bodies separate from each other as you swing one of your legs to rest over his. You relax further in Jamie’s hold on you as you feel him tilt his head towards yours and press a kiss into your scalp, as he breathes in the scent of your shampoo and hair oil and you, as he tilts his body just enough so you’re mostly laying on top of him now, not so much hugging his entire left side, so it’s easier for you to wrap your arms fully around his back and fall back asleep on his chest.
“Why’re you so hot?” You mumble into his chest, unsure if you’ve actually voiced your question, if Jamie will be able to make sense of your words even if you did. You’re still so tired, and Jamie is so warm, and comfortable, and it all feels too good to give up, to drag yourself out of the vines of sleep and face the day again instead of resting half-awake with Jamie. Even if that day includes Jamie loving you, even if it includes ironing out the details of your sudden confession and relationship, you aren’t ready to give this up yet, aren’t ready to lose this time with Jamie in favor of anything else.
“Just lucky, I guess.” Jamie whispers against your temple, and if you were any more coherent and the promise of sleep wasn’t tempting you further and further away with every passing second, you would scoff and give him a healthy shove. Instead, disgustingly overcome with love and affection for Jamie, you just sigh and tighten your arms around his back, slide your leg further up his hip to rest more fully against him.
“No, you’re...like a fucking furnace, Jamie.” You try to tell him, but you’re losing the thread of consciousness with each word, struggling to fight of the sleep that’s calling your name so sweetly. Maybe you do want to wake up, maybe you do want to talk with Jamie and savor this moment more fully, take in more of this moment other than how safe you feel and how warm Jamie is making you. Maybe you should have made more of an effort to wake up, done something other than smother Jamie with your body, but it’s too late now.
“Oh.” You feel the pause Jamie takes with his body before he settles again, before he moves one of his hands off your back and onto the back of your head, holding you there instead. He moves the hand that’s still on your back to your waist next, wrapping his arm around your lower back and pressing you tight against his body with a hand firmly on the curve of your waist, keeping you close to his body as you do the same to him. It’s nice, feeling him hold your waist, feeling him shift his hold on you to find the best way to keep you close. “I run hot, usually sleep without pants on.”
You accept that for a second, and just as you’re succumbing to the pull of sleep once more, you realize that Jamie means he usually sleeps without his underwear, which would probably also include your definition of pants as well. You try to add this to the mental list of things you want to talk to him about once you wake up again, the ever-growing and changing list you’ve had running since you kissed Jamie last night, and hope you remember when you wake up next time.
KEELEY
07:02 AM
She fell back asleep
Is it too much to ask for good news yet
At least she was up for a little bit, yeah?
Managed to have a little pillow talk 😉
No
She fell back asleep like right away
I’ve just been watching her sleep
I feel a little creepy
But I can’t stop looking at her
Yes, but luckily for you I have some
WOW
Forget good news for a second
Let’s talk about that
No c’mon tell me
So I can tell her later
Fine
You’re torturing me with all this info and then not sharing btw
But I ignored your stupid request last night and didn’t tell Rebecca about the lawyers
So she and a few of them put together this big scary summons or court filing idk
And when the reporter saw it this morning she responded right away
and said she would discuss taking down the articles with her editor
So good news!!
Rebecca said they would probs get taken down in a day or two
And that the reporter was young and new and scared shitless by the lawyers lol
Nice
Gtg xx thx again
Of course xx anything for you guys
Right
Back to your love nest and sex fest with the girl of your dreams
While SOME of us work all day and night to fix your life
(still happy for you btw x)
The next time you wake up, your body is more prepared for it, more willing to accept an end to your sleep cycle than it was before. You crack open your eyes and are greeted with the blurry sight of Jamie’s neck, until you blink your eyes a few more times and realize that you’re still laying on top of Jamie, your face buried in his neck and your arms still tangled up behind his back. Jamie is still holding you around your waist, fingertips pressing into the skin there with just enough pressure to make your skin buzz pleasantly, to make you hide your poorly concealed smile into the skin of Jamie’s neck at the gesture. You take a deep inhale to clear your mind a little bit more and are hit with the overwhelming smell of Jamie, his detergent and cocoa butter lotion and the lingering smell of his body spray, and barely resist the urge to do it again, to flood your senses with Jamie and the comfort that provides you.
You know Jamie can tell that you’re awake again. You can also tell that he’s awake, through the real grip he’s maintaining around your waist, through the steady rise and fall of his chest, and through the barely hidden smirk he’s pressing into your temple. “Are you sniffing me?”
“No.” You deny immediately, but it’s obviously a lie, and you don’t even know why you’re lying about it. It would be nice to hold onto some shred of dignity, you suppose, once the day continues and you’re stripped bare in front of Jamie once again, when you inevitably embarrass yourself in far greater ways as you come to terms with the fact that Jamie loves you again. You’re helpless to stop the smile that breaks out onto your face at the thought, at the ever-constant reminder buzzing around in your mind now, that Jamie loves you, that he wants you, that you get to have him forever this time. You don’t bother trying to hide your smile, don’t try to shift your head out of Jamie’s neck or dim your grin, let it take over your face and let Jamie feel it against his skin, let the content and happy feelings flood your body once and for all.
“My mistake.” Jamie says, flexing his fingers against your waist, laughter clearly present in his voice. “Must be some other girl obsessed with me enough to sniff me first thing in the morning.”
“I’m not obsessed with you.” You scoff, taking your arms from behind Jamie’s back and pushing yourself into a sitting position. Jamie’s arm falls off your waist and against your thigh, and he’s quick to move both of his hands to your hips, thumbs pressing into where your thigh meets your hip. You gape at Jamie for a second, blink at his smug expression and the cocky smirk he’s suddenly sporting, all the words you had built up in your defense escaping you as soon as you realize the situation you’ve created for yourself, as soon as you realize that once you sat up from Jamie’s chest, you never moved your lower body, so you’re basically…straddling him right now. You’re nearly sitting in his lap and your thighs are basically bracketing his upper body, looming over Jamie as he holds you at your hips, as he stares up at you without an ounce of complaint in his eyes.
“You were saying?” Jamie asks you, tilting his head at you against his pillow, his smirk only growing as you continue to stare at him, as you continue to be at a loss for words, as he slowly strokes his thumbs over your borrowed sweatpants, where the fold of skin where your hip and thigh meet would be. You want to kiss the smirk off his face. You want to lean down and grab him and kiss him stupid, kiss him silent and as overwhelmed as you feel right now, kiss him until you have the metaphorical upper hand and can smirk down at him.
But he looks…he’s so beautiful, like this, gazing up at you with a clear shine of happiness in his eyes, none of his joy dulled by the smug expression he’s got painted on, none of his love for you getting outshined by his hands on you and the proud, triumphant look on his face.
He loves you so much. He loves you enough to nearly bring you to tears, to nearly strip you of the playful feeling that was growing inside your chest, to expose you down to the bones without an ounce of worry, because you know he loves you enough to treat you gently, to not give you any reason to fear being that exposed. He loves you so much, and you don’t know how you missed it all, don’t know how you were so blinded by your own pain and avoidance to miss it, to miss the love he was mirroring in you all along. Jamie loves you so much, you don’t know what you’re supposed to do with it all, don’t know where all his love for you will live inside of you, don’t know how you’ll contain and hold and carry it all without bursting, without collapsing underneath it all.
You’re wearing Jamie’s sweatpants and hoodie. You’re sitting in Jamie’s lap. You’re letting Jamie hold you at your hips, possessive and greedy with his touch and his gaze. You love him. He loves you. You’re lovingly suffering Jamie’s cockiness for the twisty feeling it creates in your belly, for the shy smile you know it creates on your own face. You’re watching Jamie’s eyes soften with each passing second, softening the longer you don’t continue the joke and the longer you stare down at him in return. You’re not going to stop any of it. You like it, you like all of it, you like it all too much and would give up everything if it meant you could wake up like this every morning, if it meant that Jamie would keep looking at you like this for the rest of your life.
But you don’t have to give up anything to keep this, to keep Jamie, because he’s a sure thing now. Because he loves you and you love him. Because you’re going to spend the rest of your life with each other, no matter what that means, no matter what obstacles come your way, no matter what hurdles you have to overcome. Because this is the first morning of the rest of your life, and you can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings you too.
“I love you.” You whisper instead of telling Jamie the plethora of reasons why you’re not obsessed with him, voice suddenly hoarse with emotion, with the thin layer of tears you’re keeping at bay. You love him, and that’s something you can tell him now, something you can say and think and believe without fear, without worry, without the grief that it will never be returned, something you can say to Jamie and know that he feels the exact same way.
The cocky and smug expression on Jamie’s face is effectively squashed with a dazed look, eyes widening and bouncing around your face as a small, gentle smile pulls up the corners of his mouth, and you’re proud to say you only squeak a little bit when Jamie suddenly sits up in one motion and takes either side of your face in his hands. He’s gentle about it, but you can still feel the need and want in how his palms press into your cheeks, in how his fingertips hold the back of your skull. You stabilize yourself with two hands on the outside of Jamie’s shoulders as you slightly slide forward in his lap after he sat up, stare into Jamie’s eyes as butterflies grow in your stomach, as your heart pounds against your chest with eager anticipation and pointless nerves.
“Gimme a kiss.” Jamie whispers against your lips a moment before he kisses you anyways. There’s no great buildup this time, no tension or grief to break through to get to this kiss, no burden to overcome or dismiss as you press your lips against Jamie’s, as Jamie gently presses a kiss against your lips. You sigh into the kiss, sinking your body further into Jamie’s when Jamie shifts one of his hands to hold your jaw instead, when he starts to stroke your jaw with his thumb in such a tender and loving way it almost undoes you right then and there. You move your hands from Jamie’s shoulders to his neck, gently holding him as he takes you apart with the barest motions, with the softest and slowest kiss you’ve ever had to endure, with a kiss so sure and familiar you might think it was a different morning, a morning lost in time that the two of you somehow managed to stumble into once again.
You pull back first, keeping your eyes closed as you rest your forehead against Jamie’s with a shaky inhale, gathering yourself from the sudden swell of emotion that’s starting to overtake you again, the relief of love and a lifetime together nearly drowning you, the crushing joy you feel in Jamie’s arms nearly suffocating you. You feel Jamie slide his hand off your jaw and place it back on your cheek, stroking his thumbs against your cheekbones as you compose yourself, as you convince yourself that this is your life now, that this is actually something you get to have, that Jamie wants this just as much as you do.
“Tell me again. Please.” Jamie whispers against your lips, tone nearly pleading in its intensity, and the corners of your mouth pick up in a barely there, disbelieving smile as you finally open your eyes and pull back from Jamie’s forehead.
“I love you, Jamie.” You say without hesitation. You tilt your head slightly at him as you do, staring at him more closely as you speak, stroke your thumb over his Adam’s apple as he seems to shudder underneath your words, as his expression seems to tremor as you stare at him and confess your love to him again. You don’t really like that, don’t enjoy the sinking feeling it brings about in your stomach knowing that some part of Jamie can’t…can’t fully believe in your words without any pain, so you try again.
“I’m—I’m stupidly in love with you, Jamie.” You repeat yourself, tilting Jamie’s head up with each of your thumbs, the rest of your fingers still gently wrapped around his neck while your thumbs tilt his chin up, tilt his gaze upwards toward you again. You try and offer him an embarrassed, indulgent smile, but you can tell it doesn’t land right, comes out wobbly and awkward with the emotion still boiling underneath the surface of your skin. “You’re all I’ve been able to think about for months. I—I would wake up and I would want you next to me as soon as I opened my eyes, I would be on my way home from work and all I could think about was how I wanted to tell you about every second of my day, how I wanted to hear about every piece of your day just as badly. You—you would come over to my apartment and I would have to force myself to let you go home at the end of the night, but I’d still think about what we would do if you stayed—”
Jamie tugs you into another kiss, and all you can think is thank god as your embarrassing babbling is cut off and you get to kiss Jamie again. This kiss is deeper than your first one, more desperate and greedy than the soft resolution Jamie was pressing into your mouth before, nearly engulfing each other as you each try to show each other how much you love the other, as you both try to press the enormity of your feelings into a single kiss, as you’re both too eager and willing to pick up the pace a little.
“Tell me more ways you’re madly in love with me.” Jamie says against your lips, taking his hands off your face and putting them back on your hips, his thumbs stroking along your thighs again. You glance down at your legs, at his hands on you, at your thighs still surrounding Jamie’s body, and assume he likes it, likes you in his lap, if he keeps reaching for you, if he takes every opportunity he can to touch you on your hips and thighs. You bite your lower lip as you process that, as you consider the fact that you like it too, that you like that Jamie likes you in his lap, and force yourself not to squirm in Jamie’s lap and derail the entire morning.
You also know that Jamie is mostly joking in his request, that he doesn’t need you to tell him any more of your most protected thoughts about him, but the more you think about it, the more you want to, the more you want to unburden yourself of these thoughts once and for all, the more you want to share them with Jamie. The more you want to share them with the person they’re meant for, the more you want to share them with the one person who could understand your embarrassing fantasies and thoughts. You slide your hands off Jamie’s neck and down his chest, still looking down at where your bodies connect on Jamie’s lap, and start to fiddle with the hem of Jamie’s sleep shirt as you speak. You may want to tell Jamie all of this, may be prepared and ready to share things like this with him now, but it doesn’t mean you can look at him while you do it, doesn’t mean you’re successful in fighting back the pointless embarrassment you feel when you peel back this layer of yourself for Jamie.
“When…when you would drive me home, I would wish for every light we hit to be red so I could spend a few more minutes with you, in the end.” You whisper, feeling braver in your admissions when Jamie’s hands reflexively squeeze on your hips, when he tugs you closer in his lap and against his chest and doesn’t let you go far, not that you would have wanted to anyways. “I look for you first in every room I know you’re going to be in, just to get a glimpse of you and know where you are. I would imagine…I would think about you taking care of me, like—like taking my makeup off after a night out or carrying me on your back if my feet hurt from my heels, that I would really like it if you did all that and then got in bed with me—”
“You…” Jamie interrupts you, even as he trails off immediately afterwards, even as he seems at a loss for words when you feel like you’re finally bursting with them, stuffed to the brim with all your thoughts and feelings and fantasies that finally have somewhere to go, finally have an outlet that you know wants to receive them in endless quantities. “You drive me fucking crazy, you have no idea.” Jamie breathes out, exhaling slowly as he adjusts his hands on your hips again, as he runs his hands up your hips and to the dip of your waist before returning to grip your hips in a possessive way, repeating the gesture over and over until you feel like you might burst into flames, until you can’t stand to watch his hands move on you that way without doing anything about it.
“I think I might.” You huff out an amused laugh as you drop the hem of Jamie’s shirt and still his hands on your hips with your own, twisting your hands to cover Jamie’s on your hips, preventing him from riling you up anymore. You finally look up at him from under your eyelashes, pushing your mouth to the side in a poorly suppressed smile as Jamie realizes why you stopped him, as you watch the realization fold onto Jamie’s face between one blink and the next that he was basically feeling you up in the middle of your conversation.
“What else did you think about me?” Jamie asks, not looking at all embarrassed or ashamed of what he was doing, but why would he need to be, really? You know he…wants you, and he knows that you know he wants you, so there isn’t really anything to be embarrassed about, except for the fact that if it was you that got caught out unknowingly feeling Jamie up, you might shed a layer of skin with how deep your embarrassed flush would spread.
“I don’t think about you that much.” You say, but it’s a lie, because you could fill an entire book with all the thoughts you’ve had about Jamie these last few months, all the thoughts you’ve had about him spanning your entire life, you could spend the entire day telling Jamie about every fantasy and dream you’ve ever had about him and still not make a dent in either, still have countless more fantasies to share with him and get lost in all over again. You still want to share these things with Jamie, still want to give him everything he wants, so despite your denial, your next sentence is another fantasy, another desire you built up in your head. “I would think about you touching me.”
Jamie tightens his hands on your hips once more as he sucks in a desperate breath though his nose, and once you look up at Jamie and realize what you just said, once you see the mistaken thought take root and run wild and overgrown in Jamie’s mind, it’s too late, but you try anyways. “I meant—not for sex, well I—I did think about us having sex, but I meant—I meant sweet…touching. Like you holding my hand or something.” You close your eyes in shame immediately after you’re done explaining yourself, and for good measure cover your face with your hands, sure it’s doing nothing to hide the burning you can feel building underneath your skin already, to hide your fumbling embarrassment from Jamie.
“I want to hold your hand too.” Jamie suddenly says, and you can’t help but let a few beats of laughter escape you at that, can’t help but feel a swell of emotion build behind your eyes at how sweet and nice Jamie is being to you right now, when all you want to do is be swallowed up by the Earth to spare you the mortification. You spread your fingers covering your eyes just enough to peek through them at Jamie, to see his deeply amused smile and scrunched up eyes, and think that maybe it isn’t so bad, to embarrass yourself in front of Jamie, if he looks at you like that in the end.
“You know what I mean.” You mumble into your hands before dropping them, before deciding to act like someone who knows what they’re doing when they’re sitting in their boyfriend’s lap and sharing their secret fantasies with each other. “I just—I wanted you to treat me like your girlfriend, and that meant holding hands or laying my head in your lap or sleeping all wrapped up in each other. I wanted…I wanted a very domestic life with you, Jamie.”
“What?” You ask, when the silence drags on for too long after you’ve spoken, when you feel Jamie’s legs tense underneath you as he just stares up at you. You’re fairly confident that there’s nothing you could say that would push Jamie away at this point, that would make him want you any less or be suddenly uninterested in being with you, but you want to know what made him tense, what you said that brought that reaction out of him. You thought he would have wanted domesticity too, assumed that he would want that too, but what if you were wrong? What if Jamie wanted a more exciting life, something like the flashy and attention-grabbing life he had built for himself in the years since you were kids, and you just didn’t? What if you both went through hell and back to get to each other again, only for this to be your inevitable breaking point, the fracture in yourselves that neither of you could compromise over?
“Stop freaking out.” Jamie tells you as he slides his hands from your hips to circle your lower back, pulling you flush against his torso, slotting your hips right in line with each other. You barely bite back your unfair scowl at his words, at his apt assessment of your spiral, and focus on the feel of his hands on your back instead, on the way he’s kept you as close as possible this entire time, how he’s given you no reason to doubt him or his wants at all this morning. “A domestic life with you sounds very fucking nice.”
“Good.” You sigh, barely shaking your head to yourself as you smile down at Jamie, stupid and unfair relief bubbling inside your chest, ballooning up next to your heart as you fight to stay in the moment and not get lost in your emotions, in the joy in Jamie’s eyes, in the feel of his body against and underneath yours. It would be so easy to get lost in him, to get lost in his hands on your body and his arms boxing you in and his chest pressed against yours, but you resist, stay focused on the conversation that needs to happen. “What was it though?” You can’t help but ask, because you know it was something that made him tense, and you’ll never be able to let it go if you don’t hear it from him now.
“I just wasn’t expecting you to say girlfriend. It surprised me, ‘s all.” Jamie admits with a little smile, something soft and private just for the two of you, shattering your heart all over again, unknowingly breaking it into a thousand pieces all while being the only one who could fix it, who you would let get close enough to piece you back together correctly. “Just didn’t think I would ever hear you call yourself me girlfriend ever again.”
“You know that’s what I am, right? Your girlfriend?” You know your question is pointless and stupid, childish in all the worst ways, but you can’t make yourself ask what you really want to, can’t make yourself ask Jamie to actually confirm that this is serious for him too, can’t give a real voice to your insulting fears and doubts still centering around the fact that you and Jamie might be on the wrong page again. You can’t force the words you’re the rest of my life and I better be yours too past your lips, can’t insult Jamie by making him think you’re doubting him and his intentions and his actions, so…so you’ll insult him in this smaller, less obvious way; you’ll put it all back on him when he’s done nothing to deserve your doubts.
“Does that mean I’m your boyfriend?” Jamie asks you in a silly voice paired with a silly, wide grin, and you just—you let it all go. You let all of your gnawing fears and doubts go, release yourself from the burden of worrying that you and Jamie won’t fit together this time, free yourself from the idea that time and distance has warped the two of you beyond repair, has shaped you into two people who cannot fit together again no matter what, no matter what both of you want. You want this and Jamie wants this, you love each other enough to cover a thousand lifetimes, you suffered and pined and longed for this exact moment, and you refuse to give enough power to your worries to ruin this moment for you, to ruin any of this before it even starts.
“It better.” You tell Jamie, matching his wide smile as best you can, your cheeks starting to get sore with how much you’re smiling, how much you’ve been smiling and grinning all fucking morning.
“Good. That’s all I want.” Jamie’s tone and expression suddenly turn serious, suddenly lose their playful glimmer and take a turn toward significant, like he’s imparting something upon you that you shouldn’t miss. Like he’s answering your earlier unsaid questions with an unsaid answer of his own. You might know each other too well, at this point, might know each other better than two people are supposed to, but you wouldn’t have it any other way. “All I want is to be yours, and for you to be mine. That’s it, baby.” Jamie whispers as he gazes up at you, as he slides his hands from your lower back up the length of your spine, stopping at your shoulder blades as he tugs your chest impossibly closer to his, as he sits up as straight as possible so there is no space between your bodies, no room to hide as he holds you to his chest and stares into your eyes with no end in sight.
“Good.” You repeat back to Jamie, face fucking burning for a number of reasons, for reasons surely laid bare on your face for Jamie to take far too much pleasure in, for Jamie to be disgustingly pleased with himself for turning you ten different shades of pink while leaving you nearly speechless as he holds you and calls you baby and tells you that he only wants to be yours. You keep your eye contact with Jamie even as your face heats up from the inside out, as he tilts his head and smirks at you in a way that’s already becoming addicting, as he shifts one of his hands to hold the back of your neck and nearly takes your breath away all over again with how easily he spans the width of your neck, how surely he holds you in such a vulnerable place. “You could at least pretend to be flustered by me, you know.” You tell him as you let loose a shaky exhale when his hand squeezes once on your neck, his thumb trailing along the edges of your jawline.
“Nah, I like you like this.” Jamie tells you, and fucking smug and self-assured bastard that he is, doesn’t wait for a response from you before he leans toward you and whispers against your lips, “Gimme another kiss.”
“What if I say no?” You say, just to say something that isn’t a needy whine into Jamie’s eventual kiss, just to stupidly try to get back the upper hand in this conversation, even though you know you’re probably going to lose in the end. You don’t think you have any defenses yet against the confidence Jamie touches you with, any mental defenses or road blocks to keep you from succumbing to every trailing thought when Jamie stares at your lips for far too long, when Jamie touches you however he wants because he knows you want it too, when Jamie demands that you kiss him just because he wants a kiss, when Jamie tugs and pulls and moves you however he wants against himself because he wants it, because he knows you won’t try to get away from him. You’re still learning how to respond to those kinds of touches, all so different from the hesitant touches you used to exchange as kids, all so different from what your body expects from Jamie.
In your challenge, you moved one of your hands to hold the base of Jamie’s chin, thumb pressing into his chin and tilting his head up, the rest of your fingers spanning his neck and jaw, keeping him still, keeping him a hairsbreadth away from your lips, keeping him just close enough to what he wants but still denying him. Jamie’s nostrils flare as he stares up at you with a heat you’ve definitely never seen before, with want and desire and frustration clearly displayed in his burning eyes, in the sudden tension in his jaw, in the sudden heaving of his chest as he stares at you like he’s never seen you before either. “You were right.” you whisper as you shift your thumb to rub it across Jamie’s lips, as you press into the plushness of his lower lip and slightly pull it forward into a pout, as you keep your thumb there when Jamie’s breathing comes out heavier and more audible as you tease him, as you draw this out now that you’ve got a taste for what this feels like. “I do like you like this.”
It's finally your turn to smirk down at Jamie as he lets out a pitiful, deep groan of frustration at your words, when you take your thumb off his lips but don’t release his chin or jaw, when you don’t show him that you’re agreeing to a kiss yet. And the thing is—Jamie could easily break out of your hold, he could easily take your hand off his face or twist his head in the opposite direction and kiss you, could take your hand off his face and trap it in his own hand, taking what he wants from you without an ounce of protest from you after the fact. He could do any number of things to get your hand off his face, but he’s not, he clearly has no intention to either, if the heavy-lidded stare and the heavy breathing are any indication, if the mild flexing of his hand still on the back of your neck is anything to go by. He likes this, likes to be held still and denied by you, and that knowledge sits heavy in your belly and twists itself into the fabric of your being in a dangerous way, plants itself firmly into your consciousness and takes root almost in your mind immediately. He likes it, he really fucking likes to be under your direction and your hand, and you think you might—
“I’d beg.” Jamie suddenly says, and it takes you a second to take your focus away from his lips and from the feel of his strong jaw underneath your hand, to understand what he’s saying, to realize he’s answering your question from before. What he’d do if you said no to a kiss. He would beg. Jamie takes his hands off your neck and spine and drops them to your waist again, never dropping his heavy gaze from yours as he slowly snakes his fingertips underneath the hoodie you’re wearing, keeping you pinned in more ways than one as his fingertips press against the bare skin of your waist and lower back. He looks fucking gone, pupils blown wide and nostrils flaring and cheeks a ruddy pink, all because of you, all because he’s thinking about having to beg you for a kiss, and you shudder under his look, from the feel of his fingertips finally touching your bare skin.
“I’d…I’d beg you for anything you wanted me to, you know that?” Jamie tells you, voice breathy and somehow far away, eyes hazy with desire, gaze pinned to your face but distant at the same time, as if imagining his admission in his own head, as if imagining this situation further than he’s letting on. You feel your breathing pick up at the same time, feel the humming underneath your skin to shift your hips against Jamie’s or abandon whatever game you’ve backed yourselves into and tug him into a ruthless kiss, to take his hand off your back and press it where you’re suddenly feeling very empty instead. Instead of doing any of that, you sit frozen in Jamie’s lap, all the breath and rash thoughts suddenly escaping you when Jamie opens his mouth again. “I’d get on me knees and beg for a kiss, for a taste of you, to touch you—I’d beg for as long as you wanted me to, if it meant I could have you. If it meant you would let me have you.”
(*)
Oh, fuck me, is your last full thought before all the breath in your lungs escapes you in a rushed exhale as you finally take your hand off Jamie’s chin and tug him into a messy kiss, frame his face with both of your hands and open your lips against his eager ones, collapsing into the spreading vibrations that flow throughout your body when Jamie moans low and long from his chest, something surprised and needy and desperate filling the small space between the two of you, something reckless and frenzied spreading like wildfire into your kiss when Jamie uses the hand on your back to shove you up his body, to line your hips up with his exactly, sinking deeper into his lap at his demand.
You gasp out a surprised, needy noise at the gesture, gasp directly into Jamie’s mouth as he practically devours you, as you feel his body more firmly against and underneath yours, as the promise of the movement lingers heavily in your mind, and Jamie makes another low, surprised noise against your mouth, before—before Jamie’s hands suddenly slap against your hips and you’re briefly airborne, sliding through the air before you’re hitting Jamie’s bed again, laying on your back with Jamie hovering over you, Jamie’s face and upper body filling your entire field of vision as he kneels in front of you and tugs your thighs around his hips, as he keeps your legs wide open with the width of his body and his hands digging into your thighs.
He flipped you. He flipped you off his lap and onto your back like it was nothing, flipped you without a second thought, without a moment of hesitation to consider if he could, if he could successfully pull off the move. Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me you repeat to yourself as Jamie stares down at you with a wild look in his eyes, as his chest heaves above yours with everything but exertion, as his hands flex and massage at the fat of your thighs. You tug on Jamie’s shirt and pull him into another desperate kiss with a needy moan, closing your thighs tightly around Jamie’s hips to keep him close, even though there was no chance of Jamie going anywhere, no chance of Jamie wanting to be anywhere except where he is, in his bed and in between your thighs. Jamie easily sinks down against your body as you pull him close, releases your thighs and, you can only assume with your eyes closed, brackets your head with his forearms, if the sinking of the mattress next to your head is anything to go by.
You pull back from the kiss first, quickly opening your eyes as Jamie pulls back too, gasping, “Jesus, Jamie.” You pant as Jamie looks down at you, smug and proud, and you let him have it, let him bask in his well-deserved pride this time. He didn’t even—he never even rolled his hips against yours, never touched you under your hoodie or anywhere you’re starting to feel like you need his touch, never really did anything except flip you onto your back and kiss you, and you’re ready to combust, ready to give into every irrational and foolish want burning through your veins, ready to throw aside every safeguard you planned to put in place to make sure you and Jamie didn’t get derailed like this.
Oh. Right. You pause for a second, purposefully take a deep breath and take stock of your current position, glance around your body and try to unscramble your mind enough to focus on complete sentences and coherent thoughts that don’t involve kissing Jamie. Jamie did lay his forearms next to your head while you were kissing, but in your pause, he’s started to sit up again, kneel more fully against the bed and shift your legs back around his hips, hold your thighs up against his body so you don’t have to. Now that you’re more focused, less kiss-drunk, you can see that Jamie isn’t so unaffected, that he’s breathing heavy and disorganized too, that his cheeks and neck are splotchy pink, that his shirt collar is askew from your tugging on it, that his eyes are bouncing between your legs around his body and your face and your chest—
Jamie suddenly slides one hand up your thigh and over your hip, slipping underneath your borrowed hoodie to slide up your stomach, devouring careful inches as he purposefully makes eye contact with you to make sure it’s okay, to give you plenty of time to say no and ask Jamie to stop. You nod, breathing heavier with anticipation and promise, your chest heaving as Jamie continues to slide his hand up your stomach, against your bare skin, as his eyes drop from yours and return to your chest, how it rises and falls quickly and deeply, how his gaze turns even more wild and needy as you reflexively arch your back into his hand, into the promise of his touch. You know what he’s doing, what he wants to do to you, where and how he wants to touch you, but you still let loose a little gasp when Jamie first trails a finger along the underside of your tit, as he starts to twist his hand and rest the full weight of your tit in his palm, thumb moving to swipe against—
(*)
“I want to say something.” You blurt out, face flushing for an entirely different reason as Jamie freezes and accidentally flexes his hand in surprise, eyes widening as your body twitches and arches into his as his thumb edges too close to your nipple again. “Sorry. I—I’ve been thinking about something and I want to...”
“Okay. It’s okay.” Jamie says, sighing not in frustration, but in a grounding way, pulling his focus away from your body and to your words, to your face so you know that you have his full attention for what you want to say. “Do you want me to…?” Jamie trails off, question clear in his voice as he dips his chin down toward your chest, toward his hand still up your hoodie, asking if you want him to remove his hand. You bite your lip and nod, not really wanting Jamie to remove his hand from your body, but it would be counterproductive to the conversation you want to have, misleading in an unfair way, not that Jamie would see it that way, anyways. Jamie quickly takes his hand out of your hoodie and puts it back on your thighs, and only after doing so, does he seem to realize that he’s still keeping your thighs around his hips. He shoots you a quick, shameless smile as he takes his hands off your thighs and gently places your legs back on the bed, and you miss him immediately, miss the closeness and the contact and the promise of more that you took away from the both of you.
You sit up next to Jamie, pulling your knees to your chest, wrapping your arms around your legs for something to do, for something to focus on other than Jamie’s curious, patient gaze pinning you in place. Jamie doesn’t mirror your position, but he sits on the bed next to you, crossing his legs underneath him and scooting close enough to you that his knee knocks against your shin. You smile to yourself at the contact and remind yourself that Jamie is in this, that he wants to hear what you have to say, that he loves you and nothing will change that. Let alone this. “I, um, I feel like…” you start and stop, not wanting to start your sentence like that anymore, looking at Jamie as you fumble for the right words and find nothing but love and encouragement in his face, see nothing but a gentle smile and a deeply fond tint to his eyes.
You can do this. You can just say it, because you know it’s going to be fine, it will always be fine and you know it’ll be a non-issue from the second Jamie hears your request, but you still take a deep breath before you open your mouth, letting all your bubbling thoughts just spill out of you without planning, without any sense of structure or organization. “I feel—I get the sense that you’re very good at sex, and—and if I have sex with you today or tomorrow or the next day, I’ll never stop having sex with you, because I want to and because it’ll be good with you. If we have sex, I’ll just keep having sex with you and forget to talk about anything important or that I even want to talk about stuff. I think I just—I need to just be with you for the next few days without sex, I need us to talk and figure things out without the distraction of sex and I need to be sure that we’re doing all of this right without sex getting in the way.”
You exhale heavily after your little speech, expecting an agreement from Jamie or some questions, but all you get is a cocky grin from him, a pseudo-mocking tilt to his head as he smiles at you with a whole new wave of love in his eyes. Your brain feels like a record-scratch at the sight of his face, at the completely unexpected reaction from him, and before you can ask what’s going on with him, Jamie tells you, “You think I’m good at sex. You think I’m so good at sex that I would leave you speechless for days.”
“Shut up.” You scoff, once you realize what Jamie is talking about, once you realize what you said to him in your explanation. You smile, feeling the flush spread across your face and your neck, embarrassed to have said all that but relieved to have finally said all that, to have shared your feelings with Jamie and lived to see that the world kept spinning, that Jamie didn’t run for the hills at getting a glimpse of the inner workings of your mind. “So, you—it’s fine? You agree?” You ask, hating that you feel like you have to ask, hating to make Jamie think that you need that kind of reassurance from him about this, but you just have to ask, can’t leave it at Jamie teasing you.
“Fuck yeah, it’s fine.” Jamie immediately says, showing no signs of offense that you even bothered to ask him that. “It would’ve been fine without any of the reasons you said either. You know that, right?” Jamie asks you, scrunching his eyebrows up and tilting his chin down at you, but you’re also quick to put him at ease.
“Yes. Yeah, I know that. Sorry.” You rush to apologize, to explain that you know in your mind that Jamie wouldn’t have any issue with you asking to not have sex for a little bit, but for some reason you needed to ask, needed that reassurance from him anyways, but he just shakes his head, either not needing an apology or already knowing what you were going to try and awkwardly explain. You feel a weight lift off of your chest now that that’s settled, now that you and Jamie are on the same page again, now that you’ve put one of the things you were thinking about last night to rest.
Your relationship with Jamie is one of the most important things in your life, one of the things you couldn’t bear to lose again, one of the things you would never forgive yourself for if you messed up a second time, so you need to do all of this right. You need to talk things over with Jamie, you need to make sure the two of you continue to be on the same page, you need to know how Jamie wants to move forward with your relationship and your public and private life, even if you want different things or have different expectations, you need to know about them, you need to be aware of them and discuss how to compromise around them, and all of that could be in jeopardy if you just spend the next few days having sex in Jamie’s bed. All of it could be in jeopardy if you spend the next few days being kissed and touched senseless by Jamie, if you spend the next few days learning how to kiss and touch Jamie senseless, if you forget to discuss everything that’s lingering in the back of your mind until it’s too late again.
“Can I still kiss you?” Jamie asks, hesitant with you for probably the first time in a long time, and you put him at ease as fast as you can, nodding as you sit up on your knees and place a gentle, coaching hand on the side of his face. Jamie easily tilts his face up into your hand, tilts his face so you have easier access to kiss him, and your heart lurches at the sight, at how—how sweet all of this is making you feel, how heavy your heart is with sentiment and longing, how every part of your body feels lovesick for the first time in…seven years.
“No need to beg this time.” You say, just as you pull him into a sweet, slow kiss, swallowing the huff of laughter Jamie lets out at your teasing, drawing out the kiss until it devolves into either of you pressing a chaste, quick kiss to the other’s lips, until it devolves further to you just holding Jamie’s face, looking at him and hoping that he can see every emotion swirling inside of your mind, hope that he can read you as easily as you can read him. “I love you.” You tell him as you stroke a slow thumb across his cheekbone, feeling more vulnerable now than you did when you woke up, more exposed and laid bare with those three words than any of your other admissions, any of your fantasies and dreams laid out for Jamie to feast on, any of the new ways Jamie learned to take you apart with his hands and words.
But all Jamie says is, “I know.”, with a stupid fucking grin, his eyes shining with poorly concealed pleasure at knowingly getting a rise out of you.
“God.” You scoff around a laugh, shoving his shoulder with your free hand for good measure, but it’s without any real hurt or malice, because you’ve walked this same conversation dozens of times before, you’ve done this song and dance with him many times before and he knew exactly what was coming when he said that. “You know I hate when you do that—”
“I love you too.” Jamie cuts you off, shutting you up in the best way possible. It’s the first time he’s said that to you today, far from the first time he’s showed you that this morning, but it is the first time he’s said those words to you since last night. You understand why Jamie wanted you to repeat yourself after you woke up, understand why he wanted to hear it more than once and all the other ways you could tell him that you loved him—it’s nearly addicting, an overpowering headrush that nearly knocks you onto your back again, to hear those words come out of Jamie’s mouth, to be the recipient of an I love you from Jamie and know that he means it the exact way you need him to.
Jamie Tartt loves you. Jamie Tartt loves you, and this is what the rest of your life is going to feel like. Jamie loves you, and this is the first morning of the rest of your life, and you’ve never been happier to think that, to know that for certain.
“Tell me again.” You demand, and Jamie is nothing if not eager to do so.