Untouchable ~ A Jared Leto/MARS Fanfiction

Chapter Fifteen

Though still soft and gentle, Jared's kiss devours me and I melt into it. His tongue is a true weapon of pure pleasure and God, does he know what to do with it. The thought of Jared using it in other places sends electric jolts through my body and I find myself forgetting all about holding back, all about Jared's insistence at not crossing lines. I'm too lost in sensation, in his touch, taste and scent. We're hurtling toward a point of no return, and distantly I wonder if Jared's forgotten his self-imposed limits, if he intends to take us to that precipice and over it. He wants to. The turgid evidence of that want, so thinly covered in soft blue silk, brushes against my thigh and a wave of euphoria carries me even higher than before.

Jared shudders, and a low groan escapes him. He pulls back a little, his steady gaze meeting mine. "Jesus Christ," he murmurs, his voice husky. "Dammit, Lanie, why do you have to do this to me?"

"I..." my voice trails off. What the hell does he mean by that? I, do this to him?

Jared passes a hand over his face."We can't go there. You don't know how much it's killing me to say it, but we can't."

My sigh of frustration matches his. "I don't understand why you do this. And yeah, it's you doing this, Jared. Not me."

"I know it's me." His gaze is intense, whether from arousal, frustration, or both, I don't know. "It's me, and when this happens you have to tell me to stop, because otherwise there will come a time that I won't." He throws an arm over his face and lets out a long, shuddering sigh. "And that'll fuck everything up. Go back to sleep, Lanie."

I stare at him a long moment, my emotions flailing in every direction, before I withdraw back to the far side of the bed. I turn my back to him and stare out the window, at the sea of tiny city lights in the distance, at the silhouettes of tree branches gently swaying in the early morning breeze.

I don't get Jared. I don't get him at all.

***

There's an immediate, marked change in Jared's demeanor after that, a shift into the person Shannon describes as his brother being "on". A driven, focused man obsessed with order, with efficiency, with calling the shots on everything under his vast command. A demanding man with limited patience for anyone except Shelby. With her, he's open, smiling, animated, the guy she and I know. With everyone else, and especially with me, Jared has become a man I'm ready to throttle in no time at all.

I find myself spending the vast majority of my time with Shelby, though Jared often calls me from somewhere in the house to attend to some menial task. It's annoying, because many of those requests are ones that fall under the duties of the landscaping service or the estate manager, Magda—things like trimming the hedges or skimming leaves from the pool, or else directing the two Spanish-speaking housekeepers in some special cleaning and organizing project deep in an unused portion of the compound. At least it's an opportunity to brush up on my Spanish, a must-have linguistic skill if I'm going to stay in Los Angeles. Both of Jared's smiling, middle-aged housekeepers are friendly and tolerant of my horrid accent, and I find myself more at ease working alongside them rather than ordering them around.

Oddly, instead of getting a proper bed in his room, Jared still sleeps with me every night, requesting that the light in the bathroom be kept on. Often he wants me next to him, holding him as he drifts off. He doesn't kiss me again, but he does cling to me as if his life depends on me being there. But during the day he's all business, all about getting things done. He spends hours in the studio, and even more hours on the phone and on his laptop. It's as if he's determined to prove to these nameless, faceless people he's corresponding with that his physical limitation isn't going to hinder his work.