Running has always been something that I've done to decompress. It's a way for me to escape from my life, escape from all the drama and uncertainty. A temporary fix to the constant weight on my shoulders.
But today, running feels a little lighter. I don't feel that soul-crushing weight that I usually do. I've been able to experience the beauty of my run with heightened senses. The smell of the pines and flowers are infiltrative on my senses. The grass is greener, sky bluer. The air is crisper, the sun brighter.
Getting my feelings off my chest to Jensen has really helped my mindset, and it also helps that we're on the same page now. I don't feel as nervous around him, nor do I feel the regret like I did.
It's been great the last few weeks between us. We've talked more, went on dates, and I've felt those innocent butterflies like I did in high school. The day after the lake I woke up with the crashing realization that I had made a comment about Jensen's cock and immediately snuck into my cave for like two days straight.
I was so embarrassed. He was being sincere, trying to coax the truth out of me so that we can stop living in this weird in-between where we flirt but don't cross any lines. Now, it's more, and we've established that. I don't have to worry as much about how I act around him because through it all, the Jensen I remember is still in there.
It makes it worse now though, because my lady bits don't understand that although we've established the 'more' of our relationship, it doesn't mean we're ready for sex yet. Sex is something that happens between two people who have a connection—which we do—but we're also people who have hurt each other before, meaning that there is an extra trust that is required before falling back into bed together.
To put it simply, my drawer dick has been used more times these last two weeks than I've used it in the last six months. I've replaced the batteries—three times.
Shaking off the thoughts, I pick up the pace of my run, feeling the familiar burn as I suck air into my lungs. Running makes me feel good, and I need to be as light as possible for when I meet Lorraine to try on dresses later. And while the weight isn't present like normal, I still need the release because she'll see straight through my bullshit if she asks about her brother, and I try to play it off as less than it is.
"How are you doing, baby?" I ask Wolf—my trusty best friend—as we pound the path that runs just behind the lake. Wolfe barks in return, letting his tongue hang out as he runs beside me.
"We've only got less than a mile left, Wolf. Can you make it? Can we do it?" I encourage him, letting him know that he's about to get a break. I've pushed him nearly two miles today, but it's nothing we haven't done before. It's different now though because I don't run with him as much as we did in L.A., letting him enjoy the rest that the country provides whereas the city does not.
Wolf barks his acknowledgment, picking up the pace slightly so he stays just a step in front of me. I laugh, feeling like my dog is trying to race me.
"Are you trying to win a race, Wolf-man?" He barks. "Okay, you're on."
I pick up the pace, sprinting the last half mile back to my house. Wolf takes the lead, pulling about ten feet in front of me. I'm so caught up with trying to beat my own dog in a run that I don't see the root peeking out from the ground ahead until my foot catches onto it.
I wish I could say that my fall is graceful...but I can't do that. It's anything but.
My ankle makes this weird popping noise as I fly through the air, hitting the ground with my shoulder and a thud that would challenge that of a bolt of thunder. I roll over twice, taking in dirt from the path as I go. When I finally come to a stop, I cough up any material that I've inhaled during my crash.
It's then that I finally feel the pain in my shoulder from my landing, but it doesn't hold a candle to the excruciating pain that's radiating through my ankle. It takes me a minute to sit up straight and when I do, Wolf is right on top of me, licking my face and nuzzling my neck, making sure that I'm okay.
"It's okay, buddy. I'm okay," I lie. He looks distressed, and I don't like it. He's my protector, and that is exactly what he's doing so I can't fault him. I just hate that he looks so worried for me right now.
My shoulder stings as I start to roll it, but it's nothing I can't tolerate. I've got a few scrapes and cuts on my arms and knees from my fall and as I go to rub my eyes, I feel a trail of blood running down my forehead. I must have hit my head on a rock or something, but I don't think I hit that hard.
When I go to move my leg, pain fires through every nerve all the way to my hip, making me bite down on my lip to muster a cry. I look down to said ankle and cringe when I see the furious colors of blue and purple already forming just above the joint. I scold myself momentarily for not paying attention while I was running, but it only lasts a moment because then I move to freak-out mode.
How in the hell do I get back home from here? I'm the idiot that didn't bring my phone because I have Wolf with me, so I have no way to call anyone and I'm too far away to scream. Maybe if I hobble, I can get home. I just have to see if I can put weight on it.
"Come here, boy," I instruct Wolf. "Let mama pull up on you." Wolf, like the obedient boy he is, comes to my side and allows me to use my uninjured arm to pull up on him. When I do, I sway for a minute on my one good leg before stabilizing myself.
"Let's try this, Wolf." I go to out the least bit of pressure on my ankle and immediately regret it. I lose my balance and scream as I topple forward, landing on my hands and muttering a 'fuck' as the pain shoots through my ankle and foot.
"Okay, buddy," I tell Wolf, grabbing his attention—as if it weren't already on me. "I'm going to need you to run and find some help, okay?" He looks at me as if I just asked him to kill someone, and he whimpers—loudly—letting me know that he's not leaving my side.
"I won't make you leave me," I tell him, giving in all too easy. "We're just going to have to sit here until the pain subsides a bit and I can limp home, okay?"
I flop onto my back, waiting for the pain to lessen enough that I can move on my own. I'm never leaving my phone home again. I'll shove it in my boob if I have to.
I'm not sure how much times passes before Wolf starts to bark at something in the distance. Please don't be anything that can kill me. I'm too young to die. Why the hell do I keep putting myself into situations where I'm vulnerable in the woods? At least I have my sidekick with me this time.
As Wolf's barks get louder, so does the sound. Is that footsteps? Please don't be a serial killer.
I look at the path behind me and watch as Jensen appears. He's moving ridiculously fast, making a beeline for me.
"Baya," Jensen pants, coming to a stop in front of me before dropping to his knees. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," I lie.
"You don't look fine." His head tilts toward my throbbing ankle, and now I realize he's here for me.
"How did you know I was here?" I swallow the lump in my throat at the look of sincerity in his eyes.
"I was running, and I heard you scream. I ran as fast as I could to find you."
"My knight in shining armor," I smile, batting my eyelashes at him.
"If that's what you want to call it," he grins. "Can you walk on it?"
"You heard my scream. Right?" Sarcasm helps me when nothing else does.
"Got it. Can't walk." He looks up ahead, then cracks his neck. "Okay, wrap your arms around my neck. I'm going to carry you."
"I'm sorry...you, you can't. You can't carry me half a mile!"
"Psh," he scoffs. "You're like one hundred and thirty pounds soaking wet. I think I can carry you. My stamina is superb, and you see these muscles, right?" He flexes, making me roll my eyes at his arrogance—a new development, I see. He might have been slightly arrogant in high school, but he was modest about it, mostly showing it around me and his family.
"Okay." I mean, how the hell else am I going to get back home?
------------------
I've got to give Jensen some credit. He carried me the entire half-mile back without any struggle, and I'm not blind to the way his hand traveled further down my back with each step he took. Sneaky little shit.
"Where do you want me to put you?"
"Take me to my room," I tell him. I desperately need to be near the closest bathroom so that I can clean myself up, change and get ready for my evening with Lorraine.
Jensen carries me down the hallway to my room, gently placing me on the bed even after I tell him I need the bathroom. He disappears for a few minutes and comes back with a wet washcloth, peroxide, Neosporin and bandages.
"You don't have to do this—"
"Oh, hush," he directs me. "I'm taking care of you."
The way he takes care of me—so tenderly and thoroughly—makes me hurt worse. It's weird. I've wasted all this time, and it's not something I can get back. I can't make up for loss time or make him understand how sincere my apology is.
"What's wrong?" I hate the way he sees right through me.
"Nothing," I lie. When he doesn't say anything, I look up at him, immediately realizing I've been caught. "Fine, I'm not okay."
I hiss when Jensen touches the stinging flesh of my cuts as he tenderly cares for each and every one—no matter the size. My eyes squeeze from the pain when my leg jolts from the overload of sensations.
"Honesty. Remember?"
"I know," I sigh, relaxing into the pillows. "Watching you take care of me makes me... it makes me, I don't know, insanely regretful. I don't deserve the way you care for me because I wasted all this time by leaving. I'm not sure I'm even making sense right now," I mutter.
"How about this. Can I tell you what I think?" He asks. I nod.
"You're feeling a lot right now. I can tell. You're watching me take care of you, thinking about all the time we spent apart when I could have been caring for you then, too. But we can't live in the past, Baya. You can regret what happened, so can I... but we have to move forward. Things were meant to be this way for a reason, we just couldn't see it at the time. How did I do?"
I'm stunned. Utterly fucking floored at his words. How did he take what even I didn't know how to say and turn it into the perfect explanation for how I'm feeling? This man knows me. It's the only answer I've got.
I swallow the lump in my throat. "You were... you did...hit the head on the nail, buddy."
"Buddy," he scoffs. "I'm not your buddy."
"Okay, then what are you?"
"Much more than that," he grins, and it's insinuating as shit. My lady bits tingle with anticipation. If he touched me right now, I think I'd detonate. Seven years of pent-up sexual tension is no joke, and while my hand and drawer dick are decent temporary fixes, they don't hold a candle to a good dickin'.
"How does your ankle feel?"
"Pretty fucking bad," I laugh. "Could you grab me some ibuprofen from the bathroom? I need something for the pain."
Jensen obliges, grabbing the medicine and then bringing me some water from the kitchen.
"You should see a doctor," he suggests. "It looks bad."
"I have a fitting with your sister this afternoon. I'll have her look at it then and see what she says. I can just take it easy until then." I go to move, but Jensen stops me, wrapping his firm hand over my shoulder to hold me in place.
"What are you doing?" I ask.
"Stop, you're supposed to be taking it easy."
"But I need to change. I'm sweaty and bloody." I look up at him, assessing the heat in his gaze. When his hands travel the length of my torso to the hem of my shirt, I take in an audible gasp as his hands fist the material. He drags it up, discarding it behind him before raking his gaze down my body, then back up.
Fuck me.
"What are you doing?" It comes out barely above a whisper, and my breath quickens at the realization of what he's doing.
"You can't even walk, much less change yourself. And you're in pain... I want to make you feel better. Unless you think we're crossing a—"
"No," I pant. "Make me feel better."
There's a gleam in his eye, one that promises dirty, dirty things, and it takes everything in me to not mount his dick and ride it into the sunset.
Jensen's hands travel south now, slowly peeling the spandex shorts down my thighs. This is the small rivet in time where I hate running because I'm sweaty, my shorts don't want to come off and all I want them to be is off.
Jensen tugs, landing on his ass as the shorts finally let go of my skin. We both share a throaty laugh, charged with an excitable amount of chemistry. We're an explosion waiting to happen.
He approaches me with all the expression of a man on a mission, and the mission in this situation... my pussy, apparently.
Jensen crawls up my body, assessing every inch of exposed skin until his lips connect with mine, consuming me in a way I haven't been in so. Damn. Long.
"Is this okay?" He asks breathily, hands traveling behind my back to remove my bra.
"Yes."
When my bra hits the floor a second later, Jensen's gaze drops to my chest. His tongue peeks out to wet his lips, his teeth graze that luscious lower lip of his before he bites down on it. Come on J, put that mouth to use.
"Your tits are bigger," he says, hands coming around to grab onto the sensitive peaks. His fingers find my taut nipples before he pinches them, slightly tugging as he does so. A moan escapes me, and Jensen stops his attack to stare at me.
"I don't want to have sex," he says.
"Me neither."
"I'm not ready," Jensen admits.
"I'm not ready either."
He sits back on his knees and drags his hands down his face. I can't get a read on his emotions, but the desire in his eyes hasn't gone anywhere. If anything, it's stronger now.
"But I need to touch you, Baya. I'm going out of my mind not to."
I sit up, grabbing his face in my hands. My thumb gently strokes his cheek. I want him to see the desire in my eyes, too. "Jensen."
"Yeah?"
"Make. Me. Feel. Better." It comes out as a plea. And when Jensen lets out a sigh, I know he's done holding back.
My back hits the mattress at the same time that Jensen covers my body with his. The way that his mouth consumes mine is nothing short of a man ridden with hunger. Hungry for something that hasn't been available for the last seven years—me.
Jensen's hand starts traveling down my exposed chest, trailing between my breasts and down my stomach, which contracts under his touch. Heat settles lower, just above the place where his hand currently sits.
His fingers travel just below the lining of my underwear, rubbing back and forth, setting off tiny fireworks under every inch of flesh he touches.
His hand drops lower, placing two fingers beside the area I want him to touch most. My clit is throbbing, and I need him to ease the pain.
Finally, finally, his hands go to where I want them to. Jensen's fingers travel through my folds, collecting the arousal that's there before bringing it up to my swollen bud. His fingers move in a circular motion, pausing every few strokes to lightly pinch.
My fingers travel under his shirt and trace over the perfectly carved, lean muscles of his back. They flex as his fingers work my bundle of nerves. I swear, nothing is better than muscles on a man.
Jensen quickens his pace, and my hands fall from his shirt and immediately go up to his hair. The chocolate brown waves are soft under my touch, and I grip the hair at the nape of his neck when that familiar tightening begins in my core.
"So beautiful," he mumbles between kisses. "I love watching you writhe under me."
Jensen slips two fingers inside me with ease as he brings his thumb back to my clit, flooding me with an intense need for...him.
"Jensen," I moan, that tightening winding itself together further and further as I feel it move down my core, settling into my lady bits. I'm a grenade, and Jensen's about to pull the pin.
"Do it," he demands. "Come for me." Jensen's strokes are intense, demanding, possessive. He knows that he's bringing me to the edge, no one else. I can see it in his eyes. The power he's feeling knowing that he's doing this to me.
And when his teeth graze my nipple, when his fingers retreat to pinch my clit, I detonate. My desire explodes with a white light, and I inhale a breath at the sensation flowing through me. I feel like a livewire, overflowing with electricity and pleasure.
"Fuck, you're beautiful," he moans. Jensen slowly helps me down from my high and reluctantly, he breaks apart from me.
"What time is your date with my sister?"
"Um... no offense, J. But I don't think we should talk about me hanging out with your sister immediately after you fingerbanged me into another dimension."
Jensen throws his head back with laughter, making my stomach swarm with butterflies, and not the sexual kind. I love to see him laugh. I haven't seen that enough since I've been back. Only recently.
"Noted," he smiles. "Do you need help getting ready or anything?"
"Um," I hesitate. "Sort of. I don't think I could stand in the shower and as much as I hate to do this, I think I'm gonna have to skip that until I can stand."
"I'll help you," Jensen offers. I go to speak, but Jensen puts his finger against my lips to quiet me. "Don't argue with me. Let me help you."
"Okay." That was too easy. I should have made him work harder for that one.
--------------
"Thank you for picking me up, Lo."
"Please, you don't have to thank me. You can't help that you got hurt. What happened?"
I catch Lorraine up on my fall, the not so graceful tumble.
"That sounds painful," she hisses. "Wait. How did you get home?"
"Your brother. He found me, thankfully. I would have had to crawl back, or awkwardly ride Wolf back like a horse."
"I'm glad he was there." Lorraine sounds relieved. "And he helped you back?"
"He carried me back," I admit. "Then he helped me get ready because I was dirty and bloody and—"
"He helped you get ready?" Lorraine is practically squealing, which makes me realize what I've just said. Shit, I've said too much.
"Uh...yeah."
She chuckles, and it's so low that it's scary. "I guess that's not blush you're wearing then."
"What?" I half-yell, pulling down the visor to check my face in the mirror. Yep. My face is flushed.
"You're freshly fucked, aren't you?"
"No, I'm not." Lorraine cuts her gaze at me, letting me know that she sees right through the bullshit. "But I'm freshly something..."
"Holy shit, he gave in," Lorraine laughs. "Okay, as much as I love you, I don't need any details about my brother of that variety," she cringes, and a shiver visibly passes over her. "But you two are okay?"
"I think so. I think I'm living in my head more than he is right now but... yes, I think we're okay."
Lorraine smiles and places her hand over mine, gripping it slightly. "Okay is better than nothing at all. Especially for two people who love each other, even if you forgot it there for a bit."
I don't think she meant to say that last part out loud, but she did. I heard it.
And I agree.
FINALLY. It's not all the way, but it's something. Hopefully that will appease you all for a bit, lol.
I'm not even sure what else to say about this chapter, so I'm going to rely on your comments instead.
Thoughts?
P.S. - Thank you for being patient with the update! My plate has been so full lately. I appreciate the understanding <3