"Do you want something to eat?"
"Slasher, what are you talking about?"
"You aren't hungry?"
Lavender shakes her head up at me, grinning brightly.
"I could eat," she replies with a chuckle, "but you don't need to feed me."
"If we're going to continue doing what we're doing, we're gonna need fuel," I tease, trying to brush off my real concern.
I don't know when she ate last, and I want to make sure that she's not feeling hungry. Especially if she's staying the night and not going to be going home to make herself something.
"Do you want to continue doing what we're doing?"
"I open to wherever the night takes us," I broadly confess.
"Me too," Lavender agrees with a nod.
"So, what do you want to eat? I have pizza."
"Oh, yeah, that sounds good."
And then I hear her stomach grumble.
"You are hungrier than you let on," I declare, and I can feel my eyebrows scrunching.
"Slasher, I'm alright. But yeah, I'm hungry."
"I also have more food that I'll put together too. I'm sure you found the bathroom when you were snooping earlier so you can go clean yourself up while I get food together. Feel free to go into my room and grab other clothes to wear."
She doesn't say anything at all. Instead, she does as I've asked her and leaves me to clean the island counter and get food for us. I grab pizza, strawberries and blueberries, cucumbers, potato chips, and water which I think should be enough.
If she wants something else, I'll tell her that she's free to grab whatever she wants. I'm not going to stop her.
I hear her footsteps coming down the hall just as I finish taking the pizza out of the oven where I heard it. She looks at the spread of food before looking back up at me, with what seems like tears in her eyes.
"Ignore me," she croaks, waving her hands in front of her face adorably.
"What's wrong?" I urge while stepping around the counter and toward her small yet strong form.
"Nothing."
I hold her hip with one hand and tilt her head up with my other.
"Tell me."
"No one has ever done anything like this for me. When I saw you, everything about you told me that you're a hardass and that you aren't gonna be a guy I spend more than twenty minutes with. And yet, here you are, doing this for me."
"Only for you. I'm a hardass ninety-nine percent of the time, but since we're being honest with each other, I want to be that one percent with you."
I lean down, pressing my lips to hers in a gentle kiss.
When we pull away, we hold each other's gaze, letting the world around us melt away.
"We have to take whatever this is slow," Lavender announces.
"And figure it out along the way."
"Exactly."
"For tonight, we can just not be anything," I add.
"We exist together."
I kiss her forehead and guide her into the kitchen to let her eat.
As she talks to me about her complaints about something related to a show that I don't even know, I notice the clothes that she's wearing. It's one of my biggest hoodies and boxers that I wear to bed. I haven't let a woman wear my clothes since my high school girlfriend, and she broke up with me after four months to date some guy in the debate club.
It's too intimate for someone I don't feel close to. Lavender though, as long as she's comfortable, I honestly couldn't give a fuck about what she's wearing. It could be anything of mine, or it could be nothing at all, and if that makes her feel happy and safe, then she can do whatever she wants.
I stare at her from across the couch, observing every movement she makes. She's such an animated talker, like her whole body gets into it.
"Are you even paying attention to me?" she muses, crossing her arms and lifting her breasts underneath my hoodie.
Maybe not the words coming out of her mouth, but I most certainly am paying as much attention to her as I possibly can.
"Yes, promise," I tell her but my voice comes out rough.
I sound as if I've been without water for days.
"Oh, you're paying attention to something much different than the actual words coming out of my mouth."
"Hmmm?"
"You bitch," she taunts me and slides closer to me.
She crawls into my lap, her legs resting down on the sides of my hips. She presses her body into me, and my arms come around to lay on her lower back, holding her close. Her hands come up over my shoulders and rest on my upper neck with her fingers burying themselves into my hair.
"What did you just call me?" I caution and tease while she starts to rock herself on me.
"So you were paying attention."
"Enough, I was paying enough attention."
Lavender smiles before ducking her head down and laying light kisses on my neck.
"Oh fuck, Lav."
She pauses, lifting her head just enough to lock eyes with me.
"My real name is Iris."
"So you went from one flower to another?"
"I've heard lavender is a shrub, not a flower."
"Same difference," I shrug.
"Actually. Shrubs are different in that-"
"Shut the fuck up," I mumble and slam my lips into hers.
She grunts into my mouth, deepening her hold on me. Her hands are warm against my bare skin, her touch setting me on fire. She grinds down on me, both of us moving in sync as we make each other cum through our clothes.
I can feel the warmth and wetness of her pussy even through the boxers of mine that she's wearing. It turns me on even more to know that she wants to cum in my underwear. She lays her lips back down to mine as she moans through another sensitive grind, and I'm about to cum into my pants.
"Goddamn, Slasher. Fuck, that feels..."
She doesn't even get to finish her sentence before she is cumming, her arousal wetting not only the underwear she's wearing but my pants as well. I cum soon after her, grinding on her more to make it last longer. I hold her hips gently to keep her stable but also want to keep her close.
I press a hot kiss to her lips, not wanting to let her go and most definitely aching to taste her again. She runs her hands over my arms to my shoulders, and for a reason unknown to me, it makes me feel strong and powerful. Like I can take whatever comes to me.
I can be the one to protect and take care of her too. I probably shouldn't feel all that just because she's touching my shoulders. Mostly because we barely know each other but also because it's not like I've got some hold on her.
I shouldn't put any pressure on her to make this something more than what it is if that's not what we both want. I don't know her past relationships, and I don't know what it's like working as a stripper. I don't know her life. I also don't want to claim that I do.
So even if I do feel this way, or a certain way that we both aren't ready for (including myself), I've got to stop myself from saying anything.
"What are you thinking about?" Iris questions, breaking the silence.
"Nothing," I reply back way too fast.
"That wasn't convincing at all. Is it information that I need to know right now?"
"No, it isn't."
"Then, I won't nag you about it," she shrugs, running her fingers through my hair.
I lay my head back, groaning out at the gentle feeling of her nimble fingers scratching at my scalp. We don't need to say anything to fill the silence, but we do anyway, wanting to learn more about each other.
We go for the basics including favorite colors, animals, flowers (hers being purple, jellyfish, and California poppies) just anything we can think of. Her moms live in Chicago, her one older brother in Boston, and her younger brother in Dallas.
She complains about the distance between them more than her maybe rocky relationship with them, and I think that despite their multitude of differences they really do love each other. Their parents adopted all three of them, so they aren't biologically related, but that never mattered to them either.
"Would you ever want to find out who your birth parents are?" I wonder.
"When I was mad at my moms when I was a teenager, yes, but now, no. I am fulfilled without them," she replies with conviction.