Fisher

---

Jade hadn’t left my bed the entire night.

I couldn’t think of one when I had slept better.

Her in my arms all night, the taste of her still on my lips, her warm, soft curves against me had been better than I’d dared to dream.

So good, in fact, that I couldn’t shake the feeling of melancholy that seemed to be my constant companion this morning.

I shouldn’t have thought that way, should have been happy with what I had, knowing that I didn’t deserve even that. In a lot of ways I was.

But in other ways, this hurt.

I hadn’t even properly made love to her yet, but those few interludes, the conversation, the little things that made Jade who she was, all of them had gotten to me, touched me, and I didn’t know if I’d be able to let them go.

But I had to.

And I didn’t know how.

That wasn’t all.

As much as I hated to admit it, I knew that my trajectory had been changed.

No, all of that wasn’t Jade’s fault, but a lot of it was.

She had given me a new perspective, one that I hadn’t considered and hadn’t wanted to. But now that I had, I didn’t know if I could walk away from it. Because increasingly I was convinced that the price of my vengeance would be Jade, any chance I might have had with her.

It seemed insane to prioritize Jade, a person I barely even knew over a lifetime’s journey, but I was dangerously close to doing just that.

And that was unacceptable.

But apparently, it was also unavoidable.

I was at a loss for what to do, and the one thing that was there, floating at the back of my mind, was something I wasn’t sure I was ready for.

“A penny for your thoughts?” Jade said.

She shifted in my arms and smiled up at me, the expression radiant, the most beautiful thing I had ever woken up to.

I didn’t express that thought and instead I kissed her quickly and then rolled away and sat up.

“I’m thinking about going somewhere,” I said.

“Okay,” Jade said.

I knew that there was more meaning in that word, but she wasn’t pressing the issue. I wondered why.

“Just okay? You’re not going to question me, ask me where, ask me why?” I asked.

“Would it get me anywhere if I did?” she said.

“Perhaps,” I responded.

To my surprise she laughed, and I shifted to look at her.

“Fisher, if you want me to ask you where you’re going, just say so,” she said.

“Jade, ask me where I’m going,” I said.

“Fisher,” she said, smiling. “Where are you going?”

“Somewhere I swore I never would. And I wanted to know…” I trailed off, not exactly sure how to get the words out, but then just moving ahead.

“I want to know if you would come with me,” I said.

I had looked at her when I spoke, but I hooded my eyes, not exactly having the strength to watch her as she decided.

But to my surprise, she answered instantly. “Yes,” she responded.

“Yes?” I asked, looking at her skeptically.

She nodded. “When do you want to leave?”

“That’s it?” I said.

She shrugged. “I mean, you seem to like my questions even though you don’t answer them, but yes. That’s it. You want me to go somewhere with you, so I will,” she said.

“Can you be ready in an hour?” I asked.

She frowned, tilted her head to look at me.

“An hour! How long do you think it takes to get ready?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. An hour?”

She chuckled, and then got out of bed. I looked at her full, smooth thighs as she walked away, the long shirt she had put back on only giving me a peek of her full bottom.

“Nope. Thirty minutes or less,” she said.

“Thirty minutes, then,” I said.

She nodded and then left, and it seemed as though she took all of the levity with her.

I had no idea what the hell I was doing, or why I was bringing her along with me.

That wasn’t true.

I knew why I was bringing Jade. Because so far, she had been the only bit of lightness in my life, the only bit of happiness. For what I planned to do, I would need her.

The real question was, why was I planning to do this?

I didn’t know.

I had avoided it since I had been in the country, had known that I could do exactly as I needed to without taking this particular trip.

Except now, I wasn’t so sure. And even more, I didn’t know what I hoped to gain.

Did I want to be dissuaded? Convinced? Did I want to satisfy the curiosity that had plagued me for my entire life?

Those were the questions I didn’t have answers to, but one thing I was certain of was that I couldn’t go on as I had been before. I needed to do this if I hoped to have a shot at understanding all that had happened, and what I would do now.

So, as calm as I could be, I showered and dressed.

True to her word, Jade was done in less than a half hour.

“You’re cutting it close. Twenty-nine minutes,” I said, feeling uncharacteristically playful.

“But I still made it,” she said.

“Yes you did,” I responded.

“Are you ready?”

“I don’t know. But let’s go,” I said.

She followed me to the car without a word, and we sat in relative silence for the drive.

It was about forty-five minutes away, but ended up being closer to an hour with traffic. And with each of the seconds that ticked by, I questioned what I was doing and why. What I hoped to gain.

Jade didn’t say anything, but I saw as she watched everything that we passed, and saw her interest rise when we finally pulled onto the grounds of the facility.

Beautiful, sprawling hills, but the surroundings didn’t mask what this place was.

“Do you know someone here?” Jade asked.

“No,” I whispered.

I glanced over at Jade, and saw that she was looking at me. Her expression didn’t necessarily tell me anything, but I could see the question swirling in her mind. Questions that I myself had, and hoped that I might soon have answers to.

“If anyone asks, I’m Sean Murphy and you’re Jess,” I said.

For a moment I could sense that Jade wanted to argue, but she didn’t.

We got out of the car and together, walked through the side entrance.

I didn’t expect anyone to interfere, and no one did. I wondered if that was something the Murphy brothers had arranged for themselves, or if the staff was simply that hands-off.

I wasn’t sure which answer would be better.

But then, I wasn’t sure about anything, especially what the hell I was doing here.

It had taken me a couple of months of surveillance to finally find out about this place.

Michael Murphy was the only one who came here with any regularity. I’d never seen the youngest, Sean, here. Nor Patrick. And from what I had been able to discover, Declan Murphy had come once, but not again.

I felt anger begin to churn in my gut.

Except for Michael, it seemed that the others had been happy to lock their mother here and forget about her. As that anger intensified, I felt a strange sense of calm.

This was putting me back on familiar ground, reminding me why they were worthy, why they needed to suffer.

Because nice as this place might appear inside, there was no reason to leave someone here, especially not someone you claimed to love.

Someone who had loved them and they had been completely content to forget about.

Again my stomach squeezed at that thought, but I tried to quiet those emotions.

I wasn’t a kid anymore. Seeing her rejection, being reminded of my own, wouldn’t hurt me.

I was simply here for information, guidance to help me decide what to do. And that was what I needed to keep my eyes on.

Of course, all this was only exacerbated by the fact that I had been so shocked to find out the woman I was visiting was even alive.

Aengus had told me of her death, had cried actual, genuine tears when he had done so.

A lie, I had only discovered a year before, but one that I had rationalized and tried to explain away. Perhaps he thought I would take it better, that it would be easier to accept that she was dead as opposed to in the state she was in.

A logical explanation on its face, but I knew it wasn’t the truth.

What had been easier for me was completely ignoring it, pretending like it didn’t matter.

I couldn’t do that anymore.

I followed a long corridor, one that was wood-paneled and not like any hospital or institution I had ever seen before, and walked into the great room.

I stopped at the entrance, looking around.

There were a couple of other patients, all clearly off in their own world, and in one corner what I thought was a woman, humming quietly under her breath.

I couldn’t say for sure why, but I was drawn to that sound, and followed it, moving ever closer.

I was aware of Jade beside me, but my attention was rapt, focused on the woman, my heart pounding as I thought about what was about to happen.

When I finally reached the chair I paused for a moment, took a deep breath.

I glanced over at Jade, saw her looking at me, her expression one filled with compassion, and that compassion gave me the strength to move.

I rounded the chair and looked down at the woman, staring at her as intently as I ever had anything in my entire life.

Her hair was threaded through with gray, but I saw the auburn, a color reminiscent of my own, though mine was a darker shade.

I let my gaze drop to her hands, not looking at her face, not yet. Her fingers were thin, gnarled from what looked to be years of use. I glanced at her wrist, saw what looked to be jagged scars, softened and lightened with age, but still recognizable.

And then, finally, after I took a breath, I met her eyes.

They reminded me of my own, and as I looked at her, I tried to imagine how she must have looked before. Pretty, probably beautiful, as she still was now.

Those were my surface impressions, but what intrigued me more was how I was reacting inside.

I felt so many emotions I couldn’t pick just one to latch onto.

I didn’t know it was supposed to be like this.

I had resisted coming here before, hadn’t wanted to see her, but now that I was finally, after all these years of life, looking into my mother’s eyes for the very first time, I wasn’t sure how to feel.

I hurt.

That was undeniable, something that I had long ago stopped trying to pretend that I wasn’t. Her abandonment, her betrayal, was as much a part of me as my name, my blood, and I was far too aware to pretend that I didn’t still feel the sting.

But there were other emotions, the anger, the questions, the desire to simply have her look at me, acknowledge me, were there as well.

But when I looked in her eyes, I didn’t see recognition, or not only recognition.

I saw shock, confusion, pain.

I looked away then. Took a step back from her chair.

I hadn’t had any expectations, but for her to look at me that way, to be as afraid of me as she seemed to be, was something I wasn’t prepared for.

I could sense Jade beside me, but I didn’t look at her. Instead I looked at the woman’s hands, saw when she clinched them tight, her skin pulling so tight that it started to turn white at the edges.

I couldn’t say why, but something in the way she held her hands reminded me of panic.

And then, everything about her did.

With a speed and agility that I hadn’t expected from her, she launched out of her chair and onto her feet.

She dropped her hands to her sides, her fists still clenched. But even that wasn’t sufficient to hold my attention, not when she began to scream.

“What are you doing here? Leave me alone! Leave me alone!”

As she spoke, her voice got higher-pitched, then higher still, to the point that it was a hysterical shriek.

Her fists were clinched and she slammed them against her legs, the force loud enough to make a sound that could be heard over her screams.

I was frozen, not sure what to do, not knowing if there was anything I could do.

It practically ripped me apart to watch this, know that I was the cause, and in that moment it felt like some part of me curdled.

“You’re okay,” Jade said.

I hadn’t forgotten about her, but I had been so preoccupied I had no sense of where she was. One instant I was staring at my mother, watching as she fell apart, and in the next Jade had stepped between us, reached for her hands, and held them tight to keep her from punching herself.

“It’s okay,” she said, using the most calm, soothing voice I had ever heard from Jade.

“You see him?” she said.

“I see him,” Jade said.

“How can you see him? He’s a ghost. He’s come to haunt me!”

Jade kept her hold tight on my mother’s fists but turned to look over her shoulder.

The slight tilt of her head told me what she intended, but I stayed where I was, still shocked to the spot.

“Don’t worry,” Jade said, looking away from me and back to my mother, “he won’t hurt you.”

“He will. He will!”

She spoke with a certainty that felt like it was ripping my guts out.

It was also enough to get me moving.

I left without looking at her or Jade, some part of my brain idly wondering why no one had come at the sound of her distressed screams, but the rest of me completely ensnared by the emotions that threatened to be my undoing.

I stumbled back to the car in a haze, my mind racing. But though my thoughts were coming a mile a minute, bombarding me with emotions that I had no capacity to process, one thing loomed large.

I had been so foolish.

Sometimes, in the dark of night, I would imagine this meeting, and some small part of me, the one little stubborn piece that I hadn’t quite managed to snuff out would imagine that my mother would look at me, be happy to see me.

It was foolish to think, naive, but some part of me had hoped.

My more rational side assumed she wouldn’t recognize me, or that she would be so far gone that I wouldn’t be able to penetrate whatever world she was trapped in in her mind.

But at no point, ever, had I imagined that she would look at me as she had, with such panic, such anger, such confusion.

I had lived her rejection every day of my life, but it had been at a distance, not something that had a real quality.

It did now.

And I knew that until the day I died, I’d always remember that sound, remember how I’d felt as the little boy inside of me who had always wanted his mother was finally, completely broken.

---

Jade

---

As I had watched Fisher with the woman, the woman I could clearly see was his mother, I felt like a terrible interloper, one who was seeing something I had no right to see.

Part of me had been tempted to leave, let him have this moment with her alone, but I was very glad that I had stayed.

Because as uncomfortable as it was to see such a private and painful moment unfolding, the hurt on his face at her reaction had been so much worse.

My heart had ached for Fisher as he reacted to her response.

Or more accurately, didn’t react.

In the few seconds I had watched him, I saw him shutting down.

He would have been angry if he had known that he was so transparent, but as we had initially entered the room I had seen those little tendrils of hope in his eyes. I had no idea what he had been expecting, but for those few moments he had held out some hope, and I had held it out with him.

And he had been crushed.

He would deny it, as I would have, but his denials would be meaningless. I had seen the pain etched on his face, saw that it was a pain he would carry for a very long time. And it was wanting to stop that that had driven me into action.

After he left, the woman calmed down and again sat in her chair. She picked up whatever she had been knitting, something that looked like nothing and then began to quietly hum again as though there had been no disturbance at all.

Watching that had been completely unnerving.

But, I had lingered, and once I was certain she was okay, I left.

Strange as it was to think, I was not looking forward to seeing Fisher. He would have a reaction to this, even if his reaction was to pretend that he didn’t.

And some part of me understood that. I had witnessed something of such importance, something that revealed a vulnerability that I knew he didn’t want to show. How would I have reacted if someone had seen that?

Poorly, I knew, and I feared Fisher would do the same.

“Did she calm down?” he asked when I got into the car. His voice sounded completely normal, but when I looked at his face I saw the sternness in it, the hurt.

“She did. She went back to her knitting,” I said.

“Did a doctor or anyone ever show up?” he asked.

“No. I didn’t see anyone,” I said.

He cranked up the car and scoffed as he began to drive away from the grounds.

“I’m not surprised you didn’t see anyone. I thought this place was supposed to be nice, but it’s a shit hole,” he said.

“It looks okay,” I responded.

“Yeah, and all that matters is what it looks like, right?”

His voice had a nasty edge, one that I completely ignored. I also didn’t respond to his question, knowing that arguing with me would be much more preferable than trying to deal with what had happened. I understood that, but I wouldn’t condone it, and wouldn’t let myself get engaged in a battle that I knew neither of us would win.

Fisher glanced over at me, his expression foreboding.

“You’re so quiet. Are you starting to rethink how you feel about your friends?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“You carry the banner for the Murphy brothers, tell me how good and loyal they are, how much they care about their families. And yet they put their mother in a place like that in that condition,” he said, his voice brimming with disgust.

“I’m sure they did what they thought was best,” I said, my heart breaking for Fisher and for his mother. The Murphys too. Whatever had happened to her had been bad, and her sons had not escaped unscathed.

“Yeah, best for them,” he said, his voice even uglier now.

“Fisher—”

“Shut up, Jade. I don’t want to hear it,” he said.

On instinct, anger, annoyance at the way he was speaking to me, spiked up, but I quickly pushed it down.

He was lashing out, and I needed to maintain my cool, help him maintain his.

That would be difficult, if not impossible.

I was right that something had happened to him in there, but when I looked at him now, he wasn’t like I had ever seen him before.

There was a roughness to him, a certainty, one that sent a chill racing down my spine.

I had been so hopeful before we had left the house. And when I had seen this place, I had grown even more so.

One glance at the woman was enough to confirm to me that she was Fisher’s mother, so in my mind that hope grew even larger. He had sought her out for a reason, and I couldn’t help but hope he had started to see some of the error in whatever it was he had planned.

I had no doubt that at least in part his anger stemmed from whatever had happened with his mother and caused him to be so separate and apart from the other brothers. Maybe seeing his mother would have reminded him that they weren’t his enemies, at least as far as I knew.

That wouldn’t work now.

If nothing else, Fisher would have to do something with the pain of her rejection, and what better way to focus his anger?

There wasn’t one, and if anything, rather than dissuading him from his course, I feared what had happened with his mother would send him farther down it.

Still, though I thought that, I stayed quiet.

I wouldn’t get through to him, and I wasn’t really sure I should be trying.

As we drove, the ride away from the facility seeming interminable, I considered my predicament, my reaction to all of this.

Fisher was hurting, and that hurt touched me, made me care about him even more than I already did, which was far more than I cared to admit.

But I couldn’t lose sight of what he was, who he was, not now.

Which again left me in a horrible conundrum. Except now, I felt even more torn.

Because I still cared about Nya, wanted to make sure that nothing happened to Patrick, and thus to her, but I cared about Fisher too. I wanted him to see that there was another way, but I didn’t know if that was possible.

We sat in grim silence for the duration of the ride, silence that wasn’t even broken when we finally reached the house.

Fisher got out and slammed the car door behind him, then walked to the front door.

I followed quietly, no closer to an answer as to what I should do than I had been before.

He left the front door open and I walked inside the house and closed it behind me and then leaned against it.

It was dark, not full on, but late evening when the last rays of sun were losing their battle. And in that semi-twilight, I leaned against the door, my eyes closed, asking for the strength and wisdom to do what I hoped was the right thing.

Then I opened them, and immediately locked eyes with Fisher who was glaring at me.

I had never seen him like this, and it scared me, and made me scared for him.

Because in his expression I saw his anger, but underneath I saw that hurt, hurt that looked to be a tangible thing, one that I wanted to take away from him.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked.

“Like what?” I responded as I began to walk toward him.

“I don’t have time for your games, Jade,” he said, his voice a grumbled mutter.

“I’m not playing games, Fisher,” I said. “I’m asking a question.”

“Fuck your questions,” he said.

The strength of his anger made me pause, but I disregarded that feeling and continued to walk toward him.

“I don’t want to hear your shit. You’re going to tell me that I’m doing the wrong thing, try to convince me to stay away from this path, tell me that this isn’t what my mother would have wanted,” he said.

His voice was still angry, but it hitched over the word “mother” in a way that made my heart clench yet again.

I stopped in front of him, kept my eyes locked with his as he continued his diatribe.

“Keep that shit to yourself, Jade,” he said. “I don’t want to hear it. I’m going to do what I have to do, what I must do, and there’s nothing you can say that’s going to change my mind. So if you can’t keep your fucking mouth closed, get out,” he said.

He finished, and by the time he went quiet his chest was heaving, the expression on his face angry, fueled by the hurt that I recognized so much.

I didn’t speak, but instead looked at him, waited.

“Well?” he snapped, impatient. “What do you have to say?”

I paused for yet another moment, wanting to find the perfect words, the ones that would make this better for him, take away some of that hurt. Realized almost as quickly that there were no words, nothing I could say that would make what had happened better. So I did the thing that seemed natural, normal.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“What?” he replied, looking at me incredulously.

I didn’t answer immediately. Instead I continued to follow my instincts and wrapped my arms around him, pulling our bodies chest-to-chest, my arms linked around his slim waist, my face lying against his chest, right above his thudding heart.

“I’m sorry, Fisher. I’m sorry you had to go through that. I’m sorry for everything,” I whispered.

My voice was muffled by his shirt, but I was certain he heard me.

The way he tensed his body, a physical, seemingly instinctual rejection of my words was the first clue.

But I didn’t let him go.

Instead I held him tighter, squeezing him with all my might, trying to pour all the sorrow, the regret, all the hurt I felt for the hurt that he had experienced into that embrace.

I didn’t know how long we stood that way, but I didn’t let him go, not when I felt his body begin to relax, nor when, after what felt like an eternity, he hugged me back.

Didn’t let go when he leaned down, laid two soft kisses against my forehead.

Were I the type to cry, I would have cried at the emotion in his kisses.

He looked down at me, his eyes wounded, though I could see he was doing everything he could to hide it.

On instinct I reached up, cupped his cheeks with my hand.

“I’m sorry, Fisher,” I whispered.

He didn’t say anything, but his expression darkened, the stab of pain there as intense as it was fleeting.

He looked at me for another long moment, breathed out a harsh breath.

“I need you, Jade,” he whispered.

I could hear what saying that, admitting it, did to him. And I hurt that he hurt so much, felt happy that I could be here to take away whatever bit of that hurt I could.

“I’m here,” I whispered in return.

Fisher wasted no moments after that.

Instead he moved quickly, capturing my lips in a kiss that was desperate, needy. One that was rich, almost frenzied with the emotions that were going through him.

And I could feel his confusion, his hurt. His desire.

And that was what I focused on.

I kissed him with all that I had, more than I had, wanted him to know that no matter what he wasn’t alone.

I didn’t even allow myself to think about what that meant, if I was making a mistake.

Whatever the circumstances, he couldn’t be that. The connection we shared had to mean something more, and I would honor that.

He pulled me to him tight, his hands seeming to touch me everywhere at once.

His frenzy sparked my own, and soon we were a mass of hands and kisses, no technique, only the drive of emotion.

He broke the kiss long enough to guide me to the bedroom.

“Undress me,” he said in a harsh voice, his eyes aflame.

I wasted no time in complying, making quick work of the buttons on his shirt and pulled it off of his body to expose his broad chest, the light smattering of dark auburn hair on it.

I did the same with his pants, again mesmerized by his perfect member.

But I didn’t have time to revel, or watch.

Fisher soon did the same to me, pulling down my skirt and panties with blinding speed, and then working me out of my peasant top.

Considering how intimately he had kissed me before, how I had touched him, I shouldn’t have felt anything standing in front of him in just a bra, but I did.

I was nervous as to how he would react, something that surprised me.

But it was Fisher, everything about him surprised me, threw me off balance, so this wouldn’t be any different.

He made quick work of removing my bra and I didn’t allow myself to meet his eyes as he looked at me.

I knew well enough what he saw—me short, just this side of dumpy, nice enough boobs, but nothing to write home about.

Having reminded myself of what I was, and more importantly, what I wasn’t, which was someone who would attract the attention of a man like Fisher in any normal circumstances, I allowed myself to meet his eyes.

What I saw there took my breath away.

The way he looked at me, like I was a precious treasure, a beautiful jewel, left me shivering.

No one had ever seen me like this, and even if they had, I was certain no one would ever look at me like this, like I was special, the most beautiful thing they had ever seen.

That emotion still in his eyes, Fisher pulled me close to him, capturing me in an enveloping hug.

Being in his arms, his strong, muscled body against mine, his scent blocking out all others, the feeling of his heart pounding against his chest, the vibrations seeping through to mine, was mind blowing.

“You’re so beautiful, Jade,” he whispered.

The first instinct was to brush his words off, chalk them up to the heat of the moment, but the sound of his voice, the honesty I heard in it wouldn’t allow me to.

I had no idea how to respond, so I stood, let him hold me, his hardness sandwiched between our bodies, his breath warm against my skin.

The embrace started as one thing, but soon shifted to something else.

He kissed me again, my forehead, my cheek, my lips, then moved down my neck, traced the length of my collarbone with his lips, and then went lower still.

He captured the hard tip of one of my breasts in his mouth and used his hand to toy with the other.

My breath came out in harsh pants, the combined sensation of his fingers and his tongue driving me to distraction.

He switched breasts, and I looked down to see the dark tip glistening with evidence of his caresses, felt my needs spark even higher when the cool air hit my skin.

As he sucked my nipple deep into his mouth, he trailed his hands down my stomach to center between my thighs.

He started off slow, stroking me gently.

Had I any of my senses left, I would’ve been embarrassed at how wet I was, how much I wanted him, but there wasn’t room for that, wasn’t room for anything but the thrumming, unrelenting need that he had unleashed.

He stroked my slit one last time and then began to prod at my opening with one of his thick fingers.

He released my breasts and captured my lips, delving his tongue into my mouth as he pushed his finger fully inside me.

My walls clenched tight, slamming down on him, the invasion unfamiliar but not unwelcome.

He thrust his finger once, and I hissed, which made him freeze.

I had let my eyes drift closed but when he stilled I looked at him, saw that question through his passion-glazed eyes.

I chuckled, the sound, the motion, completely out of place here.

“What?” I said to the unasked question in his face. “You never slept with a virgin?”

---

Fisher

---

I heard Jade’s question, but my state of mind made it take a little longer for me to respond.

But I soon came to my senses, remembered how tight she was clenched around my finger, the hitch in her breath when I had first entered her.

“No,” I said tightly.

It took all of my will, but I pulled my finger from her welcoming heat and put a few inches of space between us.

I stared down at her, marveling at her beauty, her warmth, angry at her stupidity.

“What were you about to do, Jade?” I asked, my voice tight with both need and disappointment.

“Well, I’d hoped I was about to have sex with you,” she said nonchalantly.

I scowled, put another inch between us, one that she instantly closed.

“Why would you do that?” I asked, my voice tight.

“What the hell kind of question is that, Fisher?” she asked.

She wasn’t angry, she wasn’t even exasperated, and that was in and of itself another difficulty.

“Jade, you’ve never been with anyone. Why in the hell would you sleep with me?” I asked.

She looked at me with that familiar mix of exasperation and annoyance.

“Are we really having this conversation right now?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, though I would rather be continuing where we had left off.

Jade shook her head and then stepped even closer to me, bringing our bodies together.

My heart thudded at the feel of her soft breasts against my chest, the gentle curve of her stomach against mine.

“Because I want to.”

“You say that like that’s all that matters,” I said.

“It is all that matters,” she said.

Then she blanched, blinked, her face shifting, her embarrassment palpable.

“Unless… I mean… I thought…” she stammered, something that was unusual for her.

“Jade, you’re not making sense,” I said.

She looked down, clearly trying to cover her embarrassment. I wouldn’t have it.

Instead I reached for her chin and tilted it up until she met my eyes again.

I could see she wanted to look away, but being the brave woman that she was, she didn’t allow herself to.

“I mean I just assumed that you wanted to, you know, but if I was wrong…”

I held her gaze for a moment, not speaking, then rocked my hips lightly, prodding her thigh with my solid length.

“If there was a question about that, I think you have your answer,” I said.

Jade smiled, blushed prettily, and my cock jerked again.

“So what are we waiting for?” she asked.

“Jade, this situation… You don’t know what you’re—”

She lifted a finger to my mouth, then stretched up tall to kiss me. When she broke away, she stared up at me with a smile.

“For a moment there I thought you were about to tell me that I didn’t know what I was getting into, didn’t understand what it meant. But you wouldn’t do that. Because you know me well enough now to know that I don’t do any damn thing I don’t want to. So, either this is going to happen, or I’m gonna leave, because I’m not going to try to convince you, Fisher,” she said.

She said the last sternly, though I could see the bravado she had put behind the words. I also knew they were true.

I felt like a bastard for even contemplating this, but there was no way I could walk away from her.

So, instead of responding I kissed her again.

Almost came on the spot, the feeling of her lips against mine, her body against mine making everything perfect.

I kissed her deeper, harder and reached between her thighs, pushed one finger inside of her.

As she had before, she clamped down on me tight, but this time she moaned deeply, the sound shaking what little control I still had left.

I added a second finger to the first, moving gingerly, not allowing myself to go too hard, too fast but knowing that soon I would be with her, that knowledge giving me the patience to take things slow.

Not that Jade made it easy.

She gripped my arms tight, rocked her hips in time to mine, her pussy clenching around me in a way that I couldn’t wait to feel on my cock.

I kissed her until we were both breathless and then broke the kiss.

I looked into her eyes, saw the desire there, saw that it was all for me.

I gently laid her down on the bed and lay atop her, keeping most of my weight on my elbows.

Jade notched her knees against my hips, cradling my body between her thighs.

When she arched her back, brushed her sex against my shaft, I shuddered and then moaned.

“Now, Fisher,” she whispered, her demand as clear as her vulnerability. “I’m ready.”

I was too, beyond, and I took Jade at her word and began to feed my cock inside her.

The sensation of her opening to me, receiving me was indescribable, perfection, and I used all the strength I could to push away the orgasm that threatened from just this first touch.

I kept pushing slowly, slowly, until I was fully inside her.

She breathed out a sigh, one that was filled with wonder, happiness, one that warmed my heart.

I kissed her, stayed still, hoping that she would adjust quickly.

And as I had hoped, she was soon squirming under me, her hands gripping my back tight, her unvoiced request one I couldn’t deny.

I moved, felt her clench around me as she moaned, the sound, the motion, almost enough to be my undoing.

I rested my forehead on hers and then thrust again, then again, still moving slow, but going deep.

As I had suspected she would, Jade met me thrust for thrust, giving as good as she took.

I could feel her climax rising, knew I wouldn’t be able to hold out long. So I reached between our bodies, teasing her clit between two fingers as I thrust inside her.

“Oh. Oh God!” she exclaimed.

At the sound of her twisted, needy voice, I thrust a little harder, and then harder still.

She arched against me, groping my back, and then, finally, after one last swipe of her clit, she came apart.

The sound of her voice, the hitch in her breath, as her pussy fluttered around me pushed me over the edge.

I emptied my seed inside her, my body pulled tight like a bow as jet after jet came out.

I stayed inside her as long as I could, then after, brought her to my side, held her tight against me.

I kissed her cheek and held her until she drifted off to sleep.