Ashley didn’t seem fazed in the slightest; she didn’t even blush as she looked him right in the eye. “You kiss your mother with that mouth, Josh?” Her voice was teasing and light. I was still gasping for breath, choking to death on my drink as Ashley patted my back, not looking at me. Had I not been choking, I would have thought this an acceptable moment for me to tell him to fuck right off. Josh laughed and shook his head. “No, but I’d happily kiss the mother of my child with it though.” She gasped, putting her hand over her heart, faking shock. “You have another child? You mean DJ has a little brother or sister?” I smiled weakly, my breathing returning to normal after almost dying. “Bunny, you know you’re the only one I share bodily fluids with,” Josh replied, shrugging. She scoffed at that. “If that were true then we might never have broken up,” she said, rolling her eyes at him. “That was because I was young and stupid. We both know I’ve always been you
When we pulled up at her apartment, she looked a little nervous. I smiled at her, wondering why she would be nervous, then it suddenly hit me – was she thinking we were going to be having sex tonight? Was she worried about it? For some reason, I started to get my hopes up that she was worried about that. If she wanted to have sex with me then that was another step in the right direction and meant she was serious about me. But I still wanted to hold out for her to fall for me. I didn’t want to just be something physical for her, I wanted her heart too, so I knew I would be knocking back any advances that she threw my way tonight. I just wanted to wake up next to her, that was the only reason I was here tonight, not for anything else. Well, nothing that benefitted me anyway, though I was definitely up for a repeat of her calling my name like last night! Another part of me badly wanted to have sex with her tonight. That would just be another connection that I had with her. Part o
As we kissed, her hands went to the belt of my jeans, her fingers working on it, her hands so close to my crotch that I could barely stand it. I wanted her so much, but I was going to wait. I had to wait. I had to be strong. Because she seemed to be fumbling nervously, I pushed her hands away and unbuckled it, ripping open my buttons at the same time. I kissed her again and walked her backwards to the bed, stopping when the back of her knees hit the side. She whimpered, and the sound almost drove me crazy. As she lay down in the bed, I pulled back, turning slightly as I pulled off my jeans, trying to rearrange downstairs so it wasn’t so freaking obvious. I threw my jeans on the chair by the side of her bed and turned back to her. She’d climbed into the bed and had lifted the cover, looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to get in with her. I smiled as I slipped in next to her,filling the empty space. “So, is this my side of the bed now, Stripes?” I asked, grinning l
I woke to the sound of Britney Spears’ voice blasting near my ear. I winced and flinched away from the sound as Ashley groaned loudly, shifting and pressing her face into the side of my neck. Her hand blindly slapped onto her bedside cabinet, looking for something. I smiled, a little confused, then I realised she was reaching for her cell phone. I laughed as I noticed what the Britney song actually was, ‘Womanizer’ was blasting way too loud for this time of the morning. Finally, she found it and pressed it to her ear without moving her face away from my neck. She didn’t bother with any hellos. “This had better be important or I’m gonna kick your ass,” she growled into the phone, her voice thick with sleep. I laughed and wrapped my arms around her tighter, kissing the top of her head as I blinked, trying to get my stinging eyes to adjust to the light in the room. “Heck yeah you woke me up! What time is it anyway?” she asked, then she groaned again. “Josh, I hardly ever ge
Everyone stopped laughing and looked at me. Anna and Bryson looked shocked, Ashley looked like she thought I was joking, and DJ, well DJ was looking at me like I’d just suggested that I buy a real live penguin of his own. Ashley opened her mouth and then closed it again, seeming a little lost for words. She looked at Anna again, and they seemed to have that whole silent conversation again. I really wished I was privy to it, I’d love to know what went on in my girl’s pretty head. Ashley looked back at me, chewing on her lip. “Really?” I nodded and shrugged, silently hoping she would say yes, because that meant that she trusted me with the most important thing in her life. “Sure, we could go Friday, after I finish work,” I suggested. DJ pumped the air hissing a ‘yes’ as he grinned. I looked at Ashley, waiting for her to say something. Instead, she walked up to me quickly, gripped the front of my T-shirt and kissed me passionately. “Eww!” DJ cried. I smiled an
I grinned happily, ignoring the comment about my sisters. My mom was going to pitch a fit when I told her. “And if Josh cancels this weekend, then my mom insisted that we bring DJ too,” I said, playing down my mom’s enthusiasm a bit. Ashley recoiled. “Well let’s just hope that Josh doesn’t cancel this time then. I mean, surely your parents are a little apprehensive about you dating a girl with a child. I think it’d be best if they just got used to the idea a little before I throw my four-year-old into their faces.” I smiled, unsure how I could phrase my reply without telling her that my mom was already bragging about her grandson down at the bowls club. “Stripes,my parents don’t mind in the slightest. They want to meet him actually.” Wow, understatement of the century! A nervous smile twitched at the corner of her mouth. “Really?” “Really,” I confirmed. “If Josh cancels then we’ll take him with us. He’d love it there. We could play on the beach, and they have a
“Momma,” A voice said quietly. What the hell? “Momma.” It suddenly dawned on me that I was at Ashley’s apartment and that her body was practically on top of mine. Her face was pressed into the crook of my neck, her arm and leg were slung over me – and damn, was it comfortable! She moved stiffly, and I glanced in the direction of the voice. I could barely see from the light of the alarm clock, but I could just make out DJ standing by the side of the bed, clutching Woody doll to his chest. “Hey, Baby, what’s up?” Ashley whispered, moving off me carefully. “I had a bad dream,” DJ answered, sniffing loudly. “Shush, Baby, Jace’s sleeping. What was your dream about?” Ashley whispered as she moved to sit on the side of the bed, rubbing her hand over her face. “Bad guys came in and got us,” DJ answered, as he started to cry again. “It’s okay, Baby, no bad guys will come in here, you don’t need to worry about that. Come on, let’s get you back to bed,” Ashley whi
“Momma, wake up,” I heard DJ say as he squeezed my hand. Grinning, I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him in the bed, yanking the duvet over our heads, making him giggle and thrash around as I tickled him. “Morning, Baby.” I yawned as he hugged me back. “I made you breakfast, Momma,” he chirped happily. I smiled. “Yeah? What did you make, pancakes and bacon?” I asked, playing along, holding my hand out for the pretend food. He laughed and pulled the cover off our heads. “No, we made eggs and I mades the toast.” My eyes flicked behind him and I jumped as I saw someone standing in the doorway. My mouth popped open in shock. I’d forgotten that Jace had stayed last night. I wasn’t used to waking up having someone else in the apartment at all. He smiled, probably at my shocked face, and I couldn’t help but smile back. Of their own accord, my eyes wandered down his body. Just the way his jeans hung so dangerously low, showing off all of the muscles to perfection
I was shaking. No, that wasn’t right, the bed was shaking. Or someone was shaking me which was making the bed shake? “Daddy!” I cracked my stinging eyes open to see DJ bouncing on the edge of my bed with a grin stretched across his face. Groaning, I rubbed my eyes and pushed myself up on one elbow. “Hey, Kid. What’s up?” I rasped. “Momma saids I needed to wake you up,” he replied. I sat up and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. “Where is Momma anyway?” Yawning, I glanced around the room. I usually got a better wake up than that if I’d been on sixteen hour nights all week! He beamed up at me. “She’s going out to buys a new dress for the party tonight. You gots to look after me.” His smile told me he was pleased about it. I remembered Ashley mentioning something about having to buy a new dress. “I do? Well maybe we should think of something fun to do today then, huh? How about we go play catch at the park or something?” I offered, knowing he wanted to test ou
She giggled and gripped my shoulders, rolling me over onto my back as she sat up on top of me, holding one arm across her chest, keeping her dress in place. “You didn’t have to get me anything; it’s not a tradition or anything. I just really wanted you to have this tonight,” she assured me, bending and kissing my lips softly. When she pulled back, my hands instinctively tightened on her waist. I didn’t want to let her go, I felt whiny and needy and I just didn’t want her to get off me even if it was only to get something from her bag three feet away from me. She smiled and pushed my hands off her, climbing out of the bed and heading over to the bag. While she was busy, I took the opportunity to slip off my shoes. As I pulled it off, something white caught my eye on the sole of it. I turned it over to see I had two big letters: L and P, written on the bottom of one of my shoes in white marker. Frowning in confusion, I grabbed my other shoe and looked at the sole of that one
“I love you, Mrs Roger,” I whispered, looking into her eyes. My whole future was mapped out before me. It didn’t matter what happened from here on out, as long as I had this girl in my arms every single day I could cope with anything. Instead of replying, she just crashed her lips back to mine again in a scorching hot kiss that was seriously inappropriate for people to be watching, especially standing at the front of the church. The vicar obviously thought so too. “I think your guests are getting impatient,” he said tersely. Ashley broke the kiss immediately and stiffened, as if she forgot where we were and that we weren’t on our own. She blushed and hid her face in the side of my neck as I wrapped my arm around her tightly. “We’re just starting as we mean to go on,” I joked, winking at the vicar. Ashley pinched my stomach playfully as she giggled against my neck. That was a typical Jace and Ashley moment. In my eyes, if the wedding had gone beautifully, then it wo
I didn’t feel nervous at all. Not when Seth started talking about never sleeping with another girl again. Not when he was teasing me that half of all marriages end in divorce. Not when he was telling me that once you got married you only had sex on birthdays and anniversaries. I didn’t even get nervous when Bryson started humming the wedding march. But as soon as I stepped into the church, my legs weakened and my throat seemed to close up as my tongue felt like it swelled to twice its normal size. I was getting married today. I was actually terrified of that thought – not because I didn’t want to marry Ashley, but because every single person from my family was going to watch me stand up the front of the church congregation and say my vows. I’d heard it was normal to get cold feet, but that wasn’t what this was; I was just terrified of screwing it up for Ashley. This was her one and only wedding day, because there was not a chance I was letting her get away from me to marry som
“Are you sure it’s straight?” I asked, frowning at the homemade banner with the words ‘Welcome Home’ emblazoned across it that was now tacked to the wall of the lounge. “It’s straight. The same as it was straight before you climbed on the chair and started fiddling with it. Will you stop stressing?” Anna teased, chuckling. I hopped down off the chair and nodded, forcing myself to take a couple of deep breaths. I’d planned this day out for the last two weeks that Jace had been stuck in the hospital for, I just could hardly wait to have him home so I could fuss over him and treat him like the hero that he really was. Seeing him for an hour at a time at the hospital just wasn’t enough for me. “How much longer do you think they’ll be?” I asked, checking my watch for the hundredth time today. I could barely wait another second. Anna shrugged, selecting a cupcake from the table that was laden with buffet style welcome home afternoon tea we’d made. “Shouldn’t be too much longer, Bryson sa
After a couple of minutes of us just sitting on the bed, talking about what pictures I was going to ask Anna to draw on my casts, Ashley poked her head in the door. She looked a little nervous as she chewed on her lip. When I smiled reassuringly and waved her in, she seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. “You two okay in here?” she asked, stepping in. DJ grinned and nodded. “Momma, Jace wants to a-dot me and Woody. He wants to be my daddy,” he boasted. “We all getted new names!” Ashley laughed to herself, her eyes sparkling as they met mine. “He wants to adopt both of you? Wow, that’s nice of Jace, huh? Roger is a pretty nice name,” she said breathlessly, heading over to sit on the bed with us. She took my hand and I interlaced our fingers, grinning. “DJ likes the idea of us getting married,” I told her proudly. “That’s a coincidence, because I like the idea too,” she replied, blushing. She sighed and nodded towards the door. “My parents want to come in a
After a little while, Ashley had to excuse herself to go back up to DJ. My parents and Bryson kept me busy, fussing over me for a few hours, before they left too so I could get some rest. Once I was alone, I tried my hardest to sleep, but sleep didn’t come easy, and even when it did, I was plagued with dreams of the fire. Memories flooded my brain, images of Ashley shaking and mumbling words that I couldn’t understand while she was standing by the ambulance. I dreamt of DJ and the look he gave me when he understood that we were going to die. Thankfully, the hospital was busy, so I was woken often by talking or doctors banging around. The noises brought me out of my nightmares before they reached the climax. That afternoon, after I’d finished choking down some hospital garbage that they called ‘food’ the door opened and my beautiful girlfriend stood there with a huge smile stretched across her face. “Hey, you,” she greeted. I smiled, happy to see her again. “Hi.
I took a deep breath, willing myself not to mess it up. “As soon as you said those three words to me, I was going to drop down on one knee and propose to you.” I said it quickly before I wimped out and didn’t do it. She didn’t react how I thought she would though. She didn’t gasp and look at me shocked. Instead, she burst out laughing, shaking her head. “That’s a good one,” she replied around her giggles, settling herself back down onto the bed next to me. I remained silent, waiting for her to catch on that I wasn’t joking. Slowly, I saw it sink in. The giggles stopped, and the smile slowly faded from her face as her eyes widened. “Oh God, seriously?” she asked breathlessly. I nodded in confirmation. “Seriously. But your timing ruined that for me too. I can’t exactly get down on one knee right now because one’s busted and the other leg’s broken, so that plan’s out of the window.” I laughed at my choice of words. Out of the window – yeah, it literally was. “Jace, wh
I pulled the mask off my face so I could talk. “There goes my dancing plans this weekend,” I joked, shifting uncomfortably on the bed. The doctor laughed quietly. “Because of the burns to your legs, we can’t cast it straight away. We need to let the skin heal a little before we can cover it. We’ll have to leave the temporary one on for a few days, then see how you’re getting on after that. You’ll have to stay here for a few days, I’m afraid. The burns need monitoring, and you’ll be started on a two week course of antibiotics to ward off any infections.” I frowned. I really didn’t want to stay here, I hated hospitals. “Will the burns heal or…” I trailed off, wondering what my legs were going to look like after this. The worst of it was on my right leg, covering most of my shin. He nodded. “We’ll move you to the burns centre as soon as we’ve dealt with your other injuries. They’re more equipped to deal with it there. You were very lucky though. The dampness of your cloth