Page 59 of Fight

“It’s not only that I lost the job, I lost it after only a few weeks. And Cynthia said some pretty awful things to me. She really doesn’t like me.” The words sounded much more pathetic and ridiculous when she said them out loud. She blinked away the prickling sensation on the backs of her eyes as she willed herself to keep the additional tears at bay.

“Cindy doesn’t likeanyone, Lena. I’m sorry she said hurtful things to you, but you’re not the first. There were a couple others that she let go immediately, too.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” he replied as he reached up to run his hands in the loose strands of her hair. “And not everyone is always going to like you, you know? You didn’t seem to care this much when you thought I didn’t like you.” His voice was tinged with a bitterness as his lashes dropped over his cheeks.

Lena didn’t know how to respond to that, so she stayed silent. She had never been worried about Jake disliking her. Maybe because she knew that the feelings they had for each other went so much deeper than like or dislike. For all that they’d clashed, disagreed, and insulted each other, there were little flashes of understanding between them that had seemed to highlight the arguing as something more than either of them wanted to admit.

Lena didn’t say any of that though, she just laid there and considered him from inches away, blanketed by shadows and bruises.

Jake broke the heavy pause with a deep breath as he looked up at her, his eyes penetrating hers. “Why weren’t you harder on, Daniel?” he pressed.

“What do you mean?” Lena answered, feigning misunderstanding.

“Last summer, you had no problem calling me out for bad behavior, but this guy leaves you in the middle of nowhere and you’re the one apologizing to him.”

Lena groaned and sat up straight, looking down on him as he stared resolutely at the ceiling.And I’m supposed to be the stubborn one.

“Jake, I don’tcareabout Daniel. I just wanted him to go away and that seemed like the fastest way to accomplish it,” she emphasized, crossing her arms over her chest. “I never wanted you to go away—even last summer. I’ve always gotten a sick little thrill out of being around you. Apparently, I’m a masochist.”

Reaching her hand down to his face, she gently laid her fingertips on his bruised face. “And you’re an idiot,” she said decisively, as her fingers danced across his injured skin delicately. “You shouldn’t have hit him. I could’ve handled him.”

“Iaman idiot,” Jake agreed with a groan. He shut his eyes as if pained by the fact. “It's starting to sink in what happened. It seemed to make sense at the time,” he admitted ruefully, opening his eyes to her again. “But I’m still not sure I fully regret it.”

Lena hummed as she laid back down on her back. “Maybe I should have hit Sadie,” she mumbled grumpily to her friend, the ceiling fan.Shehad been way more obnoxious than Daniel in Lena’s opinion.

Jake laughed at that as he pulled himself up to hover over her, blocking her view of the fan. “I think if you tried, Morgan would have beat you to it,” he said with a small smile.

Her lips quirked up a bit before Jake lowered his face down to hers, capturing her lips with his and erasing all thoughts of Sadie and Daniel from her mind. Lena lost herself in the feel of kissing him, running her hands through the short stands of his hair, and pressing her hips into his. He groaned as he grabbed hold of one of her hips and pulled her into his hard center.

She could feel him through his jeans and her thin dress and underwear. Her heart skipped a beat and she pulled away a bit to look into his eyes with her hands resting gently on his jaw.

“Jake, what if I can’t find a new job and I have to leave?” she whispered roughly to his face a couple inches from hers.

“You’re not going anywhere, Lena,” Jake answered in a rasp as he lowered his head down to hers again, re-capturing her lips. She felt like she was feeding him pieces of her soul as she pressed her body forward, trying to get closer to him.

The rest of their actions were hurried and frantic as Lena moved her hands under his shirt and up and down the light hairs on his warm, soft chest.

He sat up all of sudden then, as if inspired by her touch, and pulled his shirt over his head in one fluid motion as she shimmied out of her dress in a less fluid motion, tossing it on the floor. She only had a second to admire his broad, bare chest in the muted light, and catch a glimpse of another set of burgeoning bruises below his rib cage, before his heavy weight was on top of her again.

She hissed in a breath at the feeling of his body on top of hers as his broad chest grazed her nipples. He showered her neck with rushed kisses before moving down to her breasts, paying homage to each of them with his mouth as she ran her hands up and down the trimmed hairs on the back of his neck.

She could feel the quick, steady beat of his heart as he moved back up to kiss her while he frantically unbuttoned his pants and kicked them and his underwear to the bottom of the bed. She laid there, seemingly helpless for all that her body burned, as he pulled the crotch of her lacy underwear aside and thrust into her with one clean motion.

Jake drew in a deep breath at the same time that Lena let out a soft whimper as he pumped into her throbbing heat only a few times before she felt her need building inside of her. He mumbled her name and other inarticulate words she couldn’t decipher as he hit deep inside of her again and again.

Her orgasm took her by surprise as she pulsed around him, moaning his name as she arched her back. He choked out a sputtering sound as he followed close behind her, their releases timed together almost perfectly—Lena didn’t think that had ever happened to her before. They laid there together with him still inside her as she listened to the pounding of his heart against hers.

When he lifted his head and looked down at her, there was a fiery spark floating among the colors of his eyes as he lowered his head and took another long draw of her lips. Sliding off her gently, he lay on his side facing her and she turned over so they were looking at each other straight on.

He reached up to smooth back the hairs coming loose at her temple. “You’re not going anywhere,” he repeated reverently.

“No, I’m not,” Lena agreed as she burrowed into his chest and fell asleep.

Jake pulled himself from Lena’s arms as the bright morning sun streamed between the cracks in the blinds. Rubbing his hand up and down the left side of his face, and the space under his ribs, he moaned. He looked down to his side to see a burgeoning bright red bruise on his left side from Daniel’s punches—that little fucker was stronger than he looked. Looking at the marks on his torso, he could only imagine what his face looked like.

Lena was lying next to him still fast asleep. She was curved on her left side, facing him with her hands curled up in little balls like she was going in for a punch.Maybe she’s dreaming about Sadie, he thought with a chuckle. He looked down at her tenderly as he remembered her confession that she’d been fired.

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