15: Surprise

Erin

      I'm exhausted, and I can't seem to keep my eyes open for the life of me. By some miracle, this doesn't bother Bryce in the least. I don't really understand why, but I'm glad he doesn't mind. I lie here and stare up at the treetops, thinking about how nice it is to feel so comfortable. The green blurs with the blue as what I see blurs in front of me before my eyes close. I am so tired.

       I can feel Bryce staring at me, but for once, I don't mind. I'm itching to know what he's thinking about, but the desire to find out isn't enough to occupy my mind and keep me awake. He said he'd tell me anyway when he finally figures out how to say what he's thinking. Of course, this makes me want to know all the more.

       I take a deep breath and simply relax as I think about how happy I am right now.

      I feel his fingertip lightly run itself along my jawline, and I can't help but smile. He's so sweet, and I'm so tired and comfortable. I have an urge to just bury my face into his shoulder, so I decide to do just that as I curl into him. Bless him, he wraps his arms around me lovingly, and I can't fight sleep off any more.

      I'm drifting along on a blue cloud in a pink and purple sky. My little cloud is comfortable, and I look around at things as I pass them. There's not a whole lot to look at really. I appear to be out over the ocean somewhere. I stare down at the whitecaps as they reflect the sky, and I find it strange that even though I can see them breaking, I'm so far up that I can't hear the waves. All I hear is wind as I float along.

       I look out at the horizon and see a little island coming up, and right away I know it's my new home. I rest my chin on my hands, smiling slightly, as I lie down on my stomach to watch the island getting closer and closer. The water below me gets bluer and bluer as it starts to get more shallow, and pretty soon, it's the color of the cloud on which I ride. In fact, I start to have difficulty knowing where the cloud ends and the water begins. I feel like I might not even have a cloud below me after all, and I'm just floating on nothing but air. But air can't support me! I think frantically. Realizing this, I start to fall, and I grasp at the empty air as I wonder what happened to my cloud. How could it have abandoned me like that?

       Luckily, along comes a golden cloud to catch me, safe and sound. Relieved, I flop back against it as I hear it tell me, "I love you, Erin." I smile in happiness as the cloud deposits me near a small pond on the side of a hill. 

       Strangely, I look down and see myself sleeping in Bryce's arms, and he's smiling this wonderful smile like he's just so happy he can't help it. I see him gently kiss my forehead, and I feel it at the same time.

       I open my eyes to see him looking back at me with this slightly guilty yet happy expression on his face.

        "Crap, I didn't mean to wake you up," he mumbles. Then he looks worried as he asks, "Were you asleep?"

        "Mhm. I had the nicest dream too," I say sleepily. "Well, a part of it was scary when I was falling but then," I blush as I remember, "I was okay." That was his voice in my dream. Wishful thinking. Only in my dreams. I sigh and roll back on my back.

       "What was the dream about?" he asks, looking mildly concerned.

       I look up at him and debate how I'm going to answer his question. After a pause that probably only felt long to me, I tell him about my dream, but I leave out the part about the cloud talking to me. That would be kind of embarrassing to tell him that... to explain my wishful thinking.

       He reaches up and starts running his finger along my jaw again, but I get hold of his hand and stop him. When he looks at me, confused, I explain, "You do that and I'm going to fall asleep again, and I don't want to fall asleep." I look up at the sky and see the sun has moved farther along in the sky than I thought.

      "Well, then what do you want to do?" he asks, and I can guess what he's thinking as he looks down at me.

       "I don't know. What do you want to do?" I ask simply.

       His hand gets free from mine, and he cups my cheek and turns my head to face him. His voice sounds breathy as he answers, "I can think of a few things." Then his lips are on mine.

     I get the feeling he's testing me, almost like he's asking 'Is this okay?' as he kisses me tenderly. I guess he acts like this because of how I was earlier. I'd started to panic. I'm just not ready for the level of intimacy that he obviously wanted what I guess was a few hours ago. He's not acting like that now. No, he acts like he has all the time in the world to leisurely enjoy the feel of my lips on his as he repeatedly plants slow kisses upon my mouth. I quickly want him to do more than this sweet, but almost chaste, kissing. Give me your tongue, damn it! I think, mildly shocked at my aggression.

     I shudder with suppressed lust as he traces the outline of my lips with his tongue with achingly slow tenderness. Frustrated now, I get a fistful of hair in each hand and pull him closer. With a low groan from the back of his throat, he finally deepens the kiss. I'd begun to wonder if I was going to have to beg. One of his legs works its way between mine as he rolls on top of me, and a hand comes up to cradle the back of my head. I guess he thinks the ground is too hard for me. I don't mind the ground, but again, it's these little things that get me.
      As he kisses me, I let my hands wander -- something I've been dying to do but didn't feel brave enough until this moment. I notice the fabric of his shirt is really thin. It must be an old shirt. He starts intensifying the fervor of his kiss, making my hands suddenly turn into claws as I rake my nails across his back. Neat. I made him shudder.

     He groans again as his hand leaves the back of my head and his mouth moves to my shoulder. I let out a tiny gasp when he purposefully moves his leg against the apex of my thighs. Again, my hands get distracted from their voyage of discovery, and a few times I have to work to remind myself not to rip his old shirt as my hands uncontrollably ball up into fists because of how he continuously moves against me. It's been a long time for me... a few weeks before I'd caught him with her, and now I'm beginning to wonder if it's been too long.
     "No hickeys," I breathe out as he takes in a good amount of skin from my neck.
     He chuckles quietly, and I lightly hit the back of his shoulders for laughing at me, making him laugh again.
      His mouth goes back to my neck again as he mumbles scoffingly into it, "Like I would mar this beautiful neck."
      "But..." I get 'marred' so easily. I'm unable to finish my sentence aloud because his thigh is back at it again. I can feel his erection press against my hip as he continues with his blessed movements, and I shudder again as I gauge the size of him through his shorts. "Um, Bryce?" I ask.
      "Don't worry about it," he mumbles, and I'm not quite positive I know what he means. I can only assume he's referring back to what I said earlier about not being ready for that yet.
      Yeah, but what if I am after all? I think as I groan and grab a handful of his hair to get his blasted mouth back on mine already. He eagerly obeys my wordless demand. But right here right now? I'm not sure I want our first time to be in a public place. My fingers splay out as my hands travel down his chest to his abs and lower.
     "Shit, Erin!" he quietly exclaims.
     I bite my lip, hard, to keep from giggling, but I'm afraid my laughter probably shows in my eyes from the look he gives me when he opens his again. I was right.
     With a pained look, he moves my hand off his shorts. I reach up to try and wipe that look off his face with my free hand. He takes that one as well.
      "Erin," he says as he presses my hands down into the grass on either side of me, "what are you doing? I barely have any control right now, and you're pushing me to my limits."
       I know exactly what I'm doing, Bryce. I wouldn't do it if I didn't know.
      I brazenly respond, "And you think you're the only being pushed past their limits?" I move my hips against his leg suggestively and continue, "How did you think I'd react to all that?"
       I'm a little surprised at myself. I can't quite explain it, but I wasn't like this -- this brazen -- with Sean. I look up and see Bryce fighting an internal battle that I can see played about on his face. Finally, he moans and rolls off me, face up on the grass for a minute before he sits up on his elbows.

      "What is it?" I ask, sounding insecure. I sit up a little and play with his collarbone.
      "I have to get to work. I wish I didn't because what I really want to do is drag you back to my place right now," he says in a mildly angry fashion. He suddenly sits up real fast and grabs my head to kiss me hungrily.
       The realization of the situation we're in finally hits me, and the mousy coward in me returns with full force. He said he wants to drag me back to his place right now! Right now? Now? Now. As in, if he didn't have to get to work soon, that's where we'd be headed. To...
       Okay, I guess I'm not ready.
       What came over me?
      "I'd better get you back to your place," he says quietly as his thumbs stroke my cheeks. I quietly nod my head before he lightly kisses the tip of my nose. "You wanna come by the bar tonight? Some of the crowd is gonna be there too." He winces. "I doubt Jesse though." I nod again.

      So, I go home and try to write some. It doesn't really work. Again, I wonder if I'm going to have to go and get a job. With a sigh, I change into a comfy dress and get my hair under control.
      Bryce greets me as soon as I arrive, but it's not long before Ginger comes darting over to me. She'd been talking to the person formerly known as pirate-man, and he looks a little miffed that she just abandoned him like that. Personally, I don't blame her. From what I met of him the other night, he's not great for conversation.
        Ginger starts spouting out words a mile a minute, and I have a hard time keeping up. She's being really nice; I'm just having a hard time keeping up. Before I know it, she drags me off, saying she wants to get to know me or something like that. I look apologetically back at Bryce as I'm dragged along. He merely laughs silently and shrugs his shoulders.

       I feel like I'm playing a game of twenty questions as I sit here and talk with her. I mention my reason for moving here as vaguely as I can. I figure I may as well mention part of the reason, but I do not want to give any specifics to anyone yet. (Well, other than Bryce.)
      It's not long until that Desmond comes over and asks Ginger to dance. I'm a little relieved. I can only take that much energy in small doses.
      I happily get to sit quietly for a little while. Pamela comes over and speaks to me for a little bit before her husband comes and steals her so they can dance. (At least that's how he put it.) Bryce comes over to sit with me for a little while as well, but he never can stay long. Apparently, they're short one tonight. That girl that complained of having no tomato juice the other night hasn't shown. Bryce is pissed.
      One of the times he comes to sit with me, I ask him, "Why not fire her and hire someone else?"
      "I need to, but I don't know who to replace her with," he answers with a preposition at the end.
      "What about me?" I ask quietly and look at the floor. I need a job. I realized that today when my writing session totally failed.
      "Absolutely not," he says quickly and succinctly.
      Surprised and a little hurt, I pop my head up in his direction. "Why not?"
       "Because I don't like to mix business with pleasure," he answers with a wicked gleam in his eyes.
       "Oh yeah right," I say disbelievingly.
      A more serious look gets on his face now as he says, "Think about it, Erin. I want to be your boyfriend, not your boss. That could open up a whole mess of a can of worms." He nervously glances up at the bartender and sees that the man needs help again, so he apologizes before going back over to help him.
       I sit here and continue to feel a little hurt that he would so quickly dismiss, even reject, the idea of hiring me. That does nothing for my self-esteem. Sure, I'm pretty sure I'd suck at being a waitress or anything like that, but that way I could always be around him. If I get a job, it'll take time away from him. Maybe I should write a short story or a children's book or something before going back to my bigger novel, I think as I pick at the paint on the table in front of me.
      "Erin," I hear Bryce say after a while. He sounds like he's scolding me for my almost-pouting state. I look up at him and he continues, "Dance with me."
       I sigh resolutely and get up.

      He holds me real close, and we don't move much. We hardly talk for a whole song.
      When the next one starts up (Love Bites by Def Leppard), he says, sounding mildly irritated, "Please don't be mad at me."
      "I'm not mad at you," I say quietly.
      "Yes you are. You're mad at me, and you're pouting because I said I wouldn't hire you."
      Irritated he can read me so easily, I try to push away from him, but he only holds me tighter, clamping his hand around my fingers in the process.
       "Erin, I cannot be your boss, no matter how tempting the prospect is," he says as his fingers spay across my lower back while he continues to keep me from stomping off in a huff.

      He starts talking again after he notices I'm not going to say a thing, "If you were always here, I'd never get a thing done because you'd be a constant distraction... even more than you already are. And I don't need to be 'distracted' about an employee in that way." He turns his head and starts kissing me on my neck just below my ear. Then he mumbles into it, "There's just way too many ways I could take advantage of that situation. That would be very unethical."
      "Oh, so this is about 'ethics'?" I snap.
    "This is about how I'd never get any work done because all I'd want to do would be you in the breakroom, bathroom, wherever we could sneak away," he mumbles some more in my ear. "Not that that's any different from right now, but you don't treat employees like that."
      His fingers start inching towards my butt. Irritated, I reach back with my free hand to move his wayward appendage back to my waist where it belongs.
       He looks at me with false innocence and asks, "What?" like he doesn't know.
       "Not here for goodness sake," I answer, still a little mad at him.
      "Are you suggesting we go somewhere else? Now that things have calmed down, I could get Jones to close up for me," he asks hopefully, and my heart starts up at a gallop. How on earth can I tell him that this afternoon was a fluke?
       I'd made a promise to myself this morning as I drank my coffee that I wouldn't sleep with him until at least, at least, a week has gone by to make sure that I'm not a 'flavor of the week' like so many others before me.
       "Hm?" he prods with a question.
       "I just want to go home," I say stiffly and get free from him.
      As I head towards my scooter, I hear him say my name in a shocked exclamation. He asks me to wait, but I ignore him, start up, and drive off. It's not long before I have headlights behind me. I glance around to look and see an Audi hot on my tail. Shit.
       I park in front of my house, and he's out of his car, jumping out instead of using the door, and running to head me off before I can reach my front porch. He doesn't succeed, but he does stop me before I can get to the door.
      "Let go of me!" I growl at him.
      "Not until you tell me what this is all about," he growls back as I struggle against him. "Is this still about me saying I don't want to hire you?" I groan in frustration that I can't get free as he continues, "Because I thought I explained that to you."
       "A little, but I'm trying to get over it."
       "Erin..."
       "Just it hurts a little okay? I understand what you're saying though. It's just my book is turning into a failure, and I'm starting to panic." About more than just my book. "My money isn't going to last forever. Now, please just let me go."
       "No," he says definitively before he locks his arms around me. "There's something else. You're running from me, Erin, and I want to know why."
       "I'm not running; now please just let me go," I plead.
       He ignores my request and says instead, "How can you not call you getting on your scooter and driving away without warning running? What did I do?!" His voice takes a desperate tone. "Why did you do that... again?!"
       I don't know how I can tell him. How on earth can I tell him that what he was suggesting I'm not ready for? ... contrary to how I was this afternoon.
      "I just can't okay?!!" I blurt out. "Look, I don't know what happened this afternoon, but it goes against a promise I made to myself." I'm grateful for the darkness because I blush. I bet he can still see it from my porch light, however.
       "Promise?" he asks me to explain.
       I let out a huff. Crap. "I will not be a flavor of the week, Bryce!"
       "Is that what you think?!"
       "How am I supposed to know any different?"

     Then he crashes his lips on mine. I realize I was probably acting a little crazy, but again, I panicked. It's just... all day long there was an incredible intensity coming off him, and it worried me. It was better at the pond, but now it's back like mad. I'm worried it means he's wanting me to up and jump into bed with him. Doesn't he know how easily I can be hurt, especially now? I can't risk that.
     I hear myself let out a pathetic, whimpering sound when my attempt to pull away is unsuccessful. He's right. I'm running. I'm scared out of my mind that I've already fallen in love with him.
       "Bryce, let me go," I say when he starts raining kisses down my neck.
      "Not yet," he says, lifts his head up to look down at me, flip his hair out of his eyes, and penetrate me with an intense stare. "You asked me a question about how are you to know you're any different from all those tourists that I only used as a distraction to keep me from thinking about what Ashley did to me. Well, I'm going to tell you, and you decide what to make of it. You'd better not think I'm lying when I tell you that I love you. Because I do. I don't know how, but I do. Now, please don't feel like you have to say something, okay? Because you don't. That's what I was trying to figure out how to say at the pond today. I told you while you were sleeping, hoping that would get it out of my system for a while, but it didn't work turns out." My cloud? My cloud was real? "I love you, Erin," he says again and kisses me before I can say anything back.
       I stand here and try to digest what he just said while he passionately kisses me. But.... but but but ... How? Why? When? Holy crap he's shaking! I start shaking as well, scared out of my mind again. I get the feeling he's afraid to stop kissing me because he doesn't want to hear what I might have to say. After all, he'd told me to not feel like I have to say something in response to what he said, and, even though I'm pretty damn sure I love him too, I'm not as brave as he is. I just don't trust him yet. So does that mean he worries whether or not he trusts me? Is that part of the reason why he's shaking? That has to be it. I hear myself whimper again. I'm really surprised. ... 
       I'm really scared.
       He stops kissing me and places two fingers over my mouth, obviously asking me not to speak. I feel my brows come together in worry as he says, "Now, I'm going to say goodnight and then go back before Jones sends out a search party. I have tomorrow off, and I'd very much like it if you came by my place in the morning as early as you feel like." Then he mumbles under his breath, "I doubt I'll sleep anyway." He continues in his regular voice, "Nod your head if that's okay." I nod my head. "Thank you," he breathes. Then a pained look crosses his face before he removes his fingers, kisses me lightly, and says, "Goodnight," before turning and walking down the stairs.
       I unlock my door as fast as lightning and spin myself into the house.

       He loves me? He said he does. Me? Yes.
       He loves me!
       I slowly run my back along the wall as I sink to the floor, not sure I should trust my legs right now.