Stronger with You (With You Trilogy) (36 page)

I nodded my head with a small smile. I did forgive him. I understood what he’d meant, and I knew he hadn’t meant to offend me. “We’re okay.” I pointed to his mostly untouched dinner with a wry smile. “Weren’t you worried about dinner going cold?”

“It would still taste amazing if it did,” he grinned, relaxing. “It’s
so
good!”

I smiled happily, delighted that he liked the food. We chatted away happily for the rest of the meal, putting the dirty dishes to the side to sort later. We lay on the floor on top of the blanket, hand in hand with the flickering candles around us and the scent of fresh flowers filling the air.

“You want your Valentine’s Day present?” Jason asked me, rolling onto his side with his mischievous glimmer back once more.

“We said no presents!” I frowned.

“No,” he shook his head at me. “You said I wasn’t allowed to spend lots of money on you.”

“Were the flowers and candles free?”

“Are you complaining?” He laughed.

“No,” I giggled. “I’ll let you off that one.”

“Then you can let me off the present as well,” he nodded, looking pretty sure of himself. “There is a precursor to the present though.”

“Oh?” I smiled, sitting up and crossing my legs. “And what’s that?”

“You have to be naked first,” he grinned, sitting up to join me and trying to pull my t-shirt up.

“Fine,” I sighed in mock protest, already lifting my arms to make it easier for him. “Reciprocal?” I pouted, leaning back so that he could pull my jeans and knickers off.

“We’ll see,” he grinned.

I stuck out my bottom lip and gave him my biggest pout yet but he just grinned more broadly.

“Your skin looks even more beautiful in candle light,” Jason breathed appreciatively, lifting himself over me and licking his way up my stomach to my neck.

I groaned and arched my back towards him, wrapping my hands around his back and pulling his t-shirt off because I wanted my reciprocal naked time and I wanted it now. Jason chuckled and helped me pull his t-shirt off completely. I grinned and kissed him enthusiastically, already making full use of the access his semi-nakedness afforded me.

Jason began nipping at my neck, his gifted tongue lavishing me with attention. I let my hands travel over his broad shoulders, tracing the butterfly shaped muscles that were tensing in his back as he held his weight over me.

“Is this my present?” I breathed, squirming as Jason’s tongue travelled back down my body and dipped into my navel. “Not that I’m complaining.”

“No,” he chuckled. “You distracted me.”

“That’s usually your job,” I grinned, regretting asking because now he was drawing away.

He chuckled and knelt back between my legs. I knew what he meant about candlelight on skin. The subtle flickering made shadows dance across his tight body and highlighted every beautifully toned inch of him. Jason had been ripped when we’d met but he’d refined his body even more now. He managed to maintain the perfect balance between trim and lean, and broad and powerful. Jason was perfectly between the two, he was just muscly enough. Goldilocks would have approved if she was as much of a perv as Jason had turned me into.

I reluctantly drew my eyes away from his body as he reached under the bed and pulled something out. He was grinning like a Cheshire cat as he handed the box to me.

“Chocolates?” I asked, accepting them.

“Well, sort of,” he nodded.

“They look like chocolates to me,” I teased, opening the box to admire the delicious looking truffles.

“They are, but they’re not your present,” he chuckled.

“Oh?” I frowned in confusion. “What’s my present?”

“For every chocolate you eat, you get to ask me a question or remove an item of my clothing,” he explained. “I promise I’ll answer honestly, no matter what you ask.”

“Really?” I asked, wide-eyed because this was huge. He was offering to open himself up to me in any way I wanted.

“Really,” he nodded.

“Are you wearing double socks and underwear?” I asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” he grinned.

“Tease,” I pouted in mock protest. “You want to open your present first?” I grinned, knowing he wasn’t expecting one.

“You got me a present?” He asked, his eyes lighting up.

“Sort of,” I blushed, reaching into my bedside table to hand him the envelope I’d hidden there.

He snatched it out of my hand excitedly and ripped it open before I could explain. I’d made him some coupons, which had seemed like a fun idea at the time, but I was seriously regretting it now that he was about to see them. I could feel my cheeks burning and pulled my cushion off the bed so I could hide behind it.

“Jamie,” he chuckled, pulling the cushion away from me as he looked through the coupons. “This is awesome!”

“You don’t think they’re silly?” I blushed, crawling onto his lap so I could hide my face in the crook of his neck instead.

“No,” he chuckled, wrapping his arms around me and pressing kisses to the top of my head. “I love them.” He tilted my face up to meet his to give me a thank-you kiss.

I watched as he looked through the coupons, his eyes shining happily. I’d given him a bunch of them: some simple such as a kiss in the rain, others for things that he’d wanted to do but I’d not let him, like take me underwear shopping. I’d given him one that meant he could fight in the cage with Craig and I wouldn’t protest at all. One of the coupons I’d not been able to write the actually words on because it’d just felt too naughty so I’d just given him permission to “take my final first and last” and hoped he’d get what I meant.

His eyes hovered on the coupon in question and scanned my face quickly.

“Are you sure about this one?” He asked me cautiously.

I nodded shyly, feeling my cheeks and ears burning like lava.

“I love you,” he grinned, kissing my nose.

“I love you too,” I smiled back, delighted that he was so happy.

“You like your present?” He asked.

“I love it! I can’t wait,” I grinned, reaching over to grab the chocolates so that I could eat them whilst I sat in his lap.

Jason reached over and took a truffle from the packet, pushing it gently against my lips. “That’s for my t-shirt,” he grinned.

“But I took that off
before
you gave me my present,” I pouted.

“My gift, my rules,” he smirked.

I pouted but decided that I should eliminate his clothes first so that I wasn’t the only one sat naked. Thankfully, Jason hadn’t had the foresight to double up on undies or socks. It had only taken me four truffles to get him starkers. I had to admit though, after four truffles, my stomach was decidedly fuller.

“Much better,” I grinned once Jason had removed his boxers. I noticed he was already standing to attention and my grin broadened.

“What you looking at?” Jason gave me a knowing look.

“What’s mine,” I beamed.

Jason raised his eyebrows at me and guided me down onto the bed so that I was lying on my front. He picked up the box of chocolates and put them next to me before squatting over my thighs so that he could begin massaging my back gently.

“So, I get to ask questions now?” I grinned, enjoying my massage immensely.

“Yep, after you’ve eaten a truffle,” he replied quietly.

I wondered if he was nervous about what sort of questions I was going to ask him. I took a truffle and decided to break him in gently.

“What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done?” I asked on an impulse. I’d thought it would be a relatively unloaded question but, as I thought about it, I realised there was a lot of stuff in his childhood that could easily be the answer.

Jason was silent for a while but his hands never stopped massaging my back. “If you’d have asked me that a year ago I would have said stopping fighting,” he said. “But now, I think it would have to be trying to be friends with you in the beginning,” he said with a hint of mischief in his voice.

“Is it really that hard to be friends with me?” I teased.

“It’s hard not to touch you,” he answered earnestly. “And that was another question.”

“Jason!” I pouted. “That doesn’t count!”

“My rules, baby,” he said simply, already feeding me another chocolate.

“I’m going to get ill if I eat all of these,” I pouted, deciding that I would have to use my questions a little more wisely.

“You don’t have to eat them all tonight, Jamie,” he chuckled, his hands moving lower down my back, easing the tension from my hips.

“Do I still get to ask you questions if I save them for another day?” I asked, moaning gently as his talented fingers worked their magic.

“Yep,” he nodded, bending down to place a kiss at the top of my spine.

“Okay,” I smiled, taking another truffle. “How old were you when you lost your virginity?”

“You really want to go there?” He asked his hands stilling for a beat.

“I’m curious,” I nodded.

“I was fifteen,” he sighed.

“That’s young,” I said, although I wasn’t sure I knew what I’d been expecting him to say.

He shrugged. “Most of the people I hung round with were the same age when they started. When did your friends start?”

I handed him a truffle and he looked at me curiously. “You have to eat one too if you’re going to ask questions,” I said seriously.

“I’ll eat one,” he chuckled. “But you have to eat the rest.”

Grateful for the small victory, I decided to answer his question. “I didn’t have many friends at school. I studied a lot and I guess people thought I was a boff or something, but Ian got mad at us if we didn’t get good grades. Alex came out around the time he was fifteen but he didn’t have his first serious relationship until last year.

I only really had one other friend, Amy, but we weren’t that close. I never asked her about it, it wasn’t really any of my business.”

“Hmm,” Jason said, sounding shocked.

“What?” I asked curiously.

“Nothing,” he shook his head. “It’s just that you get on with everyone so well here and you have so many friends; I have a hard time picturing you not having many.”

I blushed, I’d not really thought about it but Jason was right. I had more friends now, and good friends, than I’d ever had before.

“I think my brothers scared people off a bit,” I admitted. “Jake and his friends were always bugging me and Alex, I don’t think people wanted to get involved in case they got the same treatment. The first time I kissed a guy, the twins and Jake saw and beat the crap out of him, scaring away him and every other guy,” I said, feeling the need to explain my lack of friends.

“Did they do that to every guy you kissed?” Jason laughed.

“Yep, both you and Mick,” I blushed.

“Both of us?” He frowned in confusion. “But you… Are you saying you’d only been kissed once before we met?”

My blush deepened and I buried my face in the sheets so he couldn’t see me whilst I nodded.

“Oh my God. I really have corrupted you,” Jason teased, leaning over once more and kissing my neck, tempting me out of hiding. “So I was your second kiss?”

“Yes,” I mumbled, hideously embarrassed.

“Don’t be embarrassed, baby,” Jason chuckled. “I like that you were innocent before you met me.”

“Nobody could accuse me of that now,” I laughed, sat naked under my equally naked boyfriend whilst he rubbed his hands all over me.

“Nope,” he laughed. “I’d have to kick his ass too you know,” he said, his voice changing to a growl.

“Who?” I frowned, not sure where the sudden turn in conversation was coming from.

“This Mick character. If I ever met him, I’d have to kick his ass as well,” he warned.

I laughed, I couldn’t help myself. “Jason, I was fourteen!”

“I don’t care, he needs to know you’re mine,” Jason grumbled petulantly.

“He hasn’t spoken to me again since, I don’t think you need to worry,” I soothed him. “Besides,
I
know I’m yours.”

“Good,” he pouted, trailing kisses down my spine before beginning to tickle my skin so lightly that it goosebumped.

I enjoyed his attentions in silence for a while before I dared to press him further. “Will you tell me about her?”

“About who?” He asked in confusion.

“The girl you lost your virginity to,” I said quietly, hoping he wouldn’t mind me prying.

Jason sighed and I felt slightly guilty for pushing him.

“Sorry, you don’t have to. I was just curious,” I apologised.

“No, it’s okay, I promised to answer,” he said softly. “Truffle.”

I took the smallest truffle I could find, knowing it would be my last for the night because I had eaten
way
too many. I wondered briefly if Jason had done this on purpose in another attempt to fatten me up.
Of course he did
. I bet he thought he was so clever.

“It was a disaster,” Jason said. “The underground fights were like the cage fights in that there are always tonnes of girls hanging around. The girls at these fights had even less class though, hard as that may be to believe.

Underground fighting is not like UFC or Battle Arena, it’s just a bunch of un-skilled fighters who consider themselves ‘hard’. They’re out for the violence of it, not for the discipline or love of the sport. Some of them are pretty unpleasant people.

After fighting this chav kid one day, and beating him, this girl had been all over me. She seemed a bit upset but I didn’t really give it much thought. I was young, and stupid, and just wanted to get laid.

I don’t know if she even got off but I doubt it. I didn’t know what I was doing. The girl just ran off as soon as I was done. It was only afterwards I’d realised she’d been a virgin. Her boyfriend was the guy I’d fought. Apparently, she’d wagered a lot of money on him and lost. Sleeping with me was her way of getting back at him.

When he found out, him and his little crew cornered me. There were three of them. I had Ben and a friend with me but there was no way I was risking Ben in that so I had my friend take him out of
there. Closest I’d ever come to losing a street fight,” he grinned as he summed up his story.

I knew he was trying to end on a lighter note but the whole thing was a little overwhelming.