Two Weeks (21 page)

And then Jackson starts to speed up and the world becomes blurry. Shockwaves of pleasure spill through me and I get there again. I'm going to come for the second time and nothing can stop me.

However, Jackson lets out the deepest, most guttural growl I've ever heard, and it distracts me momentarily—but only until I feel his cock twitching inside of me. I lose it.

"Fuck, Ally," he groans. "Oh, God, I'm coming."

"Keep fucking me. Hard!" I growl loudly, clenching my teeth and gripping the bed like it's the last thing I'll ever do.

He pumps relentlessly, and I feel myself clenching around him, matching every twitch with my own. Somehow, we're perfectly synchronized—and I think he knows this. I go higher and higher until I let out one final, desperate gasp. The undulating waves continue rushing through me, even after I reach the peak.

Our cries fill the air like prayers to some benevolent god of ecstasy until everything starts to calm. His hands are still buried in the soft flesh of my breasts, his cock still buried in the deepest parts of me. We remain together like that, catching our breaths and listening to the raw, unfiltered sounds of one another.

Jackson is amazing.

After a few minutes of silence, he pulls out of me, and I hate that transient feeling of emptiness. But he gently rolls me back over, and then settles on top of me again, meeting my lips with a very satisfied kiss.

"You're incredible," I say.

He kisses me. "So are you."

We eventually settle down and reposition ourselves to allow for cuddling to commence. And then sleep quickly sets in. The evening has left me enervated. I forget that it's the first full night that we're going to spend together.

But I'll definitely remember when I wake up next to him.

Jackson

I
wake with the most beautiful girl I've ever seen in my life curled under my arm. She's so adorable when she's asleep. I know it's still early, but I really don't want to move and wake her accidentally. If I did, it would feel like I smashed a piece of art with a hammer.

Beams of warm sunlight creep in through the window, and I'm aching to get started on my diurnal routine. But I know I
can't
get started yet, so I try to get some more sleep. Eventually, I drift in and out of consciousness a few times, and eventually wind up dreaming.

We're somewhere in the woods, Ally, Jeff, and me, relaxing in an unfamiliar cabin. Jeff looks exactly as he did the last time I saw him a few years ago. He tells me about his daughter and his wife, and I listen in utter fascination. As our dialogue continues, his words change slowly, morphing into a language I don't understand.

At first, I'm able to keep up with him. But soon after, the recognizable words become fewer and fewer until I'm not understanding him at all. A feeling of perplexity overwhelms me. I try not to show it.

Ally is sitting on the floor watching us, childlike grin on her face, arms wrapped around her raised knees. She's rocking back and forth in amusement. "I'm so happy you guys are hanging out again," she says, the sentence sticking out like a sore thumb amidst Jeff's nonsensical sea of words. It feels unnatural, especially since I can actually understand her.

Despite my confusion, I feel great about this reunion, whatever it is. When there is a lull in the conversation, I fill it, asking Jeff where his wife and daughter are.

He glares at me hatefully, and his face turns bright red. I can see the veins bulging in his neck as he rises to his feet.

"Did I say something wrong?" I ask apologetically. I immediately
know
that I've made a mistake.

Jeff snarls more gibberish, and I realize I'm really stuck since he doesn't seem to understand anything I'm saying.

"Jeff, please calm down!" Ally screams. She's still smiling even though her voice is full of terror. I'm so confused.

In the moment that I swear Jeff is going to turn into a werewolf, he doesn't. Instead, he turns around, and with bulging muscles, he rips apart the interior of the cabin. He smashes the wooden chairs with a single slam of his fist. He raises his leg into the air and severs the huge dining room table into two equally sized fragments.

He hisses and growls throughout his rampage, and I'm stuck to the bed next to Ally. I can't do anything but watch.

Jeff runs into the kitchen, grabs the gigantic refrigerator all by himself, and then hurls it across the room. I watch it fly until it hits the wall and continues outside, leaving a gigantic, fridge-sized hole. The supports on that side of the cabin start to give, and the support beams above the hole collapse downward.

Before I notice anything else, I'm being sucked toward the hole, pulled outside like I've been caught by a gigantic vacuum cleaner. Everything in the cabin slides across the floor. There's a terrible cacophony of hissing wind, and I cling onto anything I can.

But there's nothing I can do. I lose my grip and fly toward the hole. Everything goes black.

My head shoots upright. I'm awake again, thank God. Ally's beside me, and she's stirring more. I feel frightened and tense and my heart is still pounding.

Stupid dream,
I think. Weird dream, too. I'm not one to believe in astrology or dream interpretation, but that felt pretty damn meaningful.

I eventually convince myself it's nothing. Just familiar faces, that's all. Just a coincidence that Jeff was involved. Mental trickery.

I've already forgiven him in my mind, ten times over. I don't even think about what he did to me anymore, although I'd be lying if I said my relationship with Ally
didn't
bring back some of the old feelings.

This is something new, however.

I notice Ally squints as she looks at me. She rubs her eyes with her hands and then clears her throat. It's like glimpse of heaven after my brief flashes of hell.

"Hi, Jackson," she says. "How long have you been up?"

"I just woke up too," I say, intentionally omitting my very strange and intense dream.

She curls up to me again, her soft breasts flattening against my arm. I feel very good again. "This is a nice bed."

"Thanks," I say, trying not to laugh. She's still kind of asleep from what I can tell. Her eyelids close. "Ally?" I whisper.

She shoots straight up, and almost hits her head against the head board. "Huh?"

I can't prevent myself from laughing this time and she playfully punches my arm. "What's so funny?" she asks.

"Nothing," I say, shaking my head. "Do you want to go for a run? I'm going with or without you."

"When is coffee?" she asks.

"After the run," I say. "That's my routine."

"What about eating?" Her expression is vacant, still consistent with someone that just woke up.

"Do you want a protein bar?"

"I want
something
," she says. "I'm hungry."

"I try to keep it light while I'm jogging. Then I eat more before the bigger workout."

She nods and climbs out of bed, digging in her bag until she finds her workout clothes. I stare at her the whole time I'm getting dressed, barely trying to hide it. She's goddamn perfect. I'm such a sleaze.

"I see you looking at me," she says. "It's really obvious. You've also got a hard-on," she says, pointing at my crotch. "You're not hiding it very well." She pulls her sports bra into place, obscuring my view.

"That's because I have to
piss
," I say, kind of lying.

"Whatever you say," she chides. "I just want my protein bar."

I pull my shorts into place and throw on a pair of socks. We head down to the kitchen and I open the drawer where the protein bars are. "Pick your poison," I say.

"Chocolate chip cookie dough," she says, promptly snatching the bar out of the drawer and tearing open the wrapper.

I grab a random bar and shut the drawer. Ally takes a bite and then chews for way too long, her face a very shocked expression. She swallows and pauses.

"This is terrible. It tastes like artificially sweetened chalk or something."

I laugh and tear open my own bar. "That's right," I say, my mouth full, "and there are bars that taste even worse than these. Chalk with added protein."

She takes another miserable bite and continues chewing. "Well, that's still not saying much now, is it?"

"If you don't eat, you won't be able to keep up with me." I quickly wolf down my
triple chocolate milkshake
bar, not even trying to taste it because of all the things it tastes like, none of them are chocolate or milkshake.

It doesn't even taste like a
single
chocolate milkshake.

She glumly eats until her bar is gone and then dumps a glass of water down her throat. "Torture finally over."

"Good," I say. I grab my running shoes and put them on. She heads to the bathroom, and by the time she comes back out, I'm at the door, ready to go.

"Ah, shit," she says, staring down at my feet. "I left my running shoes in the car."

"Do you have the key?" I ask.

She grabs it off the counter and holds it up.

I slide open the back door. "Well, let's go then." I lean down and pick her up in my arms, catching her by surprise.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Carrying you to get your running shoes. Don't want you to step on a nail or something."

She scoffs at me and starts laughing. "Jesus, what's with you and carrying women? Shouldn't you be a firefighter or something?"

"Probably." We run down the steps and toward her car. Ally presses the unlock button and after hearing the beep, I lean down so she can open the door. When it's fully open, I set her on the seat.

"Got 'em," she says, lifting up the pair from the floor. She laces them and then stands up. "Okay, finally."

I pretend that I'm going to carry her again. She pulls away and laughs. "I can walk just fine now, thanks."

"Oh, good. I was worried I'd have to carry you for the whole run."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" She jogs into the house to drop off her keys and takes what seems like a long time. Finally, she comes back out holding two water bottles. "Almost forgot these."

We head out to the trail together. Just as before, it feels great to have a running partner, and she keeps up very well. The day is beautiful and we run for almost an hour without stopping, sparsely conversing the whole time because I get in the zone easily and stay there the whole time.

It seems the same for her as well.

When we get back, I make coffee and breakfast for the two of us, scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast—but it's mostly for her. Despite Ally's pleas, I'm not going to eat much today since I'm three pounds over my target weight and I've got to weigh-in tomorrow.

Ally wants to take a shower, but then I remind her that we're just getting started and that I'd have to take five showers a day if I was going to shower after every bout of exercise.

It sucks not being able to gorge on tasty food, but the weigh-in is a part of fighting. It's a little dumb that we weigh-in the day prior—most of us just eat whatever we want after the weigh-in and wind up fighting not even close to our weigh-in weight—but that's just how it works.

We take a short break before heading out to the garage. It's Thursday already, and I can barely believe it.

"Oh shit," Ally says suddenly. "I forgot to tell you—my parents know about you now. My mom ran into Liz's mom at the grocery store and uncovered my little white lie."

My gut tightens in response. "Really?"

"Yeah. So I told her we were hanging out. And not to tell Jeff. I said we were just friends."

Her explanation brings me some relief. It's certainly no guarantee—obviously people slip up in conversation all the time—but at least she's not lying to them anymore. "Well, nothing we can do about it now."

As before, I don't want Jeff to find out. And as of right now, he doesn't know. That's fine.

After the small meal has settled in my stomach, I casually urge her out to the garage.

I make a quick detour to my room, furtively grabbing a condom and hiding it in my shorts pocket. Just in case.

I do some of my own routines on the bag first. I work myself up to a sweat, and then give her a shot at it.

Ally circles the bag exactly as I've shown her. I correct her a few times, but she's mostly right on target. After we each do another round on the bag, we spar. It goes great. She asks detailed questions whenever she's stuck.

"I've got another one," she says, slightly out of breath.

"Okay, shoot," I say.

Ally walks over to the punching bag and leans up against it. "What do you do if you're, uh, cornered here? Like this?" Her tone of voice is very suspicious. It's hard to figure out.

"I don't understand," I say honestly.

"Come over here," she says. "Behind me." She reaches her arms back and pulls me until my crotch is pressed up against her ass. "What would you do in this position?" she asks innocently. "What can you do to me?"

I
think
I know what she's getting at, but the gentleman in me doesn't let me believe it's true.

She's not really thinking about that, is she?

"Ally, I still don't get why you'd be in this position in a real fight. You're not supposed to turn your back on the other fighter. It doesn't make any sense."

"Fair enough," she says. "And what if I'm like
this
?" She takes off her gloves and slowly lowers her shorts until I can see her perfect little ass. Her hands press up against the bag, and she extends her hips back. "What can you do to me
now
?"

Yeah,
that's
where this is going. "You're ridiculous," I say. But my words are meaningless—I'm
hooked
.

I drop my gloves to the ground and quickly remember the condom in my pocket. I'm really glad I stuck it there. I tear it open and drop my shorts. After it's on, I take her hips between my hands and line myself up.

"Oh, is this what you do?" she asks.

"Yes, this is
exactly
what I do," I say, sliding into her from behind. She's already so wet; it's obvious she's been thinking about this for a while. Her hands clamp into the punching bag for support while I go as deep as I can.