82 - Hooked on a Feeling

His forehead wrinkled in confusion.  He was asleep, but something felt strange.  Jon tiredly lifted his head and cracked open a single eye to find the room bathed in the murky light of pre-dawn.

The second eye opened and, once they had a chance focus, a slow, shit-eating grin took up residence.  The imp was a warm pile of flesh sprawled across his chest, her cascade of raven hair making a blanket over him.

She didn’t run.

His left hand softly stroked the smooth line of her back all the way down to her sweet, bare bottom. 

He loved her. 

No matter what the hell came out of their talk this morning, he knew that much was true.  If he had to guess, he would say that she felt the same way, but there was time for all that later.

“Baby?” He jostled her easily and patted her butt.

“Mmnhpff.”  She rubbed her face against his chest, burrowing deeper into both him and the bed. 

Memories of the last time he tried to wake her up came flashing back to him.  He smirked, wondering if her tongue would be as sharp when he wasn’t acting like an asshole.

“Petey.  Sugar.”

Pushing away the hair that obscured her face, he took in the porcelain complexion and makeup smudged eyes.  Her mouth was parted invitingly until she flattened it shut when her eyes squinted open and blinked spasmodically.   When the blinking stopped, he watched comprehension slowly dawn in her eyes.  “It’s you,” she said in a sleep-garbled voice as she lifted herself off of him.  “I didn’t dream you.”

“Not unless I dreamed you, too,” he chuckled softly.  “Now lemme up.  I’ve gotta pee.”

“Mm’kay.”  She scrabbled backward onto the other side of the bed and allowed him to slide out. 

When he returned wearing an unbuttoned pair of jeans a few moments later, it was to find her scooted up against the headboard with covers pulled up around her breasts.  The messy curtain of hair had been pushed back from her face, and she’d wiped the makeup smudges from under her eyes.

“So are we really gonna do this at five in the morning?”

He flipped the lamp’s switch and sat on the edge of the bed next to her.  “I’m awake, you’re awake.  Neither of us is thinking about anything else.  So, yeah, we’re really gonna do this at five in the morning.”

“Do I get coffee?  You promised coffee.”

“A teaspoon of coffee with half a gallon of cream and sugar, comin’ up.”  He laughed softly to himself as he picked up the phone to dial room services.  “You’re cute when you’re sleepy and pouty.”

She snorted without humor.  “Me and baby seals.  Freakin’ adorable.”

Jon had to swallow his bark of laughter when the hotel staffer picked up the line.  “Um, yeah could I get a pot of coffee and some continental fare in the Empire Suite?  Thanks.”

He rested a heavy hand on her thigh and squeezed. “Talking to you before you’ve had your coffee is obviously pointless unless I want to argue with you.  I’ll have to remember that.”

“How about you just not wake me up?  I’m fine if I wake up on my own.”   Petey frowned at him, and he knew he was in trouble when he thought her grumpy, pissed off face was cute. 

A soothing hand patted her leg, and he purposefully chose to ignore the dig.  “You said you had questions.  Wanna start with those until you get caffeinated?”

“I’d rather have a shirt.”

He took a deep breath and rose from the bed.  A quick plunder through his bag located a t-shirt and he tossed it to her before propping his fists on his hips. “I’m really trying here.  Could you meet me halfway and at least be civil?”

She stopped in the mist of pulling her hair free from the shirt’s collar and looked at him.  Completing the task, she then bit her lip uncertainly before apologizing.  “I’m sorry.  I…  Well, I could have a dozen excuses for my behavior, but the fact is I’m half asleep and nervous about where this conversation is going to end.”

He stepped near and smoothed a comforting hand over her hair.  “You’re not the only one, but I meant what I said last night.  It was more than sex, Petey.  We have one of those ‘R’ words that you hate so much.”

Turning her cheek into his hand, she offered up a mischievous smile.  “Republican?”

His chortle washed easily over her.  With mock annoyance, he grabbed Petey’s chin and marked her with a dominating kiss on the mouth. “No, you damn little imp, a relationship.”

She sobered and clasped her fingers tightly around his forearm.  “What does that mean, Jon?”

With a quiet sigh, he disentangled himself from the grip and climbed back into bed with her, propping himself up against the headboard.  Once he was comfortably settled, he hauled her into his arms so that she was snuggled against his side. 

“Let me rewind and show you how I should have woken you up this morning.”  Infusing an extra measure of tenderness into his voice, Jon invited, “Close your eyes.”

Unbelievably compliant for a change, her eyelashes tickled him when they fluttered against his shoulder, where her cheek was resting.  He smiled contentedly to himself.  She could be so sweet.

Arms holding her little body close to his, Jon inclined his head and placed a feathery kiss into her hair, murmuring, “Good morning, Sugar.  Last night was incredible."  His arms tightened a notch.  "There was only one thing wrong with it."  Another tender kiss.  "I forgot to say 'I love you'.”

Petey whipped her head up so fast that she nearly coldcocked him in the jaw, and her eyes darted back and forth between his eyes.  She inspected first the left and then the right for proof that he either meant it or that he didn’t.

Yes, she’d had that fleeting glimpse of emotion in his eyes last night, but for him to say the words…  Her brain fritzed.

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where," she whispered, not relinquishing his gaze.

"I love you directly without problems or pride:

I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love.”

She didn’t have her own words, and she was grateful that bit of Pablo Neruda’s seventeenth love sonnet had rolled off of her tongue without conscious thought.  It reflected the way she felt perfectly.  Petey didn’t know how, when or where, but she truly didn’t know any other way to love.  She hoped he could accept it for what it was.

“Baby?  Are you reciting, or are you telling me that you love me?”

The confusion on his face was so sweet that Petey’s eyes welled with all the damn emotion he was responsible for setting free.  A titter of happiness bubbled out of her throat and she let all that damn emotion radiate into the smile that swallowed her face. 

“Both.”

“Goddammit,” he growled and kissed her fiercely.  “You can’t start reciting when you’re happy too, or I’ll never know what the hell is going on.”

Wrinkling her nose impudently, she scrambled up and straddled herself across his lap.  She let the natural huskiness of her voice drop another octave, and purred seductively, “I bet you can figure this one out.”  Her lips skated over his and her tongue flicked out, like a kitten lapping its milk.  A small ‘mphf’ of surprise had his mouth parted and she took the opportunity to play with her new favorite toy – Jon’s tongue.

His hands came to rest on her shoulder blades, pulling her closer as he suckled on her tongue and flicked the tip of it with his own.  Petey made the fascinating discovery that her tongue was apparently a direct line to her libido, because she ignited.  Making assorted sounds of delight against his mouth, she pressed her now throbbing clit into the hard fly of Jon’s jeans.

“Nnh-nh.”  He pried his mouth away from hers, and she was captivated by the residual sheen of their kiss on his lips.  She wanted to lick it away, but he pushed lightly on her shoulders.  “I let you do this last night, but not now.”  He tempered his refusal with a tender caress along the side of her face and neck.  “You know I want you, but we have things to talk about.  Things that have waited long enough.”

As though to reinforce his claim, room service announced its presence with a heavy-handed knock on the suite door.  

“Sugar, I want you to know that nothing you say about that night is going to make a difference in you and me.  Our relationship is completely separate from… that.”

An absent smile flitted across her mouth, and she nodded dutifully.  The unease she’d been feeling since New Year’s Eve was back as she gracefully eased from atop his body and onto the mattress.  She drew her knees up to her chest and reclined heavily against the headboard.

Angling his body around to reach her, Jon kissed Petey’s forehead and went to get their breakfast. 

“I’ll be right back.”

The play of muscles in his back caught her attention like tinsel would attract a magpie, and she rested her cheek thoughtfully atop her knee and treasured the moment.   The moment was far too short, lasting only until the prattle in her head pierced the happy little fog.

True, she thought she almost had a handle on the whole Daniel situation – she would find out soon – but it was still an ugly problem to be dealt with.  It would have been better for all of them if it were a done deal when Jon found out.  With his temper…

“Petey, come on in here,” he called.  Room service must have come and gone quietly.  For him to beckon her in her current state of undress, they were once again alone in the suite.  “You can eat something with your cream and sugar.”

He had as much at stake, if not more, than she did – even if it was her fault this was happening.   He had a right to know, and would need to know the whole story.  From the very beginning.

She scooted out of the bed, and curled her toes into the carpet, taking a moment to offer up a silent prayer.  She wanted him not to just accept, but to ‘get’ the reasons for what she’d done.  Not just on New Year’s Eve, but from the inception of this whole mess. 

No one had ever been told the real story of why she left Carnegie-Mellon three years ago.  Now that she was going to share it – a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth– with the man who loved her, it was important to Petey that he be on her side.

“Coming…”