Beautiful Disaster

"Please let me-" she still starts to beg, but as much as I love hearing her voice, right now it just speeds things up for me beyond what I want.

"Come!" I bark at her, then throw my head back and do my best not to succumb myself when I feel her squeeze me hard, her whole body bucking in her bonds. Try as I might, I don’t manage to hold out much longer than a couple of seconds, then spend myself deep inside her yet again.

The huge advantage of having three people in the same scene who know their way around ropes is that it takes a fraction of the time it would normally take to get Bella out of bondage once she’s gently lowered down onto the floor. Before long I have the sniffling, laughing, satisfied mess that she is in my arms, leaving unspeakable gunk on my clothes although I really don’t give a shit about that. The only thing I care about is her smile and her eager kisses, and the sure knowledge that one way or another, I’ve given her exactly what she wants.

It takes a while to coax some cookies and coke into her to give her body enough sustenance so I can help her up and to the showers. She insists she can clean herself up sufficiently on her own, sitting on the floor of the shower stall, thank you very much. I leave her to it but wait just outside the door, ready to jump in should she need me, but certain that I’m being overprotective. Even when she comes wobbling out she’s torn between trying to put up a cocky front and just meekly submitting to my not-quite-suggestion when I hold out some sweat pants and a sweater to her. She finally admits that we’ll be both faster and less prone to hazards if I just pick her up and carry her to the car.

I leave Beth to clean up the mess after she shouts at me to be gone, strap-on in hand while she kicks Gerard’s discarded clothes to the side. I leave them to their evening entertainment to join Bella in the car. Peter and Charlotte have left already, and I’m happy to be home twenty minutes later.

Bella is too tired to shower a second time so I just deposit her on the bed, then quickly undress both of us and crawl under the covers with her. I reach down between her legs to switch the piercing rings to her usual jewelry but she bats my hand away and in no uncertain terms tells me that until morning she’s quite happy to remain my pleasure slave in every sense of the word.

Lucky for her I’m tired enough not to take her up on that, but simply curl myself around her, happy to simply be here with her in my arms. She’s about to fall asleep when I nudge her awake again so I can kiss her, and tell her how much I love her. Grinning brightly she mumbles something into my mouth when she kisses me in turn that I think is the conventional reply to all such statements, or the ever classic ‘I know,’ but she’s out cold before I can tease her about it.

Only when I’m about to drift off myself do I realize that even though we have the entire bed to ourselves tonight, we’re still curled up together on the right half of it. The other side of it is glaringly empty, and it’s missing more than just a warm body to snuggle up against Bella’s chest.

Chapter 37

"Honeys, I’m home!"

My eyes flutter open at the sound of a familiar voice floating up through the condo to the bedroom. I blink, half turning to the side so I can get a look at the alarm clock.

7:09 A.M.

Jazz shouldn’t even have left California yet, and still, somehow he’s already home. I feel a smile tug at the corner of my mouth, my brain still sluggish with sleep, as I listen to the telltale sound of the fridge door opening and closing. Then steps on the stairs, and the bedroom door is flung open.

Bella rouses enough so that she’s somewhat aware of her surroundings, but just enough to grumble something unintelligible and wrench her pillow over her head. She remains lying like that on her stomach, otherwise motionless.

I smile up at Jazz as he walks around the bed, then reach for him and kiss him. Only briefly it turns out, as he pulls away with a noise of disgust at the back of his throat, but he grins down at me.

"No offense, but you smell gross."

"Do not," I grunt back, but a vague sniff in the general direction of my body underlines just how accurate his assessment is.

While I disentangle myself from Bella and the sheets, Jazz starts unpacking his suitcase. He’s careful to make a wide detour around the heap of discarded clothing left on the floor from last night. I shake my head at his antics as I pick them up, and deposit them in the hamper before I hit the bathroom.

By the time I’m done showering, Jazz has miraculously lost most of his own clothes, and is crawling onto the bed to tease Bella awake. I stop just inside the door, leaning against the frame while I watch this truly bizarre spectacle.

Bella has always been resistant to waking up, but given her exhaustion from yesterday’s activities, I can understand why she wants to grab more than just a couple of hours sleep. Jazz is a lot less sympathetic than I am, though. He seems hell-bent on getting his head bitten off, from the way he’s now sidling up to her.

"Bella, oh sweetest Bella," he keeps cooing, but the only reaction he gets is a grunt from underneath her pillow that is as unintelligible as it is hostile.

Undeterred, Jazz nudges her shoulder, then grabs the pillow and starts wrestling it from her grasp. Or tries to, but the only thing he receives for his efforts is her badly aimed kick to his leg.

Deciding that this won’t do, he switches tactics. Bella utters a muffled shout when he tackles her, and tries to roll them both over. That finally gets her to move for real, but when she tries to push away from him he holds her down, his whole body more or less perched on her back.

"Let me up, you stupid oaf!"

"Stupid oaf, eh? What kind of crappy romance novel have you been reading? Is that the worst you can come up with?" he taunts, then starts tickling her. Bella shrieks, now fighting to throw him off for real, but worn out as she is Jazz has no problem keeping her underneath him.

She finally gives up and looks pleadingly over at me; I’m hard pressed not to laugh at them both.

"Help me!"

"Now that’s unfair," Jazz grumbles, then eases up and rolls off her, coming to lay side by side with her. Bella sneers at him, then grins and settles back into her pillow. She groggily rubs her eyes and yawns loudly, without covering her mouth.

"You’re early."

Jazz nods as I repeat my observation, briefly looking from me to her as I join them on the bed at Bella’s other side.

"There wasn’t really much to hold me in California. A little flirting with one of the stewardesses got me rebooked on a flight this morning."

"That’s so typical of you!" Bella groans accusingly, snuggling back against me once I pull the covers up over my body again. Jazz actually looks a bit offended, but that doesn’t change the brightness of his grin.

"Hey, it was just some harmless talking! And she was weirded out when I told her I wanted to return home earlier because I had two wonderful people waiting for me. She asked if I had a picture of my kid there, and I told her that both of them were older than me."

Bella huffs at that.

"You can be such a charmer. And she probably thought you were still living with your parents."

"She so did not!" he scoffs, then pushes himself up on one elbow, briefly looking at me before he resumes talking to Bella.

"So what have you two been up to while I was gone? Did you miss me?"

"I always miss you. No one could ever annoy me as much as you do," she quips in return. Jazz pretends to be deeply hurt for a moment, but takes it in stride.

"You would just become complacent and bored without me annoying you."

"That’s beside the point!"