Just You by Jane Lark

from the day she’d walked out and had to lock all her fear and loneliness up so tight no one was ever gonna spot it.
    I ran my fingers through her hair.
    “You okay? We’ve got to get off in a moment.” She nodded, sniffing and wiping her nose on her sleeve, then got up.
    When we walked back to her place, I slung my arm over her shoulders and tucked her in close. When we got to her apartment block, she took out her key. “Are you coming in? I’d like you to, if you want to? I mean you’re right about me. I do hide because if I let me out, I think… I’m gonna get hurt. But when it’s you and me–I don’t feel like that. I’m not afraid when you’re around… Will you come out with me tomorrow, to have dinner with my parents? And will you stay with me tonight?”
    There was a heart-felt plea shining from her eyes. How could I say, no? I didn’t even want to say no.
    “Yes, to both, Portia. If tomorrow morning you walk into the office with me and tell them we’ve got something going on.”
    She smiled. “What like tell them we’re going out?”
    “Yeah, tell them we’re going out.”
    She turned to the door and slipped her key in the lock, then twisted it, opening the door. I walked in behind her and took her hand as we started climbing the stairs–memories, echoes, of the sessions we’d had upstairs spun in my head.
    Abstinence made the heart grow fonder–more hungry.
    I’d missed her.
    Her hand slipped from mine, so she could open the lock of her own door. When we were in there I pushed it shut, turned her and pressed her back against the wood, kissing her with the hunger that came from low in belly. There was something like a clamp about my heart, holding it in a vice like grip as she kissed me back.
    She wasn’t just perfect, she was precious, and she needed someone like me to let her know it so she had the courage to step out of her jammed up terrifying world.

Chapter Nine
    It was the weirdest, most wonderful thing to wake up to my alarm buzzing with my head resting on Justin’s chest for a pillow, and his arm around me.
    He stretched, yawning. I turned onto my belly and rested my fingers on his chest, looking up at him. I could get lost in his brown eyes.
    “Happy?” he asked, his fingers running through my hair.
    “Yeah. You?”
    “Very.” His lips parted in a huge smile.
    “You go shower,” I told him. “I’ll make you coffee and breakfast.”
    “Breakfast? What’s for breakfast?”
    “Wait and see, go shower.”
    When he came back I was at the counter, the coffee steaming in two cups, filling the room with a fresh armor, while I fried off his pancakes. His fingers slipped across my belly as he stood behind me, and his lips kissed the sensitive skin behind my ear. I tried flipping the pancake and nearly dropped it when he bit me. “Justin!”
    He didn’t shift an inch, just gripped my belly harder holding me against him as he whispered to my ear. “When you’re at work, think about this, think about how, when we get home, I’m gonna have you leaning against the counter before we go out with your parents…”
    I turned around and his hands slipped away, but then my head was braced between his long fingers, and his mouth came down on mine. I think it was one of the best kisses I’d ever had, it made my belly go all mushy and my legs weak.
    Then without protesting at all, I had intended to, I turned back to the hot ring and tipped his fifth pancake on to the plate, before holding out the maple syrup. “Here, eat up, I’m going for a shower.”
    “You’re not eating?” He took the maple syrup.
    “I already ate one, and I’m still full up from your mom’s chicken.”
    He laughed as I dodged out the room, before he could catch me and pull me in for another kiss.
    We walked to work together, holding hands, but as we got nearer the office, my heart started playing base beat rhythms. Shit, how was I gonna do this? I’d kept me locked away for over a year. They knew the