Surround me - the first novel

Chapter 55- good and bad i still love you

Matty's POV

I wake up startled, memories resurfacing in my mind. I'm hot, the heat you feel when you've got a temperature. It's clear to me why that night is playing on my mind. My behaviour, my attitude towards Rachel and indeed the women of my past, it's unforgivable. I look down at the girl that changed everything marvelling at how she is still there laying next to me, as if I deserve her.

I lay rigid for a minute. The way I acted it was beyond words, beyond nasty names, beyond making amends. How Rach can bare to even look at me is beyond me.

Taylor's phone is buzzing again on the side and I glance over at it breaking me from my trance, it's as if the people around her don't realise she sleeps. They just keep coming for her. It wakes her up.

"No god no" she says cancelling the call without looking.
I chuckle.
"I'm sorry did it wake you" she asks snuggling into my chest. She pulls me closer to her. Sensing my tension. I smile. It's completely dark in the room and I can feel her perfect body against my own.

"Are you okay Matthew?" She asks me.
I wait a little, deliberating.
"You can tell me." She implores me her hands tracing circles on my arms. It makes me shiver and I pull her close.

"If I tell you, you will run to the hills" I whisper.

"No I will not be running anywhere" she whispers.

"Honestly you can tell me anything, I love you" she explains and I smile down at her.

I sigh pushing aside my worries.
"Around a year ago maybe a little bit longer, I was messing around with Rach. And there was an incident that I'm not proud of and it's playing on my mind. I was a complete asshole, beyond belief" I tell her. Deciding to just come out with it.

"What did you do" she asks me looking up into the dark.

"Rach and I had casual sex at a party and I left her in the morning. She was going on about being on the contraceptive pill, the thing that's in that pamphlet we picked up. Only she had been sick that day because of the alcohol and the pill becomes ineffective if you're ill. And what's worse is she didn't take one the next day because she forgot to bring them to Ryan's. I didn't realise she had been sick or that she forgot to take them" I tell her.
She's silent, my fears creep up on me and I think about leaving the story and not letting her innocent ears hear the wicked things I've done.

"She found me at Ross' the next night, already moving in on somebody else. She asked me what to to do and I didn't know so I was an absolute selfish asshole. She was not pregnant clearly. Ross was there for her and it wasn't even his fault" I say softly.

"I think that you should know the kind of person I was. It's literally keeping me up at night that you're going to realise and hate me and not want anything to do with me anymore" I tell her softly as she pulls my body close.

I stare down into the dark at the woman that I now bear my secrets too, even the horrific ones.

***Taylor's POV***

This is just the day/night that keeps on giving really isn't it? If it's not that I might be pregnant then there is another issue to contend with. Another reason to worry.

I'm still processing what's he's told me. On one hand he's told me, I knew there was some history there with Rach but I couldn't really have known it would have been that. I had thought they were romantically involved, that he had treated her as he treats me and then ended things. I imagined her bitterness was due to that.

Just like links clinking into place I look up at him realisation dawning on my face. Luckily it's pitch black and he doesn't see my sadness, although I'm sure that he can sense it. It becomes apparent to me that Ross has actually has been genuinely worried for me. Worried that I'll turn into another Rachel. My skin crawls slightly. Worried that Matthew will use me and discard me. That I will be wounded in the process.

Ross' continual need to tell me something, desperation to warn me. Concern and worry on his face which I had dismissed as unnecessary when I saw him last was due to this. He had said he wanted to tell me something and this I can only assume was it.

My hands going around Matthew's neck, I kiss him realising that he is waiting for a reaction, for me to say something. Kissing him blindly in the dark I can't find it in myself to change any of my feelings I have for him. This doesn't cancel out how he treats me, it's doesn't change what we have been through and consequently how I feel about him in my relationship with him. I wipe away the tears on his cheeks and clasp his face in my hands.

"Matthew that doesn't change anything for us" I say softly, please, I think do not leave me.

"Taylor, I feel like I'm constantly one step away from you leaving me because of all of these things. And that's why I was being really stand off-ish about the party and Jay and all of that stuff" he says

"Jay is my best friend, I've known him for a long time. I'm surprised he hasn't shown up here demanding to know what I'm doing. It's just we were pretty bad with girls. Pretty damn awful to them actually" he says softly his fingertips grazing my lips.

"Rachel included. And everyone knows it. But you're changing me. However cliche that sounds. This is different for me" he explains softly.

Kissing Matthew, although I have very little experience of kissing anybody, is like losing yourself deep under water and enjoying being pulled under. Nothing exists but him and his lips.

"Is there anything else Matty?" I ask him breathlessly as his lips crush into my own.

"No Taylor, there is only you and us" he replies his hands everywhere under the covers. He sets my skin ablaze with his touch.

"You make me feel so secure and loved." I say muffled as his lips crush mine.

"I don't deserve you" he says breathlessly.

"You do" I say chuckling slightly. I must keep him at all costs.

"Matthew" I say and he shh's me with his lips again.

"I bloody love you" he says kissing me, his fingers invading me and making me gasp. Sex is a great idea I tell myself, it fixes all of our little problems.

"I won't leave you" I gasp and he smiles a wide grin.

"I won't leave you ever" he moans in my ear and I yield to him getting on top.

"Honestly Matthew you really think I'm going to run away because of that?" I tell him in his ear as he  rips open a condom with his teeth and pushes inside of me making me call out his name again.

"All mine" he whispers in my ear softly.

"I love you" I tell him gasping.

"Good and bad, I still love you" I say defiantly looking up into his eyes.

"You're perfection" he says trapping my hands above my head.

"Forgiving and beautiful. Dignified and sexy as hell" he chuckles and I giggle as he kisses all the way down my neck.

"And most importantly" he says looking up into my eyes.

"You're all mine" he says and I smile up at him lost in the green mystery behind his eyes.