Sweet Damage ≫ jb & kj

Chapter 8 - So Kiss Me Then.

[A/N: it's been so so so long since ive published but i hope you guys never lost faith! this is kind of just another filler chapter just to get back on track with the book. definitely leave a vote & comment and let me know how you feel about continuing.]

The day Kylie ran away was a clear, sunny day, and though it was winter, it was warm enough to open the windows, let some fresh air into the house. Kylie is only 17 years old – and for any human, that's way to young to survive alone but Kylie felt miraculous. She hadn't realised that love could be so expansive, so consuming. Had never realised how willing she'd be to surrender every minute of everyday and every night to take care of anyone who needed.
She seemed to waste hours and hours wondering around and looking at that she had never seen before; everything she has missed out on. Searching for somewhere to crash until she figured herself out.
And while on one hand she felt exhausted, and run down, she also felt somehow looser and more free than she had before. She felt liberated from worrying about things like studying, and her father. She felt bounteous and beautiful, voluptuous, womanly. She felt strong and capable and serene.

JUSTINS POV

We're both quiet for a moment and I wonder where things will go from here. What do you do with a person so broken and sad? I feel tongue-tied and inadequate. What she's been through is so huge, so profound, I feel like we come from two fundamentally different worlds. We share a language, a culture, but now that seems like surface stuff. Inside, she's different, foreign, and that scares the hell out of me. I knew exactly what I wanted from her earlier – sex – but now that seems inappropriate and impossible, crude even.

She must sense my thoughts, my confusion, because she stands up and takes my hand, stares straight at me, her expression frank and intense.

'Justin,' she says. 'Can you do me a favour?' 'Of course. What?'

You don't have to . . .' she sighs. 'You're looking at me differently. And I don't want you to. It's not necessary. Or helpful. I'm sad. Okay. I will always, always be sad. But that's not all of me. I'm still a girl and yesterday I remembered that. It was the best I've felt since I ran away. And I know what I've just told you must feel really heavy and serious, but if you could just forget about it for a while? I just want to feel good again. I want to kiss you. I want to get that feeling back again. Last night I felt more alive than I have in forever . . . and right now I just want you to stop looking at me as if I'm an invalid, and start looking at me the way you were last night – as if you like me, as if you think I'm hot.' She takes a deep breath and smiles. Her cheeks are red, her eyes wet. She looks more beautiful than ever.

'I do like you,' I say. 'And you are hot.'

'So kiss me then,' she says. And I do.

**

They go back to Justin's room. They move slowly, carefully, both of them self-conscious at first, both trying to seem more confident than they feel. They undress each other, then get beneath the doona, and once they're both enveloped in the cosy warmth their self-consciousness disappears and they move close, press together, kiss. They take their time, they take hours. They touch and kiss each other all over. Mostly she keeps her eyes closed so she can focus on sensations: the feel of Justin's fingers on her belly, his lips on her neck, the smell of his skin, the scratch of his stubble; but when she does open her eyes, she finds him smiling at her, his brown-hazel eyes wrinkled up at the corners, an expression of surprised delight on his face.

And for a while she's happy, taken up in the moment, remembering what it's like to give and receive pleasure, what it's like to feel alive.