"Thanks," she murmured to him. It was late, and the bus was shuttling endlessly into the night. They wouldn't be stopping anytime soon, either.
"Catch some Z's, girl," he told her, curling under a blanket on one of the seats that he had reclined into a bed.
"Ummhmm." She shuffled quietly from the front of the bus to the back so as not to disturb the rest of the sleepers. No one was awake but her; Tom was already snoring behind her as she worked her way to her bunk. She was intensely grateful for it tonight, because she was feeling moody. She was both tired and wired, a combination she found hard to alleviate. It was a blessing to lie down in the privacy offered in the coffin-like space. After tugging the curtain closed that hid the rest of the bus from her sight, she flicked on the dim reading light, then put the headphones on. Slowly, she rested her head on her pillows and closed her eyes.
Julia had no sense of eyes on her. She had no idea that A.J. was watching her from his bunk above and across from hers. He had his light out, but had been lying there awake listening to the hum of her conversation with Tom. He hadn't heard any of it, just the lilt and rhythm of her voice. Now he rolled quietly to his side and stared at her through a crack in her bunk curtains.
She was restless, her fingers twitching, her legs repositioning themselves over and over. She lay on one side, her back to him. He raised his head up and leaned it on one arm while studying the line of her spine, the way she breathed as she began to sleep. Slowly, she turned back toward him. Her hand reached up and slapped off the light just as he glimpsed her bared breast.
He couldn't stand it anymore. He had to be close to her, and didn't care any more if she hated his guts; it couldn't be worse than the utter indifference she showed him now.
He got down from his bunk.
It was quiet, just the usual sounds of eight people asleep and the roar of the bus engine that was almost hypnotic. No one to see him kneel on the cold floor of the bus beside Julia's bunk and slide the curtain back enough to see her face illuminated in street lights from the bus's outside window she hadn't bother to cover. Julia didn't move, her hand was still up above her head and her tank top had slid so that her breast was covered again. So softly, he reached out and caressed her cheek with the back of his fingers. She turned to face him, and suddenly grabbed at his hand trying to push him away.
"Al, what the HELL....?" she rasped under her breath before he covered her mouth with his free hand.
"Sssshh," he managed. They were both poised, still as stones. Their eyes were locked, not blinking, not moving. She was so fucking beautiful in the weird light from outside the darkly glazed bus window; he wanted to just keep looking at her. It took A.J. almost a full minute to realize that Jules was no longer struggling to push his hand away, she was holding it. "Jules, I...," he began to whisper, but her other hand reached up and mimicked his, covering his lips with a light touch. He kissed the tips of her fingers as they brushed his lips, quickly sucking a finger into his mouth and holding it there. It hadn't been his intention to do that, just something he wanted to do when the opportunity presented itself. When she made no move to stop him, he continued to nurse her finger, then make his way to her wrist planting a row of tiny wet kisses on the way. Still she didn't stop him, only laid there and stared.
Julia felt herself going over the edge of all rational thinking. She still couldn't understand how this kid, this child, could make her so aroused, so beside herself. All she knew was that he did. It was twisted. As she watched him kissing and fondling her wrist, realization slapped her upside the head with the force of a Louisville slugger. She wasn’t going to push him away any longer. Too much of her just didn’t want to fight it anymore.
He crept into her bunk like a cat, carefully tugging the curtain shut behind him
Julia pulled her headphones off and A.J. shoved the CD player out of the way as he lay down beside her. There wasn't much spare room for the two of them. He slid up against her, pushing her back against the cool window. It was sudden, the feel of him against her as he wrapped himself around her, but it was his kiss that caught her off guard. He didn’t ask her this time, just did it, and it was slow, not clumsy; a gentle crush of lips. He kissed her bottom lip first, then the top, then the bottom as he worked her mouth open to tease the tip of her tongue with his. And as he did it again, and again, and again she stopped thinking about how wrong the whole thing was and began to kiss him back, began to touch him, here, here on his shoulder, and there, there on his neck, his arm, down the supple curve of his back.
They played. That's what Julia thought of it as. Touch me here, touch me there. Lots of snuggling and nuzzling. Kid stuff. Nice stuff. Not even trying to slip hands under fabric, just happy to feel each other through their clothes, to bunch up handfuls of cotton and only imagine what each others’ skin felt like. It was like floating, with the bus moving them along, making the bunk sway, covering up the small sounds they couldn't help making. Drifting. The word kept going through Julia’s head as Alex continued to kiss her mouth, her neck, her shoulders, her ears. He slinked his way down, kissing her through her shirt, hot breath through the warm material just above her breasts. Absently, Julia stroked his head, the ridiculous blond tips of his dark hair.
"Soft," she sighed, not hearing herself. He felt soft. His hair, the tender skin on the back of his neck. She bent and kissed him there and heard him sigh, felt him shake. Then he did something, almost nothing really, just a warm breathy kiss to the crook of her arm, but the effect startled her. It sent shivers through her body the way she had sent them through his. She hugged him close, closer, wrapping her leg up over his slender hip, burying her face in his hair. Then she cupped his face and tilted it up to look at him. He looked very Spanish in the dark light, very languid with his eyes half closed. She traced the curve of his lip with her thumb. "What am I supposed to do with you now, McLean?" she whispered, trying to stay tough.
"Anything you want," he replied, his voice low and ragged.
"Jesus Christ, you silly boy. You don't know what you're saying." She rolled onto her back. He was too fucking intense...too damn young.
"Yes I do." He hitched himself up and bent over her so they were nose to nose. "Jules, don't shut me out anymore..." he said, as she turned her head away. He took her cheek and pushed her face back so he could look her in the eye. "I know exactly what I'm saying," he whispered back at her. "I lo..."
"NO," she growled at him, clamping her hand over his mouth. "No you DON'T, Alexander." He kept nodding his head. "You don't. You might think you do, but you don't. Alex? Alex, stop and just listen to me, please. Please?" He rolled his eyes at her, but stopped nodding. Slowly, she moved her hand away. He kissed her palm, held her hand to his cheek.
"Jules," he breathed.
"Ssshhhh. Ssshhhh." She stroked his face. "You're confused," she insisted, not sure if she was saying it for him, or for herself.
"Tell me you're not feelin' something," he pressed. "Tell me you don't want me, too."
She smiled at the sheer audacity of his comment, at his omnipresent cockiness. It brought the toughness out in her again. She could be audacious, too.
"Well, now, that would be a big fat lie, wouldn't it?" she admitted. "Yes, I want you. Right now, I want you so bad I can taste it." She pushed him off her and rolled him onto his back. "You are SO fine, all of this is so fine," she continued to murmur as her hand worked its way under his shirt. She stroked his chest, felt his heart pounding, played with the few fine hairs there as she teased his nipples to hard points. He felt good to her hands. All silk skin and hard muscle. She took his left nipple between her fingers and pinched it gently until he groaned. "I think about this ALL THE TIME, Alex. You're my biggest distraction." Her knee came up between his legs, rested just below his balls, nudged them lightly. "Right now, Alex, right this very minute, I want you inside me." She kissed him, enjoying the way he responded to her. Her hand released his nipple and slid firmly, quickly down into his pants and held the erection she'd been feeling against her since he'd gotten into her bed. Christ, he felt good. "What's not to want?" she mused as she caressed him and he squirmed, pressed up into her hand. "I struggle with wanting you every day, every DAMN day. Do you know why? Because I like you enough to not want to hurt you. Because I know that two months from now, when this tour is over, so is this. There's no room for you in my real life or for me in yours; this would just be all just fun and games. I can handle that; I've had my share of road romance, I've handled it before. But I don't think YOU can, Alex. I don't think you're gonna be ready to cut this off if we step this infatuation of ours up to the next level. Can you deal with that, Al? Hmm? You wanna be bed buddies? What say you?" Her thumb stroked the head of his cock and he shook in her arms. She rested her chin on his, and licked his lips.
"Yu, uh, uh, yeah, I c,c,can deal with it," he stuttered. She squeezed his cock and he thought he was going to lose his mind from pleasure and from wanting her and from the sheer fact that she was actually touching him. He muffled his voice against her shoulder.
"You're lying, Alex," she said softly, but she had to look away from him when she said it. He was too beautiful in the dark, too willing. If he knew what he looked like at that moment, he would bottle it up and sell it every night.
He brought her face back around to his by holding her cheeks with shaking hands, but her eyes slipped to the side to avoid his.
"Maybe you're lyin', too, Jules," he said. That got her attention. Her eyes went wide, and then a tiny smile curled her lips.
"Fuck you."
"You just do that," he breathed, and pulled her mouth down to his, not just to kiss her, but to shut her up. Two months, whatthefuck did two months mean? Two months was light years away. An eternity on the road. So much could happen in two months. He wanted her NOW.
He felt her relaxing against him, felt her kissing him back with that luscious mouth of hers. Her hand was still fondling him, stroking up and down as expertly as if he was doing it himself. Every so often she would break the rhythm of it, squeeze his balls, and bring the urgent need to orgasm back down to a dull ache. He responded in kind, caressing her breasts under her shirt until her nipples pressed hard into his palms and he heard her moan into his mouth. Somehow, in that tiny, cramped space they were in, they managed to work some of their clothes off, or at least out of the way. When he started to reach between her legs, Jules grabbed his hand and stopped him. She brought his fingers to her mouth, sucking them and making them wet while she moved to straddle one of his legs. Then she brought his hand back down, between her thighs.
"Softly," she murmured against his lips, flicking her tongue over the tip of his. "Like that, just like that, Alex." He barely grazed her clitoris, and she shuddered. "Yessss...just like that." He could have stayed that way all night, just to watch her bite her own lip, knowing that he was the one making her feel that way. They stayed that way, her above him, playing with each other until neither of them could stand it anymore.
"Close this," she mouthed silently, gesturing to the outer window while she climbed off of him.
He knelt up as far as he could, which put his back against the ceiling of the bunk, and tugged the stiff shutter almost all the way closed. Just a streak of light slithered across Jules' face, enough for him to be able to see her. He could feel her moving beneath him, drawing her legs up, turning to her side, back to her back as she undressed. He stayed poised above her, doing the same, trying to shuck clothes without hitting her, or making any noise hitting the walls of the bunk. It suddenly occured to him that not only were they not alone on the bus, but that only the thinnest of walls separated several sleeping bodies from them. Her legs wrapping around him erased most thought from his head. She was pulling him down on top of her, guiding him until he felt the swollen head of his penis nestle between her legs. This was really happening, and he could hardly believe it.
"Are you sure, Alex? Do you want this?" Jules asked him. It wasn’t too late; she wanted to give him an out. Hell, she wanted to give herself an out. They could still stop, and be none the worse for all the slap and tickle. But her body was betraying her. She was tilting her hips, rubbing him in her wetness.
"God, yes Jules." He'd never been so sure of anything in his life. He bent his head down and kissed her, feeding on her mouth. “You, too?” he asked, sliding his lips down her cheek and to her ear. “Do you want me?”
“Yes.”
A.J. barely heard her say it; even with her mouth next to his ear it was just a tiny, whispered word. But her body arched up under his as she said it, opened further to him, accepted him. He slid into her slowly, savoring the tightness and heat of her body as he was enveloped by her. They were plastered together with mutual sweat, gliding against each other, and moving with the rhythm of the bus. Jules covered his mouth with hers, and made soft, plaintive noises. Clutching each other, at the crumpled piles of clothes and sheets, they rocked and moved as best they could, building layer after layer of pleasure between them.
He wanted more, wanted it to go on and on, but he didn't think he could stand to hold out.
She couldn't get enough of him. Every subtle thrust of his body brought her closer and closer to orgasm.
He wrapped his arms under and around her, lifting her to him, crushing himself against her. He needed to feel her skin all around him, everywhere.
She locked her ankles low around his calves, marveling at the tight muscles in his slender legs, at the wiry strength of his body.
A.J. tried to unlock their kiss, but Jules held his head firm. He felt, more than heard, her crying out into his mouth. She was shaking all over, every fiber of her body taut, every bit of her gripping every bit of him. It threw him over the edge into his own climax, and he was cumming, so hard, spurt after spurt jolting his body and filling her, seeping out of her and around him...
Julia drifted in and out of sleep. She should have been exhausted, but she wasn't. The movement of the bus would lull her for a little while, and then she would be awake again. And when she woke, she was aware of Alex beside her, touching her. He didn't seem to sleep at all, though his eyes had been closed every time she turned to look at him.
He was going to have to go. It would be dawn, then morning, then another day and another show and another night. Others on the bus would struggle to wake up. They couldn't be like this when they did.
"You gotta go, Al," she whispered to him.
"Not yet," he replied. He cuddled closer to her, rested his head on her shoulder.
She stroked his damp hair before burying her nose in it. He smelled incredible. Clean sweat, a hint of cologne and something that was just him. In fact, the entire bunk reeked of him, and so did she. Meanwhile, A.J. was skimming a hand over her belly, down between her thighs that, goddamnit, parted for him as if she had no say in it at all. "Shit," she said to herself.
"So wet," he murmured to her as his finger eased into her. Jules sighed and arched into his hand as he worked his middle finger slowly in and out while his thumb found her plump clitoris and circled it as it swelled. His tongue reached out and licked her nipple.
“Jesus, Alex...” He just lifted his head and smiled down at her. All the while he was moving her body, spooning up to her on his side, lifting her thigh up and back over his waist. His penis was inside of her before she had a chance to think about it and she was lost to the sensation of being completely filled. His thumb never stopped caressing her, never missed a beat. Julia felt herself shaking all over. She felt his heart beating against her back, and his lips on her neck up near her ear.
“Beautiful Jules,” he breathed into her ear. “I want you so much, been dreaming of this for so long, doing this with you, being inside you...you feel so good.”
“No, shh, quiet,” she said, hiding her face against his arm. She didn’t want to feel anything but pure physical sensation. His goddamn voice was taking her somewhere she didn’t want to go.
“Yesss,” he insisted. He kissed her ear, pulling gently on the lobe with his teeth. “I love this. I love watching you sleep next to me. Just watching you breathe.” He switched hands, brought the one that was sticky with her wetness to his lips and sucked it. “Umm, I want to taste you; do everything with you, mmm, to you....Jules...” he turned her head and made her look at him. Her eyes were moist, even in the darkness he could see it. “I DO love you, Jules.” She opened her mouth, and he quickly kissed her, quieting her with his tongue. He didn’t want to hear her protest, disagree, or admonish. All he wanted to do was feel what he was feeling, to fill himself up with all the emotions he had tried so hard to keep checked. If it hurt later, then that was later and this was now, and this was bliss worth any kind of pain. He held her tight and moved inside of her while his fingers toyed with the tender bud of flesh between her legs. She gripped his hand there, guiding him, showing him how she wanted to be touched. All too soon he felt her contracting around his cock, milking it with her orgasm. She was groaning into his mouth, trying hard to feel exquisite pleasure while trying even harder to be so very, very quiet at the same time. He clutched her, followed her movements, and spilled himself into her as forcefully as he had the first time.
They rocked together, completely entwined in blankets and discarded clothes, until they noticed the lightening sky outside of the window.
"You really have to go, Alex,” Julia finally said. “It's morning. Bad enough we both smell like sex and the bunk looks like a war zone. It wouldn’t be such a smart idea to get...well, caught, you know?"
“Yeah, I know,” he reluctantly agreed. She was right. He knew she was right. This wasn’t a good time to get reckless and they’d been as reckless as anyone could get. But he so wanted to make the night last longer. He didn’t want to stop touching her. It was narcotic. She handed him his tank top. It was a wrinkled, damp mess. So was everything else in her bunk. With a lot of twisting and turning, they both managed to get back into their clothes. "I don't want to go," he insisted, hugging her close.
"Have to," she said, but she squeezed him back.
"Gonna be in a hotel for the next few nights," he reminded her. "We can...."
"Later for that," she interrupted him. “We can talk later about anything you want, but right now, you’ve got to go.” He kissed her one last time as he climbed over her so he could slip out of the curtains. It was a passionate kiss, hard on lips that were feeling swollen and bruised. It made her respond when she really didn’t want to.
He slipped from the bunk as stealthily as he had entered it, leaving the curtains askew. Julia watched him hoist himself up into his own bunk. He turned, laid down facing her, looking down at her with his head on his arm. His smile was sleepy and contented. Julia knew she should just close her curtain and try and sleep, and that A.J. should do the same. Instead, they lay there staring at each other like two idiots until the rest of the bus was awake with the first grumblings of the day.
“How much farther to the hotel?” they heard Tommy ask the driver.
“Twenty more minutes, Tom. Can ya hold out ‘til then for coffee?”
“I might be persuaded,” he chuckled.
With that, A.J. jumped down from his bunk and rummaged for a cigarette. He quickly lit it and took a deep inhale before Julia took it from him.
“‘Mornin’,” he said to her. “Sleep OK?”
“Thanks, yeah. Maybe a little off and on.” She took a deep drag. A.J. started lighting another for himself and she quickly grabbed that one from him, too, then took the whole pack.
“This stuff’ll kill ya, Bone. Stunt yer growth.” She swaggered off to the kitchen area and handed the butt to Tommy. “Mornin’.”
“Same to you,” he said, smirking. “Thanks.”
“These really go better with coffee,” she mused, rubbing Tom’s scratchy head.
“Yeah,” Tom agreed. A good night’s sleep had certainly changed her mood. A.J. came shuffling into the common room, sliding into the booth beside Jules and taking the cigarettes from her.
“Who said you could join the grown-ups?” she asked him.
“Shut up and gimme a light,” he said. She tossed him the lighter she had removed from the pack.
“Don’t blame me if you sing for shit tonight,” she warned.
“Why not? You know I shouldn’t be smoking this,” he said, inhaling deeply and holding it in, all the while smiling at her.
“Fucking younger generation, Tommy. No respect for their elders.” She tapped her ashes into a stray soda can. “World’s goin’ to hell, I tell ya.”
© 2000 (*> Baby Bird Productions, Inc.
