They Can't Protect Me From Loving You

Eloise woke up the following morning with the sun on her face. She scrunched up her face as the light hit her closed eyes and stretched out. She turned to find an empty space where Brian had been. She opened her eyes and spread out in the middle of the bed. She took in a content breath of air and looked around the room. She hadn’t really taken in much of the detail when she’d arrived. In true Brian style, almost everything in the room was either some sort of purple or black. The walls were purple, the bedding was a lighter purple as were the drapes. The furniture in the room was black. The dresser, the night stand, and the closet. On the wall opposite her was one of his custom guitars – the Synyster Custom White with gold pimp stripes.

She glanced around the room and noticed a few familiar items of hers that had been given a new home after Brian had unpacked all her stuff. She then spotted a photo on the dresser that she recognised, but wasn’t hers. It was a photo of her and Brian together on the beach taken about seven years ago on Val’s 15th birthday. She got out of the bed, wrapping the sheet around her naked body and went over to inspect the photo closer. She remembered that night like it was yesterday. That was the night that Brian told her that he loved her for the first time. It was the photo that Brian had insisted on having when he found out that she was moving away. It was still in the same frame that Eloise had put it in all that time ago.

“Val’s birthday, the night I told you I loved you for the first time.” Eloise jumped at the sound of Brian’s voice; she hadn’t heard him come into the room. She turned and smiled at him still holding the photo. In his hands was a mug of coffee and a plate with toast.

“Best night of my life.” She said as he walked over and placed a sweet kiss on her lips.

“Mine too. Fancy some breakfast?” he replied offering the toast to her.

“Mmm, I’m starving.” She said taking a slice of toast off the plate and taking a bite out of it.

“Good, I made it for you, I hope you still only take one sugar in your coffee?” he asked as he set the plate and mug down on the dresser. She nodded still chewing the toast and Brian smirked as he wrapped his arms around her waist, gently tugging at the purple sheet.

“I can’t believe you’ve still got this in your room.” She said with the photo frame in her hand.

“Of course I have, like I said it was the best night of my life, I’ve got a few of the other’s in the spare room. Michelle never liked them. I had to battle with her to keep that in here.” He explained causing Eloise to give out a small smile.

“Now, let’s get this sheet back on the bed.” He said ushering her backwards towards the bed, a smirk plastered across his face as he placed kisses along her jaw line.

----

“Brian, where are my tops?” Eloise called from the bedroom, wrapped in a towel.

“Um, in the draw in the closet.” Brian called back from somewhere outside the bedroom.
Eloise opened the closet door and smiled at the neat row of clothes hung before her; hers on one side, Brian’s on the other. She found her tank tops in the third draw and pulled one out just as Brian’s arms snaked their way around her waist, pulling her closer to him, his lips finding their way to the crook of her neck. She gave out a soft moan as his lips brushed against her pulse point and she pulled away from him enough for her to turn around to face him. Immediately his lips returned to her neck and began to work their way to the edge of her towel.

“Babe. Come on.” Eloise moaned at his touch.

“Babe!” she said trying to sound stern and he lifted his head to look at her.

“Are you some kind of nympho or something?” she said with a giggle.

“No, I just wanna try and make up for lost time.” he whined giving her puppy dog eyes.

“There’ll be plenty of time for that, but at the moment my ribs are still pretty sore remember.”
She said quietly. “Especially after last night.” she added and they both smirked.

“Sorry babe, I wasn’t thinking, I just, you know.”

“Yeah I know, but I’m not going anywhere.” she replied and kissing him on his pouting lips.

“Now, can I get dressed without you mauling me?” she asked walking away from him and gathered her clothes.

“Don’t let me stop you.” He smiled throwing himself onto the bed smirking and wiggling his eyebrows.

“I won’t” she replied with an evil smile and with her clothes still in her hands walked out of the room. Brian’s jaw dropped as he watched and then heard the bathroom door shut and lock.

“The guys want to have a kinda welcome home party.” Brian explained as he read the message he’d just received off Zack.

“When?” Eloise asked adjusting her head that was resting on Brian’s chest as they lay on the sofa watching random TV.

“Tonight if you feel up to it, or we can leave it until the weekend if you rather.” Brian replied playing softly with her hair.

“Can we leave it ‘til Saturday?”

“Yeah of course we can.” He replied kissing the top of her head as he replied to the message.

“I guess this way I get to keep you too myself for a little bit longer.” Brain added running his fingers down her arm.

“Yeah, just the two of us will be good.” She replied running her hand up the underside of his t-shirt along his well toned chest.

So that’s how Brian and Eloise spent the next three days. Together. Just the two of them. It was just what Eloise wanted. She hadn’t been able to spend too much time alone with Brian since they’d found each other again and needed to be with him, just him, to catch up properly on the past four years.

They talked at length about their lives apart from each other, spent time getting to know each other all over again.

Over the three days, Brian filled her in on the details of the group finishing high school with an abundance of stories of what they all got up to. The band, getting signed, touring and making albums. He explained briefly about Michelle and how they ended up together.
They talked about Eloise’s life in witness protection and spent some time looking through new and old photos and albums talking about the memories that were connected to each of the snapshots.

By the weekend, Eloise felt at home in Brian’s house. She finally had worked out where Brian and put all her stuff when he’d unpacked everything and she’d also been accepted by Brian’s dog Pinkly. When she first moved in Pinkly growled at her a lot and stayed away from her for the first day. But as with most guys, including the dog kind, the best way to their heart is through their stomach. So once Eloise had put a bowl of dog food down for him and given him a few sneaky treats, Pinkly stopped growling at her.

Saturday morning, Eloise knew that Pinkly had accepted her as she was woken up with him crawling in between her and Brian and licking her nose.

“Morning Pinkly, what do you want?” Eloise croaked, scrunching up her nose at the feel of the dogs tongue.

“You want letting out?” she asked to which Pinkly barked, jumped off the bed and ran back out of the bedroom door.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Eloise said pushing back the covers and getting up to follow Pinkly downstairs.