Life on Mars

*Jared’s POV*

When I woke up the next morning two thoughts struck me before I’d even opened my eyes: first, I was not in my own bed. Second, I was still wearing the same clothes from the night before.

Okay, scratch that. My third thought was that I was still wearing the same clothes from the night before, save my shirt and shoes.

I opened my eyes slowly, tilting my head upwards so that I could see the elegant roses above Eliza’s bed. I didn’t particularly like the smell of any flower, but even I had to admit that they smelled divine. I really was going to have to buy more flowers for Eliza from Presley. It was worth every penny…

We’d arrived back at her house by 1 a.m. the night before. I’d opened the door for her and ushered her inside, intending to give her a kiss goodnight and leave her so that she could rest. But she let go of my hand, kicked off her shoes, and threw her purse aside before spinning around to study me. She looked so earnest that for a moment I thought she’d changed her mind about us. She crossed her arms over her chest and took another few steps backwards to increase the distance between us.

“If I ask you to stay here tonight…will you promise to remain a gentleman?” She asked softly.

I frowned at her, at first unsure if she was being serious or not. But when her expression remained unchanged I said the only thing I could think of. “Eliza…I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”

Why lie? I’d asked myself. Why pretend that I didn’t want her with every cell in my body? I wasn’t sure I could handle spending an entire night in bed with her without trying to take all her clothes off. I wasn’t even sure she could handle the same when it came to me. I’d seen the way she was watching me before she and Presley disappeared to spend some time alone together. I’d seen the way her stormy eyes observed my lips on her skin, and I had to restrain myself not to lean forward and kiss her right then.

But I didn’t want to fuck this up. I didn’t want to rush into anything. Just like before, I didn’t want her to regret anything she said or did. And I wasn’t giving her enough credit. I already knew that she could control herself. She’d made that clear the entire week. Hadn’t Shannon been preaching me about not giving women enough credit the night I’d first met Eliza? He was right. I could finally admit it now.

“You know what?” I breathed then. “On second thought…yeah…I can do that.”

Her arms dropped from her chest and she reached out, grabbing a small fistful of my shirt and pulling me towards her. I slipped an arm around her waist, resting one hand on the small of her back, and reached up with the other to place an index finger on her lips.

“Eliza…” I whispered. “I can’t kiss you. I want to, but…if I do it’s just going to make things harder.”

She looked shell-shocked for a moment, until a seductive smile slowly spread out onto her lips. She pulled herself out of my arms and took one of my hands, advancing backwards towards the stairs. “Okay…” She nodded. “I wasn’t expecting that but…if that’s how it’s gonna be…then two can play at that game…”

She let go of my hand and turned around, still moving towards the stairs. I stopped walking, watching curiously as she ascended them. When she reached the top she glanced over her shoulder, gesturing for me to follow her with a nod of her head. She disappeared into the kitchen and I darted up the stairs, reaching the top right as she approached the beginning of the hallway on the far side of the room. Her back was still to me and she glanced over her shoulder again, reaching behind her to grasp the zipper at the top of her dress.

No, I thought. She wouldn’t do that to me...

But she did. She pulled the zipper down painfully slowly, then shimmied out of the dress. I watched in disbelief as it dropped to the floor, collapsing into a heap of soft, blue satin. She wasn’t wearing a bra, only lacy black underwear, and she covered her breasts with one arm as she turned around to face me.

My body responded instantly and I cursed my hormones as I took a few steps forward. She only responded by taking another few steps backwards, grinning devilishly at me.

“Look but don’t touch…” She whispered teasingly, wagging her index finger back and forth.

“Eliza…” I whined. “What are you doing?”

“Making it just as difficult as you wanted to,” she answered.

We kept moving down the hallway, the distance between us never closing, until I reached her bedroom doorway. She finally came to a stop a few feet away from the foot of her bed, patiently watching me linger against the doorframe. Now both arms were covering her breasts.

“Eliza…” I repeated in a whisper. “What do you want from me?”

“The same thing you want but decided you wouldn’t let yourself have tonight,” she replied. “We both already made up our mind, didn’t we? But there’s no reason we can’t have a little fun, right?”

“Fun?” I laughed, and I was surprised at how genuine my laughter was. “You call this fun, Eliza?”

“I sure do,” she nodded. She took a few steps towards me, fighting back a grin, and said, “Tell me you’re not turned on right now. Tell me…you’re not thinking of all the things you could be doing instead of standing in that doorway watching me.”

I laughed again. I’d walked right into that one. “I can’t tell you that and you know it,” I returned.

“So…” She said softly. “What do you want to do?”

She was only a few inches away from me now, and when her arms dropped from her chest I had to fight to keep my eyes on hers. My struggle must have been obvious, because she smiled with amusement as she rested her hands on my chest. When she began toying with the top button of my shirt I gently pushed her hands away, replacing her fingers with my own. I unbuttoned my shirt, my gaze never leaving her stunning eyes, and pulled it off to throw to the floor. I moved away from the doorway and wrapped my arms around her to press my body to hers, then leaned down and placed a soft kiss on her collarbone. I was torn; I didn’t know whether to give in and stop resisting my body’s response, or try and ignore the feel of her nipples against my skin.

“I think I can play along,” I finally whispered in her ear.

“All right…” She sighed, breaking away from me. She took my hand and pulled me towards the bed. “It’s gonna be a long night…”

And it was. My lips had traced nearly every curve of her body over the next few hours. We never shed the remainder of our clothing and she never allowed me to bring my lips to hers. It wasn’t long before I was cursing myself for saying I shouldn’t kiss her…

She had the body of a goddess. Smooth, milky skin stretched across every bone, sparsely dotted with tiny freckles. Her muscles were toned and well cared for, firm and sculpted underneath my hands. Her dirty blonde hair was soft and silky between my fingers, her own lips like heaven on my skin.

She drove me crazy. She drove me crazy and I loved it. She gave desire a whole new meaning for me…

I sat up in her bed then, pushing the covers away and climbing out. I spotted one of my duffle bags sitting on her dresser with a note resting on top of it. I picked it up, eyeing the bag for a long second before reading it.

Jared –

You were sleeping so soundly that I didn’t want to wake you. Everyone’s here downstairs in the pool. I had Shannon stop by your house to pick up some clean clothes. Feel free to shower and join us downstairs whenever you’re ready.

Eli

“Always thinking ahead,” I murmured, picking up the bag and wandering towards her bathroom…

****

“Hey, sleeping beauty!” Shannon shouted tauntingly. “Looks like you’ve finally decided to join us!”

I laughed in return, going down the short set of stairs that led to the pool area on the edge of the deck. I scratched my head and glanced up at the sun in the sky. “It’s only 11:00,” I shrugged. “And it’s Sunday. What’s the rush?”

“Oh leave him alone,” Eliza sighed from across the pool. She was wearing a white bikini and was stretched out across a lounge chair next to Holden. I could tell he was dozing off beneath his sunglasses. “He had a long night…”

“How long?” Tomo asked from inside the pool with a sly smile.

“Mind your own business…” I warned him as I collapsed into an empty chair next to Shannon. He and Presley were sharing a blueberry muffin, and as I sat down he pushed a glass of orange juice towards me. I wrapped my fingers around it but didn’t drink any, and looked up at Presley.

“I didn’t sleep with her,” I said quietly. I don’t know why, but I felt it was necessary to get the words out.

Presley laughed softly. “Don’t worry, Jared, she can’t hear you,” she reassured me. “And I know you didn’t sleep with her.”

“Oh yeah, how?” Shannon interjected matter-of-factly. “I mean I can tell because he’s my brother and I know what his morning-after condition looks like, so what…are you and Eliza mysteriously related?”

“No, we’re not,” she answered with a smile. “I actually don’t know if she even has a morning-after condition. If you ask me, she looks the same today as she does every other day.”

“So then how can you know for sure?” Shannon pressed.

I simply stared at the two of them. I didn’t know whether to be bored or amused with their conversation.

Presley rolled her eyes at Shannon and turned back to me. “Because she told me,” she motioned to herself, “that she wouldn’t. She also told Holden,” she then motioned to Holden’s dozing figure, “that she wouldn’t. Actually…it turned into a very serious conversation…”

Shannon eyed her skeptically, then decided to drop it and turned away with a shrug.

“I warned you that she was very frank, didn’t I?” Presley suddenly questioned. “I’m sure she made herself very clear.”

“She did,” I confessed. “And…she certainly has an interesting approach.”

Presley made a funny face and chuckled whole-heartedly. “I don’t even want to know,” she said, waving a hand. “For a person that occasionally includes dirty scenes in her books…she’s surprisingly conservative. Although…she prefers the word ‘sexual’ rather than ‘dirty.’ She never kisses and tells…”

Conservative, my ass, I thought to myself. Maybe she was conservative on the outside, but it was a very different story when she was tantalizing me by stripping her clothes off. My gaze drifted across the pool to Eliza, and I was surprised to see her watching me intently. She smiled slightly at me and leaned over to whisper something to Holden. He had flipped over onto his back, and I could see his shoulders shaking with laughter at whatever she’d said.

Then Tomo called her name and she got up and went to edge of the pool, squatting down in front of him. This time it was her turn to laugh, and just as she was about to stand up again, Tomo grabbed her arm and aggressively pulled her into the pool. He laughed loudly as she shrieked and splashed into the water, and once she came up she pushed a wave of water into his face.

Jealousy suddenly rippled through me. Shocked, I tore my eyes away from them and chose instead to focus on the ocean in the distance.

This was Tomo, I reminded myself. Shannon and I have known him since the early 90s. I trusted him implicitly. I’d never been given a reason not to.

But Eliza…I’d known for a little over a week. Nine days, to be exact. I had no idea if it was in her nature to want to make me jealous. Maybe she got off on it. I honestly didn’t know. Maybe it wasn’t intentional and it was all in my head. Either way, it was working. I felt it as intensely as a bolt of electricity in my veins, and it was a long time before I could look at her and Tomo again.

When I did, I saw that she had swum up to the edge of the pool closest to me. Her arms were folded on the sidewalk surrounding it, and she was peering up at me curiously. She lifted a hand and waved me towards her.

I looked up, choosing only to move when I saw that Holden was sitting up now and he and Tomo were enthralled in a conversation. I squatted down in front of her just as she had done near Tomo minutes earlier, and sighed softly.

“It bothers you, doesn’t it?” She asked quietly.

“Maybe,” I murmured. We knew we were talking about the same thing. “Are you doing it on purpose?”

She immediately looked hurt and I felt insanely guilty, but I didn’t apologize and she didn’t try to hide it. “I’ll pretend…that that wasn’t mean,” she said slowly. “But…you should know better than to think I’d play those kinds of games. You wanted so badly for me to be a part of your life. Have you changed your mind?”

I sighed heavily and shook my head in apology, reaching down to wipe a bead of water from her left eyebrow. “No,” I whispered. “And I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. It’s just...in 37 years I’ve never once been jealous. It’s gonna take some getting used to, that’s all. I’m sorry, Eli.”

Her expression remained blank for a long while as she seemed to think it over, then she stretched upwards and placed a wet kiss on my neck. “No worries,” she grinned, dropping into the water again. “Everyone wants to feel desired…”

I could only laugh as I watched her swim away. I stood up and asked, “So…do you?”

“I sure do,” she kept grinning. “And I’m sure you do, too.”

And I did.

More than ever.

****

Eliza and I spent nearly every evening with one another over the next two weeks. Whenever Shannon, Tomo and I weren’t writing new songs for our next album, and she wasn’t enduring what she called “boring conference calls” with Holden, Beth, and her publisher, we were together. Occasionally we went out for lunch, dinner or drinks, but mostly I tried to keep her away from wherever I thought there would be cameras. We’d been lucky thus far. No one had called either of us to tell us that they’d seen photographs of us online, and I was intent on keeping it that way for as long as possible. I didn’t want to ruin a good thing. Relationships are difficult enough without the media trying to get involved.

I preferred staying in with her anyway. I read her books while she listened to 30 Seconds to Mars music that I’d uploaded onto her iPod. Every so often we’d interrupt one another for compliments. I would repeat a passage that I was thought was written well, and she would stick an earbud in my ear to play back a few notes of a song that she really enjoyed. Then at the end of the night, after the dishes had been cleared and we were wrapped up together on the couch, she’d insist we put on one of the movies I’d been in. We’d go through the same thing every time she brought it up: I’d resist and she’d ignore me and put it on anyway. I slept through them all except Requiem for a Dream and Lord of War, both of which she found exceptionally depressing and disturbing.

We developed a deep-rooted sense of appreciation for eachother’s work. I loved that it wasn’t something automatic, that we’d both taken an unobligated interest in what we’d dedicated our lives to, and that we actually ended up liking what we found. I underlined words and phrases that I liked with a red pen that I had to hide from her because she kept yelling at me for it, and even had to look up words that I didn’t know, and I noticed every time she began humming one of our songs. It all felt so natural and sincere.

While we spent time with Shannon and Presley separately, we didn’t do as many things as a group as we had the first week. That was when I realized that Eliza really was comfortable being with me. She didn’t hesitate to crawl on top of me during a movie, launch herself into my arms while we were making dinner, or coax me into spending another night with her. We had plenty of repeat incidents where she tempted me to the brink of near insanity, and I still hadn’t kissed her, but the truth was that I was enjoying every second of it. I’d never wanted anyone so badly in my entire life, and in those two weeks I learned to both crave and admire a woman’s body in a way that no one had ever shown me.

Shannon knew that we hadn’t kissed yet, and I made him swear on his life that even if he told Presley about it when they were alone, that he wouldn’t ever bring it up in Eliza’s presence. I tried explaining the mechanics of it to him on more than one occasion, but he would simply stare at me like I was out of my mind and say that he didn’t understand how I could tolerate it. He’d kissed Presley hundreds of times and hadn’t even been able to get her shirt off. He wanted to know how in the hell I’d gotten nearly all of Eliza’s clothes off and not kissed her or made love to her.

I’ll admit that every so often I’d ask myself the same question, but each time I saw her face it became frighteningly clear.

I wanted all of her. I just wanted everything else first.