Alone Together

It didn’t take Taylor too much longer to finally calm down into her usual self. The topic of Gerard and her childhood remained undiscussed, with Pete understanding she didn’t want to discuss it and Taylor being grateful how well he could read her. They remained cuddled on the couch, playfully feeding each other their cheesecake. Pete pouted when Taylor used her finger to plop some of her whipped cream on his nose, trying very hard to use his tongue to lick it off.

“Oh, you think that’s funny?” he asked, grinning at her as she tumbled back onto the opposite end of the couch in a fit of giggles. She didn’t answer, instead holding her sides and nodding furiously. “Psh, I’ll show you!” he said. He plopped more whipped cream on his nose and pounced on her, rubbing his face on her neck and in effect lathering her with the whipped cream.

“Pete!” she squeaked, giggling even harder when his hands began tickling her sides as he continued to rub his nose on her neck. He pulled back with a grin, whipped cream smeared all over his face. He was laying on top of her now, and her hands were resting on his shoulders when his tickling ceased. Pete could have sworn he saw a shift in her smile when their eyes locked, as if some new thought had zoomed into her mind and she wasn’t sure what she thought about it yet.

“What?” he asked curiously.

Taylor bit her lip and cautiously lifted her hand to his face, trailing her fingers across his cheek. “You’ve gotten it all over yourself,” she said quietly. With bravery she didn’t think she had, she wiped some of the cream onto her index finger and brought it up to her lip. Locking her eyes onto his, she licked it off her finger, sucking off the bit her tongue couldn’t lap off.

Pete’s breath caught in his throat. He stared intently at Taylor’s lips as she cleaned her fingers of the cream, getting shivers each time she wiped some off of him. When she took his face between her hands and leaned forward, licking off the last bit on the corner of his mouth, he couldn’t stop himself from gripping her hips tightly and emitting a small moan.

Taylor pulled back quickly, surprised by his reaction and shocked with her own daring. Pete stared back with wide eyes, his breathing unsteady. “You’ve got quite a bit on yourself, you know,” he said quietly, eyes darting to where it was smeared over her neck and collarbone.

He was waiting for permission, trusting she would pick up on the implication his words held. She stared back, feeling a pressure beginning to build in her stomach which she was very sure was not just her nerves.

With a shaky breath, she gave him a smile. “We should take care of that, then, shouldn’t we?” she said.

Pete smiled and nodded, turning his gaze back to his new favorite dessert. “I’ll be gentle,” he whispered. He lowered his head, brushing his lips against her sweet skin. She whimpered and her fingers dug into his hair.

His tongue was intoxicating, and it tickled her skin in a pleasant way she’d never imagined. He ran it along her collarbone, up her neck, letting it linger behind her ear. His lips pressed kisses along the way, and when she gasped as he nipped on her jaw, he felt his hips jerk in response, eliciting a quick moan from them both. Taylor felt dizzy from the pleasure she was feeling, the pleasure she had denied herself nearly all her life and only allowed herself once before. She whimpered his name, and Pete pulled back in a daze, eyelids heavy.

“Taylor,” he whispered. He thought she looked scared, with wide eyes, and he raised a hand to brush back her hair to comfort her. “Tay, we don’t need to—“

She shook her head, pulling him down and silencing him with her kiss. “Pete, shut up,” she said, moving her lips against his with more force. Her arms wound around his neck, holding him close, and she adjusted her legs. Pete gasped when his hips fell into place more intimately against hers.

She could sense his hesitation, and so she slowed her kisses until they were just tickles on his cheek. “Pete, really. It’s okay,” she murmured.

He still looked torn. “You said before you wanted to wait,” he mumbled.

“Since when do you listen?” she asked, closing her eyes when he pressed his lips to her cheek.

“Since I love you, you jerk,” he laughed, tenderly flicking her nose. He groaned when Taylor pressed her hips up into his. “Taylor,” he said, almost warningly.

“Peter,” she mocked. He gave her a look and she sighed, pushing him off and sweeping her legs over the side of the couch. “Okay, forget it. What movie’s next?” She scooted back to the end of the couch, ignoring Pete as he rolled onto his stomach and looked at her back. She starting flipping through the channels and staring blankly at the screen.

“Are you seriously mad right now?” Pete asked, holding his head up to look at her better. “You told me before you didn’t want to go too fast.”

“Pete, just forget it, okay?” Taylor stood up from the couch and paced towards the bed.

He rolled off the couch, running his fingers through his hair in frustration as he stood up. “No, I won’t. Why are you mad at me when I’m trying to be a gentleman?”

Taylor bit her lip, turning away so he couldn’t see her cheeks turning red. “I’m not mad, okay? Now drop it.”

Pete rolled his eyes and started walking over to her. “Jesus Christ, Taylor! I just tried—“

“I’m not mad, Peter!” Her voice broke and she covered her cheeks with her palms, trying to ward off the heat that was spreading in her face. It was then that Pete realized the red in her cheeks was not from anger—it was from the embarrassment of rejection.

He was in front of her in a few long strides, and then she was in his arms, her lips being ravished by his own as he dipped her into his chest. She gasped and her fingers gripped at his night shirt, and the fears in the back of her head evaporated. She and Pete had always had an unspoken understanding of each other’s emotions, and in that moment he had understood what she needed, what she wanted. And in that moment, she needed to be with him. She needed him to chase away all the bad thoughts and all the negative ideas about herself. She needed to feel loved.

And that was all ever Pete wanted to give her.

His hands ran down to her thighs, lifting her up without ever breaking their kiss. Taylor moved her lips to his cheek, and then to his neck, as Pete moved them the last few feet to the bed. It wasn’t a shock to feel the coolness of the fabric on her back when he laid her back onto the comforter. The real shock was when her fingers trailed along his stomach, sliding up to push off his shirt. Pete grinned and tugged it over his head.

“I didn’t get a good look at your tattoos before,” she murmured. Her eyes were wide as she watched her fingers run over the ivy on his collarbone, growing more daring as she let her nails tickle the bat heart tattoo below his navel. Pete’s breath was cool against her throat as he moaned in delight.

“What do you think?” he asked.

Taylor bit her lip again, sending Pete’s brain into a tailspin. She let her fingers linger over his bat heart for a moment before diving into the waistband of his sweatpants. He gasped and his head fell against her shoulder, his breathing shaky as her fingers moved lower and caressed him.

“Wonderful,” she whispered into his ear. He pulled back and stared into her eyes for a moment before diving back down, running his tongue along her throat and down to her collarbone. She moaned when his fingers tried to pull the neck of her sweatshirt to the side. Taylor pushed on Pete’s chest and sat up, smiling when he followed suit like a dutiful puppy and gaped as she pulled the sweatshirt over her head.

Taylor couldn’t remember Pete taking her bra off, but it was gone, and she noticed it out of the corner of her eye when they rolled over on the bed. Her hair fell over Pete’s chest like waves when she sat up, straddling his legs. His nails dug into her hips when she accidently grinded into him, and Pete sucked in air between his lips.

“God, Taylor,” he groaned. His fingers shyly reached up to cup her breasts, and when her eyes fluttered closed and she cooed her pleasure, he kneaded them harder. She cried out and her hips ground into him again. “God, you’re so fucking sexy,” he exclaimed, sitting up and wrapping his arms around her waist, moving his hips in time with hers.

When his lips began kissing over her breasts, Taylor could feel the pressure that had begun in her belly spreading lower. The ache she was feeling to have him close was beginning to grow beyond the point of need. “P-Pete, please,” she said, wincing at the desperate urgency in her voice.

Pete rolled his eyes up to look at her, his teeth nipping at her tender skin affectionately. He picked up on the request in her voice, and in an instant he had rolled them back over so his body covered hers. Soon, her pants were swept off her legs, landing in a heap with his sweatpants as Pete threw them over his shoulder.

Pete froze when Taylor finally was laid bare before him. His eyes traveled over her body; from her taut stomach to her plump breasts, her parted pink lips to her trusting green eyes that stared up at him. It was such a different feeling than the last time they had come together last this; before, they’d allowed themselves no pauses, and were just desperate to be together. This time, each caress was a silent “I love you,” and Pete felt more connected with her in that moment than he ever had with any other woman.

And when their bodies collided, and their passionate murmurs echoed through the room, Taylor couldn’t help the tears that sprang to her eyes. She buried her face in Pete’s neck as he rocked his hips into her. “You’re so tight,” he moaned into her ear. “S-so good.”

Taylor let her nails rake across his back with each thrust, and she cried out his name helplessly as each slap of skin drove her further over the edge. She had thought the first time with Pete had been the most amazing thing in the world, but this time blew the last out of the water. Prior to that time in Chicago, she had never experienced the pleasure of having a man between her thighs, and she couldn’t help but be glad that she had waited to share the experience with Pete, a man who loved her and knew just how to move to make her insides quiver.

When the pleasure receded, and Pete and Taylor lay side by side basking in the ends of their euphoria, Pete glanced over at her, his chest still heaving as he recovered his breath. “You really are so damn beautiful, Taylor,” he said.

She reached up and patted down her hair, which was now in quite a mess of tangles thanks to Pete’s fingers, and breathed out a laugh. “Oh, for sure,” she said.

Pete grinned and rolled over onto his side, letting his left hand brush a few loose strands out of her face. He gently pressed his lips against hers, sighing against her smile. “I’m serious, Tay,” he murmured. His eyes softened and his fingers buried into her hair again, just like they had so passionately a few minutes before. “What’s a beautiful girl like you doing with a shit like me?”

Taylor shot him an incredulous look and rolled on her side to face him better, her thumb gently stroking away the tears that were threatening to fall from his eyes. “Peter, don’t be silly,” she scolded. “You are so brilliant. You’re talented. You’re an incredible friend. There is nothing about you that is shit.”

He grinned and pulled her body flush against his. “Kind reciting those kind of lines and you could be a poet, Miss Barrie.”

She giggled and kissed the tip of his nose. “How popular do you think a poem called ‘You’re pretty much my favorite person ever’ would be?”

“If I wrote it? People would flip shit. If you wrote it? I’d keep a laminated copy in my wallet.”

“You don’t think people would like it if I wrote it?”

“Oh, no, they would. But I would love it.”

She smiled and laid her head on his shoulder. “Well, that’s what’s important, isn’t it?”

He kissed her forehead. “I love you, Taylor.”

“I love you, too, Pete.”

As sleep finally began to take them prisoner, Taylor felt herself drifting into a more peaceful sleep than she’d had in years. But Pete couldn’t succumb, as the thoughts about what would happen when it was time for them to continue on with the tour consumed him.