Epilogue
Piper
“Wake up, my lazy cricket.”
I groan as the words slip into my consciousness, disturbing me from my very deep slumber. I wish Quill weren’t such an early riser. Or at least, that he’d let me sleep. Though I know his caffeine addiction is what pushes him to wake me up.
Why can’t he leave the room to make his coffee without having to drag me along?
No, I don’t want him to do that. Neither of us can bear for the other one to be out of their sight, not even for a minute. We can barely stand to not touch each other. My subconsciousness has been feeling Quill’s hand on my arm while I slept, and I know I’d have awakened if he’d left my side.
Maybe it’s unhealthy to be so co-dependent, but I’m far past caring about that. As long as it works for Quill and me, who cares?
Still, maybe if we put a coffee machine in our room, that would allow me to sleep just a little longer…
No, that wouldn’t work either, since I’m aware coffee is only part of the equation. Quill can only wait so long until he has to wake me to make sure I’m real. To make sure I’m his. To remind both of us of it.
He has yet to avail himself of my permission to do what he wants to me in my sleep. He’s okay with pretending to force me when we’re awake, but he says he needs to see the signs that I’m secretly okay with it, and when I’m sleeping, he can’t.
It frustrates me, especially when I could really use an hour or two of extra sleep.
“No one needs to sleep ten hours,” whispers Quill in my ear, as though reading my thoughts. He probably is. “It’s ten a.m., you lazy little cricket.”
“Go away,” I groan, my words muffled in my pillow. I feel him tug on it, so I lift my arms up to hold it in place.
God, he’s like an annoying puppy. My annoying puppy. I bite down on a smirk, my sleep more of a pretense at this point to provoke him. I wiggle my butt at him, hoping it’ll give him some ideas about how to wake me up properly.
Then I jump, startled, when instead of doing what I’m hoping for, he brings his fingers to my armpits and digs in.
“Quill!”
A second later, he’s climbing on top of me, straddling me while continuing to attack my armpits and my sides.
“Quill! Quill, stop!”
By the time he lets up, I’m wheezing. Then he reaches around me to cup my breasts, tweaking my nipples.
“Qui-i-ll…”
My heavy breathing gives way to heavy moans as he plays with my breasts.
Then I shudder as he closes his mouth around my earlobe and tugs on it, before kissing me all down my spine, stopping right where my back meets my bottom.
I wiggle it again at him suggestively, and this time he rewards me with two resounding smacks, one on each cheek.
Then he spreads them to reveal the ring of muscle between them.
I’m not even embarrassed anymore at feeling his gaze on the most intimate part of me. And I’ve gotten used to the way his tongue drags all the way down my crack, swirling around my butthole, past my sensitive perineum, down to my already drenched folds.
“Mmmh, yes, Quill,” I murmur. “Lick my labia.”
Another loud smack, as I feel him chuckle behind me, and then he obeys, bringing his mouth to my pussy and flicking my clit with the tip of his tongue. Then he captures it in his mouth and sucks it, as he plunges two fingers into my pussy, while two more fingers invade my ass.
“Fuck yes, fuck,” I groan, grinding my hips back into him as he fingers both of my holes.
His mouth keeps toying with my clit, sucking hard as I feel myself filled and stretched by his fingers.
Goddamnit, it feels so good. I ride his hands, the pressure building fast, until the tingles concentrate in the core of my body, before exploding out into an orgasm that makes my toes curl.
“Oh my gosh,” I gasp.
He whips me around, his lips pressing against mine.
“Ew, Quill, I have morning breath.” I grow red, feeling his tongue invading my mouth, wondering how the hell his own breath always smells so nice.
“Yes, you do,” he agrees, his breath hot in my mouth, making no attempt to draw back. “You stink, cricket.”
“Quill!”
I try to wiggle away, but he pins me to him again, and rewards my escape with yet another tickle attack.
I’m panting hard, my morning breath all but forgotten as I feel his cock grow hard against my belly at my squirming.
“I like your stink,” he declares, lying down against me. “The more of you there is, the better.”
“So you’d like me even if I were overweight?” I ask.
“Uh huh.”
“What about… obese?”
“Mmh.”
“What if I were, like, in a car accident, and my face got all smashed up?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“What if I were a worm? Would you still like me, Quill, if I were a worm? Okay, okay! I’ll stop!” I shriek out the last words as I feel his hands hover threateningly against my sides again.
He goes back to kissing me, before turning his attention to my neck, and pressing his lips there. I moan, feeling all tingly.
“You know, Quill,” I murmur, “I’m glad we developed this weird kink together, and not another one.”
“Huh?” he mumbles, still concentrated on kissing me, working his way down to my breasts and capturing one of my nipples in my mouth.
“You know, tickling. Instead of like, peeing. I was kind of worried there for a second that golden showers were going to be a thing.”
He sighs, popping my nipple back out of his mouth. Then he pulls back up so he’s level with me, and kisses me on the mouth. “You know I love you, cricket. But you really never stop talking.”
Then he heads back down to my nipples, flicking his tongue across them, before peppering kisses down my stomach.
But I’ve grown tense. I know he spoke in a lighthearted way. It wasn’t mean. And it doesn’t mean he doesn’t love me. Or want me. In fact, he wants my body a whole lot, and I guess talking isn’t exactly conducive to a proper fuck.
Yet the thoughtless words have brought back all the old insecurity, the pain. I’m still wet, and I don’t want him to realize what’s going on, because how the hell wouldn’t he lose his boner, if he noticed I was crying?
Still, I can’t quash the lump in my throat, or the tears bubbling up. Or my body, stilling, as my thoughts spiral.
It takes him just a few seconds to notice something is wrong. He looks up and is clearly startled when he sees the tears on my face. He darts back up to me, lying down next to me, stroking my cheeks and looking very concerned.
“Cricket,” he murmurs, and when I hear the pain in his voice, I hate myself for not having been able to keep my tears in. “What is it, my little cricket? Did I do something wrong? Did I hurt you?”
I hate myself even more with every word he speaks. All I can do is shake my head furiously, but my sobs grow loud as I throw myself into his arms. “I’m… I’m sorry, Quill.”
Yup. Definitely killed his boner. Fuck me.
He drags me onto his lap, squeezing me to him and stroking my back. He must think I’m a crazy person for reacting so strongly to a meaningless comment. In fact, I doubt he even realizes that’s what I’m upset about.
“What did I do?” he asks again. “I know I did something, or you wouldn’t be apologizing.”
I smile through my tears. It sounds funny, but the weird thing is, it’s true.
“We said we would talk to each other,” he reminds me gently. “We said no therapist, but we’d talk about everything.”
“I don’t want a therapist,” I mumble into his chest. I hate that we’re talking about this when we could be having sex. “Therapy means our relationship isn’t working. I don’t want that, Quill. I don’t even want the threat of it possibly not working.”
He tucks a lock of hair behind my ear, his intense gaze boring into me.
“Our relationship not working isn’t a possibility, cricket.
It’s an impossibility. No, not even that.
There aren’t even words in the English language that could express how absolutely impossible it is that our relationship won’t work out.
We’re a fact of nature. Like trees, oxygen, the sky. Do you hear?”
He lifts my chin gently, his gaze turning soft. I nod hurriedly, and then throw myself back in his arms.
He threads his fingers through my hair. “Now tell me.”
“Why do you want to see a therapist so much, anyway?” I ask, trying to turn his thoughts to something else. “It doesn’t really seem like the kind of thing you’d be into.”
He presses his lips to my forehead, hesitating.
“Well,” he says at last in a quiet voice, “I had a therapist when I was a kid. Before my mom… abandoned me. It felt like she was the only person who understood me, before I met you. She made me feel like I wasn’t irreparably broken.
She made me believe that things could get better.
Maybe they could have, if I’d had other parents than the ones I was born with. ”
I sigh, cuddling against him. I’m always so thankful on the rare occasions he feels like opening up. I would do anything to take his pain away.
“I hurt you,” he murmurs, kissing me again.
“I hurt you when you needed me most. I can’t take back what I did, but that doesn’t mean it has to weigh on us now.
A therapist could help with that. And help me with my communication skills too.
Though right now,” he adds, “I’m thinking you’re the one who needs to communicate better. ”
I grin into his chest, aware of how much better he’s gotten at talking lately. Though he only seems to talk at the right times. Whereas I also talk at all the wrong ones.
“So go on,” he says, poking my side and making me squirm. “Tell me what’s wrong.
“Or what?” I taunt him.
He rests his hand menacingly on my stomach. “Or I’ll tickle you again.”
“Well, then, I’m definitely not talking,” I say, squirming against him in anticipation.
He sighs. “Piper. Come on.”
“Fine.” I’m splotchy red before I even manage to get the words out. “It’s not a big deal. Really not a big deal at all. In fact, it’s so stupid I shouldn’t even have reacted, and maybe I’m PMSing or something—”
“Piper.”