Lustful Hearts

On the drive home, Joel's laughter was contagious. His impersonation of nurse Ruth had me close to tears. It felt good to feel another emotion other than the sadness that had crippled me over the last month. Wiping my eyes, I turned to Joel only to see his smile disappear. His face grew more serious the moment we pulled up outside my house.

I knew he was nervous about going inside. I grabbed his hand and pressed my lips against his tender knuckles. "Joel, I love you. No matter what happens next I am going to be with you."

He turned to face me, his eyes achingly sad. I felt the anxiety coursing right through him. "What if your mum doesn't let me in. I'm not high up on Mike's list of friends either. I should just go once I carry you inside."

Joel had always valued my mother's opinion. she had been the closest person to being a parent to him. I knew losing her love and support would completely devastate him.

"If they won't accept you in my life then I'll leave." I smiled stroking his face to provide some reassurance. I knew his darkest fear was for him to be left all alone. He scrunched his eyebrows in disbelief. "You would do that for me?"

It always surprised me how he never seemed to understand the depths of my love for him. "I would do anything for you. Nobody is breaking us up, so relax."

His face relaxed a little, but the frown lines were still visible. "I'll try, but that's kind of hard around your mother."

I chuckled, knowing fine well what he meant. Joel helped me out of the car and carried me inside, gently placing me down on the sofa.

My mother sported a look, which could only be described as 'sucking on a wasp.' My heart dropped, I knew there would be some kind of confrontation.

I didn't want this to happen in front of Joel, I wanted to make this as painless as possible.

"Thanks, Joel, for bringing her home, I'll see you out."

Joel's eyes flashed with hurt at her cold, hard words. His body instantly stiffened and he made to walk away, but I grabbed his hand tight.

"Sit down, Joel, you're not going anywhere."

"Izzy, you need to rest." My mother responded icily, her eyes giving me a warning not to disagree.

I gave her an equally icy glare back. "I can do that with Joel here." I dragged him down onto the sofa beside me, lifting my legs over his.

So he was now penned in with no choice but to stay. His fingers stroked against my leg, and I lifted his injured hand, gently brushing my fingers over the broken skin.

"I'll go make some tea," she huffed, storming out of the room. At this moment in time I didn't really care, the only person I was focused on was Joel.

"Iz, I'm just going to go-" He motioned to leave, but I pushed him back against the sofa.

"You're not! Let me deal with my mother." I pressed my lips against his and comforted him in the best way I knew how.

Minutes later my mother walked back through with the tray. I turned to see her look of disapproval.

I knew that look well.

I knew what her reaction would be to the question, before I even asked. But I had to be brave for both our sakes. "Mum, can Joel stay over?"

"I don't think that's a good idea under the present circumstances." She began pouring the tea like it would put a stop to the conversation.

But I didn't give up that easy.

"We would be in separate beds."

Her eyes flashed to mine in annoyance, not happy I was pursuing the conversation further. "Look, I don't think it's a good idea. I think you need to go home, Joel." She finished stirring the tea, placing the mug down in front of me. Joel lifted up my legs to leave, but I clamped my hand down.

"Fine, I'll go pack."

"Pack? Where do you think you're going?" Her voice went up a few octaves, and I was pretty certain it was about to go up a few more.

"We can stay at Elijah's. I'm not letting Joel go back to that house. You know what it was like for him there, so it's fine, I'll go too."

She banged her mug down hard, and we both flinched in shock. "Izzy, I think you're being irrational about this." Her eyes flashed at me in obvious anger, but I was too pissed to care.

"No, you are. We slept in the same bed for over a month without having sex, and now you're saying we can't be trusted. Come on, Joel, help me upstairs while I pack."

Joel scooped me up like I weighed less than nothing. We made it half way up the stairs when it occurred to me I'd have to ring Elijah to ask. I only used it as an idle threat, one that had now disastrously backfired on me.

"Fine, as long as you behave under my roof. I mean it, if I catch you both in the same bed, then Joel is out."

I turned and grinned at Joel, so happy my plan had worked. He didn't reciprocate, and my heart dropped, watching him frown. "Hey, what's up?"

"Well, I don't get to fall asleep and wake up with you, and of course the whole no sex part."

I drew his face closer so his lips pressed against mine. "We can get around that. She won't have her eyes on us all the time. We can make up for lost time when she's at work," I whispered, waggling my eyebrows suggestively.

His face almost split in two with his grin. "I like the sound of that."

"Me too." I grabbed his hair again and pulled him in for one last kiss before heading back downstairs.

***

The front door slammed, and I felt Joel physically flinch underneath me. The hand that was lightly caressing my leg was now curled up tight into a fist. I grabbed it, stroking my thumb over his knuckles, trying to soothe the tension from him.

Mike walked in moments later. "Hey, Iz." He smiled, then scowled the moment his eyes rested on Joel.

Joel's face automatically dropped in disappointment to his reaction. I could tell having Mike's blessing meant a lot to him. I knew I had to rectify the situation before it spiralled out of control. "Can I have a word with Joel and Mike alone please, Mum?" She looked thoroughly disgruntled and made no effort to disguise her disgust at being asked to leave.

Mike looked at me warily, taking the seat my Mother has just vacated. His eyes stayed locked on mine, completely blanking Joel. I hated to see him act like this when they had been best friends for so long. "Mike, Joel is part of my life whether you like it or not. He was your best friend so you know that there is good in him. Yes, he has a past, but you've been no angel either. I would have thought you would be more understanding.

We've sorted everything out, he hasn't cheated. I had a lot of insecurities and blew things out of proportion, but he has cleared everything up. Like it or not we are together for good, and it would be better if you would be on good terms as Joel will be spending a lot of time here."

Mike scowled, glaring at Joel. He swallowed slowly, the muscle in his jaw twitched. "Okay," he finally muttered through gritted teeth. I could tell he was pissed, but I knew some gentle cajoling would soon get them talking again.

"Good, now I need to take a nap, so feel free to talk football, rugby, Call of Duty, or any other crap you boys like." I gave Joel a quick kiss, grabbing my crutches and hobbled out of the room. "Football isn't crap." I heard them both mutter together, and I smiled. Things would be back to normal sooner than I thought.

***

I woke to find a warm, hard body pressed up against mine, and soft kisses placed lightly over every inch of my face. My eyes fluttered open to the sight of Joel's beautiful face. "Hey, gorgeous," he said, flashing me that perfect smile.

My face automatically brightened. "Hey, I've missed you in my bed. I'm surprised my mother has let you in here. I thought she'd be supervising our alone time."

Joel's grin grew even wider. "We're in luck, she's gone out for a couple of hours."

"Really?" I grabbed him, drawing him in closer. We kissed, and I felt him harden rocking against me.

"Joel." I groaned softly. I leaned in to take the kiss deeper, but he pulled back hesitantly, his eyes looking wary. "Joel, don't you want to?"

"Iz, I just think we should wait a while. It's too soon."

My face automatically dropped. "I understand," I whispered as a tear rolled down my cheek. "I'm tainted now, why would you want me?" I turned over, pressing my face tight into the pillow to muffle the sobs of rejection.

His hand soothingly stroked my hair. "Izzy, of course I want you. God, every night I relive our first time over and over, remembering how good your lips felt against mine as our bodies connected. How beautiful you looked underneath me when you lost all control.

How good it felt to be buried deep inside of you, knowing you were mine, hearing you scream my name. God, it was the only thing that kept me from going insane at night. How could you ever think that I don't want you?"

His lips kissed my hair before I turned back to face him. "I want you so bad, but not like this, it's too soon. I want you thinking of only us, not having flashbacks of what he did. You need time to recover, and I wil wait as long as you need, baby."