Every One Of Me (31 page)

"I'll do whatever you ask me to do, love," he
muttered and kissed my chin. "It will definitely take some getting used
to." He kissed my throat and I leaned my head back to give him more room
to work. "And I can't promise you that I can do it." He kissed the
skin where my neck and shoulder meet. "But I'll do it." He kissed my
collar bone, then tilted my head back down to look at him. "For you."

Charlie

It had been four weeks since Tess had asked me to not only
make her alters fall in love with me, but for me to fall in love with each one
of them. For them. Of course, knowing they were all a part of Tess was a big
help, but I found each one of them to have characteristics that definitely
appealed to me. It sounds crazy and when Trevor and Sarah found out about it, I
think they were tempted to have both of us checked in to the nearest psych
ward. How could someone plan to fall in love? It was the only way that made
sense, though, and why wouldn't it? Everyone wanted to be loved by someone. I
couldn't expect to get each alter on board - neither could Tess - unless they
knew their best interests were in mind.

Lydia and Camryn were aware of the plan, obviously, and both
were eager to spend time with me, which was weird at first. Benny stuck close
to Tess whenever I couldn't, making sure that Jessi didn't show up and try to
cause trouble. I had another fight coming up and training was up there on my to
do list so Tess made sure I stayed focused, but we made it work.

I had found a new coach who worked well with me and actually
had a lot of new techniques that Rob hadn't thought of. I told him not to plan
on anything long term because I was in the process of working some things out
to get out of the fighting and into the training.

There were always young guys, teenagers really, that needed
an outlet. Working out and focusing on something as disciplined as martial arts
was something they could get excited about. Tess told me to do what I thought
was best for
me
. She didn't enjoy watching me get beat up, but she
thought watching me fight was 'beautiful'. Benny gave her a hard time about
that.
She
thought it was 'hotter than hell' to watch. Trevor gave
her
a hard time about
that
, but ended up coming to the gym more often and
training a bit himself.

I had been training all day, anticipating the fight coming
up in two nights, and was wiped out. Sleep had been hard to come by since Tess
had been a bundle of nerves the whole week and had been switching more often
than usual. Dr. Geoffrey said to just let it happen and take the opportunity to
get to know my girls better.

My
girls.

I don't know when I had started thinking of them as 'my
girls', but I had, and I liked it. I was to the point where I didn't need to
hear a word from her to know that Tess had made a switch. The way each one held
herself was so unique, I knew who she was as soon as she walked into the room,
or woke up, or even looked at me.

Jessi steered clear of me as much as possible. When it was
Jessi going to bed at night, which wasn't often, she used the guest bedroom,
but I would always wait until she fell asleep and sneak in to sleep next to
her. She didn't really speak to me much except for the few times Benny had
initiated a discussion with the both of us present. They got along pretty well
and Jessi was actually pretty hilarious. She was smart and observant, but in a
way that made you wonder what she had been through. She was civil to me, but
didn't seem to like me at all.

There were some mornings, though, that I woke up to find
Tess gone, but felt her eyes on me. Whenever I found them, they were blue and
filled with confusion before they turned away and left the room. She had been
watching me and she didn't say anything more about leaving her alone. Just kept
to herself around me.

Tess was excited about this new development. She had started
keeping a journal with encouragement from Dr. Geoffrey. It was a direct line of
communication between her and the girls and because of it, Jessi stuck around
when she found herself in my home, which tamped down the amount of drama I had
expected. After the first week of Tess writing in the journal, there was a
definite change in the way she approached the situation. She was happy.

It was progress.

Tonight, walking in the front door and finding Benny sitting
on my couch with Trevor - both looking nervous as hell - I felt the exhaustion
deepen. I just wanted to be with Tess tonight and the disappointment at finding
them in my house was heavy. Then, their nervousness registered in my tired
mind.

"What's going on?"

Benny looked to Trevor, who shrugged like he always does,
and then back to me.

"She's making escargot," she whispered harshly.
"Do you have any idea what escargot is?"

"Umm, I think it's snails in butter or something. It's
a French dish."

"Escargot is a delicacy in my country. Not 'snails in
butter'. Mon Dieu!"

Tess/Jessi walked out of the kitchen carrying a white
platter with several plates of small shells filled with a slimy piece of meat,
glaring at me before rolling her eyes.

"She's trying to
kill
us, Charlie!" Benny
shouted and immediately turned green.

"No
kill
, educate," Jessi laughed.

God, she had a good laugh. It was exactly like Tess laughed,
but more reserved, and she didn't blush when she realized how loud she had
laughed like Tess did - which I absolutely adored. No, she rolled her eyes,
like Tess did whenever I teased her. I thought it would take time to really
feel anything for the alters, but I found myself deeper and deeper every day.

What would happen if they
all
turned away from me?
There would be no saving me.

I was staring at her, and had been since she had walked into
the room, until she looked up at me with a smile I rarely saw from her.

"I am to assume you will not try," she said and
smirked with her arms folded across her chest.

Another similarity to my Tess. She liked to challenge me,
but wasn't as nice about it. Tonight was different, though and she was playful
with me. I wanted to point it out, but decided not to, afraid that it would
scare her off. So instead, I gave her my best smile, the one Tess always
'swooned' over - her word, not mine - and reached down to grab one of the forks
she had brought out. She quirked a perfectly sculpted eyebrow at me, daring me
to continue.

Benny was shaking her head at me, begging me not to do it,
while Trevor tried to stifle a chuckle. He had become himself more and more
since he started dating Benny, which Sarah made a point to mention anytime we
were all together. Another thing to thank my Tess for.

I stabbed one of the slimy morsels and twisted it out of its
shell. The garlic butter dripped off of it as I raised it to my mouth. She was
still expecting me to chicken out, but this wasn't about eating snails - which
is disgusting to me - it was about doing something for Jessi. Giving her a
glimpse of me that she hadn't allowed until tonight.

I popped the snail into my mouth and chewed slowly. It
actually wasn't that bad, a little slimy and rubbery, but not bad. Benny
covered her mouth and gagged.

I kept my eyes on Jessi, who was in shock as she watched me.
With another smile, I winked at her and said, "Pretty good."

She blinked and her lips turned into a pleased grin, almost
as if me praising something she did made her day. "Really?"

I nodded as I finished chewing and swallowed. "Yeah.
It's great. Thanks for making it." Then I sat down and stabbed another
bite, making Benny turn her head into Trevor's shoulder so she didn't have to
watch me.

"Oh. Umm, you are very welcome… Charlie."

My name in her accent was almost as great as my name in
Tessa's voice. She hadn't said it in the last four weeks and was rarely very
polite to me.

Definite progress.

***

"I think Jessi is starting to like you, Charlie."

It was the morning of the fight and I was helping Tess 'wash
her back' against the tile wall of my shower. I had already abandoned the soap
and had been running my hands over her slick skin while, apparently, her mind
had been elsewhere.

"Am I doing something wrong here? You should be so
aroused that your mind is focused on
one thing
. Me."

She giggled and pressed her backside into me, making me
groan and tighten my grip on her.

"I
am
focused on you. I just thought you would
like to know that Jessi wrote some interesting things about you."

I kissed the spot behind her ear, which drove her crazy, and
moved my hands up to massage her shoulders so I could partially listen to what
she had to say without getting too distracted. "And what did she
write?"

"Mmm, that feels so good," she moaned and dropped
her forehead against the tile.

"Baby, you better tell me what you have to tell me,
because I'm about to burst here. Plus, you making those little sounds always
sends me over the edge."

She giggled again and turned in my arms, not helping my
situation at all since now her perfectly rounded breasts were pressed up
against me.

"Okay, okay. She wrote about that night she made the
snails, which is disgusting by the way, and she said that you surprised her.
She said that you looked so tired that night and thought it was sweet that you
told her to go to bed while you cleaned up her mess… well, my mess." She
kissed my chin and wrapped her arms around my waist. "She also said that
you look so handsome every time she sees you come home from the gym."

I felt like a kid at Christmas. "Really?"

She looked up into my eyes and smiled. "Yep, guess that
means I have some competition now." She meant it as a joke but frowned
when she realized what she actually said. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have
said that. I know this is hard for you."

"Tess." I tucked a wet strand of hair behind her
ear and ran my fingers along her jaw. "There's no competition. We are
lucky that they are so much like you. Knowing you are in there is what keeps me
going."

She nodded warily, but looked straight at my chest and
refused to meet my eyes.

"I love you," I muttered and kissed her forehead.
"Now… can I please finish what I started when we got in here? The water
isn't going to stay hot forever and I'm seriously losing my mind with your wet
skin sliding against mine."

She smiled and rolled her eyes.

"Oh, baby, you shouldn't have done that."

I grabbed a handful of her very sexy ass and squeezed,
making her squeal and laugh just before I covered her mouth with mine and
plunged in to taste her. Even in the shower, she tasted like mint and rain,
sending my senses into overdrive. Her skin slid over mine, soft and warm, and
the feel of her in my arms got better and better every time.

"Maybe I can just forfeit this fight and we can stay
home, in bed all day," I suggested and slid my lips across her jaw and down
her neck. She shivered and gasped, but I hadn't succeeded in erasing her common
sense like I wanted to.

"Charlie, there is nothing I would like to do more, but
you don't really want to skip this fight. You've worked so… hard over the last
few… oh God… weeks and I would hate to see--" She was cut off by a very
sexy and very feminine growl tearing from her lips as I found the hard peak of
her breast and pulled it into my mouth.

"What were you saying, baby?" I murmured against
her breast.

"What?"

Mission accomplished.

Now, that she was thoroughly distracted, I lifted her by the
backs of her thighs and fit myself between her legs, pressing her back against
the cool tile.

She clung to my shoulders and threw her head back as I
gently bit down on her nipple, then rolled it across my tongue. She was so damn
responsive. She was passionate and held nothing back. She was made for a man to
worship, inside and out, and
I
was that man.

She rolled her hips against my stomach and her heat pulled
me further and further into her. I couldn't get enough. I would never get
enough. She was the prize at the end of the race, the peak of every mountain,
the one thing a man would strive for, knowing he would never truly discover all
her secrets, but would die trying… die smiling.

She was mine.

Finally, she was mine.

And I was hers.

I entered her in a single thrust, making her cry out my name
and finding a place so deep inside her, I knew I would never be able to crawl
out. I never wanted to. She made me complete. Pulled every piece of me together
and made it fit so easily.

Her name fell from my lips as I started to move and the
sounds she made drove me closer to the edge of my sanity. I was too close.

"Baby, I need you to help me out. You're just too damn
sexy, I can't control myself right now."

She met my eyes with rapturous confusion, trying to catch
her breath enough to respond. "What can I do?"

I thrust hard and deep, forcing a whimper from her, then
stilled myself before I lost it. "Touch yourself. I want to, but I don't
want you to fall."

She nodded quickly in understanding and her hand slid down
my chest and stomach to where we were joined, her fingers connected to that
sweet spot that made her fall apart. I didn't dare move, but my cock jumped
inside her when she started to move her fingers in slow circles.
Maybe this
wasn't such a good idea.
The sight of her pleasuring herself sent
electricity shooting down my spine.

At this rate, I wouldn't have to move an inch and I would
still burst.

She moaned, forcing me to tear my eyes away from her hand
and meet her heavy lidded gaze. She was close. Already so close, and I was
desperate to push her over to the other side.