Boys and Girls, Part IV: Why I Love to Hate You

A/N: Hey, just wanted to remind you guys. If you have questions/comments about the stories, I post a response to them on the reviews, not here. Thanks!

Chapter 8 – Silent Victory

Shit…no answer again. Tristan flipped his phone shut and tossed it next to him as he lay on his bed. He had tried calling Jacy all yesterday, but the woman was just not answering her phone. He figured she was immersed in her studies or whatever. Now, it was already Sunday afternoon, and Jacy still wasn’t answering his calls. He suspected that she might be avoiding him, but then why give him her real number?

Tristan uttered an expletive as he got to his feet. He was so damn confused. Jacy’s signals were as mixed as could be. Maybe she was just playing hard-to-get. After all, wasn’t the person who was getting called in a relationship the one with the upper hand? Tristan hated the fact that he had called her obsessively since yesterday. It made him feel like a stalker, even though she had willingly given her cell number to him.

But she hadn’t been completely willing, had she? As Tristan thought about it more and more, it dawned on him that Jacy had been acting weirder than usual when he had asked her for her phone number. He guessed he more or less threatened it out of her.

Why would she do that, he thought. They had an amazing night together… which he had initiated via a fake accent, and ultimately, brute force. But what about breakfast? Sure, he had compared her to Life cereal, but they’d shared an intimate moment after the initial faux pas.

Tristan decided that he didn’t like second-guessing himself. He wanted to get to the bottom of this; he wanted to know what was going on in the mind of Jacy Hewitt…right now.

****

“Like an unexpected song…an unexpected song…that only we are…hearing!”

Jacy punctuated the final note of her recital piece with gusto. She loved this song. As a mezzo-soprano/sometime alto in one of her school’s extracurricular choirs, Jacy loved that the students were allowed to choose their own pieces for concerts. While many chose flashy operatic arias and such, Jacy was one of the few who chose familiar show tunes – her personal favorite type of music – to sing. She often sang aloud at home but tried to practice as quietly as she could without going sotto; she didn’t want to piss off the neighbors after all.

A knock sounded at the door. Jacy froze. She had received over twenty calls from Tristan since yesterday. While she was somewhat flattered by the attention, she was worried that her life was taking a fatal attraction-like turn, and that sort of…scared the bejeezus out of her.

Jacy approached the door cautiously and peered out through the peephole. It wasn’t Tristan, but it was another handsome male who was about the same height and weight as Tristan. She opened the door, unable to suppress the grin that crossed her features.

“Hello beautiful.”

Cool, gray eyes admired Jacy from across the doorway.

“Hey, Ryan.”

Ryan leaned one hand against the doorway and stared at Jacy with mock concern. “I’m a disgruntled neighbor who’s filing a complaint in regards to your singing.”

“Is it bad?” Jacy asked.

“No,” Ryan began, casually stepping into Jacy’s apartment without an invitation. “I’m complaining because you won’t grace us with your beautiful voice by performing for us.”

Jacy smiled. “My recital’s the first week of March.”

“You know I’ll be there,” he answered with a wink.

Jacy laughed. “Are you here to flatter me, or can I help you with something?”

“Oh yeah, that’s right,” he answered, as if remembering something. “Lani wants to know if you’ve got confectioner’s sugar or some shit like that.”

Jacy walked into her kitchen. “How much does she need?”

“I dunno…” – she heard from the living room – “…enough to top off her brownies?”

Jacy poured a fourth of a cup into a small piece of Tupperware. She had to search around for the lid but finally found it hiding in her cabinet. She licked some sugar off of her finger and closed the lid to the container. She stepped out into the living room.

“Do I get a taste of –

Jacy stopped in her tracks. The scene in front of her was not good.

Tristan was in her apartment…standing not more than five feet away from Ryan. Ryan was in the same spot as before, but his face was no longer cheery. He regarded Tristan with steely, gray eyes. His stance was aggressive. Tristan’s own icy blue eyes seemed to stab into Ryan’s soul.

“Well, well, well,” Tristan began slowly. “It’s good to know I haven’t missed the party.”

Ryan didn’t say anything. He just continued to regard Tristan with hatred and malice in his eyes.

Tristan eventually grew bored with Ryan’s passivity and turned his eyes toward Jacy. He still did not look very happy. “Do you know how to work a phone, Jacinda?”

She shifted awkwardly but didn’t say anything.

“And now you don’t know how to talk,” he added, in a mocking tone. He clucked his tongue in disapproval.

Jacy slowly walked over to Ryan and handed him the container of sugar. “Here.”

Ryan accepted it and lowered his voice. “Do you want me to get rid of him, Jacy?”

She shook her head. “No…I’ll take care of things.”

Ryan regarded Jacy with a curious expression. “What’s he doing her –

Jacy raised her hand to cut him off. “Please. Don’t ask me that right now.”

“What are you two whispering about?” Tristan asked playfully. “It’s not nice to talk amongst yourselves.”

Ryan shot him an evil glare, which only made Tristan smirk. As Ryan walked towards the door, he stopped briefly next to Tristan and gritted his teeth. “You touch her, Carter, and I’ll kill you.”

Tristan’s smirk only deepened, and his dimples grew more pronounced. “Is that a promise?” he asked mockingly.

Ryan narrowed his eyes and shook his head in disgust as he headed for the door. He opened it, and just as he was about to leave, he turned back around. “Jacy…just call me if you need help, sweetheart. Yell real loud, okay?”

Jacy nodded. Ryan nodded in response, shot Tristan another warning glare, and eventually left. As the door clicked shut, Jacy realized she was in the lion’s den.

****

“You didn’t tell me you were having visitors, Jacinda. Don’t tell me Ryan fuckface Mackey lives in the same building as you.”

“His girlfriend lives here,” she answered, rolling her eyes.

“No shit. Who’d wanna date that asshole?” he asked angrily.

“Ailani Bennett.”

Tristan laughed. “Son-of-a-bitch! That motherfucker said he wasn’t dating her! What a lucky bastard.”

Jacy ignored Tristan’s comment and averted her eyes. “What’s up Tristan?”

“You tell me,” he answered, getting down to business again. “Ever pick up a goddamn phone?”

“I’ve been busy,” Jacy replied.

Tristan shook his head. “You can do better than that, baby.”

“You called me over twenty times, Tristan!” she cried out. “Let’s just say I got a little…um, freaked out!”

“If you’d answered the goddamn phone, I wouldn’t have had to call you so damn much!”

Jacy sighed and leaned back against the wall. “What do you want from me, Tristan?”

“I just wanna talk to you on the fucking phone,” he answered. “Is that too much to ask?”

Jacy regarded Tristan with despair. “Yes.”

He straightened, and his eyes grew chilly. “Why the fuck is that?”

“Because…” – Jacy’s face fell to the ground – “…I don’t want a relationship, Tristan.”

Silence.

Jacy’s hazel eyes drifted back up. Tristan looked royally pissed off, and that was never a good sign. After a while, he finally opened his mouth to speak.

“Do you want time?”

“Excuse me?” Jacy asked, confused.

“Do you want time to think things over?” Tristan repeated, a little more loudly. When the look of confusion remained on Jacy’s face, Tristan sighed with exasperation and proceeded. “When you say you don’t want a relationship, you mean you don’t want one now, correct?”

Jacy shook her head, and now, Tristan looked really confused.

“Wait. So, you do want a relationship right now?”

Jacy shook her head again, a little more frantically.

Tristan threw his arms up. “Well, what the fuck do you mean then!”

“I mean…I don’t want a relationship with you…ever!” Jacy shot back.

If she thought Tristan looked scary before, it was nothing to what he looked like now. The blood was rising to his face, and he seemed to be shaking with rage. His eyes were blue orbs of flaming ire. He clenched his fists, and Jacy knew she was really going to hear it now.

“Why…the fuck…NOT!” he bellowed.

“Because I hate you!” she screamed back. “I’ve hated you since the day I met you, Tristan. You made my life hell, and I don’t think you ever really apologized for what you put me through.” Her eyes began to form tears, and she fought her hardest to hold them back. “We had…sex,” she began again, choking up. “That’s it. It was nothing more than a physical impulse. It doesn’t change how I feel about you though.” She walked mindlessly away from him. “I…can’t find it in my heart to ever forgive you for the things that you said and did to me, Tristan. I wish I was strong enough to get over it, but I’m sorry, I can’t. I just…can’t.”

Silence. Jacy thought Tristan was going to go off on her again – that maybe he’d even be desperate enough to force sex on her again. She wasn’t prepared for what came next.

“I’m sorry.”

She turned around to face him. He wasn’t on his knees pleading for forgiveness, but something in his eyes told Jacy that Tristan Carter had meant what he just said.

“I’m sorry about…what I did,” Tristan repeated. He swallowed the lump that had begun to form in his throat. “I’m…sorry, Jacy.”

A teardrop rolled down Jacy’s cheek. “I wish I could believe you –

“Then, believe me, dammit!”

Jacy jumped back at Tristan’s outburst. He snapped and began walking toward her. Jacy instinctively backed up, but Tristan had caught up in three long strides. Jacy put her hands up to defend herself from Tristan’s advances. He grabbed her wrists and held them on either side of her face.

“I’ll scream,” she threatened.

“Do it,” he challenged in a low, husky voice. “I’d love to have an audience.”

Jacy groaned in frustration as Tristan backed her into the wall. He held his grip on her wrists and planted his hands on either side of her head. She tried to knee him in the groin again. She almost got him, but he backed up at just the right time. He quickly pulled both wrists over her head with one of his hands and dropped the other hand to prevent her knee from coming up again.

He brought his face directly in front of hers and began whispering in a husky voice. “How badly do you want this, baby?”

“Fuck…you,” Jacy gritted through her teeth.

Tristan roughly cupped Jacy’s chin. He squeezed her cheeks with his fingers so that her lip puckered. He brought his mouth to hers and kissed her hard. She moaned in protest, but that only aroused him more.

Jacy pushed at his chest, but she may as well have been pushing a brick wall. He hardly moved. Instead, he lowered his hands from her face and allowed them to sensuously travel down her body. He allowed his fingers to locate the waistband of her shorts.

Without warning he pulled the shorts – along with her underwear – down until they pooled at her ankles. Jacy gasped and slapped Tristan’s hand away, but he was determined. He instantly allowed his hand to brush her soft folds. He ran his fingers slowly across the sensitive flesh, and Jacy’s breathing quickened.

He played with the trimmed thatch of brown hair before letting his fingers dig through her flesh and locate her sensitive bud. He squeezed it, and Jacy nearly broke apart.

“Fuck!” she breathed out.

Tristan wasn’t close to being finished. He stroked his fingers across Jacy’s labia before inserting a single digit into her already moistening cunt. She moaned. Tristan responded by inserting a second finger into her pussy. He slowly began pumping his fingers in and out of her tight opening. Jacy gasped at every subsequent invasion of Tristan’s fingers. The speed and frequency of Tristan’s finger fucking gradually increased.

“You like that?” he gasped out at Jacy, taunting her.

She didn’t answer. She could only stare back into Tristan’s cold blue eyes as he fucked her with his fingers. Much to her dismay, Jacy found that she was compelled to meet Tristan’s thrusting fingers with some thrusting of her own.

When Jacy could no longer stare into Tristan’s scrutinizing glare, her eyes dropped. She saw Tristan’s long, hard fingers shove into her cunt, and she grew disgusted at seeing how slicked up his fingers were. She chided herself for giving him the pleasure of knowing how wet he made her. As her juices continued to fall down Tristan’s deft fingers, he lowered himself until Jacy could feel the heat of his breath directly over her privates.

Before she even had a chance to protest, Jacy felt Tristan’s warm, moist tongue licking along her wet folds while he continued to finger-fuck her. His tongue was even more expert at eliciting pleasure from her than his fingers. Jacy cried out in frustration and dug her fingernails into his scalp. He moaned into her, which didn’t help Jacy at all; the vibrations made her even wetter.

Jacy’s breathing grew quicker as Tristan’s tongue continued to circle lazily around her sensitive skin. He suckled and lapped up her sweet juices. Jacy began to run her hands through Tristan’s teased, blonde hair. She found herself arching her back to allow him greater access to her slick cunt.

Tristan instantly responded by locating Jacy’s engorged clit with his tongue. He flicked at it, and Jacy cried out as intense pleasure began taking over her indignation. Tristan repeated the action and another moan spilled out of Jacy’s mouth. He continued, allowing his tongue to linger longer and longer on that tiny bud of pleasure. Jacy’s cries grew in a gradual crescendo, reflecting her growing pleasure as she approached an inevitable climax. And then…

Tristan pulled away. He abruptly got to his feet and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His blue eyes gleamed with silent victory.

“We’ll finish this when you come running back to me, darlin’. When you’re ready to get back with someone who can make it…so good for you…then, we’ll continue.”

He leaned over and pressed a quick kiss on Jacy’s lips. She was too stunned by the recent turn of events to resist him. She detected her feminine scent still lingering on Tristan’s mouth. As he backed away, a smug look of challenge graced his features. He was wordlessly taunting her into submission.

“Bye, baby,” he chanted out before turning around and leaving, a satisfied grin on his face.

****