A/N: Surprise! Guess who has another chapter out! ...Oh yeah, you probably knew it was me already, huh? Damn. Stupid story alert with the emails that tell you what story's been updated! That just totally ruined the surprise. *starts mumbling profanities under breath about story alert emails* Well at least it was a fast update, right?
Oh, just to let you guys know, you have caused me to lose any chance of winning the bet between myself and my friend and fellow writer, Katie a.k.a CandleFire678. A week or so ago, she bet that I would get at least 200 reviews for my story. At the time, I was about four away from 100 already so I said 120. I now have over 120. I'm so glad that there wasn't any money involved in this! lol. Anyway (although I doubt it will happen) if I get 200 or more reviews, Katie will win. Let's see how it all pans out, shall we? XD Alright sorry, that was just a digression. ON WITH THE STORY!
Disclaimer: Ich besitze nichts. Wie lahm ist das?
Courtney absentmindedly wiped a stray tear from the corner of her eye. She rubbed her finger slowly against the comforter to dry it off. Once satisfied, she shifted her head on the pillow trying to get a better view out of her bay window. It wasn't a particularly comfortable position that she ended up in, but she didn't feel like stretching out on the bed yet. She couldn't really remember how long she'd been all curled up into a ball; she knew it had been since the moment she fell on the mattress though. Judging by how stiff she was, she figured it had to have been an hour at the most. She could tell from the light outside that it was still pretty early. Around ten or so.
Sudden yelling from outside of her door caused Courtney to tense up, straining her already rigid muscles. After a second she became significantly more relaxed. Whoever it was, Bridgette and Geoff would drive them away. The two had been adamant about making sure that she remained undisturbed as long as she wanted. They were as good as any bouncers at a club. She smiled sadly at the thought of how well they worked together, but stopped when she felt another tear slide down her face. She was done with crying, it only wore her out in the end. Emotionally, mentally, and physically.
The yelling was soon silenced and Courtney said a silent thanks in her head. The last thing she needed was a headache on top of everything else. She began humming tunelessly to herself, randomly plucking at the plush thickness of the grey material under her. Barely a second later, she head her bedroom door slowly open and froze mid-pluck. In her current state, she'd become acutely aware of the sights and sounds around her and knew that neither Geoff nor Bridgette was the one who'd come to see her. The steps that made a resonant thud on the hardwood floor were too heavy to be Bridgette's footsteps, and the thuds were too far apart to be Geoff's leisurely gait. Not really ready to deal with whom she suspected it to be, Courtney closed her eyes and curled even more into herself. She heard the thuds stop to the side of her, and then felt slight spurts of cool air blow onto where her face rested against her knees. Breathing. Someone was breathing on her. She tried to ignore it in hopes that he would go away, but how are you supposed to ignore somebody breathing on you?
Courtney squeezed her eyes shut briefly as a sort of preparation for what she would most likely see when she opened them. It was then that she noticed that she couldn't feel the breathing anymore. She opened her eyes quickly out of curiosity more than anything else, and frowned in puzzlement when she didn't see anyone staring back at her. So much for her acute awareness. Abruptly, she felt something unexpectedly cold touch her lower back and gasped loudly in shock.
"Sorry," she heard him murmur.
Without thinking, Courtney uncurled and rolled over quickly in order to make sure that she wasn't just imagining Duncan being there. 'Too quickly,' she thought with a wince as an uncomfortable twinge shot through her sore body. She felt him shift and looked up to see him hovering over her, a look of concern on his bruised face.
"Are you okay?" he asked quietly.
His worry for her caused a lump to lodge itself in her throat. She deeply wanted to ask him the same thing; as well as where he'd gotten all of those bruises and scrapes from. But she didn't really trust herself to speak coherently at the moment. Instead, she bent her arm at the elbow and winced again at the ache let from her period of immobility, hoping he would catch on. He did. His pierced face lit up with comprehension and he moved to sit cross-legged to the side of her. Then, with slow and deliberate movements, he gently rolled her over until her back was to him. The lump in Courtney's throat grew larger as she realized that he was giving her an opportunity to push him away, to refuse him as he had her. She wondered why she hadn't done that to begin with. She wondered why she was letting him near her, let alone lay a hand on her. Even if it was just to soothe her stiffened joints.
Duncan seemed to sense her thoughts and stopped the rhythmic circles he'd been rubbing on her body. Courtney wasn't at all discomfited to admit to herself that she immediately missed his touch. Hell, she'd missed it since the night she'd been voted off! That was another thing she was done with. Denial. If it hadn't been obvious that she liked- no, loved- him before, then the fact that she was pregnant with his child made it pretty damn clear that there was at least some attraction between the two of them. That was more than likely the reason she hadn't been so completely shocked when she realized that it actually was him in her room. It wouldn't surprise her if it turned out her subconscious had simply decided to cut out all of the petty bullshit that had kept them from being together. In her opinion, she should have attempted to do it sooner.
Shaking her head to clear it of thoughts concerning her not-quite-epiphany, she turned over to look at Duncan. Even with her movement he was looking away, up at the ceiling, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. Courtney tried to think of a polite or subtle way to get his attention. Huffing quietly in frustration, she decided just to blunt about it.
"Why didn't you say anything to me back there?"
Duncan looked down at her instantly. His features contorted in remorse and shame before he made a visible effort to appear in control of his expression. Her face softened in response to seeing how deeply his actions had affected him. Shifting until she was sitting cross-legged in front of him, she reached out and gently touched his bruised cheek. He looked into her eyes uncertainly for a minute before sighing.
"Well, it was mainly because I was... shocked. I mean, of all of the things you could've told me- that was the last thing I expected. It caught me off guard," he admitted rubbing the back of his head abashedly before continuing. "And then, even before I- before I left," he said reluctantly, "I started thinking about how I'd reallyscrewed up this time. Then I sort of went into this trance-y thing, and that's all I could think about. Just you... and how I'd fucked up your entire life just because I couldn't keep it in my pants. So to speak. In all honesty, I had been completely unaware of how my just leaving might've looked to you. I was thinking of you, just not about that particular moment. And you know-"
Duncan was cut-off when Courtney suddenly moved her hand from his cheek to cover his mouth. Staring at her with wide eyes due to her abrupt movement, he was relieved to see her looking amused despite the seriousness of the situation they were trying to figure out.
"Duncan," she began smoothly, "shut up."
Completely taken aback, Duncan did the only thing he could think of doing in response. He laughed. Loud and breathy laughter that shook his entire body as well as the bed. And, instead of looking at him like he was crazy and needed mental help, Courtney burst into laughter herself. It was unbelievable. The room had been filled with such an intense and gloomy mood not a minute ago, and now here they were laughing as though nothing had ever been wrong! It was like a paradox... or something like that.
The two kept laughing, and laughing, and laughing until the moment their eyes met. Then, still on the same residual brain wave, they stared at one another in a surprisingly comfortable silence. Despite that, Courtney rapidly felt her face turn hot under Duncan's unwavering gaze, and was about to look away when he suddenly grabbed her by the shoulders. She looked at him with wide eyes as he seemed to search her face for something. Appearing to have found what he was looking for, he let out a sigh, and pressed his lips to hers. It took only a second for her to respond and drape her arms behind his neck. He deepened the kiss and she gasped at the feeling she'd only ever felt when with him. He pressed her down onto the bed until she was lying beneath him, a knee on either side of her hips and broke away, panting. Still breathing heavily, he dipped his head and started placing soft kisses along her jaw line. She wrapped her legs around his waist and heard his breath catch. Looking up into his face, she was astonished to see that his normally teal eyes had darkened to bluish black. It was still hard for her to believe that she could have such an effect on him.
Unhooking one of her arms from around Duncan's neck, Courtney lightly traced his features. Her fingers danced slowly over a small bruise on his cheek and she again wondered where he'd gotten them from. She tried to think of a way to bring it up, but it was then that he spoke and sent her thoughts into a state of disarray.
"I'm sorry, Courtney."
"W-What?" she replied in a dazed voice.
He sighed and bent his head down so that their foreheads touched. "I said that I'm sorry."
She stared at him in slight confusion. "For what?"
He lifted his head from hers to look at her incredulously. "You're kidding me, right?"
"Not really."
He sighed again before elaborating. "I'm sorry that I was such a thoughtless bastard and left you without a word."
"Oh," Courtney said, her confusion cleared away. "But don't you think that this," she tightened her legs around Duncan's waist, "constitutes as forgiveness?"
He stared at her dumbfounded for a moment prior to giving her a genuine smile. She felt her heart pick up speed in response. It stayed at that speed even when a brief frown passed over his features.
"I just don't get it. Why aren't you more upset about all of this?" he asked curiously, gently brushing a strand of hair to the side of her face.
Ignoring the still rapid pace of her heart, she frowned in thought. "You know, I was actually thinking about that myself a few minutes ago," she eventually said.
"And?"
"Well, I guess I'm just fed up with everything that's been working against us, you know? I mean first there was Harold getting me voted off-"
"Wait a minute," he suddenly said with a sharp tone, "Haroldwas the one who got you voted off?"
"Yeah… you didn't know that?"
Duncan just shook his head and mumbled. All Courtney could make out were the words 'deserved' and 'noogie'. She decided that she didn't want to know. She laid there silently as he continued to mumble on, patiently waiting for him to finish. It was a few moments before he finally noticed and grinned at her crookedly. "Sorry. Pleasecontinue speaking, my dearest Princess," he said sarcastically, trying to cover up his embarrassment. His "tough" act was ruined though by the playful nuzzle he gave her nose with his own. An Eskimo kiss. Courtney almost giggled over Duncan doing something so cute and sweet. She loved this side of him, especially since she was the only one who he ever really let see it. It made her feel- well, it made her feel special. Like she had something that nobody else did. It was a feeling she had really come to enjoy.
Blushing, she pushed her thoughts and aside continued on with what she'd been saying before. "So besides getting kicked off of the show, there was this whole misunderstanding, and then when I was so confused about how everything would work out between us when you actually got here. God, I was so broken up over thinking that you might… well, that you might not want me once you were voted off! That you would completely ignore me once you arrived or something like that. I spent most of my time in this place just worrying about it."
Duncan stared at her for a moment, disbelief written all over his face. "You seriously thought that I…" he trailed off before asking, "Are you high, Princess?"
"Excuse me?"
"Well, that's the only way I could possibly understand how you came up with that idea! Not want you? Were you fully conscious that night we had sex? Because I'm pretty sure that that, if nothing else, sufficiently proves that I want you."
The blush that Courtney believed had finally faded away returned with a vengeance at the bluntness of his words. Duncan smirked in response.
"That aside," she finally went on, "how was I supposed to know that you didn't just want me that one time? I didn't really want to believe that of you, but it's not like I had any evidence telling me otherwise! I honestly didn't want to even consider that, Duncan," she said in an effort to ease the pained look that had started to morph his visage, "you have to believe me. I-I just, I was so uncertain about everythingto do with us; together."
He sighed for what seemed to be the umpteenth time that day, turning his head away momentarily before looking down at her beneath him again. "I really can't blame you at all for thinking that, Courtney." She smiled in reaction to him using her name. "I should've made it clearer that you weren't just someone I was looking to have a short summer 'fling' with. I should've just told you then. God, I'm such a fucking idiot."
"Told me what?" she asked curiously, after frowning over him calling himself and idiot. Only she should be doing that.
He took a deep breath."I should've told you that…" she waited expectantly, but when he didn't pick up from where he'd trailed off nervously, she decided he needed some prompting.
"That what?"
He looked at her uncertainly before saying in an apprehensive tone, "I love you."
A/N: So, yeah. You know how that last chapter was part of a super duper long chapter that I hadn't finished writing? This chapter is part of that chapter too. All of it was supposed to part of chapter eight. And I'm still writing based on what began as that chapter. Ridiculous, right? But hey, I'm getting things done faster this way!
Same as always: Leave a review if you feel like it. I don't care if you do or don't. I just want you to enjoy the story. Tchau!!!
