Chapter 11
Bellamy awoke to a confused, "What the hell?" from Miller, who was already up and dressed for work.
It took him a few seconds to remember why he and Clarke were lying on the pull-out couch, wrapped up in a comforter, each other, and not much else. "Hey," he said, tugging upward on the comforter so he could cover up Clarke's chest for her. Not that his gay best friend was going to stand there and ogle it.
"What're you guys doin' out here?" Miller asked.
Bellamy yawned. Apparently Miller had come upstairs and gone to bed early last night, because it had probably only been 11:00 when he and Clarke had moved on out to the couch. "My bed broke," he explained, wondering if Jackson, too, had wandered out of Miller's bedroom earlier this morning and experienced a similar confusion.
"Was that was that sound was?" Miller asked, adjusting his tie.
"Yeah, go look."
Miller opened the door to Bellamy's room, surveyed the damage, and chuckled. "Wow, man."
Even though Bellamy knew that was gonna be one hell of a fix-it job, if he even could fix it at all, he couldn't deny the cool factor. He and Clarke had broken the bed. They had literally broken his bed. That was a first, even for him.
"You guys are crazy," Miller said, shaking his head in amazement as he headed for the stairs. "Morning, Clarke."
Bellamy looked down next to him, where Clarke was stirring just a bit. Her hair was all over the place, her makeup smudged, and knowing her, it'd take a good ten minutes of trying to wake up for her to actually wake up. She wasn't a morning person.
At 9:10, Clarke remembered that she had class at 9:30, so that sent her into a panic. She took the quickest shower he'd ever seen her take, threw on some clothes she'd stashed in his bottom dresser drawer the other night, and begged him to drive her to campus so she wouldn't have to worry about parking her car. Even though he wasn't the most familiar with all those one-way campus streets, he managed to get her there with five minutes to spare.
"Thank you," she said, leaning over to give him a quick kiss before she reached for the door handle.
"Hey, you feelin' alright?" he questioned before she could get out. "You good?"
"Yeah. Last night's snuggle session did the trick."
"Good." He hated knowing that having sex with him had caused her some discomfort afterward, but at least it wasn't anything major.
"Good luck with your bed today," she said as she carefully climbed out of his truck, moving a little gingerly.
"Yeah, I'll see you later, alright?"
"Alright." She shut the door and headed up the sidewalk towards a building that said Burnett Hall on the outside. She was walking kind of weird, had a little waddle going on. And he knew that was because of him. It didn't take a genius to figure it out.
He smirked, watching her go, because even though he felt kind of guilty for making her so sore, he also felt . . . kind of proud.
Since the only job he'd booked for the day was fixing Diana Sydney's toaster—the woman was really running out of things for him to do—he had plenty of free time that afternoon to figure out a plan for his bed. He moved the mattress outside the room and got to work, like a doctor fixing up patient. Except his patient was in critical condition. That damn bed was more busted up than he'd thought. The problem was, he'd let that headboard get way too far out of alignment with the rest of the old wooden frame, and that was bad news for the frame. So now there were other boards besides the headboard that had split apart, too. The box springs were a mess, but that was mainly because they were old, and all in all, it looked like it was going to be a pain in the ass to even try to fix. Around 2:00, after an hour of attempting to resurrect his patient, he just stared down at the mess of it helplessly, pretty sure he'd just made it worse.
"Bellamy?"
He heard his sister say his name when she came in downstairs, so he called back, "Up here!" He put his hands on his hips and shook his head, resigned to having lost the patient. It'd been a good bed, but it was time for a new one. Time of death: 2:05 p.m.
"My god," Octavia said, climbing over the mattress as she made her way into his room. "What happened here?"
"Clarke and I broke the bed," he replied.
"Ew." She scrunched up her face in disgust.
"It's been in bad shape for a while," he said, kicking at the one of the broken boards. "I probably just need a new one." He wasn't looking to spend a whole lot of money, but he had enough on hand to make a trip to the thrift store. Hopefully he could find something there that could accompany a queen-sized mattress, because there was nothing wrong with his mattress, and he wasn't about to give it up.
"You guys are psychotic," Octavia declared, rubbing her temples.
"What? It was gonna break no matter what."
"No, not just 'cause of this. Because of . . ." Octavia made dramatic circles with her hands as she tried to explain. ". . . you guys."
"Huh?" He wasn't following.
"You and Clarke, your whole relationship. It confuses me."
He grunted, crossing his arms over his chest. "That's 'cause you never took the time to be friends with Lincoln. You went straight from meeting him to falling in love with him. I don't expect you to understand."
"Lincoln is my friend," she informed him. "But he's also my boyfriend. And Bellamy, you and Clarke . . ."
"Are not like that," he filled in.
"Really? Because last night, you sat on that couch together like a couple, came up here and screwed like a couple . . ."
"But we're not a couple," he reminded her emphatically. Truth be told, this wasn't even a conversation he was interested in having, especially given the things he wanted to say about her own relationship. So he shook his head and treaded downstairs.
She followed him, though, of course, unwilling to let it go. "So let me get this straight," she said. "If Clarke was out there having sex with somebody else right now, you'd be totally fine with it?"
He'd be confused what she was getting from someone else that she couldn't get from him, but other than that . . . "Yeah," he replied.
"And if she said, 'Hey, Bellamy, I can't break any more beds with you, because I have a new boyfriend now,'" Octavia went on, "that wouldn't bother you?"
"Nope." He pulled open the refrigerator and took out two bottles of water, handing her one. "I mean, I'd miss the sex, but we'd still be friends."
Octavia squinted at him skeptically and shook her head. "I don't believe you."
"Well, you don't have to believe me." At the end of the day, it didn't matter whether she understood or not. As long as he and Clarke understood it, then it was fine.
"I think you'd be jealous," Octavia speculated. "And I think she would be, too, if you hooked up with someone else. Because you guys like each other, Bellamy, a lot."
"Yeah, of course we like each other. That's why we're friends. See how we've come full circle here?"
She rolled her eyes, opened her water bottle, and took a drink. "You know what else I don't understand?" she grumbled. "Why is it okay for you to pass judgment on my relationship but I can't pass judgment on yours?"
"Judge it all you want," he allowed. "But that's not gonna change it. It's a friendship. Nothing more."
"Nothing more," she echoed, grunting. "Bellamy, I love you, but I think you're full of shit."
He shrugged, content to let her think that. As long as she loved him, she could think whatever she wanted to think about him, about his relationships. She could get annoyed at him for not attempting something serious with Clarke; she could get pissed at him for not accepting Lincoln. For as close as they were, they'd never seen eye to eye on everything, and these things were no different.
In the days following his sister's visit, Bellamy didn't speak to Octavia much. He wasn't mad at her, per se, but he was admittedly frustrated. She knew what he'd been through in the past, the heartache he'd endured. She knew why a romantic relationship wasn't in the cards for him. Yet she was trying to force one onto him. What was that about?
The next time he saw her was on "Thirsty Thursday" at TonDC. Some local rapper was making his stage debut, so the place was pretty packed, though nowhere near as crowded as it had been on Halloween. Everyone showed up, which meant Bellamy was forced to sit there and watch Lincoln and Octavia be . . . Lincoln and Octavia. And he wasn't happy about it.
"Look at that," he said to Clarke when Lincoln put his arm around Octavia's shoulders. "Look at that overt display of public affection."
Clarke gave him a look. "Seriously? We had sex in a dressing room."
He took a shot, getting the feeling that Clarke might be the one carrying him out of there tonight.
"I think they're cute," she bravely declared.
"What?" Since when the fuck was she was on this bandwagon? "I thought you were on my side."
"I didn't know there were sides."
"Yeah, there's their side, which sucks, and there's my side, which I thought you'd be on since I give you orgasms."
Groaning frustratedly, she rolled her eyes. "Fine, I'm on your side then."
That wasn't convincing. "No, you're not."
"No, I'm not," she admitted easily. "I can't help it, Bellamy. Look at them."
"I'm trying not to."
"They're adorable. He loves her."
"But you know what I don't get?" He had to look away when his sister started toying with the buttons on her boyfriend's shirt. "She acts like they're the ideal thing. Like everyone should aspire to have that kind of relationship. She doesn't understand that what you and I have is different, but it works for us."
Clarke frowned. "What do you mean she doesn't understand?"
He sighed, not sure if TonDC was the right place for him to vent his frustrations. But oh, well. Too late to stop now. "The other day, she came by, said some stuff."
"Stuff?" Clarke echoed, tilting her head to the side curiously.
"Yeah." He glanced over at Octavia and Lincoln again, having to look away quickly because they were kissing now. "She doesn't think we're just friends. She doesn't get it."
"Oh." Clarke thought about it a moment, then shrugged. "Oh, well. You don't get her and Lincoln."
"Yeah, but . . ." Dammit, when she put it like that, it made him feel like a hypocrite. But he was still frustrated. "I don't know why it's so hard for her to understand."
"Well . . ." Clarke set her drink down on the table, shrugging. "It is a little unconventional," she acknowledged. "I mean, I know we're not the first people in history to do friends with benefits, but we're only doing it with each other."
"Yeah, so?"
"So in her mind, that probably just blurs the line between friendship and romance," Clarke rationalized.
"Huh." He supposed he could see that. Octavia was more the whirlwind romance type of girl—hell, that was her and Lincoln's relationship in a nutshell. As much as she claimed to be friends with him, they'd never truly been friends, at least not without that romantic aspect involved. Octavia didn't know how one could exist without the other because she'd never experienced it.
"Not in your mind, though, right?" he asked, just to make sure their boundaries with each other were still clear. "It's not blurry?"
"No, I know what we are," Clarke reassured him. "I like what we are. It's fun."
"Very fun," he agreed. Still, though, in a weird way, maybe his whole talk with Octavia had brought up something important. He and Clarke were close, no doubt about that, and they were spending a lot of time together. But perhaps it wouldn't be a bad thing to branch out a bit, just for the night, just to remind everyone else that they weren't really dating. Because they didn't need to remind themselves, or each other. No, they themselves were perfectly clear. But if that line between friendship and romance was blurry for Octavia, then maybe it was blurry for Miller, too, for Murphy, for all of them. But he and Clarke could fix that.
"I got an idea," he announced.
"Oh, no, this doesn't sound good."
"No, I think we should prove her wrong," he said, "prove we know what we're doing."
"And how exactly are we gonna do that?"
He motioned around to the club they were in, where there had to be plenty of single people, or at the very least people who were pretending they were single for the night. "Why don't we get out there and meet people? You meet some guy—or girl, whatever—I'll meet a girl, and we'll just . . . do our own thing tonight."
"Our own thing?" Clarke echoed. "You want me to go have sex with someone else?"
"Go have fun with someone else," he urged. "If that's flirting, it's flirting. If that's sex, it's sex."
She blinked rapidly a few times, then looked down at her lap dejectedly.
"Don't do that," he said, feeling guilty.
"Do what?"
"Look sad." He hated seeing her look that way.
"I'm not sad," she claimed. "Just . . . kinda bummed. I mean, I don't wanna have sex with just anybody, Bellamy. I wanna have sex with you."
"Then don't have sex."
"Are you gonna have sex?"
"Probably not." Truth was, he wasn't particularly interested in sleeping with anyone else right now, either.
Clarke definitely wasn't quite as socially outgoing as he was, so he wasn't sure she'd agree to it. It took her a minute or two of contemplation, but finally, she decided, "Fine. Let's prove Octavia wrong. Let's do our own thing tonight."
"Alright." If she was down for it, he was down.
"Alright. I'm gonna start right now." She got up and whisked herself away from their seats, making a beeline straight for some beautiful black chick at the bar. Bellamy watched as she sat down next to her, smiled, and started talking right away.
Well, well, well, he thought, sort of impressed. Maybe Clarke had gotten a little more confident since they'd begun fucking.
Harper flittered over to him, taking Clarke's seat and immediately started babbling, "Oh my god, what's going on? Are you and Clarke fighting?"
"No, we're just not dating, either," he reminded her.
She looked bewildered for a moment, and he realized she had probably forgotten that. Maybe they all had. Maybe every single one of his friends had the same assumption that Octavia had. They were, after all, all in relationships. Every single one of them. It wouldn't be surprising if they doubted that he and Clarke had what it took to pull this unique type of relationship off.
Well, if that was the case, then it was time to prove them all wrong.
Confident in his sense of rhythm, Bellamy opted to mingle out on the dance floor instead of at the bar, thereby giving Clarke plenty of space. He ran into a few girls from high school, chatted them up a bit. Then a few of his clients spotted him and said, "You're the guy who cleaned my gutter," or "You fixed my broken windshield." A woman who looked to be in her forties even said, "I hear you'll do some plumbing work. Wanna clean my pipes?" Not subtle, and he was not interested.
He'd been mingling for about thirty minutes, a bit aggravated that no one had really caught his eye yet, when he let his attention drift back toward the bar, just to see what Clarke was up to. She was still talking to the same girl, but she was leaning forward even more now, showing off plenty of cleavage.
Man, I gotta up my game, he thought, impressed by how outgoing his princess was being.
Almost as if on cue, the crowd parted, and he caught sight of another beautiful blonde girl, this one dancing with her friends. She wasn't quite as shapely as Clarke, definitely didn't have the same type of chest, but she had the same hairstyle. Unlike Clarke, she also seemed to be a good dancer.
He strode towards her, grabbing her arm gently, pulling her away from her group. "Hey," he said, hoping he wouldn't have to say anything more to get her interested.
She looked him up and down and grinned. "Hey."
Bullseye, he thought. This was the simple kind of girl, the kind he could get with so easily if he wanted to. In fact, prior to Clarke, this was the kind of girl he'd spent his nights hooking up with.
He learned the basic facts about her, just because. Her name was Bree. She didn't live in Arkadia but was there visiting some friends for a couple days. She was nineteen. She was pretty.
Bree stayed with him rather than returning to her friends once the rapper came up on stage. They danced a bit, even though neither of them knew the songs. He pretty much kept his hands on her waist while she moved in front of him, deliberately swirling her ass back against his crotch the whole time.
Oh, yeah. She could definitely move.
In between songs, Bellamy looked over at the bar again. Clarke was still there, but she had a new companion now: a guy. A chubby, pale guy who was using a napkin to wipe the sweat off his prematurely balding head. Whatever he was saying was currently making Clarke laugh.
Huh, Bellamy thought. That was an interesting choice.
Bellamy made it through two more songs before he started feeling restless. This rapper wasn't great; all his songs sounded the same. Besides, the guy at the bar got up and left for a minute, so now was his chance to go check in with Clarke, see if she was having fun, make sure she wasn't drinking too much. That sort of thing.
"I'll be back," he told Bree, not sure if she even heard him as he slipped through the crowd and off the dance floor.
Clarke must have noticed him approaching, but she deliberately looked away.
"That guy, huh?" Bellamy said, leaning against the counter.
"Yeah, he's nice."
"He's like the opposite of me."
"And your little Barbie's like my spitting image."
"No," he denied.
"Blonde hair, half ponytail? Really, Bellamy?"
He stuffed his hands in his front pockets, unable to deliver a comeback because, yeah, from a distance, the resemblance was uncanny and he knew it. "You doin' alright?" he asked.
"I'm good," she said. "I'm having a great time."
"Yeah, me, too," he said, although honestly . . . he wasn't quite sure that was true. Bree was . . . fine. She was just fine.
"You might wanna get back out there before somebody snatches your girl up," Clarke suggested.
My girl? he thought. Nah, even if she wasn't his girlfriend, his girl was sitting right there at that counter. She was the one he wanted to take home, the one whose body he couldn't wait to get his hands on. Bree was just a replacement.
"Alright, well, have fun with Jonah Hill here," he urged.
"Goodbye, Bellamy."
He sighed and headed back out onto the dance floor.
Bree was still there, still waiting for him, still wanting to dance with him, although this time she was a little more daring. She turned to face him, eyes fixated on his hips as they moved. He wasn't doing his best dancing, but apparently it was enough to turn her on, because all of a sudden, her hand was sliding down his pants, cupping him through his underwear.
"Ooh," she said excitedly. "God was generous with you."
Her hand . . . her hand right there . . . it wasn't that it didn't feel good. Because he was a guy, and that was his penis, so yes, of course it felt good. But he just couldn't help but think of how Clarke's smaller hands felt so much better.
Yeah, he just wasn't into this.
Grabbing Bree's wrist, he lifted her hand, much to her confusion. "Sorry," he said. "Not tonight."
She frowned at first, then pouted exaggeratedly.
"Sorry," he said again, figuring he didn't owe her an explanation. He left the dance floor and made that same trek to the bar, glad to see that Clarke was still sitting by herself. The stool next to her was conveniently empty, so he sat down.
They just stared at each other for a moment, both of them trying not to smile.
"I was bored," he finally admitted.
"I was, too," she said quietly.
"Not jealous, though," he made sure to clarify. Because that was important.
"No, me, neither."
"Good." He looked over at Octavia, who seemed to have caught sight of him and was literally face-palming. "I think we proved our point, though," he said, "don't you?"
"Yeah," she agreed. "You met someone, I met people."
"We weren't jealous," her reiterated.
"We did our own thing for, like, two hours."
Really, that was it? It had felt longer than that. "But it just seems stupid to bother with these other people when we know we have each other," he said.
"Right. I mean, we could go home and we could just . . ." She trailed off, leaving it up to his mind to conjure up all sorts of fantasies.
"We could just," he echoed, grinning at her. God, there were still so many things he wanted to do with her. They'd barely scratched the surface of all the amazing things their bodies could do together.
She got up off her stool, coming to stand in between his legs. Her hands found his, her eyes all innocently downcast as he murmured, "We could probably just leave now, if you want."
It was only midnight, and all their friends were likely going to stay for a while. But if the alternative was an early start to getting it on with Clarke Griffin, then there was no decision to be made. "I like the way you think," he said, pressing up on the underside of her chin so she would look at him.
She smiled prettily, and he kissed her.
Fifteen minutes later, he was still kissing her as they tumbled in the front door of his house, stepping on each other's feet in their haste, clamoring to get each other's clothes off. He made more progress than she did, ridding her of both her shirt and her skirt while her fingers fumbled with his jeans.
"I don't care what people think, Bellamy," she moaned passionately as he sucked hungrily on her neck. "I love our friendship."
"It's the best," he agreed, moving her hands aside so he could take over. He quickly divested himself of his jeans, then lifted his arms in the air as she pulled his shirt over his head.
"Did you get your new bed?" she asked breathily as he backed her towards the staircase.
"Not yet."
"No?"
"No."
Clumsily, they tried walking up the stairs together, but they'd only made it a few steps up when he realized . . . there was no point. Right now, his bed was just a mattress on the floor. Why not just stop and do it right there instead?
"Come here," he said, encircling his arms around her waist. He pulled her body in tightly against his, taking a moment to rub his groin against her. But she gasped when he suddenly spun her around and pressed down on her shoulder blades, effectively bending her over right there on the staircase.
"Oh my god, Bellamy," she whispered, holding onto the railing.
Oh, yeah, he thought, lifting one of her left leg up to the railing as well. This is gonna be hot. He swiftly shoved his boxer briefs down and shucked them off his feet, then moved in close behind her, positioning himself at her entrance. She was already wet, so when he started to slide in, it felt so good. So, so good.
And that was when he realized he wasn't wearing a rubber.
"Shit," he swore, pulling out quickly. "Stay there." He had to run down the stairs and grab his jeans off the floor, praying he had a condom in one of the pockets.
"Bellamy," she whined impatiently.
"I'm coming." He finally found one, tearing open the package as he hurried back up the stairs. He slid it on in record time, got right back behind her where he belonged, kneading the round flesh of her ass he plunged right back into her hot, tight pussy. A rush of air escaped her lungs.
God, this was always such a fucking rush for him, this first moment when they were joined. For a second, it was like he forgot his own name, and all he could think about was how warm and soft she felt, and how lucky he was to be inside her.
Fuck the hell outta her, his mind screamed, so he started pounding away.
"Oh!" she cried out. "Oh . . ."
"Yeah." It felt good to him, too.
She started to lean forward as he fucked her, so far forward that he was actually kind of worried she might lose her balance and fall over that railing; so he grabbed her hair, pulling on it to get her to lean back a bit. She must have thought he was just being rough with her because she moaned. Loudly.
With one hand tangled in her hair, the other gripping her hip, he watched in amazement as her body accepted his. It was such a turn-on, getting to see his cock sliding in and out of her, seeing the way it stretched her. She was so small, so petite, but she took him so well. Such a good girl she was.
As much as he was enjoying the position, particularly the view, being on the stairs for this was already killing his legs, and it couldn't have been easy for her to be perched on the railing, either. So he put one hand around her stomach, the other around her chest, and lifted her torso up so that her back was to his chest, carefully making the move to sit down and bring her along with him. Unfortunately, his cock slipped out of her, which he'd been trying to avoid, but at the very least, it elicited a disappointed whimper from her.
"Here we go," he said, helping her straddle his lap. "Get on there."
She looked a little confused at first, almost like she'd been expecting him to turn her around. But he wanted to try a new position, one he had no doubt she would enjoy.
With one hand, she held his cock steady as she slowly sank back down on top of it. She rolled and circled her hips a bit, getting situated to her liking, and he forced his own hips to stay still, willing to relinquish some of the control to her this time. Yeah, usually, he ended up on top, but she was more than capable.
When she started to ride him, he had flashbacks to their first time together in his truck. He hadn't had the privilege of seeing and feeling her full naked body that night, but now he did. He could feel her ass sliding against his lower abdomen as she moved up and down on him, could watch her tits bounce when he peeked over her shoulder. Fuck, her breasts were a thing of beauty, probably the most amazing thing he'd ever seen. They fascinated him to the point where, even though he was trying to keep his hands off her and just let her go to work, he couldn't resist bringing both of them up to cup her tits and give them a good squeeze.
"Oh, yeah," she moaned, throwing her head back against his shoulder when he did that.
He pressed his cheek against her, sensing that he was probably closer to cumming than she was, even though she was clearly enjoying this just as much as he was. Sometimes, as much as he loved the foreplay, he just felt like skipping it and getting to the main event; but if she needed a little more, he could give that to her.
Gradually, he slid his hand downward, past her flat, smooth stomach to the juncture where he was penetrating her. He rubbed her clit with his middle finger, smiling at the reaction that got out of her. She inhaled, her entire body stilling for a moment before she started riding him again. He rubbed furiously, desperate to get her off before he came. He could tell she was close when she stopped bouncing so much and sank down as low onto him as she could, shifting her movements to more of a grind. She moved as forcefully against his hand as she did his cock, and watching her entire body wriggle and writhe as she chased her climax . . . it was one of the sexiest things he'd ever seen.
"Cum for me, baby," he whispered in her ear. And she was a goner after that.
His name fled her lips, and her pussy clamped down on his cock as her orgasm shattered through her. Her juices coated his cock and seeped out onto his fingers, too, but for some reason, the thing that really got him was how her fingernails dug into his thigh while she rode out the wave. All he had to do was jerk his hips up into her a few more times to find an equally satisfying release.
He sat with her afterward while they both came down from it, still inside her, one arm around her midsection, the other holding her breasts. Her eyes were shut, her whole body slumped back against his, and she looked completely spent. Her sweat-soaked hair was proof of how hard she'd worked just now.
"Good job, Princess," he praised, a bit breathless himself. Her stomach muscles fluttered in response.
