Counting to Ten
Chapter 11
"You love me?" Jason picked her up in his arms, cradling her, and spun her around.
"YOU LOVE ME!" he shouted and the couples around them turned toward them clapping.
Elizabeth laughed and flung her head back as she kicked her legs up. When she heard the clapping from the few couples that were out on the beach with them, she straightened up and stiffened in his arms. Jason stopped spinning and leaned in for a kiss but she stopped the advance of his lips with her hand.
"Jason" she whispered and he noticed the look in her eyes. She had something to say that was important. A trait he had become familiar with in the nearly forty-eight hours he'd known her. It was the look she would give Cameron when she would tell him calmly to eat his lunch. It was also the look she gave him when he hung up from calling Carly to play the trick on her. Whatever it was, she was serious. He set her down and waited.
"Jason, I didn't say I love you. I said I think I am falling in love with you. That's real easy to say right now because we are in this place" and she used her arm to sweep through the air.
He followed her arm past the Floridian, the Wedding Gazebo, the Polynesian and the monorail depot. Her arm continued and so did his awareness of all she was pointing out. He could see the campfire burning at Fort Wilderness and the Contemporary hotel. Then as her arm made the full three sixty he stopped where the top of the castle caught his attention. He could see someone on a high wire with a spotlight shining brightly on her sliding down from the top of the castle out of his line of sight beneath the trees. He immediately understood what she meant.
A Pixie is flying down from a castle. They are not in the real world. Their romance, short lived as it was, has not been about them or their real life. It has been about magic. The fantasy of who they imagine each other to be. Who they want themselves to be. Their time has been about hiding away from reality. And suddenly he knew she was right.
She was right about throwing his money around. He doesn't do romantic boat rides and limos. He couldn't remember the last time he sent roses to anyone. Actually, the last time he could remember even giving roses to someone was his grandmother Lila and he had picked them out of her own rose garden. He doesn't take long walks on the beach and rent suites at extravagant hotels. He eats lunch at diners and rides his motorcycle. He prefers seedy bars like Jakes instead of the fancy pub they went to tonight. His choice for a hotel is actually a motel where there is no 'Turn-down Service' or fully stocked mini bars and certainly no 'Room Service' unless you want a paid companion for the night.
Then there was his line of work. She would never accept him outside the walls of this manmade paradise. How could she? He hasn't even carried his gun while he has been with her. Well, not his Glock anyway. He always had his twenty-two tucked in his boot.
How could he allow her to insinuate her and her son into the cruel world he lived in. Like Michael said, he always did find them but it was his and Sonny's enemies that had always forced him to look for them in the first place. He didn't want that for Elizabeth and Cameron.
Reality smacked him hard and he fell to his knees in the sand. Concerned for the paleness his skin had turned and the suddenly saddened look in his eyes, she was afraid he misunderstood her meaning. She walked up to him and cradled his head against her stomach. After a brief moment, his arms came up and squeezed around her waist.
Stroking her fingers through his sandy blonde locks she spoke. "Jason, what I am trying to say is that now that we know that we'll be living so close to each other, I would like to take this slow. I want to find out if the intensity of my feelings for you here are still there when we have to live our normal lives. When you have a bad day at the office or I am cranky because Cameron has gotten in trouble in school, I want to see if we still want to be around each other then. Can you understand what I am saying?"
Jason pulled her down into his lap and then shifted so that his legs were straight out in front of him. He hugged her tight and leaned into her neck to smell the unique scent he was fast becoming used to.
"Elizabeth, there's a lot about me that you don't know. You are right when you say that this place is…is…not real."
"That's what I mean. I want to get to know you outside of this place. Where it IS real."
"I want the same thing but…my life" he trailed off. He knew he needed to tell her but knew she would run screaming when he did. Quickly he decided tomorrow. He would sit her down and tell her tomorrow. Tonight, he would hold her. And so he did.
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Elizabeth woke up in Jason's bed. She could feel his arms around her. She let out a sigh of content and his grip tightened around her.
"Good morning" his voice was heavy with sleep. It was sexy and she felt the butterflies start their dance.
"Good morning to you. What time is it?" she asked as she placed a light kiss to his forearm that was cradling her head.
"I think it's probably around six. The sun just came up about ten minutes ago." He responded then moved her hair so that he could leave a trail of kisses down her neck. She moaned her pleasure.
"How long have you been awake?" she asked rolling in his arms to face him.
He leaned down placing the lightest of a kiss on her lips. He pulled his head back and looked above her resting his chin on top of her head. "All night."
"What?" she sat straight up and turned fully to look at him. "You didn't sleep at all?"
He shifted and sat up leaning his back and head against the headboard. "No. I couldn't sleep."
"Why didn't you wake me? Was I snoring? Did I keep you up?" she asked, concern and confusion etched across her face.
Jason lifted his hand and brushed a stray curl from her eyes and tucked it behind her ear. "No, I was just thinking."
Here it comes. She knew there was something on his mind and she knew it was important. Since they spoke on the beach and she said she wanted to get to know him in the real world instead of this fantasy land, he had started to say something. Something about his life but then stopped and just hugged her tight to his body. He held her for what seemed like hours before finally asking her to just let him hold her for the night. She felt the sudden emptiness of his words and knew that this would be their last night together so she said yes. They walked quietly up to his suite and after checking on the boys and wrapping Michael in a blanket on the couch, he pulled her into his room, laid her down on the bed and cradled her in his arms.
Everytime she tried to speak he would kiss her. He never tried to deepen the kiss or make any advancements. He just held her and rubbed light circles on her arms and her back. He brushed her hair with his fingers and watched her. She was lulled to sleep in his arms by his gentleness. A feeling she had never truly felt in a man's arms before. A feeling that now, in the light of day, she knew she didn't want to give up.
What could it be that had him so worried, distant, desperate? Was he married? He said he wasn't and she believed him. Michael had confirmed that and she knew kids innately tell the truth. Also, Letecia and Reginald never acted awkward last night around her. They never acted like they were the friend who knew the wife and were carefully choosing words so as not to blow his cover.
Maybe it was her. She's a single mother who lives paycheck to paycheck. He had told her a little about his family and certainly she would not be someone they would approve of to accompany their son to the country club or whatever rich people do. Then again, he said he never really spends time with them and doesn't care what they think. Maybe it was what he thought. Maybe after finding out that she would be so close, he wouldn't be able to avoid her. Being distant he could sneak off and see her whenever he wanted to. Maybe he wanted a relationship but wanted it to be long distance so that he didn't have to commit to her and Cam for more than a weekend here and there.
"I don't think I want to hear..." She said quietly and turned around to swing her legs off the bed. She sat gripping the edge of the bed like she was sitting in purgatory being asked to stand and be led to Hell instead of Heaven. She let out a long sigh of desperation as her head dropped.
"Hear what?" he interrupted putting his hand on her shoulder. She winced at his touch. She knew she should be stronger. She knew she had built this fantasy up in her mind. She should be able to stand, walk away and lead her and Cameron back to their life. But she didn't want to. She didn't want to know what he had to say. Whatever it was, she was sure it wasn't going to be 'marry me' or 'I love you' or 'let me be the one who holds you in our bed every night for the rest of our life' or to be the man that Cameron called 'Daddy' or to have more children created out of love, with him. Those were all things he had said to her in her dreams last night as she slept in his arms.
"Whatever you have to say to me about your life outside of Disney World, can it please wait just one more day? Can I please stay in this dream I am having? I know we have to face reality soon but Jason" she turned around and saw a look she hadn't seen in his eyes before. Regret. "I don't want this to end. But I can see that it will. I'm sorry I'm not…"
She trailed off. She just could not mouth the words that were so familiar. She wasn't enough. She has never been enough. Not for her parents, her Grams, Steven, her sister, any man she gave herself to. They always wanted more. Expected more than she was. Cameron was the only one to accept her fully and she figured his time of unconditional love was fleeting. He would grow up and discover his mother was nothing special.
"Elizabeth, I don't know what you are thinking but it certainly isn't you. YOU are not the reason this dream will end." And she wasn't.
As he held her in his arms last night he wondered what it would be like to live the life she had suggested. She had drifted off to sleep and he wondered out loud what it would be like to have Cameron call him 'Daddy' and to create more children with her, to be the one to hold her in their bed every night for the rest of their lives, to tell her 'I love you', to marry her. Then silently he imagined her screaming in fear because one of Anthony Zacharra's men held a gun to her head, or to Cameron's. His dream shattered to reality and he held her tighter, afraid to let go.
Her grumpiness because of Cameron's tantrums was simple, laughable even. However, his bad day at the office had nothing to do with traffic or contract negotiations. It wasn't funny. A bad day at the office for him was coming home with bullet wounds, stab wounds, blood on his hands, a death on his conscience. A bad day for him was sitting in the PCPD in shackles waiting for Diane to work her magic and get him released on bail or getting the charges dropped by some loop hole instead of the fact that he was innocent. Because he never was.
"Jason, do we have to talk about this?" she asked as she moved over and trailed her finger across his chest. Drawing an imaginary 'S' like Morgan so readily believed was there because to him, this man before her was Superman.
"No" he said quietly. "Not now but we can't act like the world isn't out there waiting for us. If I could stay here, right here, with you…Nothing would make me happier to…" he trailed off. If she is willing to give them one more day, so was he. "One more day. That's all I ask for is one more day with you."
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. The kiss deepened and sparked a need within him. He needed her. He didn't just want her, he needed her. He pulled back and looked down into her eyes and saw desire. "Elizabeth, let me make love to you."
"Please" she whispered and that was all he needed.
They made love with intensity. Their bodies moved with precision. Their passion was infused with hunger and need. He was rough and brutal in one minute, then sensual and tender the next. She allowed him to explore her and though she wasn't real experienced, she satisfied him more than he had ever been. They tasted and touched and tantalized every inch of each other and when they were spent, they caressed each other with familiarity. They held everything they ever wanted in their arms.
