Please be advised that this chapter is a bit suggestive – it's not quite M, but it's pushing the boundary of T a bit. I will change the rating of the story if I'm requested to.


Forty Four

Us

I woke slowly that morning. I half opened one eye and saw that the morning sunlight was flooding through the red curtains that hung over the windows, casting a reddish glow over everything in the room. Not wanting to wake yet, I closed my eye and buried my face into the pillow; I felt exhausted, dehydrated and far too comfortable to move.

As I lay there, willing my brain to shut down so that I could sleep some more, it instead began to process what I'd seen when I'd opened my eye. Red curtains. Silk sheets. Hotel room? Suddenly the fug in my mind cleared and I realised with a painful throb that I hadn't been sleeping in my own bed. The sheets smelled differently. They smelled of a man.

My eyes flew open and I stared up at the ceiling. It wasn't the white painted ceiling I was used to seeing at home. I was in a completely different room. Fear snaked through me as I tried to remember what had happened the night before. How did I get there? Was I alone? How much did I drink? As questions raced through my mind, I slowly turned my head to the right and my mouth fell open when I saw that I wasn't alone.

Lying next to me was a lump. A large, warm lump. I could tell from the sheer size and length that it was a guy. Wrapped up completely in blankets, his head was covered by the large silk pillow that was draped over it and I couldn't make out anything distinguishable about him. Desperate not to disturb him as I tried to gather my thoughts, I went very still and slowly replayed what I could remember of the night before. Fragments of my memory appeared in brief bursts; talking to Julia about her fear of marriage, the competition, Skye dancing with Lanna, Julia rushing to the toilets. Then, I remembered that Skye had tried to take me home. We had hobbled off the boat and as soon as my foot landed on the sand dusted path that lead into town, my memory had gone blank. With painful slowness, I turned to look at the lump again and I felt my heart thud violently in my chest when I saw a lock of silver hair poking out from the gap between the top of the bed covers and the pillow over his head.

Oh my god... I'd slept with Skye.

Far too disturbed to stay lying down, I sat up quicker than I ought to have and was rewarded by a shard of pain ripping through my brain. With both hands, I clutched at the sides of my head as I cringed against the agony, promising myself that I would never ever, ever, ever drink that much alcohol again. As the pain receded and my brain shrank back down to its original size, I noticed that I was wearing a black dress shirt that was far too large for me and I was even more puzzled when I realised that my underwear was still on.

Unsure of what to do, my first instinct was to reach over and wake Skye up. Extending my hand hesitantly, I was about to jab him on what I assumed was his shoulder but then he suddenly began to move, taking a deep breath as he rolled over onto his back. As he did, the pillow was moved aside and I was able to see his face clearly for the first time. My heart leapt and did a few somersaults in my chest before stilling as I felt the blood drain from my face in pure shock.

It wasn't Skye. It was Vaughn.

My brain was completely frazzled by what I saw. All my motor functions shut down and I gawked down at the beautiful man lying next to me asleep. His long eyelashes fluttered against his cheek with each deep breath he took and his lips were slightly parted as he exhaled again in an almost hypnotic rhythm. For once, all the muscles in his face were completely relaxed and I found my heart doing another somersault as I saw once again how beautiful he was when he wasn't frowning. Even the dark stubble on his chin was sexy and I unconsciously reached out to touch it admiringly; I couldn't believe how perfect he was.

I'd realised my mistake as soon as my fingers touched his skin. Although I pulled my hand away quickly, it wasn't quick enough for him not to notice. He frowned and reached up to rub his chin, grumbling something incoherent before he cracked one eye open to look at me. His one eye stared at me briefly before closing again as he suddenly reached out and pulled me back down.

"Vaughn! What are you-" I began to protest, trying to wriggle away from him, but his arm was too strong and I was too hung over to put up much of a fight.

He spooned me from behind and I felt jolts of anticipation and horror run through me when I felt a certain woody friend poking into the back of my thigh. He seemed unaware of this and simply mumbled into my hair, "Just sleep a bit more."

Sleep? How was I meant to sleep?! I had his erection poking into my leg! "Vaughn, let me go," I said shakily, trying to turn and look at him but finding that he wasn't releasing his grip from around my waist.

"Shh," he shushed, snuggling me even tighter as I felt all my blood rushing to my face. I couldn't understand what was happening. How did I even get in his hotel room? And why was I half naked in bed with him? And WHY was he spooning me?!

"Vaughn, your erection is uncomfortable," I finally said after a long silence which I assumed was him falling back to sleep.

"I can make it more comfortable for you if you like," he replied with a sexy growl that sent shivers through me.

My lust and curiosity fought with one another for a moment, but unfortunately my curiosity won. "How did I get here?"

I felt Vaughn's whole body jerk with surprise and I knew that he'd finally woken up. His grip around my waist loosened immediately and I used that opportunity to squirm away from him and turn around so that we were facing each other. When I saw his face I could read the clear disappointment in his expression; something had happened last night and he had expected me to remember it.

"You don't remember?" he asked dumbly.

I shook my head briefly. "I'm sorry."

"You're sorry? Heck, I'm the one that should be sorry! I should have known this was going to happen. Goddamnit Chelsea, why did you have to drink so much last night?" He sat up abruptly and hunched over his knees. "You're so stupid to have drunk so much that you can't even remember what happened the night before. Do you know how reckless that was? Especially with that guy you've got staying with you? What would have happened if I hadn't found you? That guy..." He paused and suddenly his scowl darkened menacingly, though I knew it wasn't directed at me. "Did he spike your drink?"

"What are you talking about?" I asked, shaking my head in confusion. "Who spiked my drink?"

"Skye!" he roared, sending another jab of pain through my already throbbing head. "Who else?!"

"I think I just lost a few brain cells," I winced.

"What few brain cells you have!" Vaughn snapped angrily. "Again you put yourself in a vulnerable position and you trust guys without really knowing them. What's going to happen when I go back to the mainland again? Huh? I can't be around to protect you all the time Chelsea!"

"You call this protecting me?" I asked as sat up and tugged at the black shirt I was wearing for emphasis. "Aren't you being a bit of a hypocrite?"

"Nothing happened," he replied sullenly.

I started. "Really?

"Unlike the other male company you keep, I don't like taking advantage of drunk girls. I brought you back here last night because I knew that Skye would be sleeping round at your house and I didn't trust him with you. Not in the state you were in anyway. You could barely walk."

"Skye wouldn't do anything to me," I began to reason, but he cut me off.

"Are you really that naive?!" he snarled. "That guy wanted to sleep with you! It was clear from the way he was leering at you! You were so drunk and you were dressed so..." He trailed off and looked down at his hands tiredly. "I hit him."

Although I couldn't remember for myself what had happened, the story was beginning to become clear to me. "You hit Skye? You hit my friend?!"

Vaughn looked back at me guiltily. "I didn't want you to get hurt again."

I was torn between the urge to punch him or throw myself at him. While I hate to admit it, Skye's plan to make Vaughn jealous had work and I was now in a position which I could have very easily exploited. However, I could see from the way Vaughn's right hand looked that he'd given Skye one heck of a wallop and I wasn't sure about how to feel.

"Then what happened?" I asked quietly, bringing my knees to my chest and resting my chin on them as Vaughn's violet gaze strayed to my bare legs. His eyes lingered there for far longer than necessary before finally rising to mine.

"I brought you back here," he said solemnly. He was about to say something else but stopped himself and looked away with a frown.

"Then what?" I urged him, reaching out and touching his shoulder blade.

He reacted on reflex, reaching up and grabbing my wrist firmly to stop me. "Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't ask," he said warningly. "It's good that you can't remember what happened. That means we can just rewind and reset to how it was before."

"But I don't want it to be the way it was before!" I snapped, snatching my hand away angrily. "I don't want this! I don't want you to avoid me! I don't want you to look uncomfortable every time we're the same room together! I don't want to just pretend that this thing between us doesn't exist! Because it does, Vaughn! It exists whether you want it to or not!"

Vaughn looked visibly shaken by what I said, but I didn't care. I was just so angry with him. He'd been snuggling with me only moments before and now he was talking about resetting everything... I mean, I had a right to be mad, right?

"I already told you why we can't," he replied weakly.

I let out a scoff of disgust and scrambled out of bed, picking up my dress as I headed towards the door to the bathroom. I heard him call my name, but I slammed the door shut behind me and locked it. I felt sorrow sweep through me like a tidal wave as I collapsed. My bare knees hit the tiled floor painfully, but I didn't care and I let out an anguished sob as I covered my face with my hands.

"Chelsea, open the door," Vaughn said from the other side.

"Fuck you!" I sobbed. "Fuck you and your fucking self-righteous, self-sacrificing idiocy! You call me stupid all the time, but really you're the idiot. You're a fucking asshole! I wish I'd never met you!"

There was a loud thud on the door, like a fist slamming into the wood, and I thought for a moment that he was trying to break the door down, but then everything went quiet. I sat there in silence, listening for signs of life on the other side and I was hit by a fresh wave of tears as I realised that he'd probably just gone back to bed. I cried for what felt like ages, feeling the agony of my situation and all the bad luck I'd encountered over the past year weighing over me with each tear. How come nothing went right for me? It was always one step forward, two steps back.

Eventually I ran out of tears and I picked myself up off the floor. Rubbing my eyes and wiping my nose with the back of my hand, I turned to look at the mirror hung over the sink and grimaced at my reflection. My eyeliner had smudged, causing me to resemble a panda, while my hair looked vaguely like a bird's nest. I blinked at myself a couple of times before turning the tap on and hurriedly washing my face with plain water. As I let the cold water refresh me, I tried to get my head together. I couldn't keep crying; I had to get out.

After washing my face and haphazardly trying to brush my teeth with my index finger and some toothpaste, I started to feel a bit more human again. Now I had to decide what to go home in: Julia's dress or Vaughn's shirt. As beautiful as Julia's dress was, I could only imagine what the neighbours would think if they saw me going home in it, though the second option wasn't much better. Realising that I didn't have much choice, I unbuttoned Vaughn's shirt before struggling to get back into Julia's dress. I couldn't do the zipper at the back by myself, but by that point I didn't care anymore. I just wanted to get the ruddy thing on and go home.

Once I'd let my hair down completely and neatly folded Vaughn's shirt up, I unlocked the bathroom door. The door was forced open as soon as I turned the lock and I stumbled back in surprise as Vaughn filled the doorway. He was mostly naked except for the boxer-briefs he was wearing and I struggled not to stare at him in awe. Good goddess he was like an Adonis.

He brushed past me and headed for the sink, pulling his toothbrush out of the medicine cabinet behind the mirror on the wall. It was a tight squeeze, since the bathroom was so small and I inched towards the door as he ran the toothbrush under the tap. "You can't wear that."

"Why not?" I asked defensively, trying to skirt around him so that I could leave, but he wouldn't let me.

He put his hand on the door frame just before I could pass. "Take a seat." He turned around to the toilet and closed the lid before pointing at it. "I'm not done with you yet."

"I want to go home," I snapped. "I don't have time for this anymore. I have a farm to run."

"Not today you don't," Vaughn said before beginning to brush his teeth quickly.

I rolled my eyes and turned to leave again, but he grabbed me with both hands, clenching his toothbrush in his teeth as he dragged me over to the toilet seat to force me to sit down. I tried to slap his hands away, but he simply grabbed my wrists and gave me the evil eye until I stopped struggling.

Sitting down on the closed toilet seat, I watched him finish brushing his teeth before finally spitting out the toothpaste and rinsing quickly. When he was done, he turned around to face me with a stern expression.

"Can I go now?" I asked.

"No," he replied. "We need to have a long chat about us."

"'Us'? What 'us'? You clearly don't want there to be an 'us'," I spat venomously.

"Pull your dress up," Vaughn said uncomfortably before turning and leaving the bathroom. I quickly pulled it up again before following him out and watching him sit down on the edge of the bed.

I folded my arms. "So what do you want to talk about?"

"Last night," he began as he looked up at me. "You made it very clear to me just how much I mean to you. You weren't exactly eloquent in your delivery of that confession, but you got your point across loud and clear."

I could feel my cheeks heating up again when I heard the word 'confession'. So I'd drunkenly confessed my love to him... well that's just great.

"Then when you woke up, you said you couldn't remember anything. You were confused about why we were in bed together and how you ended up here, so that's why I said we should just reset. I thought that last night had just been the booze talking. It wasn't until just now that I realised that you were actually being genuine," he continued. "I'm not very good with words and I'm not very good at dealing with emotions, especially not other people's. I'm sorry."

"Is that it?" I asked. "Is that all you have to say in response to my feelings? 'I'm sorry'? Well you know what, Vaughn? Apology not accepted."

"Hey, wait a second," Vaughn began, rising to his feet as I started towards the door. "I'm not done yet!"

"I don't give a shit!" I yelled as I reached it. I turned the door knob and managed to pull it back a couple of inches before it was slammed shut again by Vaughn's big hand shooting past the side of the my head. I got the eerie sensation of déjà vu as I became aware of how close behind me he was. This had happened somewhere before – but this time there was a lot more sexual energy between the both of us.

"Do I have to tie you up to stop you from running away?" His hand remained firmly against the door to stop me from opening it again. "You're like a skittish filly that refuses to be tamed; always runs away when she's too startled or upset."

"You're comparing me to an animal now?" I asked.

"I can't relate to other people very well. I've never been good at it. That's why I prefer working with animals; I seem to understand them better." He rested his head against my shoulder. "I really need you to just listen to me and not freak out at what I have to say. So would you please just stay a while?"

I couldn't move. My hand stayed firmly wrapped around the door handle and the skin on my shoulder where Vaughn was resting his forehead tingled. I wasn't sure what else he could say to me that would warrant the need for me to stay and I didn't want to listen to some long speech about why the two of us couldn't be together, but there was a stricken pleading in his voice that made me feel guilty somehow.

When I didn't speak for a long time, he placed his other hand on the door as well, further mirroring the events several months before. He then lifted his forehead off my shoulder. "Chelsea?"

Releasing the door handle, I half turned to him as I had done all those months ago and our faces were once again inches from each other. I held my breath and stared at him for a moment as I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. From that distance I could see the different hues of blue and violet that made up his unusual eye colour and I could see that his pupils were dilated from my proximity.

"Vaughn," I began to say, but he suddenly cut me off by closing the gap between us. As if a switch had been flipped, all his inhibitions disappeared and he pulled me to him as he pressed his lips against mine insistently. Without hesitation I melted into him, revelling in the feel of being wrapped up in his arms again as I forgot all my anger. I wound my arms around his neck and pulled him down to deepen the kiss, letting my lips part as his tongue slipped in to find mine. I moaned pleasurably as he gently pushed me back against the door, taking my wrists in one hand and pinning them above me as his other hand explored my curves. When I arched my back against him, he pulled away to look at me.

"What am I doing?" he murmured. "This is a bad idea."

I felt my blood run cold as I saw the uncertainty in his eyes. "Please stop now if you're just going to regret this later. I don't think I can take you rejecting me again."

His hand, which had been running down my side, stilled on my hip. "I just wanted to protect you."

"I don't want protection," I replied. "I want you. You and only you."

"It's not that simple."

"Yes, it really is!" I exclaimed, bucking away from the door in a useless attempt to close the gap between us again. With my hands still pinned, I couldn't do much more than stare at him.

"Chelsea, there are things about me, about my past and the people in my life that you don't know about yet. That you probably don't want to know about," he told me darkly, his brow furrowing as if remembering something unpleasant.

"I don't care," I said simply, staring up at him with determination. "It's all part of what makes you 'you', and since I love you I'll just have to learn to love those parts of you too."

Vaughn was so shocked by my words that he let go of my wrists and used that hand to steady himself against the door. "You love me," he repeated. It wasn't a question or a statement. He was thinking out loud and he was clearly confused. "You. Love. Me."

"Is it really that difficult to believe?" I asked, reaching up to stroke the side of his face. He tilted his head into my touch, much like a cat would, and I couldn't fight back a smile as I said, "Yes Vaughn, I love you. I'm in love with you. I probably have been since I first met you."

Over the initial shock of it all, Vaughn's other hand which had remained on my hip, slid round to the small of my back and pushed me towards him as he pulled me in for another kiss which I returned fervently. All those months of building sexual tension and self-sacrificing restraint melted away as he picked me up and took me over to the bed. Although some small part of me nagged that Vaughn hadn't verbalised his feelings in return, I somehow knew that words weren't necessary. Even afterwards, as we lay spent and exhausted in each others arms, we remained completely silent - every kiss and every caress conveyed all we needed to say.


Author's Note: Hey everyone! I'm sorry I made you wait so long for this chapter. I just kept going back and editing it, thinking that it was done, but then I would rejig it around and… yeah.

I was a bit anguished about writing this, because I had this chapter planned out months ago but plot twists kept pushing it further and further back because I didn't feel that it was right for the two of them to finally act on their feelings for each other. Now that the time is finally right, I find myself wondering if maybe I'm rushing it… but then I look at the number of chapters I've written.

As to the setting and act itself – I was actually wondering if I needed to bump this up to M, but I am not entirely sure about this, so please let me know if you think the rating should be changed. When I was plotting this scene out I had planned for Chelsea to escape from the room, but after all that's happened between the two of them, I just couldn't see it playing out any other way. They're both consenting adults and while Vaughn had the decency not to do anything with her while she was drunk, there was no way he was going to restrain himself once she was sober and had already reiterated that she was in fact in love with him.

Now the pair of them have to deal with what happens when Sabrina and Denny come back, as well as other drama that's set to happen around them (and between them). Anyway, yeah, that's my justification for this chapter. Sorry if you guys hate it! X_x

SunnyElla16, Pelkasauras –Cherry3456, blacksunset1214 and SpringBorn – Thank you for the reviews! I'm sorry I made you wait too long! I'm still not sure if this chapter was even worth posting – I was getting pretty down about it because I didn't want to disappoint you guys. I write for my own pleasure, but I also bear in mind your enjoyment too, which is why I was angsting about it a bit.

ScarfAdd – Thank you for the long review. It really put a smile on my face and I'm glad you enjoyed it so far. I really do try to give the characters in the story individual personalities, though it's hard since this story is written from the first person perspective. It's difficult to get the personality across properly while keeping the narrative voice in character too, which is why I rely so heavily on dialogue a lot of the time. But yes, I one day hope to write a book – though I have no idea when that will be. XD

Guest – Thank you for reviewing! I'm glad you enjoyed reading it in what little time you had left of your winter break. I'm glad you like Skye – he's one of my favourites at the moment and I have some other stuff mischief for him to get into quite soon.