AN: There is some sexual content in this chapter. It's not very descriptive content, but if anyone has a problem with adult situations, I suggest they skip down to the next page break and read from there, thus avoiding the material that might cause upset. I toned down the scene since I dropped the rating to 'teen,' so in my opinion it isn't too bad. But, then again--I wrote it...

Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed the previous chapters. I don't know what I'd do without you guys:-)

"Dinner good?" Tonia asked, settling in a little closer next to me.

We sat on the couch in a dark living room, watching a late night movie. Angel had gone to bed because he had work early the next morning. Jack had dozed off in the recliner. For the last several minutes my ears had tuned in on my little brother's steady, even breathing. Before her words interrupted my thoughts, I'd been thanking God, mom, whoever, that my stomach was full, my brother alive, and for the moment I had nothing to worry about.

Mushy, I know.

Maybe I'd spent too much time around the fairy lately. Instead of me toughening him up, he was making me soft. That had to stop... First thing in the morning...

"The best, baby," I whispered, my arm moving to rest around her shoulders. As usual I had my boots up on the coffee table. If Ma had still been around, she would've chewed me out good for leaving scuff marks.

I was feeling mellow, calm, quiet even. Partially because I was tired, partially because at some point in my life dark rooms mixed with the sound of the TV started to strike me as safe havens, reminding me of evenings I spent in the Mercer house with Ma and my brothers. Of all the places on Earth, here, in my home, I could relax.

She didn't say anything else, just slipped a hand under my shirt and beater, her palm coming to rest low on my belly, just above the hem of my jeans. With any other girl I would've complained about the moment of coldness against my skin, but with her I didn't. She knew me. Long ago she'd learned what I liked and disliked.

After a few quiet moments of letting her body rest against mine, her hand mere inches from where I really wanted it, she started to lightly drag her nails across the tender flesh just about my beltline. She flattened her hand and rubbed back along the path her nails had taken, soothing away the heat that had started building in my lower abdomen before reigniting it with another agonizingly slow clawing motion.

The second she started teasing me goose bumps popped up all over my body. I groaned into her mouth when it finally met mine.

I tried thinking back to the last time I'd gotten any action, but with all the blood in my brain quickly flowing south, at that point any thinking at all felt like smacking myself in the head with a frying pan, so I gladly resolved to knock it off.

She pulled away briefly to take a breath and adjust her angle, wrapping her arms around my neck. "I missed you," she whispered, leaning in to meet me for another kiss.

"Why?" I asked, drawing her closer with the arm I'd wound around her waist, pushing her hair back with the opposite hand so I could attack her neck with my mouth. Almost of its own accord, my hand started to wander up her shirt, and thus I reacquainted myself with her breasts in the most inappropriate way possible. She sighed, her fingers tightening in my hair when I growled playfully, sinking my teeth into her neck.

"You're a bad, bad boy, Bobby Mercer," she groaned, fighting to keep her voice soft so she wouldn't wake Jack.

It had been a long time for me. I really don't know how the hell we made it all the way upstairs. I hardly got her pants off and my belt undone before my cock was inside her and we were rocking hard on my bed like we'd never been apart. Okay, so obviously we had been apart. I hadn't ever experienced any serious make-up sex with Tonia, because we never had the sort of relationship where we lived to fight and then 'help each other get over it.' I imagined it might've felt sort of like that--like making up; each of us expressing deep seated forgiveness and remorse while sharing something amazingly special and intimate...

Well, except for the part where she faked it after only like, five minutes.

A fast and dirty round one was for me.

A slow and sweet round two was for her. We got all our clothes off, went at the foreplay like we knew what the hell we were doing, and then made love like morning would never come.

"You know I'm gonna ask," I said. I felt too relaxed to move a muscle. After sex I'm about as even keeled as I get. I had no doubt that in five minutes, I'd pass out cold.

Her head settled against my shoulder and she hugged me a little tighter around the chest, her bare body pressing up against my equally bare side. It was a small bed. She'd practically have to sleep on top of me—if she slept at all that night...

"Hmm, I know," she whispered back, absently letting her palm travel in slow circles across my chest and stomach.

"So—what? You're gonna make me ask?"

"You're better than him, Bobby. I'd almost forgotten how good it can be," she reassured softly, turning her face into me so she could press a kiss against my shoulder.

I smirked, squeezing her tight with the arm I had around her. That was exactly what I'd wanted to hear, but I didn't have to admit it. "Yeah, well, that's a given. I just wanted to know if it was good for you—jumping back in with me so fast."

"Hmm," she said, propping her head up on a fist. Her fingertips tapped in a row down my sternum, like she was thinking about it real hard. She squinted a little into the distance, and I started to realize that whatever she gave for an answer, she wouldn't be pulling my chain. "It's hard to explain. I didn't exactly come over here with the intention of this happening. I just—I think it's spending time in this place, in this house... Trading smartass remarks with you and your brothers, making popcorn for movie watching, being with you tonight... It's all part of some bigger thing that I remember from a long time ago. With your mom gone, everything's different, but it still feels sort of like...coming home."

She'd nailed it. She'd managed to put into words what I couldn't.

I'd been gone so long, seen so many bad things, and suffered so much guilt that I'd forgotten how good life could be back at home. It creeped me out at first that the house hadn't changed. It put me off because I knew why mom didn't touch our rooms or our things, even if Jack and Angel couldn't figure it out. She left everything the same so that when we did come home, we'd recognize it as the place where we grew up and remember that no matter how far we'd gone or what we'd done, there would always be a familiar home for us to come back to.

She knew we'd all come back one day, and I felt so fucking guilty that her death was the reason we finally did.

"Move in with me," I whispered, looking up at Tonia from my back. It's quite possible my eyes even did a little begging for me.

She shook her head, brushing her hair behind her ear. "I can't. Inevitably you'll find out I can't afford to pay rent on the apartment I'm in now—an unfortunate side effect of my recent divorce—and you'll get mad because you'll think I used you for a place to live. No matter how old you get, you're still the Bobby Mercer I grew up with. You've got your pride. No girl is ever going to use you as a rebound guy."

Normally she'd be right. I was a pro hockey player for a while, my name was still whispered in fear deep in the dark alleys of my neighborhood--I had an identity, a reputation to uphold. Never in a million years would I let some bitch play me, make me look like a sucker. This just felt different. Tonia wasn't Sofi. She didn't need a guy to survive. If she didn't live with me, she'd find a place of her own, someway, somehow. She'd always been that way. That quality attracted me to her at an unusually young age in ways that pretty faces and curvy figures never did. I think it stems from having seen so much bad in my life. Even at sixteen I could appreciate a girl at peace with herself even through the most awkward of ages.

"So what if you are using me? You need a place to sleep, Jack needs a therapist, and I need you to keep me out of trouble so I can take care of everybody."

She grinned down at me, her smile taking on a rare look of genuine affection. Sometimes she'd keep her expression bland for so long I'd start to wonder if she was capable of feelings at all. Especially feelings for me. "No one can keep you out of trouble, Bobby," she whispered, leaning down to kiss me softly on the lips.

I let my hands come to rest on her hips and gently squeezed, letting my eyes fall shut for the duration of that moment. When I opened them again she was looking at me, still smiling, her nose mere inches from mine. Others might've disagreed, but to me she looked so beautiful in the pale moonlight I wanted to take a picture of her and keep it forever.

"Just give me a reason," I said.