Stiles was a flood of thoughts, feelings and emotions as he moved across Lydia's body. His hands traced rough patterns into her bare skin as he trailed his fingertips across the black lace that hugged her hips.
His mind reeled as Lydia responded with a small moan that he captured with his lips, his own grunt following shortly when the girl lifted her hips into his own. He pressed into her, revelling in the way her small arms wrapped round his neck tightly - Lydia pulled him down to meet her feverish kisses, her nails scraping deliciously against his scalp.

They were a mess of limbs on the bed and when Lydia's small hands reached down to fumble blindly with Stiles' belt, the boy tore their lips apart to breathe out a curse, his head dropping into the crook of Lydia's neck.
He placed soft kisses there, his teeth nipping at her sensitive skin when she finally managed to undo the buckle and sneak her fingertips into the waistband of his boxers. Her knuckles skimmed across his hipbones and Lydia felt his abdominal muscles clench in response. She stroked him through the material of his underwear, whimpering into the cool, night air as he thrust into her. Stiles panted under her touch, his lips capturing Lydia's once more as he rolled into her, his hand gripping her thigh almost too tightly as he brought it up to drape over his hip.

They melted into the bed, their lips working slowly and deeply against each other. Heat radiated from their bodies and Lydia was surprised, and almost impressed, when Stiles unhooked her bra, dragging the lace from her body and discarding it off the side of the bed.

"Oh, shit'', her words were a curse and a prayer when Stiles dropped his head to her chest, his lips placing kisses and licks across every piece of sensitive skin he could access.
With the rough denim of the boy's jeans still digging into her bare skin, Lydia growled impatiently, her feet desperately trying to shrug the material down his legs. Stiles chuckled into her skin at her actions, his teeth nipping along her collarbone. After another struggled sigh, he gave in. Stiles crawled up and off of her body - instantly missing the feel of the girl against him. Lydia, too, whimpered at the loss of contact; making Stiles heart soar and his chest throb.
He gazed at her as he stood and struggled to drag his trousers off of his slim hips and down his legs. She was a vision beneath him, a strawberry blonde siren, a fucking wet dream and the love of his goddamn life, all rolled into one.

She lay in only that one scrap of black lace, the material hugging her hips and that little bow taunting him from below her belly button. He swore under his breath, stumbling a little as he kicked his jeans away from his feet, never taking his eyes off of Lydia.
Stiles was desperate to sink his hands into her mane of auburn curls, the long locks that looked like liquid fire on her crisp, white pillows.
She gazed right back up at him, her wide eyes full of lust and excitement, and something else that Stiles was pretty sure he now knew.

"Stiles…", Lydia trailed off softly, her words impatient and breathy. Stiles almost keeled over right then. It didn't matter, he had realised, how many times he would get to kiss Lydia, to see her naked body or touch her in all the most maddening places - he would never get over it. Stiles would never tire of her lips, her small body against his and the feel of her wrapped around him.
He loved her. And just like two weeks ago, on that fateful night in the jeep, he was still pretty damn sure she loved him too.

So he stopped.

Stiles sat down on the edge of the bed, his lean body capturing Lydia's attention in ways she wished it wouldn't. His muscles rippled as he leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and his hands in his hair.
Instantly, Lydia sat up, knowing the signs of distress when it came to Stiles. She placed a hand on his back, gently trailing her fingers across his skin in an act of comfort.

"What's wrong?'' Lydia's voice was softer than her touch and soon her lips fell onto his shoulder, her lips parting to place soothing kisses there.
Stiles sighed, sitting up and leaning into the girl, their foreheads touching. He stroked his thumb across her cheek, watching in awe as he trailed it across her full bottom lip. She placed another peck to it too, with no hesitation and concern in her eyes.

"Stiles?''

"I'm so in love with you, Lydia''.

Stiles watched as the girls eye lit up and widen to an almost impossible size. She bit her lip before parting her lips. Stiles wasn't surprised when no words came from her, so instead, he continued.
He turned fully to face the girl, pulling the sheet from her bed in order to wrap it round her frame. Planning what he was going to say was difficult enough without Lydia's naked body in his eyesight.

He took one of her tiny hands in his own, his eyebrows raised in surprise as she allowed him to despite his last words. He stroked a thumb across the back of her hand and she squeezed back, a small, sad smile lifting one corner of her mouth.

"Lydia, I want you. You know that - it's impossible for you not to'', Stiles voice was hoarse from kissing, his words broken and cracked. "I don't just want you for this though'', he gestured between their unclothed bodies.

"Stiles, I know that - I know you wouldn't -'', Lydia started to speak, her eyes full of worry.

The boy quickly cut her off, bringing her hand to his lips to quickly place a reassuring kiss there. "It's okay - I know you know that'', he smiled, "I'm just trying to tell you that I want other things too, I want more''.

Lydia frowned slightly, not really understanding his meaning. So she waited patiently for him to continue. Stiles took a deep breath, and then, he spoke.
"I want wake up and know that I'll be able to go to school and get to kiss you by your locker. I want to take you out to dinner and hold your hand, I want to make you feel better when you're sad and look after you when you're ill and only want to eat pizza and watch The Notebook'', Stiles met her wide, soft eyes with his own sad pair.
"I want to protect you from all the horror movies you hate, I want to argue with you about Star Wars and who gets the right side of the bed. I want you to steal all my shirts and moan at me for doing stupid stuff with Scott. I want to call you my girlfriend. I want to be able to tell you I love you every goddamn day and I want you to be brave enough to say it back'', Stiles' voice had turned hopeless, his face portraying nothing but confusion and hurt.

"Cause I know you do, Lydia. I know you love me too. Not because you kiss me and we fool around… I know, because, well - I know you really fucking well'', he smiled sadly and Lydia couldn't help the tears that gathered in her eyes.
"You threw yourself in front of me when Scott dropped that flare. You were the first and last person I saw every day when I was in hospital after the car crash. Everything from the Nogitsune attack is a blur to me, except you - I always remembered you being there, next to me, holding my hand, shouting out to me''.

Lydia was almost trembling, his words doing more than he realised as they made her remember how she felt those times.

Stiles moved closer, his hands capturing her cheeks gently as he turned her head to look at him. His fingers danced across her skin, a small smile tugging at his lips.
"You brought me back from the fucking dead, Lydia - you know there's something inside of us that can't cope without the other. For a long time, I thought that was purely based on supernatural incidents. But now, after these past weeks, after everything... ", Stiles shook his head.

"I love you, Lydia, okay? Don't tell me I don't - not again. I know we live in a dark world - we know that better than anyone. But I know this can work, we can work - cause in this shitty life, you're the one thing that makes everything so much better. You don't have to tell me you love too - but you can tell me if you don't''.

Stiles slowly let his hands fall away from Lydia's face and the girl felt cold and lost without his touch. He sat across from her, his eyes trained carefully on her face to watch for signs of anger.
He didn't see any.

"You can tell me right now, if I'm wrong. Lydia, you can tell me that no, you don't love me - and I'll walk away. We'll go back to being friends - but this has got to stop'', he tugged gently at the sheet that covered her almost naked body, "I can't keep doing this knowing that you won't be there the next morning. It's killing me'', Stiles voice was low and rough.
"There's no such thing as Special Friends, Lydia, if it's causing us to ignore each other for two weeks at a time''.

The silence seemed to stretch on for almost a decade and Stiles was ready to reach for his clothes when Lydia lunged at him.
Still wrapped in the white bedsheet, the girl threw herself forward and into the boy's lap, her arms wrapping around his neck as she pulled him to her in a fierce hug. Stiles held her there with a relieved sigh, his lips ghosting across the bare skin of her shoulder.
When Lydia finally spoke, her voice was quiet and hoarse - her throat tight from the tears she was trying to hold back.

"The last time I told someone I loved them, my Dad picked up his bags anyway and walked out the door. I sat at the window for hours hoping he'd come back. I even begged my Mom to leave the door unlocked that night, incase he needed to come home. She let me, but, in the morning - he still wasn't there'', Lydia sniffed and Stiles held her tighter, his body flush with her own.
"The time before that, I told the boy I had practically grew up with that I loved him and he told me I was dragging him down. He laughed at me for thinking we'd graduate high school still together. He proved me wrong when he got on a plane to London and never spoke to me again''.

Stiles closed his eyes at her words, the words that were so similar to what Scott had told him when giving him advice. He ran his hand through her hair, stopping at the nape of her neck to rub soothing circles into her skin.
"Lydia - I won't leave you-''

"I know you wouldn't Stiles - not intentionally, not cruelly like them'', her breath stuttered in her chest and her next words stuck in her throat like poison, "But what if something happened, what if you got hurt?'' She trailed off and took a harsh breath.
"Stiles, I'm not saying that I don't...'' Lydia spoke to the skin on his neck, her lips brushing his shoulder as she closed her eyes. She felt the boy tense underneath her.

"But I can't say those words back, I just can't, I'm sorry'', Lydia was almost crying now and something inside her broke when she felt Stiles arms slacken, dropping away from her body at a painfully slow pace.
She lifted her head to look at him, finally, and when she did - she wished he hadn't. Lydia let out small, quiet sob at the dejected look on Stiles' face, the confusion in his eyes and the tension in his still naked chest.

With no words, he quietly stood, shifting the girl from his lap as he gathered his clothes and slipped them back on - all without meeting her eyes.
He walked to the door and stopped, rubbing his hands tiredly over his face before eventually meeting Lydia's gaze. His voice was eerily polite and strained when he spoke.
"I understand. It's fine - I get it Lydia, I really do. It still hurts'', he laughed humorlessly and reached for the door handle, doing his best to ignore the tears that were freely falling across the girl's cheeks.

"Just friends, right?'' He gave a quick, tight smile that fooled no one - not even himself - and he walked out of the door, closing it with a soft click behind him.

Lydia waited fifteen minutes until she finally heard the sound of the jeep pulling away from her drive. For fifteen minutes she sat crying, at war with herself. She had pulled her sweatpants back on and shrugged her shirt back over her head - willing herself to move, to walk downstairs and go to him. To tell the boy the words she so badly wanted to say, the words that she did really feel.

Instead, when the headlights finally fell away from her window and the sound of Stiles' car couldn't be heard any longer, she found her phone in the mess of bed sheets and called Allison.