"Oh, my blue, blue caravan
The highway is my great wall,
For my true love is a man
Who never existed at all.
Oh, he was a beautiful fiction
I invented to keep out the cold."

-Blue Caravan, Vienna Teng

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Borrowed Time

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When Nora woke, Patch was there. He was holding a bag of ice to her face, and now that she was coming out of unconsciousness it kind of burned. When she looked in the mirror her eye was only half the size it felt like it should have been.

"Geez!" she grumbled when they went downstairs. "What did I do, hit an artery? That can't be mine."

The amount of blood that trailed around the house amazed Nora. It made winding burgundy patterns through the living room, then into the kitchen, then out the door and across the front porch.

"The femoral one, yes, possibly," mused Patch. He didn't look at all upset about that. She was the one that would have to clean it all up. Good thing her mom didn't come home for another couple of days.

Omigod, thought Nora, What if he's, like, passed out somewhere out there?

He's not. I checked.

Nora collapsed on the couch. The house was a massacre. The lamp table had been turned over, the lamp that usually sat there broken. The knife she had used against Scott lay bloodied on the floor, and the discarded pepper spray can had rolled over to the wall and settled there. The drawer she had pulled out in the kitchen was turned upside down, its entire contents splayed all around the linoleum floor.

Nora had a ferocious headache, not to mention her aching ribs that made breathing normally really hard to do.

Patch dodged the spots of blood and reached for the can of pepper spray. He jiggled it at her, and what was left in it sloshed around. He raised a perfect, dark brow.

Nora pressed her hands together, making a steeple, and rested her face against them. "Hey, it helped, didn't it? Ever since the Elliot and Jules thing—well, you know."

He nodded. "I know."

!

There was no way Vee was going to let her back out of this lunch date, not after last night.

So here she was, gliding through the tables as quick as she could with Patch's ball cap twisted down over her face. Vee gave her a long, wide-eyed stare when she sat down at the table

"Ookay," drawled Vee. "I'll bite. What's with the hat and the secret squirrel get-up?"

Nora kept her head low for a minute, then lifted the hat up just a little bit so that Vee could see her eye in all its purple, swollen glory.

"OMG!" she squealed, bouncing in her seat. "What the fudge happened?"

The waitress came over and took their orders, postponing what Nora had dreaded telling her best friend.

"Shh," Nora urged. She sighed. "Okay, so I wasn't exactly truthful with you."

"I knew it! So what happened? Did he tie you up? Was it dirty and kinky and rough?"

"It's so not like that," Nora told her.

"Well, what was it like?"

"It was like hey, let me force you against the wall and rip your clothes off and then have Patch come and break my penis off."

Vee's mouth made a horrified 'O' shape. "No. Way. THIS IS SO EXCITING."

"Exciting?" Nora gasped. "Vee! Scott came to my house last night. He tried to, like, kill me and stuff!"

"What? Are you kidding?"

"Um, where did you think the black eye came from? I was watching Saw and he came out of practically nowhere and started tossing me around like a freaking football. I had to pepper spray him and pull a knife on him to get him out of the house."

An older couple at the table behind them was glancing nervously at the two girls. Nora and Vee leaned in towards each other so that no one else would hear any vital info.

Vee stared anxiously at Nora, waiting to eat up her next words. "Patch found me at like two this morning."

"Wait, wait, wait. What was he doing coming to your house at two a.m.?"

"I called him when I got Scott off of me."

Vee stared at her, like she knew that there was more to it than that.

Nora ducked her head. "Okay, so maybe he came to my house the night before and we totally made-out."

Vee leaned back in her chair, an I-knew-it look on her gorgeous face. "Mmm hm."

"Oh, shut up," mumbled Nora.

Their waitress came back toting a large round tray, and she passed their food out to them.

"So," Vee spoke through a mouthful, "What are you going to do? I mean, he obviously knows how to get into your house."

Nora was thoughtful for a moment. What could she do? Patch was always busy. Her head filled with hazy anger at that thought. Scott did know how to get into her house, and now she knew that pepper spray didn't do much against him. "I don't know. Maybe he won't come back."

Vee gave her a look. It was a look that said, Honey, you know he's coming back with a vengeance. Nora was relieved that she hadn't said it aloud. "Maybe you should stay at my house or something."

Nora was thankful for the offer, but she wasn't particularly interested in watching Rixon and Vee snog twenty-four-seven. "I don't know. I'll figure something out."

"Well, you know if you ever need me I'll be there in a lightning flash. Same for Rixon."

She smiled wanly. "Thanks."

Nora pulled out her phone and started typing.

12:21 p.m.

Nora:

Hey. What are you doing?

She pushed the send button and waited, anxiousness pulling at her insides. She was thankful that Vee was distracting her by chattering away happily. Another Rixon story. Nora giggled with her in all the right places, but she wasn't listening.

Buzz. Buzz.

She snatched up her phone.

12:25 p.m.

Patch:

Nothing important. Everything okay?

Nora thought for a moment. What could she possibly say back? She could say, no. She shouldn't say that. That would seem a little melodramatic. She could not answer at all? Well, that would be silly. He would chase her down for sure. He probably already knew what was going on in her head anyways, so what was the point?

12:31 p.m.

Nora:

Stay with me tonight. He'll come back.

She pushed send again, tapping the button before she could chicken out. Her phone didn't buzz for a long time, and she kept nervously checking it. Just when she was about to start typing again, telling him to forget about it, or maybe that he was a jerk, or even maybe to ask if he was with her, her phone vibrated.

12:44 p.m.

Patch:

Of course, Angel.

Vee was finishing up her meal. "Retail therapy, anybody?" she asked.

Nora didn't want to go home where she would be alone and vulnerable. "Yeah," she told Vee. "That sounds great."

!

It was getting dark outside when Vee dropped Nora off. That girl could shop with the best of them.

"You gonna be okay?" Vee asked her as she was crawling out of the passenger seat.

Nora nodded and waved her friend off, galloping up the stairs and across the front porch. When she walked into the living room, it was miraculously clean. The smell of food wafted in from the kitchen.

She dropped her stuff on the table and walked into the kitchen. "Patch?"

"Hey," he called back.

Relief flooded her. It wasn't Scott. It wasn't creepy Scotty the Potty frying up a side dish so that he could deep fry her brain parts like Hannibal Lector, or something weird and insane like that.

The lamp table was propped up correctly, a brand new lamp taking the old one's place. The blinds were back up and the blood was gone. She walked into the kitchen, where Patch stood sautéing something. He had put the drawer back in its spot and picked up everything that had been scattered across the room.

"You really are an angel," she told him, smiling as she crossed the room to lounge against the counter next to him. He smirked at her, his eyes black and unreadable.

They ate. Nora put on a movie and curled into the couch, Patch beside her. She totally wasn't in the mood for scary movies anymore, so she put in The Sweetest Thing.

Okay, so maybe that wasn't the best movie to watch while lying against Patch. She felt really awkward when Cameron Diaz stripped naked and had orgasms while eating ice cream.

"Oh, gawd," she mumbled, giggling and burying her head under the covers.

Patch laughed at her.

Peter was disappearing under Diaz's covers again, explaining to her that men really didn't like filatio. In Patch's case, Nora guessed that was true. He wouldn't feel it.

We could do that.

An immediate bolt of heat swept from her thighs to her face. She looked up at him, finally able to see with both eyes. "Mmmmm."

Her heart was literally pounding. Only now did she realize just how much she wanted that with him. He smiled down wickedly at her, inherently knowing what she was thinking and feeling.

Then his mouth was on hers and she moaned. Please, please, she was thinking. Please, what? She didn't know, really. She wanted him to make her feel good.

And he did. His legs were prying her open, the feel of his hip bones pressed into her pliable thighs made her brain hazy with ecstasy. She was in his arms now, scooped up and being carried up the stairs and plopped onto her bed.

She stared up at him dumbly. His shirt was already off. His muscles were sinewy and hard when they collided with her upper body. His mouth on her neck, his teeth against her ear and collarbone, sinking in, were nothing like Scott's. She only felt dirty in a good way now.

His warm hands were under her shirt, grasping things, then pulling it off. He looked at her like he wanted to eat her. She hoped that he would. Her bra was off then in one fell swoop.

His mouth was a terrible thing, grasping her heated skin and twirling it. Her breathing was becoming more and more erratic, and it was impossible to stop the gasps and mewls that left her mouth. His nimble fingers sunk below her waistband.

He pulled her shorts down and off slowly, slowly, slowly. His mouth went to her stomach, lower and lower. Her underwear was pink with little large-eyed owls on it, and she saw him smile but she didn't care. Because they were coming down, leaving her body like her brain was leaving this galaxy.

His mouth parted, his lips luscious and red. His tongue, satin.

The door downstairs closed.

!

I'm not sure if this story is ready for an M-rating. What do you think?

So, here's my deal. Do you think that physically, Patch could—you know? Because, okay, yeah he can't feel anything. But half of that act is response to the other person's arousal, right? Sooooooo, can Patch get it up? Haha.

Review, review, review!