A/N- Hey guys! here's the latest chapter! sorry it took me so long, I was having trouble with where I wanted to go with it and was kind of feeling super insecure about my writing but I hope you like this chapter. please let me know what you think! it means the world to me! -steph

Chapter Nine- All is Fair in Love and War

I do not want to go to Coachella. I do not want to sit around in a desert, playing nice, and being all smiles when I have no motivation to do so. Coachella was my scene when I was nineteen and I had just met Neal. I had a crush on him because he was into hallucinogens, taught me to pick locks, and made me feel bad—the Michael Jackson type of bad. I met Neal during the wildest time of my life, when my days started at eight in the evening and I went out till seven in the morning, back when I had finally left that stupid family sitcom and had graduated to dragging myself through the gutters, stoned and drunk on my way home, vowing to never touch another alcoholic drink, only to do it all over again the next day. It's not a time I'm particularly proud of, but neither is it a time that I look back on with regret. It was a learning experience more than anything.

I do not want to go to Coachella because I have not spoken to Killian in the three weeks that have led up from the fight we had at his apartment to the Rolly Jogers' headlining the second weekend of the festival. Yet here I am at a house the band is renting out for the weekend, having to stay with my alleged boyfriend—in the same room, I might add—as if we were still madly in love with each other, still liked each other, and this wasn't a complete and utter farce. I haven't seen Killian and I'm glad because I don't know how this whole ordeal is going to go.

I do not want to go to Coachella because I also do not want to have to deal with Graham in the same place that I have to deal with Killian. We have only hung out a couple of times, our schedules too hectic—and the fact that we are trying to start something while I'm supposed to be dating his best friend is risky at least—to let us find out what it is that we meant by that kiss. Were we just too drunk? Did we mean something more by it? Am I just a fucked up mess who can't tell wrong from right?

In any case I am glad that Graham and I haven't done more than just kiss. Don't get me wrong, we almost did. We were in his house, his shirt was off, and he was kissing my neck. His eyes would try to focus on mine as he pulled back and started to ease me onto his bed, a silly grin on his face. "This is lovely," he had said about my jumpsuit, his fingers trailing the black spaghetti straps, tracing the outline of my shoulders, and the underside of my jaw, his thumb grazing my lips before he kissed me and made my bronzed skin erupt in goose bumps. As he kissed me, slow and firm, he made to tug off my jumpsuit and I started to panic because no matter how much I wanted to want him and how he obviously wanted me—as evidenced by the unmistakable erection pressing up against my thigh—everything felt wrong and out of place. "I don't think I can do this," I said lightly, fearing that he would get angry with me as some guys in my past used to do when I had second thoughts such as these. He had pulled back then, his hand outstretched towards mine as he helped me up back to the sitting position I was in just moments before. "I don't want to rush into anything," I said quietly to fill the silent void between us. "We don't have to," he nodded, his forehead against mine.

Ever since then we've been talking and texting every day, we haven't kissed, we haven't touched since the night of Ruby's party. We are getting to know each other, and maybe there's some potential in this, but I don't want to rush into anything. I need to be alone. I need to work on the auditions that I got called back for. I need to be Emma Swan and truly know who she is, not the wild child actress, not the ticking time bomb, just me.

I drop my bags in the master bedroom after scouting every nook and cranny of the enormous house. The massive structure had eight bedrooms that wrapped around a Spanish courtyard, nine and a half bathrooms, an enormous kitchen with all the amenities and granite countertops, an in-house gym and sauna, a game room, and an Olympic-size infinity pool in the back, complete with a stone barbecue, more palm trees that I could count, and a colossal gazebo at least thirteen feet long.

Elsa, Belle—Will's girlfriend, whom I've only gotten to know a handful of times but has always been kind and friendly towards me, so I like her—and Mary Margaret arrive before the boys do. The Rolly Jogers are hosting a party tonight to kick off their tour, and management has sent the girlfriends—yes, because Mary Margaret is officially David Nolan's girlfriend now—in first so we can get ready by the time the guests and press arrive.

The stylist has my blonde hair braided in a crown, little wisps of curly hair strategically placed to give me a whimsical gypsy vibe. My eyes are heavily lined with kohl, the lids a shimmery gold, and I have emerald green rhinestones deliberately placed on my forehead along the length of my eyebrows. My body is draped with a dangerously short, sweetheart neckline crocheted strapless dress, whose white fabric contrasts nicely with the tan I've been working on for weeks. I have more bangles than I can count, and the shoes they've placed me in make me feel like I'm walking in stilts.

I feel absolutely ridiculous.

I'm staring at myself in the mirror, when a knock interrupts my self-scrutiny. "Can I come in?" Killian asks from the door. I shrug and go back to trying to figure out if the rhinestones on my forehead are a form of cultural appropriation of some sort. "You look wonderful," he says tentatively and I meet his gaze from the reflection on the mirror. He smiles softly, apologetically, testing the waters of my temper. "Thanks," I merely say.

"Are you going to snap at me all weekend, love?" he asks, sighing as he places his suitcase on the bed and starts taking out his clothes and placing them inside the dresser. "That would entail me talking to you, something I don't plan on doing," I reply, moving past him with my bag of toiletries in hand and entering the bathroom to get my things organized.

"And what do you suppose you're doing now?" He asks with a smirk as he leans against the doorframe. He drives me insane, all I want to do is slap that smirk off his face. "The inevitable," I reply, attempting to shove him out of the way when he doesn't move from the doorframe. He doesn't budge, opting to grab me by my upper arms instead. I try to ignore the rush of heat that courses through my body at his contact, burying whatever I feel for him in the midst of my anger instead.

"Do you hate me now, is that it, Swan?" He asks slowly, his voice low and gruff, his eyes boring intently into mine. "I don't hate you," I answer, ridding myself of his grasp and pushing his torso away so I can exit the bathroom. "I'm mad at you," I tell him, cringing at how childish I sound. "We should talk about it," he offers, walking away from me and closing the door to our room.

"I don't want to," I say, desperate to get out of the room and him out of my sight. "What do you suppose they'll say when they see you ready to rip out my throat and don't want to spend a second next to me, Swan?" he offers, his temper rising. "They'll think that we're a regular couple who have fights and are in the middle of one right now," I offer, my voice just as rough as his.

"We're talking about this," he starts, taking off his shirt and taking me by surprise, "After I shower, whether you like it or not." Oh, that makes more sense.

He peels off his pants next, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't enthralled by the way the hair on his chest trails down in a fine line into the underside of his black boxer-briefs. "Do you mind?" I ask exasperated, shaking my head in order to tear my gaze away from his body. A body that my own instinctively reacts to and wants desperately to feel itself against. Get a grip, Emma.

"Don't tell me you're not enjoying the view, Swan," he offers, his voice teasing me and making my temper flare up again. I square my shoulders and turn towards him, a sickly sweet smile on my face. He looks at me knowingly, his eyebrow raised as he suggestively strokes his lower lip with his index finger. I walk up to him and stand all together too close, my body almost pressed flush against his. "You're going to have to start paying close attention to boundaries, Killian," I tell him, my mouth close to his ear and my nails dragging around the waistband of his boxer-briefs, "I mean it."

I leave him rooted on the spot, the dumbstruck expression falling off his face as I slam the door on my way out of the room.

Electronic music thumps throughout the house as I walk down the stairs and start mingling with the guests. I can feel Graham's eyes on me as I walk across the patio, making me hypersensitive about the length of my dress. I end up sitting next to Robin and Liam, who are discussing football—actual football, not "hand-egg," the name they give American football—and I end up paying more attention to shoving handfuls of chips into my mouth and scrolling idly to my phone than what they're talking about. My phone vibrates in my hand, alerting me to a text from Graham.

You look beautiful.

I'm flustered, still not used to how blunt Graham is. I smile at him, perfectly aware that my chest and neck are flushed with embarrassment. I attempt to let myself be engrossed by the conversations around me, but it's no use. My mind is racing, cluttered with all these thoughts, all these insecurities that swirl inside me like a wave rolling towards the sand, ready to break and crash against the soil, until it disperses and becomes nothing. How did I get myself into this predicament? How did I just up and decide that toying with Graham or keeping the farce I have with Killian were good ideas?

I don't want to unravel again. I don't want to explode like they expect me to do. Time bomb, train wreck, wild, that's all I've ever been and not what I want to continue being. I want to dig my hands through my hair, smooth it back thanks to my frustration, but it's up in this stupid braid and it's my job to hide the fact that I'm upset. The courtyard is incredibly crowded, and it takes me a while to make it through the throng of people and reach the bar. I order a glass of Pinot Grigio—one that I intend to nurse for the next couple of hours because, honestly, I've made so many horrible decisions due to the fact that I wasn't being a responsible drinker—and make my way to the outermost corner of the patio where it's reasonably quiet and solitary. I dig in my purse for a cigarette and a lighter, hating myself for how content I feel as I take a long drag of it. I sigh as I rest my forearms against the concrete wall that overlooks the Colorado Desert, realization hitting me that I have to cut whatever I have—or don't have, really—with Graham, that I have to attempt to forgive Killian for the way he's been acting, and suck it up in order to land the audition for the high-budget film that I got a call-back for.

I snuff out the cigarette as I give one final long exhale of smoke, and return to the party. I run my hands up and down my bare forearms, my temperature having dropped as the sun sank below the horizon and the desert cooled down significantly. I'm grateful for the tiki torches around the pool warming me up as I make my way back through the throng of people. The group's attention is intently focused on Killian who is in the midst of telling an animated story. Something stops me from going further, wanting to maybe let him finish up his story—which I've come to recognize as a re-telling of our night in Pacific Park and the paparazzi attack that followed. The truth is that being near him is physically painful to me, the love I felt—feel—for him and the idea of losing him—not that he was ever mine to begin with—to Milah are thoughts that weigh heavily on me. The fact that I want something that I can't have so much and I knowing that it'll never be mine, makes me feel the exact location of my heart inside my ribcage, the hurt I feel is palpable and mostly, unbearable.

"There's my beautiful girl!" Killian exclaims, and I hope I was able to masquerade the look of intense longing on my face as I took in how the simple image of him in dark jeans, white V-neck t-shirt, and a leather jacket had me almost in a puddle on the floor. I do my best to give a genuine smile as I approach him, and for my heart not to drop to my stomach as his hands reach around my hips and his lips are suddenly pressed flush against mine. The kiss is unprecedented but not at all unwelcome. It lasts seconds at most—his lips dragging away from mine the moment my own start to reciprocate—but it feels like time stops as I relish the familiar feel of his mouth against mine. He smirks at me as he pulls away and my face instinctively follows his. His voice is condescending as he whispers against my ear, "Boundaries, Swan." My exasperation turns into anger when I feel his hand drop lower on my back, swatting my ass before winking at me and walking away from me.

I hate him.

I fucking hate him.

We spend the rest of the night in battle, each of us passive aggressively trying to one up the other. When I ask him if he wants a drink from the bar I gladly go get one for him after he assents, only to decide to sit in his lap—purposely grinding my hips on his as I do so—upon my return, the satisfactory grin wide on my face as I feel his almost immediate response pressed up against me. Later, he gruffly asks me if I want to dance. I decline, but he takes me by the hand anyways and leads me to the dance floor. I nearly crumble when I feel his body pressed up against mine, his hands possessively gripping my hips, his breath hot on my neck.

It's a dangerous thing we're doing, this game of cat and mouse, testing the limits of each other. I make sure to catch his eye if he's far from me, my tongue slowly licking my lips before I bite them, my hand idly ghosting around the necklace I'm wearing—dangerously close to my neckline—the satisfaction I feel crashing in waves as I see his jaw clench and his eyes darken with lust.

As the party drags on, everyone—including us—gets wilder. We are no longer outside, opting to sit in a darkened room when Will breaks out his vaporizer. The small group of people, Killian and myself included, take hits from it and pass it around. The second time Killian inhales from it, he takes my face in his hands and instead of handing me the vaporizer, he leans his face towards mine and shotguns the smoke into my mouth. I exhale the smoke he had blown into my mouth, my knees weak with the degree of want that had started to boil deep inside me.

I need to leave as soon as possible before I do something stupid like, oh I don't know, ride him on this couch. He has a family, he has a kid, and most importantly he's playing with me. I stand without saying a word and make my way out of the room, not caring if he follows me or not.

He doesn't and I'm glad.

I take a shower to clear my head, the almost scalding water acting like a purifier. I want to wash him off of me, his lips against mine, his breath against my neck, his hands gripping my hips. I scrub my skin raw and don't step out of the tub until I feel like I've washed every trace of him off of my body. I stand in front of the mirror, letting the steam swirl around me as I comb my hair out. My eyes, the tip of nose and cheeks are flushed pink from letting tears fall freely as I showered. I see the hurt etched clearly on my face, my hair a limp frame around my face, the vessels in my retinas bright red and clearly marked, and my mouth pressed in a thin line—a frown so deep set that I have no idea how to fix. I love him, but I don't have to like him right now.

Hell, I don't even like myself right now.

I struggle with falling asleep once I settle in bed, my mind loitering between conscious and unconscious for hours, or so it seems. It's only when I'm nearing some semblance of sleep that I hear Killian stumble into the room, clearly intoxicated from what I can hear, and I pretend to be fully asleep. The bed thumps as he walks into it, a string of curses being whispered in the aftermath. I hear the clump of boots hitting the ground and the rustle of fabric, unmistakably alerting me to him peeling off his layers of clothing—first the jacket, then the shirt, and finally the jeans. I try to level my breathing as he stumbles away from the bed and into the bathroom where the shower is again blasting full steam. He's in there for a while, and I'm still very hypersensitive to what's going on around me. When he gets out of the shower and makes his way back into the bedroom, I try to level my breathing again, steady my heart, as I feel his weight on the mattress. "Emma, are you awake?" he slurs next to me, his voice grave and slightly disoriented. I stay quiet, trying to seem as peaceful as possible even though my heart threatens to beat out of my body. I groan sleepily, acting as if his voice had some effect on me but not enough to wake me up. I roll on my tummy, my hands buried under the cool pillows—a better position to fake my way through this.

I try not to tense as I feel his fingers trail through my hair, tucking unruly strands of curls behind my ear. "I really mucked things up with you, didn't I?" he asks again, his voice sad and pensive. "I'm sorry about everything," he continues, his fingers still threaded in my hair, stroking it lightly, "I'm sorry about how I reacted at my apartment and how I treated you tonight," he finishes before rolling on his back and sighing deeply.

"I miss you," he says after a few moments of silence, "I miss waking up to you, your laugh, riling you up until your furious with me." I hear him roll back towards me, his fingers now gliding down my back, so gently I can barely feel them, "I miss being one with you." His fingers stop once they reach the sheet, his body plopping back onto the mattress, his fingers threaded through his hair in exasperation.

"Everything is shite, Em," he says again, "everything with Milah is shite." I want to reach over and hug him close to me, the sadness in his voice eliciting in me this unstoppable urge to protect him, to kiss away the hurt. "She's not the love of my life anymore," he says quietly and my heart leaps into my throat, my nerves making me unravel, "when you said you might be seeing someone, I swear I saw red, Emma. I wanted to kill the bloody bastard for taking what's mine." I want to kiss him, I want to stop pretending that I'm asleep and throw myself in his arms and hug him close to me. I want to be one with him again because I miss him more than I've ever missed anyone in my life. "I've been so blind, Emma. My sweet, darling, beautiful, Emma," his voice is sleepy now, his words muddling themselves with the yawns that grow increasingly more frequent with each passing moment. "If you think that you're the one that needs me, love, you're sorely mistaken," he says a hiccup-yawn combination popping in the middle of his sentence—something I shouldn't find endearing, but I do. His movements are heavy and lazy as he reaches up to kiss the side of my head, his forehead pressed against it. "I'm the one that has needed you, I love you," he whispers before his head thuds back onto the pillow and sleep overpowers him.

He's fast asleep when I awake the next day, sunlight streaming in through the sheer curtains. It takes me a second to remember all that he told me last night—and I pray that he remembers all of it today—grinning madly, I kiss him on the side of his cheek. He smiles in his sleep. I bite my lip and resolve to go to the bathroom and fix how I look, brush my teeth and comb my hair—I may or may not have put on some mascara and a dab of lip gloss, but that's neither here nor there.

I scurry back to bed fully aware that I am acting like a teenager—but I don't care because he loves me—and kiss him on the lips this time. Slowly, they start moving against mine, his eyes the last to open. When they do open, there's sheer surprise in them and he breaks away from me.

"Swan, what are you doing?" he asks groggily and I bite my lip. "I heard what you said last night," I start averting my eyes from his, focusing instead on how my fingers fidgeted with the hem of my shirt, "and I thought I should tell you that I love you, too." I take a deep breath and I look back up at him, his shocked face quickly turning into one that showcased sheer happiness. He leans forward, his hands nestled in my hair, and crashes his lips to mine. We pour everything into it, our bodies pressed so tight, we might as well fuse them together. My skin reacts instinctively to the way he starts to press kisses against my cheek, my jaw, my neck and my collarbone. The familiar heat coils deep in my belly, wanting faster, wanting more. He senses it and presses me back onto the pillow, practically tearing the shirt I have on from me. Fervently, he places open-mouthed kisses all over my exposed skin. "I love you," he whispers against me and he almost seems crazed, like a man that had been depraved far too long of the one thing he needed most in life.

And to Killian, that just happened to be me.

He traces kisses all over my body, stopping at the spots he knows drive me wild. He spends ample time on my breasts, flicking and biting my nipples as his fingers worked fervently inside of me. My body arches to his touch and I moan loudly, an orgasm threatening to make me collapse at any moment. He senses this and releases me, the detachment positively torturous. He chuckles as he sees me pout, his lips quickly kissing me in recompense before he dips down and settles them on my center instead. He teases me, licking a long stripe against my skin, making me grab the sheets around me for support. I buck my hips up, egging him to get on with it, but he doesn't. Instead, agonizingly slow, he kisses the insides of my thighs, biting and sucking and leaving bruises on my skin. "Killian," I groan exasperatedly, having half a mind to lock my ankles behind his head and pull him towards me. "Yes, love?" he asks innocently, though juxtaposed with a devilish smirk on his face. "Get on with it," I say through gritted teeth.

He grins and bites the sensitive bruise he had just left on my thigh, instead. "Get on with what?" I groan again and refuse to answer, simply locking my ankles behind his head and pulling him forward, making my sentiments known. He glares at me, but obliges, his revenge being working fervently against me—lapping, biting, fingering, the works—and just when I'm at the verge of climaxing, he dials it down to a painfully slow pace, my orgasm basically disappearing from sight. "I'm going to kill you, Killian Jones," I mutter after the third time he does it, and all I'm met with is a gleeful gaze staring back at me.

He comes back up to face me, his forearms—gorgeous things that they are—on either side of my face as he dips down to kiss me. I can taste myself on his lips and desire surges through me again, wanting faster, wanting more. He takes off his shirt first—leaving his hair messy and standing up on all sides—and then his boxers. I smile contently at the familiar sight before me and when he slides into me all I can think about is how much I actually missed Killian. Killian kissing me, Killian moving inside me, Killian pinning my hands above my head, his fingers laced with mine. I missed the way he would thrust deep inside me, my legs hung on either one of his shoulders, his lips alternating between kissing and biting my calves. It's incredible, the way he feels inside me, and the way the familiar warmth starts bubbling in my abdomen, the desire reaching its fullest peak. He nods against my shoulder as my walls start clenching around him, bringing us both over the edge, together.

"Good morning," he says between panting breaths as he lies next to me, little beads of sweat on his hairline. "Good morning," I say as I turn to him, my grin matching the one on his face. We stay quiet, the only noise in the room that of the whirring fan on top of us and our struggle to calm down our breathing. I want to ask him, 'what now?' desperate to know what we are, what this means, what about Milah.

"Come on tour with me," he says, bringing our hands up to his lips and kissing the top of mine.

"I was always going to go with you," I reply and he grins wider, if possible. "I might have to cut it short though," I add as an afterthought.

"Why?" he asks, his eyebrows knit together in disappointment. "I may be filming a movie by the end of the summer," I say, biting my lip as his eyes widen in amazement.

"You've got the part?" he asks excitedly. "Not yet, just a call-back, but I'm pretty confident it's as good as mine," I reply and in one swift movement he rolls me on top of him and he's kissing me again. "That's incredible, love," he tells me.

We have sex again and spend the day in bed until we're kicked out by our managers and are told to get ready for tonight. Tink, my stylist, ends up dipping the ends of my long blonde hair in teal dye. She dresses me in a black romper with a cutout in the middle, matching black espadrilles, and places a crown of flowers on my head.

I feel ridiculous.

That night as the boys finished playing their set, Killian brings me out on stage in front of god knows how many people, and kisses me in front of them. It feels surreal and in a way ominous. I'm both incredibly happy and terrified that this time will be like the last, and every other time before that. I fear that this happy bubble that Killian and I have made for the other will burst at any given time. We have negativity coming from every angle, problems staring at us from every direction, so many things can go wrong.

"What now?" I manage to ask him that night, our legs tangled with each other's, my chin resting atop his bare chest. "What do you mean?" he asks, his lips against my forehead, his fingers threading through my now teal hear. "What happens now with everything? Milah, Peter?" Graham, I want to add.

"We just take it one day at a time, love. Together." He kisses me reassuringly, and I can't help but to think that maybe Coachella isn't that bad after all.