A/N: mature content (promise the last of this kind!)

What in the fucking hell!?

I wrenched myself out of my nightmare and sat up so abruptly that I smashed the top of my head onto the too-close ceiling over my lofted bed.

"Fuck!" My hands cupped over the burst of pain that erupted on contact. I took a mental inventory check as my head throbbed in protest. Sweat poured out of every available outlet on my body, my hair clung to my face and arms, and my heart rammed itself painfully against my chest walls with thundered vibrations I felt all the way into my ears.

The worst reaction was the warm pulse of arousal that throbbed painfully between my legs that had nothing to do with residual post-hair removal sensations. I palmed one hand over the pressure below my navel and took a slow breath against the urge that I relieved myself. If I were alone then I would've flicked myself through an orgasm but my only shred of restraint was the sound of soft, even breaths from the pink side of our dorm room.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, calm down.

Breath by breath through pursed lips, I slowed the throbs of my pulse and smashed my hand hard in a 'down girl' attempt against the heat that pumped out between my legs.

At times like this, I really hate my own fucking body.

My tired eyes cracked open and caught the 2:47am time on Li's desk clock. Internally, I groaned at the interrupted sleep and how wide awake I now felt. Thankfully, my dream hadn't woken up Li, at least not based on her still form and even expansion and contraction of her chest.

A slight 'poof' sound erupted around my ears as I flopped back into my pillow.

Just a dream, but fuck it actually felt real.

Reality is it didn't last.

Jake and my sex-only deal lasted months through high school and, sadly for the kind of friend I wasn't to Ellie because of it, it was amazing. Like an on-call male vibrator, there were so many benefits to Jake's sex-only deal, and we both became sloppy and greedy. With my mind still fucked up from my dream, the memories associated with how our sex-only deal ended bombarded me from all directions.

It was amazing while it lasted though, I can admit that much.

Kissing was only an initiative, never afterwards. Appreciative grunts were acceptable.

We shared no formalities of dating, dinners, movies, just straight fucked each other whenever one of us needed it.

Sex was rough, hot, heady, and desperate, never slow and loving.

Both of us got a relief, dulled the edge of our high libidos, zipped back up our pants, and went on with the rest of our lives.

Over the first three months of our senior year where Logan became the most important person in Ellie's life and she pushed me to the sidelines, I watched as more and more of my best friend resurfaced from the former shell she'd hidden herself behind for years. Before Logan, she'd contently introverted herself into nonexistence, ignored everyone else except me and Jake, and just waited until high school expired.

While I couldn't have been more proud of Ellie's growth in confidence and how she'd found her voice again, after years of being her protectors, both Jake and I felt the sting when Ellie rendered us unnecessary. Oddly, each of us reacted in the same way and, despite my better judgment, we found each other.

When we'd fucked during Logan's Homecoming Dance, I'd intended that the 'fuck and chuck' sex solely to hurt Jake for his similar dismissal of me years ago. Unfortunately, the experience ignited something in both of us. My traitorous vagina aside, after I'd been cast aside from being one of the only two important people in Ellie's life, I turned to the one detached physical relationship I never thought I'd have.

With fellow outcast Jake himself.

Our emotional detachment was why we hid what we were from Ellie, which was wrong and lie after lie piled up despite how I'd wanted to tell her. At her core, Ellie was a hopeless romantic. She craved love, tenderness, and the promises of forever. Jake and I were nothing more than two fucked up, lonely people who buried that loneliness in sex. Despite her assurance, no part of Ellie would have understood or supported that all we wanted from each other was physical pleasure.

She would've shipped us harder than the Titanic.

Fuck she still would and there's no fucking way I'm going behind her back again... Even if she's twelve hundred miles away, wouldn't actually know, and Jake -

No no no, I'm better than that.

I never expected anyone felt sorry for me or Jake, fuck neither of us deserved a relationship with Ellie afterwards. Personally, I lied to my best friend while I fucked her brother in secret guilty pleasure. Not a day passed where I couldn't look myself in the mirror at what I'd become, yet like an addict not ready for rehab, my body spiraled downward but still craved the fix.

Guilt eventually pulled my senses back to reality, we came clean to Ellie, and the closeness of my friendship with her ended. Ellie herself never directly asked why I was with Jake, in whatever capacity we were anything more than fuck buddies. Understandably, she asked why I betrayed her, why the secrecy, why the lies.

Truth was... I had no good reason.

I was weak, lonely from being set aside for a boyfriend upgrade, and horny as fuck.

Sadly, Jake and I shared all three of those traits in common. Even today, my ego burned whenever I took a hard look in a mirror and admitted that I probably still lived in that same state of existence three years later. With hindsight on my side, I knew the exact moment our deal had ended, when Jake had opened up his emotions other than his go-to quick-fired fits of raging anger.

Personality-wise I get why Jake was how he was but... fuck, he also had anger issues.

As Jake had gloriously shown us the night his fists bloodied Ryder Stevens straight to a hospital trip that slowly developed into a legal shitshow for Ellie, Jake's anger flared early and often. His decisions were made with his fists and his dick more than his brain. Despite all of his asshattery, bad decisions, and rash actions, deep down Jake loved Ellie more than anyone. He was so hell bent on making up for how he felt like he'd failed her that he'd blinded himself by his own anger and guilt.

When we'd visited UC-Davis, the only angle Jake, Logan, and I completely understood collectively was protecting Ellie. Jake, with his distrust of any dick within a mile of Ellie, needed a lot more persuasion until he was okay that Ellie and Logan shared a hotel room. Only whispered promises of what Jake and I could do in ours was the only way I'd convinced him to back off.

My efforts fell short when Jake took off on his own once he knew Ryder was there. Logan had the idiotic plan that somehow he got dirt on what Ryder had done to Ellie or possibly any other girl. That went straight to shit when Jake's attendance was forced by his and Ellie's dad, then mine from Ellie and Jake charged fists-first to Ryder's fraternity house the first chance he got.

Once Ryder laid unconscious on the sidewalk like a physical fallout from Jake's uncontrollable anger and Ellie stood frozen in shock, Logan and I were in complete agreement. I still remembered the exact guilty thoughts that swirled through my head that night, three years later.

I didn't stop Ellie from coming here. I didn't keep Jake in the hotel room either.

I fucking failed both of them.

"Get him out of here," was Logan's gritted response about Jake, which I nodded at.

"Come on, asshole." I tugged Jake's arm until we crossed the two-lane road Ryder's fraternity house at UC-Davis sat off of and walked to the next street over.

I still remembered every detail of what happened that night as vividly as the night that Ellie was assaulted, despite how much I'd wanted to forget them. The pulse of party music from the different houses still buzzed through the air, but at a much lower level. Tall trees darkened the sidewalk that I dragged Jake down, my hand intertwined in his. We passed university building after building while I marched on a mission to put as much distance Jake and the scene he left behind as possible.

"Harper," he finally muttered and brought his feet to a halt. "Stop."

"No." My hand tugged his again but he stood stubbornly still. "The second you stop, we have to talk. You don't want to hear what I want to say to you right now."

His voice was low and defeated. "Pretty sure whatever you throw at me, I deserve it."

My cheeks puffed out a breath and I glanced around. We were alone in the middle of a campus parking lot, which like everywhere else here, had large, mature trees randomly placed throughout.

A slight breeze blew over my cheeks as I dropped Jake's hand and whirled around. My eyes roamed over his appearance and the edge on my irritation slipped a little. His left eye socket was swollen with the start of a bruise and his lower lip was puffy and split open with a small trail of blood that trailed from the cut.

"Just tell me one thing." I ran my tongue over the pad of my thumb, then wiped at his lower lip.

In the night sky, his eyes were dark but not black with rage as they were earlier. The longer he looked down at me, the softer his expression grew, until he looked... sad? I wasn't sure.

My eyes studied his for a reaction while I pushed out in a whisper, "Was it worth it?"

"No," he blurted out, then paused. "Yes. Fuck if I know. He said -"

"I can imagine what he said." I pressed my lips together tightly against the 'I told you not to leave, asshole' that desperately wanted to escape. "He knows how to get under your skin."

"And I fucking let him do it," he admitted more to himself than me.

"Fortunately for you..." I lowered my lashes and stepped closer until my body was flush with his. "So do I."

"Harper," he warned me and stiffened at my invasion of his personal space. He smelled like sweat, grass stains, a faint scent of beer that wasn't his breath, and a hint of iron.

"Just getting a good look at you." I tugged up the bottom of his shirt and cringed at the already formed bruises on his abdomen.

My fingers lightly traced around the swollen circular areas, at which he inhaled sharply and hissed in complaint. I dropped his shirt and picked up his right hand, then shook my head at his bruised and bleeding knuckles. Right as my eyes lifted to his, he snatched his hand back, turned, and stepped away.

"Jake," I started but he had other ideas.

His fists clenched tight, his eyes squeezed closed, and he clenched his jaw. All of the muscles in his back and neck rippled until they shook with tension. With one deep breath, he leaned back and screamed out in a primal, near feral yell.

"Fuuuuuuck!!"

His voice, soaked with equal parts frustration and pain, flowed over the empty parking lot like a seismic wave and echoed off a few of the nearby buildings. While my heart pounded at the raw emotions he expelled, as usual my inner bitch reflex flexed first.

I couldn't resist and replied, "You could've just asked nicely."

My teasing words were completely ignored. Instead, Jake's large frame crouched down on the pavement, where he dropped his elbows to his knees, and curled over. His hands grabbed the hair on the back of his head like he wanted it ripped out. His elbows pressed into his ears as if he blocked everything out.

His voice wasn't angry, more desperate when he shouted, "Leave me the fuck alone, Harper!"

An uncomfortable emotion stirred inside me when I approached him. His back heaved and spasmed with raspy gasps and flinched when my palm met his shoulder. He sat down on the pavement, removed his hands, and when his face lifted to mine, his dark eyes shone with tears.

"Jake..." I murmured quietly and sat down next to him.

"I tried," he whispered as tears trailed down his cheeks. "I really tried not to get angry but it wasn't enough... He opened his fucking mouth and I saw red. Once I started, I couldn't stop, like a monster who just fucking destroys everything."

"Your anger is usually annoying." I rubbed his trembling shoulder. "That was next-level, three-year pent up, uncontrollable rage against a rapist who assaulted your sister. I don't know whether to be impressed that you didn't do worse or seriously turned on."

"You're shit at making someone feel better," he sniffled quietly but a soft smile pulled on his lips.

"No argument here. Come on," I mumbled and reached for his hand. "Let's get you cleaned up."

Back at our hotel, Jake and I grabbed the first aid kit at the hotel's front desk and ice from a dispenser. He sat on the edge of one of the room's beds, shirtless with a bag of ice over the bruises on his stomach. I'd moved the desk chair close enough that my knees wedged between his legs. By the light on under the door across the hallway and sound of running water when we'd gotten back, Ellie and Logan were there but I had no intentions of checking up on them unless prompted.

Our conversation was tense while I cleaned him up and the longer my finger grazed over his skin, the thicker the air got between us. He watched me silently but the burning look in his eyes gave him away like always. They looked down at my lips, so I parted them then gently ran my tongue over the seam with one teasing stroke. A low groan rumbled in his chest and he shifted forwards until the not-at-all-subtle growing bulge between his legs rubbed into my left knee.

I blew a puff of cool area over his busted open lip, then smirked at his uncomfortable state and patted one hand gently into his cheek. "You'd better hope your little fisticuffs tonight doesn't fuck up your football future because your face isn't that nice to look at."

He didn't say anything, just bent his head down and smashed his lips hard against mine. The movement stiffened my spine because I assumed the contact against his lip was painful but dropped the medical stuff left in my hands and crawled over him. His hands clenched tightly into the sides of my waist, pulled us flush when my legs straddled around him, and pressed his hips up into mine.

A groan erupted from my throat as my hands threaded through his dark waves and tugged gently. Right when his lips parted, I thrust my tongue against his but he matched me sloppy stroke for stroke and rubbed his now full erection right over my core area.

All the pleasure-related areas of my body warmed and tingled from his mouth's assault on mine. The flood of arousal through me, combined with the weight of his body pressed into all the right places, left me breathless and I broke off and panted for air.

"Whatever you need..." I mumbled up to the ceiling while Jake's mouth moved under my jawline and down the side of my neck. "Take it."

"What I need," he stated, pulled back a few inches, and looked down on me.

"If you're still, you know..." My fingers trailed delicately around his bruised abdomen. "Angry, then just fuck it out like always."

"Fuck it out," he repeated and his eyebrows tensed slightly. "Is that -"

"I just meant," I interrupted him and stripped off my shirt and bra so we were both topless.

Like a magnet, one of Jake's hands enclosed around one of my breasts, where he kneaded the sensitive skin in his palm and rolled my nipple between his index finger and thumb. I stifled a groan at the pleasure that erupted from my core area when he leaned down and enclosed his mouth around the peak of my other breast. My eyes slid lazily closed when his warm, wet tongue made similar teasing movements that his hand hadn't stopped on the other side.

"I know what you meant," he murmured, then stung my nipple when he bit down. "You think I'm just a fuck-boy who doesn't have any feelings."

"No..." I murmured to myself and dragged my shampoo-covered hands through my hair. "But you're definitely a fuck-boy."

I still remembered his gentle touch, the torn expressions he wore, like a man who feared he was too far past broken. We both knew whatever we were, or more importantly weren't, had an upcoming expiration date but no part of me minded that night if Jake used me for whatever release he needed.

"No..." I cupped my palms against his cheeks and pulled him up until I looked into his eyes. "I meant if you have any lingering frustrations then just fuck them out."

"Even after tonight?" His softened voice, combined with the too-serious look on his face, pulled an uncomfortable, coiled up feeling in my chest. Fast and hard was our go-to, so his change of pace concerned me.

"I'm not afraid of you," I replied honestly, without a blink so he knew I was serious. "But fuck your anger needs serious work. One punch probably would've been enough."

His face fell at my words, not like I'd surprised him but more like I'd reinforced what he already knew.

"But..." My hands patted his cheeks before he reacted. "There's always a choice."

He only responded with how his lips chased mine and his hands lowered to the waistline of my jeans. The clench of his fingers into my bare ass and sharp in-breath told me he'd found the black lace thong I'd worn today.

A smile pulled my lips wider. "Last-minute choice before I was kidnapped this morning."

"I'm glad you were," he said softly. "Not for these, but what I want to do with you now."

Normally, Jake's forward words sent chills of anticipation through my body. Tonight, something was different, something was off. His voice was raw, exposed, even tender. After years of his sarcastic, grouchy grumbles, this was a side of Jake I'd rarely seen.

Jake slowed down, raised his head, and kissed me gently. His lips, swollen and red, moved over mine with a delicate, feather-like passion. He laid me down on the bed, carefully removed my clothes, returned in nothing but a condom, then propped himself up onto his elbows and paused.

Uncomfortable with how deeply his eyes stared into mine, I hooked my feet around his legs, braced them into his calves, then used the leverage and bucked my hips against his erection for added friction.

"I don't want quick and hard fucking," he murmured as his elbows caged my shoulders underneath him. "Just this once... please."

I knew exactly what he wanted, which scared me more than anything else he could've suggested. The only reason I silently agreed, with just a nod of my head, was because he hadn't actually said the words out loud.

Silently, I slid my hands to the skin on his sides, where his rippled oblique muscles were damp with perspiration and opened my legs for him. Both of us sighed when he entered me and his slow, deliberate movements against mine bubbled up a rush of emotions I'd buried years ago.

He was everywhere and his scent, his body weight pressed on me, the warmth that flowed from his skin all overpowered me. His eyes locked onto mine and held them for every one of his slow, even strokes that pressed deep inside me.

The raw emotions in his dark eyes tore into me... They were soft and vulnerable, in the biggest risk anyone could take with another person, he opened himself up. The gentleness he held me with, the soft, even strokes of his hips in sync with mine, and the whispers of words I hoped were more for Jake's reassurance of how he wasn't the monster he feared he was than what those words implied.

In return, my hands clenched his sides tighter and I took him in deeper. Things between us were too painful for me to have reciprocated his words, both spoken and unspoken. Instead, I offered no judgment, only the reassurance and acceptance that I hoped he needed.

Tears pricked the corners of my eyes when we both climaxed and finished. As Jake rolled off me and cleaned himself up, a drowsy drunken-like sleep closed my heavy-lidded eyes. In a rare, tender moment, one of his hands wrapped over the top of my head and tucked my hair behind one ear.

"I'll sleep in the other bed," he said quietly, which cracked open my eyes.

"I told you," I whispered while my eyes slid back closed. "Do whatever the fuck you need tonight. After that, no promises other than things go back to abnormal."

The last thing I remembered before sleep took me was a slight shift of the bed and a strong sense of warmth tugged me closer. What concerned me most wasn't that he hadn't answered me, it was the sense deep down that I doubted my own words.

Jake and I weren't delusional, both of us knew we were two people who wanted to feel slightly less fucked up for one moment. I couldn't have given Jake any true feelings past how I had cared about him as a person but hoped that the acceptance I'd offered, along with the judgment or unsolicited advice I hadn't, was sufficient enough.

Because, like the fucked up person I am, it's all I have to offer.

Like roadside release with Officer Davis, all good things ended and Jake and I weren't immune to that reality. I knew he'd stamped the expiration date himself the night his fists sent Ryder to the hospital, then silently asked that we made love instead of just fucked afterwards in some messed up plea that Jake wasn't as fucked up as he feared he was. I couldn't return the feelings he craved but, like every time, I only offered assurance without judgment.

An unsettled feeling came over me the next morning, where we woke up in the same position we'd fallen asleep in. In hindsight, I recognized it as the beginning of the end of our arrangement. Jake's warm arm was tucked around my bare torso, heat radiated from his chest into my back, and his lips graced gently against the back of my neck. Hot breaths heated my skin as he breathed slowly in and out of his nose and a hard morning glory poked right between my legs.

While I knew one elbow poke from me and we relieved his frustration, one extra thump in my heart was all I needed and snapped back into reality.

We can't do this anymore.

"No feelings my ass," I whispered and shook the memory out of my head. For my sanity's sake, I hoped this was the last memory that resurfaced since all of them had bubbled up like a backed up toilet.

And all the shit feelings that came with them can be flushed down the drain for all I care.

Slowly, I rolled onto my side, caught Li's small sleeping form, and palmed my forehead. A faint pulse throbbed where I rubbed my fingers and I squeezed my eyes shut. No part of me wanted anything to do with Ethan's shit plan, Li was right in that I needed closure, and the last thing I wanted was I strung Jake's feelings along.

Asshole or not, no one deserves that.

We're too much, too messy.

In a choked out whisper, I admitted to myself, "And he deserves to be told in person... Guess I'm going to that stupid, fucking USC game."