Mine All Mine

Author's Note:

Hello! This story was originally published in an anthology which is no longer available, so I have it back to do with what I want. And I want to share it with my Lit buddies! I'm putting it here in BDSM because that sort of sex is the ultimate thrust [heh] of the story, BUT ... you have to be patient because the real BDSM action doesn't show up until the last chapter. Most of the other sexy times are fairly vanilla. But I didn't want to put chapters in different categories and make the story hard to follow, so here it sits.

There will be 4 chapters, but this first one is *very* short compared to the others, so I'll be submitting CH2 in a couple days. This story is not my normal dark and intense, but it still makes me smile, and I hope you like it, too!

Text copyright © 2016 Eris Adderly

*****

Part I: The Shaft

2010. At least for a few more minutes.

Laughter and alcohol made the December night warm as too many UTEP students crowded the inside of a mid-century ranch house in El Paso, Texas. Cheers of encouragement and

ooohs

of awe welled up here and there as impressive feats of liquor consumption and beer pong stirred the crowd. A stereo system—very serious about its job—made the walls thump no matter what room a body found their way into, and Lady Gaga demanded bad romance over any offer of friendship. Christmas lights, whose continued presence the neighbors would probably excuse for at least a few more days, twinkled along the window frames and, outside, the patio cover.

Taylor Sharpe moved to one side, putting herself in an awkward sandwich with the perimeter of a circle of hollering partiers so that, for about the fiftieth time in maybe the last twenty minutes, someone could squeeze through the sliding glass door. Apologies for bumping into her as they went, it seemed, were optional.

The reports threatened snow for tomorrow. A thermometer outside under the porchlight reminded everyone that a hair above freezing was the best they could hope for, and stamping their feet and blowing on their hands was going to be no good at all. She had no idea why anyone sane would be out

there

when there was a perfectly good heater going inside, along with a festive, roaring fireplace.

Scratch that. She knew why they were out there: you couldn't smoke in the house.

Taylor's ass buzzed and she almost fumbled her drink. One of these days, she swore having her phone on vibrate would stop startling the shit out of her.

Dammit, Rob, that better be you.

She coaxed her phone out of her back pocket and slid out from between the door and the crowd, angling toward the entryway where there were less noisy people with jostling elbows.

The screen showed one new text as she leaned against the wall and thumbed into her messages.

STILL AT JACOBS. NOT GOING TO MAKE IT BY 12 SORRY. C U THURS

"Ohh my god," she muttered down at the indifferent phone. "You fucking ..."

Taylor hadn't yet decided whether all guys were flakes, or just the one she was sort of, maybe or maybe not dating right now. Rob Morales liked to say he was going to meet her places and then not do it. This was maybe the third time, and while she wasn't sure what her exact threshold for putting up with it was, she knew he was close to reaching it. After putting up with her parents' bullshit, she'd just about had her fill of unreliable for one life.

The front door banged open and a guy in an orange UTEP beanie backed in carrying a wide, flat box. A billow of frigid air followed him, probably glad itself to be in out of the cold. Taylor slid along the wall and into a nearby door frame, moving out of his way as he hooked a boot behind the edge of the door and wrangled it shut with a thump.

"Hey!" beanie guy hollered into the house with an impressive set of lungs. Most of the heads in the room turned in his direction. "About five minutes left, ya'll! Let's take this out back!"

Taylor saw shrugs and dozens of red plastic cups start to float toward the sliding door in buzzed hands.

"Here," Beanie said, jerking a nod from the box he carried up to her. "Take one."

She leaned forward to see what he had.

Sparklers. Right.

Taylor pulled one out and the guy who seemed to be in charge moved past, still yelling over the music. "Hey! Back yard! Back yard! We're not trying to set my house on fire, OK?"

She glanced down at the reedy little firework in her grip and made a face.

Well? Fuck it. Rob's not gonna ruin my night.

The last of the beer chilled her throat as she knocked it back and sent the cup tumbling into the trash. The funnel of people pushing out into the bite of cold under the back patio cover drew her in, and in a moment she was among them, glad for her jacket but lamenting a lack of gloves.

Someone had rustled up a TV of middling size and hoisted it to sit on a patio table. A far-too-orange Dick Clark filled the screen, followed by a vacant-eyed, smiling Ryan Seacrest. Here and there a lighter flared and the first of the sparklers fizzed to life.

The tip of Taylor's nose and the tops of her cheeks burned with cold. She tucked her elbows in tight and burrowed her chin down into the knit pile of her scarf.

Her first New Year's Eve away from her family. She clenched her muscles at the thought, thrilling with a buzz of independence and probably a little beer. The chill of the soon-to-be January night had her tightening her body into a stiff column.

Rob's shenanigans aside, she felt good about conquering 2011. Her first semester of college was under her belt, and she'd already registered for the new winter term and put her financial aid paperwork to bed weeks ago.

A nudge at her arm made her turn. A shorter blonde girl in a blue hoodie she thought she recognized from her Spanish class held up a lit sparkler and smiled, encouraging Taylor to light her own.

The TV camera had moved its focus to the huge, lighted ball way up in the New York sky as Taylor's sparkler burst into its own portable little frenzy of sparks. There was something that made children of people at any age when they held a miniature firework in their hands. Other explosive dandelions razzled into bloom among the crowd, some of them dancing as enthusiastic hands waggled them in the air.

"Ten! Nine!"

The ball was moving. Everyone abandoned the cacophony of conversations to count out loud, as one. The space on the patio condensed as people who'd been milling further back in the yard crowded in to share the big moment.

"Eight! Seven!"

Taylor began to count along with them, unable to help her grin as the huddle of bodies jostled her toward the TV.

"Six! Five!"

A new year.

Something good is going to happen to me.

"Four! Three!"

On tiptoe, and keeping her sparkler out of her hair, Taylor searched the crowd. It'd be nice to know where her friends were. Ian. Amy. Nick. Chelsea.

"TWO!"

The ball hit the bottom and the sign exploded with light.

"ONE! Happy New Year!"

Noisemakers trumpeted like tiny elephants. People with less qualms about personal space bumped against her from one side and then another. The woo girls relished their moment and did what they did best. Students pushed up their giant glasses with glittery frames that spelled out 2011 and jumped on the excuse to kiss their nearest neighbor.

This would be much more fun if she could find her f—

"Ian!"

An inadvertent catch at her elbow from someone shoving past spun her around and Taylor found herself smashed up against Ian Killbourne.

Tall, awkward Ian stared down at her and offered a goofy grin from beneath dark eyebrows and spiky black hair.

"Happy New Year!" she hollered up over the din, grinning back, her buzz singing in her veins.

"Happy twenty-eleven, Sharpie!"

The silly nickname didn't faze her as yet another unruly celebrant shoved Taylor into pale green eyes and trouble.

People around them were kissing and cheering like nothing mattered. An impulse tightened in her belly like a stretched rubber band. She did something stupid.

"Hey Ian!" She motioned for him to lower his head so she wouldn't have to yell. He bent down, holding his sparkler to one side.

"Yeah?"

Her fist was in his sweatshirt. The kiss surprised them both.

Taylor didn't know if a kiss with Ian Killbourne had sobered her right up, or if it had tipped her over the last ledge into full drunkenness.

His lips burned against hers in some other way than the tips of her cold fingers did and, after a millisecond of frozen shock, they dove past the barrier of 'should' and 'ought' and ran headlong into 'fuck yeah' territory.

It was as if she'd never kissed anyone else. No indecision on how much tongue, no awkward clacking of teeth. Just a perfect, hot wave of connection, way too good to be true, that set her body humming in at least a couple inconvenient places right from the start.

It was all she could do not to put her free arm around his waist, but that would have made it too real, too weird. Instead, Taylor stood there, discovering Ian through the tilt of his jaw, the revelatory work of their mouths together.

From the eye of the storm, the kiss felt as though it had gone on for twenty heart-stopping minutes. Coming down off her toes to blink up at Ian and glance around at the crowd, she knew it had probably been no more than a few seconds.

No one had turned a head in their direction. Everyone was still hooting and twirling noisemakers in the air while Taylor reeled.

I just kissed Ian. On the mouth. With my tongue.

The absent way his fingers came up to touch his own lips, and his continued dumbfounded stare told Taylor hers was not the only world that had just been rattled.

Oh my god, say something. Don't just stand here like an idiot.

She opened her mouth, hoping words would materialize. Any words.

"Ian!"

A good start, except for it had come from Amy Doucette.

"Ian, there you are! I couldn't find you, I thought you were still inside."

This kiss had been enough for a minute to make Taylor forget any number of relevant details. The freezing temperature. Her last name. Ian's girlfriend.

"Huuuuh ... hey! Yeah"—he rallied himself back to planet Earth—"we were out here." He waved his burnt-out sparkler as if that explained everything.

"Hey Taylor." Amy flipped a greeting her way before tugging on the front of Ian's shirt. "So where's my New Year's kiss, huh? Better late than never."

The girl who was

supposed

to be making out with Taylor's friend Ian pulled him down for his second lip lock in a matter of minutes. He shot her a last panicked, confused glance before he had to turn his full attention to Amy, but Taylor was already backing away toward the door to the house, dropping the dead sparkler along the way.

What the fuck did I just do?

Her head spun.

What the ...?

She banged her hip on the sliding glass door handle on the way in, her mind not bothering to ask for maximum cooperation from her body.

Ian Killbourne was her movie buddy. Ian Killbourne was a dork.

Ian Killbourne had a kiss made out of warm leather and vertigo.

" 'Scuse me. Sorry."

A tall girl—cradling more two-liter bottles of 7-Up than she had hands for—shoulder checked her, apologizing as she went, and Taylor sifted backwards into the living room.

Why would you kiss him? The fuck were you thinking?

She needed to sit down. Probably needed to go home. Maybe Nick and Chelsea were ready to go. They weren't the type to hang around long after midnight.

A boisterous trio of football players trying and failing to sing along with something that sounded like the Black Eyed Peas occupied a couch that had one remaining free arm. Taylor claimed the seat, pulling out her phone again as she avoided flailing arms. When she looked up from her finished text to Chelsea, Ian was squeezing in from outside with Amy leading him by the hand.

The kiss had gone unseen. Amy's cheerful greeting for Ian out on the patio had said that much. The only thing Taylor could hope for now was that he'd never bring it up. Not to her. And damn sure not to Amy.

Goddammitsomuch.

Tomorrow, when she was more or less sober, this would all be less of a problem. At least she hoped it would. Tonight she'd just have to go back to her room and try to be asleep before her very unhelpful brain started replaying that kiss.

The bottom line was, Ian was her friend. And he was in a relationship already. She didn't even think of him in that way. Well. Not really. Either way, it had been a dumb move.

A sharp thump between her shoulder blades sent Taylor sliding off the arm of the couch as a free-range wrist from one of the bro-singers went wild. Her ass hit the wood floor with a jarring stop, and she sat there, staring at the fireplace for a dumb moment, wondering how she'd ended up on the ground.

It was only half as startling as the kiss.

She shook her head, leaning to the side to push herself back up to her knees, and then to a wobbly stand.

Go home, Taylor Sharpe. You are drunk.