Ashton's POV

I walk up the stairs with Emmie to her apartment complex, pinching her little love handles as she climbs each step. She swats my arms and tells me to stop, but being the persistent, joking boyfriend that I am, I continue anyway until she unlocks her door.

When we walk through the threshold, the apartment room is entirely dark, which is odd, especially since Julia should be home. Emmie flips the light switch by the door, illuminating the room, and lying on top of one another with their lips locked is Julia and Calum on the couch. I cover Emmie's eyes as a joke and watch as the two love birds detach from one another and look at us with complete and utter shock. Julia pushes Calum off of her and he falls to the floor with a loud thud. Emmie rips my hand away from her eyes so that she can see what is going on and laughs at the sight.

Judging by Julia's and Calum's swollen lips, reddening faces, and the few love bites scattered across their necks, they must have been going at it for a while. At least now I know why Calum wasn't home earlier.

"Having fun?" I teasingly ask them and place my hand on the small of Emmie's back and push her slightly to hint to walk further inside the living room.

Calum stands and dusts off his jeans as if he fell into a pile of dirt. "We were," he grumbles, but the girls don't hear him.

Julia straightens her posture with her legs tightly pressed together as she fixes her tangled hair as best as she can while trying to play it cool. "How did the studying go?" she asks Emmie who is grinning to the point where her eyes are almost squinted shut.

"Good," Emmie answers a split second after Julia finishes her sentence. "How was uh..." She points between Julia and Calum.

"Yeah, I should go now," Calum declares, grabbing his backpack that is sitting on the love seat and pulling his beanie that somehow made its way into the kitchen over his head. He stands next to me and bounces on his feet, waiting for me to do something. It takes a moment before I register why he is waiting for me and that's because he doesn't have his car; it's still parked in our driveway.

I nod in acknowledgement of his silent plea for escape. "I guess I should go too," I say. I lean down and give Emmie a kiss on her lips followed by her cheek. "I'll see you tomorrow," I promise before pushing Cal out of the apartment door. Emmie waves goodbye with a small smile before shutting the door and locking it after we exit.

Calum rushes down the stairs to my car and waits impatiently for me to unlock the doors. When I do, he climbs inside quickly and doesn't say a word. I don't start the car yet, instead I just stare at him with a smug grin.

"So are you two..." I trail off, not needing to finish my sentence because he already knows what I'm asking.

He sighs loudly. "Yeah, we're together now," he says. I figured so. Cal's not the type of person who makes out with a girl without having attachment to her. "Oh, and thanks for completely killing the mood. Ass."

I chuckle and start the engine. "Just think of it as payback for when you and the guys barged in on me and Emmie when we got together," I say, backing the car out and driving onto the main road to our house. "Sucks, doesn't it?"

"You're telling me," he mumbles.

The rest of the drive home consists of Calum bitching on how I ruined his and Julia's 'moment' and me telling him to get over it. At least now he knows how I feel whenever Emmie and I are interrupted. After parking next to his truck and scolding him for slamming the door shut this late at night, we head inside the house where the TV is blasting and a guitar is being strummed.

Luke is slouching on the couch with his guitar in hand, strumming different chords and variations of melodies. I am expecting to see Michael with his eyes glued to the TV, but instead he's on his laptop playing online games.

"If no one is watching the damn TV, then why is it on?" I shout over the loud volume before grabbing the remote on the coffee table and turning it off.

"Background noise," Michael replies as though it's obvious.

I roll my eyes and plop down onto the couch. "So Cal and Julia are together now," I say and Calum smacks the back of my head with his hand before sitting next to me.

"I had a feeling they were already together," Luke says and Calum tilts his head and looks at him like a confused puppy. "Don't think that I can't hear your phone conversations. You room is next to mine and there are some things that I wouldn't like to be able to hear." He cringes and we all laugh.

We tease Calum for a little bit longer until my phone's ringtone goes off in my pocket. Emmie's name appears on the caller ID and I smile as I answer the call.

"Hello?" I answer. There is no response, only muffled noises. "Emmie?" Still no reply.

"What's wrong?" Michael asks, and I shrug and mouth 'I don't know.'

"Emilia?" I say again, but still nothing. I put the call on speaker to hear better and everything is still so muffled, like her phone is wrapped in something until it sounds like it's being thrown onto the ground. I open my mouth to speak again, but two female voices faintly slip through the speaker.

"Julia, something bad is happening between me and Ash." That's definitely Emmie's voice. Her phone must not be that far away from her because I can hear her almost clearly.

"What do you mean by 'bad'?" Julia's disembodied voice says. "I thought things were going great between you two."

Something bad? Everything has been great; aside from the small fight that we had, but other than that, there have been no complaints. I glance towards Luke, Calum, and Michael and their eyes are filled with questions for me, and I don't have answers for them because I am just as clueless as to what she is talking about. I should not be listening in on their conversation. I should hang up the phone right now, but the little devil on my shoulder wants to know what Emmie is thinking.

"They are!" Emmie says. "It's just that yesterday when I went over to his house, we were in his room and he started kissing my neck and my body completely froze. It's not that I didn't like it; it's just that I started to think of what Jared did to me in the closet." Her voice becomes almost inaudible as she finishes her sentence. "The same thing happened today, but in a different way. We were just playing around and then he pinned my hands by my head and I began to panic because Jared did that to me. Ashton scared me at that moment."

I drop the phone onto the coffee table and stand up from the couch. I pace around the living room, my hand running through my hair and then sliding down my face as guilt begins to consume me. I scared her.

"Ash, we told you to go slow," Michael says, disappointment laced in every word.

"I am," I shout and then regret it because I don't know if the girls can hear us or not. When they fail to acknowledge my outburst, I continue. "I didn't realize that she was uncomfortable except for today. She looked like she was going to cry so I pulled away from her. She said that it was just her period bothering her and I took her word for it." She lied to me.

Julia's voice comes through the speaker now and we turn our attention to the device. "And you didn't tell him to stop?"

Light sniffles can be heard on the other side and I don't even want to picture Emilia crying. "No. I was trying to push through it and I did the first time. I was able to get Jared out of my head, but today I couldn't speak. Flashbacks of him holding me down and touching me terrified me to the point where I couldn't see Ashton anymore, only Jared."

"Fuck," I curse myself under my breath. At the time, I wasn't even thinking of what Jared did to her. I was just messing around like I normally do. Not once did it cross my mind that my actions can bring up painful memories for her. I should have known better.

"Has this happened before?" Julia asks calmly. How is she so calm? Why isn't she hightailing her ass over here and kicking mine? She always told me not to hurt Emmie and here I am unintentionally doing so.

"No, just these two times," Emmie says. "I've been okay with everything that we do. I've been doing well when it comes to keeping Jared out of my head and not comparing him to Ashton."

"He's not going to just go away," Julia says. "What Jared did will always stay with you. I trust Ashton enough to know that he wouldn't do any harm towards you. I'm not mad at him for scaring you because he may not have realized that there are some things that he can't do with you just yet. He probably wasn't thinking when he was doing that; it's not really the first thing that pops into mind in a moment like that. As much as I want to, this isn't something that I can help you with. You need to talk to Ashton about it and tell him what he can and can't do."

She should have told me about this yesterday. We could have talked about it. Maybe then I could have prevented her from being scared today. I could have done something if I had only known.

I inhale deeply, expecting only oxygen, but instead I smell something burning. I look at the guys and they also take notice of the fuming scent. Seconds later, the fire alarm blares and reverberates off the walls, and Michael runs from the couch and over to the kitchen.

"Shit, I forgot I was making a pizza," he yells and opens the oven to a fiery mess. Calum finds the fire extinguisher under one of the kitchen cabinets and squeezes the handle, the dry powder ending the flames.

"What's that noise?" Julia asks. They're still on speaker phone and even though they can't hear us, they can hear the fire alarm. "I think it's coming from your jeans. Did you leave your phone in them again?" I take the phone off of speaker and press it firmly to my ear.

There is more shuffling until a breathless voice comes through the speaker. "Shit." I can hear her move the phone to her ear. "Ashton?" Emmie says hesitantly.

"Yeah?" I answer.

"You heard all of that, didn't you?"

"Yeah," I breathe.

The fire alarm is still making my ears ring and Luke finally decides to get his ass up off the couch to help turn it off. A thin layer of cloudy smoke hovers in the air by the oven where Mikey's burned dinner lays to rest, completely inedible.

"What was that noise?" Emmie asks.

"The fire alarm," I say. "Michael burned his food."

"Oh," she says flatly.

I glance over into the kitchen and make sure that everything is under control. Other than Michael mourning over his food, everything is fine. The fire alarm finally shuts off after Luke rips the batteries out and with the help of a standing fan and an open window, the smoke begins to clear from the house.

With everything in the clear, I make a haste decision and dart into the entryway where I slip my boots on. "Emilia, tell Julia to unlock your front door; I'm coming over," I say. And with that I end the call without giving her the option to refuse me. "Guys, I need to go talk to Emilia right now, so I'll be back later. Don't burn the house down," I yell out as I make haste out the door and jog to my car.

The radio is off and I let the sound of the wind hitting against the car be my soundtrack during the drive to Emmie's apartment. My phone rings, interrupting my soundtrack, and I can only assume that it's Emmie telling me not to come over.

"I'm already halfway there," I say after I answer the call.

Instead of Emmie's voice on the other end, Julia's rings through my ear. "That's great, lover boy, but I'm just going to warn you that she's not in a good state right now and only you can fix it," she cautions. "You two need to talk alone, so I'm leaving a spare key under the door mat and I'm going to spend the night at your place with Calum. You can stay at our place if you'd like...and if she lets you."

I make a swift right turn into the parking lot outside their apartment complex. "Thank you," I say. "And thank you for not getting angry with me about all of this. I was actually expecting for you to yell at me."

"It was only a matter of time before you would do something that would unintentionally trigger something with her, so I was kind of expecting it," she says. "If it didn't happen now, it would happen later."

I park in the empty spot where Julia's car would have been if she hadn't left and turn off the engine. "That doesn't make me feel any better," I say.

She chuckles softly. "It's not supposed to, but it's the truth."

"I know," I whisper. It's a sad truth, but I'm willing to live with it. "I'm already here, so I'll let you know how things go."

"Alright. If all else fails, there's a tub of Ben & Jerry's ice cream in the freezer," she jokes. "Goodbye, Ash."

"Bye."

I get out of the car, rush up the staircase, and pull the key that Julia was talking about out from underneath the mat that I've never seemed to notice before. Has it always been here? Or is it new? I ignore my random questions and fumble with the key in my hand as I try to unlock the door. After a few tries, I finally get it unlocked and enter the dark space. All the lights are off once again except for the one that is slithering out from the slit underneath Emmie's bedroom door.

As I stand outside her bedroom, I know that whether or not I knock, she won't say anything, so I enter her room without a second thought. In my mind, I pictured Emilia sitting on her bed wallowing in self-pity, but in reality, she's darting across the room, picking up trash and clothes off the floor.

"Emilia?" I say, stepping inside.

She throws away plastic wrappers from candy bars into the wastebasket by her desk and then tosses a handful of clothes into a hamper.

"Emilia..." I repeat slowly, but she keeps rushing back and forth in front of me.

I can't make the situation worse and grab her by the arms and tell her to stop. I've already scared her twice by my actions; I don't need a third one floating over my head. The only thing that I can think of to stop her is to just help with what she's doing.

I pick up the pair of jeans and socks by my feet and toss them into the hamper with the rest of the dirty clothes. Several books are scattered along the floor and I stack them on top of one another and carry them over to the small bookshelf by her bed. Emilia finally takes notice of me and stops in her tracks on the other side of the bed.

"I'm making things hard for us, aren't I?" she asks. The creases on her forehead and frown on her face don't suit her well at all, and I hate when she looks like this.

I shake my head. "You're not making things hard at all," I say, placing a book on the shelf.

Her mouth parts as if she's going to say something, but she quickly shuts it and turns around to pick up her shoes from the floor.

"Why did you lie to me?" I ask as I place another book from the stack onto the shelf. Good one, Irwin. She already feels like shit. No need to add fuel to the fire.

"If I were to tell you: 'Hey, what you're doing is scaring the crap out of me because it reminds me of my ex-boyfriend', how would you feel?" She throws her shoes into her closet.

I stay silent.

"I couldn't just hurt you like that," she says.

I've been hurt worse before. This is nothing but a mere flesh wound. "You should have told me regardless," I say. "I'd rather be hurt than hurt you without even knowing it." I don't even bother with sliding the books onto the shelf anymore; I just leave them in a stacked pile and turn to face Emilia.

"I'm sorry that I didn't tell you," she says. "I thought that this would be something that I could easily fix myself, but I can't."

Those memories of Jared are branded into her mind and have a permanent residency in there. Things like that are hard to forget. She's still traumatized and I can't cure her.

"Then I'll help you," I declare and walk over to where she stands. I put my hands firmly on her shoulders. "Look at me, and who do you see?"

Her face contours into confusion and her eyebrows draw together. "I don't understand where you're going with this," she says.

"Just tell me who you see."

"I see you," she says and I nod.

"Good." I place my hands onto her waist and pull her close to me. "Who do you see?"

"You."

I lean down and touch her lips with mine. "Who do you see?" I mumble against her.

"Well, technically I can't see anything because my eyes are closed," she jokes. This is good. She's slowly reverting back to her normal self.

I resist chuckling. "Who do you feel then?"

"You," she says.

I move lower down to her jaw line, peppering kissing all the way until I reach her neck. "And now?" Her breath hitches, and I pull away. "You're okay," I assure. "Open your eyes." She does as I say and the fear that I saw in her eyes earlier is present again but slowly fades. "Who do you see?"

"You now," she says.

"Keep your eyes on me." I don't know if distracting and assuring her that it's only me touching her is going to help at all, but it's the only thing that I can think of. I need for her to always see me. Not Jared, not any other guy, just me. If I can't erase the horrific memories of Jared from her mind, the least I can do is replace them with me; memories of enjoyment.

I place my lips back onto her neck, leaving a trail of wet kisses along her skin. She extends her neck out, giving me more space to roam about and I take that as a good sign. "Still me?" I ask.

She hums in response and tangles her fingers in my hair. I place both hands on her hips and slowly slide them up to her waist. Her knees nearly buckle underneath her, but I am quick to keep her from falling.

"You okay?" I ask.

Emilia wraps her arms around my neck for support, her eyes nearly popping out of her skull in surprise. "Yes."

I place my arm behind her knees and support her shoulders with my other one as I lift her off her feet and carry her bridal style to the bed.

"Are you scared?" I ask as I lay her down and hover above her, brushing away small strands of hair that have fallen onto her face. She lifts her hand up, caresses my check. My hips press into hers and I know she can feel the prominent bulge in my jeans against her. "Are you okay?"

She doesn't say anything. She just moves my hand and places it on the bare skin that is showing from underneath her slightly lifted shirt.

"Do you want me to keep going?" I ask.

Emilia gives me a proper nod and moves my hand farther up her shirt. Her grey eyes stay on mine, observing every move I make

She keeps her hand on top of mine as I trail up her stomach and stop right when I hit the underlining of her bra. I keep my head in her neck, giving small kisses every time she squeezes my hand to slow down or stop my movements.

She arches her back when I find her sweet spot just below her ear and lets out a quiet moan. She removes her hand from mine and slides it under my shirt so that she can feel the same sensation that I feel when I touch her. Her small hands tug up at the hem of my shirt. I pull my head away from her neck and look at her for approval.

The fear that clouded her eyes has completely disappeared. "It's only you," she says, reassuring herself.

I lean away from her and pull the black shirt from my body and throw it across the room. When I look back down to her, she's already prepping to remove her shirt as well, but I stop her hands and pull it off for her. I scan down her chest, taking in as much of her as I possibly can before trailing back up to her eyes. I flick the little blue bow in between the cups of her bra with my finger and smirk.

"This is the same bra that you wore four months ago when I first met you," I say, the image of her soaked shirt still prominent in my memory.

Emilia laughs and uses her arms to cover her chest. "Yeah, this is definitely you."

I laugh along with her and gently pull her arms away from covering herself. "It shouldn't be anyone else." I roll us over so that she is now on top of me and I resist the urge to look at her breasts that are pressing against my chest. "I know you can't escape those memories and I know that there will be times when you will feel scared, but I want you to always remember that you are with me. There is no one else here but me." I flip us again so that we are lying on our sides and I take her hand and lace my fingers between hers.

Her eyes gaze into mine before she slowly closes. "It's going to take time, but I know that it's you here. Right now, I see only you. You're all who I want to see." Her eyes flutter open and she studies my face.

"Then I'll make it happen," I say. "I'll give you all the time you need; there's no rush. You've already made it this far." I gesture to our shirtless bodies and she giggles. "That's a huge step and things will only get better."

Her lips curve up and she pokes my cheek with finger. "Sorry, I just had to make sure that you're real because sometimes you're just too good to be true," she says. I chuckle and she proceeds to poke the indention of my dimple. "Thank you," she mouths before leaning towards me and snuggling up to my chest.

I wrap my arms around her small body and press my lips to the top of her head. I want to say: 'I'd do anything for the one I love', but that's cheesy and I don't want to overwhelm her right now, so I bite my tongue.

We lay like this for a while in a comfortable silence until Emilia starts to wiggle around and push her hands against my chest to get away.

"Why are you so hot?" she complains, almost teasingly. "You're like a portable heater."

"Isn't that a good thing?" I say. I let her out of my grasp and she sits up, giving me full view of her torso. I love that she doesn't have an extremely flat stomach. I love how her skin isn't perfectly soft. I love how her boobs are the perfect size—not too big and not too small. She's imperfect and that's what makes her perfect.

"I guess so," she says. "I could save money on bills by having you here instead of having to turn on the heater, but right now I feel like I'm overheating."

I get up off the bed and amble out of her room and to the kitchen.

"Where are you going?" Emmie shouts from the bedroom.

"Nowhere," I shout back. I open the freezer door and pull out the half-gallon of ice cream that Julia mentioned earlier and search around in the cabinet drawers until I find the utensils and grab two spoons. I return to the room and shut the door with my foot. "This should cool you down," I say, smiling and sitting back next to her with my legs crossed.

Her eyes light up and she digs a spoonful of the strawberry cheesecake ice cream and shoves it into her mouth, smiling with bliss as she savors the flavor. Between the two of us, we finish the rest of the half-empty container and by the look of Emilia shivering, there's no doubt that it cooled her down a bit too much.

I spread my arms out and she happily crawls into them to warm herself up. "You should probably get ready for bed," I say. "You have class and work in the morning."

"I know," she says.

"Do you want me to stay here with you?" I ask. I'm really hoping she lets me because I don't want to drive back to the house this late at night, but I prepare myself to be shot down just in case.

She's silent for a few seconds before she softly says, "Yes."

"Okay," I reply just as soft.

I get off the bed and turn the light switch off before taking my previous position. I move us by the pillows near her headboard and slowly fall back onto them with Emilia in my arms. Thankfully she isn't the kind of person who makes her bed so the blanket is easy to grab a hold of when I cover the two of us. She stays close to me and nuzzles her head into my neck where she places a swift kiss.

"What was that for?" I ask, surprised by her action. She's never kissed me on the neck before.

"I wanted to see what it felt like to you," she says. "You like to do it to me, so I thought that you might like it if I did it too."

I smile even though she can't see me in the darkness. "I love it."

She places one more kiss where my neck and shoulder meet before resting her head on my shoulder where she slowly drifts off to sleep. I rest my head on hers and let my eyelids drop.

"Goodnight, Emilia," I whisper last before falling asleep peacefully with her.

________

A/N:

I actually had major feels while writing this chapter. Their relationship is growing, slowly but surely! I think this chapter was cute. I actually wasn't planned or anything. I just thought of the idea while taking a shower which seems to be where I get most of my ideas. Hahaha.

I started writing this literally after I posted the last chapter so that's why I updated so fast. I was able to finish most of it in between my classes today, and then I added more and finished it when I got home (even though I should be studying).

Thank you guys again for all your support. I'm glad that you love where this story is going and are continuing to read it. Thank you for 17.5k reads! It's so weird how much the number goes up with each chapter that I post and it makes me so happy that people like it.

Please continue to vote, comment, and share this story! I might not update until next week (I say that now but knowing me, I'll slack off with my homework and write instead) and work on Piece of Cake instead because I want to get a few more chapters out for it, but we'll see.

Thank you guys once again. I love you so, so much! –Rebecca xoxoxoxoxoxoxo