L is for Love (Preston/Jane)

I present Jane and Preston from Ghetto Gospel in the second alphabet challenge vignette. I am also working on "F" is for Family for Molly, Hawkin and Lily from The Flower Girl as well as the next chapter of More than Anyone. In the meantime, enjoy Jane and Preston:

There Are Worse Things You Can Do To Yourself Other Than Love Me

In the first month living with her, Preston realizes that Jane loves a lot of different things.

When they open the windows of their motel room that first morning after they've left, she inhales the air deeply and says that she loves the way freshly mowed grass smells and the scent of the air right before a storm rolls in. She has body spray that she wears every day that smells of vanilla and in the shower, she uses a blueberry-scented body wash.

Preston grows used to all of these smells mingling in his nose and soon, he can't remember how he slept without having his face pressed to the side of her neck, inhaling those scents that are distinctively Jane.

When it's warm enough, she loves wearing skirts right after she shaves her legs, loving how smooth her skin feels when she rubs it together, (and Preston has to admit that he loves it too) and she loves to walk barefoot. Sometimes, they go to the park down the street and almost as soon as they step into the soft dewy grass, she slips her shoes off and walk the rest of the way with them swinging back and forth in one of her hands.

She sometimes convinces him to take his shoes off as well and they sit there, playing footsie and leg wrestling with one another which always leaves her squealing with laughter when he tackles her into the grass underneath him. She kisses him and tells him that she's never been this happy before and Preston thinks that, if possible, he loves her just a little bit more every time she tells him that because he will still wake up in a panic in the middle of the night, expecting to find her packing her things, ready to leave, or waking up and find that she's already gone.

For some reason she still hasn't told him, Jane really doesn't love food. She eats but only because she has to, and most of the time, she acts as if it's actually a chore to put the food in her mouth and chew and then swallow. He doesn't want to ask even though this is Jane and Preston knows he can ask her anything but he wonders if she has ever suffered from one of those eating disorders.

They get pizza and Chinese take-out a lot and eat in their motel room, sitting on the bed, facing one another, their feast scattered between them, and she does seem to prefer pepperoni over sausage and sweet and sour chicken doused in the red, sticky sauce. She doesn't come out and says that she loves these things but any time he orders dinner, Preston begins making sure to get these particular foods specifically for her.

She loves when he's on top during sex. She loves the way she feels completely covered with his body, almost being pinned down, pressed into the mattress. She loves rubbing her feet on the back of his calves and she loves when he shifts his thrusts and can press his pelvis against her clit. That almost always makes her cum immediately.

Jane loves Law & Order which cracks Preston up for some reason, but she prefers the episodes with Jerry Orbach in them before he passed away and she has mentioned once or twice that the character reminds her of her dad - another thing which cracks Preston up because although he has never officially met the man, Detective Lennie Brisco with his snarky one-liners and dry humor is a lot cooler than Tim Benedict, the very definition of asshole, could ever be.

Still though, he watches the show with her every day and when she gets extremely quiet, he knows that she's thinking of her dad and he'll put his arm around her, holding her close to him, letting her know silently that she's still got him.

Jane loves a lot of things, Preston realizes, and he has a hard time reminding himself that he is one of those things that she just happens to love. The way she looks at him or smiles at him, he sometimes wonders why she does that before he remembers that she does it because she loves him. The way she kisses him or will sneak up behind him to wrap her arms around him in a hug, it's all because she loves him.

He doesn't understand how she can find room within herself to love so many things at the same time.

He almost asks her a few times but he stops himself. He doesn't want to know. He wants to learn how to do it himself.