Painting Flowers // Ashton Irwin [au]

Three

*Smutty smut smut warning :P*

Ashton's POV

Emilia pulls the blanket over her bare chest, concealing and putting an end to such a beautiful view from me like the tease she is. A portion on her long hair cascades down her shoulder while the rest fans out on the pillow beneath her. I never get tired of seeing her lie with me in her most natural state.

Her cheeks are always a peachy shade and her skin is like velvet to the touch. I've seen her look her best and worst (even though her worst is just a glorified version of her best) and no matter what, she always makes me feel like I'm looking at her for the first time.

"I don't want to go back to school," she whines, tracing the stitches on the blanket with her finger.

I prop myself up on elbow. "We can just skip...the entire semester," I joke and she smiles humorously.

"Don't tease me like that," she says.

These last few days have been particularly lazy since we wanted to enjoy what is left of our winter break. After resolving everything that happened on New Years, we all have been able to soak up what's left of our valuable free time before school starts tomorrow without any chaos.

I'm still not over the fact that Luke likes Emmie and I keep a watchful eye on him whenever he's near her no, which hasn't been that often. He's been keeping a lot of distance and won't even stand next to her. He looks so gloomy now and as much as I'm all for him pushing to getting over her, I don't like seeing him this way.

It was probably a shitty thing for me to indirectly rub in his face that Emmie is mine, but I was angry. I never thought that one of my best friends—someone who I trust with my life—would fall for my girl.

But I know Luke, and I know that he would never do anything to interfere with mine and Emmie's relationship.  

"What time do you have to go up to the campus?" I ask, taking her cold hand in mine and playing with her fingers.

"Two," she says with a pout.  

She received a call the other day from the financial aid office telling her that she needed to go up to the campus and go through some training for her new position as Supervisor at the library. She wasn't thrilled when she found out that she would have to show up the day before school started and has been dreading to go since. She'll be there for several hours so I won't be able to spend much time with her like I had wanted, but it can't be helped.  

"This semester is going to suck," she states.

"Why's that?"

"Because I don't have any classes with you or any of the guys."

My lips press into a thin line as I share her disappointment. We weren't able to sign up for any classes together this semester since I'm starting my art program and she's still exploring her options. Having class with Emmie was the starting point to the development of our relationship and now that we have different classes, we're not going to see each other as much. Everything will be okay between us even with the added distance, but I wish I could sit next to her in at least one of her classes so that I can pick on her while she tries to take notes.

"It'll be okay," I assure. "I'll still be able to bother you at work, and since you're Supervisor I won't get in trouble."

"I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way," she says with a light chuckle. "And even if I am Supervisor, I can still punish you if you do something you're not supposed to."

"A little punishment never hurt anyone," I say, winking at her. Her cheeks redden and I roll over on top of her, careful not to rest all of my weight on her. "Plus, I wouldn't mind seeing you act authoritative towards me."