CHAPTER SEVEN

Kahli

The bedroom door crashed against wall and seemed to be hanging on by a thread. As I was backing up, Jaden, his face like thunder, crossed the room, his focus and aim on me. My back hit the wall and his big, hard body pressed into mine, and all I could think was finally.

His head tilted down and he held my gaze for so long I thought I’d faint from the intensity I saw there.

“You think,” he rasped in a rough whisper, “I did all this,” he threw his arm back toward the rest of the apartment, “as a stand-in for Raffie?”

Ninety percent no, and ten percent yes would’ve been my answer a few minutes ago. But I shook my head, because clearly his motivation was one hundred percent me.

“No,” he rumbled. If possible, he pushed even closer, and there was no doubting what his body intended. “For years, I’ve loved you the way a man loves and wants a woman.” Ho-lee shit. He bent his head further down until his lips were so close to mine, all I had to do was get up on my tiptoes to kiss him. “If Raffie was still alive, I would fight him for however long it took for him to know, I would love and cherish you for the rest of our lives.”

Hearing his words, words I’d been dreaming to hear for so many years, I couldn’t think anymore, all I could do was feel. So, even as the tears were coursing down my face, I grabbed onto his shoulders, pulled myself up, and did what I’d been wanting to do for most of my life. I kissed him. For about twenty seconds. Then he wrapped his long, strong arms around me and took over the kiss.

I knew he’d had lots of practice, so I expected him to be good at this, but for real, Jaden could kiss. His warm, firm lips pressed against mine as he tilted my head to where he wanted me to be. Slowly, he ran his tongue over my lips again and again, then he began to nibble on my lower lip and it felt so good, I gasped. As my mouth opened, his tongue slid inside, and I got to taste him for the first time, and found I’d been right. There was no ice cream, hell, there was nothing in the world that tasted as good as Jaden.

As he took the kiss deeper and wetter, his hands started roaming my back, slowly making their way down to my tush. When he squeezed hard, I got the message and did a little hop as he lifted me, which brought me face to face with the man I’d loved for as long as I had memory.

I wrapped my legs around him, and he pressed me even closer, still kissing me as a deep groan came up from his gut to his throat. I felt it. The whole of it. The pain of all the years he’d held onto what he’d wanted but couldn’t have, and the sheer pleasure of releasing all those emotions.

He ended the kiss, but kept his lips on mine as one of his hands fisted in my hair. “You love me?”

“Always have, and always will,” I whispered.

He backed up until he hit the bed, turned, leaned down, and placed me in the middle, then slowly he stood and did a thorough survey, his gaze lingering on my shoes. “Everything off but the shoes.”

I got up on my elbows and told him, “Bossy.”

“Baby, you’re about to learn just how bossy your husband is.”

I wanted to rub my hands together, then throw some sass to express my intention to torment him in the best possible way, but instead I decided to ask, “What if I say no?”

He grinned. “I was kinda hoping you would.” He pulled off his scrub top and undershirt in one fluid motion. I took in his broad chest with its light dusting of blond hair that thickened into a trail down the center of his stupendous abs. He let me look my fill, and when I licked my lips, he divested himself of the rest of his clothes, and stood gloriously naked at the foot of the bed where he began stroking his hard, thick cock.

Seventy-three thousand thoughts careened through my brain at the same time: totally proportional body; he’ll never fit; I want to wrap my lips around him and suck until his knees buckled; he’ll never fit; all this is mine, and I’ll make him fit because I’m not missing out on one millimeter of that gorgeous cock.

He leaned down, grabbed my ankles and yanked me until my tush was at the edge of the bed. He kneeled, pushed up my skirt, tossed my legs over his shoulders before lowering his head and began trailing kisses up from the back of my knee to the inside of my upper thigh. A fraction below my panty line, his kisses turned to sucking and licking so damn close to where I wanted him to be, I started writhing.

His grasped my hips and held me in place, his big hands keeping me still and he worked up from the back of my other knee to the same place on the inside of the opposite thigh, where he sucked and licked until I could take no more.

“Jaden,” I called, my voice husky in a way I’d never heard.

“Hmm?” he hummed against my skin.

“Quit tormenting me.”

He lifted his head and grinned. “I haven’t even gotten started.”

Before I could think of a good come-back, he lowered his head, pressed my thighs wider, then licked me through the lace of my apricot panties. To keep myself from flying off the bed, I fisted my hands in the comforter as he sucked, nipped, and nuzzled, the light scratch of the lace against my most sensitive skin making the torture more pronounced. When he moved the gusset aside and slid his finger inside me, my body clenched tight, readying for my release. I was so close, bare moments away from letting go when he removed his finger, and stopped.

“Hey,” I shouted, angling my head to see down my body to his smug smirk.

Before I could think of what to say next, he flipped me over, yanked my tush up so I was on my knees, and then he covered my back as he pushed up my sweater. His large hands covered my breasts, and so, so lightly he slowly rubbed his palms over my nipples.

Holy hell, he was going to kill me with restrained pleasure.

The curl in my stomach arrowed down to between my legs, and again I was climbing. This time, the sensations were layered on top of his earlier assault, and I knew my release would be huge.

Then he stopped. Again. And I screamed, “No.”

“Oh, yes.” He sat back, pulled me onto thighs, his arms circling my waist, then with his chin, he pushed my hair over my shoulder and began slowly licking his way up my neck to behind my ear, and back down. His hot breath caressed my skin as he began to nibble his way up and down my neck.

So softly, I had to strain to hear him over my heavy breathing, he told me, “Only after I’ve gotten you so hot and so wet you’ll be begging me to let you come, then, and only then, I’ll fuck you every way I can fuck you, so you’ll know you belong to me, and only me, until there’s nothing left of us but dust.

And he did everything he said he’d do. For the next six hours.

EPILOGUE

Kahli

Skye was Wiccan, and Hudson called himself a child of the universe. Jaden was raised celebrating the full moons, and Yule, the day of the winter solstice. Skye embraced the Wiccan belief that the shortest day of the year marked the end of the descent into darkness, and the beginning of the return of the light as the days began to get longer after the solstice. So Yule, as with many spiritual holidays, was a celebration of light, and a time of reflection.

Since the Schuylers were my family, and my beliefs aligned well enough with theirs, on December 21st we walked the trails in the Torrey Pines Reserve, then went back to Skye and Hudson’s house to eat way too much food, and open the presents we each bought or made for each other.

Skye had handmade a double wedding ring quilt in white and deep blue. “For my children,” she said, “this pattern has long been a symbol of love and romance, which I’m so unbelievably happy you found in each other.”

Before I could get too teary, Hudson handed me a set of car keys. “Don’t go gettin’ all choked up, girl. It’s a clunker I fixed up so you have your own car until you kids have enough dough to buy one for yourselves.”

As I was hugging Hudson, I got choked up, and he shook his head and laughed.

Jaden and I had talked a lot about what to get Skye and Hudson, who loved to travel but didn’t do as much of it as they probably wanted. We checked out “spiritual sites” and figured they’d totally be into a trip to the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico where they’d be able to visit Chichen Itza, the source of ancient Mayan culture dating back some two thousand years.

The minute Skye saw the tickets, she clapped and let out a “whoop” before she began telling us about the Mayans, and how they considered Chichen Itza a sacred site, and about the cenotes serving as a gateway to the Mayan underworld. We got a whole NatGeo-like mini-speech about how the natural sinkholes were believed to be sacred portals connecting the mortal world with the divine realm.

Jaden and I grinned at each other, knowing we’d given them a gift they’d remember forever.

It took me a while to figure out what to get Jaden. Axel was improving, but he’d had to have another surgery in the past month, and two more were scheduled for the first few months of the new year. So I did what I was good at: research. I located the best Orthotists and Prosthetists in the world. I called, researched some more, and compiled a pamphlet for Jaden with all the information I could find on each of the extraordinary Orthotists and Prosthetists. Even though I knew there were all sorts of databases with this kind of information, I wanted Jaden, who was beginning his career, to have more than rudimentary information filtered by other doctors who had their own favorites and biases.

When he opened the wrapping paper and saw the antique wooden box I put the pamphlet in, he said, “Kal, this is beautiful. I’m putting it on my desk, when I get one.”

“Open the lid,” I told him.

When he saw the pamphlet, he gave me a look I now saw often. Love, pure and true shined from his eyes. “Later,” he mouthed, and I knew he would take hours to show me how much he appreciated the gift.

The last box on the coffee table was the largest, and was wrapped in shiny silver paper. Jaden got up, came back to the love seat and put the box on my lap. He gave me a nod indicating I should open it. Carefully, I unwrapped the pretty paper so I could save it and the big white bow, only to find another wrapped box, this time the paper was white and the bow was silver. This went on for three more boxes, and each time I laughed at the silliness of it all.

Until I got to the light blue box. Anyone who knew jewelry understood where that box came from.

“If I may,” he said, and I nodded. He took out the box, got down on one knee, and asked, “Will you marry me?”

The tears came even as I smiled. “We’re married,” I whispered.

“Yeah, we are, but I wanted to make sure you knew, really knew, I loved you when I asked the first time.”

“I know.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Then he opened the box and inside was a perfect princess cut solitaire diamond.”

“Jaden,” I breathed out.

“Can’t have a wedding band without an engagement ring.”

“Sure you can.”

He shook his head. “Not my wife.” He leaned in and wiped the tears from my face with his thumb. “My vow, Kal: You’ll always know that I love you with everything I am.”

Then he slid the ring on my finger, looked up, and grinned.