Текст книги "The Song Remains the Same"
Автор книги: Kelli Jean
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 1 (всего у книги 28 страниц)
Copyright © 2015 by Kelli Jean
All rights reserved.
Visit my website at www.kellijeanauthor.com
Cover Designer: RE Creatives, https://recreativesdesigns.wordpress.com
Editor and Interior Designer: Jovana Shirley, Unforeseen Editing, www.unforeseenediting.com
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
For Espen
Part I
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Part II
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Epilogue
Special Thanks
About the Author
Kenna
“Dr. Kenna? I’m stuck.”
“We have to get her out! The lines are gonna blow!”
Surrounded by hellfire, thick black smoke burns my lungs. Walls, ceiling, everything are licking tongues of flames. Hissing, it whispers the deadliest secrets in my ringing ears.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” it tells me. “I want to feel my fists in your hair, pulling back your head…”
“It doesn’t hurt,” Lucy says. “I just can’t move. Please, I just want to get out.”
“Okay, Lucy. We’re getting you out.”
Fuck, it’s hot.
It’s all around us. It wants us.
What the fuck is that noise?
A snarling, snapping, starving beast, unsatisfied with what it’s already gotten, wants to devour us, too.
“Don’t go anywhere.”
“Go! Go! Go!” screams Gavin, grabbing Lucy by the hair.
I grab a fistful, too, and we haul ass out the door.
There’s no sun, no trees, nothing but blackness. Behind us, the inferno rages its orange light, showing distorted figures twisting and wasting away.
Lucy ascends, her dead body seized by the beast. Airless lungs fill, and her eyes open wide, seeing, looking, knowing something we can’t know. Her mouth opens into a massive O, elongating her face and dropping her jaw too far. From inside her, the beast’s roar unleashes. She pulls us into her chest.
“Ow! Fuck, Luce—”
BOOM!
Phil
“Fuck! Luce!”
Kenna’s screams had me up in a frenzy. I couldn’t believe I had fallen asleep after we’d gotten home, but I must’ve passed the fuck out. For a second, I had no clue what in the hell was going on or even where I was.
I grabbed her, trying to hold her down, but she was thrashing something fierce and ended up whacking me in the face with her forearm.
“Shit!” Jumping to my knees, I wrapped my arms around her flailing body.
Stiffening, she released a scream fit to tear the ceiling loose. I was fucking terrified she’d do some damage to her insides, going spastic like this.
“Help!” I roared. “Someone fuckin’ help!”
Thunder from the stairs pounded its way toward us, and Connor exploded into the room. Lights slammed on, blinding me for a moment.
“She’s havin’ some sort of nightmare!” I explained, tasting blood. My Baby Girl had busted my lip wide open.
Alys and X peeled into the room, out of breath, looking as though the dead walked among us.
“Phil?” Kenna’s confused voice rasped along my hearing, scratching at my heart.
I looked down into my Baby Girl’s face. She looked lost, her eyes unfocused, as she tried to find me.
“Yeah, Baby Girl,” I replied, my arms tightening around her.
She can’t hear you, dumbass.
No, but she felt my voice.
Sighing, she relaxed.
“It hurts,” she told me quietly.
Fucking hell, she was breaking me. Gently, I placed my hand on her face, and she closed her eyes, tears squeezing out.
“Where are her meds?” asked Connor.
“One of the front pockets in my pants,” I replied, swallowing past the lump in my throat. “On the floor.”
“I’ll get some water,” said Alys.
X, looking woozy, just stood there and stared.
We fuckin’ stank to high hell—all old sweat and adrenaline, toxic smoke and ash. Raw meat and blood and open wounds held the past day on us like a film of awfulness. Kenna had wanted a shower when we got home, but I had told her no, and she hadn’t fought me on it.
Kenna whimpered, and my heart cracked in half.
My sweet woman, give me your pain. Let me take it from you.
Alys came back with a glass of water, and Connor handed me two pills.
“Should she eat something?” whispered Alys. “When was the last time she ate anything?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, helping Kenna to sit up.
She took the Vicodin pills from me, making a face. I glared at her, and she popped them in her mouth, letting me hold the glass to her lips.
“Weed?” Kenna’s voice sounded hopeful.
“Shit, I could use some myself,” grunted Connor, opening the nightstand drawer.
“I’m going to make her some food,” said Alys, her voice growing strong with conviction. Food made shit all right. “Anyone want a sandwich?”
X grunted in the affirmative and followed her out of the room.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Connor sparked a spliff—there goes the hippie lingo again—and handed it over to me. Kenna plucked it from my fingers and took a few hard drags.
“Can I have some more water?”
She downed the rest of the glass, and then Connor headed to the bathroom to refill it. The scent of bacon goodness came wafting up into the room, and my gut let me know that Alys’s efforts were greatly appreciated. I was fucking starving.
Connor placed the refilled glass on the nightstand.
“I remember,” Kenna said, picking at a bit of the bandage on her right arm.
I took her fingers in my hand to stop her. At her words, Connor twitched, mimicking the feeling my heart just made.
“We blew up.”
Kissing her temple, I was afraid to hold her any tighter. Instead, I rocked her from side to side in the hopes that it would soothe her.
“Lucy’s dead, isn’t she?” she said loudly, since she couldn’t hear herself. “And Charlotte. She never made it out.”
“I don’t know, Baby. We were only concerned about you,” I replied.
I turned her face up, and her eyes were so sad.
“What happened?” she asked.
All of me sort of sagged into myself. I had no idea how to tell a deaf person what she needed to hear.
Connor placed a hand on her foot, and her eyes drifted toward him. He mimed writing something, and she pointed to her bookshelf. Pen and paper in hand, Connor scribbled and then passed the paper over to her.
Someone with a bomb blew up Rita’s office. It triggered two more explosions. The last one was from the gas line. You and Gavin made it out.
“Lucy? We took Lucy with us. She was hurt bad.”
Connor scribbled again.
We don’t know. We’ll find out more tomorrow, okay?
Kenna nodded.
A few minutes later, Alys and X showed up with BLTs, and we all dug in.
“I guess we’re not going to Italy,” Kenna mentioned quietly. “The fucker.”
“Who?” I asked around a mouthful of BLT.
She didn’t answer. She hadn’t heard me. This was gonna take some getting used to. I grabbed the pad and paper.
Do you know who the bomber was?
Turning to look at me, her busted eye gave me a weird, sick feeling in my chest. It reminded me of the Sith Lord eyes from Star Wars.
“My guess is that Kyle guy.”
Kyle fuckin’ Whitestone, Rita Holmes’s psycho stalker.
“I thought he’d been arrested?” said Alys from her spot on the floor.
“He’s been in a nuthouse for the last month,” I replied, the inferno rising in me.
Kenna shrugged. Feeling my voice, she leaned back into my chest and scarfed down her sandwich. We finished the food in silence.
Half-eaten sandwich in hand, X’s head dropped back onto the edge of the bed, snoring.
“Come on,” said Connor. He and Alys heaved the soulless ginger to his feet. “Just shout if you need help,” Connor said to me over his shoulder. On the way out, he flicked off the light and quietly closed the door.
Cradling my Baby Girl in my arms, I wrapped her up in all the warmth, safety, and strength I had in me. She drifted back to sleep, knocked out by the Vicodin.
While a shift change had been going on, Kyle Whitestone had slipped out of the nuthouse and headed straight to a storage unit stashed with his homemade pyrotechnics. The motherfucker had had no plans on coming out alive. He’d sewn that shit into a vest and detonated it while bear-hugging Rita.
The woman had essentially vaporized. The only things the search-and-rescue team had found of her were her legs from the knees down, preserved by her designer boots.
The second explosion had killed Charlotte. The ceiling had come crashing down in her room, crushing her. Her remains had been recovered and identified through dental records two days later.
Lucy had died when the last explosion threw Kenna and Gavin across the street. Kenna had told me how Lucy had pulled them into her chest, shielding them from further injury. That shit gave me goose bumps every fuckin’ time I thought about it.
In all, fourteen other staff members of the Center for Radiant Health along with a handful of clients had been killed.
Day four after the shit had gone down, the battle between Kenna and me began. My Baby Girl refused to take any more pain meds.
“I don’t need them. I can’t tell how well I’m healing if I’m fucked up on those things.”
I grabbed the notepad we’d been using and wrote:
It’s to help keep you still, so you won’t overdo shit!
Tossing the notepad at me, she stubbornly replied, “I don’t need them to not overdo anything,” she snapped. “I can smoke weed instead. I’m not taking them anymore.”
It’s killing me that you’re hurting! Please just take them. It won’t be for forever.
“No.” Kenna chucked the notepad across the living room.
I stormed out to the back porch, feeling fit to break something. There was no satisfaction in having a fight when I had to fuckin’ write everything down—and not when Gavin was sitting next to her on the couch, watching the fuckin’ Food Network with the closed caption on. Gavin was one badass motherfucker though. He’d insisted on coming over to be with Kenna. By the third day, we’d just told his brother, Frank, to pack up what he’d need, so he could stay with us. It was good for Kenna and Gavin to have one another. They really understood each other.
“You all right, man?” Connor asked, coming out onto the porch.
“Naw, man. I’m not.”
“You know how she is.”
“Yeah, I know she’s a stubborn little shit! But it’s been four fuckin’ days since she was nearly killed—”
“Like that makes a difference. Dude, you just gotta pick and choose the battles from here on out. If she doesn’t take the pain meds, it ain’t the end of the world.”
“She needs to rest, and the meds knock her out.”
“She hates the way they make her feel. To be honest, I think she’s been taking them this long for you. They’ve been keeping her in a mental fog, suppressing her emotional pain, and she knows she has to face it.”
“Can’t she do that when she’s better?” I asked, exasperated.
Connor shook his head. “She wants to meditate, Phil. She can’t do that while she’s on the meds. They fuck up her frequencies.”
“What the fuck does that even mean?”
“She can’t seek her inner space when she’s that doped up on synthetic garbage.”
“You fuckin’ hippie kids,” I muttered.
Connor shrugged. “We are what we are.”
Rolling my eyes, I said, “Right. I gotta get rid of this energy. I’m hittin’ the weights and shit. I’ll be back later.”
“I’ll tell her,” he said, copping a squat.
At home in my gym, I worked out until I could hardly move. Dripping sweat with my heart pumping and muscles aching, I felt a hell of a lot better. At least I would be ready to face Kenna without wanting to spank her.
Fuck.
Sex hadn’t crossed my mind since I’d sweet-banged her in the shower before the bombing. Kenna was broken, inside and out. That was a sure-fire guarantee for me to not think about having sex with her. Now that I was alone and not gazing lovingly into her Sith Lord eyeball, I could see her as she had been before getting blown up.
Her injuries didn’t make her any less beautiful to me, but it’d squashed the shit out of my sex drive—as it fuckin’ should have. Hell, I couldn’t even remember the last time I had whacked off. But I was gonna fuckin’ do so now.
Blasting the hot water, I sat on the stone bench.
Yeah…
I thought of the first time in here with her after we had waited for the right time to fuck, and she’d dropped to her knees, wrapped her lips around me, and taken the whole fuckin’ thing…the first time I’d sunk into her, feeling my balls tap her ass…
“Oh, fuuuck…” My head banged back against the tiles.
The sweet fuckin’ taste of her sugary slice, how tight she grips me when I’m buried inside her, that tiny little heartbeat that makes my dick tingle, the noises she makes in the back of her throat—it all drives me wild.
“Baby…” I moaned, working my fist up and down my dick, wishing it were her tight little cunt.
Kenna could ride me for hours. She had the strength and stamina to do it and loved every fuckin’ second of it.
“Fuck yesss…” I groaned as the thought of her punishing me in LA danced its ass through my head.
My dick swelled, and my balls drew up, my tailbone sparkling with tingles. Fuck, I was so close. Just thinking of her wet pussy hovering right above my face, her fingers rubbing my sugary slice—
Cum shot out of me, full fuckin’ force, and there was a lot of it. Heart pounding, legs shaking, I was blissed the fuck out. The next time I fucked my Baby Girl, I was gonna bang her so hard that we’d both be walking funny.
The breath froze in my chest.
Kenna was so badly beaten already, her body full of bruises and scrapes…there was no way…
She was the only person in the whole fuckin’ world I could lose control with.
Oh, fuck…there’s no way I’d be able to hold back, not after this long.
There was nothing in the world I loved more than that woman. The way her eyes lit up a fuckin’ room, how her smile made my heart trip up in my chest. Her laugh made me high from just listening to it. The sound of her voice never failed to command my attention. And she asked for nothing. She just gave me her love in the hopes that I’d return it.
I loved how there was always something for us to talk about. I loved seeing how she looked at the world, how she tried to see the good in everyone, how easily she forgave people and their fuck-ups. I loved how I’d catch her looking at me like I was the greatest fuckin’ thing since sliced organic bread. She’d blush and smile her secret smile.
All the things I loved about her, the things about her that made her who she was—that was what I’d never be able to live without.
I’d had the greatest sex of my life with her, and it’d only gotten better the more we had done it. But the sex would always be second. It wasn’t why I loved her. It was as great as it was because of what she meant to me, what she represented in my life.
When it came down to it, I could live without fuckin’ my Baby Girl. But I couldn’t fuckin’ live without her.
Kenna
Pain had become the undercurrent to my existence. I’d made the decision not to take any more painkillers, and I was sticking to it. My body had taken a hell of a beating, but after four days of being out of my skull, I was done. Not even Phil could make me change my mind, and he was probably the only thing that actually could. The way he looked at me sometimes…it tore at me in weird ways.
From experience, I knew that masking the pain didn’t help. Even the physical aspect could teach me a lesson. I needed to know how I was healing, how quickly, and what I could do to speed up the process.
When I was on Vicodin, I could hardly move, and that in itself was no good. The first few days had been fine, but I’d hardly eaten, and I had been growing weak. I needed to be able to eat without wanting to vomit.
I had weed in large supply, so I was able to relax without drifting off into a coma. The Vicodin sucked me down so hard that it would make me dream and relive the nightmare. When I wasn’t on it, my dreams would be light or wouldn’t reveal themselves at all.
Gavin and I had lost good friends—Lucy, Charlotte, Rita. Everyone had been such a permanent part of our lives for so long that it was hard to believe they had simply ceased to exist.
Once the drug fog had cleared from my head, I was able to practice meditating with ease. I would sink deep inside myself, passing the physical pangs and twinges of a healing busted body into a state of peaceful consciousness.
“Hey, Baby Girl.”
How I missed that voice. I had no way of listening to Phil unless I was here—where a part of me was a part of him. He would tell me what was in my heart because it was in his. I could see it in his eyes whenever I looked into them.
Days lapsed, and I’d find myself in deep meditation more and more. Phil would leave, and I’d feel so lonely without his energy that I would be compelled to just leave the world behind. He’d come back, freshly showered, and find me in the backyard in lotus pose. Upon ascension, I’d open my eyes, and he’d be sitting next to me, quiet, his hand in mine. He might not be meditating himself, but he would tune his energy low and simply relax with me.
Phil looked thinner. When he took off his clothes before we would go to bed, I could see it. He’d keep his boxers on, and he wouldn’t let me get naked either. It would make my heart twinge, knowing he didn’t have much of an appetite.
The shadows had returned in his eyes, and I knew I was the one who had put them there. He was frustrated, hurting, and wanting to have a simple conversation with me without having to write an essay.
When it came time for the memorial service a week and a half after the explosion, I was feeling a lot stronger, in both body and mind. It was a bright and sunny Tuesday, a little cool. It reminded me of Lucy. She would’ve remarked on what a beautiful day it was.
Alys drove her SUV with Lili and Lewis. Gavin rode with Frank, who would be taking him back home afterward. Tim chauffeured the rest of us in the black band van.
I wasn’t crushed with my grief like I thought I should’ve been. If I could hear how bereaved everyone else was, I might have been able to feel it more. Then again, I’d spent the last week mourning deeply. Gavin and I had wept together for hours. I’d wept in Phil’s arms throughout the nights when I thought I had no more tears left. Perhaps I’d faced the pain and come out of it already.
As I sat in a pew toward the back of the Baptist church, watching those who had lost loved ones weep and wail, I felt…at peace. The people who were gone had enriched my life. I loved them. That wasn’t about to change just because they weren’t here. I was happy to have had the privilege of knowing them, working with them, and learning from them.
On my right sat Gavin, his shoulder pressed into mine. He’d taken a Vicodin before coming in, and he was a bit fuzzy in the eyes. On my left sat Phil, holding my hand, twisting my engagement ring between his callous long fingers. He had beautiful musician hands, strong and graceful.
Phil had shaven and trimmed his sideburns. He smelled utterly divine. Dressed in his charcoal-gray vest and suit with a pale gray button-down shirt and black tie, he looked fucking fine. His cheekbones appeared sharper, his jaw was more defined, and his mouth was a full-lipped soft contrast.
When was the last time we kissed? I mean, really kissed.
I wanted to kiss him right then and there, which would be extremely inappropriate.
Rachel, Lucy’s pretty older sister with golden hair, was giving a heartfelt speech about the loss of her only sibling. At least, I was sure she was as I sat here, fantasizing about Phil’s gorgeous mouth.
Sensing my gaze, he turned and looked into my eyes, and we connected. It had been a while since something powerful zipped between us, and I could see he felt it, too.
Phil’s pupils dilated, and I smiled, really smiled, like I hadn’t done in over a week. It caught him by surprise, and his dimples punched into his hollow cheeks. Warmth built up between us, pulsing with our heartbeats.
He’s bringing me to life once more.
Of course he was. He was the only one who could. I could see it in him, too. He was swelling with the life force that had been bombed to hell a week and a half ago. We were reaching for each other, desperate to reconnect, to—
Panic suddenly flashed in Phil’s eyes, and the energy that had plumped up between us started to shrink.
No! Don’t do this!
I begged him silently not to pull back, but he slightly shook his head. We couldn’t talk about this here. We were at a funeral service for seventeen people, for the love of the gods.
The force with which I clutched his hand could possibly crack bone, an echo of the panic that had flashed in his eyes. He squeezed back, not half as hard.
An evil little voice snaked its way into my head. He doesn’t want you anymore. You’re hideous. Have you seen yourself recently? Sure, he loves you, but who would want to kiss a face that’s scabbed up, busted, and sporting an eye that could turn a person to stone?
What if, even after I heal, he looks at me and still only sees this?
Phil hadn’t kissed me. He hadn’t touched me, other than to hold my hand or hold me when I needed a hug. He’d been treating me as a…friend.
Oh. My. God.
A flash of horror seized my heart, and I found I could cry after all.
What if I lived through this fucking hell, only to have Phil turned off from ever wanting to touch me again? If that’s the case, I wish I’d never made it out alive. I’d rather be dead than live with the knowledge that Phil could stop being in love with me.
Closing my eyes, I willed myself into my suspended deep state, tranquility enveloping me.
“Are you here?”
“I’m always here, Baby Girl.”
“Do you still love me?”
“Always, always, always. You are my heart and soul, my reason for bein’. Don’t for a second think I could stop wantin’ to be a part of you. Shit’s messed up, is all. As long as we exist, I will always, always, always love you, body, heart, and soul.”
Don’t leave me.
“Never, Baby Girl.”
After the service, Gavin and I had to greet the families and loved ones of our lost comrades.
Exhausted, hurting, and deaf, we met their parents, siblings, husbands, wives, and children. It wasn’t easy. It was painful to be the only ones who’d made it out alive. Mothers and fathers had perished in that building, and there Gavin and I were, unmarried, with no family to support. I wondered if they blamed us for making it out.
Phil stood patiently beside me, his arm around my waist, lending me his strength. He shook their hands, gracious and empathetic.
Rachel threw herself into his arms and bawled her eyes out. Phil looked stunned, having never met the woman before. After a few minutes, he just wrapped his arms around her and hugged her back.
Gavin exchanged a look with me, and I shrugged. I wouldn’t mind a Phil-sized hug either, if I could get one. Maybe a tongue-tangling kiss, too, for good measure.
By the end of the service, I was fried. I wanted out of my black dress and high heels.
When we got home, Phil ordered pizzas. I changed into my sweatpants and NOLA’s Junk tank top. Snuggled in Phil’s lap, I pressed my lips to his neck and felt his pulse jump. His arms wrapped around me, and he held me tight.
Neither of us mentioned the spark that had leaped between us. I had the feeling that Phil didn’t even want to acknowledge it.
Phil
Fuck, that feels good. God, I don’t want it to end…
My own moan woke my ass up.
A soft, warm hand stroked my dick nice and slow, just how I liked it.
“Uhhhh…” I groaned, feeling it deep in my chest. I smelled apple shampoo, felt Baby Girl’s hair tickling my cheek.
Fuck, she knows just how to touch me.
Fuck! She’s fuckin’ touching me!
Her hand was down my boxers, stroking me like no one’s business. Fuck me running, I didn’t want her to stop. It was hers, damn it. She owned me, all of me. I’d been dyin’ to feel her, for her to heal up.
Before I lost my damn mind, I grabbed her hand and pulled her off me.
“Please,” she whispered. Turning her head on my shoulder, she pressed a kiss to my chest. “I miss you so much.”
“I miss you, too. More than you know.”
Raising her head, she met my eyes. It broke my heart, seeing the sense of rejection in them.
I ain’t rejectin’ you, Baby Girl. I’m not. It just ain’t fuckin’ fair.
“You don’t kiss me anymore.” She gasped, and tears pooled in her eyes, making my chest cave in. “You hardly touch me. I…am I that repulsive? Do I really look that bad?”
Oh, God…
I shook my head. “No. You’re more beautiful today than you ever were. How can you think that?” Letting go of her wrist, I curved my hand along the side of her face. I knew that, even though she hadn’t heard my words, she could read some of what I’d said.
“Then…what is it?”
“You’re not well,” I said slowly, looking her dead in the eyes.
“I’m well enough to give you a hand job,” she declared, all stubborn and shit.
“Yeah, but how is that fair to you?”
She shrugged. “Please, let me touch you.”
I kissed her between her eyebrows, holding her tight enough to let her know that I loved to hold her. “No, Kenna.”
I was gonna have to go home and take care of my aching dick now. Alone. I was dreaming of the day when I could let him go back home to her.
“Phil?” Kenna sounded so scared and lost as I got out of bed.
Doesn’t she realize how this is cutting me up?
I’d nearly lost her. She had come so close to getting herself killed. She needed time before we could do that shit.
Looking at her as I tugged on my pants, I shook my head again. “No, not yet.”
“Why can’t I touch you?” She sounded close to panic, and tears from her emerald eyes spilled over.
Getting on my knees next to the bed, I took her hands in mine, kissed her palms, and looked into her eyes. “Because it’s not right.”
Her face showed pain and shock.
Maybe those weren’t the right words.
“It’s not fair,” I amended.
“What?”
Looking around the room, I searched for the notepad and pen, finding it on the dresser.
It’s not okay with me for you to give me that when I can’t give it back.
“I want to though. I love touching you. It makes me feel good.”
Hearing that didn’t help. My dick twitched, wanting nothing more than to help my woman feel good about herself. She saw it, too, and looked up at me, all hopeful.
“It ain’t happenin’!” I snapped, feeling cornered.
Kenna’s eyes watered again, and her lower lip quivered before she could suck it into her mouth. I groaned, wishing she were sucking on something else.
Zipping up my pants wasn’t easy. Ready to bust a nut, I couldn’t get out of there quickly enough. The wounded look in her eyes was doing me in. I wasn’t handling this the right way, but I was scared she’d convince me that it would be okay when I knew it wasn’t.
Shit, I was gonna go fuckin’ crazy. I thought it’d be easy to just abstain for a little bit, but she was healing up so fast, looking more perfect each morning we woke up.
Yesterday, at the memorial service, she had looked up at me, and I had felt my Baby Girl peering into my soul. I’d wanted to kiss her with everything I fuckin’ had, and it had been damn near overwhelming. It had been so good, sensing her come back to herself, to me.
“Don’t leave,” she whimpered.
Shutting my eyes to the sight of her pain, I replied, “I have to.”
“No…”
Pulling on my shirt, I headed for the door. A sob caught in her chest, and I stormed out. I was halfway down the steps when I stopped.
That was my woman I’d just left, looking like the world had collapsed around her. She was thinking I didn’t find her beautiful, that I didn’t want her ’cause she was busted up. All she wanted was to touch me, to make me feel good, and I was bailing on her like she was a cheap one-nighter. Kenna didn’t deserve to be left like that.
Spinning around, I stormed back up the steps, busting into the room. I was before her in two strides, taking her precious face in my hands and kissing her with every ounce of love and devotion I had in me. I forced it past her lips, driving it into her lungs.
My Baby Girl tasted so fine, so sweet, smooth and buttery, cream and honey. So fuckin’ good. I fuckin’ ate her face, trying to let her know that the pull between us wasn’t dead in me.
“I fuckin’ love you, Kenna,” I harshly told her, pressing my forehead to hers. “I fuckin’ love you so much that I can’t even…the second the doctor gives us the okay, I’m fuckin’ tearin’ you up, I promise. But until then, you have to just fuckin’ suck it up and wait with me.”
Whatever she wanted, if I could give it, it would be hers. It was killing me, denying what was between us, but what she needed right now was my protection.
Even if I was protecting her from herself.
So, I went home. I whacked off. I worked out. I showered and whacked off again, thinking about how awesome her hand had felt on me.
Then, I jumped in the truck and drove my ass to the studio. Working with the Space Monkeys, I stayed away from my Baby Girl all fuckin’ day, not coming home until after dinner.
I found her in the backyard, sitting in lotus pose, serene and quiet. I was itching something fierce just to talk to her. I knew she’d understand if she could hear my words, my voice.
My voice was her most favorite thing in the world. She’d listened to it every day for the last eight years, letting it soothe her when she needed it, getting her amped up, making her feel sexy. How it did all that, I wasn’t too sure. I knew chicks dug the deep voice, but it was more than that for her.
Kenna stretched her hand out, palm up, and I took it. How she knew I was there when she couldn’t hear me…I guessed it wasn’t so weird. When she was scared or hurting or happy or whatever, I could feel it.
I always felt her.
A tickle above my heart that sent shit to my head made me hear tunes and notes that inspired music. She was happy when I heard violins or an acoustic guitar strum. Sadness sounded like piano. Maybe that was why I didn’t like playing one so much. Anger was furious drumming and screaming electrics. Depressed or fuckin’ orgasmic, it all just played in my head and let me know where she was in hers.
