In For Keeps

by Taryn Belle

  * * *

  When Dev reached for Kiki, she stood up and scrambled into his lap like a child, straddling her legs over him. He took her face in his hands, studying her while she did the same to him. Memorizing every plane of his face, those electric eyes, that errant lock of hair. “I love you so much,” Dev said thickly.

  “I love you more,” Kiki whispered, her eyes huge with emotion. What people said about heartbreak was wrong—you didn’t feel it in your heart. You felt it in your stomach, a tight, squeezing ball of pain that told you nothing would ever be the same again. That all the love in the world didn’t matter if it was built on a foundation she knew could collapse at any moment. But she had to believe they would be together again, that time and distance and uncertainty would be their allies because it would make them stronger than they could ever be right now.

  Kiki brought her mouth down on Dev’s. She slid her face against his, letting their tears mingle together. Dev wrapped his arms around her tightly and buried his face in her neck. He inhaled and exhaled over and over again, trying to come to terms with the agonizing future she’d just laid out for them. Kiki couldn’t get close enough to him. She pushed into him harder, as if she could absorb all of his pain into her. And now she could feel him between her legs, a thickness growing in spite of, or maybe because of, their sorrow. She rocked her hips back and forth ever so slightly.

  It was all the encouragement Dev needed. He reared his pelvis up, and a dam inside Kiki burst. She pressed her hands to his face and kissed him fiercely, so filled with need for him she could barely breathe. She wanted him to make the sweetest, slowest love to her and fuck her like an animal in heat at the same time. “Dev,” she whispered into his mouth. “I need you. One more time. Please.”

  He made a savage sound at the back of his throat as his mouth opened completely, his tongue finding hers. He sucked her lower lip, wound her hair around his hand and pulled her head back so he could bite her neck. She gasped, wanting more. It could never be enough with Dev. She could be with him for a thousand years and it wouldn’t be enough. The way he claimed her, she knew without a doubt she could never belong to anyone else.

  Trying to take this slowly was pointless. No foreplay was needed or wanted. Her pussy was already achingly wet, and she could feel him rock hard through his pants. They reached for each other at the same time, so frenzied with desire they nearly collided. She opened his zipper and pulled his cock free while Dev reached under her dress and moved her thong aside. Fully clothed, desperate for each other, consumed with one thing—being together as one. And then Dev was entering her, the sheer force of the incredible feeling knocking both of them back so that he was lying prone in the chair while Kiki fell backward with her hair brushing the floor. She threw her head forward again, her hair flying over her face as she looked down at the arousing place they were connected. Dev grabbed her by the hips, immobilizing her, and started thrusting into her like it was the last fuck of his life. Neither of them spoke. There was nothing left to say that they hadn’t said already, nothing that could bring them closer or further into love with each other. Just their bodies working together perfectly, Dev’s heavy breathing and Kiki’s small cries of rapture as they climbed upward together.

  Suddenly Dev stopped with her anchored onto his cock, and then he rose up from the chair and laid her out on the floor. The rug was thick enough to cushion her back, but Kiki loved the raw, slightly painful feeling of the hard wood beneath it. She wanted rug burns on her back tomorrow, a painfully stretched pussy, Dev’s bite marks on her neck.

  The added depth and thrust caused by the firm floor was driving both of them close to the edge. Dev was up on his hands driving into her like a madman. She wrapped her legs around his waist as she fell over the edge with a cry, feeling her body tense and shudder while time stood still. On and on her orgasm went, crest after crest of heat, as if her body knew this was the last time.

  When she finally opened her eyes, Dev was looking down at her with the tenderest expression she’d ever seen. His body was perfectly still on top of hers.

  “I’ll wait forever for you, Kiki,” he said hoarsely, and then he landed the softest kiss on her lips. She felt him thrust once, twice, and then he came with a brutal, almost violent force that seared their spirits together for all time.

  EPILOGUE

  “WELL, I GUESS that’s it,” Kiki said, sealing the last box with a length of packing tape and standing up. She rubbed at her lower back, sore from packing since early that morning. She hadn’t wanted any help with it, but her move had happened to coincide with one of Laina’s visits, so she had insisted on helping. Kiki glanced at her watch. “The movers should be here any minute to pick everything up. Thank God you wouldn’t take no for an answer—I had a lot more stuff than I thought I did. Amazing all the shit you collect over time.”

  “Well, you had a real life here,” Laina said gently.

  Kiki nodded sadly as she looked around the tiny cottage. This place had offered her solace for three pivotal years of her life. She’d laughed and cried here and spent countless evenings solving all of life’s problems over cookies or wine with Nicola. But now everything was changing. Two months ago Nicola had moved back to LA to be with Alex, and Kiki had even quit Pablo’s for a new career.

  Kiki put a hand on Laina’s arm. “Thanks again for being here. I know this isn’t your favorite place in the world anymore.”

  Laina shrugged. “I still love the island—it’s just my family that makes me crazy. Things have been better since I started avoiding them,” she finished with a lift of her chin, but Kiki couldn’t help but wonder if that was really true. The important thing was that her friend had recovered from the heartbreak that had rocked her nearly a year ago, and she seemed to be getting on with her life—at least to the rest of the world. Kiki knew all too well the strong currents that could lurk beneath a life that looked calm on the surface.

  She shook her head. “I can’t pretend that I’d be as big a person as you in your situation. Staying in my little hovel when you could live like a Kardashian just up the hill?”

  Laina grinned. “That’s the whole point. Even staying at the guesthouse—the emotional price is too high with my family. I guess I’ll just have to find a new best friend to stay with now that you’re moving.”

  “Yeah.” Kiki felt tears prick at her eyes as she looked around the room one last time, but she fought them back.

  Laina touched her arm. “Are you okay?”

  “No.” Kiki’s face lit up. “I’m fucking ecstatic, actually.”

  Laina laughed. “I am so proud of you, Mash. Everything you’ve been through, and now look at you.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t be happier for you.”

  Kiki’s chest filled. “True love is out there, Laina.”

  “For some, yes.”

  “No. For everyone. It just takes such a ridiculous leap of faith.” She grasped her friend’s hand. “I know it’s out there for you, too.”

  “I don’t think so. But that’s okay,” Laina added quickly. “I’m not looking for it. My life is good right now—I don’t even want it.”

  Kiki nodded. She remembered exactly what it was like to be in that place of denial, but she also knew that it wasn’t her place to tell her friend that. Everyone had their own journey, and love wasn’t something that could be picked up along the way and put in your pocket. It was a road you found yourself on with breathtaking hairpin turns and soul-swallowing potholes and the most aching beauty that existed. And getting through it sometimes meant hanging on for dear life.

  She walked to the door and turned toward her friend. “Ready?”

  * * *

  Kiki felt Dev before she saw him. Sitting in the lobby of The Palms with her iPad in hand, busily typing an email, she jumped when she felt something burrowing into her neck. “Shit!” she cried out, and then she laughed when Dev turned his face toward her. />
  “You’re late,” he said, nibbling at her ear while his hand slipped discreetly up her shirt. “Everyone’s already in the restaurant.”

  “And I’m going to be a lot later if I don’t get these emails done.” Kiki tried batting his hand away, but she knew it was pointless. If Dev wanted to touch her, he was going to touch her. That insistency was one of the things she loved most about him. It was what got her into bed with him each night, made her climax more times than she’d thought humanly possible, reminded her daily of her beauty and worth, forced her to deal with her issues and even kept her from working too hard. But most important, it was what had brought them back together after eight excruciating months apart.

  Physically apart, that was, because Kiki hadn’t been separated from Dev emotionally for even a second. They’d talked every single day while he was still on tour, after agreeing to put the subject of “them” aside and just focus on what grew outside of their insane sexual chemistry. After Dev had returned to Moretta full-time, he’d announced some big changes in his life: Bix was history, and so was touring. He’d moved into the role of songwriter and producer, doing most of his work from his home studio, and he’d never been happier. That’s when he’d come to Kiki with a proposal—that she work for him as his publicist with a very specific goal in mind. Together they’d mapped out a plan that Kiki could only describe as incredibly courageous and perfectly Dev. It began with an article for Rolling Stone about his lifelong anxiety. He’d laid it all out—his early substance abuse, the panic attacks, the prescription drugs, the secret shame and debilitation he thought he’d never be able to get in front of. After that Kiki had made his social media a platform for anxiety, using discussion prompts and old photos of him on tour to help crack the image of the infallible rock star—already part of Dev’s passion, but taken a big step further. The outpouring of support had been overwhelming, with other celebrities coming out of the woodwork with their own stories. The offshoot result had been a brand-new career for Kiki as a social media manager to the stars. It was the perfect job, allowing her to work from Moretta, and she could barely keep up with the demand.

  At first, Kiki had wondered how she and Dev would manage a professional relationship without crossing any lines, but they’d done it by keeping most of their communications remote. In the meantime, their companionship had only grown. They’d spent hours talking, laughing and sometimes crying on the phone, until one night Kiki realized that her fear was gone. Dev was as rock-solid as they came, and there was nothing that was going to scare him away from her. In the middle of the night, she’d taken the caricature drawing they’d had made in Venice and taped it to his front door along with a sticky note with two little words: “Never readier.” Dev had shown up at her door the next morning with a smile bright enough to light up the whole island, and they’d spent the next twenty-four hours in a relentless, fevered state of reconciliatory bliss.

  Dev rubbed a thumb over the thin fabric of Kiki’s bra and tugged on her hair lightly, a promise of what was to come later. “I’ll meet you in there.”

  “I’ll be fast,” Kiki promised, giving him a quick kiss before returning to her work. She finished the email, details for a media tour one of her clients was starting in a few days, and clicked off her iPad. There was plenty more work she could do, but tonight was special. It was Dev’s birthday, and he’d only wanted one thing besides Kiki wrapped up in a bow. By the time she and Dev got home from having dinner, his gift would be waiting for him: his house filled with her boxes. It was a step she never imagined she’d take again with any man, but with Dev it wasn’t even scary. It felt perfectly right, because she knew there would be a million imperfect moments ahead and that they would handle them all together.

  Kiki entered the restaurant and glanced around, looking for their table. It was busy tonight, as it always was at The Palms, with loud chatter competing with the classical music. Kiki spotted Laina, who was sitting with a few of Dev’s and Kiki’s other friends. “Where’s Dev?” she asked Laina as she sat down, and then she did a double take. “And what’s that funny look on your face?”

  Laina gave her a mischievous smile, but she didn’t answer her. Kiki followed her eyes to the corner of the room. Dev was standing there with a microphone in his hand, clearly waiting for her to notice him. “What...?” Kiki’s jaw dropped as he caught her eye and gave her that carefree, sexy grin she loved so much.

  Dev stepped forward, and the room immediately quieted to a hush. He tapped the microphone jokingly before speaking into it. “Hi, everyone. I’m Dev, and it’s my birthday.”

  A roar of approval and applause filled the room.

  “I’m just hoping you’ll bear with me for a few moments. There’s a woman in this room whom I love with all of my heart, and I happen to owe her a song.”

  Kiki couldn’t breathe as she watched him move across the room and take a seat...at the piano. A shiver of emotion ran up her spine. Oh, Dev...

  “A while ago she asked me to play the piano for her, but I couldn’t do it. But now I can, and it’s all because of her. So I hope I don’t break all of your ears, because I’m extremely rusty and I’m going to play a new song. But, Kiki, this one’s for you. I love you with every part of my heart and soul, Strawberry.”

  Kiki watched, mesmerized. Dev began to play a slow melody, and then he started to sing. A beautiful ballad about kisses on the beach and everlasting passion and trust and heartache and eternal love. Kiki’s hand stayed frozen to her heart for the entire song, her eyes glued to him. It was too incredible. He was too incredible. To her the song sounded flawless, but maybe that was because she knew it was just for her.

  When it was over, she stood up amid the clapping and cheering and went straight for him. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him deeply enough to embarrass the entire room, but she didn’t care. One year ago today, on a sofa in his music studio, Dev had made her his. It had been the beginning of forever.

  * * *

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  CHAPTER ONE

  Megan

  “HE WANTS YOU to do what?”

  Heavy spring rain pummels the Manhattan streets, along with the café’s windows as I sip my mocha latte and take in Amanda’s wide-eyed stare. Thick, black lashes blink rapidly as she works to absorb this crazy turn of events; and for God’s sake if she doesn’t pick her jaw up from the table, she’s going to catch the fly buzzing around her jelly-filled doughnut.

  “I know. Insane, right?” I say to my best friend, and give a slow shake of my head, still unable to believe what billionaire James Carson has asked me to do. Although, I have to admit, I’m more shocked that I actually agreed to do it. I mull it over for a second and a burst of unease moves through me as I think about putting his plan into motion. Am I making a big mistake? Maybe I shouldn’t have agreed to it at all.

  Amanda lifts her mug to her mouth and looks at me over the rim before asking, “Is the man losing his mind?”

  “He’s ninety.” I flip my hand over. “So, I get why you’d think that, but after talking to him it’s clear he’s as sharp now as he was when I met him back in high school. Hard to believe he’s playing with a full deck, though, considering what he wants me to do.”

  Every time the bell over the door chimes as it opens, my stomach does a little somersault. I’m far more nervous about this afternoon’s meeting than I thought I would be. It’s been eight years since I’ve set eyes on Alec Carson. Eight long years and I’ve never stopped thinking about him. Never stopped wanting to stab him in the eye with a fork.