Counting on Cayne (Hallow River Book 1)

by Rome, Ada

  I started to peep out a protest, but she cut me short.

  “Do…you…understand…me?” She spaced out her words with precision and weight. She gripped my hands tight.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said weakly.

  At that moment, Georgie ran into the kitchen with an excited squeal and leapt onto Aunt Lu’s lap. He wore a pajama set covered in little pictures of trains and carried a stuffed green dragon. Displaying a child’s innate empathy, he saw my red eyelids and wet tear-streaked cheeks and thrust the dragon across the table.

  “Here,” he said with high-pitched emphasis. I laughed despite myself, took the dragon, and hugged it tightly to my chest.

  “Thank you,” I said as he gazed back at me with innocent saucer eyes. I looked up at Aunt Lu and managed a thin smile.

  “Thank you,” I repeated.

  She nodded and smoothed Georgie’s corn silk hair.

  Chapter 8

  “You look beautiful.” Cayne looked admiringly at me as he opened the door of his pickup truck. The sky glowed rose with the last flickers of sunset. He offered a hand to boost me into the front passenger seat. “New dress?” His eyes rested hungrily on my chest and the deep cleavage revealed by my plunging neckline.

  “As a matter of fact, it is.” The dress, which I’d picked up at a local shop on my way home from work, was a pale yellow cotton in an eyelet print with a halter top that tied around my neck, a high waist, and a short flared skirt. The back was low and open. I felt Cayne’s cool hand sweep down my spine just before I dropped into the seat.

  “So, where are we headed?” I asked. As usual, Cayne was behaving as a man of few words and many mysteries. After calling me earlier in the day to invite me to dinner, he had refused to give any direct answers to my several inquiries about our plans.

  Now, in response to my question, he just grinned, his dimple popping adorably into place, and ran his hand under my yellow skirt and smoothly up my thigh, stopping with his fingers just brushing against the seams of my panties. I could feel myself already getting wet. My nipples grew hard under the thin cotton of my halter top. My body reacted to Cayne’s nearness with an electric power that I had difficulty controlling. I felt my neck prickle pink and took a deep breath to steady my pulse.

  He maneuvered through the quiet streets in the gathering twilight and stopped in front of an industrial-style cement building. A hand-painted sign over the entrance read Hallow River Community Center in bright green, red, and blue letters.

  “Here we are.” Cayne put the car in park and looked over at me.

  “This is our destination? The rec center?” It was the place where I had spent nearly every Saturday morning from the time I was five years old until I was eighteen. It was where I first learned to dance and where I later taught classes.

  Fluttering paper flyers taped to the windows advertised story time readings and basketball tryouts. A row of abstract preschooler art rested on the inner window ledge.

  “It sure is our destination.” Cayne laughed at my dismay. “Don’t ever say that I don’t know how to show a lady a good time. Come on.”

  He hopped from the truck and jogged over to my door to let me out. The center was locked and empty at this hour, but Cayne produced a key from his back pocket. Walking through the front doors instantly transported me to a thousand mornings from my youth.

  The lobby was still decorated in the color palette of the 1980s. Not a thing had changed. Lumpy turquoise couches, faded by a layer of dirt and the accumulated imprints of countless bodies, sat around the borders of the room. There were battered plywood tables covered in stacks of well-thumbed books with heavily cracked spines and piles of magazines with crinkled, grimy covers. The walls were painted in streaks of hot pink and neon green. When Cayne flipped a switch, the overhead fluorescent bulbs lit up with an insistent buzz. The smell was intensely familiar. Combined scents of playdough, tempera paint, and pizza grease permeated the air. I placed a hand on a grungy sofa arm to steady myself beneath a wave of memories.

  Cayne grasped my hand without speaking and walked me down the linoleum hallway, past a display of clumsily drawn American flags, and toward a door that I knew well. The chipped gold lettering on the glass simply said Dance.

  The studio was just as I remembered it. A mirror took up one full wall, and a ballet barre ran the length of another. The varnished wooden plank floor was scratched and pitted from decades of toe and heel strikes. I glimpsed myself in the mirror across the room and saw a grown woman where last I had seen a young girl brimming with hope and promise. The transformation was enough to knock my breath out of my chest.

  Cayne put his palms on my bare shoulders and turned my body slowly toward a corner of the room. There was a collection of blankets and a picnic basket, long white tapered candles, and a bottle of wine. I gazed up at him, a question in my eyes.

  “For you,” he said. “I figured we would revisit an important place from our past, but also use it as a jumping off point to start something new.” He took both of my hands in his, gripping my fingers tight. “A lot of years have passed, but here we are again. Let’s make it count.”

  I stared down at the floor, thinking hard about the changes that I had undergone during that time and wondering how Cayne would feel when I finally told him about my history. I knew that if we had any chance at a real relationship, I had to start with candor and full disclosure rather than with secrets and evasions. I parted my lips, ready to speak, but then I looked back up into his eyes and saw a pure hopefulness there that silenced me instantly.

  Cayne still saw me as the Brinley from ten years ago, not the broken woman that I had since become. His faith and admiration had the power to erase the years and change me back into that girl I once was. It strengthened and fortified my spirit, held together the broken pieces of my soul with an impermeable bond. I wanted to stay that girl forever for him. Maybe it meant living a lie, and maybe I didn’t give him enough credit for accepting and loving the real me. But, in that moment, I couldn’t bear to see that hopeful look leave his eyes.

  “I think that sounds great,” I said with complete sincerity. I stood on my tiptoes, the heels of my strappy sandals leaving the floor, and wound my arms around his neck. We kissed long and deep. His hands coursed down my bare back and landed around my waist.

  He walked me over to the blanket, poured two glasses of red wine, and lit the candles with a match. The flames cast a warm glow over the dim studio and flickered in the mirrors. I lowered myself onto the blanket while Cayne removed items from the picnic basket.

  “You’re spoiling me with these romantic dinners.” I took a sip of wine and kicked off my shoes.

  “Don’t get too excited just yet.” He lifted a plate from the basket and pulled off the foil covering to reveal a slice of pizza. “We are at the rec center, after all. I wanted to keep our meal authentic.”

  “Just as long as we don’t have to endure any more of that awful beer,” I laughed and clinked my glass against his. “Pizza and wine is the classiest pairing I’ve had in a while.”

  “Well, you’re the classiest girl I’ve tried to impress in a while.” He smirked and sipped his wine. I bowed my head and felt a blush overspread my cheeks. His fingers caressed my shin where it rested on the blanket and then circled around my slim ankle.

  We ate in silence as the sky outside the windows grew dark and the candle flames provided our only illumination. I watched the reflection of his back in the mirror as his shoulder muscles, visible beneath the thin material of his slate blue t-shirt, shifted and rolled with each movement. A lock of his hair had flipped over his forehead, and I pinched it between my fingers, pressing it back into place while our eyes met. I swept my hand down the side of his handsome face, feeling his strong cheekbone and the rugged masculinity of his slightly stubbled chin. He grabbed my hand and kissed my fingertips.

  “Just like old times, huh?” he said softly.

  My gaze roamed around the boundaries of the room. “I can’t
believe that everything looks the same as the day I left. Nothing in this place has changed.”

  “Some things have changed,” he said. “You told me that you don’t dance anymore, but you didn’t tell me why. What happened? What made you stop?”

  “I don’t know.” I swallowed a sip of wine. “I guess I just wasn’t good enough. I realized that I didn’t have what it took to succeed in that world. So, I gave up.”

  “Nah, that’s ridiculous. I don’t buy it.” He squeezed his fingers around my ankle. “You were an amazing dancer. There had to be some other reason.”

  The candlelight glinted in his eyes and brought out flecks of gold amid the green. I shook my head. “I stopped believing in myself. That was all.” I felt tears rising to the surface and cleared my throat to tamp them down.

  “You are still an amazing dancer, Brinley. I believe in you, even if you don’t believe in yourself. You have to know that.”

  I looked again into his luminous eyes, reflecting back a vision of my former self.

  “I want so much to be the person that I was then,” I said pensively. “I want to have that same self-assurance and confidence. But what if it’s all gone? What if the girl that you knew is lost forever?”

  He delicately took my wine glass, set it on the floor, and grasped both of my hands in his.

  “Come here,” he said gently, standing and hoisting me to my feet.

  He guided me to the center of the room, my bare feet padding on the scuffed wooden floorboards. We both faced the mirror. He stood behind me, and I could feel the solid chiseled armor of his chest muscles pressing against the naked skin of my back. My hair was swept up high. He slowly ran his fingers down either side of my neck. My flesh tingled. His lightest touch left me impossibly aroused.

  “Look in that mirror. You still have it all, Brinley,” he whispered. His lips brushed against my neck and my shoulder. “The talent and the fire still live here inside of you. I saw it then, and I see it now.”

  He wrapped one arm around my waist and placed his palm flat on my stomach.

  “When you danced, you were completely transported. Your body was here, but your mind was off in another world, a better world. Every time I snuck in to watch you,” he jutted his chin toward the back wall and smiled, “I wanted to be transported too. I wanted to go to that better world with you. You were unique and special and courageous. You were brave enough to lose yourself in front of entire theaters filled with people and gifted enough to leave every single person in those audiences spellbound. You left me spellbound a hundred times right here in this room. Those were the qualities that made me love you back then.”

  I flinched with surprise at his use of the word “love.” Cayne paused and cleared his throat.

  “Maybe it’s silly to use a word like ‘love’ in that situation,” he continued, shaking his head. “We were kids. I barely knew you, not really. But all of those qualities that I saw in you then, I still see in you today. It would be the tragedy of my life to watch you give up on yourself. You were everything. You are everything.”

  I gripped his hand tight where it rested on my stomach. I closed my eyes and breathed in the fresh woodsy scent of his cologne and felt his strong virile arms enfold me closer. His firm pectoral muscles pressed deliciously against my shoulder blades. I bent my head down. He kissed the vertebrae up my neck one by one, then the curve of my hairline and the indent just below my ear.

  I looked up. Our eyes met in the mirror. My dress was held in place with a bow tied around my neck. He reached up and plucked it loose. The strings dropped limply over my shoulders. I watched as he slowly and carefully pulled the top half of my dress down toward my waist, revealing my naked breasts shining round and full in the flickering candlelight.

  He brought his palms underneath my breasts, first lifting and cradling them gently, then squeezing them tenderly several times. He rubbed his fingertips over my hard nipples in slow tantalizing circles. His touch sent waves of the sweetest pleasure coursing through my body. I arched my neck backwards and let my head rest on his chest. He pinched my nipples and flicked his tongue playfully against my earlobe. Then he gripped my breasts firmly, pressing them tightly, grazing his tongue up the side of my neck and groaning softly into my ear.

  With one hand, he reached toward my back and opened the zipper on my waistband. My dress slid smoothly over my hips and dropped to the floor. I stepped out of it while he removed his shirt. His body glistened in the warm glow of the flames, the shadows of his rippling muscles etched clear. I had a burning urge to sink my teeth into his solid flesh just to taste it and feel it resist.

  He walked around and faced me. My naked breasts heaved with every breath, and my pulse sped through my veins. He kissed me hard, our tongues massaging and stroking while his fingertips eased under the edges of my delicate white panties and pulled them down over my hips and thighs. He got on his knees in front of me as he coaxed the panties over my shins and ankles and lifted my feet one by one. The thin scrap of fabric fell from his fingertips to the ground.

  He stayed on his knees. I twirled my fingers through his hair, brushing it from his forehead as he stared up at me. He ran his hands up my bare legs and cupped and squeezed my ass with an enticing force. He kissed my stomach, sweeping his lips lower along my abdomen, and then lower still. I gasped with erotic delight as his lips surrounded my swollen and throbbing clit, and his tongue began licking and stroking it in a smooth rhythm.

  I spread my legs wider apart and felt a surge of ecstasy when his tongue darted and licked me from the inside while his lips massaged and sucked me on the outside. He gripped the backs of my thighs as his tongue entered me again and again, then licked me in rapid circles, each wet swipe sending a rush of carnal bliss through every part of my body.

  My pulse was racing, my body was heated, and my breath came in short ragged gasps. I threw my head back and moaned with loud abandon. He flicked his tongue and licked me up and down in long strokes. I whimpered and moaned, rocking my hips as he licked me rougher and faster. His fingers gripped me tighter, moving up to my ass. He pressed his face against me, his whole mouth sucking and massaging me until I felt an incredible burst of hot tingling rapture that made me scream with a force that emptied my lungs and echoed from the bare walls. My entire body throbbed and convulsed with a powerful electric pulse. My back arched, and I screamed again with a final swell of orgasmic frenzy that left me panting and gasping for breath.

  I got down on my knees and kissed him, tasting myself on his tongue. I pushed his shoulders onto the floor until he was lying flat and hurriedly unbuttoned and tore his jeans from his body. I pulled his boxers down roughly over his hips, revealing his impressive erection. I bent low and wrapped my lips around his dick, sucking and stroking the tip with my tongue.

  “Oh, Brinley,” he moaned. His breathing quickened. “Oh, baby. Oh god, yes.” He held the back of my head as I sucked on him. “I want to make you come again. Get on up and ride me, baby.”

  I sucked him once more, long and hard, and then sat up and straddled his hips. I took his full massive length inside me. He groaned powerfully. I rocked on top of him while he reached up and grabbed my bouncing breasts. I rocked even harder, my thighs banging onto his hips as he moaned and grunted. My knees ground into the floor. He grasped my waist tightly and lifted and thrust his pelvis beneath me. I was getting dangerously close to another orgasm. I panted and gripped his strong sinewy arms.

  My mind went blank except for the sensation of him deep inside me. Our bodies moved together in perfect rhythm. He groaned again with a raspy growl. I was gasping and sweating with the intensity of movement, grinding on top of him with an uncontrolled ferocity. We cried out together into the candlelit darkness, coming as one in a shiver of absolute pleasure. I felt him pulse and release inside of me with a final guttural shout.

  The room was silent but for our heavy breathing. I lifted myself from him and felt a sticky wetness slide pleasingly down my thighs. We both lay nake
d and spent on the floor, our hands reaching across the space between us and joining tenderly. I turned my head and found him staring back at me. Words were unnecessary in that moment. Our eyes said everything.

  ***

  A light rainstorm had left the streets shimmering and the air thick with moisture when Cayne dropped me off later that night. The full moon reflected off of the glistening asphalt, and trees dripped softly onto lawns. My skin still tingled, and my body faintly quivered with the memory of his embrace and the echoes of satisfied desire. He drove with one hand on the wheel and the other clutching my naked thigh.

  He stopped at the curb. We looked at each other in the glow of reflected moonlight. The house was silent and dark.

  “Here we are,” he said with a playful slap of my leg. “I almost forgot. I got a call from a shop over in Raleigh. They have the part that I need for your car, so I sent one of the guys over to pick it up. Should be here by tomorrow afternoon. If you want to drop the car off at the shop on your way to work in the morning, I can take care of it for you.”

  “Sure, that sounds great,” I said drowsily.

  “One other thing, though. I got a weird call from somebody in New York.” My brain perked up. “He didn’t say who he was. He asked about the car. And then he asked about you.”

  “Me?” My heartbeat quickened. His eyes were steady on mine.

  “Yeah. He asked if you owned the car. I said, ‘How do you know Brinley?’ He didn’t answer. He just hung up. Do you have any idea what that was about?”

  Cayne looked out through the windshield at the rainy streets. I stared at his perfect profile while my stomach did flips.

  “No.” I swallowed hard. “No, I don’t.” Cayne lasered his gaze in my direction. My brain was screaming at me to tell him the truth, right then and there. Maybe if I had, I could have avoided all the pain that was to come.

  “Ok, then.” He nodded thoughtfully. I leaned over and kissed him. He held the side of my face in his palm and kissed me gently in return.