Love's Lost Embrace

by ChaShiree M.

  Love’s Lost Embrace

  ChaShiree M.

  LOVE’S LOST EMBRACE

  Copyright 2019 © ChaShiree M.

  The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is a crime punishable by law. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded to, or downloaded from file sharing sites or distributed in any other way via the internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of ChaShiree M.

  Cover & Format: Dark Water Covers & Formatting

  Dedicated to you.

  Whoever you are.

  Sunshine is inevitable.

  Love’s Lost Embrace

  Ultimatums. Tragedy.

  Trimble

  My life has been one sad story after another. Until the day she moved in across the street. Our friendship saved me and as the years passed, morphed into something I was too scared to explore for fear of my own emotions.

  The space I put between us put her in danger.

  Our one night together left us with an unbreakable bond.

  My need to protect her, would ultimately lead to our abandonment.

  But I was ALWAYS coming back for her.

  My Love.

  Secrets. Love. Second chances.

  Love

  My life was perfect. Until the day it wasn’t.

  The one bright spot in my dreary days was Trim. The boy across the street. My best friend. My protector. Until the day he decided he didn’t want to be either of those things.

  Suffering in silence was my only option. Then Trim found out and I found my way out of the darkness into his arms.

  That lasted a minute before we were torn from one another by tragedy and death.

  He said he was coming back for me. Told me to look for the letters.

  They never came and neither did he.

  Until he did.

  But can I trust him to stay this time?

  Contents

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue I

  Epilogue II

  Acknowledgments

  About ChaShiree

  More Books by ChaShiree

  Coming Soon by ChaShiree

  Prologue

  Trimble

  Driving home to Florida feels like finally finding air after being trapped with no oxygen. I have been away from my home for five years. The last five years have been the longest, hardest, and grueling years of my life. One would think, being in the Marines for that long would be the hardest thing I have had to endure. It certainly has not been easy that is true. But I have lost friends, been injured, and gone to places no man should ever be. I am more than ready to be done with the service and to start the next stage of my life. Deciding, after giving them a full tour and an extra year training incoming soldiers it was time to turn in my weapon and go out with an honorable discharge.

  Even with all of the destruction and mayhem I have seen, and loss endured, the hardest was leaving my heart behind back home in Florida when I enlisted.

  Love Sutter. The girl next door. Well, across the street. No matter the location, she had been my shadow since I was 13 and she was 11. Even then she had this beauty that transcended all time. Quiet, shy and meek around everyone but me. No. Around me, my Love was loud, boisterous and feisty. She and her parents moved in one night and like a shooting star, with no glimpse and my eyes closed tight, she snuck up on me and has been embedded in my heart ever since. Of course, back then being so young, I found her annoying, albeit cute and a general pain in my ass, but I also felt this fierce surge of protectiveness for her and made sure she was always safe.

  As the years moved on, she began to transform into something else entirely and to say other parts of my body took notice, would be an understatement. Her hair became longer and fuller along with her lips. I won’t even mention the curves she gained. Jesus. Even thinking about it now, my dick aches.

  When she was 15, her parents died in a plane crash. She had no one else but her grandfather who, suffice it to say, was a grade A asshole. Besides the fact that he was a drunk, he was also abusive. The first time I realized he was hitting her was also about the first time I was able to admit to myself, that she was it for me. Two years older than her, I was in my senior year of high school to her Sophomore year. Once I realized where my mind and body wanted to direct itself, I tried everything to stay away from her. I was too old for her and I know me. I was a demanding bastard. Even then. If she would have given herself to me, I would have taken all of her time and attention and she deserved to live. Grow. Spread her wings. I backed off. Until the day she came to school with a black eye.

  I swear I had an out of body experience. Watching her walk the hall with her shoulder slumped, alone and defeated, not only did I feel rage at the dead motherfucker who did this to her, I felt responsible for being too chicken shit to take care of her. Filled with rage and enough venom to kill a whole nest of cobra snakes, I yanked by her arm into the first empty class I could find.

  “Who the fuck did that to your face Love?”

  She bites her lip and refuses to answer. I don’t blame her. With the way I have been acting, she probably feels like I don’t really care.

  “Love. Look at me. Who did this to your face?”

  I asked her more calmly even though I wasn’t feeling any calm at all.

  “You don’t have to worry Trim. I wasn’t going to come to you for help. I get it. You wanted me to get lost. I have to get to class.”

  Shit. In an effort to protect her, I left her vulnerable and made her feel less than the everything she was to me. FUCK!!!! I couldn’t let her walk out that room without fixing it and getting to the bottom of it.

  “It’s not true Love. I just…. I was just trying to protect you from me. I know you think you know me. But the me that wants you in ways I shouldn’t, that’s the me you don’t know. If you knew what I was thinking right now, the ways I was undressing you in my mind, you would understand. But never once, have I wanted anything more than to be with you every second of every day. Watching you walk home from school took more restraint then even I knew I had. So, not for one second do I want you to think you have ever been more than everything to me. Knowing you have been going through something and haven't been able to tell me, is killing me, baby. Please tell me what happened.”

  After a few seconds, she began to open to me about her grandfather and the drinking, and how when he gets his habit on, he says she looks like her slut mother that he hated, and he hits her. She explained to me that her mother was known as the town slut before she married her father and her grandfather never approved, hence why her parents st
ayed away from him. But when they died, he was all she had left. I remember being visibly shaken. When I imagine my sweet Love, cowering in a corner somewhere trying to protect herself from this piece of shit.

  After that moment I walked her home every day. I picked her up in the morning, and I found little ways to have her stay with me until the very last second each day. Knowing that eventually, I was going to have to leave her here while I went away to school was a constant congestion in my chest, making my heart heavy and filled with angst.

  Little did I know…...loving Love wouldn’t be the issue.

  Protecting her would be.

  Chapter One

  Trim

  To say, I am coiled like a fucking electric stove is putting it lightly. Driving towards my future, after five long years, has feelings going through me I didn’t even know I was capable of anymore. When I finally turned in my blues and got my official discharge papers, I felt a piece of myself that I had buried on purpose, slowly begin to unfurl. When I got off the plane and into the Dodge rental, I let out a tightly held breath. The feeling of knowing it was finally happening and I was finally here, home in Georgia. It is the place, where I spent 10 years of my life being judged by the actions of my father. The place I met her. The place I fell in love with her and the place I left her behind.

  The only good thing about my childhood, besides finding Love was my Aunt Lei. When my mom died, I was eight years old. She died from cancer and left me with a father, who had no interest in being one. Luckily, he had an older sister who came to live with us, and she took on the role as well...everything. Meanwhile, the waste of space that helped to make me went about his usual, making a mess wherever he went. Until he met his maker one night at a poker game. His death didn’t change much for me by way of the town’s view of me. But as I would later find out a few months after I went into the service, he at least had the wherewithal to continue to pay his life insurance and make me the beneficiary of it once I turned 18. He also listed me as the only recipient of his CD account at the town’s bank. Who knew con-men could save money? I was only 12 when that happened and would like to say I was sad and forlorn to lose my only living parent. But that would be a lie and one that’s not necessary. He wasn’t my dad. He was merely a sperm donor.

  Although I was a mere child during his life and death, the town still held me to the same standard as him and his shit. It didn’t matter that I was a straight-A student or helped little old ladies across the street. I would always be the son of the town screw up, and I knew it. This knowledge gave me the determination to make plans to go to college far away from the people and this town and make something of myself.

  However, one rainy night a girl named Love Sutter moved in across the street. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She was sitting on a step in front of her house where I watched her, as she watched the furniture moved into her home.

  From my front door across the street, she looked like an Angel. The sun beamed at the right degree as it was going down covering her body, and there was a halo of blonde hair on her head. It glistened and sparkled in a way; you only believe to be from a Disney Princesses movie. But there she was sitting less than 25 feet from me, sparkling and making my 13-year-old heart beat faster than it ever had. I remember thinking that she was going to somehow belong to me. Of course, I was too young to know how much and to what degree; but to my 13-year-old self, I was going to be her one and only best friend here. I wanted her smiles, laughs, scrapes, adventures, and overall zest for life to be mine and mine alone.

  I went over to her house that day and introduced myself.

  “Hi. I’m Trimble. But everyone calls me Trim.” I extended my hand to her. Though I wasn’t sure she would take it, I stood there and waited with bated breath. When she finally looked up at me, I lost myself in her gaze. I got lost in the most beautiful orbs I have ever seen. To say her eyes are green would be a grave injustice to the emerald jewels that held me in a trance. I had never seen crown jewels embedded in someone’s eyes before, but that is exactly what her eyes reminded me of. Finally, after what seemed like forever, her hand touched mine. And in a voice that I could describe as ethereal in its softness and innocence, she answered.

  “My name is Love. Love Sutter.”

  Love.

  Her name fits her like a second layer of skin. I didn’t know it then, but as a grown man, I now know that it was precisely what’d taken me over, like an infectious disease. Love.

  Bzzzz.

  Shit. My phone. I will have to get used to hearing that kind of noise now. Looking down at my phone I see it is my aunt calling.

  “Hey, Aunt Lei.”

  “Well hell. My boy is finally coming home. How far away are you?”

  “Pulling up now.”

  “Woohoo…… Shit.” I laugh.

  Before I can turn the car off, she is running out of the house and straight into my arms. Hugging her makes me realize how much I missed her motherly love, while I was away. She did everything for me once my parents were gone and I will always take care of her.

  She leads me to the door while chattering and talking my ear off. I can’t help but take a second to glance across the street. Even seeing her front door gets my blood pumping. I only need to endure the separation for a couple more minutes, and then I am going to get my girl.

  I know that I owe my auntie some time first, and I will give it to her. Plus, we do have business to discuss.

  “My boy. You have no idea how happy I am to have you home.”

  “It feels good to be here auntie.”

  “Listen. I know how anxious you are to get across the street, and I want you to know, I appreciate you giving me my time to fawn over you.” She has got me there.

  “Nah, Aunt Lei. I have been patient for five long years. What’s another hour or so? In saying that, is everything in order?”

  “Yes. Here is the folder with all the contracts, checkbooks, employee files, taxes, and every store locations in depth portfolio. Lansing has been doing a great job as VP and your mouthpiece. He said he is very much anticipating handing it over to you. I told him it would be a while because you had something to attend to. But that you would reach out in about a week or so, for a face to face.”

  “Thank you for taking care of all of this for me. I will get in touch with him sooner than a few weeks, but you’re right, I have more important matters at hand. You do not know how much I appreciate all you have done for me. When I got out, I wanted to know I had something to come home with, and some way of supporting the family Love and I are going to have. Now, I just need to get her on board. How hurt is she?”

  “Trim, I won’t say that you not writing when you said you would before you left didn’t leave a mark. It took a long time for me to talk her around to not hating you and I tried to explain things to her the best way I could without telling her too much. Eventually, she understood, but it still didn’t take the sting away.”

  “Damn. I knew it was going to upset her but I couldn’t do it, Auntie. They breed us to be killing machines for them, while we are on active duty. Our mind must be 100% on the mission, our squad, and orders. Any outside distractions could be the end for us. You will never know how many brothers in arms I lost, while I was in there. To make sure I could come home to her, I had to put it all aside and make it out alive.”

  “I get it, my boy. Trust me. But you left so abruptly, and after everything that happened, she had to live with the fallout all by herself. The stares, the glares, and the accusatory whispers. It was not easy for me to watch or endure, and I am a grown woman. She lost her only living relative that day and at the age of 16. And, who she thought was her true love. Luckily, the sheriff took pity on her and let me become her guardian for the last two years until she turned 18.”

  “Fuck. I know and thank you. Thanks for taking care of my girl when I couldn’t. But I am here now.”

  “Yea baby. It’s just a lot more complicated than you know.”

 
“I know it seems that way auntie. But Love and I are meant to be.” Standing up from the chair, I shake out my muscles and get ready to make my case.

  Walking out the front door, I vaguely hear my auntie calling my name, but I am halfway across the street when I see her front door open. The first thing my mind registers is how fucking gorgeous she is. I mean she has always been beautiful, but this is something else. She is stunning. Her once pale skin is now a beautiful creamy color, and her platinum blonde hair is now a honey blonde with her body…. fuck.

  Before I can acknowledge the dance, my cock is doing in my pants, something out of the corner of my eye brings me out of my trance.

  “Mommy, do you have my backpack?”

  “Yes, I do, T.J.”

  “MOMMY!!!!” I growl out bringing the attention back to myself and not meaning to. When she looks up and sees me, her face pales and shoulders tense as if she is facing an enemy. There is such a panicked look on her face, and I halfway expect her to grab the kid and bolt. Then, the fire comes back into her eyes, as it used to when she was little, and I’d make her mad by knocking her down or tearing the heads off her dolls. She squares her shoulders back and digs in her heels.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”