Dane

by Leddy Harper

  She laid still with her hair fanned across the pillow while I removed every piece of her clothing. I didn’t stop until I had her bare beneath me. I wanted to give every inch of her attention, worship every fiber of her being, but she wouldn’t let me. With a firm grip in my hair, she drew me up her body until every part of us lined up. She removed one hand and slid it down my chest, into the elastic waistband of my shorts, and wrapped her delicate fingers around my throbbing cock.

  “I won’t last long if you keep doing that, Eden.” That was all I needed to say to make her stop and push my shorts down my legs until I could kick them over the side of the bed.

  With our eyes locked, she guided me into her. I’d never felt anything like it. As I pushed all the way in, I realized why it was so amazing. I stilled, fully seated in her, praying she wouldn’t make me stop.

  “I’m not wearing a condom, Eden. And I don’t have any.”

  She blinked a few times and then said, “It’s fine. Keep going.”

  “Are you on anything?”

  She nodded and shifted beneath me, enticing me to move. I didn’t make her do it twice. I slowly withdrew and then rolled into her again. Over and over until my thrusts were short and deep. I didn’t want to come too soon, needing to wait until she was with me, so I shifted our bodies so I was on my back, pulling her on top of me without losing our connection. With her hands planted on my chest, her fingers splayed across my bare skin, she began to ride me. Her head tilted back and her eyes closed. Her walls tightened and I knew she was close, but I wanted to fall over that cliff with her.

  I sat up, drawing her chest into mine. Gripping her hips, I guided her movements, matching them in time with my thrusts. Pulling moan after melodic moan from her and swallowing as I tasted her tongue.

  “I can’t hold on much longer,” I said against her lips, feeling my balls tighten. “I need you to come, Eden.” The last thing I wanted was to have to pull out before she found pleasure.

  “I’m almost there. Come with me, Dane.”

  “I need you to go first.” My words were wrapped in desperate pants, unable to catch my breath.

  She opened her eyes and met my gaze. Without missing a beat, she cupped my face and told me the sweetest words known to man. “Come in me.”

  I held onto her tighter and slammed her into me, feeling her core grip me. It only took another second before she was panting in my ear, whimpering. Riding out her orgasm and squeezing every drop of come from me. Reaching the peak in tandem was more than ecstasy. It was no longer my pleasure. It was ours. Achieved together, at the same time. As if we weren’t two separate entities, but one unit.

  Whole.

  I fell back and took her with me. We rolled onto our sides, facing each other. Her gaze flitted over my body and stopped on my side. I knew immediately what she saw, but I didn’t say anything. I watched intently as she studied it, first with her eyes, then the very tips of her fingers, making sure to not touch the ink itself, but rather the outer edges. It was the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Perfect, red apples hung from the top, with a dove perched on one of the branches.

  “What’s it mean?” she asked as she met my stare.

  “You. Us. Everything I’ve ever wanted.”

  “What’s that? What do you want?” Her words were quiet as if anticipating my answer.

  “A life. A family. With you.”

  “That’s what the apples represent? Family?” she asked, and I nodded. “What about the dove? What does that mean?”

  “Hope.”

  Tears filled her eyes a split second before her lips met mine.

  We spent the next fifteen minutes basking in the glow and holding on to one another. But when her stomach growled, I knew it was time to get up. “Come on. Let’s get you fed.” I found my shorts on the floor and stepped into them. Then I grabbed a shirt from my drawer and tossed it at Eden to wear. I’d only done it to keep her from getting completely dressed, but once I saw her in my T-shirt, I decided I never wanted to see her in anything else again.

  “Go ahead and see what I have in the kitchen. I’ll be right there.”

  She gave me an odd look but did as I said. I waited until she was out of the room before I went to my nightstand and grabbed what I was searching for. When I made my way into the kitchen, I found Eden standing in front of the open fridge, the light outlining her curves. I tugged her away and lifted her to set her on the counter. She squealed and then giggled, but my chest was too tight to join in on her giddiness.

  “I never asked you properly. So I’m going to do that now. I’d get down on one knee, but these floors are really hard. Please don’t hold that against me.” I was so nervous, but as soon as she held her palm against her chest and smiled, I knew it would be all right.

  I took her hand and placed the ring at the tip if her left fourth finger. But before I could slip it on, she gasped and yanked her hand away. “You have a ring?” She was stunned, which made sense, but what confused me was the worry in her tone.

  “Yeah…but if you’d rather pick out your own, we can go tomorrow. I’m sorry, I didn’t even think about you wanting to choose your own ring. I was too excited—”

  “No, Dane. I don’t want to pick out my own ring. I just… Where did you get it from?”

  “It was my grandmother’s.”

  Her eyes softened, yet they were still filled with apprehension.

  “What’s wrong, Eden? I don’t understand. Are you changing your mind?”

  “Not at all. I want to marry you. And I want you to give me whatever ring you choose. I’d be honored to wear your grandmother’s ring, but I don’t know how I feel about wearing someone else’s ring.”

  Suddenly, I understood her concern. “The only woman who has ever worn this ring was my Grans. No one else.”

  “You never gave it to…?”

  “No.”

  “This is probably the worst time in the world to ask…but why not?”

  I laughed beneath my breath, finding her worry cute, and threaded my fingers through her hair. “To be honest, I don’t know why. I never thought about it. She never mentioned it and I never offered. But when I told you I wanted to marry you, this was the only ring I thought about giving you. I never contemplated going and picking out something else.”

  She held her left hand out, fingers splayed, a giant smile brightening her face. “Put it on.”

  “I have to ask first.”

  “No you don’t. My answer is yes. Always was and always will be.” And with that, I slid the ring onto her finger.

  We’d spent the entire weekend wrapped up in each other, aside from a few hours on Saturday when we went to pack up her belongings to move her in. When my alarm sounded on Monday morning, I wanted to let her sleep. She looked so peaceful snuggled into the middle of the large bed—our bed. But I had plans, and she needed to be with me.

  “Where are we going?” she asked groggily. “I thought you had to go to work today.”

  “I do. And you’re coming with me.”

  “I can’t, Dane.” She stretched and whined, making me want to crawl back beneath the covers and stay there all day with her. “I’m not your assistant anymore. Remember? I resigned.”

  “I know. We’re equals in this now. You’re my partner—in life and in business. You’re going to be a Kauffmann, and last time I checked, that was the name on the front of the building.”

  She sat up and blinked at me. “That’s ridiculous. Utterly insane. How will that work with a prenup?”

  I yanked the blankets away and tugged on her arm until I had her on her feet. “It’s easy. There is no prenup.”

  “Okay…now you’re insane. And I’m sure your lawyers will agree with me.”

  “I don’t care what anyone says,” I called over my shoulder as I walked into the bathroom. I was ready for a shower, and I hoped Eden would join me. “You’re going to be my wife, the mother of my children. I trust you and I know we’re the real deal. I’m not entering i
nto this marriage like it’s some kind of business venture.”

  “What about Gabi?”

  “What about her?” I locked gazes with her through the mirror.

  “Imagine what would’ve happened if you followed through and married her without a prenup.”

  I turned and leaned against the vanity. “Eden…I don’t care to talk about her. At some point, you’re going to have to stop bringing her up. After this, no more comparing or questioning how things were when I was with her, considering I don’t question or bring up your ex.” I held my finger beneath her chin to make sure she was looking in my eyes. “I had a prenup drawn up with her.”

  She gasped and her eyes widened. “So why not with me?”

  “Like I just told you, Eden…stop comparing. You’re not her.” I slapped her bare ass and nudged her toward the shower. “Now come on. We have a business to run.”

  * * *

  We started the ball rolling on adding her name to the company. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it’d be. However, the marriage license proved to be more difficult. We had to wait three days before we could even get married. That turned out to be fine, though. It allowed her parents time to come to Florida. They packed their bags and I bought their plane tickets. I worried when Eden had called to tell them, but they were surprisingly calm and accepting of the fact their daughter decided to marry a man they’d never met. When I asked her why they didn’t object, she explained she’d talked about me every time they called—not the bad stuff, though. Apparently, they had kind of expected it. I wanted to know what all she had said about me for them to be so calm, but she wouldn’t tell me. She said it didn’t matter.

  The only hesitation they had though, was about Janette. Eden had told them about finding her birth mother and explained the progress they’d made in building a relationship. However, once they arrived and met Janette, all worry vanished, and they all strangely acted like one giant blended family—me included.

  We didn’t have to think very long about a venue. We knew it would be a small wedding—her parents, Janette, and a few people from the office. My parents were out of the country and had already congratulated me over the phone. They asked me to send them pictures, but that was about it. It didn’t bother me; I wasn’t expecting them to be there anyway.

  Exactly one week after Eden resigned as my assistant, and I subsequently found her waiting for me on the dock, I stood on the pier at the beach in a suit and watched as Eden walked down in a simple white dress on her father’s arm. It was the place Eden and I had jumped into the water that night, so we both saw it fitting to be the place we made the jump into forever with each other.

  Janette was a notary of the public and performed the ceremony for us. She was technically the one who had brought us together, and it only made sense she be the one to tie us together for eternity. We exchanged vows as we exchanged rings. I placed my grandmother’s wedding band on her finger next to the matching diamond Grans had worn all her life, and Eden placed my grandfather’s ring on mine. It was quick, just like us. Some people may have said we were rushing it, but when Eden was at the finish line, there was no way in hell I’d take my time. I had spent my life doing what others wanted me to do, and I wouldn’t make that mistake again. I wanted Eden, and I wanted her for the rest of my life.

  I’d finally done something for myself and gone after her.

  And I would be damned if I wasted another second of my life waiting.

  Epilogue

  Everything happens for a reason.

  In the moment, you never know what it will be. You never know why things happen. Unfortunate things happen all the time, and sometimes the outcomes aren’t good. But even then, you have to trust that there is a purpose to it. Sometimes you just have to take those negatives and make something good out of them. Like making lemonade out of lemons. That was one of the hardest lessons I had to learn. I couldn’t sit back and wait for the reason to be seen. I had to get up and make it happen. I had to find the light in all the darkness. And that’s exactly what I did.

  After being raped, I believed that not all things had a purpose. I didn’t see the purpose in having to go through that pain for years. I didn’t figure any good could’ve possibly come out of it. I no longer believed that by doing good, good would come to you. I was a decent person. I had always done the right thing. I played by the rules and followed the etiquette books. But terrible occurrences still happened.

  I had latched onto Dane. I’d wanted him to make me better. And for a while, I thought he had. I thought that since dreadful things had stopped happening to me, that meant he had truly saved me. Sure, things still happened around me, but I wasn’t being physically hurt any longer.

  That is, until the miscarriage.

  That was so painful to go through. Dane didn’t know, but I had blamed myself. I thought it was my fault because of what had happened before. I thought it was God’s way of punishing me for what I had done to Sean—for making him pay for a crime he never committed. But I couldn’t tell that to Dane. He had tried so hard to be there for me. He did everything he could to make me better. I had wanted to be better. I wanted to make him happy and give him the life he always deserved.

  Dane was a good man, one of the best. Like me, he followed the rules and always did the right thing. But it took me years to realize it didn’t stop life from throwing cruel twists at him. They were just different than what happened to me. I was the bad thing that happened to him. I brought him down. I made him suffer. I stole the light from his eyes and the smile from his face. No matter what I did, I couldn’t change that. I couldn’t give those things back to him. But Eden did. And it took me nearly dying to see that.

  There’s always a reason.

  I lied and Dane left. I was lost in a sea of darkness and just wanted it all to end. So in a moment of self-deprecation, I tried to end it all. As much as I wish I could take that back, I’m glad it happened that way. The scar on my wrist serves a daily reminder of the lengths I had to go to in order to be who I was meant to be. Without that one moment of utter darkness, I would have never gotten the help I so desperately needed.

  Dane had tried to force me to seek help for years. But I never would have gotten the help I truly needed until I confessed the horrible truth of what I had done to a man who never deserved it. Sean taking his own life in a moment of his own darkness, one I had forced upon him, pushed me to open up about the guilt I had latched onto for a decade. He may have ended his life, but it’d saved mine.

  It led me to meet Sharon. It led me to that clinic, the doctors that made me talk, and the realization of what I was meant to do. It took ten years, the suicide of an innocent man, two attempted suicides of my own, and years of self-loathing to finally see the reason behind what Todd had done to me. What my purpose was in life. And that was to help others who found themselves in the same place I’d been in for all that time.

  It allowed me to know the kind of pain these girls had suffered through. Sharon helped me see that sometimes it’s hard to open up to people who have never felt the kind of pain I’ve felt, and that was what made it all so clear to me. If others knew how much I suffered, and could see how I had made it through it all, they could feel hopeful that they could do the same.

  Dane’s public relations representative, Janette, contacted me months after I left rehab. She sat me down and wanted to talk. She cemented my theory by showing me I could be successful and happy in the end. She was married with children after suffering through her own personal hell. She even discovered a daughter through it all. I wanted that. I wanted love in the end. Not to save me—I was the only one who could do that—but I wanted love to support me.

  And I found just that.

  I eventually started talking to my mother again. She wasn’t exactly in my life, but she was someone I kept in contact with from time to time. I had forgiven her. I no longer wanted to carry that burden. I let it go and moved on. I couldn’t pay the price for her actions any longer and had
left that for her to do.

  I never knew what happened to Todd. I didn’t want to know. It no longer mattered to me how he felt about it. For so long, all I had wanted was for him to be punished for what he’d done to me. For him to feel the same pain and heartache that had kept me imprisoned for years. But I eventually learned that it wasn’t any of my concern. Wanting him to be punished was essentially punishing myself, and I couldn’t do that. He was the one who had to live with what he did. I would always smile knowing what Dane had done to him, but after that incident, I no longer cared. I could not allow it to consume my life any more than it already had. I had to put it all behind me.

  And that’s exactly what I did.

  After the condo sold and I attended enough sessions with my therapist to make me feel okay, Sharon and I moved four hours away. To a new place ready for new beginnings. We began attending therapy there by following the recommendation from our psychologist. With the help of our new therapist, we started Reasons to Talk. It began with a simple hotline. It was just the two of us in our tiny apartment and two telephone lines. But soon, it grew into something so much bigger.

  After a year, we had an office full of volunteers to answer incoming phone calls. We handpicked each and every volunteer, making sure they had enough experience to make a difference in every call we received. Sharon and I went onto speaking engagements and even met with girls one on one. It gave me a sense of peace knowing I was there to help as young women opened up about the horrific things they had experienced. Nothing felt better than hearing from them later on, listening to them remind us what we were doing mattered—it was helping people. We were making a difference in the lives of many.

  Everything happens for a reason.

  Five years after moving away and putting that tiny beach town and memories behind me, I received a phone call from Janette. She asked me if I could attend a dinner function for Kauffmann Investments. It was a charity event and they wanted to donate the proceeds to my organization. They also wanted me to speak at the event and share my story. It felt like everything had come full circle.