by C. A. Harms
My parents spun around to face me as I burst through it. A huge sense of relief washed over me when I saw Landyn sitting in the center of the living room floor. Jenny wouldn’t have left town without him.
My dad walked toward me holding his hands up in a calming gesture. “She’s gone to the house,” he murmured as he stepped closer. “She wanted to go through what she could and decide what she wanted to take and what she’d leave.”
I nodded, my heart still being a little too fast from the fear of her being gone.
I’d woken up this morning still unsure of what I wanted, but that had changed throughout the day. I had allowed myself to envision what my life would be like with Jenny and Landyn in it, and now I was fearful of it never becoming a reality.
The idea she would pick up and move away left me feeling empty inside. I had already walked away from her once. I wouldn’t do it again. Because Jenny and her son had begun to break done the walls I had built around my heart.
“We got the boy,” my father assured me. “Go get your girl.”
That was all I needed to hear.
JENNY
MOST PEOPLE WOULD feel devastated to find their possessions broken and thrown around their room. But to be honest, almost everything I owned had very little value.
I was married in a courthouse to a boy who turned into a monster. Nothing from that day, including the ring I had now taken off and laid on the top of my dresser, was worth remembering. Everything here reminded me of a life I honestly just wanted to forget.
At the sound of tires crunching against the gravel drive, I moved across the bedroom to look out the window. My heart rate spiked when I saw Sean climbing out of his father’s SUV. I remained frozen as he hurried toward the door.
Even when I heard his boots pounding up the stairway, I didn’t move.
Suddenly the footsteps stopped, and I knew if I turned around, I would find him standing in the doorway only a few feet away.
I remained still.
“Jenny.” I closed my eyes at the sound of my name just before he placed his hand on my shoulder. “I can’t let you leave.”
I turned around, and before I could say or do anything more, he gripped my face and pulled my lips to his. I was momentarily shocked, but even if I hadn’t been, I still wouldn’t have stopped him.
I had dreamed of this moment for far too long.
The gentle way he held my face and the slow, pleasurable swipe of his tongue along my lips made my knees weak. He was kissing me like I had never been kissed before, slowing making love to my mouth with his own.
I felt the kiss in every single part of my body. No matter how hard I tried, I knew I would never recover from it.
When he finally pulled back, I kept my eyes closed, fearful of opening them to find I’d been imagining this whole encounter.
“I know you said you couldn’t, but I can’t accept that,” he whispered. I slowly opened my eyes and found Sean was only a few inches away, looking back at me with a serious expression.
“I should have told you that summer before I left that I loved you,” he began, and my heart rate picked up. “I should have told you that I wanted to be with you and only you. Because I’ve never felt for another woman what I feel for you, even now. I don’t want you and Landyn to move away and start over, unless the place you’re moving to is my home.”
“Sean,” I whispered, still unsure of how to word what I was feeling.
“I want you, Jenny,” he said. “I’ve always wanted you. Part of the blame for why we were never together lies in my hands, and I don’t want you to go another day thinking it’s all your fault. I should’ve told you.”
“I wish you had,” I said. “Because it would have made everything different. You were always the one for me. I just always felt as if it was one-sided. Like I wanted something more than you ever could give me.”
He rested his forehead against mine, and we remained in that position for a few minutes before either of us spoke.
“I don’t want us to miss our second chance,” he said.
I pulled back and looked up at him as he continued to hold me close. “I’m still married, and you don’t need the mess that comes with me in your life.”
He skimmed my lower lip with his thumb, making me pause just enough for him to lean in and kiss me once again.
A kiss from Sean was honestly like the best form of temporary memory loss. It was like being drunk, even if for only a few glorious seconds.
“I think we both know what you have with him isn’t a marriage,” Sean said, and I had no grounds to argue. “I know it won’t be easy, but I’m gonna fight you on this.”
I smiled because he always had been a great negotiator, and if negotiation didn’t work, well, then he did what he wanted anyway.
“I have to leave early in the morning, and I can assure you that you and Landyn will be by my side whether you want to or not,” he said with certainty.
“You can’t—”
He pressed his lips to mine. He really wasn’t playing fair. I shook my head and pushed against his chest.
“You can’t kiss me into submission,” I told him, and I instantly saw the challenge in his eyes.
The sweet guy I’d once know had obviously developed some skills over the years. His “take what I want” attitude had only gotten stronger. Within seconds of my challenge, he had me pressed firmly against the wall behind me and caged me in with one arm on either side of my head.
“I want you with me,” he whispered, and his breath blowing along my cheek and neck sent chills over my arms and back. “Not because of guilt, or because I feel obligated to.” It was as if he could read my thoughts. “It’s because I have wanted you longer than I can remember, and until a day ago I thought I would never have the chance to feel you in my arms.”
His confession made my stomach tighten.
“It won’t be an easy task, but I promise you we’ll get your divorce to go through. He’ll fight it just to make things hard on the both of us, we know that. But damn it, Jenny, we’ll do it together. Because I don’t want to lose you again.”
My head was spinning and I wanted to scream, yes, but I still couldn’t form the words.
“I went to see him.” Sean’s whispered words surprised me. “I told him I planned to give you and Landyn the life you both deserved.”
Tears filled my eyes.
“Let me do that?” he asked. “Please give me the girl I’ve always wanted, and I promise you I will love the both of you so immensely that never again will either of you feel lost or sad. At least not at my hands. And I will do everything I can to shelter you both from that man’s hate.”
A tear escaped and rolled over my cheek, and Sean leaned in and kissed it away.
“Please, can we forget the past and work on building a future together?”
How could I ever say no to that? He wasn’t giving me a chance not to, and it was something I had always wanted with him anyway.
Sean stood before me, offering to love me and my son even with all the shit I had to bring to the table. He was willing to stand by my side and protect not only me, but the most important person in my life—Landyn.
I didn’t deserve his love, but call me selfish, because I wanted it so much more than anything else at that moment.
I nodded and relief washed over his face.
Without pause, he leaned in again and covered my lips with his. Compared to this kiss, his earlier kiss felt like a practice run.
This kiss was a” no holds barred,” “give it all you got” kiss. My toes curled, and he relaxed against me more and we both moaned simultaneously.
It was beautiful.
“Do we get to ride in that?” Landyn asked as he pointed toward the motorhome parked next to the truck that held Sean’s car. It was big enough, in my opinion, to hold the entire pit crew.
“You wanna ride in there?” Sean asked, scooping him up as if he weighed nothing.
Call me crazy, but seeing
the way he was with Landyn pulled at my heart. Robby barely ever spoke to him unless he was yelling at Landyn for being in his way. The way Robby treated his son as if he were disposable made me sick. Sean actually listened to him when he talked, even though he sometimes had to look to me for clarification on some of Landyn’s words, but I knew it still made Landyn feel important. And that gave me more reassurance that I was in fact making the right choice to leave with him.
“Yeah,” Landyn replied, eyes wide with excitement.
I couldn’t help but smile back at them.
“Then you got it,” Sean told Landyn, only making him squeal out happily, doing a little fist pump in the air.
That was new. Obviously being around not only Sean but his pit crew for the last two hours had already started rubbing off on him.
“Is that how you normally travel?” I asked, and Sean shook his head. “Then we don’t have to, really. He’ll be fine riding in a car or truck.” I didn’t want Sean changing how he traveled or anything else for that matter, just because we were tagging along.
With his free arm he hooked me around my shoulders and pulled me in close. Being in his arms felt amazing, and I imagined I would never tire of it.
“We’ll be on the road for at least fifteen hours.” My eyes widened. I was a sheltered girl who had never traveled more than two hours outside of my hometown of Irving. “Yeah,” he said with a laugh. “Even I grow antsy after five, so imagine how a six-year-old would feel during three times that amount.”
“But you don’t have to change your routine for us,” I whispered, looking up at him.
He gave me a soft kiss against my temple. “That’s where you’re wrong, pretty girl, because everything changes now.” I closed my eyes, fighting back tears as he continued. “I never had a family of my own to think about before, and now the two of you come first. If Landyn wants to ride there instead of the truck, then we will.”
I could sense that, once again, there was no changing his mind.
SEAN
I IGNORED THE strange looks I got from my crew. As of right now, any questions regarding our two newest additions were off-limits. I just wanted to sit back and enjoy the looks of pure excitement and awe on both of their faces as we traveled through parts of the country I know neither of them have ever seen. Call me crazy, but I loved being the man that was able to show them these things. And I had no intentions of stopping there.
I meant every word I said to Robby and to Jenny. I wanted them to be the happiest they had ever been and to be able to leave behind the ugliness of their previous life.
“What are you thinking about?”
I turned to see Jenny sitting at my side, smiling up at me. I still had to get used to not only the fact that she was here, but that I had confessed my true feelings to her. I still found myself wondering if it was okay to kiss her or hold her.
“Whatever it is, it seems intense,” Jenny whispered, and I realized I still hadn’t answered her question.
“You,” I confessed. “Where we go from here.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, looking a little confused.
“This trip,” I said, reaching out to lace my fingers with hers. “It isn’t just a break from everything back in Irving, it’s a new start. You know that, right?”
She nodded, but I could sense her hesitation, and I didn’t like it.
“I don’t think you do,” I told her. “But you need to understand that now I’ve got you, I don’t intend on letting you go.”
She smiled and tucked her chin toward her chest.
I’d never imagined I’d be saying these things to Jenny, but I told myself I would no longer keep myself from being honest. “You need to know I’ve waited for what feels like forever to hold you and touch you, so I have no intentions of holding back. This is real, we are real, and when I get the chance, I plan to show you exactly how good we’ll be together.”
I allowed my lips to hover near her ear, and she shivered at my words.
“You already know we’re gonna be good, don’t you?” She nodded, and I moved in a little closer. “Have you thought about us?” Another nod. “Thought of how it would feel to have me touch you?”
She nodded once more, and my heart was racing.
Had we not been surrounded by people including Landyn, who was playing only a few feet away, I would have shown her just how amazing it would feel.
“Do you want this, Jenny?” I asked, because I needed to know she had no reservations. We would work out the technicalities later, but in all the ways that mattered, I needed to know she was in this with me. Because if I let her in, and Landyn too, I wasn’t sure my heart could take losing them.
“Yes,” she said finally, looking up at me.
Even though we weren’t alone, I pressed a soft kiss to her lips. Keeping things simple was hard, but I knew our time would come. And I fully intended on holding nothing back when that opportunity came.
“Good, because I want this too, so badly,” I confessed. “All of it.”
Her eyes locked on mine, and for a moment we just stared at one another before I leaned in and pressed my lips to hers. A gentle flip of my tongue against her lips caused her to release a moan I felt deep in my stomach. This trip would be the longest damn trip of my life.
After a few stops along the way, we pulled into the second driveway of my home, the one that led to the large building that held my car and most of its extra parts and tires. I lived in a gorgeous brick home located on two acres of lakefront property that was large enough to add a secondary garage with four stalls set back from the house and hidden mostly by a line of trees. I loved that I had access to the lake and the ability to walk out my back door, down to my dock, and aboard my boat or Jet Ski whenever the mood struck me. I was a kid at heart and, yes, I had a lot of toys. Until now, I had no one to spoil but myself, so I did, often.
I lived like a nomad for the last five years by staying in hotel rooms and tiny apartments, and it had taken a long talk from my parents to convince me it was time to change my ways of living. I’ve only owned this property for about eight months, and I couldn’t think of anyone else I’d rather share it with than Jenny. And from the look on Jenny’s face, I was glad I had finally taken that step.
When we slowed to a stop, I stood from the couch and took her hand. “Let’s go take a look around.”
She was at a loss for words. She simply nodded and followed me out with Landyn in tow.
“Boys, we can unload later,” I told my crew. “Head home and enjoy the evening. I’ll see ya’ll here tomorrow around nine a.m.” I didn’t wait for any of their responses and ignored their smirks and curious stares.
I led Jenny up to the house, Landyn tucked at her side. Watching them was quite entertaining. Their heads were moving from side to side as they took everything in, their eyes wide and mouths hanging open.
Their awe made this so much better.
I took them through the back door right off the dining area, and Jenny mumbled, “Wow,” as she took in the space.
The open floor plan was the number one thing that attracted me to the house. Along with the kitchen, living room, and dining room, it had three bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms. Until now it felt too big, but I could almost imagine it filled with the things Jenny would bring in to make it feel more like a home for her too.
“You like it?” I asked.
“Like it?” she whispered as she looked around, continuing to take it all in. Finally she looked up at me, her eyes glossy. “It’s beautiful.”
“It’s home now,” I told her.
After seeing what they had lived in back in Irving, I could imagine what was going through her mind. Taking her and Landyn away from that hell and giving them a better life was definitely one of my prouder moments.
“We’re gonna live here?” Landyn asked.
Jenny looked up at me, and I offered her a gentle squeeze around the shoulders before lowering myself to the ground before him.
<
br /> “This is my home, buddy,” I stared to explain, hoping Jenny would be okay with me taking the reins on this one. “And I’ve asked your momma and you to move in here with me. So if it’s okay with you, yes, I’d like for this to be your home now too.”
His eyes widened with excitement and he practically threw himself into my arms.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” I said, and Jenny laughed.
She ruffed up his hair, making him look up at her as he hugged me around the neck. “What do ya say, bud? You wanna live here with Sean?” Jenny asked, and I held my breath. My future lay in the hands of a six-and-a-half-year-old boy.
“Please say yes,” I whispered, and Jenny giggled. I wasn’t above bribing him. Hell, I was just about to promise the kid everything he wanted when he tossed me a bone.
“Where would my room be?”
In seconds, I’d scooped Landyn up and jogged up the stairs just off the living room toward the second biggest bedroom of the house. It only contained a bed and dresser now, but I’d take the kid out and fill my damn truck with everything his heart desired if he’d just agree to staying here.
“It’s plain now, but that just means we can fill it with everything you want,” I told him as I lowered him to the floor and he began to move around the room. “We can paint it if too, and we can even get a different bed.”
Jenny poked me in the side, and when I looked over at her, I could tell she’d already figured me out. I just shrugged, causing her to shake her head and turned back to Landyn.
His curious expression troubled me. “Landyn,” I said gaining his attention as I stepped farther into the room and took a seat on the floor. “Have a seat.” I tapped the carpet next to me.
Once he sat down, I leaned in close, placing my elbows on my knees and making sure I had his full attention.
“I knew your mom before you were even born. We grew up together.” Jenny took a seat on his opposite side, and I offered her a wink. Her smile indicated it was okay for me to continue. “She and I lost touch for a while, but when I saw her again, I realized that even after all the time away from each other, I still care about her very much. And in the short time I’ve known you, I’ve come to care about you too.”
