Start Again: A Novel (Start Again Series #1)

by J. Saman

  Luke shakes his head with a half-smile. “Not likely my friend. I’m the best of the best, and the lowest of the low—in that order. It’s completely impossible to replace me.” He reaches out his hand, and he and Ryan do some sort of bro-shake-hug thing. Luke winks at me, leaning in and giving me a lingering hug and slow kiss on the cheek. “Bye, Duchess Kate. It’s really been a pleasure. And if you ever tire of this big guy, come find me. I’m way more entertaining.”

  After Luke’s leaves us, Ryan and I continue to walk around the top together. I turn to him with a big smile. “I like Luke. I’m glad you have a buddy here.”

  Ryan gives me his crooked smile. “A buddy? What am I, six?”

  “I’m sorry, did you say sex?” I ask, keeping my face impassive.

  “Yes. I definitely said sex, so move that sexy ass of yours so I can get you home and take advantage of you.”

  “I believe I am deserving of some spankings.”

  He groans, dropping his forehead to the top of mine. “Killing me, Katie. Killing me. I never thought of myself as a man who would enjoy spanking a woman, but I am, and I’m dying to turn that round perfect ass a lovely shade of pink.”

  “Funny, because I never thought of myself as a woman who would enjoy being on the receiving end of said spankings, but I am, Mr. Grant, and it’s all your fault.”

  I’m teasing him, but his expression turns serious as he pulls me in, kissing me deeply.

  “Then I guess we’re meant to be together, Katie.”

  I swallow hard and don’t respond.

  How can it feel like what he’s saying is right when I always knew I was meant to be with Eric?

  By the time we get back to Ryan’s it is late in the evening, almost dinner time. We decide to try out some of the delivery services in the area as we light a fire and curl up in front of it.

  Ryan hasn’t stopped touching me once.

  Not once.

  Like he’s stockpiling it for when I’m gone.

  “The food is ordered, and they assured me it would take at least forty-five minutes to get here.”

  “Oh,” I laugh. “They assured you of that, did they?”

  He nods, taking off his glasses and setting them down on the coffee table. “They did indeed, love. Now get that bottom over here. I’m not going to tie you up right now, due to time constraints, but I am going to spank you for making me get on an airplane this morning, and then I’m going to fuck you crazy.”

  Holy hell, I can’t help but squirm.

  My cheeks are on fire, as is the rest of my body. He walks me over to the edge of the rug between the coffee table and the hearth then strips me down slowly. His eyes rake in every inch of me, memorizing the slopes, and curves, and shades of my skin. I don’t think I’ve ever been so turned on in my life.

  He takes off his shirt and jeans, but leaves his black boxer briefs on. Twirling his finger in the air, indicating that he wants me to turn around, I do as I’m told, only to realize that the shades on the window are open.

  “Ryan?” I ask nervously. “The window.”

  “Is facing the water and the mountains. No one can see in, sweetheart. I’d never share this with anyone.” His hands run up and down my skin, leaving delicious shivers in their wake. “Bend over,” he whispers in my ear and my breath catches.

  My legs threaten to give out on me as I bend forward, placing my hands on to the coffee table and closing my eyes. Smack! Ryan’s hand hits my ass before rubbing it soothingly to ebb the sting. It doesn’t really hurt. He’s not hitting me hard. It’s just enough to make me feel it.

  He does this five more times and by the time he’s done, I’m panting and struggling to hold myself up. Suddenly I feel his mouth kissing and licking and sucking on my sensitive burning flesh, and I can’t help but moan loudly. His fingers find me and he releases a moan of his own, before his mouth replaces them.

  I wouldn’t say I’m sexually innocent, but I’ve never had someone go down on me from this angle, or been this exposed while doing it. It takes me no time at all to reach my climax, and when he slides inside of me it’s the ultimate connection.

  “Katie,” he moans my name over and over. “I’ll never get enough,” he groans.

  I know the feeling.

  We come together in the most spectacular way and just as we finally manage to catch our breaths, the doorbell rings, making us both bust out into laughter.

  “I hope he didn’t hear us,” I giggle.

  “If he did, he can’t be anything but jealous, because that was earth shatteringly good.” He kisses the tip of my nose before getting up, throwing on his jeans—sans boxers—and going to the door.

  I dress quickly because even though I’m off to the side and am blocked from view, I don’t exactly feel comfortable lying here naked on the carpet with the delivery guy only a few feet away.

  Ryan and I eat penne in vodka sauce and chicken parmesan in front of the fire and the television, watching the new Star Wars movie on the huge flat screen. It’s heaven, so fucking ideal I want it to last.

  But I feel the clock chiming inside of me.

  The ever-present tickle of guilt.

  The hint of betrayal, and the sting of longing, turn my insides out and cause my chest to clench in the worst way. I cling to Ryan, unable to stand even an inch of space between us, and he’s only too happy to hold me just as close.

  I want to beg him to never let me go.

  To fight the way he said he would.

  To be patient and give me time to figure everything out. But I don’t. Instead I silently sit here and watch the movie, breathing in his scent which is starting to feel like my home, and enjoying this suspended moment in time.

  Because it won’t last.

  In fact, it’s just about up.

  Chapter 27

  Ryan

  I know before I open my eyes and reach out my hand that she’s gone. My bed is cold. My house quiet. My heart is aching.

  Dammit, Katie, how could you run out in the middle of the night?

  I should have known she’d want to avoid a big goodbye. I should have expected this.

  But I didn’t.

  I didn’t, and now I’m crippled with it.

  I could go out and try to find her. Try to bring her back and make her stay with me forever, but I won’t. There is no point. She wanted to go.

  “Fuck!” I yell out, slamming my fist into the rumpled sheets on her side of the bed. Moving my body over, I bury my face in her pillow, inhaling her smell. The best fucking scent in the world. Katie.

  I miss her. It’s only been a couple of hours since she left, and I already can’t stand how much I miss her. The doorbell rings and it takes me less than a second to fly out of bed, throw on my glasses and run down the stairs in only my boxer briefs. Maybe she went out to get me coffee and a diet coke for herself. Maybe she didn’t leave me.

  I fling the door open and want to punch the shit out of the face on the other side. Fucking Luke. Why is he here?

  And why is he not Katie?

  “Why do you look like you’re about to pull out a knife and stab me to death on your front porch? And why are you answering the door mostly naked? Even though I think you’re good looking, you’re just not my type,” he winks. I’m not in the mood for his shit right now.

  “What do you want, Luke?” I snap, hoping he’ll just go away and leave me to search the house for Katie before breaking something large and heavy when I convince myself that she’s actually gone.

  “Breakfast, man. We talked about it yesterday, remember? Duchess Kate invited me.” He’s scrutinizing me closely before his eyes wander past me into the house. “Where is Duchess Kate?” He can sense that something is off, and I don’t think I can bring myself to say the words out loud.

  “No breakfast today. Just go.” I start to close the door when his hand reaches out to stop it.

  His eyes flash with confusion before transformin
g to realization. “She left you, didn’t she?”

  Does he have to sound so sympathetic about it? It just makes me want to punch his face in all the more. When I don’t respond, he runs a hand through his short brown hair that he probably spends a small fortune to have cut.

  “Fuck man, I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

  “What the fuck do you think?” I yell at him, unable to contain my fury any longer and taking it out fully on him.

  “I think you love her.”

  “Go away, Luke,” I point towards the street behind him. “Please. I can’t deal with you and the shit-storm that’s going on inside my head.”

  “Do you want to go out and get drunk? Or laid maybe?” His hands fly up when he sees the rage creeping up my face. “Okay, not either of those things. But I don’t want to leave you alone right now. Have you tried calling her?”

  I shake my head, sighing out in frustration because he’s not going to fucking leave. “No asshole. I knew she was going to take off. It’s not like she didn’t tell me before doing it.”

  “I don’t understand. Why would she go and tell you about it beforehand?” Luke walks past me into my house, ignoring the death look I’m throwing him. Heading into the kitchen, he plops down on one of the black leather barstools.

  “Because she’s been through a lot of shit and isn’t ready for a relationship, or anything like it for that matter.”

  “But she loves you,” he states firmly and clearly, like there isn’t a doubt in his mind. “I freaking saw it, man, otherwise I wouldn’t have messed with her or you so hard.”

  Luke is also getting upset now. He liked Katie. I know he did. For me, he liked her. Maybe for himself a little too, but I’ll ignore that.

  I shrug, walking over to make myself some coffee. My head is throbbing so bad it feels like it’s going to explode.

  “You know we could always hack her phone or her credit cards? Find out where she went, and then you can show up and do the whole big romantic gesture.” I throw him a look that says shut the fuck up now. “Okay, fine. No hacking or grand gestures of love. So you’re just giving up?” He can’t believe it, and neither can I.

  But I’m not giving up.

  I’m just giving her what she asked for.

  Time.

  Once I get the coffee going, I turn around to face him, but the look in his eyes is not one I want to see, so I move my attention towards the window instead.

  “I’m not giving up. I love her. I’m just giving her some space and time.”

  “Fine. You know the situation better than I do, but all I’m going to say is don’t wait too long. You two were good together, and I only spent a couple of hours with you.”

  Does he have to be such a good friend? It’s odd, but right now, I don’t want comfort or platitudes, or brilliant words of wisdom and advice. I just want to deal with this by myself and wallow in my own self-pity.

  I have nothing to say back to that, so I pour myself a cup of the black stuff, hoping it’s the cure for the pounding in my head. It’s not. Only one thing can make me feel better, and she’s off somewhere without me.

  Somewhere unknown.

  Dammit, Katie.

  “Let’s go eat. I’m hungry. And I don’t think you sitting in this house is the best idea.” Luke stands up to his full height—which is an inch or two shorter than me—and waits, his eyes locking onto me like a vice. “I’m telling you, man, when things went to hell with Ronnie, I only got into trouble when I was home alone.”

  “I’ll be fine, Luke. Really.” I run a hand through my hair as I sip my coffee. “And I’m not hungry.”

  “Fine. No food. Do you want to work?”

  Do I? I don’t know. It’s certainly a distraction, and I could use one of those about now.

  “What kind of work?” I ask, walking towards the large island and setting my plain black mug on top of the marble with a clink.

  Luke smiles like the devil himself. “Pen testing?”

  “Pen testing what, Luke?” I have zero patience right now.

  His smile grows wider. “Tommy’s shit?”

  I laugh and oddly, it feels good despite the vacuous hole where my stupid, pathetic, traitorous heart should be. “Sure, man. Let’s fuck up Tommy’s shit and see if we can nail his balls to the wall.”

  He laughs too, but the gleam in his eyes tells me he’s excited. “A grand says I get in before you.”

  “You’re on, motherfucker.”

  I run upstairs and change into some clothes. As comfortable as Luke and I are around each other, I’m not going to sit around him in my boxers. My cell phone is still on my nightstand and I can’t help but look.

  Nothing. No call. No text. No nothing.

  Dammit, Katie.

  I thumb through the pictures that I took along the way—sort of like I knew I’d lose her and would need them—and scroll all the way back to the beginning, to our first night in DC when I got Tommy to take a picture of us.

  I didn’t even know her then.

  She was just the girl I had dreamed of my entire life—the girl from my memories, and fantasies, and wildest imagination. I select the picture and text it to Katie.

  This was my plan. I told her I’d fight for her, and I intend to.

  So I’m going to send her a new picture everyday—maybe more than once a day—of our trip. Of our time together.

  Of us.

  Katie is nostalgic as hell. She lives in her memories. I intend to implant myself firmly into them. She’ll see me and feel me every day. She’ll know that I’m thinking about her. Missing her.

  And I will make damn sure she’s doing the same about me.

  Luke was right. I could hack her without much energy or effort. But I’m not going to—though it is tempting as hell. She doesn’t even know this, but I’ve already linked our phones so I could just press that pesky app and find her right now. I did it after that asshole in Charleston tried shit with her. I did it as a precaution. As a safety measure.

  But now? Now I could use it to find my girl.

  My girl who doesn’t want to be found.

  Nope. I’m not going to give in like that. I’ll give her what she wants with a caveat of my own. If she doesn’t like it, she can change her number.

  She won’t.

  She loves me. She wants me. She’s just scared of what that means for her and her past.

  The text goes through and I smile, tucking my phone into the back pocket of my jeans since I don’t expect her to text back. No, my girl is far too stubborn for that.

  “You better not have started without me, dickhead,” I say once I get into my office and find Luke sitting with his computer already set up on his lap, comfortably lounging on the small couch behind the desk against the window.

  “Nope.” He looks up at me as I sit in the plush leather office chair, opening my own laptop. “Are we going to tell Tommy about this little infiltration, or just let him sweat about it?”

  “As much as I’d love to let him get his panties in a twist, I think after we crack his shit wide open, we should tell him it was us.” Tommy is a mediocre programmer at best. His real talent is having good ideas, but he often relies on others to make them happen.

  “You’re the boss, but if you don’t get your ass in motion I’m going to smoke you in a matter of minutes.”

  “Sure you are.” My arrogance is usually well-founded. I’m very good at what I do. It’s why companies from all over the world come to me. Why I never got caught when I did something worthy of getting caught for.

  I’m cautious. Quiet and controlled.

  And even though companies do come to me, they don’t actually know who I am. I’m a faceless name. And ever since my fuckwit cousin tried to dox me to the cops and the Feds—oh, and blackmail me for my money, can’t forget that—I try to fly even more under the radar.

  But my new software is going to change that, and I have to accept it. Get used
to it. Maybe even embrace it.

  “I’m in,” I exclaim, only to hear Luke hiss out a slew of curses. That distraction lasted all of five minutes.

  Great.

  But today is the first day in almost a month that I didn’t wake up and see Katie. That I didn’t get to look at her smile and hear her laugh, and see her blue eyes sparkle and light up.

  I miss her. I fucking miss her.

  It’s amazing how fast it happened.

  She became my world overnight, and within a matter of days it was impossible for me to imagine living without her. But here I am, living that nightmare and not knowing what to do with it.

  Empathy can be a real rude awakening, and for the first time, I understand her. Not exactly. I mean, I didn’t lose her completely. She’s not dead, and there is a chance I could see her again. Have her again.

  But I can empathize with her inability to let her family go. To believe that they were her entire world and that she can’t go on fully without them.

  I get it now, Katie.

  I only had her a few weeks.

  She’d had Eric for almost fifteen years. Maggie aside, because that’s a pain I pray I never experience, and no one can fully heal from that. But Eric? Yeah, I may be starting to get that a little.

  I want my girl back.

  I want her to walk into my house, and hold her small, curvy body on my lap and kiss the hell out of me until I’m convinced she’s never going to leave me again.

  Loss sucks.

  Life without Katie sucks.

  It’s like all the color that surrounded me these past three weeks have been obliterated. Zapped out, leaving me stuck in varying shades of gray.

  Luke and I dick around with Tommy’s stuff for a while, working silently side by side. It’s good. We haven’t done this in years. Not since right after we graduated.

  Well, I should say after I graduated.

  Luke got kicked out of school, and I hired him once he was let off with a small slap on the wrist. He’s got his own things going on the side, which is fine as long as he doesn’t get nailed for it. I don’t ask and he doesn’t tell, except to swear to me that it’s not illegal.