by K. M. Scott
I held her and reveled in the feel of her next to me. I’d missed this so much. Burying my face in her long brown hair, I closed my eyes and inhaled the soft scent of her shampoo. As much as I wanted to stay like this, I had to get everything off my chest, so I leaned back and continued, knowing that if I didn’t say it all now, I’d never say it.
“Kane would never say anything because he doesn’t know. To him, his life has been one long example of no one wanting him. He thinks because our father wasn’t around for him that he suffered something Cash and I didn’t. He’s wrong. My father was never around for me either, but I don’t get the benefit of acting all broken because I grew up with money and privilege from Cassian March III.”
I knew how this sounded, and I didn’t care. I’d spent enough time running away from this.
“All my life I’d wanted to be that person my father admired, and then when he finally had the chance to give me that, he took it away and gave it to his illegitimate son. Kane walked into my life and now I had two Cassian March lookalikes, spitting images of my father staring at me day in and day out watching for me to fuck up, like I always did.”
“Stefan, your brothers love you. I never met your father, but maybe in his own way he did too?” Shay asked.
“My mother always says he loved me, but I think that’s more her wishing he did so she wouldn’t feel bad about how he treated me. I don’t know if my father loved me. What I know is that he had no interest in me because I wasn’t Cassian March IV, and by the time he died, I think I could have handled if he’d made some provision in his will favoring Cash over me. He’d always favored him over me, so I was used to it. But to bring Kane in as if he was the same as me killed me. And then he made him better, and I was back to being that little boy left standing on the porch as my father and Cash drove off every time without me.”
“Stefan, our parents do awful things sometimes. I don’t know if your father realized what he was doing to you. Lots of times they don’t. But you’re loved and I need you see that.”
“Every day we fought, Shay. I didn’t know why. Nothing I seemed to offer was enough, and then when you came back I thought things would get better.”
Her hands slid from my face and she hung her head. “It was all me. You were always the same person I fell in love with, but I changed. I became one of those horrible people I swore I’d never turn into.”
“Why?”
She sniffled and said on a sob, “One night you called me and I don’t know why but I had a feeling you weren’t alone anymore. That’s when it started. I threw myself into work there, but I couldn’t shake the idea that you were back here with someone. So I came home early, but that didn’t help things because then I felt like one of those stupid girls who can’t see they’re being fools.”
“Why didn’t you say anything? I would have been happy to tell you the only comfort I was getting was from my hand.”
Shay smiled and wiped her cheek. “Because you would have said that. I had it in my head that something was going on, and you know me. Once it gets into my thick skull, that’s it. It’s in there.”
“So you think I cheated on you?” I asked, still having a hard time believing she thought that. Never in my life had I been faithful to a woman before her, and now I couldn’t imagine even wanting someone else.
“No. I don’t know. I know you don’t want to hear this, but it was Kane who set me straight. He told me I was wrong and that you’d never been happier than you were with me.”
Just hearing Kane’s name bothered me, and I stood from the bed. “I need to clean up. Give me a few minutes for a shower and we can talk more.”
“Stefan…”
She didn’t finish her sentence, and I didn’t stand there to hear the rest of it.
*
The water from the half dozen shower heads pulsated against my skin, reminding me of how much I’d missed my home in the past few weeks. Not that a great shower was what I came home for, but it was a nice perk. I turned the hot water on stronger, practically burning my skin, but it did the job and every worry tied up inside me seemed to melt away.
I heard a noise behind me and saw Shay step in and close the glass door. “Is it okay if I come in?”
Nodding, I turned around and let the water run down the back of me again. I heard her open the shampoo bottle and then felt her hands in my hair massaging my scalp. We’d done this so many times I couldn’t remember one from another, but something about the way she touched me now felt different.
I felt different.
As her fingers caressed my skin, I let myself go and enjoyed Shay’s soft touch. How long had it been since we’d just enjoyed one another?
Too long.
She guided my head toward the water to rinse out the shampoo and as the suds ran down my face, I heard her say, “Did you like it out at the Anna Maria house?”
“I did.”
“What did you do all that time?”
Wiping the soap from my eyes, I leaned forward against the tile and pressed my hands to the wall. “I drove Abbi to the hospital every day, and then I’d hang out, most of the time alone, and think. But it felt nice to be needed and important to someone.”
Shay slid her arms around my chest, and pressing her cheek to my back, she whispered, “I need you, Stefan. You’re important to me.”
“Not really. She needed me to drive her and I think she needed a friend like I did. You’re perfectly fine without me at all.”
Moving around me, she looked up into my eyes and shook her head. “That’s not true. I need you more because I love you. I know I’m not much of a damsel in distress, but I do love you, Stefan March. I want you to know that.”
I pushed the wet hair off her face and kissed her deeper than ever before. “I don’t want to go another day without you, Shay. Not one more day. You’re the best thing in my life. Stay with me and even when it gets rough because we’re so different, promise me we’ll both remember how great it can be between us?”
She smiled as the tears began to roll down her cheeks, and I saw real happiness in those beautiful eyes of hers. “Yes! Yes, I will, Stefan. And don’t ever think it’s bad that we’re so different. My kind of person needs the fun and love of life you believe in. It’s what keeps us from becoming horrible and boring.”
Kissing her again, I whispered against her lips, “Then that’s what I’ll do.”
She smoothed away the wet hair from my face. “And I promise to be the person you fell in love with. No more miserable science girl, okay?”
I reached around her and cupped her gorgeous ass. “Come here.”
Shay pressed her body against my rapidly stiffening cock and grinned up at me. “I’ve missed you this way. It’s been too long.”
“Yeah, it has been, so no more talking. It’s time we get this second chance for us started, and I can’t think of a better way to begin than making love to you.”
Wrapping her arms around my neck, she held on as I lifted her from the shower floor. We’d fucked like this dozens of times, but this time felt different. As she locked her legs behind my back and her heels gently pushed against my spine to urge me on, I slid into her wet and willing body, loving the feel of her taking all of me.
The hot water pelted my back, but the pain it inflicted was blocked out by the ecstasy I felt as I pushed into her snug cunt. Shay rocked her hips in rhythm with my thrusts, taking me as deeply as she could, and for the first time in far too long, our lovemaking moved beyond the physical.
I looked down into her green eyes that never failed to show her true emotions and saw she knew it too. She needed me as much as I needed her. Maybe we were as different as night was to day, but what did that matter? I’d tried to forget her all those nights out at the Anna Maria Island house, but it was no use. I couldn’t forget that before all the fights and all the unhappiness, she’d been the only woman ever to make me want something more than to just get my cock wet and please myself.
Now as
I held her to me after I’d shared my deepest, darkest secret, I didn’t want anyone else to share my life with. It wasn’t just the great sex or how beautiful she was. I wanted her because of what she made me feel for the first time in my life.
“I love you, Shay,” I whispered as I felt her body begin to come apart around me.
Clinging to me, she shuddered as her orgasm tore through her, and in my ear she moaned, “I missed you so much, Stefan. I love you.”
With one last thrust into her, I came just as her release subsided. Everything I was and I everything I could be I’d give to her. I didn’t have a choice. I loved her.
And for good and for bad, no matter how different we were, we belonged together.
Chapter Seventeen
Kane
Every day for nearly a month, I offered Abbi a ride home and got shot down. I knew I had to earn her love again, so she could refuse for another month or even another year and it wouldn’t matter. One day she’d say yes, and that would be the day we would begin life together again.
I saw her as I arrived to visit with Annalea one morning in early December and taking a chance asked her, “Would you stay so the three of us can spend time together?”
A look of surprise crossed her face, but quickly it was replaced by a genuine smile that reached all the way up to her eyes. “Okay. Let me tell Travers I’ll be a little longer. I’m sure he won’t mind.”
She turned to run down the hall to tell him, but I caught her arm before she could get too far. “I can give you a ride back to the house, Abbi.”
Stopping short, she seemed to think about my suggestion and quietly said, “Okay. Let me tell him and we can go back in to see Annalea together. Just give me a second.”
I released her arm, and she trotted off to tell Alexandria’s caretaker that she was staying. With me. For the first time, she’d said yes. I waited for her to return, my heart pounding with excitement like I was a teenage kid on a first date with the prettiest girl in school.
A minute later, Abbi came back and flashed me a smile. “Okay, let’s go in and see that little angel of ours.”
Annalea had been making great progress in the weeks since her birth months too early. She still wasn’t anywhere as big as other babies who were born full-term, but each day she grew a little more. I’d gotten used to the buzzing and humming of all the machines that surrounded the preemies in the NICU, and in some way, those sounds that at first felt so harsh and mechanical now gave me some peace of mind, almost as if the machines made me feel that as long as they all continued to hum and buzz, everything was fine.
Abbi and I stood at the foot of Annalea’s isolette, and looking up at me, she said, “Her eyes were open when I visited before too. See? She has your eyes.”
“She does, but other than that, she’s all you, angel.”
“I hope she gets some of your height, though. I’ve always wanted to be taller,” she said with a chuckle.
As I started to say that no matter how tall she ended up being, she’d be perfect, the machines around us began to beep and chime rapidly, a clear sign something was wrong. I looked around to see which baby’s monitors were creating the noise, but then Abbi squeezed my hand in hers and I realized it was Annalea who was in distress.
Her little legs spasmed under the blanket covering her, and she began to shake as we watched in horror. Nurses quickly swarmed around her, gently pushing Abbi and me back as they did their best to comfort her. Everything seemed to go in slow motion. Machines squawked the news that our baby had a problem and nurses barked out orders to other nurses who ran to the isolette to intubate Annalea while we looked on terrified, unable to do anything but watch and hope we wouldn’t lose her before she even had a chance to live the life we wanted to give her.
“Kane!” Abbi cried as she clung to my arm. “Don’t let her die, Kane!”
I wrapped my arms around her and held her to me. “She’s strong, Abbi. Annalea’s strong. She’ll be okay.”
I said those words over and over, but even I didn’t know if they were true. Yes, she was strong, but as I stood there watching those nurses with all those tubes and wires going in and out of my little girl, I didn’t know if that would be the last image I ever had of her alive.
Abbi sobbed against my chest, begging God to give us the chance to get to know our daughter until my shirt was drenched with her tears. I didn’t cry, but I stood there silently praying to God and bargaining that I’d do anything if he’d just give Annalea another chance.
Then as quickly as the commotion had begun, it was over and the machines were back to their usual humming and buzzing. A nurse explained that Annalea had been in distress because her lungs weren’t taking in enough air and that she’d have to be on yet another machine until they had matured to the point that she could breathe on her own, but she’d pulled through and that was all that mattered.
Abbi and I looked down at our daughter, holding hands as each of us quietly told her how proud we were of her and how much we loved her and couldn’t wait for the day she’d finally get to come home with us. For the first time since Annalea’s birth, we were there for her together, her parents there to support her. We may not have been together in any real way yet, but there in that NICU, Abbi and I stood as one for her.
Refusing to let go of my hand until we got to the car, Abbi got in and sat next to me in the Mustang just like she had that first night I took her out of that club. As I started the engine, I looked over and saw her sigh deeply. I knew what she was going through. I felt like I could sleep for a week after what the three of us had been through just a short time earlier.
She buried her face in her hands and said quietly, “I’m so glad you were there with me when that happened, Kane. I wouldn’t have been able to deal with that alone.”
I reached out and took her left hand, threading my fingers through hers. “Same here. If I’d been there alone with her and that had happened, I don’t know what I’d have done.”
Abbi turned her face toward me and struggled to smile. “She’s going to be okay. I just know it. I have to believe that.”
“You believed in me when I’m not sure anyone else in the world could. You’re strong, and so is our daughter. I believe in that.”
She nodded and took a deep breath in as she tried to calm herself. “I did believe in you, and I believe in her too.”
“What about us? Do you still believe in us?” I asked, hoping to hear that Abbi hadn’t given up on the two of us getting back together sometime.
Abbi remained quiet for a long time and wouldn’t look at me, and as I waited for her answer, I silently swore that no matter if she believed in us or not, I wouldn’t give up. When she finally spoke again, they weren’t the words I’d hoped for.
Looking at me, she knitted her brows and in a serious voice said, “I was so lost out at the house that I would dream about you every night, Kane. I wanted you to come back to me so badly that I’d go to sleep and dream that you were there with me. I didn’t know why you didn’t love me anymore, and every day I tried to reach you, but nothing ever worked. But in my dreams every night, you were there. I think that’s why I never gave up, even though some days were so hard that all I wanted to do was run away and never come back.”
I listened as her words felt like they were piercing my heart and hated myself for what I’d put her through all those months. I had no idea how I’d ever make up for every day I’d hurt her, but I planned to spend the rest of my life trying. I had to begin with the truth so she knew that I missed her too.
“You weren’t dreaming, angel. I was there.”
Abbi shook her head. “What do you mean you were there?”
“I went out to the island house every night to see you. I missed you so much, but I couldn’t risk hurting you, so I’d sneak in and watch you sleep each night.”
“I didn’t think you cared.”
“I never stopped caring. I just believed that I’d only end up hurting you if we stayed toget
her, so every day I’d be miserable and lost until nighttime when I knew I’d see you again. Going out to that house was the only thing that made the days even bearable.”
“Why? Why not just come see me when I was awake?”
I hung my head and looked away from her. “I swear I never meant to hurt you, Abbi. I was just so sure that if we stayed together I’d do something that would ruin your life, so I stayed away. But I never really could stay away, so if the only way I could see you was when you were sleeping, that’s what I’d take.”
“I missed you so much, Kane. All those months all I wanted was to hear you call me angel or take me in your arms and tell me we’d be okay.”
The hurt in her voice pinched at me, and I looked up to see her eyes searching my face for what I knew she needed to hear. I’d been so wrong for so long, but now was my chance to begin making things right.
“I never stopped loving you, Abbi. Never. I know leaving you out there was wrong, but I didn’t want to hurt you or the baby. I believed you were better off without me.”
Taking my hand in hers, she bent her head down and kissed where our fingers touched and smiled up at me. “You would never hurt me intentionally, Kane. I never doubted that for one second. You protect people. You don’t hurt them.”
“All those months…I did hurt you, and I’m sorry, Abbi. I’m so sorry.”
Even though she probably should have never spoken a kind word to me again after what I’d put her through, Abbi accepted my apology. As we drove toward the house like we did every day, I wondered if we’d ever be able to go back to the way we were before I’d ruined everything.
I stopped the car and stared straight ahead. “I’m talking to someone now, angel, and I think it’s helping a lot.”
“What do you mean talking to someone? Who?”
“A doctor. Alexandria helped me find him the day Annalea was born. I need help, and I think talking to him is going to help me figure out what’s wrong with me.”
Abbi slid her hand over mine on the steering wheel, her touch soft and gentle against my skin. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you, Kane.”
