I followed Devon around the truck and paused for a moment, my breath catching in my throat. He was leading us into a dense forest unlike anything I’d ever seen growing up in Dallas. It was a little daunting to be so small compared to the trees that towered around us, to be willing to toss ourselves into the small path hacked through the encroaching flora.
“What is this place?” I asked, feeling tentative, wondering if maybe I should just force myself to go back to the cottage, ghosts and guilt be damned.
“I came here a couple of times when I was shooting that movie Nana liked so well,” Devon explained. I flinched when he said “Nana.” I wasn’t ready to hear her spoken out loud. “It’s nice and quiet. A good place to get away from things. To clear your mind.”
If only I could escape the fact that Nana was no longer here.
“Are you all right?” Devon was looking at me, his brows drawn together.
“I’m fine.” It was the furthest thing from the truth.
He turned after a moment and led the way into the foliage, holding branches so I could pass by without getting scratched.
We walked for a long time, the only sounds the crunch of the ground beneath our feet, the birds winging from tree to tree overhead. It wasn’t a strenuous path, but I had to concentrate on not tripping over roots and rocks that crossed and dotted the trail. I welcomed it. This kind of focus eliminated all other thoughts, banished my grief through necessity. I didn’t know where we were going, where we would end up, but part of me wished we could walk for the rest of the day, the rest of our lives, even. After a while, all that mattered were my steps, my breathing, and the prickle of sweat across my body. It was an existence boiled down to just the basics of survival, and I found it much preferable than the existence I’d had earlier today, scattering Nana’s ashes at the beach, consumed with sadness.
Devon stopped and I ran into his back.
“This is it,” he said, both of us breathing hard. “Ready?”
I had no idea what he’d planned, or where he’d taken us to, but when I stepped around him, around the branches he was holding back for me, and saw a waterfall thundering down into a pool below, something inside of me broke open.
I cried like I hadn’t before, not at discovering Nana, lifeless on the beach she loved so much, not during all of the preparations and arrangements I’d muddled through, with Devon’s help, and not even this morning, when I’d let Nana go from that urn, leaving her there on the shore forever. I cried at the unexpected beauty of this moment, the way the spray left all the plants around here lush, green, and speckled with dew. I cried for the sole fact that things could still be beautiful without Nana in this world anymore.
Devon simply held the branches back so I could gaze upon this view and cry. It wasn't until I turned to him that he let the plants fall back into place, taking me into his arms, holding me until there were no tears left inside of me.
When I was done, he led me farther down until we were by the pool, our bodies cooling from our long hike thanks to the mist generated by the falls. The water was mesmerizing to watch.
“I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am, June,” he said after what could’ve been five minutes or five hours. It was so hard to gauge time here. “I feel that Nana’s passing…that’s my fault.”
I looked at him sharply, torn from my meditations on the falling water.
“That’s ridiculous,” I told him. “Why would you think that?”
He shrugged, looking out over the pool. “I was the one who wanted you both to come here. And you know that it was just an excuse to…try to impress you. If I hadn’t been such an asshole, you and Nana would still be in Dallas and she would be okay.”
There were a lot of things going on here. “Nana was never going to be okay,” I informed him. “Her health was worsening all the time, and for every medicine they prescribed her, I sometimes wondered if it was just prolonging her suffering.”
Sitting there beside the majesty of that waterfall, in the middle of the forest, I had a revelation that made Nana’s death not cut so deeply.
“She chose this,” I said. “She was the one who picked a time and a place. She went out on her own terms. She chose the way she wanted to die, at a location that made sense to her. And I guess if we feel anything, it should be admiration. Jealousy, maybe. We don’t all get to pick how we die.”
Devon studied me, those brown eyes shimmering with an emotion I couldn’t put a name to.
But I wasn’t done yet. That was the pleasant part of my revelation. Devon wasn’t off the hook.
“But now that you’ve gotten what you wanted, I should probably go,” I said, eyeing him.
He wrinkled his nose. “What are you talking about? Go where? Back to the cottage?”
“No. I mean I should go back to Dallas. Leave you to it.”
Devon was silent for a while, his nose wrinkled in confusion, trying to figure me out.
“You’re going to have to explain,” he said finally. “I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”
“On the plane,” I sighed. “And right now. You said the only reason you invited me…us…here was to impress me. That you wanted to have sex with me. And now that it’s happened, I figured you’d want to move on to other pursuits. You’re a busy and famous man, and I know I was a just a novelty to you. A curiosity.”
Devon laughed at me. “If you think that I’m that easy to get rid of, then you obviously don’t know me very well.”
“Of course I don’t know you very well,” I said, exasperated. “I just met you, not a week ago, delivering a pizza to your drunk ass.” I was moved to recall that we’d exchanged similar words outside of Nana’s house just days ago, when I’d ended up deleting the terrible picture I’d taken of him in his hotel room. He hadn’t known me very well at that point. He probably knew me now better than I was comfortable with. Tragedy seemed to bring people closer. And Nana’s sudden death, there on that beach, had been the single greatest tragedy of my life.
It had been happenstance that Devon was there with me when I found her. Just a curious little oddity that he’d helped me with the arrangements, the costs incurred, the tasks that I couldn’t seem to do by myself. I appreciated him. I didn’t know what I’d be doing if he had simply washed his hands of me as soon as we’d found Nana there, lifeless in her wheelchair, her face lifted to the sun.
“I have to tell you something, June, and I really hesitate to do so.” Devon looked at me so intently that I glanced away, reminded at once of the beauty we were surrounded by, the thundering waterfall. The man beside me.
“Tell me whatever you think you need to tell me,” I sighed. “I give you permission.”
“It sounds petty,” he said slowly, “but I was still in a twisted-up place when I said that to you on the plane. Yes, I was doing this to impress you. I wanted you to like me. I’m not used to people not liking me. I guess I’m trying to say, as stupid as it sounds, that I got my heart broken. I was still messed up from my breakup. If I’m being completely honest, I guess I still am. It’s just…with your Nana dying, it seems like there should be bigger things to worry about than getting my feelings hurt.”
I wanted to be supportive. I was the one who’d encouraged him to communicate, after all. But Devon was back to sounding entitled. Or maybe I was just feeling jealous. No woman wanted to hear that the man she’d slept with a couple of days ago was still torn up about the previous woman. This was hard to take. Harder, still, without Nana. Her absence gave everything a raw edge.
“I can’t be your rebound, Devon,” I told him. “Maybe I could’ve done that for you before Nana died, but now I just don’t seem to be up for any more bullshit.”
“Am I asking you for that?” He laughed, incredulous, the sound mixing with the tumbling water before us. “That’s not what I’m after, June. Hell, I’m not after anything. I’m as surprised as you are that things have gotten to this level between us.”
“We’ve reached a le
vel?” What was this, a video game?
“I don’t know how to explain it,” he said. “Did I want to sleep with you? Of course I did. I’m a man. You’re beautiful. Anyone would be an ass to squander a chance with you.”
I huffed at him, rolling my eyes. I knew my looks didn’t hold a candle to Hollywood’s definition of even average prettiness.
Suddenly, Devon’s frustration matched my own. He stood and yanked me up with him.
“What are you doing?” I demanded. “Let go of me.”
“Not until you admit something,” he said, practically dragging me over to the water’s edge. He forced me to lean forward, over the pool of water, rippling from the waterfall just upstream.
“What do you want?” I tried to elbow him sharply, tried to get him away from me, but he was insistent.
“Look,” he said, pointing toward the water’s surface. “Look and tell me what you see.”
“Water,” I spat, hating him. Why was he doing this? Nana’s ashes were still roiling in the surf. I wasn’t in the mood for any games.
“Look at your reflection.”
His quiet intensity made me focus on the surface of the water until I discerned the outline of me, and then my features. I relaxed my face immediately. My angry face had always been a little frightening, my brow thunderous.
“Tell me what you see now.” Devon’s grip on me hadn’t loosened one bit.
“I see…me.”
“Uh-huh. And are you defective in any way?”
Defective? “I don’t understand.”
“Is there something about you that you don’t like? Some kind of defective part that makes you less desirable than any other woman?”
I studied my face in the pool, no sound but the waterfall beside us. “No.”
“That’s right,” Devon said, apparently satisfied enough that he let go of my arm. “I don’t understand why you can’t accept the fact that you’re beautiful. Because you are.”
My face went hot. It wasn’t as if guys hadn’t told me I was good looking. I’d had my share of trysts in high school and college. Nothing had ever panned out, mainly because I was too busy working and taking care of Nana. But guys had told me I was beautiful before, so I didn’t understand why it was so difficult to accept the words coming from Devon’s mouth.
Maybe it was because he came from somewhere I had difficulty understanding. Celebrities—they’re nothing like us. They come from practically another universe.
And yet here was one of the inhabitants of that universe, alone in a forest with me, standing beneath a waterfall, telling me I was beautiful.
I chalked it up to shock and stress, a culmination of everything I’d been through. Whatever it was, I grabbed Devon by his biceps, stood up on the tips of my toes, and kissed him.
He didn’t fight me, didn’t so much as make a grunt. He opened his arms to me and kissed me back, his tongue gently probing mine, responding in kind when I demanded more and more. The waterfall became a roar in my ears, my pulse fast, as I pulled at his shirt, tugging at the waistband of his pants until he helped me with them.
Devon stood in front of me, fully nude, while I still had all my clothes on, and it was one of the most erotic things I’d ever experienced. The lush greenery around us perfectly offset his bronzed, toned body, and he watched me patiently, the light in those brown eyes dancing, his hands at his sides, waiting.
I realized he’d put me completely in control of this encounter, even though I hardly knew what I was doing, what emotions I was responding to. There were too many feelings swirling inside of me, fighting for control, to know precisely which one had inspired me to strip Devon naked in front of me.
It was probably the same one that made me rip off my own shirt, step out of my own pants, approach him on the mossy ground, press my skin against his, feeling his cock stir against my belly.
I kissed his hard torso, leaving a hot, wet trail across his pecs, smiling to myself as I watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down at the contact. He was holding himself back—or trying to—and I was bound and determined to see just how far I could push him until he forgot himself, forgot what he was attempting to do.
The kisses went lower and lower, crisscrossing his abs, until I found myself kneeling on the moss, nuzzling his muscular thighs, faced with evidence of just how beautiful he thought I was.
It was a single kiss to the very tip of his cock that pushed him beyond himself. He simultaneously pulled away and bent forward, taking me by the shoulders, drawing me forward until he was seated and I was perched on his lap, sharing it with his ramrod erection. A few breathless adjustments and I was poised just above it, sinking down inch by inch, whatever capacity I had for thought and planning leaving me as I was filled up completely.
Then I became a being of pure feeling—a pair of hands on my waist, guiding my movements, another pair of hands clutching a strong set of shoulders, bodies rocking over the surface of soft moss, falling water drowning out any sounds that escaped from us.
Climax was almost painful in its sweetness, sharpening my reality, blinding, emptying me entirely. My cries of ecstasy ended in a sob. Devon wrapped his arms around me again, and we stayed like that, connected, until we were in danger of sticking together.
The pool beneath the waterfall was warmer than it looked, and we swam until our limbs were loose and relaxed.
“June.”
I rolled on my back to look at Devon, who was treading water in a deeper portion of the pool.
“Stay with me,” he said.
“I’m here,” I said. There wasn’t another place in the entire world I would’ve rather been than in that water with him in this moment.
Chapter 7
Hawaii was a beautiful place, especially the portion we were in, more wild than civilization, a tangle of forest and lava rock and beach. But it had also become a very sad place. I had to avoid the beautiful patch of sand that Nana had loved so much, because it reminded me too much of her, too much of what I’d lost. If I could just avoid that spit of sand, that jewel-colored water that lapped ashore, maybe I could avoid the fact that Nana was gone.
Devon and I went on long walks, shopped, ate fruit for breakfast, spent time with his friends on the island—did everything we could to stay in this sad but enchanted state, together, away from the things that irked us.
Reality came calling, literally, soon after in the form of concerned home healthcare providers and doctors and bill collectors. It wasn’t something that could be escaped. There were real things that needed to be dealt with, and I was the only person who could do it.
I walked out to the back porch to find Devon sighing as he pushed a button on his phone to ignore an incoming call.
“Who’s that?” I asked, making him turn and reach for me. I allowed him to draw me to him, leaning up against the solid bulk of his body, a constant presence and comfort.
“It’s just my agent,” he said, pushing the phone away across the table beside his chair. “Fourth call I’ve ignored of his today.” Devon lapsed into silence, and I could hear the faint pound of waves against a shore—the shore where Nana had died. If the weather stayed clear, we were in for a spectacular sunset.
“Is it anything important?” I asked.
“To Chaz, everything is important,” Devon said. “The fact that I haven’t been seen around Hollywood, the idea that the tabloids have put in everyone’s head that I’m moping after my breakup, that I’ve been missing appearances he’s been having to reschedule.”
“That last bit sounds pretty important,” I offered. “You’re the one who told me your image is your life. If you’re not around to promote it and protect it, someone has to do something.”
“Chaz is just pissed that I’m making him do work for once,” Devon mused. “The appearances just keep getting offered to me. He’s doing literally nothing to make them happen. That’s all me.”
“But he’s having to reschedule them for you,” I said, patting his shoulder. �
��That’s all you, too, not showing up for them. What are they, even?”
“Signings, interviews, the late-night circuit,” he said casually, as if it were nothing to him for people to be falling over themselves trying to book him and see him and worship him. “The usual.”
“We’re going to have to go back,” I told him, raising my eyebrows. “I’m sure you know that.”
“I know.” He took my hand and turned it upward, kissing the sensitive skin of my palm.
“I have Nana’s estate to settle back home in Dallas,” I said, the words sticking in my throat. Dallas didn’t seem like home anymore. Not without her there.
“That’s fine,” Devon said. “We’ll fly directly to Dallas and start wrapping everything up.”
I snorted at him. “You’re just trying to avoid your reality for as long as possible.”
“Is that such a bad thing?” he asked, his eyes wide in an attempt to appear innocent.
“You have your own life to go back to,” I told him. “I don’t know the first thing about estates, or even what I’m going to do with all of Nana’s clothes.”
“There’s a simple solution,” Devon said. “I’ll get my lawyer to take care of all the wrangling, and I’ll help you pack up the house.”
“What do you mean, pack up the house?”
“I’ll get you some storage if there are things you don’t want to part with or don’t know what to do with right now,” he continued, looking pleased with himself. “But you’ll want that thing empty to sell, don’t you?”
I blinked at him several times, trying to get my bearings in this conversation.
“Devon, why would I want to sell Nana’s house?” I asked finally. “Where am I supposed to live, then?”
His answer was prompt. “In Malibu. With me.”
It was a good thing Devon was holding on to me, planted firmly in his chair, or I might’ve lost my balance and tumbled to the ground. Where was this coming from? Since when had we decided that we were moving in together?
KYLE: A Mafia Romance (The Callahans Book 4) Page 41
