Reckless King

by Maya Hughes

  My body hummed pressed up so close to his. Every shift of our bodies together reminded me of how good they felt when we didn’t have anything between us.

  My head whipped up to meet his gaze, and he stared down at me.

  The playfulness and excitement of this visit to the greenhouse shifted. Heath’s goofy demeanor changed, and his eyes were filled with more than happiness over his plant. My blood pounded, and it all centered right on the one spot crying out for his attention.

  “I named it Alyogyne huegelii karaus.”

  The burning desire in his eyes nearly made my knees buckle. He growled against my cheek. His hot breath skimmed across my skin, and my stomach clenched as he slid his hand around my waist.

  My words didn’t even make sense and came out all choppy. My need for him riding me hard. Running his hands through my hair, he kept my head turned as he dipped his head and my lips parted. No hesitation at all. I was ready for Heath.

  Our tongues danced together with the promise of more to come. I wanted to turn around and tug down his jeans and let him fuck me on the work bench.

  But he had other ideas. He slid his hand under the waistband of my pants and down toward my throbbing core. A mewling sound burst free from my lips the second his fingers tapped on my clit. My knees buckled, but he held me up, pinned between him and the smooth topsoil-coated table.

  “Are you ready to me?”

  I nodded, not trusting my own voice. There were no sounds in the room except for the automatic misters going over the plants outside the potting room, but it was shortly accompanied by the evidence he was looking for. His fingers pushed inside me, straining against the waistband of my pants as the fabric bit into my waist.

  “You’re so wet. I can’t wait to taste you,” he rasped against the side of my face.

  My eyes shot to the wide-open greenhouse outside of our little alcove in the back.

  “Don’t worry. No one will come, except you.”

  A laugh escaped, but it was quickly cut off as he dragged my jeans over my ass and sank to his knees behind me. My moans caught in my throat at the first swipe of his tongue along my molten-hot core, and I knew I’d never look at gardening the same way again.

  36

  Heath

  I brushed some of the potting soil off Kara’s ass and gripped the top of her jeans, tugging them up and buttoning them. She held on to me, her fingers sinking into my skin as she leaned in. Her smell, mixed with the earthy scent around us, enveloped me.

  The greenhouse had never been more beautiful than when she was leaning into me after her screams had rattled the glass. I looped some of her hair around my finger, letting it glide through them as she took a deep breath and stepped away.

  Shaking her head, she threw her well and truly sexed-up hair into a ponytail. A smile tugged at my lips. Sex hair looked extra hot on her, especially when I knew it was me who’d been running my hands through it.

  “I can’t believe we did that.” She laughed and slid her shirt over her head. The foliage surrounding the greenhouse and distance from other buildings on campus meant the odds of someone seeing us were slim. Throw in a hockey national championship and everyone was out partying.

  The disappearance of her breasts back under the Knights jersey almost made me as hard as when I’d had them cupped in my hands. Knowing what was under there was pure torture. Bending over, she picked up her bag off the floor, dusting the dirt on it.

  A rag from the workbench smacked me right in the face. I caught it and threw it back at her.

  “Stop looking at me like that. You were inside me like five minutes ago.”

  “I can’t help it. It’s not my fault you give off a need-to-touch-you pheromone.” I grinned at her, and she rolled her eyes.

  I caged her between my arms. “And I can’t help it that I love you more with every second I’m near you.”

  She traced her fingers along my chest. The feather light touches sent sparks of electric pleasure throughout my body. It alternated between the pads of her fingers and a gentle scrape of her nails across my flesh. It wasn’t a random pattern. I peered down.

  “What are you doing?”

  Her eyes were locked onto my skin.

  “Committing this to memory, so I’ll be able to remember it always. Starting our story with a new line, right here.” She tapped her finger above my heart where her spiraling and tracing ended.

  I covered her hand with mine and let her feel my racing pulse. “I hope this new story has a happy ending.”

  Her eyes, framed by her thick eyelashes, pulled me into their chocolaty fullness.

  “I hope so too.” She bit her bottom lip.

  I ran my fingers under her chin and lifted it up, capturing her lips again.

  “I know so.” I skimmed my thumb across her full bottom lip.

  “There’s something I need you to do for me. Something I decided while we were apart.” Her fingers dug a little into my waist where she’d wrapped them around me.

  “Tell me. Whatever it is, we’re in it together.”

  The worried corners of her lips turned up.

  37

  Kara

  I ran my hand down the side of my pressed cream-colored pants. Heath slid his hand into mine and ran his thumb along my palm. We’d been in his car outside of the coffee shop for ten minutes. Neutral ground. A coffee shop didn’t have the same expectations of a restaurant. A bar certainly wasn’t appropriate. Meeting at my house was out of the question.

  Mak had recommended the quiet coffee shop as a place we could sit for as long as we needed to without being bothered. I was already five minutes late for the meeting.

  My parents had asked if I wanted them to come. I wanted them to stand by my side like they had since the second I’d arrived at their house, but I didn’t want anything that happened at the meeting to hurt them. I needed to figure out what I was going to do first and then let them know. I knew they’d support me in whatever I did, but my struggles were hard for them to see.

  “You don’t have to do this. We can turn around and go.” His eyes were filled with so much love it almost hurt.

  Our road to this today hadn’t been easy, but we were here and I needed to do this.

  “No, I’m ready.” I threw the door open and slid out before I lost my nerve. Smoothing my hands down the crisp navy, cap-sleeved top, I stepped in front of the door to the shop. My reflection stared back at me as Heath stood beside me. He brushed his thumb along the inside of my wrist.

  “Relax.” His soothing voice rolled over me, and my shoulders inched back down.

  My pulse jumped under his fingertips.

  Heath opened the door, and I stepped inside. My small kitten heels clicked on the polished floor of the coffee shop/bookstore. I tightened my grip on his hand as I spotted Angie in the far corner near the back.

  Our eyes met, and she stood up. With her hands clasped in front of her, she didn’t move. Probably afraid if she took a step, I might turn right back around and run out. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure that wouldn’t happen. My stomach was a knotted mess, and my heart pounded so hard I swore everyone around me could hear it.

  She looked great. The best I’d ever seen her. The floral print sundress highlighted how young she was. Not even forty yet. When she was my age, I was already seven. Her skin had a healthy glow, and her hair was shiny and smooth. If I hadn’t known who she was, she’d look like any thirty-something woman going out for a coffee on a bright and sunny day.

  A simple silver bracelet was wrapped around her wrist. Jewelry was never something I’d seen her wear. Maybe she’d had some at some point, but by the time I came around, everything of value was usually sold as quickly as it arrived.

  We stood in silence in front of one another. My fingers were laced so tightly around Heath’s that he must have felt like he’d stuck his hand into a bear trap.

  “Hi, Kara.”

  “Hi.” It had been so long since I’d seen her, I didn’t even know what t
o call her. Angie. Mom.

  “I’m really glad you decided to come. Thank you.” Her voice caught on the last word, and she put her hand to her lips. Her eyes glistened as the tears welled in her eyes.

  And like that the hold I had on myself dissolved. The dam burst, and I was an ugly-crying, snotty mess in seconds. It was like a decade of worry and the desperate need to forget were ripped from my chest.

  It was the splinter that had settled in my soul for so long I’d almost forgotten it was there unless I nudged it. This was way past nudging. This was taking a baseball bat to it. Heath wrapped his arms around me, his strength giving me something to hold onto as the world seemed to tip on its axis.

  We’d barely said two words to each other. How was I going to make it through this?

  I glanced up, and my mom had crossed the space between us. She clutched her hands to her chest with tears pouring down her cheeks. Her gaze shot to Heath’s arms enfolding me, and what she wanted was clear as day.

  I nodded and she lunged forward, her arms wrapping so tightly around me my chest ached. Heath gingerly dropped his, so it was only me and her left. She rocked us, gently swaying on our feet. Her hand stroked my back like she’d used to when I was little. I was transported to those tender times when she wasn’t completely bombed. When she’d keep me home from school and I’d sit on the couch and watch daytime TV with her.

  Those happy memories I’d buried deep down. It was much easier to only remember the bad. To cling to them and hold them tight, wrapping the pain around me like a warm blanket of distance and anger. If I only remembered those times, it was easy to not miss her.

  But here, with my arms wrapped around her when she smelled so clean and light, it made it impossible not to have those memories bombard me.

  Heath stepped away, probably to tell the people working there that we weren’t two women having a nervous breakdown. Well, maybe we were.

  After those minutes stretched on, we finally broke apart. We dropped our arms, and my mom grabbed on to my hand. She guided me toward the seat beside her, and I sat in the oversize chair. The kind you could curl up in with a good book and sit in for hours.

  Her lips were pursed together, and a fresh sheen of tears was in her eyes. “I never thought I’d get a chance to see you again. To hold you in my arms.” Her voice cracked, and my throat tightened. “I’m so happy we’re finally getting to do this.”

  I ducked my head and tried to clear the tightness in my throat. “I’m sorry about before and what happened with your letters.”

  She was shaking her head before I’d even finished speaking. “Don’t be sorry. I can’t even imagine what I put you through over the years. It hurts my heart too much to know that I hurt you while I was so screwed up. You have every right to protect yourself. I do hope one day you’ll be able to forgive me.”

  Heath stood behind the chairs across from us. He was looking to me. Stay or go. I tilted my head, and he sat on the other side of the small table in front of us.

  “I know it came as a shock to you when I contacted you, and I thought about it for months, probably years, before I did it. Every day I had to prove to myself that I was not going to put you through anything like I’d put you through before.”

  She squeezed my hand, and we spent hours talking. Heath was our server, running to get us another drink or some food. The entire thing was surreal. It was like I was looking in from the outside watching this conversation happening. The one I’d had in my head a million times over the years. The one I’d hoped I’d be able to have some day.

  A part of me had steeled myself for the phone call I might get one day to come identify her body. But this was harder. A hell of a lot harder. That was final; this was something else. Something I’d have to process and we’d have to work through if a relationship with her was what I wanted.

  With her arms wrapped around me and a teary goodbye, we made plans to see each other in a few weeks. The emotional toll was high, and I needed to talk to my parents and figure out what I wanted out of all this. At least now I knew. She was alive and well. Thriving after getting her degree and a job as a caseworker helping kids out who’d been like me. I guess it was her way of atoning and trying to be the light in the lives of other people going through so much.

  Heath and I sat in the car for a long time outside Heath’s house. I hadn’t wanted to go home yet. There was already so much I had inside, trying to talk to Mom and Dad about it would only have piled it on even higher. Heath’s hand never left mine for the entire drive.

  I stared down at our interlaced hands, and I knew without him this day wouldn’t have come. As much as I’d told myself I’d do it later and I would talk to her, there was no way I would have. Not if I hadn’t met Heath. Hadn’t had a mirror held up to my life and seen everything I was missing.

  He glanced over at me. The bright blue of his eyes was like a bright summer day, cloudless and perfect.

  “Thank you.” I gave him a tight-lipped smile to hold back the emotion choking me. There had been enough tears today already.

  “There’s nothing to thank me for. I’m glad even with my bumbling and a complete and total fuckup, I could help even a little. What do you want to do?”

  “Let’s go inside. Watch a movie or something.”

  “My mom sent over some chicken parm this morning.”

  My mouth watered. His mother’s cooking was outstanding. I could already smell the chicken, breadcrumb, and cheese combo from out here. “Why the hell didn’t you say so earlier? We’ve been wasting all this time.” I threw open the door and slammed it shut.

  Heath laughed over the roof of the car and waited for me as we climbed the steps. The early evening, warm breeze, and quiet street were a reminder of everything going on even when our lives felt like they’d been turned upside down. It was reassuring to know that the world hadn’t stopped spinning because of one day I’d never forget.

  Opening his front door, Heath stopped short in the doorway. I bumped into his back and looked around him. We both burst out into laughter so loud the two heads of the chicken parm thieves whipped up.

  Declan and Mak had a fork each, bent over heaping plates of food, shoveling it into their mouths wearing nothing but their underwear. Their cheeks were filled like chipmunks who’d been caught at a bird feeder. And I’m pretty sure there were pasta sauce splotches all over Mak’s shoulders and chest.

  A giant swirl of spaghetti fell off Mak’s fork before she yelped, her cheeks going bright red. Dropping the fork onto her plate, she jumped behind Declan.

  “We got a little hungry,” Declan said through what must have been a half pound of pasta and chicken. His eyes were wide, and he shoved the last bite on his fork into his mouth.

  There were tears pouring out of my eyes now and there was a pain in my chest, but it was because of how hard we were laughing. I struggled to catch my breath as we all stood—well, Heath and I were doubled over at the scene in front of us.

  Heath wiped the tears from his eyes. “Looks like you guys found the food.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that. We got a little hungry and carried away,” Declan said as he swallowed.

  “I can’t believe you would desecrate my mother’s cooking like this.” Heath’s big grin didn’t hide an ounce of his amusement.

  Mak’s hands appeared on the top of Declan’s shoulders, using to obscure the view of her nearly-naked body. “We’re really sorry. My stomach was growling, and Declan was trying to get some food into me before…” Her voice trailed off, and she buried her head in his back. “I’m going to go outside now and jump off the roof.”

  “Why don’t you two go get some clothes on, and we can eat the food like we didn’t walk out of a cave. Did you heat up the garlic bread?”

  Both their heads whipped toward the fridge. “There’s garlic bread?” They said it at the same time, and I had to squeeze my side at the stitch that formed there.

  “Go get dressed. I’ll heat it all up and we can have a real din
ner, if you two can keep your hands off each other for two minutes.”

  “Look who’s talking,” Declan joked, walking sideways across the kitchen with Mak clinging to his back like a koala.

  “Touché. We will turn our backs so you two can go upstairs, and then I’ll start heating up the food. I take it from what you said about the garlic bread, that means you didn’t find the brownies either.”

  We jumped out of the way and turned toward the living room wall as the two of them darted past us and upstairs. Heath took my hand, and his shoulders shook from laughter. After the weight of the world on my shoulders this morning, it was good to laugh and be around friends.

  “You coming?” He tilted his head toward the kitchen as the bumping and thudding of Declan and Mak sounded overhead. The things people would do for Heath’s mom’s cooking.

  We shoved a military battalion-sized worth of food into the oven and ate to our heart’s content. The four of us rolled our way to the living room and turned on the TV to ride out our food coma.

  I was curled into Heath’s side when my phone went crazy on the living room table. We exchanged glances, and I picked it up. I’d already talked to my parents while the food was heating up about the meeting and how it went. They were over the moon and wanted to talk more when I got home.

  The messages were rolling in so fast I could barely keep up.

  Sam: Congrats!!

  Anne: OMG! Congratulations!!

  Charles: You did it! Wooohoo

  I shrugged at Heath and replied.

  Me: What the hell are you guys talking about?

  Sam: OMFG Have you been living under a rock?! How did you miss the announcement?

  Me: ???

  Charles: You got the Stansfield Fellowship

  I reread the message about ten times.

  Me: No, I didn’t. I told Stevenson to pull my application.

  Anne: Well I guess she forgot.