California Dreamin'

by Saffron A Kent

  “What about her?” I ask, watching Brendan walk on the scene.

  “So my little brother has a huge crush on her. Like, huge.”

  “What?”

  “Yup. He’s going to talk to her, probably try to joke around and she’ll be all shy and sweet and his ears are going to get really red. Just observe.”

  So I do.

  I observe as Brendan tips his chin at Rosie, who bites her lip and waves at him hesitantly. Then Brendan begins talking, propped up against the wall, acting like a cool kid and Rosie nods and smiles. But she’s barely able to make eye contact with him.

  And well, he does get red.

  The area around his neck is flushed and so are his ears.

  Poor kid.

  Fallon laughs beside me. “Oh my God, my idiot brother. He’s got it bad for her.”

  “No kidding.”

  Rosie says something to him before walking away and Brendan simply stands there, watching her leave. When she’s out of sight, he kicks at the wall in disappointment.

  “Gosh, I can’t even imagine how Uncle Graham would react if he ever found out that my crazy brother is literally crazy for Rosie. You thought my dad was bad, Uncle Graham will pick him up and throw him in the lake behind his cabin.”

  I squeeze her waist as Brendan disappears from view as well. “I don’t know. I think the kid’s got a shot. He just needs to be persistent.”

  And personally, I’d like to see Brendan take Graham down a couple of notches.

  “Ooh, like you were?” Fallon asks, finally turning toward me.

  “No, like you were.”

  “That paid off, huh?”

  “It did. I think love pays off.”

  “It does.”

  I look into her gorgeous gray eyes, forgetting about another potential love story in the making. “Can I finally fucking kiss you now?”

  “Yes, please.”

  And then, she reaches up to me with a smile and I finally get to fucking kiss her.

  There are a few things my husband doesn’t like.

  Crowds and therefore parties, much like the one we’re at.

  Cities, even though we live in Denver. So every once in a while, we go away to his cabin in the woods where he feels most at peace. Where I feel most at peace too.

  Because that’s where our love story grew legs and wings and took off.

  But mostly, what my husband doesn’t like is a boy staring at his baby girl, Rose. There have been incidents where if a boy stares at Rosie, say at a store or on the street or something, Graham frowns so fiercely and so darkly that the boy skitters away.

  There are many reasons for his possessiveness.

  The very first being is that well, Graham is super possessive by nature and Rosie is his baby girl.

  Plus we had her after so much trouble. Not to mention I had a very difficult pregnancy, and Graham would go crazy over my slightest discomfort, roaming around the house in frustration, trying to make things better for me, and then trying to apologize for putting me through all that.

  Which was so silly, actually. I got pregnant because I wanted to. He didn’t force me. But he’d say, I got you pregnant, didn’t I? I put a baby in you because I’m this fucking beast who’s obsessed with every inch of you and I wanted to see you like this. All swollen with my baby. So it’s my fault. My fucking fault.

  But I think the biggest reason for Graham’s possessiveness it that our daughter is just like me, shy and quiet, her nose in a book or in her journals that she loves writing in. She always has headphones on, listening to music, her head in the clouds and away from the world.

  So Rosie usually has no idea if a guy stares at her anyway.

  But the thing is, I don’t think Rosie is oblivious about Brendan. I think she knows about him staring and I think she likes it.

  My shy baby has a little crush of her own. That’s why when we told her that we were going to Aunt Willow’s for Christmas, she perked up.

  Her perking up means, she smiled and bit her lip. And as soon as she could, she ran upstairs to write in her journal.

  I don’t think Graham knows all this though.

  I’m not about to tell him either. As I said, he gets cagey at parties but he does it because of me and I really wanted to see Willow this year. Well, mostly Fallon and Dean since they’re together now.

  So right now, my only goal is to get my husband back to our room and get him to go to sleep.

  Because it’s midnight and he’s a little too worried about the things that he shouldn’t be worried about.

  Plus he’s outside, by the woods surrounding Simon and Willow’s large property. When I found him gone from the bed, I knew this is where I’d find him, out in nature, under the open sky.

  That’s how he likes things.

  Natural and raw and vast.

  I think living in Colorado for the past nineteen years has really turned him into a mountain man. He even chops his own wood.

  A shiver goes through me when I think about him wielding the axe with his heavy, muscular arms.

  His back is to me so he hasn’t seen me coming toward him but he can sense me, like he always does. Like the air changes around him when I’m close.

  He turns his head to look at me and I smile shyly when his eyes find me. He doesn’t return my smile though, which is okay.

  Instead of a smile, his eyes change.

  They become glittering and intense. They become heavy, brimming with all the feelings.

  All the feelings that he has for me.

  All the feelings that have grown and changed shape and become larger over almost two decades.

  I’d take that over a smile.

  I’d take those feelings reflected not only in his eyes but also on his handsome face. The face that has matured over the years. His jaw has become somewhat broader and more square, his cheekbones sharp and sanded with age and his brows marked beautifully with grooves.

  But the best part about him is his beard. It has grown thicker and wilder, threaded with silver, just like his dark hair.

  Yeah, I’d take his eyes and his face bathed in my love over a tiny smile.

  He watches me walk toward him and by the time I reach him, I know my cheeks are all pink. And I know he likes that as much as I like his changing eyes and features.

  “Hi,” I whisper.

  It’s December and he’s still in his typical plaid shirt and washed-out jeans. And yet somehow, he’s always warm. So warm that I can feel his heat even though we’re standing a few inches apart.

  “Hey,” he greets me with a rough, almost sleepy voice.

  I step closer to him, clutching the sleeves of his shirt, getting greedy for his heat. “Can’t sleep?”

  He brings his arms around my waist and gathers me even closer in his bear-like warmth.

  “No,” he replies, rubbing his big hands up and down my back, heating me up. “Did I wake you?”

  I bring my arms to his broad, giant-like shoulders and clutch them. “No, I just turned around to hug you because it was so cold but you were gone.”

  He brings his face close to me, his hair grazing my forehead. I go up on my tiptoes, hoping that his beard will scrape against my cheeks too.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, his warm breaths wafting over my lips. “But I got you this.”

  He offers me something, a rose, and I’m so surprised that a laugh bursts out of me.

  Willow and Fallon call us beauty and the beast, and I completely believe that. Especially right now, when he has a rose in his large hand that he’s offering to me with half a smile.

  Where did he even have it? How come I didn’t notice?

  Probably because I never notice anything when he’s around.

  I take the flower. “Where did you get a rose in winter?”

  He shrugs, his big shoulders and chest shifting against me. “They had one somewhere.”

  Ducking my head, I smell
it. “Thank you.”

  He brings his hand forward and rubs his thumb on my cheek, swirling the pad of it in my heated blush. “You still blush like a rose.”

  His voice, low and almost purring, makes me get up on his feet. “Because my beast is still so romantic.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know about that. I can be pretty mean,” he says, smirking slightly, his hands now in my sort-of blonde hair, making a loose fist.

  “You can be. But I like that.”

  Keeping hold of my hair with one hand, he fists my nightgown and the fluffy robe that I’m wearing over it with the other and pulls me toward him.

  Our bodies crash against each other and so does the rose and he growls, “Is there a reason why I’m not alone with my wife right now, in my own fucking cabin?”

  “Because we’re here,” I answer him, my arms secure and tight around his neck, playing with his rich, soft hair and the rose he gave me trapped somewhere between our bodies. “Because we have friends and they invited us to their home for Christmas for a party.”

  “I don’t like parties,” he growls again, a thick frown between his brows.

  I know.

  If he had his way, we’d stay in the cabin in the middle of the woods forever, cut off from the world. The world that once tried to tear us apart but our love conquered all.

  I wish that too. That we stayed in our cabin forever.

  But we can’t.

  We have Rosie and she goes to a really good school in Denver that she likes. I have my own job, working at that same school’s library.

  And my husband has his own business.

  He has a flower shop and a nursery. It started as a small venture out of his cabin where he grew roses, but now it has expanded. He has people working for him and he supplies roses for major functions and events around Denver.

  “I know you don’t like parties. But,” I whisper, “you’re alone with your wife now.”

  His eyes change again and so do his features. His large, muscular body goes all tight and his fingers become urgent and needy.

  “Not alone enough for what I want to do to her,” he says in a low voice.

  I sink my fingers in his beard then. “And what is it that you want to do to her?”

  He smirks – a tiny, wicked smirk. “Feed her lollipops.”

  My body jerks. It actually jerks and moves like it’s caught in a spasm.

  God, lollipops.

  So I have a thing for lollipop. I love them. I always have and he loves to feed them to me. Feed them to my mouth, to my pussy, which flutters at the thought.

  “You’re so bad,” I whisper, shaking my head, blushing.

  “And you’re so easy.”

  “Shut up.” I duck my head and rest my cheek against his chest, hugging him.

  He chuckles in response and rubs his jaw in my hair.

  I close my eyes, burrowing myself in his warmth. “So why can’t you sleep?”

  “I don’t like this place.”

  I hum. “You know, we still have a couple of days before we make it to the cabin. Are you going to stay awake the whole time?”

  After Willow, we’re going to visit Graham’s son, Brian, and his wife in the city.

  When I say that the world was against us being together, that also includes his son, Brian. He used to be my best friend back in high school and he had a little crush on me. So the idea of me and his dad was not something he was a fan of.

  But he came around and now we’re a family.

  It might be awkward for some but it works for us. Plus Rosie loves her big brother and his family, and they love her back. He has two adorable kids with a wonderful girl he met in college. And so, we’ll leave Rosie to visit with him for a few days while we go to the cabin for some alone time.

  “Graham?” I prompt him when he doesn’t answer my question.

  Even then, his only answer is a long sigh that I feel against my cheek. And so, I think it’s time to bring out the big guns.

  “It was a nice party though, right?” I murmur, biting my lip.

  He grunts.

  “I’m so happy for Fallon and Dean. She’s loved him forever. That poor girl.”

  He grunts again.

  I bite my lip harder as I go on. “Simon and Willow seemed happy too. Even Brendan, right? So, so happy that his sister found love. I think Dean and Brendan go way back. They seemed pretty tight with each other…”

  He stiffens then and I pause.

  Especially when he fists my hair again and pulls me back so he can look at my face. “Are you trying to provoke me, Violet?”

  “Maybe.” He goes to say something, but I stop him. “So you might as well tell me what the problem is. So I can solve it for you.”

  “The problem,” he bites out, “is Brendan. The kid who keeps watching my daughter. He kept looking at her all throughout dinner and I wanted to lunge across the table, grab him by his shirt and throw him out the window.”

  See, I knew it.

  I freaking knew it.

  My honey is so predictable.

  I press my lips together so I don’t burst out laughing. I mean, it’s not a joke, him being angry and upset.

  But he looks so… ferocious right now.

  So wild at the thought of a fourteen-year-old kid, watching Rosie.

  “I don’t know how Simon sat through that dinner without losing his shit. Dean touching his daughter,” Graham growls, bringing me to the moment. “If someone was touching my daughter, I would’ve broken every finger in his hand. As it is, I want to put the fear of God in that Brendan kid.”

  His face is all bunched up and angry and I rub my hand in his beard.

  “No, you don’t. Because he’s a kid. They’re both kids. You’re not going to throw a fourteen-year-old kid out the window just because he stared a little too long at your daughter.”

  “I know kids, okay? I know boys. I raised a boy. I know how they think.”

  “He’s a good kid. He’s Simon’s kid. Good is practically in his DNA. Let him be. He’s not going to do anything.”

  “He better not. Or I’ll teach him a fucking lesson he’ll never forget.” Then he looks away from me, his eyes squinting. “You know what, fuck it. I’ve been debating this shit for too long. I’m going to have a chat with Simon. Maybe he’s lost his mind, handing over his daughter to another man just like that. But he better keep his son away from my daughter or I’ll—”

  I cover his mouth with my hand, cutting off his words.

  His breaths are punching my palm, gusting over it, hot and upset, and I shake my head at him.

  “No, you listen to me,” I say sternly. “You’re not going to have a chat with anyone.” His eyes turn stormy. “You’re going to calm down and relax. Also, handing over his daughter? What does that mean? Daughters are not objects, Graham. Like wives are not objects. Daughters have a mind of their own. Simon’s daughter has a mind of her own. Our daughter has a mind of her own. That’s what we’re teaching her.”

  I remove my hand from his lips and I find them parted and all misty.

  But damn it, I’m not going to be seduced by them.

  I’m not going to be seduced by the way he’s staring at me, like he wants me. Like he’s so turned on by my outburst.

  I don’t have a lot of them but when I do, he gets all… aroused. And then, I get turned on and no, we’re not going there before I finish talking.

  “Besides,” I forge ahead. “They’re kids. Let them be kids. They’re innocent. Kids are dreamers. Teenage love is all butterflies and goosebumps and shy glances and daydreams, you know? You smile over the slightest things. You can’t sleep. There’s music in your head. You hum a tune all the time. You bite your lip when you think about him. It’s… magic. It’s full of color and passion and innocent longings. It’s doodling in your journal, writing his name over and over, making hearts all over it.”

  I don’t know how it happened but I’v
e completely gone off topic even though I was trying so hard to stay on it.

  I was trying so hard to stay mad at him for being so ultra-possessive and crazy.

  But now I’m gazing into his eyes and he’s gazing into mine.

  I’m smiling and he has a slight twitch on his lips, and we’re both swaying under the moonlight. Or at least, I’m swaying and he’s simply shifting his feet to keep me company.

  Dancing with me in the moonlight.

  And my heart is going to burst out of my chest when he leans down and whispers, “Yeah? Is that what you did?”

  I swallow, thinking about how I fell in love with him at one glance.

  I was sixteen at the time. He was older and my best friend’s dad and a bunch of other things that made it impossible for us to be together. At least until I turned eighteen and followed him to Colorado.

  “Yes,” I reply. “I made hearts all over your name.”

  His fists in my hair clench and release, making my scalp tingle, making every part of my body tingle. “And what name is that?”

  “Mr. Edwards.”

  For the longest time, he was Mr. Edwards, my best friend’s dad, and I loved him from afar, writing about him in my journals.

  Lust mars his features, making them dark. “Mr. Edwards, huh?”

  “Yeah, until you became my Graham.”

  “Is that all I am?”

  “No.”

  “What am I then?”

  I lick my lips. “My honey.”

  “So do you make hearts over ‘honey’ in your diary now?”

  I smile, shaking my head. “No. I make hearts all over my honey’s body now. With my tongue.”

  “You’re made of moon and magic,” he growls over my lips, licking them.

  “And you’re my teenage dream that’s even better in reality.”

  I feel his smile on my mouth before he says, “I know you’re distracting me. But this is not over. No one looks at my daughter and gets away with it.”

  I’m pretty sure it’s harmless, the crush that they have on each other. Not to mention, they are kids and they live hundreds of miles apart. So I don’t think anything will come of it.