Hold on to Hope

by Jackson, A. L.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, a shiver taking her whole at the way his eyes watched her mouth. She bet this boy could read her like a book.

  The way she was shaking.

  The way she was trembling all over.

  Her nerves running wild.

  His attention flitted to the neckless she already wore around her neck.

  One she was never goin’ to take off.

  His throat bobbed when he swallowed. “Wanted to give you something special for your birthday.”

  She fiddled with the white gold. “You did. I love it. I’ll cherish it forever.”

  Sorrow left him on a breath, so heavy, and he hung his head again. She brushed her fingers down his jaw, and he finally returned his gaze to her, his eyes pinching at the sides. “I . . . I wanted to try to be better, Frankie. I thought maybe . . . maybe I could be good enough for you.”

  Confusion twisted through her spirit, worry catching hold, and she wriggled herself closer until the outside of her legs were wedged between his knees. “What are you talking about, Evan?” she asked quietly, loving that he could hear her that way even when he couldn’t really hear her at all.

  He blinked a bunch of times. Like he wanted to reject what he needed to say.

  I’M NOT A CANDIDATE.

  There was so much pain, so much surrender in his movements, that Frankie’s lungs squeezed tight.

  So hard that she was hit with a swell of dizziness.

  So tight that she suddenly couldn’t breathe.

  Was . . . was he talking about his heart?

  Was he sick again?

  Frankie tried with all her might not to drop to her knees in dread, but she did anyway when he hung his head.

  Climbing to the floor so she could reach him.

  Trembling like mad, she grasped both sides of his face. “Not a candidate for what?”

  In frustration, he gestured at his ear. “For cochlear implants. I . . .” I JUST WANTED TO BE HALFWAY NORMAL FOR YOU, FRANKIE LEIGH. FIX ONE GODDAMN THING. BE THE KIND OF MAN YOU NEED. I’M SORRY, FRANKIE. I’M SORRY.

  He slipped so quickly into his first language.

  The movements of his hands beautiful.

  Sensuous.

  But Frankie was horrified by what he said.

  She grabbed him by the wrists to stop him. “Why in the world would you say that? Why would you ever think I want you any different than you are? I love you, Evan.”

  His eyes pinched closed for a flash, and she reached out to sign against the scar that ran down his chest. YOU ARE MY FAVORITE.

  His eyes weren’t even open, but she knew he could feel it anyway.

  He finally opened his lids and the confession was tumbling the second their gazes met. “I’m in love with you, Evan.”

  “Frankie.” He said it like a warning. Like it was absurd.

  She didn’t care. Shying away wasn’t exactly her style. She held him tighter, her frantic stare locked on him.

  “Tell me you don’t love me back, and we can curl up on your couch and watch a movie the way we always do, but don’t you dare lie to me.”

  Frankie was shocked by how quickly he gripped her by the side of the neck.

  Her pulse stampeded out of control as the man gazed up at her.

  Intensity bloomed in the space.

  A flashfire that shocked straight to her soul.

  “I have always loved you, Frankie Leigh. Always. I love you so fucking much it hurts.”

  Frankie’s heart slammed against her ribs. A frantic bam, bam, bam. Her pulse a thunder in her ears as she listened to the words that were the most perfect harmony.

  He loved her.

  He loved her.

  She wasn’t going to waste any time.

  She slowly stood.

  Everything grew dense.

  The air and their breaths and the weight of their stare.

  I LOVE MY NECKLACE, BUT THE ONLY THING I EVER WANTED IS YOU. I WISHED FOR THIS, EVAN. I WISHED FOR YOU.

  Evan groaned, and his palm was running up the side of her bare leg. Chills scattered in its wake.

  “I shouldn’t do this, Frankie,” he muttered in that scraping way. “It’s not right. I meant what I said tonight. I want the best things in this life for you, and I can’t give that to you.”

  She set her hand on the side of his head, and the man leaned into it, desperate for her touch. “You’re wrong. You are the best thing. Don’t take that away from me.”

  “You don’t want this life. Believe me.”

  “I do. I do. I do.”

  Could he hear her chanting it?

  Could he hear her soul singing it?

  His hand tremored at her flesh.

  Nerves and hesitation.

  “Please,” she whimpered. Begging him to just give himself to her.

  Once and for all.

  Throat quivering, he slid his palm higher up her leg.

  That connection raced.

  Spun and sped.

  He slipped his hand all the way up under her skirt.

  That was right when his restraint turned into a long moan. “Shit . . . Frankie. Why aren’t you wearing underwear?”

  “I figured you’d want me only in this skirt. It is your favorite, isn’t it?” she mouthed right up close to his lips.

  She put on the short pink tutu that she normally wore with leggings underneath.

  Not tonight.

  “Yes.” The word was a breath, and he was reaching around to grip her by the bare bottom.

  Tingles flashed.

  That severity flared.

  And Frankie was shaking like crazy when she reached up and pulled off her shirt.

  She wasn’t wearing a bra underneath.

  “Shit,” Evan hissed, and he was gripping her ass tighter.

  She slowly climbed onto his lap.

  Evan watched her like he was the one receiving the gift.

  But this was what they both deserved.

  To be each other’s treasure.

  Their breaths mingled and their hearts hammered and Frankie was so nervous she thought she was gonna pass out.

  Getting brave, she let her fingertips trace down his abdomen. God, she loved the way he reacted, the way his muscles ticked at her touch and the way he inhaled a jagged breath when she flicked the button of his jeans.

  She thought he might protest, but she saw all the reservations drain out of his eyes and hunger fill them instead.

  He lifted a fraction to help her nudge his jeans and underwear down his thighs, the pants jutting from his mouth hard and shallow.

  He gripped her by both sides of the waist.

  Fingers burrowing into her flesh.

  “Frankie . . . what are you doing to me?”

  “What you did to me a long time ago.”

  Tension bound between them.

  Pressing and pulsing and suffocating.

  Turbulence a shock that quivered through every cell in her body.

  Because Evan was bare below her, and he was fumbling around in the drawer of the end table beside him and producing a condom. She knew he’d have them. He always did. Something his doctor had impressed upon him. That he was always prepared.

  He ripped into it and, a second later, he was rolling it down his hard length that was so much bigger than she’d anticipated.

  Her daddy had always told her she needed a good dose of fear, but she didn’t want to feel a lick of it right then, and she was leaning up so she could mouth the words down at Evan.

  Asking him to hold them.

  To hold her.

  To take care of her.

  “You are my favorite, Evan.”

  “You know that you’re mine.”

  “I saved myself for you,” she barely forced out.

  He threaded his fingers through her hair, those eyes so sincere. So real and open. Exposing everything she’d wanted to see. “I know, Unicorn Girl. I know. I wouldn’t even have known how to be with someone else than you.”

  E-V-A-
N.

  “I love you, Frankie.”

  Nodding frantically, she wrapped her arms around his neck and held on with all her might as he positioned himself between her trembling thighs.

  His hands were back on her hips, and he was slowly guiding her to sink down on top of him. Heat seared her to the core, too hot and too full and all wrong and just right, and oh God, she really was gonna cry. She pressed her face into his neck as he seated himself way down deep inside of her.

  His hands were in her hair, tugging her back, forcing her to look at him.

  And he didn’t say he was sorry because she knew neither of them were. She knew he just needed to see her face, to hear her as he guided her to move.

  It was choppy at first. She thought maybe both of them were shocked. Overcome. Just . . . feeling the other.

  Evan seemed to catch on really quick. “Frankie, oh fuck . . . shit. You feel so good. So good.” He mumbled it as he started to move in these erratic juts.

  Quick, desperate urges of his body.

  They were gasping and gripping and clutching the other.

  Their mouths open. Lips barely touching as they watched each other.

  And it was short and fast and the most intense thing she’d ever experienced.

  She didn’t come, and that was so perfectly fine with her because Carly had already warned her it wasn’t going to be great the first time, and she still thought it was the most wonderful thing she’d ever done.

  Then she was learning a whole new level of wonderful when Evan kissed her tenderly, his arm around her waist as he pulled her off of him and laid her out on his rug on the middle of his living room floor.

  He buried his head between her thighs and softly, slowly sent her to oblivion.

  And she experienced that ecstasy all over again after she’d been fast asleep curled up in his arms and he rolled her onto her back. As he crawled back over her, watched down on her like they were both lost to a dream as he took her gently.

  Tenderly.

  One of her knees tucked up under his chest and his hands running her entire body.

  Bliss coming on like the slow fall of snow on a Christmas mornin’.

  And oh God, did she ever feel it the next morning when he perched her on the edge of the island in his kitchen, when he loved her a little harder.

  And she and Evan were suddenly having each other everywhere.

  Sneaking away every chance that they could get.

  Laughing and loving and kissing and touching.

  Dreaming and hoping and making all the promises that they could give.

  She already loved him with all her heart, but she loved him even more loving him in this brand-new way.

  The two of them learned the other. Experienced all they had to give and all they had to take.

  Shared their fantasies and found no shame in it.

  He fucked her in the shower and she sucked him off in the front seat of his car and he pinned her to the wall in the storage pantry of the café where she was pretty sure they were committing every health code violation in existence.

  And he made love to her out on the soft grasses where their old treehouse was falling apart and he bent her over the back of his parents’ couch with the sunlight shining through the window while everyone else was out back.

  Frankie was quick to discover that she liked it a little rough. Hard and raw and full of demands, and she didn’t mind at all when he wanted to try dirty, decadent things.

  The boy took her in every way. Body and soul and heart and mind.

  And they got so recklessly in love. So in love that nothing else mattered. Evan made promises that Frankie had wanted to hear for her whole life, and he was finally believing all the things she’d always wanted him to believe.

  “I love you.”

  “You’re mine.”

  “I’m going to marry you.”

  “Nothing can ever come between us.”

  And they forgot about everything except for them.

  And he loved her on the Heart of Stone that could never be broken.

  With the stars shining so bright above them.

  Their bodies joined together.

  No barrier between.

  No separation.

  ONE.

  And everything was so perfectly right until that unbreakable rock split right down the middle.

  Until the foundation they’d built crumbled beneath their feet.

  Twenty-Nine

  Frankie Leigh

  Sunlight poured in through the window, nudging me from sleep. The arms that were wrapped around me from behind curled tighter.

  Their hold fierce and secure.

  It seemed almost unreal. Hard to believe.

  This man my haven.

  A sanctuary.

  Evan peppered a line of kisses along the length of my shoulder. Chills spreading across my flesh while he was makin’ all these grumbly, sexy, sleepy sounds that I felt way down deep into my soul. He slipped his palm all the way down my arm until he was threading his fingers through mine where they rested on the bed.

  The ring he’d put on my finger yesterday glinted in the morning light.

  Surreal.

  I guessed that’s what this felt. A dream that I’d had for all my life that was finally coming true.

  “Mornin’,” he rumbled up toward my ear. He gave the lobe a gentle nip.

  Tingles spread in a slow slide of warmth.

  I rolled over so I could see him, talk to him, struck again by his face and that mouth and those eyes.

  I couldn’t do anything but reach out to trace across every line.

  Mesmerized.

  Belly shaking with the need that he instantly stirred up in me.

  “I don’t think there’s anything better than wakin’ up next to you,” I murmured, teeth raking my bottom lip as my fingertips danced across the plush line of his, his mouth so perfect and pretty and hitting my head with a wave of dizziness.

  He snuggled me closer until I was flush with every line of his naked body. “I was just getting ready to say the exact same thing.”

  “Then I guess we really better do this together forever.” Softness came out with my words.

  Amazement that we had made it to this place. Racing for the finish line. My spirit shivered, wishin’ we could just dodge the obstacles that still remained in our course.

  Evan kissed across my fingertips that were busy running the edges of his lips. “Why do you think I put that ring on your finger? That way I get to get lost in this sweet body every single night.”

  A giggle rippled free.

  “Oh, you think that’s the way it’s gonna work, do you?”

  He gave a little rock against me. “I didn’t hear you complaining last night.”

  He gave me this wicked grin. My insides twisted up in glee. Heat skating my flesh as my mind went back to last night.

  You could say we’d done a bang-up job of christening this room.

  I burrowed my face in his throat to hide my smile.

  Evan rolled me onto my back. Gathering me up in those strong arms, he stared down at me like I was the falling star he had wished upon. “You are so beautiful, Frankie Leigh. Do you know what you mean to me? Fact you let me put that ring on your finger? After everything? For your forgiveness? For your belief?”

  Apprehension pooled in my stomach. Guilt for the unspoken words I’d yet to confess.

  Uncle Kale was right. The longer I’d held onto them, the harder it was to find the right time to release them. The more it felt as if I’d been keeping a secret. The more my silence had begun to feel like I was doing nothin’ but telling a lie.

  I wasn’t to blame. Of course, I knew that. But that didn’t mean I didn’t owe him the truth.

  I reached up and played with the flop of hair that had fallen over his eye. “I think I’m gettin’ the idea,” I whispered, searching for the right way to open up. My chest tightened. I didn’t know how to steal this joy from him when we finally wer
e feeling it. When we finally had it.

  I didn’t want to let it go.

  He brushed his fingers through my hair, his smile turning into something wistful and sweet. “I can’t wait to spend my life with you.”

  “We’re already doing it,” I told him because we didn’t need a wedding day to tell us we were forever.

  His eyes dropped closed for a beat, and he leaned down and pressed the softest kiss to my lips. “Every day.”

  “Every day,” I whispered back.

  His phone buzzed from the nightstand. I didn’t think he noticed, so I nudged him a little. “Your phone is going off.”

  He dipped down and pecked me on the lips before he sat up on the edge of the bed and put on his glasses.

  He looked so damn good in them they should be illegal in all fifty states. A crime for him to wear them any time he wasn’t looking at me.

  He swiped into his phone. Could feel the mood shift. Tension ridged his back.

  Worry slammed me. I couldn’t help it. Couldn’t help that I was immediately on edge.

  Everett’s mother was still out there, at large. No word in days. Seth hadn’t been able to get in touch with her brother, either.

  All of it sat so wrong that it left a bubble of dread sitting permanently right at the center of me.

  I climbed onto my knees so I could move over and wrap myself around Evan’s back. I angled around enough so that he could see me. “What is it?”

  He looked up, and where I was expecting to see him upset, he was bleeding relief, his eyes flooded with hope. “It’s my attorney. He got the approval from the judge to get my name on the birth certificate. He needs me to come down to his office this morning and sign some papers so he can request Everett’s medical records.”

  I swore I could feel it—deliverance rumbling through the air. Blistering and streaking. Wrapping us in it.

  Joy split my face, and I eased around farther. “I’m so happy. This is such good news.”

  He set one of those big palms on my face. “It’s all coming together, Frankie. Our home. Our family. Us.”

  Emotion pulsed.

  I swallowed around the severity of it. “Us,” I repeated.

  He gave a tight nod and then pressed a kiss to my forehead. “I need to get over there. Are you okay with Everett for a couple hours so he doesn’t have to sit in an office for so long?”