by JB Salsbury
“Love you, babe!” Shy calls from the kitchen, and there’s humor in her voice.
“Fuck . . . I love you too.”
Tossing the knit hat to the couch, I head to the door to grab the tree when I realize that these feelings I have for Shy go both ways. She coaxed me here in a language I understood. I could do the same.
Besides, we’ve got all day to put up the tree. Right now what I need most is to lose myself in the warm cocoon of my woman’s body.
She has her back towards me while she pours milk into mug. I flick the lock on the door.
She whirls around and when her eyes lock on mine they widen. “Gage?”
I stalk toward her grinning like a predator who’s about to consume his first real meal. “It’s been too long, Shy.”
Her eyelids drop and her lips part. “What has?”
I tilt my head and continue my slow advance. “I miss your body.” I unbutton on my jacket. “Your breath against my skin.” I drop my coat. “You moaning my name.”
Her hand darts out to brace against the counter as if her body is losing the will to stay upright.
That’s right, Shy . . . I know how to get to you too.
I stop just inches from touching her and pull my thermal off. Her eyes flare with need.
“Your move, S—”
She pounces. I cradle her ass as her legs wrap around me in the sweetest fucking embrace.
There’s no way I’ll make it to a bed so I turn and press her back to the kitchen wall. We’re a frantic tangle of arms as we do our best to strip down without breaking our connection. This is how it always is with me and Shy, complete chaos, a meeting of uncontrolled lust and love swirling together leaving us both sweat soaked and sated.
I slide us down to the floor and peel off her jeans and panties, tossing them to the side before following suit. She opens for me, welcomes me into the cradle of her body and wraps me in the kind of peacefulness only she can give. The kind that soothes from the inside and lasts for lifetime.
“I’m sorry I left for so long.” I press my forehead to hers as we move together at a slow and deliberate pace, absorbing every single slide and sensation. “I’ll never do that again, I swear. I just thought—”
She presses her fingertips to my lips and I pause my steady pounding rhythm. “No more regrets. We only look forward from now on, remember?”
“Only forward . . .” My words fade into a moan as I start to move in her again.
I try to go slow, force myself to maintain control over the overwhelming urge to claim her with a savage abandon. The gentle sounds that fall from her lips are like fuel to my muscles as they coil in preparation. She hooks her calves around mine and arches her back, leveraging her position to accept me deeper. A growl of approval rumbles in my throat and when she licks at my mouth my willpower slips.
“Shy.” It’s meant to be a reprimand but comes out more like a warning.
“You’re shaking.” The bite of her nails at my back send my hips thrusting forward. “Stop holding back.”
I frame her face with trembling hands. “I don’t want to hurt you.” My skin is tacky with sweat from the exertion of control.
“You won’t.” She grips my ass with both hands and the last of my restraint snaps.
I push up on my elbows, dig one knee into the floor and completely let go. She gasps against my neck and whispers my name like a prayer. She thrashes beneath me, tries to wiggle free, but I’ve got her pinned while I roll my hips in punishing waves bringing her to the edge only to back off and let her simmer.
“Gage, please . . .”
Oh how I love her begging. To bring a woman as strong as Shyann to her proverbial knees with a hunger only I can feed makes me feel like the most powerful man alive.
“When I’m ready.”
She makes a sound in her throat that’s part growl part groan and I smile into her lips as I devour her mouth. This is the game we always play, the power struggle we get off on, exercising the control we have over each other. With every pleasure-filled whimper and tremble of her body I’m fucking delirious with the need to finish. Grinding my hips into hers we gasp together before being tossed into blinding ecstasy.
She wraps around me in a vice grip of arms and legs. Stars dance behind my eyes and it’s as if all the happy shit I’ve ever felt hits in one mind-numbing explosion.
My heart hammers in my chest as I rock gently inside her, coaxing her back to me. Her eyelids flutter and her legs fall limply to the ground. I bury my nose in her neck and catch my breath while the floating feeling starts to fade.
Her touch on my chin brings my face in line with hers. “Next time, don’t stay away so long.”
“If this’ll be my greeting I’ll pop in and out all day.” I press a kiss to her swollen lips.
“I’d like that.” She grins and it’s sweet and innocent and so fucking full of love it fills my chest and pours over.
“Thank you, for loving Luke . . . for loving us.” I clear my throat. “You deserve the best this life has to offer. You deserve steady and reliable and I know, more than anything, Luke wants to give you that.”
Her fingertips run swirly patterns on my back as she looks thoughtfully up at me. “All I want is you. All of you and every beautiful thing that makes you the unique and wonderful man you are. Give me that, let yourself just . . . be. Not only because it’s what I love about you but because it’s right. No one should have to fight so hard for who they are, Gage. Especially not you.”
“Shyann BlueEyes Jennings, you’re a dream come true.” Reluctantly, I do what I know I should to prove to Shy that we’re going to give her what she wants. Not only because our life revolves around taking care of her and meeting her every desire, but also because she’s right. After years of fighting and hiding we’ve finally found the love and acceptance of another person and it’s in her love that we’ve become free.
I take one last inhale, savor the feeling of our bodies connected, and then fall back into the dark.
I blink my eyes and look down at Shyann as she stares at me with a mischievous grin.
I search my head for a clue as to what went down while I was in the dark and find nothing but dead air. “What did he do?”
She looks down between our naked bodies. “You mean . . . besides the obvious?”
I knew we’d made love before I came forward, like knowing the sun is shining when you’re standing inside, but stepping out into the sun, really feeling it against your skin, that’s a whole different kind of knowing. And as I drop my lips to Shyann’s, feel the way her body molds against mine, it’s like stepping into the sun.
“That smile of yours reminds me of Buddy’s when he brought us that dead squirrel.”
“You mean proud and maybe a little smug?”
I pull back as far as I can to catch the full beauty of her face, my eyes roaming every angle that I’ve already memorized and seared into my brain. “You got through to him.”
Her thighs open wider and she kisses me with an urgency that sucks the breath from my lungs. “You guys are sharing.”
I move inside her showing her how much I approve and although there’s a trickle of doubt in my mind, being with her like this, feeling the contentment oozing from her pours, I’m confident things will be okay.
“How is it possible to miss you when you were only gone for a little while?”
“I don’t know, but I get it.” I frame her face. “I missed you too.”
“Will Gage be back?”
I sense her concern that he’ll disappear again but she has nothing to worry about. I can feel him waiting just below the surface, and rather than shove him deeper into the recesses I relax into her arms. .
“Yeah, he’ll be back. He’s going to put up that tree.” We laugh together until the friction between us demands desire take the lead.
I slide my forearm beneath Shy’s back only to feel the unforgiving hardwood cool against my skin. With a strongly worded scolding to my othe
r half, I push back onto my knees, and lift her to straddle my hips.
“What are you doing?” The question is muffled between our mouths.
“I’m not going to make love to you on the floor.” I hoist myself up to stand, making sure to keep Shy close.
She squeezes me between her thighs, locking her ankles at my lower back. I stumble through the kitchen to the hallway, unable to see past her head as our kiss turns from playful to passionate.
Finding my bed, I drop to my ass and feel for the comforter. It’s thick and good quality, something I splurged on when Shy started spending the night more and more.
I pull it away and then lower myself back so that she’s on top. Her hair falls around us, plunging us into the privacy of those jet-black curtains. I throw the blanket over her exposed skin and she hums low and gives me her weight.
Rolling her to the side I reach down and caress her thigh before hitching it up over my hip. She chases after my lips, but I hold mine just out of reach so I can drown in those blue pools that swallow me in love.
We move together as we receive and respond to every subtle cue our bodies give. Every fraction of an angle sends tingles up and down my spine, my arms, my legs, until I’m panting and desperate.
Even still, with the need for release coiling deep in my gut, I maintain lazy strokes as I patiently love the woman who has forever changed my life.
Her breath hitches and her lips part as she shatters so beautifully around me, pulsing and quaking until the last of my patience is spent and I groan into her neck.
We lie there in each others arms until our frantic heartbeats slow. I roll to my back pull her to my side.
The snow outside my window no longer has the bright white glow, but carries the dull shade of dusk. It’ll be dark soon which means Shy could be leaving to go home. My hold on her tightens as if I could keep her here by my strength alone.
“Stay with me.”
She hums and nestles into my chest, her hair falling like a scarf at my neck. “Okay, but I’ll have to let my Dad know so he—”
“Forever, Shy.” I pull her chin up so I can see her eyes. “Stay with me forever.”
“Are you asking me to move in?” There’s hope in her voice that makes what I’m about to ask a whole lot easier.
“Marry me.”
She scurries to sit up, her arms pressed to her naked breasts and her hands over her gaping mouth.
I prop myself on my elbows behind me. “I know, it’s soon, but . . . I can’t imagine my life without you. I don’t want to simply live with you, I want to join our lives forever. I want you to carry my name, Shy. And eventually . . . my baby. You always tell me I need to stop fighting who I am and you’re right, I don’t want to fight who I am or what I feel, and what I feel is . . .” I blow out a breath as the emotion of what’s happening overwhelms me. “Whether or not you marry me doesn’t change the fact that I am devoted to you until I take my last breath, but, Shy . . .” I sit up fully and push her hair behind her ear before cupping her jaw. “If you’ll be my wife, I will never give up proving I can be the kind of man you deserve and—”
Her entire body slams into mine knocking me back onto the bed. “Yes, Lucas! Yes, yes, yes a thousand times over, I will marry you!”
My eyes pinch closed as her answer brings tears I refuse to let fall. She showers my neck with kisses before moving to my jaw, and then sinks into my mouth.
“Wait.” I pivot and hang my upper body off the bed to snag the small wooden box I stashed under my mattress. “I was going to save this until later, but . . .” I tuck the tiny box into her hand.
“What is this?”
“Just open it.”
She pops the lid and gasps. “Did you make this?”
I pull out the ring I carved, polished, and stained to a rich honey color. I never intended for this to be an engagement ring but more of a placeholder until I could provide her with something better. “It’s nothing special.” I take her left hand and slide it on her finger happy to see it fits. “I can’t afford a diamond yet, but when I can you can pick—”
“No.” A shaky smile spreads across her face and her eyes sparkle. “It’s perfect. You, and every single thing about you, are perfect. I can’t wait to become your wife.”
She falls into my arms and we hold each other in the silent, dark room as snow falls just outside the window. It may not have been the most thought out engagement, romantic or clever, but it felt real and freeing and everything a proposal should be.
I owe Shyann our life, which is exactly what I’m going to give her.
I’ll do whatever it takes to make her happy.
She wants to love every side of me and wants me to share each side in return.
I can give her that for as long as we both shall live.
Beginning with a perfectly Split Christmas.
Turn the page to read the Prologue and Chapter One of Split
Ten years ago . . .
It’s dark. Like when I hide under my bed and can’t see my hand in front of my face. But I’m not under my bed now.
Cold seeps into my body. My head rings; static blares in my ears.
I blacked out again, but this is different. Everything about this feels different.
There’s shuffling . . . some kind of panic in the air. My heart pounds and with the rapid blood flow brings a sharp stabbing pain that explodes in my neck. I try to open my eyes, push at the dark and reach for light, but a sticky coating covers my face. I suck in a breath, cough against the thick sludge that clogs my nose and throat. The metallic tang of blood turns my gut. I retch, hacking up something thick, and agony slices through my jaw.
“Oh fuck!” A deep masculine voice rips through my panic. “This one’s alive!”
I try again to open my eyes.
“We need an EMT!”
I need to get up, find somewhere to hide. Mom always gets angry after one of my blackouts and with the pain . . . oh God the pain . . . I can’t take one of her punishments.
My arms ache but I force them to my eyes to clear the dark haze that clouds my vision. Weight presses against my shoulder, keeping me down. No, I have to get out of here.
“Don’t move.” The voice, I try to place it. A neighbor? I don’t know who else—“ETA on the ambulance! This kid’s gonna bleed out!”
“What . . .” My voice makes no sound, only a low gurgle within my chest. I try to push up, reach out. Help me! Shadows dance behind my eyes.
“God have mercy—we’re gonna lose him!”
“Stay down!” A male voice is close. “Oh shit . . . don’t move!”
I slip in and out. Voices frantic but muted in my ears.
“Neighbors said he’s fifteen . . .”
“ . . . fucking bloodbath . . .”
“Help . . .” I cough and reach for the fire blazing in my jaw.
A firm grip wraps my neck. I struggle against it as it cuts off what little breath I’m able to take. “Hang on, son.” It loosens and I suck in a gulp of blessed air mixed with fluid that makes me cough.
“He’s gonna drown in his own blood if we don’t get him—”
“Son, can you hear us?”
I nod as best I can, reaching for the light. Don’t black out. Don’t give up.
“Did you do this, boy?” The thick growl of a different man sounds in the distance. His voice deeper. Angrier.
I’m in so much trouble. I want to tell him I don’t remember. I have a condition. Lapses in memory. But I can’t get the words to make it to my mouth.
“They’re all dead.”
My heart kicks behind my ribs.
Dead? Who’s dead?
Dizziness washes over me and I don’t fight it. Nausea rips through my gut. The thick tang of vomit mixed with blood floods my mouth. I suck air, fight through the mud for oxygen. My lungs burn. I absorb the words and pray for a blackout to come. The dark that takes away all the pain, the shadow that tucks me in and shelters me.
The pounding
pulse in my neck slows to a dull throb. The static between my ears turns to a purr. Warmth envelopes me.
“Son of a bitch.” More shuffling. “He’s our only witness.”
Words blur as I drift in and out of darkness. Not like the blackouts, but something different. Deeper. As if sleep pulls me, then releases me like a yo-yo.
“Dammit! We’re gonna lose him.”
The pain dies off. Peacefulness wraps around me. I drift back into night and welcome the dark I know will protect me.
Shyann
Present day
There isn’t a single moment in life that compares to this one. Eh . . . I suppose if one day I meet the right guy who doesn’t mind playing second to my career goals, maybe a wedding would compare. Or not. I mean, weddings mean family and family means ripping open old wounds, and, well, that idea alone makes me want to vomit all over my knock-off Jimmy Choos.
No, I was right the first time. This moment is a game changer. It’s hit or miss, no room for second place. Five years in college, working my ass off and pulling in more student loans than I’ll be able to pay back in four lifetimes all teeters on thirty seconds of live newsfeed.
I shift restlessly in my seat, squinting back and forth between my phone and the dark road through the windshield. “Should be right up here, less than a mile.”
“Know that. Got the same address you did.” He turns left into a residential area, a decent part of town, middle- to lower-class neighborhood. “Besides, the place will be crawling with police. There’s no way we’ll miss it.”
I turn toward him and grin. “Police, but we’ll be the first and only news van.” I’m downright giddy! “This has to be perfect. We can’t afford to fuck this up.”
He grunts and I glare, annoyed by his nonchalance.
“I’m serious, Leaf. Make sure you get the right angle. I need this to be perfect. If the camera hits me funky, I look like a Cabbage Patch doll.” I smooth my skirt and blouse, wishing the outfit brought me more confidence, but instead I feel like one of those assassin bugs that wears the corpses of other bugs as armor. Not what I’m most comfortable in but at least I look enough the part to be taken seriously.