Always Series Box Set

by Becs, Lindsay

  I needed to give him this. I wanted to give him this. As a thank you, maybe. But more than that, I needed him to see me as whole. I needed to feel beautiful before I lost part of my identity. I needed Travis to make me feel like a sexy woman one last time before I wouldn’t feel that way anymore.

  What he said about me filling him was so sweet and what I needed to hear, but part of me still wonders if I’ll be enough after everything is over. Will he still really want to be with me – a woman in her mid-thirties, without a boob and not able to give him children? I can’t wrap my head around why he’d want to stick around. I think deep inside I’m preparing myself for the day he realizes that, too.

  But for now, I’m going to give him all I have to give and love him the best I know how. And for now, I know he does love me. That is all I need

  Travis unhooks my bra and pulls it down my arms, his eyes never leaving mine while doing so. There’s a sincerity in him that is almost crushing with every movement he makes.

  When his eyes finally leave my face, they travel down my body, taking a slow and seductive count of every inch of my flesh. I take a small step back to allow more space for his gaze to wander. I watch his eyes dilate and the bob of his Adam’s apple while he schools his emotions. I feel so vulnerable under his heated eyes of melted chocolate.

  I make the next move, taking his hands and putting them on each of my breasts. I want him to be able to memorize not only the sight but the touch and taste of them. He’s still for a moment with his large, calloused hands just resting on my chest, but the second he starts to move them, it shoots rockets off at every nerve ending in my body. My head falls back and my mouth parts, sucking in a gasp.

  “Lay down, pretty girl. I want to see you laid out for me.” I listen and lie back in the middle of the bed. Travis takes off his jeans and boxer briefs before he reaches up and pulls my panties down, leaving us both naked and needy for each other.

  He slowly kisses his way up my body, taking his time admiring and caressing every inch as he goes. It’s stimulating and sensual, even without him at my apex. I don’t realize that I’m playing with my nipples until he pulls my hands away. “Was I not getting to them fast enough for you?” he asks with a smirk.

  “You feel so good, Trav. Don’t stop.”

  His eyes captivate me again, watching me, before his mouth covers my breast, sucking it. His tongue circles and licks my nipple while his hand fondles my other breast. I moan, and my back arches from how good it feels, pushing me into his mouth and his touch more. He switches sides, doing the same thing. I think I might come from this alone; it feels so good. He switches back to the other side, but this time he’s rougher, nipping and biting and squeezing. The pain and pleasure mixture is something I’ve never experienced before. My hands are on his head, my nails scraping over the stubble there.

  He pops my nipple out of his mouth and looks up at me with a wry smile. He’s up to nothing good, but probably amazing. “You up to getting dirty?” he asks, sliding his hardness through my wet center, rubbing it oh so good.

  “Uh huh,” I manage to squeak out. I’m on the verge of combusting from all the stimulation he’s causing. I already feel foggy and euphoric.

  “Move up on the bed.” I do, and when my head is on the pillow, Travis crawls up and straddles me with his knees on either side of my body. My eyes widen, not knowing what he’s going to do exactly. He leans over me and grips the headboard while lowering his cock between my breasts. “Push them together around me.” The look on my face must say it all because he adds with another smirk, “That’s right, pretty girl, I’m going to fuck your tits off.”

  I can’t help the snort I laugh out at his words, but I soon go quiet when I push my breasts together around him. It’s the oddest sensation, but when he starts to grind back and forth, his cock sliding against my breasts, I feel myself get even more turned on. I didn’t know that was possible at this point, but it is, apparently. “Bend your knees up and spread.” I, again, listen. This time I’m rewarded when he reaches back with one hand and finds my clit. He makes a scissor motion with two fingers, sliding and pinching my throbbing nub in rhythm with his thrusts between my breasts. It doesn’t take long before I feel the build of an orgasm. “I’m going to—” But I can’t finish my thought before I scream, and it shoots through me.

  I open my eyes to Travis smiling down on me. “Welcome back, pretty girl,” he says, sliding down my body and kissing me. “You doing alright? We can stop if you want.”

  “Are you kidding?” I ask, looking at him like he’s crazy. “I feel amazing. What’s next, my sex god?”

  “Sex god, huh?” he laughs.

  “Travis, the way you make my body sing is indescribable.”

  “Then let’s keep making beautiful music,” he says before he kisses me again, deep and sultry.

  He leans over to the bedside table and pulls a condom from the drawer. Biting the corner, he rips the package open and rolls it on. He kisses me again as he pushes inside me, making us both moan. Oh my holy, it feels good to have him inside me again. He starts pumping slow at first. I pull my knees up to allow him to go deeper, which he does. Then he turns my body slightly to the side, pushing one leg down, and thrusts in from an almost sideways position. The new angle feels deep and so good. I reach down to rub my nub when he reaches up to pinch my nipple. “Travis.” “So good.” “Fuck.” And “Yes.” All things I pant and yell as he pumps fast and hard. I feel another orgasm closing in when he pulls my bent leg over his shoulder, pushing me onto my back again. He thrusts hard, and the friction makes me clamp down around him, pulling him with me over the edge to bliss.

  We both stay unmoved, panting for a minute with him still inside me.

  I still have my eyes closed when I say, “Holy fuck,” with a wide smile.

  TRAVIS

  I’m the king of the world!

  Chapter Seventeen

  Travis

  I’m holding Josie’s hand, waiting for her to wake up from surgery. She had a modified radical mastectomy today. They took her left breast, as well as the lymph nodes in her underarm (ALND). The surgeon said she did great and they believe they were able to get everything. They’ll send the lymph nodes on to be biopsied to see about the spread of the cancer. Fingers crossed everything comes back alright. The positive was that they were happy with how the tumor had shrunk from the chemo. She’ll still have two more cycles of chemo before radiation starts. And from what I’ve read, radiation is a whole other beast. But one thing at a time. Right now, we’re going to focus on getting her home tomorrow and healed from this surgery so we can keep moving forward.

  “Travis?” she whispers, sounding hoarse from the oxygen tube that was down her throat during surgery.

  I squeeze her hand. “I’m right here, pretty girl,” I answer, bringing her hand to my lips for a kiss.

  “How’d it go?”

  “They said good. They got everything,” I say, leaning over to kiss her forehead. “Just rest now.”

  And rest she does, just like she needed to.

  Josie recovered from surgery really well and was released to go home two days later. She’s such a rockstar. She amazes me every day with her strength.

  * * *

  “You cheated, Travis!” Tatum yells at me from across the table. We’re playing the standard family game, Uno.

  I can’t hold in my laughter at how mad she gets when she’s losing. “I’m not cheating, Tate. I just had that many ‘draw two’ cards.”

  “Whatever,” she says, rolling her eyes, making me laugh harder at her expense.

  “Uno,” Josie says triumphantly.

  “What?! No way! This is so unfair!” Tatum continues to complain.

  “You were so busy worrying about Trav, you didn’t see that I was almost out of cards,” Josie says smugly to her daughter. Damn, I love her. “Uno, Tate.”

  “You’re an Uno,” Tatum grumbles.

  “What did you say?” I ask with a lifted brow.r />
  “I said she’s an Uno.” There’s a defiance and fierceness about this girl that makes me want to smack her and give her a high-five all at once.

  “That doesn’t even make sense.”

  “She only has one boob – Uno-boob. She’s an Uno.” She shrugs her shoulder like it’s not a big deal that she just made a dig at her mom’s expense.

  “Tatum,” I warn. But then I hear Josie start to giggle next to me. I turn to her, shocked by her reaction to her daughter’s words. “You think that’s funny?”

  “Kind of. And you can’t say she isn’t right. I do only have one boob,” she says around more laughter. “Uno,” she adds, holding up one finger to make her point.

  Now, both of them are laughing and wiping tears from their eyes. I scrub my hands down my face, unsure where to go from here.

  I’m glad Josie is able to laugh at this, but I know she’s still having a hard time with it all. Since surgery, she won’t let me see her chest without it being covered. I hate that she’s self-conscious about it, and I hate that she feels uncomfortable with me. In time, I’ll make sure she knows how little I care about that. She has nothing to hide from me.

  “You both are ridiculous,” I say, standing from the table. “I need ice cream. Who’s in?”

  “I would but I’m waiting for Megan to call me after she posts her new video,” Tatum says, checking her phone for the hundredth time in the past fifteen minutes. What is it with twelve-year-old girls and their phones? It’s not like they’re dating. I’ll never understand Musically and the appeal, but apparently, it’s life and death when you get hearts or thumbs up or something like that. I don’t know.

  “What about you, pretty girl? You up for some ice cream?”

  “That actually sounds really nice. I haven’t left the house for a while.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  I run through the drive-thru at Dairy Queen, and we each get our usual cool treats. I take a turn toward a place I haven’t been to in years and see the confusion on Josie’s face. “Trust me,” I say, kissing her hand that rests in mine. A few minutes later, I pull into the park that I brought Josie to years ago before we imploded without getting much of a start. I haven’t been back since that day. It hurt too much to think of what I had lost that day. We both get out of the car with our melting ice cream and sit on the bench where we sat last time we were here.

  “I came here the day I found out,” Josie says, looking out over the water as the sun is beginning to go down.

  “You came here when you found out what?”

  “That I had cancer. I drove here without thinking about it. But I know why I ended up here. It was where I last felt you and your warmth. And at that moment, when I didn’t know what my future would look like or if I’d even have one, I just wanted to feel you. To feel safe.”

  “I make you feel safe?”

  “You make me feel lots of things, but yes,” she answers, blushing when she looks up at me.

  I pull her into me and kiss her temple. If she needs to feel my warmth and protection, I’ll make sure she has it anytime she wants it and then some.

  “It’s kinda ironic. You came here to feel me, and I stayed away so I wouldn’t feel you.”

  “You haven’t been here since…” Her question hangs in the quiet around us.

  “No. It was too hard to remember what I’d lost and how empty I felt without you. I never stopped loving you, Joes.”

  We sit in calm and comfortable silence, her leaning into my warmth and me breathing her in. “I never stopped loving you, either.”

  JOSIE

  Travis stands and turns to me with an outstretched hand. “Dance with me.” He pulls me to stand up against him. His hands wrap around my waist, and mine go around his neck. We begin to sway to our own music. The music of our love. The rhythm of our heartbeats. The tune of nature around us, playing its own concert. It’s beautiful how we fit and move together as one.

  “You are so beautiful.”

  I snort a laugh at his words. I can’t help it. I’m a mess. I’ve lost a lot of weight, have purple bags under my eyes, have baby fuzz starting to grow back on my head, I’m missing a boob, and I’m wearing leggings with hula girls on them with one of his hoodies that comes down to my knees. “I don’t know how you can say that right now. Look at me, Trav.”

  “I am looking, Joes. You’re perfect.” He bends and takes my mouth in his, kissing me softly and captivatingly slow.

  I try to hide the tear that escapes before he sees it when he pulls back. “What are you crying for, pretty girl?”

  “I don’t know why you love me or why you think I’m pretty. I don’t even know how you managed to make me feel beautiful right now, but you did. You always do.”

  “You’re it for me, Joes. There’s no one else but you. Ever. I love you in all your forms, and you are never anything less than stunning. You take my breath away.”

  I lean my head into his chest, breathing him in. I’m trying to tamp down my emotions. I don’t want to cry; I cry enough as it is. When I tilt my head up, I melt into him as he looks at me the way only Travis can.

  “Move in with us. With me.”

  “I thought I already had,” he says with a smirk.

  I smack his chest before he grabs my hand. He spins me and dips me backward, and when he pulls me up, he catches my eyes again. “I’d love to move in. Officially.” He kisses me again, this time longer, his tongue sweeping in and tasting me.

  We dance and kiss while we watch the sunset on this magical spring night. The vibrant colors surround us, reflecting off the water. It’s beautiful. It’s perfect.

  * * *

  At this point, I’m not sure how much more my body can handle. I started external beam radiation four weeks ago, during my last two cycles of chemo. So, on top of the usual joys of chemo, my skin is red and itchy and swollen. I developed lymphedema from radiation after surgery, meaning that I have fluid buildup in my arm that’s made it swollen, tight and painful. I wear a compression garment to help, but it’s still no picnic. Plus, who wants a sausage arm? Thankfully, it’s starting to go away.

  But I can do this. Chemo is officially done. Woohoo! And I only have two more weeks of radiation. Then I can start to move forward and on with my life. Right? Because the cancer will be gone. Right?

  I’ve put on this tough chick exterior the past months, but now that I’m at the end of treatment, I find myself more scared than when I started. Which is stupid because I should be happy that I’ll get to feel better and more like myself again. But the fear of my cancer not being all the way gone or coming back terrifies me.

  Dr. Swartz, at my last checkup, said that the biopsies had come back clear, that the cancer hadn’t spread and they do believe they got everything out during surgery, but I’m still scared. All it takes is one cell to grow and invade my body all over again. One.

  But on a positive note, Travis moving in with Tatum and me has been amazing. He was right when he said he thought he already had, because it did feel like he already had. I’d be so lost without him. Not just his love and support, but his help with everything has been overwhelming. He’s been my rock to cling to during this storm.

  “Mom?” I hear Ollie yell, walking through the kitchen. It’s his birthday weekend, and he came home for a visit.

  “I’m out back.”

  “What are you doing out here? It’s freezing.”

  “Hardly. It feels nice. Come join me and give me a hug.” He walks over to where I’m seated in a lounge chair on the patio, leaning down to give me a hug and kiss on the cheek.

  “Where’s the rest of the crew?”

  “Tatum is at Megan’s for the night, but you’ll see her tomorrow. Travis is at the garage but should be home soon.”

  “That’s still weird. I can’t get used to the fact that he lives here now.”

  “Ollie, he’s practically lived here for your whole life.”

  “Yeah, but he didn’t share your bed before,
” he grumbles.

  “Oh, stop it,” I laugh. “You know you’re happy for us.”

  “Whoa. Let’s not get carried away,” he says with a hand up to keep me from saying more.

  “Get carried away with what?” Travis asks, walking out to join us. He walks straight to me, placing a kiss, short and sweet, on my lips.

  “Ollie won’t admit that he’s happy for us and that you’re here,” I say smugly toward my son.

  “You two are the worst now. You both always gave me crap before, but now you team up against me. I don’t like it.”

  “Stop being a pussy, dude,” Travis chuckles, sitting at the end of the lounger I’m on. He pulls my feet into his lap and starts to rub them. My head falls back and my eyes close from how good it feels. This man, he worked all day, but comes home and rubs my feet.

  “Anyway! What’s the plan for tonight? Movie and chill?”

  “Nope,” I open my eyes with a smile in Ollie’s direction. “Bonfire with the old gang.”

  “What? No. You aren’t up to that, are you?”

  “Oliver, it’s your birthday, your twenty-first at that, and you decided to spend it at home to be with me. The least I can do is this.”

  “Who’s coming?”

  “The whole crew. The girls, too. Well, except for Sara,” Travis answers and pauses to look at me, “For obvious reasons.”

  “You could have still invited her, you know.”

  “No way. I couldn’t stand her then, and I definitely don’t want to put up with her shit tonight.”

  “But Autumn is coming?” Ollie asks.

  “You still sweet on her?” Ollie’s blush at Trav’s question is answer enough.

  “I haven’t talked to her much since I left for school, though.”

  “Well, they’ll all be here soon.” As if they could hear my words, the doorbell rings.

  Ollie makes his way to the door and lets his friends in. Hearing his easy laughter and conversation with them makes me smile. I’m glad we decided to do this for him.