by Mia Ford
I can barely breathe, never mind speak. “Your dad?” I pant out breathlessly. The plan is incredible and so damn noble, but how will his father take it?
“Oh don’t worry about him. He knows, I told him this morning, and actually he’s okay with it. I’m sure he thinks that I’m making a mistake, but that’s okay. I don’t mind what he thinks. I know that I’m doing the right thing.” He bumps his hip into mine, making me stare up at him. “And the best thing is I can set up office wherever I want and I can travel wherever I need to go to do my work.”
Through my foggy mind, I think he might be telling me that if I want it we can be together. We don’t have to be long distance because somehow we can make it work. It’s what I want, so damn badly, but I can’t seem to find the right words. I’m just trying my best to digest this shock at the moment.
“That’s wonderful,” I finally manage to tell him. “I’m so happy for you. You deserve this very much.”
He envelops me in his arms and presses me up against his chest so I can hear his racing heart. I close my eyes to block out the noise and the sights of the city because I only want to feel him. Somehow, I just know that this is it. Our make or break moment. For good this time. I just wonder which way it will turn out…
Chapter 28 – Brandon
I spend the next few days throwing myself into my new business venture. As I do it with all my heart and soul it doesn’t feel like work. Even the stressful bits aren’t hard to do because I’m so damn desperate to get things done. I love it. Every day I realize more and more this is just what I want to do. This is me. Finally I feel like myself.
As I bang on the door to the motel room which has almost become like a second home to me, I’m bursting with things that I want to tell Lola… but all of them fall apart on my lips as the door swings open and I see what’s going on inside.
“Are you packing?” I ask while peering behind Lola. The mess that’s been all over the floor is long gone now and already I miss it. “What’s going on? Are you moving hotel?”
“Actually…” As she speaks she can hardly meet my eyes. My chest runs cold as I get a horrible feeling that I’m not going to like this. “Dad wants to go back home. He’s finished his treatment with the doctor for now, I’m sure he’ll have follow up appointments, but…” She shrugs her shoulders regretfully at me. “For now he wants to go back. I have been calling you all day long, you just weren’t answering your phone.”
I grab my phone out of my pocket and stare at the screen. Thirteen missed calls and four text messages stare back at me, all containing the terrible news I can see in front of me. “Oh God, sorry I’ve just been so busy today. In meetings and things. I didn’t look at my phone.” I shove it back in my pocket and shake my head as I realize that the missed calls aren’t the most important things. “You’re leaving? Today?”
My heart thumps angrily, my stomach turns over and over in a frantic, confused manner, my head spins. How can I make this not be the truth? What can I do?
“I have to, Brandon,” she tells me sadly. “My dad needs me at the moment. I might be back soon, especially if the record label stuff works out, but I can’t just leave him.”
She’s right, I know she is, and I also realize that this doesn’t spell the end of us, but that doesn’t stop any of the anxiety from coiling around inside of me. I’m so damn scared to let Lola go. I don’t want to spend another year without her. I can’t do it. I won’t survive.
“How are you getting back?” I gush. “What’s happening? What time are you leaving?”
“We’re headed to the bus stop now, I’m so sorry Brandon, I honestly didn’t want you to find out in such a brutal fashion.”
Her eyes are so full of hurt, it breaks my heart. I can see that she doesn’t want it to be this way, but she feels like this is what she has to do. I could just step back and let her do her thing, but the idea of the separation kills me.
“Okay. Don’t go to the bus stop,” I tell her sharply. “Not yet. I’ll… I’ll take you back. I’ll drive you, it won’t take me long.”
This causes her to widen her eyes in shock. “I can’t ask you to do that. You’ve got all your own stuff going on. You’ve got your business and all your meetings… I don’t want to get in the way of anything.” She steps forwards and takes my hands in hers. “I know you have your own thing going on at the moment. I will be back, this isn’t goodbye. This is just me doing my thing while you do yours. Our lives are both crazy at the moment. It’s just a bit of a timing thing. It’s certainly something that we can overcome.”
I can’t stand it, her words are killing me. Logically I know that everything she’s saying is right and that of course we’ll be fine at the end of it, but that doesn’t make it any easier. I pull her to me and run one hand up the back of her neck until it knots up into her hair, then I crash my lips into hers and I kiss her hard.
“I don’t want you to go,” I murmur into her mouth as we pull apart. “I can’t stand the idea of being without you.”
“I know, I know,” she agrees. “I can’t stand it either, but what else can we do?”
The words bubble up inside of me, I can’t seem to stop them from falling out of my mouth. I don’t think that the timing is right, but that doesn’t seem to matter. “I love you,” I whisper to her, so quietly that only she can hear.
“You do?” she gushes to me. “Because I love you too. Really and truly.”
“Then get your things. I’m driving you home.”
There’s no way in hell I’m going to let this wonderful woman get the bus. She needs to go home, fine, but I’m taking her. Then maybe on the way we can both really think about how we’re going to make this work. It’s an hour to an hour and a half. Plenty of time for me to come up with the right plan for all of us.
“Hold on, I’ll go and tell Dad.”
Lola’s father doesn’t even bat an eyelid when he comes to get into my car, but I’m not too surprised. He seemed to know how deeply me and Lola felt for one another before we even knew it. I mean, I knew it but it’s taken this moment for me to feel it as deeply as I do now. I know with absolute certainty now that I would die without Lola in my life. I just need to find a way to make this work. Bad timing or not.
***
I drive on autopilot most of the way to Lola’s home. None of us talk, I barely even look where I’m going, I’m just trying to work out how me and Lola can keep being in one another’s lives. Right now, I need to stay in the city while I get my business established, and Lola needs to be between the two. Maybe we’ll just have to spend some time apart in the beginning. I don’t know. We desperately need a plan.
“Oh wow.” Seeing Lola’s little cottage at the edge of her farm brings all the old memories flooding back. Every meal, every kiss, every shared look. It all makes me feel so many overwhelming emotions at once. “It doesn’t look any different.”
“Doesn’t it?” Lola leans out the window sleepily. She’s drifted in and out all the way home, which has made it easier for me to remain silent. “I suppose not. This is the town that never changes. Always the same.”
“Well, until I came along,” I tease her. “Then everything changed.”
“And not all for the better.” She raises her eyebrows and smiles at me. “But mostly.”
She pushes the door open and moves to the back of the car to go and help her father out. I leap out rapidly to help them both too. I need to remember that there are other lives going on around my internal dilemma. Lola’s father is tired now, he needs a bit of help to get back into the house, but actually he does seem to have more strength than he did when I first saw him again after the last year. Maybe the new treatment is working, maybe it’s genuinely helping him, I suppose only time will tell.
Once we get Lola’s dad in and into bed, a bit of an awkward tension fills the air because neither of us know what to do next. I probably should go back to the city to get ready for tomorrow, but I don’t know if I want to. No, I defi
nitely don’t want to. I want to reschedule all of my meetings and to stay here for the night with Lola. If that’s what she wants. We’ve both admitted that we love one another now, but that’s all that we’ve said. I really think that we need to talk some more.
We move back to the outside area and slowly walk towards Lola’s cottage. Her hand reaches out and she grabs onto mine so she can pull her closer to me. “I don’t know if you want to,” she asks me quietly. “But do you want to come inside for a bit? I know you might need to get back, I just want to put the offer out there.”
“Yes,” I nod decisively while mentally planning out all the emails I’ll need to send. Now that I’m in control of the company, I can be the one who decides whether I pick career or love. Actually what I want is to be able to do both. “I would definitely like that.”
I suck in and hold a breath as Lola opens the door to the past that I also want to make my present. As the internal area of the cottage is revealed, all the memories become even more powerful and I’m left wondering how the hell I walked away from all of this. Did I honestly believe that I would find another love anything like this? What a fool.
“Is this still the same too?” Lola asks with a grin as we go in. “I don’t think I’ve changed anything.”
“The cushions on your chairs are different.” I glance around, drinking it all in. I might love my home, but I adore it here too. Somehow it doesn’t feel like it’s too small even though it’s tiny. “And you have your guitar in a different place, but that’s it.”
Lola flops down on one of the chairs and I take the one opposite her. I lean on the arm of the chair and give her an intense look. Her red hair flops down over her face a little which just reminds me of all the wonderful sexy adventures we had that summer.
“So I suppose there are some things that we need to talk about. Don’t you think?” I ask her cautiously. “I know it feels like all we’ve done is talk this time around, but I think it’s fruitful for us to talk, don’t you?”
Lola laughs, but I can hear the strain behind the sound. She’s struggling with this just as much as I am. “Yeah, you got that right. But what? I’ve been trying to think about it all day long, and I don’t know how to make this any easier. All I want to do is dive into his head first, but we both have responsibilities.”
“Oh I know, I do see that, and I think I might have a plan.”
Her eyes lighten up. “You do? Really?”
“Yeah, I do, but I warn you that it won’t be easy, but I’m sure you’re expecting that.”
“Yeah, I know, but if we both want it enough, we can do it, right?”
“I think we should alternate,” I tell her as if it’s obvious. “I think when you need to be here and I have to be in the city we’ll just have to get on with it, but when we can we switch between being in the city and being here. That way we can help look after your father when he needs it, you can do any recording stuff that comes along, and I can do my business.”
Lola nods but her eyes suggest that she’s not totally sure. “That sounds wonderful, and like it’ll be really awesome. But it’ll just be so hard.”
“I don’t care though. Do you? It won’t feel difficult to me because that’s what I’ll want to do it.”
She pauses for a moment but eventually she nods. “Okay, well if that’s what you want, we have to give it a go, don’t we? We owe it to ourselves to try.”
Chapter 29 – Lola
Brandon’s kiss is tender and sweet. I can feel love pouring from his mouth as well as passion. It’s different, but in a really good way. I didn’t think I would like anything to be different, but I do. It makes my hands reach up to grab onto his cheeks and I hold him close to me. At least this time I know that we both do want this enough to try, so I don’t have to let him go. The fear that we might lose one another isn’t there anymore.
I take Brandon’s hand and I walk him over to my bed. Once there, I climb under the sheets and I pat the space next to me to make some room for him. He pauses for a moment, but only to smile down at me as if I’m someone he truly does love.
“I love you,” he whispers, only confirming what he’s thinking. “I really do love you.”
“I love you too.” I reach out my hands for him to grab. “Now come here.”
Brandon kicks off his shoes and his trousers and he climbs into the bed beside me. The warmth of his body feels so nice next to me. I slide my leg closer to his and the electricity races right through me. Then we lie there next to one another for just a moment, looking at one another, our eyes filled with love.
Eventually I can’t stand it anymore, I turn onto my side and I throw my leg right across him. I tug him nearer to me and soon he turns on his side to face me. His forehead rests against mine and he curls his hand around my arm to hold me in place.
“You’re amazing,” Brandon mutters. “I’m so damn lucky.”
As his lips edge closer to mine I’m reminded of our very first kiss on that magical night when I first laid eyes on him. How little I knew then how important the sexy stranger that was sweeping through town would become to me. My heart races, my core pounds, every inch of me is on fire. But it isn’t the usual, desperate fire that I feel around Brandon, it’s slower, more sensual, romantic even.
And slowly we peel the clothes off of one another, brushing our hands over each other’s skin as we go. I feel Brandon’s hard muscles, his soft skin, his perfect and his flaws, and I love every part of him. Yes, he isn’t perfect, but nor am I. I don’t need perfection from the man in my life, I just need someone who’s going to love me wholeheartedly and make up for anything he does do wrong. I need him.
Once we’re naked, Brandon pulls me on top of him and he kisses me gently. I straddle over him and angle myself just over his tip, teasing him for just a moment. “You know, I’m not always as prepared as you. Did you bring any protection with you?” When his eyes widen in shock and disappointment, I burst into laughter. “It’s fine. I do actually have something I’m just playing around.”
I grab a condom and hand it to him, and wait impatiently for him to cover himself up. As he does I wonder if there’ll ever be a time when we don’t use protection on purpose. When we’re so settled and in love that we want to have children. I’ve never thought about having a family of my own, I’ve always been so wrapped up in my parents, but now there’s potential that the world might be opening up to me in ever single way and I love that plan.
“Now, come over here.”
Brandon pulls me to him and he slides into me instantly, without any messing around. His thrusts are slow, purposeful, intense, so damn powerful that I think they might send me insane. My head falls back, I gasp loudly, as he touches me everywhere all over me. His touch is phenomenal and I think I might want it for the rest of my damn life.
“Oh God,” I moan as his thrusts brush part my clit. “Oh, Brandon.”
My heart beats so powerfully I think it might explode free from my chest, my breaths are ragged and painful, my whole body tingles as the orgasm trickles through my veins and consumes me entirely. I’m on fire, I’m burning, and it’s all because of him…
Once we lay on the bed next to one another panting desperately, I realize that I’m definitely not done with him yet. Of course I’ll have to wait until he’s ready for me…
“Right,” Brandon says with determination and he props himself up onto his elbows to look at me intently. “Turn onto your front.”
“Are you serious?” I gasp with a laugh as I instantly catch his drift. “Already?”
“Just do it already.” His commanding tone is sexy as hell. I love that about him. But then I also adore it when he’s vulnerable and ready to do whatever I ask of him. “I need you on your front already.”
I do as he asks and bury my face into the pillow. He parts my legs and he tickles his fingers up and down my thighs until I’m shuddering and shivering like a crazy person. My core is desperately screaming for him, I need him inside of me, but
now he’s making me wait. I feel like he’s teasing me to the point of no return and I’m about to actually lose my mind.
“What are you doing?” I groan while raising my hips to him, trying to lure him in towards me. “Stop teasing me already, will you?”
“Will you just be patient?” he chuckles, sounding like he loves the way I’m begging for him right now. “God when did you get to be so needy already?”
I twist my neck to stare at him over my shoulder. I flick my hair out the way and look at him through shiny, happy eyes. He smiles down at me while he’s rubbing his hand all over my butt. “It’s just you,” I tell him sincerely. “It’s just you that does this to me. No one else makes me feel this way.”
“Yeah well, no one else does what you do to me either.”
“Oh fucking hell, Brandon, I can’t take it anymore.”
Those are the magic words. He grabs onto my hips and pulls me towards him, then he slides himself into me all over again, making me feel incredible. The sexual thrill consumes me, it takes over all of me, and it’s all because of Brandon. He touches me deeply, his cock massages all of me, and fuck me it feels wonderful. I fist the sheets beneath me as he moves so I can fix myself in place and present myself to him. All of me.
He’s the one, I think to myself as he thrusts in and out of me, sending me to heaven. He’s definitely the one for me.
As the hot bliss rolls through my body a second time I forget where I even am. The pleasure is so intense that I don’t even know what to think anymore. I’m crazy, animalistic, wild, insane…and I love every damn second of it. I love that I get to keep this feeling going forever more. I don’t think that this is a sexual chemistry which will end up burning out. This is the real deal. The sort that doesn’t stop.