by Jordan Marie
“It’s not silly,” White says, squeezing my leg. I lean into him, kissing the side of his face just under his chin. Then I snuggle into him. “You snuggle like a cat,” he whispers into the top of my head.
“Well, right now I kind of want to purr like one. And it is silly. You can’t make a teenage girl fighting puberty and hormones happy. I’m pretty sure that’s impossible.”
“I would have tried my damnedest. Even if that meant making Green get a brain and see what he was throwing away,” White says, and I can’t help but laugh.
“My feelings for Green were much less significant than you give them credit for.”
“You were upset because he ditched you for Cynthia.”
“Only because of the prom. I never had those type of feelings for Green, not really. He was…”
“Was?”
“Let it go, White. Doesn’t everyone have crushes as a teenager that don’t mean anything?”
“I can’t say. I think life is different for teenage girls. With boys, it pretty much boils down to sex. You get a small taste and it’s like opening Pandora’s Box. You’ve got to keep experimenting. We’re ruled by hormones too, really. Just a different sort.”
“Eww.”
“Eww?”
“You just described every teenage boy as a mindless zombie bouncing from warm body to warm body just trying to get a fix. In the meantime, there are the girls writing love songs and sonnets over a boy and dreaming of forever.”
“That’s pretty much how it is.”
“Well, that’s the single most heartbreaking and unromantic thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Sorry, honey. If it helps, teenage boys are stupid and they do grow up.”
“Have you?” I ask jokingly.
“I’d like to think I know exactly what’s important now,” he says, turning my face to him. His fingers comb through my hair and his thumb brushes against my cheek. The look on his face is intense and my breath lodges in my throat and I’m afraid to breathe.
“White?” I question, hoping, but not knowing what it is exactly I’m hoping for.
“God, Kayla, you’re so beautiful,” he whispers so softly I’m afraid I heard him wrong. His breath fans my face, heating me up from the inside. I’m scared to move or even close my eyes, so I keep them open even as he leans in further to kiss me. They flutter shut just as his lips touch mine.
CHAPTER 38
WHITE
“Every time we kiss, it just feels better and better.”
I’m not really giving those words to Kayla as much as I am to myself. It seems impossible and yet with each kiss, I’m proven wrong. I watch as her lips, now swollen from our kiss, slowly spreads into a smile.
“You’re a really good kisser, White Hall Lucas,” she says with an innocence-filled blush. How a woman can be nearing thirty years of age and still, in most ways, remain untouched or spoiled from the world is beyond me.
“You do get I hate that name, right?” I decide to joke with her to break up the atmosphere between us that seems way too thick with emotion.
“I’ve always liked your name. It’s very… stately.”
“Stately?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“I was named after the color of the hallway that my parents thought would be a good place to get frisky.”
“Get frisky?”
“That’s as much as I want to think about my parents like that.”
“Do you remember your father at all?”
“Not so much. By the time Cyan was born, he was just a memory—and not a very good one. Mom never talked about him. We moved here to get away from her memories more than anything else.”
“He never tried to reach out to any of you?”
“Nope. Not once.”
“That sucks,” Kayla says.
“Maybe for a while it did. Now? It is what it is. Nothing can be done to change it, and it’s sure not something I want to think about when I have my woman all to myself.”
“I like it when you call me your woman.”
“That’s good, because you are. In fact, I think it’s time we invoke the ancient Lucas tradition.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask, though I should warn you if it involves sacrificing virgins, I don’t think I qualify.”
“Shhh! I don’t want to think about the men who came before me.”
“Good Lord, you can’t be serious.”
“Very. It pisses me off that I was stupid enough not to grab you up sooner.”
“White…” Before she can question me further, I stop her with a quick kiss, then pull her up to stand with me.
“It’s time to put our names on the Mighty Oak.”
“You want to carve our names on the tree?”
“Of course. You know yourself. Whenever one of us finds the one they want to keep—or at least think we have—we put our name on the tree.”
“Your name has to be on there a million times.”
“Nope, not once. The Mighty Oak is sacred.”
“Not so sacred. I’m pretty sure Green put Cynthia’s name on there, Petal has Luka, and Cyan… well…”
“Green was an idiot. He doesn’t count. Though, to be fair, he did love that bitch. Petal still loves Luka. I keep hoping they’ll work things out.”
“I do too.”
“Cyan would surprise you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look at the five times he’s put his name on the tree,” I tell her, feeling comfortable telling her something only Cyan has ever shared with me. She looks at the tree for a few minutes and then looks back at me confused.
“You know I never noticed it much before, but the girlfriends that Cyan has been crazy about have all had names that begun with the letter A. Is that what you mean? I remember Angela. Ugh, I hated her. Then there was Amy, Alex, and Audrey…”
“Look at the tree though, honey. What do you see?”
“C loves A,” she says. She’s right too. That’s all that’s on the tree and it’s on there about seven times. She’s also right that the only time Cyan even pretends to be a little serious, the girls are all named with the letter A, but they also have blonde hair, wear glasses, and keep their hair pulled away from their face.
“Who else do you know now that Cyan has feelings for that has a name that starts with the letter A?” I prompt her again.
“Alice? Really? But he’s been writing on this tree since he was fifteen.”
“Yep, and all of these girls are blondes with glasses, just like…”
“Oh, wow. I kind of hurt for Cyan. All that unrequited love for all those years. How painful.”
“Look at those names, Buttercup. I don’t think a lot of suffering was involved.”
“But it was. Sex with someone you don’t truly care about? White, it’s just sex,” she says sadly, and something twists inside of me. Maybe once I would have argued with her, but since having Kayla… I’m a believer. What Kayla and I have been doing is better than anything I’ve ever experienced before—and sex is just a small part of that. “Can’t he put away that part of himself to be with Alice? If he loves her that much—”
“You can’t deny what makes you happy for someone else, Buttercup. If you do, you just make everyone miserable,” I tell her and I find myself running my fingers through her hair again. It’s become a habit, one I have no intention of ever stopping. Her face pales and then she looks up at me with such sweet honesty that her eyes seem to reach down inside of me.
“If you truly love someone, the only thing that matters is making them happy.”
“That’s a one-sided love, Buttercup. Selfish in nature.”
“How can it be selfish to give everything you have to someone else?”
“Because in a love like that, you lose yourself,” I tell her, and when a tear unexpectedly falls from the corner of her eye, my thumb automatically swipes it up. “Hey now, what are the tears for?”
“It’s just sad, the way things are… for Cyan
, I mean.”
“There’s just times when you have to accept that you can’t make someone else happy, that two of you don’t mesh,” I tell her, pushing these thoughts aside. It’s time to shift the focus from Cyan and Alice and back to the woman who’s slowly invading my heart. “How about we get back to carving our names on the tree?” I ask her, pulling my pocket knife out with a grin.
“You really want to put our names on the tree?” she asks like she doesn’t believe me.
“Absolutely.”
“But you’ve never—”
“I don’t think you get this yet, Kayla, even though it feels like I keep saying it. This thing between you and me has gone beyond the child you want. Hell, it’s gone beyond the deal in general. I’ll say it as many times as you want until you understand this is real. You and me are real, Kayla. I’m playing for keeps here.”
I watch as she takes it in. Her eyes are so expressive, I can see as each word I said hits her.
“Those are strong words,” she whispers.
“I’m prepared to back them up. Starting with putting my name on the tree for the first time,” I tell her, already turning to find a spot.
“Gray and CC added their names on here,” Kayla says, moving her hand over their names.
“Definitely. Gray said they did it on their wedding day. I’ll let you in on a secret.”
“What’s that?”
“Gray told me this is where the twins were conceived. I made him promise not to name one of them Oak or Leaf, though.”
“You boys talk about things like that more than old women,” Kayla chastises with a smile.
“Whatever. I’m just pointing out that the ground is obviously fertile. Maybe we should give it a try. Especially since we destroyed the bed last night.”
“Oh no. That’s not going to happen. With our luck, your entire family is lurking in the woods.”
“Kayla—”
“With cameras,” she adds.
I’d argue with her, but I can’t be completely positive she’s not right, so I let it go and instead concentrate on carving our initials in the tree.
“What do you think?” I ask her when I finish. She doesn’t look at me. She just stares at our initials and the heart that links them. “Your turn,” I urge her when she doesn’t make a move.
“I don’t need to,” she whispers, her fingers tracing over the roughly-hewn heart.
“It’s tradition, Buttercup. We can’t break it,” I answer, feeling a little foolish.
In answer, she takes my hand and pulls me to the side of the tree. I crouch down beside her as she pushes leaves and things away. There, carved in the old Oak right at the base of the tree, are three words that rock me to the core.
Kayla loves White.
CHAPTER 39
WHITE
“Kayla?” I ask, my voice sounding pitifully weak. Honest to God, there are few times in a man’s life that crushes his soul, robbing him of the ability to use words, thoughts, or even make a simple movement. Hell, the ability to function is completely gone now. It’s never happened to me before. Gray said the day CC told him she was having twins, he felt like this. Stupid-ass me thought he was exaggerating.
He wasn’t. If anything, he was understating everything, because I’m frozen solid where I’m standing.
“All those hours you accused me of daydreaming about Green…” she whispers, shaking her head.
“Kayla,” I squeak out again.
“It was never Green. Not since the night my best friend took me to the dance so I wouldn’t have to go alone. Not since that night when I discovered how it felt to be in your arms.”
Fuck. I’ve been a blind bastard.
“Sweetheart,” I whisper.
“White, don’t make—”
“Why didn’t you tell me, Kayla? In all this time, why didn’t you let me know you felt more for me?”
“Because, White. You were too important to risk losing.”
If I didn’t feel stupid before, I definitely do now. There’s this tightness in my heart and it feels like the room is spinning. Kayla loved me. She loved me years ago and I was too fucking stupid to realize it. I almost threw away the best thing in my life, and didn’t even know it. She almost married another man because I was so stupid.
Emotion and words are choking me. I’ve never been the type of man who could quote poetry and shit. There’s so much I want to say to Kayla, but I can’t seem to find the words.
“White?” she whispers. My eyes are drawn to the way her lips move, how that one word falls softly from them and her breath feels like feathers against my chin. I still don’t have the words, but maybe that doesn’t matter as much. Maybe the key in expressing to Kayla just how much I need her is by just showing her.
I pull her up and it’s not my imagination that her breath is coming harder now. Her breasts move with the raggedness of it, as if she knows exactly what’s on my mind. Maybe she does. I whip my shirt over my head and throw it on the ground, bending down to stretch it out as much as I can on the leaves below. Next, I kick off my shoes and continue on until I’m standing before her naked.
“What are you doing?” she asks. I almost don’t answer, because I’m pretty sure it’s self-explanatory, but change my mind at the last minute.
“I’m claiming you.”
My voice is dark, strained, and hoarse, but those three words express everything she needs to know.
CHAPTER 40
KAYLA
My stomach flutters nervously. Claiming me. I feel like Alice and I’ve definitely fallen through the rabbit hole. White is claiming me. My throat goes dry as I travel the length of his body. The man really is living, breathing perfection.
“Take your clothes off, Kayla.”
“White…” I look around nervously. Even though it feels like we’re the only two people in the world at the moment, I know we’re not. We’re out in the open here.
“Now, honey. Either you do, or I will, but if I do it there’s no guarantee there will be anything left for you to wear home,” he warns, and the delectable promise in that causes my body to heat even more.
I undress slowly. I wish I could say I was doing it to entice White further, to tease him, to just play it cool. That’s not the truth, however. I’m doing it because I’m too nervous to move faster. Undressing and showing my body isn’t easy—despite us having had sex before. Or maybe it’s just harder now because it feels different. It feels more exposed. I feel more exposed.
I unbutton my shirt, my eyes going to my fumbling fingers because I know if I look at him, I’ll lose my courage. When it’s open, I pull it from my shoulders. White grunts and then takes the shirt from my hands before I can use it to shield myself. I look up at him in surprise and get lost in the heated blue depths of his eyes.
“Beautiful,” he growls in a voice so dark, it sends chills of need through me. Like I am a puppet and he, the master, I undress until I’m standing before him in nothing but my underwear. I jump when I feel his rough hand move over my shoulder, sliding further down to my arm. I swallow as his hand moves down over my bra, squeezing my breast in his palm lightly before following the curve of my hip.
“I’ve gained weight,” I whisper self-consciously.
He squeezes my hip hard. I look down and watch as the skin turns pink against his hold. The extra flesh and weight I have there somehow looks more feminine in his hold.
“You’re perfect,” he groans, and it’s then that I feel his lips in the valley between my neck and shoulder, kissing first, then raking his teeth against my skin. I don’t even try to stop the gasp that leaves my lips. Instead, I hold my head back to give him better access. He tastes up the side of my neck in small bites that cause my body to quiver with need. I hold onto him, because I feel like my legs are going to give out. “So responsive,” White whispers right before his teeth sink together against the vein along the side of my neck. My body jerks as he sucks against my neck, his tongue stroking the tender flesh
.
“White,” I whimper when I feel his hand move down my stomach.
“Mine,” he says. “You’re mine, Kayla. You’ve always been mine.”
Every single time he says the word “mine”, chills move down my spine. He’s whispered these words before, but never with this intensity. His hand moves further down my body. His fingers hook into my panties and with one single pull, the fabric gives, and he tears them from my body. My eyes go down and I watch the worthless fabric fall to the ground. Cool air hits my body as he takes a step back. I’m afraid he’s going to leave me like this—a bundled mess of nerves and need. I look up to beg him not to leave, beg him to keep touching me, for anything, but the words stall when I see the way his cock is standing and stretching towards me. The head is dark in hue and glossy with his own desire. I bite into my lip, wondering how he would react if I drop to my knees right now. I don’t get the chance to find out before he gives me another order.
“The bra, Kayla. Take off the bra.”
My hands tremble as I move the straps off my shoulder. It feels awkward. The movies make this part seem so simple. I’ve taken my bra off a hundred times, but usually it’s from pulling the back clasp around and unhooking it. That seems like the stupidest and most unsexy thing I could do right now. Reaching back seems impossible unless I have a hidden contortionist gene somewhere that I’ve forgotten about. White must see the indecision on my face because he saves me by moving behind me and unhooking the bra. I hold the fabric against my breasts, afraid to move as his lips create a heated path over my back.
“Let go of the bra, Kayla,” he whispers from behind me. I want to, I really do, but I can’t manage it. He must give up on me because he reaches his hands around, cupping my breasts in each of his hands, and gathers the loose material up while trapping the nipples with his fingers. The tight pressure, mixed in with the silky feel of the fabric, causes my body to instantly demand more. I can feel the inside of my thighs grow wet with hunger. My hands go up, reaching behind me so my fingers can dive into the thickness of White’s hair. I feel his cock rubbing against my ass, the head leaving a heated wet path against the cheek. The heat of his body swamps me, making me feel deliciously wicked and needy all at the same time. “Put your hands against the tree and brace yourself, Kayla,” White orders.