Yours Forever

by Joya Ryan

  After washing my hair and body, I now smelled like Cal and the familiar soap I’d come to know so well. I couldn’t escape him, even if that was my goal.

  I closed my eyes and let the water continue to hit my back, yet nothing eased the tension or guilt.

  The sound of bare feet hitting the smooth stones of the shower floor smacked my ears. The one man I was terrified to look at came in behind me.

  “Cal,” I whispered, keeping my head against my forearm and forcing tears away. I should tell him to leave. To try to cover myself. Both were pointless. A large part of me didn’t want him to leave. I wanted him to stay. I wanted to yell at him. Get all the hurt out.

  We are already done I reminded myself, yet nothing felt further from the truth.

  The real world was a bitch and came with a past, and that was something we’d have to get back to. Forgiveness was one thing. Moving away from the pain another. And I was willing to do both. Was trying to do both. But it didn’t change the future. And the fact that it was waiting for me right outside this house, and I couldn’t take Cal with me to it.

  Yet, in that moment, all I felt was stuck and horrible and I just wanted to run.

  I felt Cal’s big body against my back. His tee shirt and jeans scratched against my bare bottom. He’d walked in clothed? He wasn’t looking for sex then, just to hold me?

  The thought sucked me further into the need to feel him. Get lost in him. But I couldn’t even look at him.

  “I’ll always chase you,” he whispered in my ear, then kissed the back of my neck. He either read my mind or acknowledged what had just happened, because that’s what I’d done. I’d run away and Cal had come after me.

  “I’m lost,” I admitted.

  “Never, Kitten.” He gently cupped my shoulders in his hands and turned me to face him. “I’ll find you.”

  A tear pricked my eyes as I looked up at him. His white T-shirt was getting soaked and his jeans were no better, but he stood there, looking down at me with blue eyes full of understanding and determination.

  “There’s so much I want to say,” I admitted. Even with the world and all its problems, like my house burning down and my father’s death, there was only one thing I needed to wrap my brain around right then. And that was Cal. “I’m sad. So unbearably sad. And I love you. I love Jack too…I never stopped. And I hate this.”

  It was a mess. A loss either way I spun it.

  “I know.”

  I shook my head, my wet hair moving along my back with the action. “How are you like this? How can you be so calm?”

  “Because Jack and I put you in this situation. I’ve known from the beginning about your feelings for him. I know you have to sort things out. But I’m not giving up on us.”

  “This is fleeting,” I said. “There’s too much badness to move on or to fix anything. This will all end the second we step away from each other.”

  “I’m set to change your mind on that.”

  He pulled me into his arms and wrapped me up in the strength I’d gotten lost in so many times. A warmth like his was unmatchable.

  “Don’t move on, just move towards me,” he rasped, his lips hovering over mine. He’d said something similar in the past when he was there, helping me move past Jack. Without thinking, I did just that, taking a step to press my wet body further against Cal’s. His handsome face gave a tentative grin as his lips brushed mine. “That’s it, Kitten. Come to me.”

  He coaxed in such a way I couldn’t deny. His mouth snagged mine and took a deep taste. He was everything warm and safe, and I wanted him so much. My chest didn’t settle right without Cal. He was an anchor and promise I’d come to rely on. He made me feel not so…alone.

  “I can’t do this,” I said, and pulled away, but he wouldn’t let me. His arms tightened and kept me close. “I can’t promise you anything. I can’t commit to you,” I said. It hurt too much still.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said against my lips. “I’ll take you however you’ll allow me.”

  “How can you say that?”

  He looked at me like the answer was simple. “Because I love you, Lana.”

  God, I loved him too. So much. And Jack was forever in the background of my feelings. I wouldn’t ever commit to either of them, but that wasn’t the point. What we had was beyond titles and norms. I’d been changed since the day I met Jack, and again when I’d fallen for Cal. One thing that didn’t change was the fact that I couldn’t get over either of them, and it was tearing me down the middle.

  But I’d get through this. I had to. Denying Cal went against my instincts as acutely as denying my lungs air. I couldn’t. Didn’t want to. Because everything in my body and soul reached out for him.

  He slowly ran his lips over mine. When I parted for him, he surged his tongue deep, pushing against my teeth for greater access. I gave in. He kissed me so hard, yet so slowly. And I met every stroke of his perfect mouth.

  I kissed him with everything I felt. With an apology I couldn’t say and all the logic that didn’t matter. I kissed with passion and desperation. Confusion and lust. I needed him. Needed him to need me back.

  “I want to feel you,” I whispered.

  He peeled off his soaked shirt, then his jeans, and tossed the material in the corner with a slosh. I ran my hands along his hard wet torso, up to his chest. When my palms brushed over the ridges of his abs, he sucked in a breath, and all the strength he had flexed further.

  He was slick and hard and perfect. I could touch him forever. Leaning in, I skimmed my lips over his bicep and the tattoos I knew intimately. His big hands splayed over my ass, pulling me closer. We were lost in each other’s slow moving touch.

  I kissed his muscles the way I could his mouth. Licking and sucking. Tasting those tattoos and moving toward his chest.

  He moaned my name and his grip on me tightened.

  Loving on him made my knees tremble and my stomach flutter. The water felt a degree cooler because my skin was heating by the second. Everything about Cal turn me on. I was wet and aching, and just the taste of his strong frame had me ready to beg to be surrounded by him.

  I kissed his pecs, paying special attention to his nipples and the hard ridges of his upper abs. His fingers slid up my back and tunneled into my wet hair. His chest rose on a heavy inhale, like he was happy to have my mouth on him. Almost as happy as I was to have it on him.

  “I need to be inside of you,” he rasped.

  “Yes,” I said against his slick chest.

  He spun me so quickly, I barely knew what’d happened. But when he pressed his hard cock against my ass, I moaned and went to reach back to feel him. He caught my wrists and put them on the wall in front of me, bending me over slightly.

  “I mean what I say, Lana.” One brawny arm wrapped around my stomach while the other covered my breasts. “But remember that I’m fighting for what’s mine. And I’m not going to be gentle about it.”

  The tip of his cock nudged my entrance, and I looked over my shoulder and saw his blue eyes blazing with heat, and it was all the warning I had before he surged inside of me. I gasped as he filled every inch of my core and hit so deep. I would have rocked forward if not for my hands bracing myself on the wall.

  “You are mine,” he said in my ear, pulling all the way out and thrusting to the hilt once more.

  I gasped at the rough and slow sensation of feeling Cal all around me. In me. He had a softness and kindness in him that melted my heart, but an intensity and heat that made me shudder. He was all alpha male, claiming what he thought to be his.

  Me.

  He surged deeper, but kept his erotically slow pace, turning my blood to fire, and I could feel every tiny nerve spark to life. Sheathed tight within me, he titled his hips up, hitting the end of my sex and my sanity. He was everywhere, a part of me, and I was drowning in him.

  Every drop of water felt like a gallon. My skin was sensitized and vibrating. I felt every touch, heard every breath.

  The hand
on my stomach dipped between my legs. His teeth grazed my neck when he said, “Does this still feel fleeting?” He parted my folds between two fingers and ran them up and down. “This right here? My cock in you…” he delivered another upward glide and I moaned. “I feel you, feel how this perfect pussy weeps when I move away…” he pulled out slightly and I clawed at the wall in desperation. Wanted to scream for him to stay deep. I felt his smile against my neck. “I know what you need. What you like…I feel it. Every fucking moment of every day. I feel this…” he surged deep, right where I wanted him. “I live to be right here.” He stirred his hips and my head lolled back. He was playing my body like he owned it. Because he did. He knew it, and so did I. “Am I wrong?”

  “No,” I said around fast breaths. “No, you’re not wrong. You know me.”

  A satisfied rumble broke from his chest. He took one of my hands from the wall and placed it between my legs. Pulling half way out of me, he coaxed me to grip the base of his cock while the crown stayed inside my core.

  “I want you to feel me sink into you,” he said, slowly pushing forward.

  “Yes,” I whispered. My fist slackened so he could go deeper, but with every agonizing inch he took, I felt the connection, keeping my fingers on his shaft as he disappeared back into me.

  “Now, tell me who makes you feel this.” He shot up with a strong thrust and snapped my body to full alert.

  “You do,” I sobbed. The ecstasy was so blinding I could barely speak. Could only shudder and tremble from the fast release that was creeping up my spine at a painfully slow pace. It was too much and not enough.

  “Cal…” I whispered his name. “Cal.”

  It was the only word that made sense right then. The only thing that held my focus. He was so ingrained on every cell I had that I couldn’t imagine my body without his.

  “Best damn thing I’ve ever heard,” he rasped against my neck.

  “More,” I begged. “Please. I need it. Need you.”

  He adjusted me so that both my hands were back on the wall. Reaching around to grasp my breast in one hand, the other was back between my legs, covering my clit.

  “Hold on and I’ll give it to you.” With that, he pounded hard. Over and over, sinking that big cock into me while rubbing the sensitive bundle of nerves in tight, fast circles.

  “Oh, God. Yes. Please don’t stop.”

  “Never,” Cal rasped and clutched me tighter. Our wet bodies sliding against each other and the sound of our skin meeting was an intoxicating symphony. I was in his strong grip, like a doll writhing in his strength. And I gave in to that strength. Let him hold me. Turned my pleasure, my body, and my soul over to him and his power. “I’ll never stop.”

  I believed him. The desperation and fierceness in his words snapped my will to hold out. My body sang like a plucked chord of a harp and trembled with pleasure as my release overtook me.

  “Come on, give it all to me.” Tilting and stirring, he hit every pleasure point I had.

  My orgasm spurred his because he plunged harder. As if wanting to feel exactly how he made me feel. And that was cherished.

  “Keep coming. Don’t stop,” he demanded.

  There was a raw edge to his plea, like he knew, just like I did, that when this moment was over, life was waiting for us. He wanted to stay in it as long as possible. And I felt the same way.

  Over and over, my pleasure just hummed and continued.

  “Love you,” he rasped against my wet hair and with a deep thrust, I felt his hot jet of release take over. I felt claimed. Protected. Wanted.

  Breathing hard and kissing my neck, my hair, he slowly withdrew and turned me to kiss my face. My legs were like jelly, but Cal just held me.

  I stood, wrapped in his strength, and reveled in the softness of it.

  Chapter 5

  “Good Lord, honey,” a sweet voice rang out.

  I struggled to open my eyes. Once they finally cracked, I was hit with the bright light of day and Bea’s round face beaming down at me. Her short gray hair swung around her plump cheeks and her florescent pink coat and matching knit hat were enough to blind me.

  “You look tired,” she said and helped me sit up. I didn’t know if that was a joke, since she’d woken me up to say that. “Cal called me. He had to go back to the station today. Something about being short staffed and a small house fire on the other side of town.”

  “Oh, okay. Thank you for waking me up.” I looked around to grab my things. After last night, Cal had dried me off and put me in one of his T-shirts, and it was so comforting I’d passed out and was dead to the world until now. “I was going to head out anyway.”

  My brain was scrambled, trying to think of what to do next. I’d slept with Cal last night. I could convince myself it was a goodbye type of moment, but nothing in the way he held me was goodbye. But I’d meant what I’d said about commitment. I couldn’t give him one. All the pain and lust had built to a boiling point last night, and after his gift and the calm caring touch he’d delivered, I’d caved.

  “Great! Because I was going to see if you wanted to grab a bite.” Her cheerful tone made me smile. “Maybe pancakes?”

  “Pancakes,” I repeated. Funny, we’d just had pancakes last night at the station, but they sounded really good. Just the idea of a warm breakfast made my stomach growl.

  “Pancakes sound wonderful, but I had some stuff to do today,” I said. I needed to focus on what I could control. Which was almost nothing.

  “Like what?”

  “I need to find a job.” That had been an inevitability. I’d like to find a source of income before all my money was gone, and while I was hopeful the insurance money would come in soon, I didn’t want to count on that.

  She gave me a half hug. “You will really need a good meal then.”

  Her blue eyes were kind, and they reminded me of Cal’s. So much it was difficult to look at them.

  “Come on, honey. I’ll just keep pestering you until I get my way,” she hugged tighter. “Besides, just because the boys are idiots doesn’t mean you’re not still mine.”

  The word hit my heart with so much force I wanted to fall back on the bed. Jack and Cal both had claimed me once, and now Bea was claiming me too?

  “Yours?”

  “Of course. You’re family.”

  I wanted to argue. To tell her I wasn’t and that I didn’t have a family, but she just shooed me toward the bathroom and started the shower. Clearly, she wasn’t taking no for an answer. Maybe a day out with Bea wouldn’t be so bad.

  After a few seconds of hot water, followed by a few minutes of ice cold water, I was ready to go. I’d needed the dose of freezing to settle my nerves because just being in that shower had spiked my blood pressure.

  I walked out of Cal’s house with Bea and got into her car. She sped down the street, heading into town. She was taking the back roads. I’d think she was maybe even extending our drive, if I didn’t know better.

  “You look horrible, honey.”

  I smiled. Bea was never one to spare the truth. “I feel horrible.”

  “I can imagine.” She glanced at me, the smell of her was comforting and her sad expression made me straighten my shoulders. I wouldn’t be weak. It was time I at least pretended I was alright.

  “Do you want to talk about your dad?” she asked softly.

  “There’s not much to talk about.” His death was still a bit surreal. While I had plenty to wait on, like the outcome of the fire investigation, as well as the investigation of my father’s death, and a court date for the charges I’d pressed against Brock, I felt a hint of relief.

  It may make me an awful person, but Anita had looked me in the eye and wanted to be done. Didn’t want to have contact ever again. Which made me happy. I wasn’t happy my father was dead, of course, but that invisible rope that kept me tied to the VanBurens had been cut. Not sure if that was looking at the bright side or the horribly morbid side, but my emotions were too scrambled to figure it out. S
o, I’d take what little comfort I could get while everything remained unanswered and in chaos. The fire, my father’s death, questions were swirling and I sat waiting. Waiting for answers. Waiting for two men to give me back my soul.

  I wasn’t certain the latter would ever happen.

  All of the waiting was one thing, but processing what remained of myself after Jack and Cal had put me through the wringer these past several months was the breaking point. Because in every other case, I’d done what I was supposed to.

  I was staying strong against Brock. Steeling myself against the fact that someone—likely someone with the last name VanBuren—was actively making my life miserable and endangering me by breaking in and then burning down my home. All that I could deal with, because there were steps to take. And I was taking them. But Jack? Cal? I didn’t know where to start. Had no idea what direction to step in, other than backwards.

  “Lana?” Bea asked.

  I realized water was forming around my eyes again. I shook my head and wiped a hand over my puffy cheeks.

  “Talk to me, honey,” she whispered. It was the same kind of whisper Cal had when he was pleading with me last night to go with him. The tone in her voice struck something deep that made me angry. Not at her, but at Cal. At Jack. At this whole mess.

  “I’m mad,” I said honestly. “And I’m trying to be strong, but it hurts. Hurts worse than I ever thought I could hurt. I keep thinking this pain will somehow kill me in my sleep. Like, I’ll stop breathing and suffocate from it, but I don’t. I keep waking up to the truth…”

  “What truth is that?” Bea urged.

  “They lied to me,” I said. “Both of them. They set me up…took everything I am.” I gave a not so humorous laugh. “And I let them. I gave it up willingly. So, what does that make me?”

  “It makes you human, honey,” Bea said. Small scattered snowflakes hit the windshield, as we wove down Sycamore Street and continued our slow pace on the back roads toward town. “And I agree with you,” she said.

  Surprise hit my skin like a blast of hot air. “You do?”