Be What Love Is

by Malouff, Ellie

  His hands go into my hair as I kneel to pull his pants down. I uncover a pair of bulging black boxer briefs with a small round wet spot up near the band.

  “Whoa,” I whisper.

  He steps out of his pants and kicks them to the side. I hold onto his calves and slide my hands up the back of his thighs. His muscles tense under my touch and his breathing is as ragged as mine. When I reach his firm backside, I come back up to my feet.

  My hands rest on his hips, and we gaze at each other for a long moment before our mouths crash together again.

  With newfound urgency, he unfastens my corset without much struggle and pulls my wet panties down, allowing me to kick them across the room too. I return the favor and expose him. He’s even bigger than I anticipated and I can’t help the shyness that bubbles up. This is a man, not like the college boys I’ve been with. He’s absolutely ready for me, glistening and swollen.

  I desperately want to know what he feels like, but before I can touch him there, he intercepts my hand and wraps it around his neck, lifting me onto his massive bed with one arm. I crawl back and rest on my heels, my knees separated.

  He looks me over and licks his lips like I’m his prey. “You’re killing me.”

  There isn’t time to say anything, before he joins me on the bed and goes for my mouth, leaving me no choice but to moan my response. He rolls me onto my back and settles himself between my legs, his hardness pressing against me. The kisses are endless and everywhere, and I give into the sensation and desire that has taken over my body. I want this, so badly.

  He laps at my nipples, pulls one between his teeth, and sucks hard. Really hard. “Ow,” I murmur. But despite the pain, I arch up to give him more, and he takes it. I blurt out his name as I push my sex against him. I need him. Now.

  He reaches into the nightstand and retrieves a condom. I lift my head and watch him rip it open and roll it over his impressive length.

  “You’ll have to go slow,” I tell him because it’s been a long time, and to be perfectly honest, his size is intimidating.

  The half smile on his face doesn’t ease my concern. He positions himself back between my legs and kisses my lips briefly. We lock eyes as he enters me and our mouths open in unison. It’s definitely more than I’m used to, so I wince.

  “I’ll go as slow as I can, but I want you too much.” He kisses me deeply as he pulls back out very slowly, before inching his way back into me. I’ve never felt so stretched or so full. And while I’m uncomfortable now, I know I won’t be for long. I know that this is going to be a sensation I will love. And if that isn’t silly enough, a thought passes through my mind that he’s probably ruining me for other men. It takes a few slow strokes for me to adjust to him and I’m meeting him, wanting him. Our desire is on the same page. I want everything he can give me.

  Reid sits up and brings me with him. He unclips my hair, and it falls around our faces.

  “You’re so fucking beautiful.” My heart expands as his words slip out with a slight tremble. I kiss him as we begin to move together again. His hand sweeps along my shoulder, and he holds the back of my neck as he pushes farther into me. It’s bliss. I pull back from his lips and open my eyes. For the first time since he kissed me I have a moment of clarity and realize that this is Reid. And that he isn’t with Victoria, and furthermore that he wants me as much as I want him. I squeeze around him tighter, and he murmurs, “God, you feel good. Better than I imagined.”

  “You do too,” I reply and kiss him. He rolls me down onto my back again. From this position, he’s hitting me in the perfect spot, again and again, and my body tightens.

  “I want to feel you come,” he growls. Our tongues tangle together and our pace increases. He slides his hand down between our bodies and touches me again.

  My body goes rigid as heat flashes through me. I latch onto him as I absorb every bit of my second orgasm.

  “Yes,” he cries and drives himself into me until he finds his own release.

  Reid

  Cara lifts her head from my chest and gazes at me. Her hair is ruffled, and lips are swollen. I’m not going to lie, I feel a certain amount of pride about that.

  “What was the other lesson Trevor and Anna taught you?” she asks.

  “Pardon me?”

  “At the gala, you said that they taught you two very important lessons. You revealed one, but what was the other?”

  Mmm, that’s right. I did say that. I sweep some hair behind her ear. She gives me a tired, satisfied smile.

  “Carpe diem,” I tell her.

  “I suppose they taught me that too,” she says, and there’s sadness in her eyes.

  “Let’s not talk about Trevor and Anna.”

  “Okay,” she agrees. “What should we talk about?”

  “Let’s talk about you,” I say and flip her over on her back. “And let’s talk about me.”

  She giggles at that, just the way I love.

  I lay tender kisses behind her ear and down her neck. “You taste so sweet, Cara.”

  “You’re not too bad yourself,” she says and closes her eyes.

  “So you aren’t really interested in Evan?” I ask between kisses. That image of Evan snogging her is still haunting me. It may always be burned into my brain. My god, I’m a fool for not calling bagsy, when he asked me about her.

  “No, not at all,” she answers. “Not. At. All.”

  The kissing stops and I look up at her with a wry grin. “So if you aren’t interested in Evan, why were you kissing him?”

  “He kissed me! I just didn’t stop him. I saw you and Victoria dancing, and I saw how she was looking at you. I was the one that was wounded.”

  “Yes, Victoria,” I sigh and roll us onto our sides.

  “Yes, let’s talk about Victoria,” she says and looks at me through her lovely eyelashes.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Seems to me she has her hooks in you and this place. What’s the deal with that?”

  “Well, Victoria and I go way back, all the way to university. I brought her on board, and she’s been a great asset to the company. Her family has a lot of connections, and that’s what half this business is. Recently, she’s been pushing us to expand the business to more markets. Both Trevor and I were on board with that direction, but it’s been her baby, so to speak. Now that Trevor has passed, it makes good business sense to make her partner.”

  “Okay, I think I get it. But what’s her deal?”

  “Her deal?”

  “With me? She doesn’t like me one bit. I mean she was adamant that I not get anything in the will. At the gala, she made it very clear that she wants me gone.”

  “Ah. Well, I think Victoria has seen the writing on the wall.”

  “What writing?”

  “About me.”

  She sits up and wraps the sheet around her torso. I’m devastated at the loss of her skin on my skin.

  “You?”

  “Yes,” I tell her and sit up too. “Victoria and I have known each other for a long time. We attend a lot of functions together, mostly for business reasons. It’s been convenient and beneficial.”

  “But?”

  “Well, I think she wants something more with me,” I admit.

  “Yeah she does,” Cara blurts out.

  “It’s not exactly what you think. Victoria is all about strategy. She’s constantly looking at every angle. We make a lot of sense on paper.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “I’ve never wanted anything more than a professional relationship and a friendship. So when you came into the picture, and she saw me,” I pause to find the right word, “change, it made her unhappy.”

  “Change?”

  “I usually don’t let my emotions get the better of me, and you’ve been riling me up since the day we met. It’s disconcerting, and it’s obvious I’m affected, like at the funeral and the reading of the will. I try to stay focused and so far it’s been in my best interest not to�
�”

  “Not to what?”

  “Care about people.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s easier that way,” I say, but choose not to elaborate. How do I tell her that my life’s focus since returning from Australia has been business for the sake of my sanity? How do I tell her that I can’t take any more loss than what I’ve already been served?

  “And now?”

  “I don’t know,” I answer and avert my eyes. “And even if Victoria’s not jealous, she’s angry that you’re keeping me here so long and that you’re distracting me from work.”

  “Are you angry that I’m distracting you?”

  “No, I’m not angry, but I’m worried. I used to be in control and right now I don’t feel like I have a solid grasp on anything.”

  “Me either,” she says and turns my face toward hers. “Hey, listen, you told me that we should take all of this one day at a time. That was good advice. You should practice what you preach.”

  She’s right. I let out a big sigh, then lean over and kiss her, but this time we don’t stop to talk.

  Cara

  Victoria is in the house and packing up my things. I’m stuck, motionless, unable to say or do anything to stop her. I don’t want to go yet. I need more time.

  “Your mother is coming for you,” she sneers. “She’s going to take you back home.”

  I don’t want to go.

  “You’ll never see this place again. You’ll never see him again.”

  Please, I don’t want to go.

  She laughs while a phone rings. It sounds like my phone. It is my phone, but I don’t have it. Where is it? I need my phone.

  I wake and sit straight up. Reid is sleeping peacefully beside me. He doesn’t stir. I shake my head to break out of my dream, but I can’t shake it off. The phone. The phone is still ringing…from the hallway.

  It was real. I get up and slip on Reid’s dress shirt, tiptoeing around all our scattered clothes and into the hallway where I dropped Anna’s handbag. I fish out my phone. I’ve missed two calls from my mom. Before I do anything else, she’s calling again. I take the phone into my dark bedroom.

  “Hello?” I whisper.

  “Cara!” she exclaims.

  My heart stops. “Mom, what’s wrong?”

  “Where are you?”

  What time is it? For all I know, it’s nighttime in California. I play it safe. “I’m at home.”

  “You are not at home. Don’t lie to me.”

  “How, um. How do you know?”

  “Because, Cara, I got a very interesting email tonight from an old friend.”

  “What are you talking about? What friend?”

  “Someone I grew up with, back in Wells. She saw you tonight. She saw you in Bath.”

  Shit.

  “Are you ready to tell me what the hell is going on?”

  I pace around my room and try to get my head on straight. This isn’t a dream. It’s real.

  “Where do I start?” I say, trying to stall.

  “Start at the beginning, and I want the entire truth. I think I know it, but I want to hear you say it.”

  She wants the pain. She wants it all, and she’s making me give it to her. “I attended granddad’s funeral. I had to. It was wrong not to.”

  “I thought we agreed that we wouldn’t go.”

  “I didn’t agree to that. You told me not to come here, but I had to do it, and you know what? I’m so glad I did. He needed me to be here. He needed someone on his side.”

  “He doesn’t deserve it, Cara.”

  I want to argue with her. I want to tell her everything I’ve learned about Anna, but I hold back. It won’t do any good. Instead, I wrap my response into three little words. “I’ve forgiven him.”

  “It’s not your place to forgive him.”

  My eyes immediately roll at that terrible sentiment. I can’t begin to find the right words to fight back on such a ridiculous assertion. She must know it too because she shifts gears. “The funeral was days ago, what are you still doing there? Why were you at an event in Bath, all dressed up?”

  “I’ve been cleaning out the house, you know, going through our old stuff,” I say and try to keep it about us. I don’t mention the inheritance. That would make matters so much worse. I don’t mention the letters either, even though I’d love to discuss the one that said she returned all of his letters to me, but I’ve got to play this smart. I need to hold onto it in case she goes completely nuclear.

  “And this event? After I got the email from my friend, I Googled you. Guess what I found? Photos of you and this guy. Her nephew. And you look all chummy with him.”

  My mom breaks down into tears, and I want to join her because this is so hopeless.

  “What do you have to say for yourself?” she bites, angry again.

  “You don’t know the whole story,” I say, unable to find a way for her to see this situation through my eyes.

  “I don’t want to know the whole story. I know enough,” she says, double backing on what she said earlier. We’re playing by her rules, and I have to go with her flow, unable to make my own argument. Nothing I say will set her straight.

  “I want you to leave, immediately.”

  “No. I’m not going to do that. I have a job to do here, and I’m going to finish it,” I tell her, refusing to back down.

  “I don’t want you going through our old things,” she pleads. “The past is the past, and that’s where it needs to stay. Do you hear me?”

  “It’s my past too. I have every right—”

  “There are secrets in that house that should be left alone.”

  “Secrets? Like about my father?”

  “I don’t want to talk about your father,” she says, and I know that is was exactly what she meant.

  “Can’t you just tell me who he is? I have a right to know.”

  “I’m not going to talk about it.”

  Her insistence makes me more determined than ever to stay and find him. “Fine. But, I’m doing this. I’m not leaving. Not yet.”

  “Suit yourself,” she says.

  The line goes dead and my phone disconnects. I stare at it and consider calling her back, but I know it won’t make a difference. I’ve done it. I’ve crossed the line, and I’m not sure how I’ll get back into her good graces.

  My legs are like Jell-O, so I move down to the floor. The room goes dark when the phone shuts off from inactivity. Tears start to flow down my cheeks. I’ve made a terrible mistake. Not because I need my mom, but because she needs me. She doesn’t have anyone else, and now she’s even more isolated.

  A sob escapes my lips as I picture her seeing those photos for the first time. She saw me smiling in England. She saw me happy next to Reid, and it probably destroyed her. If she knew what I just did with him, she would say I’m sleeping with the enemy.

  My hands cover my face as I lay down on the dusty rug of my bedroom floor. My pain is matched only by my determination to stay here and finish this.

  “Cara?” Reid asks from the doorway. “Are you all right?”

  I sit up and turn toward him. His eyebrows are drawn together at the center.

  “I don’t know,” I confess.

  He comes to my side and gets down on the floor with me. “Did I hear you on the phone?”

  “Yes, with my mom. She found out that I’m here. She saw the photos of us from tonight.”

  “She didn’t know you were here?”

  “No. I thought I would only be here for a couple of days and that I could tell her about it when I got home. She’s livid.”

  “I bet.”

  “No, you don’t even know. It’s not about the lying. It’s about how I’ve betrayed her. After we jumped ship, it was only the two of us on our island, and I just swam back to the ship.”

  “She really hates this place that much?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? She’s so hurt by what happened with my grandfather that she refused to ever speak to him again. Sh
e refused to go to his funeral. She doesn’t forgive easily.”

  “And now you’ve hurt her beyond forgiveness?”

  I nod my head and start to cry. He pulls me into his arms and rocks me slowly back and forth. If I didn’t have Reid to hold onto, it would be so much worse.

  After a while he asks, “Are you going home?”

  “Not yet,” I reply, hoarse and sniffling.

  Reid takes a deep breath and exhales.

  I look up into his eyes and tell him, “I don’t want to go yet.”

  He kisses my swollen lips with urgency, then picks me up off the floor and sets me down in my bed and crawls in next to me. He holds me and doesn’t let go the rest of the night.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Family

  Reid

  “The perfect latte,” I say and hand Cara the cup.

  “Hey, this looks pretty good,” she replies and sits up in bed. She’s still wearing my tuxedo shirt as a nightgown, and I’ve got to say, she looks a hell of a lot nicer in it than I do.

  “Well, I hope it tastes as good as it looks,” I tell her and crawl back in bed beside her.

  She takes a cautious sip and nods. “Not bad, my padawan learner.”

  “Your pada what?”

  She tosses her hair to the side and giggles at my expense. “You really need to see more movies.”

  “I suppose I should if I’m going to keep up with you.”

  She takes another sip and smiles at me.

  “Well, I’m glad you like it. I had a good teacher.”

  “I better be. I’ve made a million of them.”

  Her face falls a little as she takes another sip.

  “Be honest, are you homesick?”

  She pauses to consider my question. “A little bit. I mostly miss Julie. And the food.”

  “I thought I was feeding you rather well,” I say and raise an eyebrow. “Didn’t you enjoy last night’s dinner?”