“No, don’t come all this way. I’ll just take my mother’s car,” she tells me. “I just don’t know your address.”
I give her the address, and she tells me she’ll be over soon. I want to ask her what soon means. Does it mean an hour, or does it mean ten minutes? Getting up, I walk to my bedroom, taking off my clothes and stepping into the shower. The hot water runs over my stiff neck muscles. My eyes burn from being up all night, so I turn the water to cold and stick my face under it.
Getting out, I grab one of the white towels and dry myself off, slipping on my boxers and shorts. I’m towel-drying my hair when I hear the doorbell. I drop the towel on the bed and walk to the front door. I see Kallie right away through the glass in the doors. Her hair is loose and falls over her shoulders. She looks down and then looks to the side, and her beauty takes my breath away. She looks in the house and sees me, and a small smile fills her face.
“Hey,” I say, opening the door. “Sorry, I was just getting out of the shower.” I see that she is wearing another pair of shorts, this time jeans, and the blue loose short-sleeved shirt she has on is tucked into them. Her hair hides one side of the shirt that goes off her shoulder.
Her eyes almost pop out of her head when she sees me, and I want to laugh since she’s seen me naked many, many times. Maybe not in a while but I’m still the same guy. “Um,” she says, trying not to blush, and her eyes go to the tattoo on my left pec. This is brand new. I got it when my father died. It’s a cross with a ribbon around it with the date he died and the date Ethan was born. Under the cross is the scripture “For those I love I sacrifice.”
“I’m sorry. I should have.”
I grab her face in my hands and lean down to kiss her lips. “I’m happy you’re here.” Turning, I pull her into the house with me. “Do you want something to drink? Some sweet tea, some coffee, some water, whiskey?”
She smiles at me and shakes her head, and I notice she has a brown manila envelope with her. “I’m good,” she says, and then we stop in the hallway in front of the couches.
“Are you as nervous as I am?” I ask as my heart speeds so fast I might have to sit down.
“A little more, I think.” She tilts her head to the side. My hand moves to hold her neck, and I feel her heartbeat with my thumb. “Do you want to sit?” She nods her head and walks away from me, and my hand falls to my side. She sits down on one of the loveseats, and I don’t know if I should sit next to her or not. Fuck, this being on pins and needles stuff is killing me.
Walking to her, I sit next to her, and she holds the envelope in her lap. I’m suddenly feeling like the room is spinning. “What do you have there?”
She looks down in her lap, and her hand caresses the envelope with a soft touch. She brings it to her chest, and the tears come out now. “Shit,” she says, trying to laugh through her tears. “Maybe I should have taken the whiskey.”
“Whatever it is,” I say, “it’ll be okay.”
She nods at me. “Jacob, I’d like to show you,” she says, blinking as the tears come out now, and my hand goes over to hold her knee. The tears falling on my hand, she opens the envelope and takes out a little square paper. “This is Gabriel.”
Chapter Twenty
Kallie
My hands shake like a leaf on a windy day when I take the little black and white picture out. “This is Gabriel,” I say with all the pride in the world. When I went home, the first thing I did was get the envelope out. An envelope that my mother took the day she left me after we buried him. She took all but one picture that I still have in my wallet, and that no one has ever seen but me.
When I hand him the picture, he turns over the sonogram picture, and he puts his hand to his mouth to stop the sob from ripping out. “That was the first time I got to hear his heartbeat,” I say, sitting closer to him so I can see the picture. Jacob just looks down at it and takes his finger and traces the baby.
“He’s so beautiful,” he says, and I just nod.
I open the envelope and grab the other picture, which shows him getting a bit bigger. “He was sucking his thumb here,” I say, my heart feeling so full to share this with him while at the same time feeling the emptiness that always lingers there. The feeling that I’m missing a piece of me.
“Did you used to talk to him?” he asks, and I smile.
“I did. He was a great listener.” I smile, thinking of the times he used to kick me just for fun. “He also loved Coke.” I remember all of a sudden. “He used to go nuts in my stomach when I had it.”
“I’m so sorry, Kallie,” he says, looking down at the picture, and it’s time to show him the last picture.
“This is the day he was born,” I say and pull out the picture of him wrapped in the white sheet. “He was small but perfect.” He looks like he is sleeping. You would never think otherwise.
He takes the picture out of my hand, and his shoulders start to shake as he holds the picture in his hand. His tears are dripping down his chin. “He’s so beautiful.” He looks at me, and I smile at him. “He looks like you.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “He looked exactly like you,” I say and then hand him another picture.
He looks at it and gasps. “This is why you had the panic attack?” He doesn’t ask me so much as tells me. The picture is of me holding Gabriel in my arms, my face pale as tears are running down my cheeks with my mother beside me on the hospital bed with her arm around the two of us. Her own tears are on her face. “I want to tell my mother,” he says, looking at the picture. “I want to tell everyone about my son.”
“I don’t know,” I say honestly and put the envelope down. “I haven’t even told my father and Casey.”
“Then we’ll do it together.” He grabs my hand in his. “You don’t have to do anything alone anymore.”
“I just don’t think it’s a good idea,” I say. “Your mother already isn’t keen on us talking.”
“You gave birth to our child by yourself,” he says angrily. “You buried him all by yourself. Our child,” he repeats. “Our son.”
“Okay,” I say, “I just want to tell my father before anyone, please.”
He nods his head and then looks at me. “Can I keep this?” he asks me.
“Those are for you and this also.” I take out the last paper in the envelope. “It’s small, but it’s his footprint.”
“I’ve never in my life felt so much yet so empty at the same time,” he says to me, wiping his cheek with the back of his hand.
“I know the feeling,” I say. “It’s a bit better now that I get to share him with you. That you know him also.”
He puts the pictures down on the table in front of him and then turns to me and pulls me to him. I straddle him, just as I did so many years ago. Just as I’ve remembered all these years. Except he’s bigger, and his chest is wider. When he opened the door without a shirt, I thought for sure my chin would hit the floor. He was just perfect; he was always perfect in my eyes, though. He was always the best looking, always the funniest, always the sweetest. He was always my number one.
“Stay with me,” he asks, and I look at him while he pushes my hair over my shoulder. “Stay with me today, tonight, tomorrow.” He sits up now and kisses my bare shoulder. My arm wraps around his neck, and my fingers go into his hair. “I need you to come with me tomorrow.”
“Where?” I ask, and he just smiles. “It’s a surprise.”
“Okay.” It comes out breathlessly, and I hold his face in my hands now, his eyes red from the tears.
“I love you.” His hands come to hold my face. “I’ve loved you my whole life.”
“Jacob,” I whisper his name.
“Every single part of you is ingrained in my brain. It’s a part of my soul. Everything that you are is in me. Every single piece of my heart belongs to you,” he says.
“You’re my everything,” I say as he leans down and kisses my lips once. I smile. “You’ve always been my everything.” I kiss him now, slipping my
tongue into his mouth just a touch. “For eight years, I’ve dreamed of kissing you.” His thumb comes out, and he traces my jaw. “Eight years of you in my dreams. This almost feels surreal,” I say, looking down at his chest. My finger traces the outline of the cross that he now has on there. “It’s always you.” I look back up at him, and he grabs the back of my head now. My hair fisted in his hand, he crushes his lips on mine.
My mouth’s already open for him as he slides his tongue into my mouth, and we both swallow each other’s moans. My hand moves up his chest to his hair, and I crush my chest against his, wanting to get closer and closer to him. “I want to take you to my bed,” he tells me when he lets go of my lips and slips his mouth over to my jaw and then roams toward my ear.
“Yes,” I say while my heart beats frantically against my chest. He gets up in one swift movement, and with one hand around my waist, I lock my legs around his waist.
“You’re really here?” he asks as he carries me past the kitchen toward the garage where we came in two days ago. He turns, and I want to look around at his house. I want him to take me room by room and tell me everything I’ve missed. “I’ll give you a tour of the house after,” he whispers as if he can read my mind. I look around his room, which is filled with just a big king-size bed and two side tables. He puts his knee down on the bed and slowly lays me down. He moves my hair away from my face. “I can watch you all day long and not get tired of it.”
My hand comes up, and I palm his cheek in my hand. “For eight years, I chased you in my dreams only to wake up before I could get to you,” I say softly, my thumb rubbing his face. “I didn’t know why, and no matter how much I forced myself to dream again, I just couldn’t get to you.”
“I’m right here, baby,” he says softly. “I’m always right here.”
“We lost eight years because of me.” I say something that I finally realized when he poured out his heart to me. “If only I had stopped and listened to you. If only I had even for a minute thought there is no way.” A tear escapes from my eye.
“Shh,” he says. “For eight years, I blocked out the love I had for you because it was too painful. My chest would feel like it was being crushed. But the minute I saw you again, it’s like it was yesterday. Everything was in front of me. Everything was right there. You were right there.”
“There hasn’t been anyone,” I say. “No one but you.” He opens his mouth, and he looks at me.
“You were my first,” he tells me, and I know we were both each other’s first, “and you are my only.” He lowers his head to mine, and the kiss takes over, our tongues finding each other. The kiss starts slow, and then suddenly, our hands roam. I won’t even deny that I start roaming first. My hands go from his shoulders to his back and then up again. His stomach dips in when I use my nails up his abs. He turns us on our side, and his hand goes to my hip, and then his hands move frantically up my shirt. He cups my breast in his hand, and I throw my head back. I finally cup his cock, and he’s ready for me. “Fuck.” He hisses when I move my hand up and down his covered cock. “Baby.” He says my name, and I push him on his back at the same time as he sits up and takes my shirt off. “God, it’s so much better than my dreams.”
“I feel like I’m dreaming,” I say, “and I’m afraid I’m going to wake.”
He grabs my face. “It’s real, baby.”
I bend my head now and kiss his tattoo. “Show me it’s real.”
He rolls us over, putting me on my back, and hovers over me. His lips come down, and my mouth opens for him. He kisses me, moving slowly across my cheek and then under my chin toward my neck. I arch my back and watch his every move. I make a mental note of him. His eyes get darker when he pulls down one of my bra straps. He kisses the top of my breast and slowly pulls it down, and he takes one of my nipples into his mouth. My eyes want to watch him, but they close as his tongue twirls around one nipple and then the other. “Jacob.” I whisper his name, my eyes feeling heavier than ever.
He moves his kisses lower on my stomach, and he stops, putting his hands on my stomach. My eyes open, and I look at him. “The next time, I’ll be there from the beginning,” he whispers, and his eyes look into mine. “One of these days, we’ll have another baby.” I don’t say anything. I can’t say anything past the lump in my throat.
My hand moves to his head, and I run it through his damp hair. “Make love to me.” He gives me one more kiss before he slips off my shorts and panties at the same time.
“Fuck,” he says, looking down at me. “Just a taste,” he says and buries his face into my pussy. His hands open my lips so he can suck my clit into his mouth, making my legs open for him.
One thing we always did was experiment with each other. Neither of us was shy about what we wanted. I loved his mouth on me, and I always have. He uses one of his fingers to enter me slowly, and I almost squeeze his head with my knees. “Jacob.” I can only pant his name. As he moves his fingers in and out, he never once lets go of my clit. He sucks it, nibbles it, flicks it, and just like that, the next thing I moan out is his name as I come apart on his tongue and his fingers.
I watch him take one last lick before he kneels in the middle of my open legs. He pulls down his shorts, and his cock springs out. I lick my lips, thinking of having him in my mouth. “Not now,” he says to me and then he opens his mouth.
“What?” I ask, and he rubs his hands over his face.
“I don’t have condoms,” he groans, and I try not to laugh by rolling my lips.
“I’m on the pill,” I say, “and I’m clean.” He looks at me. “And, well, the last person I was with was you.”
“Day before prom was the last time I had sex,” he tells me, and I sit up. “If you put your mouth on my cock, this is going to be the fastest ending we’ve ever had.”
I kiss his thigh. “The first time was thirty seconds.” I look up, and he pushes me down.
He holds his cock in his hand as he crawls forward. “This might be faster.” He rubs his cock up and down. My eyes fixate on his cock as he slowly slips it into me. I don’t know why I expect it to hurt, maybe it’s ’cause for the last eight years, I haven’t had sex. He slips in, filling me, and we both moan. My legs wrap around his hips as he leans forward, and his hand goes beside my head. I turn to the side and kiss the inside of his wrist where his heart is beating, feeling his pulse under my lips.
“I love you,” I whisper, and he kisses my neck before pulling out and thrusting in again. “Jacob.” I call out his name when I wrap my arms around his neck. Our lips hover over each other, and he kisses me between thrusts.
I want him all over me. I can’t seem to get close enough to him. “I’m almost there.” His thrusts get harder now, my hips meeting his thrusts but getting pounded into the mattress. “Get there with me,” he pants, and I take one of my hands and move it over my clit. “That’s it,” he says, and just like that, I’m running to the edge with him.
Chapter Twenty-One
Jacob
“Baby,” I mumble when she sinks down on me. We just had pizza on the couch, and I reached over for her just to kiss her, and suddenly, I was ripping my shirt off her, and she was sinking down on me.
She looks at me as she rises and falls on my cock. Sex with us was always good, but fuck if it isn’t even better now. It’s like we’re on a different planet. We were never shy when it came to sex, never shy to try things or ask for things, and it’s no different now. “I need you,” she says breathlessly when one hand grabs her ass and the other comes up to cup her breast. Leaning forward, I bite her nipple right before I pull it into my mouth. She moans, and I know that she likes it, so I do it to the other nipple. She slams down on my cock and rotates her hips, rubbing her clit against me. Both hands now are on her ass, and all I can do is squeeze them while she rides me. We don’t say anything as I watch her take what she wants.
“You’re close,” I say when I feel her pussy get tighter.
“Yes.” She pants and puts her hand
s on my chest to give her leverage to move faster. She sinks down on it three times and then rotates to get friction on her clit.
“Take it,” I say, and she rides me fast. Putting one thumb in my mouth, she then rubs her clit with it, and she leans back, giving me more space to play with her. “That’s it, baby,” I say, ignoring the fact that my balls are getting tight. I’m going to come before her if she keeps this up. I rub her clit side to side, and her pussy just squeezes the shit out of my cock. “Fuck, you have one minute,” I say between my clenched teeth, “then I’m taking over.”
“No,” she moans, throwing her head back. “It’s my turn.”
My hand moves from her hip to her breast, and I play with her nipple, rolling it between my fingers while my hand rubs her clit faster and faster. She finally crashes down on me, and I feel her pulse over my cock, and I come with her. She collapses on my chest, and I just hug her to me. I could stay in this position for the rest of my life. She buries her face in my neck, and I kiss her forehead.
“I love you,” I say, and from this time forward, I’m going to say it every chance I get to make up for all the chances I lost out on saying it.
“I’m sorry.” Two more words I’ll tell her every chance I get.
She looks up at me. “It’s over.” Kissing me under my chin, she says, “This right here, me in your arms, it’s all I can think about.” I get up with her still attached to me. “Where are we going?” she asks me as I walk back to my bedroom.
“I haven’t shown you the shower,” I say, and when we finally get out of the shower, there is no hot water left.
She puts on one of my T-shirts to sleep in. She never did like sleeping naked. Even after we had sex, she would always get up and put on a T-shirt and panties. “Come here,” I say, pulling her to me in the middle of the bed when she finally slips under the covers. Her head goes into the crook of my neck, her arm goes around my waist, and our legs intertwine. I just breathe her in, and for the first time in eight years, I feel complete. I feel whole.
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