Fuck.
“Besides,” she rushes to add. “More is an impossibility right now since I’ve got Cam.”
Becky and Grayson snort from where they are, as if they know what I know – that Cam is a joke. I can’t help but feel like a Grade-A idiot, though. How can I forget Cam? Hell, how can I even think about changing our dynamics now when we live so far apart? There is so much for us to fix. If I try to take things beyond friendship before mending the fences of her heart, we’d be destined for heartbreak.
That cannot happen. I won’t let it.
I don’t get to give her my answer. The nurse comes in, chasing me and Grayson out, saying the girls need their rest.
“You can swing by in an hour for this one,” the graying blonde nurse informs me with a wink, sticking her thumb in Savi’s direction.
Outside, I take the opportunity to finally interrogate Grayson. “So, you and Becky?” I question, amusement coloring my tone.
He chuckles lightly, scratching the scruff at his chin. He looks back at the door where the girls are and sighs contentedly. Grayson Moxam, noted man-whore, is whipped. I would have called Savannah a liar if she had told me this shit was going down.
“Dude, I dunno, man,” he starts to explain. “A few months ago, shit just clicked. It was a natural progression. Nothing was forced. One day I was the guy who kept her at a distance, fucking different women and breaking hearts, and the other, I was everything she could ever need.”
I am tempted to ask if I’m being Punk’d, if the aliens finally abducted him and did that probing thing he liked to do with the chicks he banged. But this is real; his feelings are real. Damn, my cousin is growing up.
“And don’t get me wrong,” he adds. “That woman in there is everything I never knew I needed. Things just feel right, what we have is right. It was just the right time for us.”
Right…how many times have I thought that very same word when I’m with Savi?
“It’s not the right time for you guys, cousin,” Grayson cuts into my thoughts with a truth so sharp, I feel myself bleeding from the inside. His eyes are boring holes in my face, warning me, telling me what I already know.
I’m not right for her. Right now, my subconscious alerts me.
I give a slight nod in agreement, whether it’s in agreement with him or my subconscious, I’m not sure; but I don’t argue. How can I when I have had the same thoughts for as long as I can remember? Breaking up with Claire did not terrify me as much as fucking things up with Savannah does.
Claire was right. Savannah would have come between us at some point. If I am honest with myself, any woman would be unsettled with the friendship Savi and I share; yet to sever it feels like suicide. I love her too much to live without her, but can’t live with her either.
What a dilemma I’ve found myself in.
To pass the time, I visit my parents and baby sister, bringing them up to speed with what has been going on with my friends. If anything, they fall in love with Savi even more, marveling at her selflessness. I don’t know how much more I can hear my mom gush about how amazing she is. Rolling my eyes at yet another acknowledgment of her awesomeness, I have to stop myself from gloating.
She is my best friend, after all.
Before I know it, it’s time to head back for Savannah. Resurrecting my old car, I pull up to the hospital, already finding her outside waiting. She walks toward the car, opens the door and hops in, just like old times, tossing her coat and purse in the backseat…just like old times. We don’t speak; just allow the music to drift us away as the singer suggests.
Deciding to take the scenic route to her house, we end up stopping at our favorite spot. Rooting around in my bag pack, I find a pop tart and warm purple soda and we split it, watching the sun set over the blue waters of Cape Aventura.
“I’ve missed the sunsets here,” she muses and I nod, unable to speak for fears of telling her that I’ve missed her.
Before we know it, night falls and we’ve been out here for more than an hour, chatting and people watching, and letting the music from the car stereo sate us. At some point our hands drift to find each other, our fingers threading together. I am stroking her knuckles in the next second, and then in another, I’m holding her.
We begin swaying as the next song takes us somewhere only we know, deep in our memories and what-ifs. As the last notes play, I gaze down at Savi in my arms. Something shifts between us then, the air pulsating with beats of things unsaid and a pull so strong. I feel it, as does she.
Our heads move in tandem and, in an instant, our lips touch. I want to cry with a relief I never knew I was feeling. Desperate, she pulls me closer to her, our tongues clashing, lashing at each other as if we are trying to consume this moment through kisses.
Finally, we pull apart. Savi’s lips are swollen and she touches them with a shaky hand. We stare at each other, a whole conversation occurring.
She wants me as much as I want her.
Heart pounding, I go around to the back of my car, pop open the trunk and pull out the blanket; the same blanket we used just two years ago when Savannah had given me her most precious gift. I’d like to say I haven’t washed it since then, but that’d be a lie. I don’t need a funky blanket to remind me that my best friend and I made love.
It haunts my every waking day.
I shut the trunk down at the same time a new song starts playing. The words remind me that what we’re doing is probably a mistake, but when I look over at the woman bathed in the glow of moonlight, a soft breeze carrying her purple hair in the air with it, I can’t seem to find anything wrong about this.
Better to ask for forgiveness rather than pardon.
And I don’t see asking Camelot to sleep with his girlfriend going down well.
I go to switch the song, feeling guilt sweeping in, but her soft yet resounding voice stops me. “No, don’t. Don’t change it. Leave it,” she says firmly. “It’s a beautiful song, in spite of the wrongness of it…of this moment.”
Nodding, I come to face her, gauging her, making damn sure that she is as sure about this as I am. Savi reaches up and loops her arms around my neck. She takes my lips before I can think twice or doubt any further how invested she is in this moment.
The song rings true in my ear – the lips of an angel – as her mouth moves against mine. I give as good as I get. She is my air, my sustenance. Her kiss breathes life into my cold heart.
Is this how being with her has always felt?
I pull away from her long enough to lay the blanket down on the sand and then stare at her…for a creepy amount of time. She deserves a California-king sized bed, rose petals and all that flowery shit. But here I am, about to take her in the sand, on a blanket…that I have only ever had her on.
That’s special, right?
I hold my hand out to her and she comes to me willingly. Caressing her soft cheek, I can’t help but marvel at how beautiful she is, and I tell her as much, feeling the heat in my palm as her cheeks flush. I hate that she even questions this, that hearing someone telling her she’s beautiful is enough to make her shy.
Fucking Cam…
I kiss her cheeks reverentially, then her eyelids and chin before taking her mouth again. She surrenders to my kiss, allowing me to control this moment. If only I could control more. My dick hardens to steel, pulsing against my jeans in an attempt to break free like it’s the fucking Hulk.
I mean, it is, but that’s for another conversation.
Revealing her creamy, unmarked skin inch by inch as I undress her is sweet torture. I graze her shoulder with my lips as the remnants of her clothes hit the sand. She shivers, biting her bottom lip as she squirms. My heart is pounding as I try and fail not to question the stroke of luck I am experiencing being able to touch her again.
I fucking hope this isn’t a dream. I’d be so pissed…
Wind whips past us and her hair whooshes behind her in a vision of purple. Smiling, I stop questioning and revel in the reality that
this is happening. Fuck yes.
I lay her down on our blanket and can barely hang on to my restraint. I kiss her once, gently, to let her know that the cords holding me back are frayed; that that is the only bit of gentle she will be getting tonight.
Her pupils dilate as her breathing gets uneven. Her cheeks are flaming now. She bites her bottom lip once more before nodding frantically at an unasked question. She wants it, us, this…
Me.
Sheathing my cock with the condom I reached for at the last minute, I line myself up at her entrance and slam home. She screams out, grabbing my shoulders as I seat myself inside. She is so fucking tight, I almost unman myself inside her. I grip the sand, trying to hold myself together.
After telling her silently that she was gonna get a beast of a fuck, it would be really disappointing if I came after ten seconds.
Get it together, Kyle!
Slowly, I find a rhythm, and before I know it, I am hitting inside her, deep. She is taking every stroke, every beat of her pussy, like a champ. I flip her over, pressing down on the small of her back and she answers my command with an arch so perfect, just looking at her makes me want to come.
Gathering her purple hair in my fist, I shove my cock inside of her wet and welcoming pussy. She pushes back against my thrusts and I watch in wonderment as our skin meets in loud smacks. Pulling her head back roughly by her long, beautiful mane, I slap her ass hard and she mewls out my name, making my chest swell as thick as my dick.
“Oh, my God,” she whimpers. “So good…”
My palm meets her round ass again and she presses into my hand, groaning. She fucking likes it when I spank her. Well, shit. It makes my dick harden with the notion that…
He has never fucked her like this.
Goddamn it, I hate thinking about that motherfucker while I’m deep inside his princess. But as she takes my cock like she has been starved of this kind of energy, begging me to fuck her harder, I know Cam’s never fucked her like this. He has never even fucked his hand like this.
And it makes me fucking gloat…
Until she grips her pussy on my dick hard and I whimper like a little bitch and explode inside of her with a guttural moan.
I collapse next to her, spent, feeling like I just ran a marathon. Pulling her down next to me, my arms come around her. Savi snuggles deeper into me and it feels like a struggle as we try to get closer to each other.
This…this is wrong, on too many levels. But as I kiss her shoulder, and feel her skin on mine, I can’t help but feel a calmness to my soul, a rightness to my tilted world.
“Kyle…” Savi pauses, trying to get the words out, but I already know.
This can’t happen again.
“I know,” I answer softly, kissing the spot below her ear and sighing deeply.
“Kyle…” she says softer this time and I know what she is trying to say, even though I wish she were telling me that she loved me.
We need to go.
“I know,” I whisper in her ear, afraid of letting go of this moment, of her.
Holding her for a second shorter than forever, I finally let her go. In silence, we clean up and put ourselves back together. Bright moonlight shines on Savi’s face as she stares out at the ocean ahead of us. I take her in as if this is the last time I will ever get to look at her like this.
For all I know, it might be.
She is stunning, and mine. And it will forever plague me that over and over again…
I let her get away.
Savi – Past
Could he hear the way my heart was pounding with longing for him? Why couldn’t I just tell him the truth? He filled me so perfectly, strummed my body so masterfully. Why didn’t I tell him that he has been the only one to make me feel like that?
That he has been the only one to make me feel…
I should have told him that I loved him; that is what I wanted to tell him. I should have come clean, but once again, I let him go. I let him go when he clearly didn’t want to be.
Chapter Twenty One – A Little Fairy…
Kyle – Present
WE STAY HUGGED up for an age. I hear Savi’s quiet, shuddered intake of breath as if that quick trip down memory lane was re-lived by her as well. I hear her breathe in again and realize she was only sniffing me. Weirdo…
Nervous laughter escapes her as she finally pulls away from our embrace and we interlock our index fingers with our matching anchor tattoos.
“It’s been a while, stranger,” she jokes, sitting back down and beckoning me to sit on the opposite side of the booth.
“Too long,” I agree, the two months we have not seen each other feeling like a heavy weight on my shoulders. I can’t help but stare at her.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asks, squirming.
“Like how? Use your adjectives, Savi,” I tease, knowing full well how I’m staring at her.
This is how I’ve looked at her since we were teenagers: like she is fine art to behold. And she is. She shoots me a scathing look and I burst into laughter at her expense. I love riling her up.
A waitress comes and takes our orders and, without looking at the drink menu, I place Savannah’s drink order, “An amaretto sour for the lady and one vodka tonic for me.”
“Who told you I still drank that?” Savi hisses, eyes alight, body rigid with fight.
Bring it on, spitfire.
“You don’t?” I challenge with a raised eyebrow.
We have a short stare down, my body responding to this silent combat in undesirable, yet desirable, ways. The waitress stands confused, wondering what to do, but Savi doesn’t back down, and I’m enjoying this way too much.
“Uh, soooo…no amaretto sour?” the waitress asks, intruding on our moment. Rude.
That breaks the trance and Savi shakes her head, as if clearing whatever hold the moment had on her.
“Make it a double,” she answers the waitress, launching daggers at me with her eyes.
My lips twitch, but I don’t smile. She would cut my dick off, and that is not the kind of reunion I want her to have with the Hulkster…
Silence stretches between us for a beat before she chuckles, more to herself than to me, and says, “So, married huh?”
“Getting married,” I correct, and regret doing so when I see her flinch. It’s infinitesimal, but I see it, and feel it as though I have cut myself.
“Right,” she states in a business-like tone. “Well, let’s get down to it.”
And just like that, our connection is smashed to smithereens.
Good job, idiot.
We spend the next hour going over two of her wedding portfolios, and let me tell you, these portfolios are no joke and not, in the least bit, twenty pages long. They are filled with the most beautiful wedding designs and décor. Savannah is truly a savant when it comes to these things. Yet, after the two portfolios, a scan of her website and a Google search, I still haven’t heard what I want.
I am being difficult on purpose. Anything to prolong this reunion of ours.
“Kyle, for the love of God and his baby mama, Mary, what do you want?” she sighs, exasperated. “You’re worse than all the episodes of Bridezilla.”
I chuckle at that, remembering how much she loved that show.
“You know,” she says, taking a huge sip of her fourth amaretto sour, as if gathering courage. “This would be much easier if the bride-to-be was here.”
She doesn’t look at me, just flips through one of her portfolios nervously, the anchor tattoo on the inside of her index finger, much like mine, taunting me. She turns the pages absently as if she doesn’t already know what’s in it. I try to get her to look at me, but I’d have a better chance of getting Cam to suck my dick.
Speaking of…
“How’s Cam these days?”
There it is. The chink in her armor. She must know that I know by now, which is why we’ve spent so long apart.
“Uh, C-Cam?” she stutters. Or does sh
e…?
“Yeah…Cam.” I feel like a douchebag bringing him up, but hey, she started it.
“Uh, let’s see,” she scrambles for a lie.
I lean back in my chair and take her in. Very rarely can anyone say they get the best of Savannah Georgia Carpenter. She doesn’t let her game face slip, she’s a fantastic closer, and she never gets flustered. But right now, as I watch her face redden and she fumbles over what to say to me, I can successfully say that I have her backed into a corner.
Ah…
Her eyes catch my gloating ones and, just like that, her defenses lock back up like a maximum-security prison. Her eyes flame at me and I twitch, feeling her glower heat me from the inside out.
Well, that victory was short-lived…
“How did you find out?” she asks, pissed off, knowing now that I know the truth.
“Well, let’s just say…” I lean toward her conspiratorially, like I’ve got a big secret to tell. “A little fairy told me…”
Kyle – Past
March 2012
“Where are you, dude?” Grayson grills me urgently for the fifth time since I left out.
“I’m less than half an hour away, Grayson. Jeez, relax,” I answer, honking my horn at the old lady in front of me.
I’m fucking late and this old biddy with her slow ass is not gonna make me any later. Honking my horn again, the old bird surprises me by sticking her hand out the window…and flipping me the bird.
The hell…?
“I’ve got your ticket, so call me when you get here with your late ass.” He disconnects the call and I grumble, frustrated.
Looking at the time on the dash of the rental car for the third time since he called me a minute ago, I sigh. Savannah had invited me to her final event. It was a graded function that she had planned under her brand-new business Purple Prizm, a company she’d started after one of her business courses. The whole thing is in fulfillment of her degree in Hospitality and Business Management with an emphasis in Events Management and minor in Tourism.
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