A Tangled Web (Dangerous Secrets) (2 page)

CHAPTER THREE

Soon Kent realized Kimberly was holding onto him as if for dear life.

She planted soft kisses on his cheek, his arm, his fingers.

Once Kent gathered himself, he looked into the widened brown eyes looking back at him openly and expectantly, with a hint of fear.

“Kimberly…” he began quietly, almost whispering.

“I’m here Kent,” she said, squeezing his hand.

He shook his head.

“Kimberly,” he said again, looking away, down at the floor. He didn’t know what else to say.

“Kent…” she whispered.

Then she got up from where she was, and came between his legs, kneeling in front of him, making their faces level. Her hands came up to his face, forcing him to look at her.

Looking him dead in the eye she said:

“Kent, I love you, and I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve this, but I was doing what I thought best.” She let out a deep breath. “I was wrong and I’m really sorry Kent.”

Then she hugged him and he could feel spasms, as if she was crying again.

Her sniffs confirmed it.

Kent didn’t understand it, couldn’t believe it—all he wanted to do was put his arms around her and comfort her! She had finally released the burden she had been carrying around for months all by her tiny self and after the truth was out, she was terrified; her eyes now watched him in fear.

He almost smiled at that—what was she afraid of? That he would leave her?

In any case, he needed to process what he had just found out, figure out what this really meant for them, and he certainly couldn’t do it with her right there in the room with him—especially since, he realized in horror, his body started responding to the moment in a way he didn’t expect: he wanted to take her, right there and then, kiss her tears away as he made love to her slowly and as long as possible so she would know she was his and his alone, no matter what.

As he felt more of his negative emotional energy, the pain and anger, being converted to sexual energy, he called her name again.

She became alert, looking as if she dreaded what he would say next yet was impatient to hear it.

“Kimberly, I have to think okay? I don’t know what to do or say right now, and before I do or say something I might regret, you should leave. I just need some time alone.”

Kimberly sighed.

Was it a sigh of relief? Sadness?

“Okay,” she said, “I totally understand.”

She got up and started to retrieve her purse and coat and he got to his feet as well. After gathering her things, Kimberly started for the door but turned quickly and wrapped her arms around him, holding him tight.

“Kent!” she said, as if on the verge of tears again. “Kent, please…I do love you, you have to believe me!”

Again, she held him like she never wanted to let go.

He almost caressed her head and hugged her back before he caught himself, and kept his arms to his side, his body arched so she wouldn’t feel him hard against her, forgetting her growing belly already took care of that.

He could see her disappointment in his lack of reciprocation and he almost tried to make up for it by wrapping her in a bear hug, but he found the strength to stand his ground and keep his arms to himself.

Finally, she let go and gave him one last longing look before heading for the door.

As her hand touched the knob he heard himself call out: “Kimberly!” and she turned around so quickly her ponytail slapped her in the face.

“Yes Kent?” she said hopefully.

He looked down and said: “Nothing. Just…I’ll call you. Sometime. Soon.”

She nodded her head and left.

***

Catherine heard her son coming down the stairs as she stuck her homemade cake in the oven, hoping it didn’t turn out misshapen this time. She noticed the red-rimmed, swollen eyes of her son as he headed for the refrigerator, and for the first time in her life felt a love so strong for her child that she wanted to destroy the cause of it in the most physical way possible.

“Kent,” she said gently, “I’m sorry.”

“About what mom?”

She sadly watched him attempt a smile, all the more pathetic because it made him look more broken.

“What are you sorry about?” he said. “It’s cool, everything’s cool. So Kimberly used me.” He shrugged. “So maybe she never really loved me to begin with. Big deal. Who believes in love anyway?”

Catherine couldn’t believe how much it pained her to see her son like this and she desperately wanted to ease the pain, but she didn’t know how.

“I’m sorry about my role in this too I guess—I only figured it out yesterday and agreed to give Kimberly time to tell you herself.”

He only looked at her.

“Well anyway. Kent honey, what have you two decided to do?”

“Us two?” He laughed a mirthless laugh. “Surely you jest mom. Kimberly makes all the decisions.” Then he sighed, face drooping a bit. “Frankly, I don’t know what there is to do.”

“Well, will she continue staying here with you?”

He looked thoughtful, as if he hadn’t really given any thought to their arrangement.

“I…”

“Because that would just be a bad idea.”

“Well…”

“Yes, Carl must miss his daughter so it’s best she fully move back in there—only for a little while honey, until you can sort out your head. She should get all her stuff out of here—I mean, you two have a lot to think about and it’s best to do it outside of each other’s hair right? No need for you to get caught up in reminders of her lying around.”

“Well yeah, I guess you’re right mom.”

“Of course I’m right.”

***

As Kent looked at his phone, wondering how to tell Kimberly to move her stuff out, or even if he wanted to, his cell rang.

He saw the caller ID.

“Kimberly?”

“Yes Kent. I’m sorry, I know you said you’d call later but I had an idea. I think I should completely move back in with my father for a bit—I mean, I know you need time and it would be totally weird for me to come there for stuff if I need anything and…”

“Is that what you want Kimberly?”

“Of course not! But this is what we need, right?”

“Don’t ask me! You trust your judgment right? I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

He hung up, relieved he didn’t have to ask her to remove all signs of herself, yet also mad she was making yet another decision for them.

***

Kimberly’s heart sank.

Angry Kent seemed to be emerging and she didn’t know if she could handle it. But she got out of the car, having never driven off, and went back to the house to retrieve her stuff.

She dreaded running into Catherine, couldn’t quite face anyone else about the situation just yet.

Luckily, she didn’t have a whole lot of belongings there since she hadn’t completely moved in, living sort of halfway between his place and her dad’s.

She knocked.

Kent opened the door, turned and went to the couch, staring ahead into space.

She tried to ignore the hurt she felt at his actions.

With Catherine nowhere in sight, she went upstairs and started packing.

As she neared the stairs, Kent suddenly ran up to help her.

“I’m sorry, I should’ve come earlier. Don’t bother with these, I’ll take them downstairs and to the car for you. And please ask your dad to help you get them out when you arrive. Just…just don’t try to lift anything, I mean, you’re pregnant after all.”

Kimberly watched the man she knew more than ever she wanted to be her husband take her belongings to her car.

CHAPTER FOUR

It was eight o’ clock p.m. when Kent decided to visit a bar.

He yelled for a scotch on the rocks, then turned and noticed a pretty brunette looking how he felt.

He smiled at her.

“You look like how I feel.”

She laughed.

“Well, I guess we’re both having a pretty crappy night,” she said.

He paused for a moment, then asked:

“What’s a cute girl like you doing looking so depressed?”

“What’s a handsome guy like you doing feeling so depressed?” she replied. Then she said: “I’m just kind of mourning the love of my life.”

“Oh I’m sorry...”

“No not like that.” She laughed again. “He’s not dead or anything. Just…just married the love of
his
life.” Her smile remained, but with a hint of bitterness.

“His loss though, right?” Kent replied.

Her smile lost its bitterness.

“Thank you. So what about you?”

“Me? I haven’t even wrapped my head around what happened to me yet. I certainly can’t talk about it.”

She pretended to frown.

“Not fair.” Then she winked at him, smiling. “But I’m sure it has something to do with the love of your life, right?”

“Yeah,” he said, downing his scotch.

She finished what looked like a long island ice tea.

“Well…”

“Kent,” he filled in.

“Kent—it was nice to meet you. Best of luck with the love of your life. Don’t let her marry someone else!”

She laughed an empty, but pretty laugh.

He smiled at her.

“I appreciate that…”

“Julia.”

“Julia. I wish you the best as well. It was certainly nice to meet you too. Misery loves company, right?”

She nodded her head, then swung off the bar stool and left the bar.

Clearly there was only one man for her.

Kent shook his head sadly.

Would he ever have a woman who felt that way about him?

***

The next night he returned to the bar, hoping to see Julia again but she wasn’t there. However, there was a blond at the bar who had been watching him since he entered and looked delighted when he sat next to her.

“Hello there,” she purred, not hiding her interest one bit.

“Hello,” he replied.

“You look like you need someone to show you a good time,” she said, smiling.

What was she, a hooker?

The thought must have showed on his face because she said quickly:

“I’m not that kind of woman! I just think you are incredibly sexy. And I’d really like to kiss you. Right now.”

Her boldness shocked him, although there was a point in his life such actions, and the reactions in general to the power he knew he had, were not surprising; in fact, he’d reveled in them, used them to his advantage.

She came towards him and he let her kiss him.

After several attempts at gaining full access to his mouth, she drew back and huskily whispered:

“You know this kissing thing—it’s kind of two-way.”

He looked into her blue eyes and said lightly:

“I just wanted to remind myself what it was like to be kissed by a whore.”

He caught her hand before it hit his cheek and held it firmly as he brought his face within an inch of hers:

“If this was two years ago, I would have had you beneath me in minutes.”

He let her hand go and she turned away, looking offended and flattered all at once, with no clue he found nothing at all special about her in any way.

If it was two years ago, he would have used her for a good time, then not remembered what she even looked like the next day.

He smiled bitterly to himself.

In all his encounters with the opposite sex, he never had a woman hit him the way Kimberly had the day he met her.

He’d been “in like” before, and he’d had many attractions, but the feeling he got when he saw Kimberly for the first time, behind the register of some coffee shop, was unlike any he’d ever had. He almost didn’t hear when Damien introduced her as his girlfriend.

He hadn’t imagined much when Damien mentioned her working as a barista while being a full-time student at the same college as them. And although Damien spoke favorably—even highly—of her, Damien also had a wandering eye. Kent figured maybe this girlfriend of his wasn’t much of a looker or was boring or had some sort of flaw that embarrassed Damien, making him put off introducing the two of them.

When the moment finally came, Kent almost wished Damien had continued keeping her away from him.

“Maybe this has happened to you,” he’d told his brother Elliott later, pacing, “and I don’t know if I can call it love at first sight or anything, but man, whatever this is, it’s strong. Like I got this instantaneous, intense crush—way more intense than anything I’ve felt before. And I didn’t ask for it, and I certainly didn’t see it coming.
It was like it stuck its foot out in front of me and before I knew what was happening, I’d tripped and fallen.”

He’d stopped pacing and turned to look at Elliott.

“What do I do? Damien’s my friend for Christ's sake.”

Elliott shrugged.

“Not much you can do. Just keep away from her. Stay respectful.”

“Well of course, but I want to see her again. I feel like I have to. I can’t stop thinking about her.”

Elliott was shaking his head.

“I can see you’re already in trouble. Back off bro, before it’s too late.”

“But how do I turn this off? I don’t know how to just pretend I never met her. Plus, you don’t understand—Damien’s my friend but he’s not exactly the most faithful and she doesn’t deserve that. He doesn’t deserve her...”

His brother whistled.

“Okay, first of all, none of your business. That’s their problem. As a couple. You had the misfortune of meeting her second, it’s best you let their relationship run its course; you need not be involved if things get messy so cool it. Now I know you’re not used to
not
getting some chick you want, but like you said yourself, she’s not just some chick. So Back. Off.”

Kent had taken his brother’s advice to heart but it was so much easier said than done. He was consumed by thoughts of Kimberly, felt like he was becoming increasingly obsessed with her with every day he didn’t see her—fantasizing, planning to ‘accidentally’ run into her. Dreaming of the day she finally left Damien to run into his arms.

What confused him further was that his attraction was not sexual. Not that he didn’t imagine her in that way, but what he wanted most was to hear her talk and see her smile again. Find out what her laugh was like. Learn more about her—what she liked to do, things that brought her joy, and he wanted to be one of those things.

He tried to be respectful but Damien kept leaving gaps, encouraged their friendship even.

“I promised to take her to the opening of this movie tonight but something came up. Can you take her?” Damien had asked of him once. “She really wants to go tonight.”

At another time he said:

“Crap—I told her I’d pick her sister up from the airport. Could you by any chance...?”

Give her a reason to feel grateful to me? Yes.

Even Kimberly herself started asking him for small favors.

Since they were all on the same campus—although Kimberly was an undergrad while they were grad students—he started to feel bolder and more comfortable popping in to see her at her coffee shop since it was nearby. She usually walked to work and mostly had daytime shifts but occasional night shifts. Sometimes she walked home alone to her on-campus apartment, sometimes Damien accompanied her. Then one day, after a campus-wide alert had been sent out regarding a girl being attacked the day before, and Damien was unavailable to walk her, she texted him.

“I get off at ten tonight. If you’re around, can you walk me to my place?”

Anything for you Kimberly,
he thought, happily agreeing to do so.

As weeks turned into months and they got closer, Kent became aware of her few moments of weakness. He did everything in his power not to pounce, his brothers words haunting him, but he knew he was getting dangerously close to the point where he was willing to risk everything to have that chance, that moment for anything more to happen between them.

What drove him crazier was that he knew she was aware of his interest, and had a feeling she was at least mildly interested in him that way. He felt like if she had been totally oblivious, it might have been easier for him to pine away at a distance, but to sense that chance, a small opening...it made him even crazier about her.

Damien had told him once that Kimberly never came over to the apartment the boys shared because she didn’t want to give anyone a reason to think she was ‘loose.’

They had both laughed, finding the notion ridiculous.

Still, their bachelor pad remained relatively girl-free.

Then one day, she decided she’d finally come over to see them.

Kent figured getting to know him made it easier for her to feel comfortable in the home of two men. Besides, she was a senior now. He speculated she was getting over her puritanical perceptions and ready to put on her woman panties in general.

Damien got stuck shooting a film project, so when Kimberly showed up, it was just the two of them for a while. Damien kept promising to be there soon—
just one more scene to shoot
, he’d said.

He and Kimberly ended up watching a whole movie and still, Damien hadn’t arrived.

When he felt she was getting ready to go, he made a move he spent the next few days regretting. “Don’t go yet,” he’d said rather desperately, grabbing her hand and holding it tight.

She looked at him strangely then pulled her hand away. Then she got up from the couch and headed for the door.

He was right behind her apologizing.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything by that,” he said, reaching for her arm to get her to look at him, but it seemed she sensed it for she avoided his grab, opened the door and ran off like a bat out of hell.

Damien never asked him about it, so he knew she didn’t mention it to him, but things weren’t the same between them for a while.

Then
months
later, after he and Damien had graduated from grad school and she had graduated from undergrad, just as Damien had started preparing to propose to her, they found out they were related.

At some point, she came to him and cried it out, and he was happy to just be her friend again. It killed him to see her so hurt, so broken. Their moment of reconnection was truly about her and nowhere in his body did he feel a sexual spark even though they were alone, and he knew then what it felt like to feel pure love for another person.

Days later, she contacted him again.

“Can we talk?” she said.

At the time, he didn’t know when she invited him over to her childhood home where she was living again since her graduation, that her mom had moved out, her dad was at work, and her sister was spending the summer taking classes abroad.

She led him up to her room and they sat on her bed and still, he didn’t think anything of it—he was ready to be the friend she needed again.

She looked sad as he expected, and they began just talking. This time, however, it wasn’t about her and Damien.

She started asking him about him—about the night he seemed to want to kiss her.

“Do you...have a crush on me?” she asked.

He thought it was funny—he knew he loved her then, and figured that’s what she really wanted to ask but couldn’t bring herself to be so presumptuous.

“I love you,” he sort of just blurted out, and at the same time, reached out to caress her head.

That point of contact, plus finally getting to tell her how he felt started something in him he realized later he should have recognized. His love and desire for her had merged again—but as he had for the past year and a half, he kept a handle on it. Despite them being alone on her bed, with her sitting so close to him, looking at him with those beautiful brown eyes. Despite, after silently pining after her, having a real chance to be with her.

She’d looked surprised, emotional—almost overwhelmed, although not surprisingly so, considering all the recent events. He figured she was coming to terms with how she felt about him too, confronting the possibility of them being together. Perhaps feeling guilty for talking about it so soon—with such little mourning period between that moment and the demise of her relationship with Damien.

She grabbed his hand and said: “Kent I love you too,” and he almost lost it then.

The feeling of her holding him, any part of him made his desire suddenly grow to new proportions. Plus the words she’d just spoken...

Then she brought her face to his for a kiss and his inner fireworks went off.

He kissed her like the world was ending and between the two of them, they undressed in no time.

He didn’t spend as much time exploring her body then as he did later to make up for it, the feeling of wanting to physically be a part of her at that moment was too strong.

He flipped her beneath him, and still kissing her, ran his hand over her breasts, her stomach, her hips, her thighs, and finally, his fingers found her entrance.

She was ready for him and it was then that he completely lost it, feeling how wet she was.

He quickly readjusted, positioning himself over her and before she could say or do anything else, he was inside of her.

They rocked, moved, danced, all while kissing and touching each other hungrily.

He’d tried to take it easy, but wasn’t sure how much he succeeded.

He enjoyed every second of it—her warmth, the firm hold her body had on his, every emotional and startled gaze, every moment her hands held onto his arms for dear life.

He didn’t how long he lasted, but he felt the familiar feel of an intense building up and his body moved faster and faster until everything that had slowly built, from the moment she made him tell her how he felt exploded inside of her and he felt like his spirit almost left his body. His climax was so strong, he expected to see his fluids shooting from her mouth.

He was almost sure she came with him—when he looked at her, she seemed spent.