Feeling the Moment (8 page)

“I’m so sorry,” I sobbed.

River snorted. “What are you sorry for, sweetheart?”

“You were hurt today… All because of me.”

“No, baby, none of that was your fault. It’s a risk when fishing for big game. Just knocked the wind out of me a bit, I’m fine. No blood shed.”

“River…” I choked out.

“Look at me,” he said holding my head in his hands. “I’m fine. Nothing to worry about. Calm down. You’ve worked yourself up over nothing. Please.”

The tears still fell down my cheeks as I stared back into his eyes. Reaching up, I gently touched his face. Taking a deep shaking breath, I told him the closest thing I could to how I felt about him. I wasn’t ready to jump in and tell him I loved him, but I’d at least let him know he was more to me than a vacation fling.

“When the line snapped and we fell to the boat… When you wouldn’t respond… It scared me. The thought of you being hurt in any form…” Swallowing hard, I tried to get out what I wanted to say. “No one has ever mattered to me before, but you do, River… a lot,” I breathed.

“Oh Kim,” he almost sounded choked up.

Unable to sit by and wait for him to reject me or accept me, I sighed. “Let me get our supper made. I’ll collect myself while I cook. Go relax in the living room.”

River looked at me for a few minutes before he finally nodded and walked from the room. His leg was pretty much healed. At least that was how he acted anyway. Though from the little research I did on my phone the worst part of the recovery is while the pins are in the leg. The removal isn’t long at all, but they do also mention having physical therapy and he’s not had that that I know of anyway.

Once I had supper cooked, we dined in front of the television and cuddled on the couch. This was all new for me. I’ve never cared to be this close to a man after all the men I’ve slept with in the past. The disgust and guilt still weighed heavy with me. No matter how many times I told myself that I just did what I had to do to survive it was never any easier.

I don’t know what time it was when we both started dozing off before we finally decided to climb into bed. As we entered the room, we lazily began to strip each other and share a slow tender kiss, only separating long enough to climb into bed and cover up.

Laying side by side, facing each other, we continued to kiss each other. It didn’t go any further than that. Just gentle, soft, sweet kisses as we lay next to each other.

“I’m really glad you agreed to go on this vacation. This past week has been the best week of my life.” He presses a few more kisses to my lips. “You make me happy, Kim. Happier than I’ve ever been.”

My eyes mist over at the happiness I felt from his words. My mind dared to think he might feel the same, but my heart jumped right there. No matter how he felt, right now, in this moment, I felt like a treasured gem. Like after all these years, I mattered to someone. What happened to me mattered to someone.

Did this mean I was going to ask him what his statement meant? No. Did it mean I was going to ask where we stand? No. All it meant was for right now I was just going to relish in the fact that it could mean the same to him as it did to me. It was better to pretend for now than for him to say it didn’t.

Chapter Eight

Before I realized it, we were down to two days left on our island. That’s really what it had become over the past two weeks. Most of the past three days we’ve spent indoors because I was still too afraid to go back out on the water. Not that he was complaining too much considering our indoor activities involved every surface we could get our bodies on or against.

Today, however, he wasn’t taking my distraction like he had been the past few days. No, instead he was forcing me to go outside and down to the beach. We sat near the water. That day flashing before my eyes again and again. You’d think I witnessed a death or something savage, but to me… Shaking my head, I tried to rid the flashbacks – and my past that has worked its way out of the deep dark crevices of my mind – from my head.

“I’m going to go back to the house and get our picnic lunch. Stay here if you want any more of me,” he winked.

“You sure you don’t need help?”

River smiled, leaned forward and kissed me. “No, I don’t. Stay put,” he ordered as he got up and walked away from me.

I watched him until he disappeared into the trees. Turning back, to look out over a scene that once calmed me. Now, it scared me. It reminded me of what I almost lost. I looked out over the water, thoughts raced through my mind. What haunted me more than my past was the man in my present. River was the only one that had the ability to truly hurt me. It was more like he had the power to destroy me.

I was lost in thought when River returned with our food. He had a bunch of snack foods. Laughter boiled over before I could stop it. River laughed with me.

“So tell me more about your business, please. Did you just get started? Or are you established?”

“Of all the things you could choose to talk about, you choose work?” He shakes his head. “You need to be taught how to vacation,” he laughed, but there was something behind the laugh. Was it unease? Nervousness? Hurt?

“Hey now, I’m considering using your company for my safety needs – and trust me there’s many skeletons in the closet there – I think I deserve to know the company I’m considering is worth their weight?”

River stiffened next to me. “Are you in trouble?”

“I’m fine,” I tried to assure him. “But I do want to know everything about you though,” I smile and bat my eyes at him.

“We’re an established company, been in business for the past seven years. We’ve already established that all of my siblings work with me in one form or another.” He relaxed down onto the sand after eating his fill of the ‘snacks’ he brought.

He smiled up at me and my heart skipped a beat.

“Are you reliable? Security is basically a trust type of company you’re running. People really have to trust you to make the big bucks.”

“We do okay. I know a lot of people,” he winked.

“I can tell by this amazing vacation you pulled off. Friend of yours, I take it?”

“You could say that,” he said pulling me straddling him. “Besides I think you know how reliable I am.”

Laughing, I leaned down and kissed him. It was only meant to be a quick kiss, but River had other ideas. His hands pushed under my shirt and worked their way up my back. Just as he unhooked my bra, I broke the kiss.

“We were just going to talk remember?”

“You can talk,” he murmured against my neck, panting, “but I’m doing this and much more. I can’t get enough of you.”

“River,” I gasped as he bit my neck before licking it.

“Talk sweetheart. I’m listening. No matter what we’re doing, I’m listening. I’ll always hear you,” he breathes against my ear.

“Oh God,” I moaned. “Mmmm,” I licked my lips.

River ran his tongue up my neck, to my ear. “I love the sounds you make. Do you understand what you do to me, how I feel about you?” He whispered as he pulled my shirt and bra over my head and sat up, taking me with him.

His fingers brushed lightly as they trailed up my body, goose bumps speckling my skin. Dropping my arms back down to his shoulders, we stared at each other for a moment. There was no movement, no words, hell I was barely breathing. The look in his eyes was telling me something that my heart dared believe was love.

“River,” I choked out.

“From the first moment you walked into my room, to the first moment I kissed you, to the first moment we made love, and every moment in between… I felt every one of those moments. Every moment will be forever,” he leaned down lightly running his tongue over the tops of my breasts before blowing against my nipples causing them to harden even more, “be ingrained in my brain. I won’t be able to look at the beach or that cottage again without thinking of our time together. I…”

Cutting him off with a scream, when I looked up and watched three men walk out of the trees behind him. Hugging River tighter against me, I buried my face into his neck.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

“Come on bro,” One man spoke as I continued to hear their footsteps approach us. “We promised no hoes would be brought to the cabin.”

My heart sank. That’s all I was, wasn’t it? Some hoe to fill a need. He didn’t have to work for it. Didn’t have to use pick-up lines, buy a drink, meal, nothing. All he had to do was get us out here in the middle of nowhere and make me believe that I was falling in love with him. God! I don’t know what I was more mad about, the fact that I was nothing but a whore to someone. Some kind of sex vessel to them. Or the fact that I didn’t believe a word I was saying. It wasn’t true, it couldn’t be. I saw it in his eyes, didn’t I?

Did I really see it in his eyes? Or was my heart willing it to be there because it desperately wanted a reason to feel? A reason to beat? The tears built behind my closed eyes the more the guy talked.

“Since she’s here…” He started laughing. “Hey baby, if I told you that you’re body was a heating blanket and I was cold, would you wrap your body around me?” He laughed more.

A growl escaped River. “Knock it off J! She’s no whore. I’d appreciate it if you asshats take yourselves back to the house and give us a moment.”

“Dude, you’re testy. I was just messing,” the guy said.

Soon I heard footsteps walking away from us before I couldn’t hear them anymore. Opening my eyes, I can’t see any one in the tree line so I immediately scurry over to my discarded shirt and bra and slip them on keeping my back to the woods.

“This is your place?”

“Yes,” he answered sounding suddenly unsure of himself.

“And you were going to tell this to me when?” I asked finally dressed and turned to face him.

“In my defense, you never asked. You…”

“Oh my God! Seriously! You’re going to try and play that card?” I crossed my arms across my chest, getting angry. “Who were those guys?”

“My brothers,” he sighed. “They…”

“So how many
hoes
do you bring out here exactly?”

“Kim, they were…”

“I asked how many?”

“None,” he ground out.

“Until now,” I hissed at him.

“I’ve never brought anyone out here besides you. You’re far from a hoe,” he stated vehemently.

“Am I? Did you pay for this vacation?” He just stared at me, there was no movement from him not even a blink of his eyes. “Well I’ll answer that for you. The answer is yes. And we definitely had lots of sex, did we not? So that would classify as paid sex, no?”

Every word that came out of my mouth left a bad after taste. Every moment in my past that I’m not proud about came back to slam into by this one action. This one
moment
that cost me… everything.

“I’ve never thought any of that not from the moment I met you or even after what I learned about you. You are the first person I’ve ever brought out here. You know me better than that Kim, well you should.”

“I don’t know you at all. How can you afford a place like this?” I finally asked the burning question in my head.

“My company is Monroe Industries. Apart from the security, I own and run several other business…”

“Oh my God! You’re
the
River Monroe! That’s why you looked at me the way you did. You’re a fucking billionaire. You’re a man whore.” I huffed and walked up to him, hurt replacing the anger. “You lied to me,” I screamed shoving him.

“I didn’t lie to you Kim. I’ve never lied to you nor would I ever lie to you.”

“Then what do you call it!” I hissed. “Oh my God, this is a new low for me,” I held my stomach as I hunched over.

“Nice to know that you feel I’m a low point in your life,” River said hurt.

“
You
aren't the low, but having a two week fuck fest with a man I really had no idea who he was is a new low.”

River’s face dropped then turned angry. “You knew
me
, Kim. The rest was just technicalities. The man standing before you is no different than the man that was on top of you and in you only a few hours ago. He’s definitely no different than the man that has started falling...”

I cut him off at the pass. “Shut up! Shut up!” I screamed. “I hate you!”

River sucked in a deep audible breath, stared at me for a moment before he turned and started to walk away.

My heart was dying inside my chest. It screamed at me to run after him and tell him that I’ve fallen in love with him, but my mind told me to let him go. That old saying came into my head only it twisted it a little.
It's mind over matter. If I don't mind it won't matter to my heart.
But it did. It mattered, but I still couldn't run after him. River turned around then and my heart started hammering so hard against my chest that I thought I’d have bruising. It was desperate to get to the very person that showed it what it was truly meant to do...love.

“No matter how you feel about me, I won't forget this time I’ve had with you or
you
. I don’t regret anything, but this moment. The moment in my life where I have to walk away from the one thing I’ve always wanted.” He shook his head sadly. “Feeling and living every moment... It’s for fools,” his voice broke and I saw a tear fall from his eye just before he turned away and left.

I continued to watch him walk away until there was nothing left of him on the beach but the trail of his foot prints where his light once stood. My chest clenched so tight that I actually hunched over in pain. Dropping to my knees in the sand, I cried for everything that could have been in another life, but will never be for me in this one.