The Redemption of Callie and Kayden (33 page)

all the gory details.”

My shoulders jolt upward as I imagine him on the floor

again. “But you did tell someone? Really?”

He nods and forces the lump down his throat with a hard

swallow. “I wasn’t lying in the text. I went to talk to my therapist

and I told him.”

“And?” I’m not sure what the right question is or if one exists.

I feel like I should just let him tell me what he wants to.

He sighs and then lines form on his forehead as he presses a

hand to his chest, massaging it over his heart. “And it feels kind of good.”

I study his expression and realize that his eyes look a bit

greener, his shoulders a little less stiff, like some of the darkness he keeps bottled inside has reduced and lightened. “What did your

therapist say for you to do?”

He stares off into space, his hand coming up to my face. He

starts twirling a strand of my hair around his fingers and I don’t

think he’s even aware he’s doing it. “He said to think about

pressing charges.”

“And are you going to?”

“Think about it?”

“No, press them.”

“I’m still thinking,” he mutters. He unravels my hair from his

finger and looks at me with depth in his eyes. “I want to, but it’s

hard. I just need some time,” he murmurs, confused. “I really wish I

had some help… What I really wish is that my brothers would be

on my side, at least so I don’t look like a complete liar.”

“Maybe they will be,” I say encouragingly. “You said it was

the same for them, right? Maybe once they see you do it they’ll

want to stand up to him too.”

He shakes his head, his gaze never wavering from mine.

“Nah, Tyler’s a crackhead alcoholic so I’d have to wait for him to

sober up first, and Dylan’s been missing for forever. Well, missing

in the sense that he won’t speak to anyone in the family.”

“Do you know where he is?” I ask, sketching my finger below

his eye and along the red streaks on his skin. He’s been crying. I

can feel the dried tears.

He shrugs, moving my hand to his mouth and closing his

eyes. He places a tantalizing kiss on my palm. “I’ve never tried to

find him.” He opens his eyes and tilts his head. “Maybe though… I

could try.”

I nod, leap to my feet, and wrap my arms around his waist

without any hesitation. “You should. At least I think you should.”

He kisses the top of my head and inhales my scent. “I know

you do. I wouldn’t expect any less from you.” He sweeps his lips

across my head again, then slants his face to the side and relocates

his lips to my temple. He kisses it delicately before traveling south to my cheek and then my jawline, sucking on my skin. My shoulder

shudders upward as his breath feathers against my neck. He kisses

me there too, sliding his tongue out and giving my skin a little

nick.

“Thank you,” he whispers against my neck as his arms

encompass my waist. His fingers press into my back as he steers

me closer, aligning our bodies.

I try to tip my head to the side to look at him, but one of his

hands cups the side of my neck and he secures me in place. “For

what?” I breathe as he strokes my collarbone with his lips, lightly

grazing his teeth along the skin.

“For saying it.” His voice is unguarded and he keeps

peppering me with kisses all the way down my shoulder. I have on

a tank top and some pajama bottoms and my skin is sensitive to

his hungry touch.

“It was the truth.” The last part comes out as more of a

whimper as he slides the strap of my top down while his other

hand glides up the front of my shirt, his cold skin mixing with the

heat I’m radiating.

He starts backing me up to the bed with his hand resting on

the outside of my bra. When the backs of my legs hit the edge of

the bed, he lifts me up by the waist and lays me down on the bed.

He draws back for a minute, staring down at me and I feel naked

under his penetrating gaze. But I’m not nervous. I know he won’t

hurt me. And I think I know that deep down, even if he can’t say it,

he loves me.

He opens his mouth to speak and I hold my breath in

anticipation. “You’re beautiful. And amazing.”

My cheeks grow warm at his compliment and I stuff down

the harrowing connection my memories have to the word

“beautiful,” because the one and only guy who’s ever said it to me

is Caleb. “Kayden, no I’m not. I’m just an average girl and I’m

happy with that.”

Shaking his head, he traces his finger down the arch of my

neck. “No, you’re way beyond average, Callie.”

I squirm under his gushing. “I’m not that great.”

“No, you’re amazing and perfect and caring and beautiful.”

I offer him a small smile. “So are you.”

He kneels down on the bed so he’s straddling my hips.

“Those things you said on the phone… it had to be hard to say

them.”

Pressing my lips together, I shake my head. “Not as hard as I

thought.” His face is masked and he looks perplexed as he

struggles for words he’s afraid to say, so I say them for him. “You

don’t have to say it back. I just wanted you to know how I felt.”

His lips start to separate and I push up on my elbows, grab

hold of the top of his shirt, and crush his mouth against mine, so

he doesn’t have to deal with it just yet. Putting his hands out, his

palms slam against the mattress and he braces his weight on his

hands, stopping himself from smashing into me. His tongue

pushes between my lips and slips powerfully into my mouth. He

tastes like syrup and pancakes and smells like coffee and

snowflakes. I breathe in through my nose, inhaling the scent as I

kiss him. He sucks my bottom lip into his mouth and bites it

roughly, sending a searing ripple to the center of my stomach.

There’s freedom in his movements, from the way he kisses me to

the way he grabs at my breast. His happiness makes me happy and

that’s all I really need at the moment.

He draws his lips away, but before I can protest, he sits me

up and grips the bottom of my shirt, yanking it over my head, and

my hair falls to my shoulders. With a needy look in his eyes that

sends a coil up my legs, he reaches behind me and flicks the clasp

of my bra open. I notice there is a collection of rubber bands on

his wrist and I wonder if his therapist gave them to him.

He notices that I’m staring at them and he stares down at

them too. He slips his finger underneath one of them and flicking

it looks up at me. “They’re supposed to help me heal.”

I nod, looking into his eyes. “I know.”

A moment passes between us and then he’s kissing me

again, folding his strong body over mine as he pins me down

below him on my back. He pushes his knee between my legs and

skims his fingers up my inner thigh, propelling my body into an

uncontrollable frenzy. I open my legs and let him rub his knee

against me, probing my fingertips into his shoulder blades as he

tastes my neck with his tongue. Little moans keep fleeing my lips

as my body arches into his and unexpectedly he moves his legs

away from me.

“Don’t stop,” I beg and he slants his head to look at me. I feel

mortified for begging. And surprised at myself. “I’m sorry,” I

apologize, embarrassed.

“Don’t be sorry,” he says in a gravelly voice. He grabs my hip

and turns us to the side. Reaching his hand down the waistband of

my pajama bottoms, he slides his fingers deep inside me and a

moan leaves my lips as my body clings to his. He cups the back of

my neck and lures my lips to his, kissing me fiercely as he moves

his fingers inside me, and I end up screaming out his name.

Once I come down from the high, I feel embarrassed by my

outburst. My cheeks are warming and I know he can see it.

“You know you’re adorable when you blush?” he says,

outlining my damp cheeks with his finger.

I bite down on my lip. “I’m sorry I begged like that… and

screamed.”

He shakes his head and strands of his brown hair hang

across his forehead and shadow his forehead. “Don’t be sorry for

telling me what you want. I’ll give you whatever you want, Callie.”

Whatever I want? I want him to say that he loves me, but I

won’t ever make him give me that. So instead, I do something that

is so out of character for me that it shocks us both. I lift my hips

and start slipping off my pants, because what I want is for him to

be inside me.

He watches my every move with this animalistic look in his

eyes that I’ve never seen before and I’m pretty sure every speck of

my skin is flushed with heat. I take of my panties too and then just

lie there naked while he’s still fully dressed. Despite the fact that I’m blushing, it’s a huge step for me and the very fact that I did it says that I’m moving forward in my life. He starts tracing his

fingers across my cheek, then draws a line to my neck, his skin

searing hot when it reaches my chest. His eyes stay on me the

entire time as he strokes his finger across my nipple and my

breathing instantaneously picks up. He moves to the other one

and then heads downward, skimming his fingers across my ribs,

feeling each bump until he reaches my hip. It tickles, but in a good

way and the insides of my thighs are scorching so severely I have

to entangle them around each other to contain the heat.

He keeps his fingers on my hip as he swings his leg over me,

his eyes never leaving mine. Once he has a leg on each side of me,

he uses his free hand to reach around and tug his shirt off. I feel a little better now that he’s not entirely dressed and I’m not the only one naked. As soon as my fingers come into contact with the lines

of his lean chest muscles, his fingers drift downward across my

body. Instead of putting them inside me again, he directs his hand

to the upper part of my inner thigh.

He maintains my gaze, like he’s afraid that if he looks away I

might panic. “You can tell me if you want me to stop. You know

that, right?”

I nod. “I know. I trust you.”

Smiling, he moves his thumb back and forth and my body

begins to tremble. He continues to do the same thing, moving his

thumb up across my inner thigh, making a path across the center

of my legs, and then moving it to the other thigh. Back and forth,

his fingers never enter me, like he’s teasing me. And it’s driving me crazy, to the point that I’ve become mortified at the pleading

noises that keep fleeing my lips and the way my toes curl every

time he’s about to slip his fingers inside me and then retracts

them.

Finally, he moves his fingers away from my skin, and then he

watches me, panting, and his eyes are blazing with something I’ve

never seen before.

I don’t know what he wants from me, but I can’t take it

anymore. “Kayden, please, please don’t stop.”

Apparently that’s what he wanted, because a smile curves at

his lips. He undoes the button of his jeans, grinning the whole time

as he kicks them off. It’s weird to see him this happy, but nice too.

When he returns to the bed he lays his body down on top of me.

He studies my face for an eternity, like he’s memorizing it.

“What?” I ask, self-consciously.

He shakes his head, still studying me. I’m worried he’s going

to start going off on how beautiful and amazing I am, but the

corners of his mouth just quirk. “I was just thinking how I would

have never gotten here if it hadn’t been for you.”

I wiggle my arm free from my side and run my finger along

the outline of his jaw. “That’s not true. I didn’t even do anything

really.”

He turns his head and presses his lips against my palm. “Yes,

you did,” he whispers against my skin. “You saved me countless

times. Not just from getting my ass kicked or calling the

ambulance, but because you showed me that you cared.” He

shrugs and moves his mouth away from my hand, looking a little

embarrassed. “You showed me that I’m worth caring for.” His

eyebrows instantly knit. “But I want you to know that you don’t

have to stick around. I’ve still got a ton of shit I have to work

through, and you have your own. I don’t want to put that on you.”

I say the first thing that enters my mind. “Kayden, I love you.”

Then I press two fingers over his mouth, so he knows he doesn’t

have to say it back. The tremble in my heart matches the one in my

hand as I move my fingers away from his mouth.

His breath hitches and falters and then his eyes start to water

over. Mine pool with my own tears. It’s amazing how once

sentence—three single words, eight letters—can have so much

power. In a moment like this, even our breathing stirs the sorrow,

the agony, and the happiness that we’d both buried below our

hearts, underneath the immense pain.

I’m looking into his eyes and he’s looking into mine and I

wonder if maybe it wasn’t coincidence that brought me to him that

night in front of the pool house. Maybe it was fate that guided me

there so I could save him and he could save me and then it could

lead us here to this moment where we are both completely

content and free and glad we’re alive.