Chapter 28
twenty-eight
PRESENT DAY
KATE
Brandon’s hand finds my shoulder through the scratchy motel blanket. The lone street lamp outside faintly illuminates the dead of night. He tugs gently, and I roll over to face him, my eyes heavy with sleep.
“What?” I mumble.
“I can’t go another minute like this.” Brandon’s voice is raw. “Without you.”
I blink in time to the emerging thump in my chest. “What… are you saying?”
“Give me another chance, Kate. Give us another chance.”
A battle erupts between my heart and my mind. My mind screams “No.” That I should run. That I’m still a disappointment.
But Brandon already knows that.
And… he wants me?
A heady spin whisks away my thoughts at the heated look Brandon is giving me. It makes me feel desired in a way I haven’t before.
Whole. Complete in my flaws. A beautiful photo despite the edges being out of focus.
I bite my lip, dizzying desire building within me, and Brandon’s gaze zeros in on the movement. His eyes are ablaze with desperate want, and an electric pulse hums throughout my every nerve.
“I want you, Kate,” Brandon urges. “Now.”
His breathy declaration tickles across my eyelids, which have fluttered closed.
He draws me closer across the tiny bed, and the electricity rolling off me in waves explodes into a firestorm.
Hot need sizzles in my chest, my fingertips.
My hands find Brandon’s bare chest in the dim light, and a growl escapes him.
Our bodies press together as the cheap hotel sheets intertwine.
But Brandon’s lips hesitate a frustrating fraction from mine, like the breath of a question.
Do I really want this? Want him as badly as he wants me? Is this a bad idea?
Screw it.
I crush my mouth to his.
I taste regret on his tongue, melting me faster than a candle.
Hands fly across hair, across faces, across bodies.
Brandon is every bit as indecisive, every bit as frantic.
His calluses graze my lower back, the sensitive skin on the nape of my neck.
His grip finally settles on the curve of my hip, fingertips digging.
I wrap my arms around his neck and pull us impossibly closer. His lips are a fever dream, his spicy scent all-encompassing. I’m wild—unbridled even—but Brandon tames me by pulling and pressing my lips into a sensual rhythm.
Our chests rise and fall, and I begin to disintegrate at the seams. I’m unraveling. I’ve never needed anyone more in my life than I need Brandon.
The mere knowledge of that fact should freeze this raging current of attraction. It should send me running out the door to never come back.
But Brandon’s words are now permanently etched inside my mind. He won’t abandon me again. He never meant to in the first place.
Searching my soul, I excavate my walls until cracks of light appear. Hope beams within me, and I make a promise to myself that I won’t hide again. Brandon sees me. He knows me. And after six years of disappointment, maybe he’ll be impervious to my imperfectness.
I whimper Brandon’s name as he nips at my bottom lip. His name rolls off my tongue in a moan. I tangle my fingers into his hair and marvel at how much longer the strands feel since the last time we kissed.
He sits up in the bed, pulling me onto his lap. My corset twists around my abdomen, and I wiggle my fingers beneath it to straighten it. Brandon kisses a fiery line across my bare collarbone to my off-the-shoulder sleeve. My white skirt ripples against the cheap bedspread.
A light begins to glow red hot beside us, and I notice that Brandon left his forging iron on the nightstand.
How odd.
I run my hands over his blocky eight-pack as a breeze lifts the tendrils of Brandon’s hair. My foot kicks out, and the woven basket of apples topples off the bed. I frown as they scatter, rolling in every direction as my name thunders through the darkness.
“Kate?”
Annoyed, I shrug the hand off my shoulder. “I want my blacksmith, leave me alone.”
A snort ruffles the hairs on the back of my neck, and my irritation spikes.
“Just one more kiss,” I whisper.
“One more what?!”
My eyes fly open.
I clutch the bedspread to my harried breathing as I try to orient myself in the dark. Brandon’s eyes are hooded with sleep, but an amused smirk teases the corner of the mouth that was ravaging mine only seconds before.
Wasn’t it?
“What are you doing?” I rasp.
“What were you doing? You were saying my name.” His grin gleams white in the dark. “A lot.”
I’m grateful that the ten-alarm fire in my cheeks is masked by shadow. “No I wasn’t.”
“Oh, but you were.” Brandon’s laugh is husky, and the sound spikes a wave of leftover desire in my belly.
I’m mortified, but I arrange my features into a scowl.
“Shut up. I’m going back to sleep.”
“Hope your dream picks back up,” he chuckles as he returns to his pillow. “Sounded like a good one.”
I flop onto my pillow with a huff, but my body cannot be persuaded to relax nearly as easily. Brandon’s break-up exoneration is messing with my mind.
But it’s my heart, I fear, that has made a decision I’m not remotely ready to admit.
Ihoist myself into a forearm headstand on my yoga mat, angling my legs backward into the scorpion pose.
Sweat courses down my body, across my matching pink sports bra and spandex shorts.
The furnace inside this hot yoga class feels ten times hotter than usual, but I’m happy to have caught the last class of the night.
Mr. Namaste-at-your-place-or-mine, the attractive yoga instructor I gave my number to before Christmas, is teaching again tonight, but he hasn’t looked my way once.
He probably feels awkward for never reaching out to schedule a date after I gave him my number, but I can’t blame the guy.
My mom’s incoming phone call that morning had worked me into such a tizzy I probably looked like a crazy person.
My forearms tremble as I release the scorpion pose, dropping back onto my mat, but the burn feels good. Anything to get my mind off of yesterday.
The car ride home with Brandon from the motel was awkward, to say the least. I don’t think either of us knew what to do with the information that the darkness pried out of us.
Brandon was kind but pensive as we drove. Quiet. Unsettling.
And I don’t know what to do with that.
Class ends with a hushed “Namaste,” and people file out of the room. Picking up my water bottle, I shoot copious amounts of liquid into my mouth, then swipe my sweat towel across my forehead. My pink workout set has turned a dark magenta thanks to perspiration, but I can’t care.
I share an awkward glance with Mr. Namaste-at-your-place-or mine, clean my yoga mat, and begin to carry it back to the front desk. Turning a corner, I run smack dab into a hard chest. My yoga mat slips, and I scramble to catch it.
“So sorry,” I say, snatching it off the floor. “I didn’t—”
“Kate?”
A surprised laugh puffs out of me as I stand. “Rohan? What are you doing here?”
“I got a membership a while ago,” he chuckles. “And we gotta stop meeting like this.”
“You’re telling me.”
Rohan looks odd without his museum barista apron, standing in my place of worship in a tan v-neck and gym shorts. Like work followed me into my personal life.
He takes me in as well, cheekily gesturing to my sweat-soaked body and the emptying class behind me. “They turn on the fire sprinklers in there or something?”
I swat him with my yoga mat and laugh. “No! You try hot yoga and see if you come out looking any better.”
“No complaints here.” He makes a show of checking me out. “You always look great in pink.”
I roll my eyes, but I can’t help grinning as I walk backward. “Still too old for you, Rohan. Anyways, I’ve gotta get home.” I point my yoga mat at him. “Hot yoga. Challenge extended.”
“Challenge accepted.” He salutes, then disappears around the corner.
Chuckling, I stride to the front desk right as Levi emerges from the door behind the counter. He still has his outdoor coat over his polo, but he shoots me a friendly smile. Ever since our awkward conversation in the washing machine room, it’s like the tension between us has vanished. I smile back.
“Night shift?” I ask.
“Yup.” Levi gives me a look as if to say “I don’t get paid enough for this.”
“Sorry to hear that,” I say with a laugh as I hand him my yoga mat.
“It’s all good.” He tucks away my mat alongside the rolls of others. “Oh, hey! I saw a social media post about your exhibition coming up! Lookin’ good, art girl.”
I laugh. “Thanks, but it’s not my exhibition. My friend Amantha is the one in charge, I’m just the photographer.”
“Well, it’s pretty cool.”
“I have to agree. Hey, you should come!” I say. “The beginning gala is open to the public.”
“Really? I may just have to check it out,” he says.
I tap the counter twice before saying, “Alright, I’m gonna call it a night. Thanks, Levi.”
“Have a good one,” he calls.
After a lengthy shower and a quick bite to eat as a late dinner, I climb into a taxi. The Waterborough community gates were glitching earlier but are now safely sealed shut. I just tell my driver to drop me off by the pedestrian gate.
Shadows warp this way as I cross the cobblestone street and approach my darkened driveway.
Mrs. Kovolchuk’s window is lit up despite the late hour, her lonely lamp the only sign of life I can see.
Regardless, the night air is making me jumpy.
I decide to run to her condo if any chainsaws present themselves.
Clutching my pepper spray, I steal toward my front step. I go to insert my key in the lock, but I catch sight of a cardboard box by my feet.
I don’t remember ordering anything, but maybe Liza did. I stoop to read the label.
There’s no postage. Or writing of any kind.
Paranoia prickles along my neck like watching eyes, and I whip around. Only the looming shadows greet me, bony tree branches stretching across the starry sky.
While it’s unclear who the box is from, one thing is crystal. Whoever left it stood right beside this door, depositing who knows what for Liza or me to find.
Sucking in a deep breath of icy cold air, I chide myself for being such a baby.
The box could be from Mrs. Kovolchuk. Or maybe Mom dropped something off?
I grit my teeth and pry it open. The cardboard gives easily, and amid the darkness sits a wide clamshell jewelry case. I lift the top, cracking it open.
A dainty chain necklace glitters like stars, and although it doesn’t scream luxury, it’s beautiful. It reminds me of one I’ve seen my mother wear. Maybe it is Mom’s and Liza asked to borrow it or something? I go to pluck it out when a piece of paper grazes my fingers beneath the velvet mount.
I slide it out, unfold it, and my whimper freezes in the night air.
For when you’re ready.
- Hopefully Yours.