Chapter 34
34
DULCE
F lashes of his face go off behind my eyes like a camera snapping pictures. White light. Hot breaths. His hair through my fingers. Heat between my thighs. Moans. His voice.
“You’re perfect.”
It’s what he said to me the night in the hotel before it turned into a nightmare when I took a bath in the infinity tub.
I back away. “Ford?”
“Yeah?”
“The other night….”
“I’ll be out front,” Katie says, taking it as her cue to leave the kitchen.
“When we had sex,” I finish for her after the door swings shut.
“We didn’t use a condom.”
The thought that we didn’t takes root. We didn’t use protection. We didn’t even discuss it. It’s not like I have to worry since I’m on birth control, but I don’t remember taking it the night my grandmother died.
“I’m aware.”
Dread takes root in how he will react when I tell him. My stomach clenches, voicing what I don’t want to admit. “I’m on birth control, but the night my grandmother…”
“What?” He looks at me, perplexed.
“I forgot to take it.” I look away, ashamed of how stupid I am for being irresponsible. “It doesn’t mean…”
“It’s okay.” He pulls me close. “We’ll deal with it. I’ll take care of you if you are.”
I look up and meet his sexy blue gaze. “Who are you, Ford Keller?”
“The boy from high school who was secretly in love with a girl he didn’t think he deserved.”
“I’ve been in love with you since I was a teenager,” I confess.
“I believe that, but I knew if I stayed all those years ago, my parents…It would have been impossible.”
“I understand.”
He’s right. There was no way we could have been together. It would have been us against the whole town, but now he is different. Older.
“When I heard you were still here, I knew the reason. I knew your grandmother was alive. Selfishly, I hoped no one swept you off your feet, and I was too late, but I never knew what happened or what they did. I would have come back.”
“Why did you leave the other night?” I ask, searching his gaze for the truth.
“Because I had to know who hurt you,” he says honestly. “Because I was angry that they think they got away with it.” He caresses my lips with the tips of his fingers. “I’m not going to stop until I do, but I need you to trust me.”
“What do you need from me?” I ask darkly. “How do you plan on finding out the truth?”
“I was kind of hoping you could help me out with that.”
I swallow. “You want me to try to remember.”
“It could be a smell. A trigger.”
“You know,” I say, pulling away and continuing to mix the batter. “I think you’re right.”
“About?” he asks, leaning on the prep table.
“The triggers. I knew it wasn’t old man Moody because I didn’t get flashbacks. Granted, I was scared. Terrified. Disgusted. But the memories didn’t come. They come in like flashes of a camera going off. Nightmares. Dreams.”
“Tell me.”
I look up, hoping he would find out. I want more than anything to catch the son of a bitch who ruined my life. “Can you take me out to the woods?” I pause and lick my lips, hoping he will say yes. “Where it happened?”
“Are you sure?” he asks, and I see the determined look in his gaze. He would.
“Now that you’re here, yes. I’m sure. I want to try. I want to know. And then, I want to leave Airy for good.”
After I finished catching up on orders and the cakes Katie attempted to bake but looked like they belonged in a bad episode of Gordon Ramsey, Ford drives me home and tells me about the rats Katie found this morning before I arrived.
“You think whoever is behind it knows I’m with you,” I ask.
“Whoever it is, lives in Airy and never left,” he says like he’s positive.
“That narrows it down.”
When I unlock the door to my house, I blink back the tears when the silence reaches me mixed with the smell of damp wood and my grandmother’s powder. The antiseptic smell is gone. The beeping from the machines silent.
The medical supply company took everything the next day like it didn’t matter someone died using it until their last breath was taken.
“She was a wonderful lady,” Ford says, picking up a photo of her when she was better. “She loved you.”
“She was my mother and father since I was ten years old.”
He places the small picture frame back on the table. “Do you remember them? Your parents.”
“I try, but as time passes, you start to forget. My mother’s scent. My father’s cologne. The sound of their voices. Their laughter. It fades piece by piece. Sometimes I have to look at a picture to remember exactly what they looked like.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, picking up the prom night picture. “I wanted to ask; do you still have this dress?”
I shake my head. “I woke up naked. My clothes were missing.”
“All of them.”
“Yeah. Why?”
“I wanted you to wear it for me one day so I can take a new picture.”
“You could keep it.” He looks at me, confused. “The picture. You can have it.”
“I think I will. It was for me you dressed up for, and I wish more than anything to have been the one to pick you up.”
“Then none of it would have happened.”
“That and I would have told our kid the night I took their mother to prom.”
“My grandmother was right about you.”
“She wanted me to remind you to tell our family stories.” I pinch my brows. “I had a long conversation with the woman who raised you. I made her a promise, and I intend to keep it.”
“What promise is that?”
“Meet me in your bedroom and find out.”
A blush rushes my cheeks. Memories flash like a movie. My back arched, him behind me wrapping his hand around my long hair, taking me from behind while his hand muffles my moans over my mouth. The delicious burn between my thighs as he thrust inside me.
“You’re remembering.”
“Huh?”
I close my eyes, listening to his words. “When I fucked you on your twin bed muffling your screams while you choked my cock.” I can feel his breath against the back of my neck. “Was it good the other night or the first, Dulce?”
“Why don’t you remind me?”
He chuckles. “There it is. That mouth I like so much. The way it surprised me that day in your bedroom when you wanted me to fuck you. One night when I would have given you more.”
I arch my neck, resting the back of my head against his chest. “What are you waiting for, Ford?”
His hands rub over my hard nipples, fumbling with the buttons holding my uniform together. He pulls, and the buttons pop off, hitting the wall, the rest bouncing off the floor. He turns me around and pushes me against the wall near the staircase. His eyes fall on my thin bra, then lower to my white panties, where my thighs are squeezed together.
He pulls himself out of his jeans, stroking his cock like an exhibitionist. “Is that for me?” I ask playfully.
He presses the head of his cock over the wet spot on my panties. “This is always for you.”
I’m on fire. My clit is pulsing against his hard cock. I grind my hips, and he groans, pulling my panties. I hear the tear before he rips them off. He picks me up, and my legs wrap around his hips.
“I missed you,” he says right before he slides inside and fucks me against the wall. His eyes never leave mine as he thrusts repeatedly hard and fast. His mouth falls to the crook of my neck. I raise my hands above my head and hold the wood rails from the stairs.
“More,” I moan, loving the way he feels inside.
He licks the skin on my neck and lips. “So sweet.”
My climax builds fast as he goes harder. I gasp when I’m about to come.
“Ford.”
“You’re close, Dulce. Don’t wait for me. Come.”
My insides clench when I can’t hold it anymore. I scream when I come. The sweat drips down the middle of my back. My hands, slick with sweat, almost slip off the wood.
I can feel that he is close because he doesn’t stop. Sweat drips down the side of his face and his neck.
His eyes grip me, holding me in their depths. My gut tells me this was all planned—All of it. Him here at the right time isn’t a coincidence.
“Marry me,” he says, with his cock still inside me.
“Are you proposing to me?”
“Yes. I am.”
I’m stunned. I stare into his blue eyes, trying to figure out if this is real or some kind of joke. Ford proposing to me is the last thing I expected while having sex. He’s still inside me, and I don’t know what to say or what to do.
He finally pulls out of me, and then, everything happens so fast. He puts himself away and picks me up, taking me to my room and placing me on my bed.
He turns around, giving me his back, and I sit half naked, stunned, trying to process everything.
I lean to the side, trying to see his face. “Ford?”
“Um, can you give me a minute,” he says, digging in his pocket.
“Okay,” I say, trying to cover myself.
When he finally turns around, he goes down on one knee with the most gorgeous engagement ring set in a black velvet box. The solitaire is big and looks expensive.
“I know it’s too soon, and you might think I’m crazy, but I am. I’m crazy about you, and I know we don’t know each other like we should, but we can. We have the rest of our lives to do that, but I was thinking…I was hoping.” He looks into my eyes, holding the box up like an offering, and continues, “That you would say yes, and we could do that as husband and wife. There is no reason I can think of to wait. I think you’ve waited for the right person to come along, and I’m that person, Dulce. I’m right here, and I want to give you everything you have ever dreamed of.”
My heart beats so fast I don’t think I can find my voice. Ford is both my dream and my past wrapped into one.
I look at the diamond shining like a beacon under the warm light of my bedroom. How many times have I dreamed of him in this very room hoping one day he would know I existed?
“I promise to love you and protect you. And I don’t care if you fall pregnant. It would make me happy if you did. As long as you’re happy.”
I lift my hand and place my finger over the large emerald diamond. “It’s beautiful,” I whisper with tears in my eyes.
“I asked a special lady one night if an emerald diamond was the best, and she told me it symbolized true love.”
He’s talking about my grandmother. She is the only person I know who had an engagement ring that was an emerald.
A tear slides down my cheek. “Yes,” I whisper.
He leans his head slightly like he can’t hear me. “What? What was that?”
I laugh. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”
He plucks it from the box and slowly slides the diamond ring on my finger. “It’s perfect.”
“How did you know my size?” I ask, looking at the way the diamond sparkles.
“This lady I know made sure I got it right.”
My bottom lip trembles, remembering what she said. Ford will take care of me. She waited all this time because, for whatever reason, she knew he would come back.
“Are you ready?” he asks.
We were supposed to go to the woods before it got dark. I almost forgot.
I nod. “Yeah, let me take a quick shower.”