65. Kendall
Kendall
The only warning he gets is a text that says, “I’m coming over.” Thirty minutes later, I’m standing outside his penthouse door pounding ferociously.
“Let me in, Kai, I know you’re in there,” I yell before knocking again.
He opens up the door groggy and confused. He's squinting at me trying to block the harsh light from the hallway with his hand. He’s wearing boxers that might as well be painted onto his muscular body and nothing else.
“Ken? What’s wrong? What are you doing here?
” he asks, alarmed. I realize now how crazy I must seem, how completely insane this is.
It was pouring when I left my house and I forgot an umbrella.
The trek from my car to his apartment has left me looking like a drenched sewer rat.
I swipe the arm of my damp sweatshirt across my face in an attempt to appear halfway decent.
“Can I come in? I texted you. Sorry about just showing up here.”
“Of course,” he replies, holding the door open for me and ushering me inside.
We’re standing at the entrance of his apartment right next to the sleek, modern open kitchen.
I carefully pull the folded, handwritten letter out of my pants pocket.
It had suffered the fate of a few raindrops, but still appears to be legible.
We stare at each other for a few moments silently.
His eyes flick to the paper in my hand and back to me.
“What’s going on, Ken? What is that?” he asks, taking a step toward me.
“I read one of the letters you wrote me tonight,” I admit. “It was the first one I’ve ever read.”
“Ken, I wrote those a long time ago, I—"
“North Carolina.” I blurt out cutting him off. “Did you come to North Carolina to look for me?” I demand.
“Of course I did.” It’s the certainty, the sureness of his words that cause my knees to buckle.
It’s fact, truth, an inevitability. They all blend together to tell me the only thing I really need to know.
And that is that Kai wasn’t going to let me walk away without putting up a fight. And he hadn’t.
“Why?” I’m shaking now, my bottom lip quivering. Tears are falling freely from my eyes and I’m not even sure why. But I need to push through whatever this feeling is. He sighs, dragging his palm down his face.
“Because I missed you. Because I was heartbroken. Because I was fucking miserable without you and you just disappeared without a word.” He’s moved closer to me now, his mouth centimeters from mine.
“We have the kind of love people only dream about. The kind of love that is worth fighting for. The kind of love that feels so good and hurts so fucking bad. The kind of love that breaks you apart and puts you back together again. So that’s what I was doing, trying to put the pieces of us back together again.
I was trying to figure out how we veered so far—"
But he doesn’t get a chance to finish his sentence because my lips are on his.
Kissing away his words, the pain, the heartbreak, the mistakes.
There’s only this, only us. The heat of his hands and the pounding of my heart.
The desperation of our love. He gathers me in his arms, holding me tightly.
I plant panicked, anguished kisses on his cheek, my lips skimming his jawbone and then I move to his neck and trail kisses along the column of his throat.
I curl myself tighter into his embrace, my head resting against his chest.
You’re perfect. I want to say. I was so stupid and reckless all those years ago. I love you, I have always been in love with you and it runs deeper and burns brighter than it ever has.
Every unbidden thought threatens to burst out of my mouth but somehow, I tamp them all down. All that comes out is a series of apologies.
“I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t where I said I was. I’m sorry that I lied. I’m sorry that I broke us. I’m just so fucking sorry,” I cry. I don’t know if I’m apologizing to him or myself. Probably both.
“Shh, it’s okay, Ken. It’s okay,” he promises, kissing my forehead.
His arms surround me. Steady and strong.
Loving and warm. His solid chest pressed against my cheek is the only comfort I need.
His voice an anchor in the storm. I’m still not entirely convinced I deserve him.
But I love him anyway. I kiss him again, this time on the lips and it quickly becomes heated, passionate, desperate.
I nip his bottom lip playfully and a growl erupts from his throat.
He grips me underneath my thighs, lifting me up as my legs wrap around his trim waist. We’re a tangled, chaotic, beautiful mess.
Each of us trying frantically to get as much of our hands and lips on the other.
I pull back from him breathlessly. I’m like a moth drawn to a flame and I’m ready to burn myself for him, ignite. Consequences be damned.
“Kai. I need you. I need all of you. I don’t think I can wait any longer.
I know we made a pact and we promised to wait, but we’ve been going to therapy and it does feel like we’re making progress.
And I know we're trying to uncomplicate things. But I’ve come to accept things with us are never not going to be complicated but they’re always going to be worth it.
If you still want to wait, that's okay, I’ll respect whatever choice you make.
” I peer into his eyes and there’s something firm and immovable there.
It seems like a spur of the moment decision to throw sex into the mix and hope it doesn’t destroy everything we’ve managed to repair.
But it isn’t, not at all. This moment has been quietly building, thrumming just beneath the surface since I first laid eyes on him four months ago.
Since I walked away from him three years ago.
“Ken. I want this. I want you,” he responds, clear eyed and confident. My heart starts racing, my pulse picking up speed. There is no going back after this.
“Are you sure?” I whisper.
“Yes. Fuck the pact,” he confirms before crashing his mouth to mine.
The four most glorious words in the English language.
He backs me up until I’m planted against the wall, my feet off the ground molding my core to his.
He starts rocking his hips into me and his hand glides underneath my shirt.
The pressure, the friction is too much and not entirely enough.
I want all of him. I want to feel him everywhere.
I rip my sweatshirt up and over my head, my hair elastic coming free in the process.
My hair falls in tight curls around my bare shoulders.
“Ken, you are so fucking beautiful,” he whispers, my jaw in his hand.
“Mhm,” I murmur, eager to kiss him again.
“I’m serious,” he says.
“I know.” I reach into his boxers to grip his length and start stroking him slowly.
“Fuck, Ken,” he says, resting his forehead on my shoulder. “I’m not gonna last long if you do that. And I want this to last. I want to go slow the first time. Because I know I won’t be able to later.”
I’m distracted momentarily by the bright lights that compose the skyline outside his large picture windows.
“Kai,” I murmur, “This view is breathtaking.”
He nips my jaw playfully, trying to direct my focus back to him. “My view certainly is,” he muses as he swipes his tongue from my collarbone to my chin. He has my undivided attention again.
“Respectfully, Kendall, the only view I’m concerned about is your breathtaking face while you come apart on my cock because I’m buried so deep inside of you, okay?”
Good lord.
Then he carries me—in between hot, intoxicating kisses—half stumbling half laughing to his bedroom.
When we were just hooking up before—when the pact was still very much standing—things were easy.
Playful. But now that I’m standing directly in front of him, in nothing but my underwear, my nerves start to creep in.
I have my hands crossed in front of my breasts, as if that could possibly help me now.
His eyes scan the length of my body with longing and fervor.
“What’s wrong? Where’d you go?” Kai asks, grasping my chin between his index finger and thumb and tipping it towards him.
“I’m just a little nervous I guess. You haven’t seen all of me since before I had Akio and my C-section,” I admit, twirling the end of a curl around my finger anxiously. His gorgeous sable eyes study me, rooting me to the spot.
“Did you forget our little shower excursion or when you had the flu?” he teases.
“I know but that was different. We were just hooking up before. This with you is…” I struggle to come up with the right words. Daunting. Intimidating. Everything.
“I thought we talked about this. I love your body, Ken. It drives me insane. As evidenced by the raging hard on I have right now,” he smirks.
He stalks forward, engulfing my body with his.
The heat from his body rolls off of him in waves, igniting a flame in mine.
His lips are on my throat, warm and patient, his right hand splayed across my lower back.
“You want me to beg? I will. I have no problem begging,” he whispers.
His other hand is gripping my neck while his lips glide over my shoulders and collarbone.
He worships my hardened nipples with his tongue and teeth first. He kisses the smattering of freckles beneath my sternum, my stomach, my hips.
It sends shivers careening down my spine.
His mouth and hands move down down down.
His touch cascading across my skin in a delicate, tantalizing dance.
It makes my blood heat. I’m melting into a pool of lust. I’m certain I’ll come before he’s even inside me. He’s kneeling in front of me now.
“You want me on my knees? I’m there,” he murmurs, pressing his soft lips to the thin fabric of my underwear. Holy shit.