Chapter 29
Everly
His lips on that spot behind my ear wake me up. I’m disoriented and still depleted, but it all rushes back. I’m home. I have no idea what time it is, just that it’s later based on the light pouring in through the wall of glass.
His speech is garbled with sleep. “I missed you.”
I move slightly to gauge if he’s truly awake.
“Wait.” His arm draped over me tightens. “Don’t go.”
Panic wells in my chest. I softly push his hand off me.
“Stay.”
I sit up and start to scoot to the edge of the bed.
“No. Ever.”
With one leg hanging over the edge and the other curled in front of me, I swivel as sleepy, piercing blue eyes pin mine. Frozen, I watch him watch me for a few seconds that tick like hours.
He drags his body over to me and lays his head on my bent leg. His unshaven jaw scrapes along the tender skin of my inner thigh. “You smell like the beach.” His words are barely coherent, his voice groggy and hoarse.
I pet his scruffy jaw. “I . . . I should shower.” I gently push him off me.
His head falls heavily to the mattress.
I slide off the bed and move toward the bathroom.
I don’t look back, but I feel his stare all the way—the pull of it broken as soon as I close the door.
I lean on it for a second, then take the quickest shower ever.
I towel dry my hair and twist it into a wet knot on top of my head.
When I slide the door open, our room is empty.
I smell coffee. It churns my stomach. Snagging a pair of sweats and a T-shirt off the top of the folded clothes in my drawers, I hastily slide them on and lie back down on the bed and pull the blanket over me.
When I wake again, my head rests on the soft cotton fabric covering Julian’s chest, which is rising and falling in the rhythm of deep sleep.
My leg is draped over his, and I’m curled into his side with my hand resting on his taut abs.
One of his arms is around me. The other is bent over his forehead.
I don’t want to move and disturb him, but I have to pee.
I softly press my hand on his stomach to begin inching up.
The hand on his forehead comes down on me, and both arms squeeze and drag my body up till we’re face-to-face. His eyes are closed, but his lips come down on mine. His hands sweep up my body to trap my face. He rolls us until he’s half covering my body, never breaking the contact of our lips.
I let him kiss me for a few seconds, and I kiss him back. I can’t not kiss him. But I have to stop him before it goes too far. I need answers. Ones I’m not even sure I want. Still, I need to hear them.
Placing my hands on his chest, I shove a little.
He stops and blinks his deep blue pools once, twice. Then brings his forehead to mine, closing them again on a long exhale. Relief etched in every inch of his face.
I need distance to think straight. Plus, I really do have to pee.
“I have to pee.” I smile cautiously and scoot out of his embrace.
He lets me go. I again feel his eyes track me all the way to the bathroom until I close the door.
When I open the door, he’s sitting on the foot of the bed, elbows on his thighs, head hanging between them.
The longer hair on top of his head is sticking up in messy tufts, like he’s been pulling on it.
He looks up as soon as I open it and pins me with eyes that mirror the same unease I feel. “Hi.” His voice is gravelly, deep with sleep, his smile barely raising the corner of his lips. No pretty girl or sweet girl. Just hi.
“Hi.” My reply is breathy, like I just finished a workout.
“I missed you.”
“I know. Me too.”
“I didn’t lie to you.”
“Okay.”
“Can I hug you?”
I feel the moisture building behind my eyes because I want to hug him too. But who am I even hugging? As the first tear spills, I swipe it angrily away. “Just tell me your name. Your real name.”
He hangs his head again and, with his hands spread wide, palms up, he says, “Julian.”
When he raises his eyes back to mine, I quirk one brow and fold my arms over my chest as if to say, “Try again.”
“I was born Jayce Julian Keller. McKay is my mother’s maiden name. I legally changed it when I moved here almost four years ago.” He says all this looking at me squarely, unblinking.
I nod swiftly twice and step to him.
He follows my approach, never taking his gaze from mine.
When I stop at the parting of his knees, he reaches his hands to my hips and stands, pulling me into him.
His hands make their way to the sides of my face.
With his palms resting on my neck just under my ears and his thumbs brushing the shells, his fingers curve around my neck and thread through my hair.
His lips touch my forehead, my temple. His thumbs press under my chin to bring my lips to his.
He leaves his lips on mine, slightly parted, not moving, and just breathes softly in and out.
My fingers clench the fabric of his shirt at his waist. As soon as I feel his fingers curl tighter into the back of my neck, I pull the shirt to me.
His arms scale down my back, over my hips and under my ass, picking me up.
My legs coil around him naturally and my lips fuse to his.
Our tongues sweep into each other’s mouths.
He tastes so fucking good. God, I missed him.
We kiss until my lips tingle, until we both need to take a breath.
He sits back down on the bed, taking me with him. “Hi, sweet girl.”
His pet name for me is back and has me swallowing nervously, because am I though?
If I don’t tell him about Seth, are we both liars?
But did he even lie? When I don’t readily respond with a pet name of my own, I note the subtle frown between his eyes.
“Hi,” I answer back after a few pregnant seconds.
I don’t say Julie or sweet boyfriend or anything except hi.
His fingers tuck a fallen strand of hair behind each ear.
I leave my forehead pressed to his to avoid his scrutiny. He keeps circling his fingers around the shell of my ears. It’s lulling me. I want to disappear into his touch. I want to forget everything except his touch on my skin.
“Talk to me, Ever. What’s going on in there?” He swipes his thumbs over my forehead from the center to my temples. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know. I have nothing to hide. I promise.”
On the last sentence, his promise to hide nothing from me, I exhale a partial sob.
Because now I’m the one with secrets and something to hide.
If I tell him the truth, will he still call me his sweet girl?
Will he still want me, love me? I don’t want to know.
And even though I know now he didn’t lie, the whole hot mess opened a Pandora’s box of noise in my head.
Still, I don’t know if I’ll have the guts to come clean or at least unpack all the shit crowding my brain.
What if I do and it makes him never look at me or touch me the same again?
I selfishly want to feel his arms around me and feel him kiss me like he always has one more time.
Especially if it ends up being the last time.