61. Kiara
I end up nearly falling asleep in the booth at Lazy’s from jet lag and emotion. The whole town is there, and they all want to know how I liked the barn. I think some of them were afraid I might not stay after all, and it pains me that I’ve sometimes been so abrasive that people thought I didn’t really like it here.
I love it here. I love the people, I love the place, and more importantly, I love Colton.
“It’s more than I could ever wish for,” I say. “I just don’t know how to thank you.” There’s also the question of who paid for this, but I’ll get to the bottom of it later.
“Just keep baking!” someone hollers.
“Told ya,” Colton says, rubbing my shoulder.
He takes me to his apartment. We fall asleep in his bed, after some lazy, sweet, yet much-needed sex.
I jolt awake at three in the morning, Colton sleeping next to me, one arm thrown over his eyes. The sheets are pushed aside, his strong, beautiful body on full display for me. I lick my lips but resist the temptation to kiss my way down from his throat to his flat stomach. I want nothing more than to wake him with my mouth around his cock, but as arousing as it may seem, three in the morning seems unfair. The man can wait. He needs his sleep, after everything he’s done for me.
I slip out of bed before I give in to my desire and wake him up, and curl up on the couch in the living room. My apartment is rented out until next week, but I’m wondering if Colton and I shouldn’t just move in together. It seems like the reasonable thing to do, and it would continue to bring in some much-needed cash to finance the barn. I’m appreciative of all the efforts everyone has put in to make it happen. Truthfully, I couldn’t dream of a better location or look for my business, and I’m beyond grateful for the collective effort that made this happen. But I’m not letting anyone pay for it.
That’s a daytime problem, so I pick up my phone to kill time and scroll on social media. My attention catches on missed messages from my sister, wishing me much luck in Paris, then welcoming me back stateside.
That’s unlike her. I head over to her social media. She’s only posted two photos recently, both black and white. One is of a meadow under the snow. The other one an artistic rendering of her profile. Then I notice her proclaimed status: single.
I stretch my legs and shoot her a quick thank-you for her messages. I don’t even feel anything at this point. That chapter of my life is definitely over—the one where I try and fail to gain acceptance from my mother and my sister. It’s not that I gave up on them. I did that a long time ago, but it used to hurt so bad thinking about it. It’s that it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s irrelevant. They’re irrelevant to me, to my life. They can be a part of my life if they choose to, or they can not be. It doesn’t affect me. Strangely, I find that I’m more open to forgiving them, to letting them back into my life if they wanted to, now that I don’t seek their approval anymore.
My thoughts inevitably drift to my father, and I let them take me there. It’s okay. I’ve also accepted he’s gone, and I’ve accepted who he was, with all his imperfections. It’s still hard for me, at this point, to make peace with the fact that my childhood was a lie. I’m trying to reframe this way of thinking as well. Maybe it wasn’t a lie. Maybe it’s really what Mom said—that he was trying to protect us. Maybe the snowball fights and the dolls he’d bring back from his “travels” were as real for him as they were for us. I have no reason to believe he didn’t love us in his own way.
What’s still hard is the way everything went down, and how my family turned against me. It was unjust and cruel of them.
A small part of me is hyperaware that maybe I take after them when I’m stubborn in keeping people at arm’s length, even if Colton has helped me become much better at not being that way.
I don’t want to be that way. I don’t want to be them. I want to be like my found family here in Emerald Creek—open-hearted, welcoming, forgiving, understanding.
“Boy, do you look serious this morning,” Colton says, standing in boxer briefs, hair all mussed up, one hand scratching his belly, the other behind his neck as he lets out a lazy yawn.
“Boy, do you look yummy this morning,” I answer, heat growing between my legs.
He chuckles and bends over to graze my lips with a kiss. “What’re you thinking about, sweets?”
“I think I should change my name. Take my mother’s maiden name or something. I dunno.” I know Smith is a common name, but I feel icky carrying my father’s name. Even if I’m telling myself stories about how he probably loved us in his own way, it still remains he was associated with organized crime and a cheat all his life. “I’d like to put some distance,” I say to try and explain to Colton.
“Sure, that makes sense,” he answers to my surprise. I was expecting a push back, a question. “I’m gonna make coffee,” he says.
I jump off the couch. “Why don’t you let me make coffee, and you go back to bed and get rid of the underwear and let me take care of you?” I’m up against him now, and I run my fingernails against his back so there’s no possible confusion about what kind of care I have in mind.
He pulls the cami I wear to bed off me, our skins now heating against each other. “Coffee can wait,” he says. “Get back to bed, it’s barely past four.” He leans over to take me in a kiss while I slide a hand under his boxers.
He hisses and I drop to my knees. “Or don’t get back to bed,” he mumbles while I take his length in my mouth. “Christ, Kiara, you have some mouth on you.” I lick his shaft, making eye contact with him, and his cock bobs. “That’s it, dirty girl. Lick it.”
I give it one more lick then take it as far as I can down my throat, sucking and twirling my tongue, reveling in his growls and hisses, and at the way his hands land on my head to give me direction. “Take it like a big girl.”
Wetness pools between my legs as he fucks my mouth, and I moan.
“Christ, Kiara, you’re gonna make me come if you keep doing that.”
I take him deeper, suck him harder.
“Touch yourself,” he orders. “And moan for your man.”
One hand latching onto his ass, the other in my panties, I whimper.
“Ah. Atta girl.”
I glimpse up at him. His abs are corded, his eyelids hooded, and his mouth twitches as a salty bead hits my tongue. I lower my eyelids and suck him harder. “Are you sure?” he whisper-growls. “Fuck you’re so good.”
I nod and suck him harder.
“I’ll hold it til you come. I wanna come in your mouth when you’re falling apart for me.”
His words set me off. One more stroke on my clit, focusing my attention on his throbbing cock shoved down my throat, how he’s totally fucking my mouth with both his hands on my head, and I’m done. My mouth gapes when my cries of ecstasy take over. Despite my best efforts, I fall on my heels, my fingers in my panties, eyes on him now jerking off to me, going for my face. This is not what I had in mind, but it’s hot as hell. His whole body is taut for me, his eyelids hooded, as he aims for my open mouth, then my tits. “Fuck, Kiara.” He’s shaking too but keeps it together, emptying himself on me. As my orgasm fades, I lift off and take him in my mouth, sucking him dry.
“Oh,” he moans, then hisses. “Jesus, woman, you weren’t kidding.”
After we shower, I insist on making coffee and we cuddle in bed. “There’s something I wanna show you before you start your day,” Colton says. He reaches inside his nightstand and hands me a folded paper.
“An invoice for… a new transmission?”
He snaps the paper and turns it around. “Wrong side,” he grunts.
I frown and sit up. “What—what is this?” There are lines scribbled haphazardly. I can make out the word reading.
“Proof. You wanted proof it wasn’t really Luke talking during the first phone call, but me through him. Emma found this when doing the books.”
I squint, focusing.
I’m ready to meet someone who’s not like anyone else. Someone real, honest, no bullshit. That’s what your profile said to me between the lines, and your voice between the words, and your answers to my questions.
There’s more, but I’m getting too emotional picturing Colton scribbling these words as a last lifeline to our romantic relationship. My heart swells as I fold the paper preciously. I’ll read it later. Eyes misty, I curl in Colton’s embrace.
“Are you down for going to the garage now?” he asks me. “There’s something I need to show you,” he says as he gets dressed.
“Yes! I want to see the barn again and start getting organized. Take measurements, make a list of priorities. An open house! I want to schedule an open house. It’s the best way to keep everyone motivated and on track. D’you have the list of everyone who worked on that? I need to send thank-you baskets, and coupons, and—”
“Sweets, relax.”
Relax? “But, Colton, this is huge! Huge! You have no idea how-how-how overwhelmed and ecstatic I am.” While I’m talking non-stop, I slip into a pair of jeans and the cami and thermal Cassandra gave me. I pick up my shoes, then drop them to cradle Colton’s face and kiss him. “You know what you did for me, but you have no idea how—”
He chuckles. “Okay, sweets, I think I get it. But there’s something I need to show you inside the garage, and I want to go now before the workday starts. I need some privacy for that.”
“Oooh. You wanna do it in your truck?” I joke.
“Better’n that.” He takes my hand, then drives us to the garage.
We enter through the reception area, then Colton grabs a flashlight and guides me through the dark bays. “Watch it,” he says as we round a car with its hood open.
“Might wanna think about getting electricity in here,” I quip. My eyes are getting accustomed to the dark, the glint of metal tools and the smell of oil feeling oddly familiar. I like being in Colton’s workspace.
“Let there be light,” he says as we reach the third bay and he turns the overhead lights on. The most adorable pink van, barely bigger than the VW minibus, glimmers in the sudden light, so precious in its dark surroundings. Colton takes my hand and walks me to it, then turns on bright lights that make that little jewel shine even brighter.
Speaking of jewel… The side has a logo that makes me gasp.
It’s the cutest cartoonish representation of a wedding cake on legs, wearing heels, with the diamond of a wedding band sparkling at the top.
All around are cutesy cursive letters. The bottom says Sweetness Delivered. That’s enough to make me literally sway.
But it’s the two words at the top that make my blood thrum.
Kiara Harper .
Colton’s hand falls on my shoulder, bringing me to him. He says nothing as we both look at the delivery van painted in my colors with legs that are probably supposed to represent me (they do, after all, feature fishnet stockings). The wedding cake is teetering, my legs unstable on high heels, puffs of snow completing the picture. The throwback to the day my car wouldn't start and I hauled my pastries into Colton's car is clear.
Except there’s a diamond ring shining bright on top of the cake.
And at the top, my first name and his last name.
My throat tight, I ask, “Is that the day you fell for me?”
He wraps both his arms around me. “No. It’s the day I realized I’d loved you all along.”
Before I can answer he’s on one knee in front of me, the keychain dangling in his fingers.
“Sweets, I was gonna prepare a whole speech, and maybe do something a little more organized around this moment, but then this morning you started talking about changing your name. Meanwhile I’m thinking, Kiara Harper has a nice ring to it. Don’t ya think?”
Tears start pooling in my eyes. “Yes, it has a very nice ring to it.”
He lifts the keychain to me, and I glance toward the van, a smile stretching my mouth. My fantasy vehicle, a ring painted on it, and my new name? “Colt, that’s the most awesome proposal,” I say, drawing him up to me.
“You like it?”
“I love you.”
“Yes, but do you like the van?”
“I love it!”
He slides the side door open, revealing the interior setup, then hands me the keys. “Four-wheel drive, studded tires for now, new suspension, new brakes… new almost everything. Refrigeration. It’s got everything.”
I shove the keys in my pocket and pull him in for a deep kiss.
“Sweets,” he says when we come up for air.
“Mmh?”
“Show me the keys.”
I take them out of my pocket and let them dangle off my finger.
“I almost forgot,” he says, snatching them from me. The keychain jingles as he arranges it, until a solitaire shows between his fingers.
It’s the same ring as the one painted on the van.
My voice is tight, but I let the tears fall freely, just as I let Colton shower me with his love. “Colt, you didn’t have to.”
“No, I didn’t. But I wanted to.”
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