Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Aaron
“Where did you run off to the other night?” Bennett asks, handing me a box of screws.
“When?”
“Dude, your nonchalant act fucking sucks.” He chuckles.
“Two nights ago when you stopped in at the bar, found out Kendall wasn’t there, and took off.
I tried calling you three times and I’m assuming you didn’t answer because you had other things going on.
So I’m asking, but already knowing. Where did you run off to? ”
“If you know then why are you asking?”
“Because the version I overheard is always filtered and one-sided. You want to take this time to clear things up?”
“Nah,” I say with a smile he can’t see. My back is to him as I hold the deck board down and drive in a few screws to hold it in place.
“Nah,” he repeats and I can hear the displeasure in his voice. “So are you telling me you showed up to the shop, begged and pleaded for a chance, and she slammed the door in your face?”
I pause and look back over my shoulder. The fucker is staring at me with a straight face. “Is that really the version you got?”
“That and you sat in your truck outside the shop for an hour hoping she’d reconsider while blowing her phone up with text messages.”
Bennett doesn’t bluff, he’s never been good at it. But right now, I can’t decide if he’s gotten better at it, or if he’s being honest. So I test the waters. “It was actually more like an hour and a half and she didn’t shut the door in my face, she never even opened it.”
Shrugging I turn back to the pile of deck boards and pull over another.
“That figures, because I knew the version I heard couldn’t be the actual truth.”
Smiling I realize the fucker has gotten better at bluffing and I flip him off only to be met by his chuckles.
“No way in hell did you manage to rattle Kendall to the point of complete and utter confusion.”
I glance back to find him smiling.
“No wait, it wasn’t rattled, it was kabobbled.”
“What?” It’s my turn to laugh.
“She was kabobbled.” He nods as if ensuring he remembered the word right. “You’ve got her head kabobbled and she thinks she might have a brain tumor because no way is any man capable of getting her all twisted up.”
Bennett rambles on a bit more but honestly I barely hear a word he is saying. I am too hung up on the idea of Kendall admitting that there was something about this thing with her and I that left her feeling flipped upside down. I was there too, nothing was clear anymore.
What I did know for sure was that no matter what it took, I wasn’t going to let go of the idea that her and I could be something good.
Adley comes inside with a towel wrapped around her waist. Her hair is still damp at the back of her neck from sitting in the hot tub.
“She’s tipsy and sitting out back,” she tells with a smile. “I’m freezing and ready for a hot shower.”
“And?” I ask, still not sure why she’s offering me this information.
“Kendall is a whole lot like I was a year ago. She knows she’s gotten a taste of something good and she has no idea what to do with it.
Her first instincts tell her to run the hell away and never look back.
But then she has this nagging voice in her head that is screaming ‘girl if you don’t take what you want someone else will and then you’ll be too late’.
She is having a war inside her head right now, her heart and her mind fighting to the death. ”
Interesting analogy.
“So what I am saying is don’t give up on her, don’t slow down, keep pushing until she breaks.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“She will,” Adley insists. “We all spent more than two hours listening to her go on and on about you showing up at the shop and how she still feels your hands doing all kinds of things. It was like listening to the hottest mechanic porn. You got some skills.” She offers an exaggerated wink.
“I have no idea why she feels the things she feels. I have a strong feeling there are parts of Kendall none of us know about. She has secrets she refuses to tell and I think those secrets are from before I met her. I think those secrets are reasons behind the idea that she can never be what a man like you is looking for.”
“I’m not asking her to be anything more than Kendall.”
“I know this, you know this, but in her mind she is unworthy. So show her she is worthy.”
“I’ve been trying to.”
“So keep trying, it’s bound to click one day. It did with me.” She shrugs and turns to walk down the hall toward the back of the house. I’d been over helping Rory lay flooring every night this week. Tonight we’d finally finished up.
“If you dirty up my hot tub, just know that the two of you will be cleaning it,” she tosses back over her shoulder and I smile shaking my head, glancing toward the sliders leading out to the back deck and moving across the room and peeking out.
There in the hot tub with the lights set on low, sits Kendall.
Her legs are out before her, her head back against the edge, eyes closed.
I sit there watching her for a few minutes, immediately recognizing the familiar pull she triggers.
I step out, unbuttoning my jeans and sliding them over my legs, leaving my boxers on. As I round the side, I step up and over the ledge and her eyes open. Surprise covers her features and she hurries to sit up.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m done working so I thought I’d enjoy the hot tub for a bit.”
As I am sinking into the water she is turning like she is getting out, grabbing the edge and rising up out of the water. Immediately I feel myself growing hard at the sight of her. The perfect body barely covered by the coral colored bikini.
Moving in behind her and bringing my hand around her front, I place my palm against her stomach. Pulling her body back tighter to my own I rest my chin on her shoulder.
“We can play this game if you want,” I whisper.
“The one where you act like me touching you doesn’t make your heart race.
The game where you pretend that you don’t want me, that you don’t need me.
I’ll give you that, for as long as you need it, Kendall.
But there will be a time when you come to terms with the fact that we are so good together and we can only get better.
All it takes is for you to stop pretending it doesn’t exist.”
I notice the way her breathing becomes more rapid like she is panting when my palm slides lower. My fingers dip just beneath the waistband of her bikini bottoms.
“There will come a day when you are wishing that you hadn’t pushed so hard for this chance.”
“Does that mean you’re gonna to do this with me?” I ask, feeling a rush of excitement.
She is silent for a bit, wiggling her ass against me, triggering a groan to fall from my lips.
“It means you’ve managed to do the unthinkable, Aaron.”
“And what’s that?”
“I’m a competitive person, I hate to lose,” Kendall confesses still wiggling her ass back into my groin. “Proving you wrong, proving that I don’t want, nor need you, is what I plan to do. In the end you will be wallowing in self-pity, and all I’ll be able to say is I told you so.”
“I look forward to it, every miserable second,” I say before biting her shoulder and she slips away from me, leaving me hard and determined.
“Let the torture begin,” she says with a laugh, grabbing a towel and covering herself from my view.
“Witch,” I say with a forced glare and she waves me off.
“There will come a day when that word is a different version and it is the only way you’ll refer to me.”
“Never,” I tell her climbing out and walking toward her.
“I’m not sunshine and rainbows, Aaron.”
“That’s a good thing because I hate sunshine and rainbows,” I say as I lean in and kiss her lips softly. “I would never ask you to be anything you’re not, Kendall. This you, the one I know, it’s the one I want. I like your attitude, sarcasm, and resistance.”
“So you’re the kind of guy that enjoys the chase.”
“No, I’m the kind of guy that knows the best things in life don’t come easy.”
“I promise you, I am going to do this so badly,” she confesses and I encircle her in my arms and pull her body close to mine. Rocking side to side, I wait to feel her give in and relax.
“We’ll learn together,” I whisper near her ear. “But we have to be willing to try.”
Her body shifts as she takes a deep breath. She doesn’t fight me, but instead for the first time she relaxes and allows me to hold her.