Between Never and Forever: Part 2 – Chapter 21

After my shower that night, I pulled the chain of the Ben Wa ball to get it out of me, fascinated that such a little thing that didn’t move could have my body keyed up so much. The water drops from the shower were harder, the heat more intense, the way the water dripped down my body more sensual.

And because Dex had insinuated I couldn’t handle the sensation, I tried to ignore it. Ignored the feeling of wanting to slide my hands between my legs, of wanting to indulge in not his shower, but mine.

Yet, even washing my hair felt erotic, rubbing the soap over my body had me gasping, and when I dragged my hand between my thighs, I whimpered.

The ball was powerful.

Or I was weak.

Somehow, just a small thing could shine light on all the big things wrong with me, how much I didn’t know about myself, how much I avoided, how much I was letting pass me by. I immediately slipped the ball out of me, ran it under hot water at the sink, went to the stupid drawer he’d directed me to before he’d exited, and used the cleaning supplies in there.

He’d left me to look at the rest of the things, and my eyes drifted over the other gold Ben Wa balls. Vibrators. Beads. Handcuffs. Sex toys I didn’t even know the names of. I didn’t need to.

I slammed the drawer shut and closed my eyes as I breathed in deep.

How many were in here? How many had he enjoyed while I thought of him? It made me want to be reckless, want to cause him pain, want to retaliate. Didn’t he know we’d belonged to each other over the years, even if we hadn’t? Had he hated me that much?

And did he think another woman would be as connected to him as me? That question hurt the most. He’d saved my life. He’d been in that car and told me he had me. It may have changed every part of our lives, but he’d also imprinted himself on my heart.

In the deep recesses of my mind, Dex was still mine. And if I had to be his, he’d need to know what that meant.

I ripped the drawer back open and yanked at the velvet lining until it tore from the drawer. I used it to wrap every single toy up—except for my Ben Wa ball—and then I went and threw them in the bathroom trash.

That night, I texted him.

Shit. I had googled it before I texted him.

The next morning, I woke up groggy and still frustrated.

I glared at the dresser more than once. “I hate you,” I even mumbled as I passed it a few times. Then, I told myself not to think about it. I was actually going to actively avoid it if I could.

I had a million things to do. At the top of my list, I knew I needed to call my father. I normally tried to touch base with him much more frequently. I dialed his number and when he asked how I was, I told him, “I’m just fine, Dad. Figuring it all out here with the Hardy brothers.”

“Ah. They’ll take care of you. The Hardys are good boys.” I heard my mother grumble the same in the background. She may not have known where she was, but her long-term memory of them was set.

When I hung up the phone, I didn’t hear a sound, and I knew that meant Dex wasn’t there.

I didn’t expect him to be. Yet, he’d given me hell about dinner. So, I returned the favor as I walked around the dresser to get to my clothes and throw on jeans and a T-shirt.

So he was sticking with bold text messages the next day, it seemed. The butterflies in my stomach proved that I wasn’t so bold, though, after the alcohol I’d had last night. My fingers hesitated over the screen before I wrote:

My eyes flew to the dresser, and my mind wandered around thoughts it shouldn’t be having. Did he think I was using it now? Did he actually think I couldn’t handle it?

Instead of worrying over it, I rushed out of my room and down the hall to the kitchen as I texted back.

At least not one I’d ever met. I’d only fooled around a handful of times, but I knew a man only was going to do that if I reciprocated.

My whole body shivered and then balked at his words. My fiancé knew how dirty to be through text. I shouldn’t have been partaking in it, but I knew if I ignored him or showed weakness, he’d think I couldn’t handle any of it.

That text was what began the muddling of my emotions. Without acting like he cared, he still somehow managed to show me he did. My breakfast was scrambled eggs and a cinnamon roll. It was what I loved so long ago for breakfast, and time hadn’t changed a thing when it came to my taste buds.

I didn’t know how to thank him for it, didn’t know if he even wanted a thank you. So, I didn’t text him back. I didn’t text him that night either, even though I heard him in his office at dinnertime. I couldn’t even bring myself to knock on the door.

We were strangers who’d once been lovers and were now wobbling on a tightrope of indecision as to whether or not we could be anything more.

The whole next week, though, breakfast seemed to be the one thing that unraveled me. I wanted to share a meal with him, and I knew he ate at home, so I woke up earlier and earlier. Truth be told, I wasn’t an early riser, but I wanted to catch him before he left.

The first day it was 9 a.m.

Then 8:30 a.m.

Then 8 a.m.

Then, I told myself I didn’t need to talk to him. I had rehearsals and other things to do.

I went the whole weekend and even Monday and Tuesday of the next week trying to ignore him.

The following Wednesday, though, I woke up at 7 a.m.

Was he avoiding me?

Every morning, my cinnamon bun and scrambled eggs were there waiting, but now he didn’t text me about them. I tried not to let it get to me. I focused on how I needed my performances to be great rather than on how I felt about what was happening between Dex and me.

That was nothing.

It couldn’t be.

I finally woke up at 5:45 a.m. the next day and called my dad. He gave me updates on my mom like always. Then he rushed me off the phone because she kept asking who he was talking to.

She sounded so cheery, so lucid, so normal. “Tell her I love her today, Dad.”

“Will do, Kee. Ah, your mother says do well in school today. She says you shouldn’t be using that cell.” He sighed at the storyline I knew all too well. Then he stopped for a second as my mother instructed him. “Your mom wants me to tell you that majoring in music for college is only possible if you focus on your grades.”

“Right,” I whispered out. “Love you. Miss you both.”

Mornings were hard when I talked to him, but they would have been lacking if I didn’t call. I swiped away a lone tear before I turned.

I jumped back and grasped at my heart. “Jesus, what are you doing here?”

There Dex was, completely dressed, leaning on the doorframe on my bedroom, totally eavesdropping on me. The smile that spread across his face was so slow and so genuine that I completely forgot about everything for a second but him and how carefree he could look. His eyes twinkled as they raked over my body. “Can’t I wish my fiancée a good morning?”

I crossed my arms. “We don’t do that.”

He hummed. “Maybe we should. Anyway, why aren’t you talking to your mom?”

Immediately, I took a step back. My guard flew up, and my mind shut down. When it came to her, I was like an animal protecting a life-threatening wound. My father had always instilled in me that what was family business stayed in the family. Plus, my mother was slowly losing everything, fading away, and I wouldn’t let anyone come near that pain. It was my job to protect them and I would at any cost.

So, I lashed out. “Why are you eavesdropping on me? You’re not going to give me privacy now?”

His interest obviously piqued as both of his eyebrows raised. “Why would I when you’re in my room?”

“This is my freaking room.” I stomped my foot and pointed to all the clothes I’d yet to hang and unpack. “I live here now. Get the hell over it and stop spying on me. Don’t you have work to do?”

“Sure.” There was a drawl in his voice as if he wasn’t at all in a hurry to do it. “I’ll get to it after you answer my question.”

I narrowed my eyes. Why did he care anyway? “Did Dimitri tell you?” My tone came out accusatory.

“Tell me what, heartbreaker?”

Scrambling to cover up my mother’s disease was necessary. Our last time traveling together ended with my mother lost in a hotel, and when the story leaked, media outlets hadn’t used discretion in showing the video of my father restraining her when she’d seen me, when I’d said I was her daughter but she didn’t recognize me. There’d been no sound, but the video showed a family in distress, and I wouldn’t give details.

Mitchell had begged me to use it for the media but it was one time my father had stood by me and agreed that our family’s health would not be used in the media.

Her pain wasn’t a tool and I wouldn’t ever use it for sympathy or to make people feel bad for me. I definitely wouldn’t use it to make Dex understand me.

“I don’t talk with my mother anymore,” I said, not offering anything else.

He ran his tongue over his teeth slowly as he nodded. “So, you’ll tell my brother things but not me?”

“I just told you.” I straightened up and tried to appear as put together as he was, except I was wearing an old sweatshirt and underwear. No socks. No bra. Nothing else.

He hummed and then he pushed off the doorframe before he pointed behind him. “I came to tell you breakfast is ready.”

“Breakfast? But… We don’t… Why did you make me breakfast when we don’t eat together? You’re always gone when I wake up.”

There was his smile again, so big even a dimple showed. “Keeping tabs on me, huh? I heard you talking, but for your information, I normally I leave at 5:45 every morning. In case you want to eat together,” he said before turning toward the hall and leaving me confused. “Move your ass, heartbreaker,” I heard two seconds later. “Your eggs are getting cold.”

I blinked twice at seeing him at the island counter with a plate in front of him and another nearby.

“Scrambled with a cinnamon roll still good enough for you, Ms. Keelani?” he murmured, not looking up from his laptop.

“Did you make this?” I stood there frozen.

“Yes,” he said without looking up as he sipped on some coffee. “Coffee’s in the pot if you want some, but I’m guessing you still don’t drink it because—”

“It makes me jittery,” I whispered out. “Wh-Why did you make breakfast?” I pulled at the sleeves of my sweater and tried to shrink into it. The sunlight from the living room windows was shining its bright rays on the fact that I’d just snapped at him. I was here at breakfast with my hair a mess, my teeth not brushed, and probably still had pillow-wrinkle lines on my face.

“I just…” I stumbled over my words. “You’re never here in the mornings.”

He slid a plate over and patted the stool next to him.

I didn’t move to sit down, and finally he looked up from his plate. His gaze drifted over me. “Like I said, I’m here until 5:45. Whose sweatshirt is that?”

I crossed my arms over the Harvard insignia and felt heat rise to my cheeks. “I never ended up going to college. Olive and Dimitri thought it would be fun to buy me Ivy League sweatshirts so I’d feel included.”

He hummed and his eyes traveled up and down my body again, but this time they stopped on my thighs that were bare. “You never would have felt included in college anyway.”

Dex said the statement so matter-of-factly I wasn’t sure whether I should take it as an insult or a compliment. “Well, still would have been nice.” I rocked back on my heels. “My mom always wanted me to go to college.”

He nodded. “I know. She was dead set on it. She holding on to that? Is that why you don’t talk?”

He was still prying, but I couldn’t make myself discuss it now. “Something like that.”

He tsked at my lack of opening up, but we weren’t friends. We didn’t just share intimate details of our life like we once had. “Come eat.” He pointed to the stool again, and when I didn’t move, he murmured, “What’s wrong, Kee?”

“Why did you make my favorite breakfast, Dex?” How could I not point out the obvious?

“It’s a meal.” He rolled his eyes. “We need to talk.”

“Ah.” My heart settled its rapid speed at his declaration. The good always came before the bad. I was used to that with my father, with my record label, with my life. “That makes sense, then. You’re going to tell me something horrible.”

“I’m going to tell you a few things.” He took a deep breath. “First, our press release is today.”

My whole body coiled up at the idea. “Olive keeps reminding me, but I keep brushing it off. I’ll go where we need to and—”

“You look like you want to vomit, Kee.”

“Well, what can I say? It’s going to be fun going to some extravagant restaurant and faking that I am so excited when you get down on one knee?”

“Where do you want to go if not some extravagant restaurant?” He turned to look at me, he in a perfectly pressed expensive suit and me in a ratty sweatshirt.

“Didn’t Mitchell—”

“It’s not his choice.”

“They’ll want a proposal of a lifetime and—”

“What do you want?” Dex cut me off again, placing his hands on the granite counter and staring at me. “You never actually told me.”

“I don’t need an audience. I never wanted one. There’s a reason I prefer to write songs, rather than just sing them. If I could just…” How could someone be blessed with a gift but not want it? Was I so selfish to not want to sing anymore? To not want the fame that came with it?

“Say what you’re thinking, heartbreaker,” Dex prompted with the nickname he used on and off with me.

I didn’t know why it struck such a cord with me sometimes. I wanted to hear it but hated to at the same time. “You use that nickname like a term of endearment when back in the lilac garden…”

“You broke my heart?” He smiled softly like he was willing to offer information this morning. “It is a term of endearment now, I guess. You’re the only woman who’s be able to do it. If anything, it’s a compliment now, not a slight. I’m giving you credit for that.”

“I’m not sure I want the credit, Dex.” I sighed but somehow it softened my heart to the idea of the name. Being the only woman who’d impacted his life in that way meant something. I gave him information back. “Anyway, I’m not sure I want a lot of things, if I’m being honest. I want to live without every single step I take being scrutinized. I used to literally run through the woods with you, Dex, and not care about anything except if the lilacs were in bloom. Don’t you want that again?”

“We’re adults now,” he murmured.

“I know. Sometimes adulting sucks though.”

He nodded again and again as he searched my eyes. “Okay.”

He shrugged, got up, and disappeared from the room. I frowned at his retreating figure and waited to see if he’d come back because I wasn’t sure what the hell was going on. He reappeared with my engagement ring box and held it out to me. “Put it on.”

I frowned at him but was willing to listen in order to see where he was going with this. I wiggled it down over my knuckle until it was snug on my ring finger and glinting in the sunlight. While I did, he unbuttoned his cufflinks, rolled them up, stepped behind me, tipped my chin up to have me meet his eyes. He rubbed his thumb back and forth over my skin there. Then he murmured, “You look pretty with my ring on your finger,” before he bent down to kiss me.

He started slow, his tongue swiping softly over my lips and then when I opened for him, his hand drifted down my neck to hold me there. He tasted of coffee and memories and dreams. He tasted so good I moaned into his mouth and his hand slid farther down over my thin sweatshirt to knead at my breast.

My nipples instantly reacted and he groaned, “So fucking tempting in the morning, Kee. You’re killing me.”

He sighed and pulled back to then drape his arm around my neck.

I was still looking up at him as I gripped his forearm, and murmured, “What are you doing?”

“Do you still trust me after all these years, heartbreaker?” He shook his head and brushed his lips across my ear, while his other hand grazed the soft skin of my thigh. “You must to let me be the first to touch you.”

“Why are you asking?” I shivered at his words and the way the back of his other thumb brushed against my neck.

“Because I need your trust. They’ll give us hell at some point, but we’re safe here within the HEAT empire. You go out there, you’ve got to trust me.” He massaged up my thigh, working my body while he worked on his idea. “We’re in it together this time. I only want this if I’m getting you too. So, we’re doing things the way you want. I’m not playing house with anyone but the real Kee, the one I loved and hated. You get me?” He nipped at my ear and then his hand grazed my sex where he must have felt how soaked my panties were.

I gasped at the liquid fire that ignited in my blood at his touch, and then he pulled his hand away to pick up his phone. I didn’t even realize he was angling it in front of us as I stared at him. He snapped a photo quickly and then his arm fell away from me.

He turned the phone my way so I could see us together. My dark eyes were full of emotion, my cheeks warm with my natural blush, and I wasn’t sure if anyone else could see it, but the love in my eyes was still there. The trust in him. The want for him.

But I told myself it was all just lust. The man had recently taken my virginity.

“Why’d you take that?”

“Our announcement.” His response was easy and not at all affected as he typed for a few seconds before turning the phone toward me again. “PR will take care of it.”

“W-Wait,” I stuttered out, confused as to what this was.

He was already backing away, and he didn’t give me any other information. “Forget about the dinner proposal. I’m busy this week with meetings anyway, and you’ve got to rehearse. I’ll tell them to push out something soon. In the meantime, if you don’t come home for a meal, text me.”

“That’s… I don’t report or belong to you, Dex.”

“But you do. For now. Meals with me or texts to tell me why you aren’t home.”

“Why? Who cares where I am?” If he was going to make me do this, he was going to give me more than a command.

He rubbed his large hand over the scruff of his jaw. “I don’t need the temptation of checking up on you. I like you home for meals so I don’t think about where you are instead.”

I shook my head. “Dex, let’s be realistic. You aren’t home sometimes—”

“Do you wonder where I am?”

“That’s not the point.”

“It is. What are we going to do? Avoid this?”

“I’m trying to survive it,” I murmured. Of course he had nothing to say in response. So, I stabbed at the eggs and shoved a few pieces into my mouth in anger. “Are you going to inform me of your eating schedule too?”

“Penelope will communicate my schedule.”

“Your meal schedule?” I squeaked out. “Does she just follow you around like a puppy?”

He smirked at me knowingly. Damn, I needed to get the green-eyed little monster in check. “Want to follow me around too?”

I scoffed and went back to eating the eggs. “Do whatever you want, Dex. I’m not going to wait for you to eat when I’m hungry. I’ll be doing lunch at rehearsals and dinner here. Show up if you want. Or don’t. Whatever.”

“Are you always so grumpy in the morning? You didn’t used to be—”

“We didn’t wake up and live together in high school. We were kids.” Maybe we both needed a reminder of that, but his face hardened at my words.

Those green eyes of his weren’t vibrant anymore as he grabbed his laptop off the countertop and murmured, “See you tomorrow at breakfast then.”

It was his way of saying he wouldn’t be home for dinner, and my heart dropped at the words. Somehow, even if I was trying to be nonchalant with him, I couldn’t.