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  I even stood out there with a watering hose to keep the grass fresh. I could tell he hadn’t been doing that either. It made me sad to see how much he let the place go, but I did feel a little satisfied knowing my absence hadn’t been as easy on him as I sometimes thought.

  “Did you just want me to text you when I’m ready to leave?” I asked.

  “I guess that answers my question.”

  He looked aggravated.

  “What were you gonna ask?”

  “I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do for however long you decide to hang out. This was why I didn’t want to bring you in the first place. I don’t know what there is around here. I don’t even know if I will be able to find my way back.” His tone was clipped and I knew he was pissed.

  It was the first time I had ever seen him that agitated before. Granted, I had only known him for less than a week, but still. I guess I hadn’t thought about what it would be like for him. Or what he would do while I was busy.

  “There’s a mall about five miles off the main road. And I’m sure Billy has some green in the house if you wanted some of that.”

  “I don’t want your boyfriend’s weed, Kendall.”

  “Okay. If you just tell me something you want to do, then I can tell you where to go.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll just go to the mall. Text me when you’re done.”

  I didn’t want to leave him so mad, but I knew Billy was on the other side of that front door and I wanted him more. It was selfish of me, I know, but I didn’t care. I hadn’t seen Billy in over a month, and the last time I saw him, it was strained and awkward. I needed something else to remember him by if that was the last time I’d see him until my legal birthday.

  With Link mad, I could only imagine he didn’t have any plans on agreeing to bring me back.

  I nodded at him and opened the door. The hot sun hit my face and made me squint my eyes against the blinding light. I walked up the driveway, past Billy’s motorcycle and another car. I didn’t see the station wagon, so I assumed he finally traded up. It wasn’t like he drove the car often anyway. He was typically on his bike.

  As I reached the front door, I was suddenly confused as to whether I should knock or get the hidden key and let myself in. I no longer had my old key since it was taken from me at the station the night I was picked up.

  I went there as a surprise to him, and I knew if I knocked it might lessen that surprise. I figured he’d still be in bed, and decided to let myself in so I could curl up with him. Thinking that would probably surprise him more.

  I bent down and pulled the key out from under the rock where he always hid it. It was the stupidest place in the world to hide a key, everyone knew to look under rocks, but he refused to listen to me. Now I’m glad he didn’t.

  The key turned slowly in the lock until I heard the latch click. I carefully opened the door, not wanting to cause too much noise in case it’d wake him up. It wasn’t until I was fully inside the door before I realized he was already awake, and he wasn’t alone.

  Standing in front of me was the hottest girl I had probably ever laid eyes on. She was shorter than me, not by much, but was probably half my size everywhere else. Where I had hips and thighs and a healthy ass, she had bones, yet it looked good on her. She had long, straight dark hair with the ends almost blond. Her lips were full and pouty. Compared to hers, mine looked thin and small. She had the brightest brown eyes I think I had ever seen. And she was half naked, only wearing a floor length cotton skirt and bra.

  Her eyes locked with mine and she froze in place. Did she know about me? Did she know who I was and that’s why she stopped moving? I would have thought so if she didn’t smirk and say, “I don’t think he’s gonna have any energy left for you today, sweetheart.” Even her voice was perfect.

  “What was that?” Billy came out of the bathroom wearing his basketball shorts slung low on his hips. His bare chest still had moisture on it from what looked to be his shower—at least that’s what I hoped it was from.

  Miss Perfect turned and looked at him. He looked from her to me then back to her again, silently waiting for something to happen. I could see the anger on his face, and I’m sure she could, too. She gripped her shirt in one hand and waved at him with the other, rasping, “Call me later, baby.” And with that, she was out the door, leaving the room empty, taking all the oxygen with her.

  “What are you doing here, Kendall?” he growled from where he stood.

  “I came to surprise you. From the looks of it, I succeeded.”

  “You shouldn’t be here. You need to leave.”

  “Why? So you can call up another one of your whores?” I couldn’t help it; I was pissed.

  He rushed me, getting in my face. “What the fuck, Kendall!”

  “You tell me what the fuck, Billy!” I snapped back. I knew from previous experience nothing would ever get settled when we were both this mad, but I didn’t care about anything getting settled. I wanted to scratch his eyes out and beat him until I saw blood. He could push all my buttons, and he knew it.

  “Don’t come here and then get pissy when you see something you don’t like.”

  I was expecting him to keep yelling, but he didn’t. He was still angry, but his tone sounded calm. I knew it was the eye of the storm, and things were only going to get worse. I knew to fear what could happen next, but at that moment, all logic fled from my brain.

  I splayed my hands across his bare chest and pushed him back. The feel of his skin burned my palms. I had been dreaming of his body for a month now, but that wasn’t how I imagined it would be. I hadn’t once thought I’d be touching him moments after someone else, or that the dew I’d feel on my fingertips would be from the passion he’d experienced with another girl.

  “Gee, I’m sorry I wasn’t expecting my boyfriend to be fucking some slut while I was gone. And I certainly wasn’t expecting to catch him doing it.” The tears began to fall. I felt one slide down my cheek, then the rest followed. I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t even try.

  “I’m not your boyfriend.” His words felt like thousands of tiny daggers cutting through my chest and invading my heart. My heart ceased to beat, clenching in my chest, refusing to pump blood and oxygen to the rest of my body. My head began to swim and everything started to turn dark and cold, spinning around me.

  There was a table next to me; I couldn’t see it, but I knew it was there. My hands grabbed something from it without my permission and began to throw it at him. A set of car keys, a stone coaster, a remote, then another one. It wasn’t until the lamp was held tightly in my fist did he finally come to me, taking it from my grasp. He threw it on the couch and then tightened his hold on me.

  He held my upper arms so tightly I began to lose sensation in my hands and fingers.

  “Stop this, Kendall.” I hated when he called me by my name. I knew he was serious if he wasn’t calling me by some pet name he had come up with for me. “You walked out on me. You left me. Don’t you fucking dare come in here and blame me for doing what I have to do.”

  I spit in his face. It was the only thing I could think to do with my hands being constricted. It only angered him even more, but at least he let go of his hold on me. I wasn’t going to let him have the next word. I had too much to say to that.

  “I didn’t walk out on you!” I screamed only inches from his face. “I am so sick and fucking tired of being treated like I left everyone on purpose! I get it from them, that a little three-year-old me just walked away from them. Now I’m getting it from you, too. Do you not recall me being dragged away from you at the police station? Because I do. I remember it very vividly.”

  “It doesn’t change the fact that you left.” Once again, his voice was calm.

  “Did you mean what you said about us not being together?” I, too, began to settle down.

  “I can’t be with you, Kendall. Understand what it’s like for me. I don’t know when I’ll ever get to see you or even talk to you again
. You can’t expect me to just turn celibate and wait for you to come back, not knowing if you ever will.” I heard the desperation in his voice and it broke my heart.

  I walked to him and placed my hands on his face, feeling the short hairs of his beard beneath my fingers. I looked into his brown eyes and waited for him to release the breath he was holding on to. He wasn’t tall, only about four inches taller than me, so I could see him clearly from this angle. He still hadn’t wrapped his arms around me like he usually did when we were in this position, but I didn’t care. He wasn’t talking, only looking at me. I knew he could see me.

  “I will be coming back. They say I turn eighteen on December sixth… I will be here at midnight on that day. I promise, Billy. I would never leave you.”

  I thought he was about to give in. I felt him relax as he leaned into me more, but then he spoke and I knew I would just have to try harder. “I can’t go six months with only beating myself off in the shower. You can’t expect me to not find a warm place to help me out when I’m missing you this much.”

  I hated it. I hated it because I knew he was right. I didn’t want him being inside another woman, but I also knew he couldn’t go that long without it. And from where I was, I couldn’t help him out. I didn’t want to give in. I didn’t want to tell him it was okay to find another pussy to occupy him until I came home.

  “That’s fair. But just so you know, it goes both ways. I get lonely, too.”

  That got his attention. He pushed into me until my back hit the wall behind me. I felt his hands grab me from behind my knee until my leg was wrapped around his waist. My skirt was pulled up and his fingers found their way to my sweet spot. He moved the elastic of my underwear aside just before I felt one finger enter me. My breath caught in my throat at the feel of him inside me.

  “This pussy is mine. You hear me? No one better touch this except for me.” He sounded so demanding, I almost couldn’t argue. But this was me, and arguing was what I did.

  I grabbed him through the thin material of his shorts. I could already feel how hard he was. It felt good to know I still did that to him. “With that logic, this cock is mine. Your come is mine. No one else’s. I was never good at sharing my toys with others.”

  He picked me up and carried me to his room. I fell back on his unmade bed, and I almost said something about the whore that had occupied it only minutes before, but he stopped me by flipping me over to my stomach. He knew I loved it this way. I gave in to him.

  I felt him move one leg between mine. I tried to hold myself up by my arms, but gave up once I felt his weight on me. In an instant, he was inside me, and I had never felt more fulfilled in my life. Over a month of yearning for him, craving his touch, needing him in me like I was an addict going through withdrawals.

  I let out a moan as he gently moved in me, slowly pulling out before pushing back in, hitting me in all the right places. His full lips found the back of my neck. I could feel his hot breath on me.

  “You feel so good, baby,” he rasped in that deep and rough voice that made me feel it through my entire body. It felt like I was standing too close to a speaker and the bass was reverberating through me.

  I wanted more. I needed more. I pushed into him, matching his thrusts. His hand tightened on my hip as he grunted. I felt his hands move up, under my shirt, until it was pulled beneath my arms. I tried to pull it off but was too wrapped up in what he was doing to me to find the strength to do so. He finally stopped and grabbed the material of my shirt and yanked it over my head. His fingers found the clasp of my bra, and within a second, it, too, was off.

  All I could feel was his skin on mine as he continued with his thrusting. I felt his teeth as they lightly skimmed over my shoulder, digging deeper as he picked up the pace. His hand wound tightly around my hair at the base of my neck and he began to pull. Tingles flooded my entire body, alerting me of the impending orgasm that would soon rip through me.

  Billy sensed it, too. He shifted his body until he had one arm around my neck and the other still holding firm to my hip, moving me with him as he began to go deeper. He knew my body better than anyone. Knew how to touch me, kiss me, move in me until I was writhing beneath him.

  Once he knew I was on the edge, he tightened his arm around my neck, pulling my face until I was looking at him. It was hard to breathe that way, but I didn’t care about breathing at that point. He slammed his mouth to mine, covering my lips with his. I felt his tongue—the warm, wet feel of his tongue on my lips—until I opened for him. He began moving in me harder, faster, deeper until a deep groan moved from my throat to my lips and into his mouth.

  He released me as I cried out in ecstasy, feeling the warmth and pinpricks invade me. I could feel my walls clench around him, and I knew he could feel it, too. He kissed me between my shoulder blades as I began to come down from the high he just made me feel.

  My body was limp by that point, but he pulled out of me, flipped me over, and found his rightful place between my legs once again. He was immediately back inside me; this time, face-to-face.

  “I need to see you come, baby. Let me see it one more time. I need to remember this forever. I want to burn the look of you coming into my brain so I can’t see anything else when I close my eyes.” He pressed his thumb to my throbbing and aching clit. It didn’t take long before I felt my orgasm rising to the surface again. “That’s right, baby. Just like that. Let me see you.”

  It was too much to handle. I closed my eyes and let go as it ripped through me.

  He pumped harder, more rigid like, until he, too, gave in. “Ah… Fuck,” he grunted.

  His face went right to my neck, panting breathlessly as he always did. My lips found the spot on the left side of his neck. He had gotten a tattoo about six months before I was taken away. It was a Celtic letter K with fire running thought it. I kissed it, remembering why he had gotten it in the first place, saying it was for me. That I was the fire that burned through his veins.

  “I love you,” I whispered to his skin.

  “I love you, too.”

  We lay entwined together for a few minutes, trying to control our breathing enough to allow us to move.

  “You can’t keep doing this, baby. Come back in December if you still want to. But you can’t keep coming here before then.” He looked at me and must have seen the painful questioning in my eyes. “I can’t keep saying goodbye to you. I can’t continue to watch you walk out that door. And you need to worry about you. You need to find out about your past and where you came from. You need to know these things before you can know where your future is.”

  “I know where my future is, Billy. It’s here with you. It’s always been here with you.”

  He sighed deeply and lifted himself off me.

  “You were here because you had to be. When I came and got you from John’s, it was because you had nowhere else to go. You didn’t have a choice. You were fifteen and alone. Now you have choices. You have an entire family there for you. They’ve missed you. They’ve been looking for you for practically your entire life. Just humor me and learn all about that life you can, so when you do come back to me, I know it’s because you want to and not because you feel you have to.” I hated the tone he had taken on. It didn’t sound like him at all. I rarely ever heard him sound desperate, and at that moment, that’s exactly what he sounded like. Sad and desperate.

  “Billy, you know I want to be here with you. You can’t possibly think otherwise.”

  “Have you found out anything about your parents?” he asked, almost pleading.

  “No, not really.”

  He threw my shirt and bra on the bed at me. “Get dressed. I have to show you something.” And with that, he was out of the room, leaving me alone and worried by his words. Thoughts swarmed my brain, wondering what he would have to show me.

  It didn’t take long to put the clothes back on and meet him back in the living room. He was sitting on the couch with his head in his hands. He looked so distraught and it made
me rush to him.

  “Whatever it is, I don’t want to see it.”

  “You need to.” He looked at me with distressed eyes. “You need to know about your family. And if no one is telling you anything, you need to start asking questions.”

  He handed me an envelope he picked up off the coffee table.

  “What’s this?” I asked, holding on to it and feeling the paper burning my skin.

  “I found it in my dad’s things last week. You need to read it.”

  I began to open the unsealed letter, but he stopped me. Placing his hand over mine, he stared into my eyes. His big brown orbs worried me as I tried to read what they were saying to me. I didn’t understand anything that was going on.

  “Not now,” he begged. “Wait until you get home. Read it and then find out what it means.” I could only nod at his request. I was curious by nature, but when it came to Billy, I seemed to do whatever he asked.

  I knew my time with him had ended, so I grabbed my phone from the table next to the door where I had left it and texted Lincoln. I had spent the next ten minutes before he came to get me in Billy’s arms, soaking up what little time I had left with him.

  “I love you so much. Please know that, baby,” he murmured to my lips as I said goodbye. I couldn’t say anything back to him. I just nodded and left.

  Link was quiet when I got back in his car, but I wasn’t in the mood for conversation anyway. The silence lingered for another fifteen minutes before he finally spoke, breaking through the quietness with his steely voice.

  “You weren’t there for very long.”

  “Nope. We said what we needed to and then I left,” I replied, looking out the window.

  “You mean you got what you wanted and then left.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I whipped my head back in his direction.

  “You smell like sex, you have just-been-fucked hair, and your skirt is twisted.”

  I laughed at him, even though he wasn’t smiling. It almost looked like he was pissed.