Kid

I wake to her hand running along my cheek.

She’s sitting sideways in the now stopped van, smiling at the sight of me while Jim Morrison sings about all the ways I love her madly on the radio. I hadn’t even realized I’d fallen asleep, but these damn seats are like recliners. They’re comfortable as fuck, and the lack of sleep from the stress and workload of today seems to have taken me under.

After she opened up to me, we spent another full day doing what seems to help ease her pain. We scraped dozens of animals from the asphalt, sweating our asses off, and actually enjoying ourselves as we did it. We talked so much today. Memories of our past, my relationship with Hawke, her relationship with Cole growing up. We laughed, we got serious, but our conversation never faltered. It was like the dam had broken and she was fully open to me now.

After burying another batch of mangled animals, we showered at the cabin, picked up some food, and began our drive back home. In all, this weekend together was entirely productive, bringing us closer together than I ever thought was possible.

“Fuck, I hate those people,” I say, sitting up immediately.

Her brow cocks in question at my random statement.

“Those people that fall asleep when you’re driving and leave you all alone with your thoughts. Assholes. I’m that asshole.”

“You’re not,” she reassures, her lips curling up into a sweet little grin. “Besides, I wasn’t alone. Not this time, anyway.”

The sparkle in her eyes fills my heart. The way she’s looking at me does something strange to my insides. I want to kiss her, love on her, fuck her senseless until she screams from the top of every mountain that she needs me like I need her. It’s overwhelming, these emotions. I love this woman and she’s right to feel that she wasn’t alone. She’ll never be alone again as long as I’m living.

“Are we back?” I ask, sitting up, rubbing my eyes as I try to look through the windshield. Everything outside is already dark.

“Almost,” she smiles softly, fluttering her lashes in the dim lights from the dashboard. “Figured we could make one more stop, if that’s okay?”

We stare at each other silently for a moment, and I catch her drift immediately. Did she really just pull over to bone me?

As soon as my grin hits, she’s out of the van, circling around to the front. I round the vehicle and walk towards where she’s stretching up into the night sky.

The stars twinkle around her beautifully proportioned silhouette, making her look like some sort of night goddess owning the darkness around her. She makes time and space bend, like the gravity of who she is, pulls everything else into her orbit.

I stand at a distance just taking her in, feeling like I’m viewing a scene from her past, present, and future all in one breath. It’s hard to explain.

She finally turns to find me with her gorgeously natural smile, standing here, admiring her in her sports bra and large baggy sweats like a weirdo, before she waves a hand, instructing me to reach her. I come up behind her as she peers off in the distance, wrapping my hands around her hips, slowly sliding them around her exposed abdomen until my arms are crossing, gripping her tightly to my front.

I gently press my lips to her shoulder before kissing the corner of her neck softly, dragging them up her neck and breathing in her honey scent. Her hands slide over my arms until her fingers find mine and interlock, solidifying my hold on her.

“The dark side of the moon,” she whispers.

The phrase hits me and takes me back. I remember one of the first times we were hanging out together. We were down at the cove after I followed her from the house party. She’d asked me if I’d ever been to the dark side of the moon before we tripped on acid. I didn’t understand it then, just as I’m trying to decipher it now.

The dark side of the moon is a metaphorical place no sunlight reaches. It could resemble the underlying truth in the darkness, the dark side of ourselves we keep hidden from everyone else. The side everyone has, but we keep in check, in order not to let it own us, driving us to madness.

My eyes finally look up, peering beyond her, and I see it. The ocean stretched out before us for miles and endless miles until the darkness blends into the night sky. Down below us, the waves rage in the moonlight, wilder than the stop we were at this morning. The waves crash upon the rock beneath us, beating their anger out relentlessly, while we sit high above them, searching into the sky above.

Her head turns back to face me as I absorb the beauty of the night, illuminated by none other than the universe herself.

“It’s you,” I whisper, tearing my eyes away from the scene to meet hers. “It reminds me of you. Raging with violent beauty, demanding to be seen amidst the chaos of the world beneath it.”

She swallows, her lips parting as she sucks in a breath. Her eyes well with tears at the deep understanding. A whole universe stands beneath me. The mysteries and complexities in her gaze, a wonder that I’d spend my entire life attempting to explore.

“You were so unexpected,” she says simply, her fingers lacing through the hair at the back of my head. “And yet, so necessary.”

Grabbing the back of my neck, she pulls me down to meet her lips. We crash together like the chaos that we are, needing, wanting, knowing that this thing between us is more than we can both handle, but requiring it nonetheless.

I make my way to the hood of the van, picking up her little body and placing her on top of it. Her thighs reach around my ribs because of the height and she wraps them tightly around me, pulling me into her, my chest to her center.

Her hand splays across the back of my neck, fingers weaving into my hair the way I love, and she pulls tightly, causing my head to dip back and face her, the blood flooding my groin as my dick swells. I swallow, and her eyes follow the roll of my throat.

“I love you, Kai.” She says it first, surprising me. “And I’m so fucking grateful for you.”

Fuck. She makes me forget about everything. About my shitty past, the world around me, drugs entirely. This feeling I get with her surpasses anything and everything I could ever experiment with. She’ll always be my substance of choice.

“You broke for me, by allowing me to break for you,” she says softly, eyes filled with emotion as she runs her other finger from my lips, down my chin, and down my throat, trailing my neck tattoos. “I never thought I’d be so lucky. To know someone who gets me like you do. Someone who accepts me; shows me it’s okay to love. Someone who can love me in my dark.”

I bring my hands up from her thighs, skimming over her soft, smooth skin, holding the side of her neck. I look up at her, entirely at her mercy.

“I’m the lucky one, Jo.”

I lick my bottom lip while eyeing hers before diving in to kiss my girl.

Making sweet, torturous love, we bite, nip, scratch, claw, grasp at each other until we meet our sweet release. She comes on top of me in the back of the opened van, her body etched and carved out by the light of the moon as our unrelenting moans tear through the dark night. My hands, never seeming to feel enough of her; her lips, never seeming to touch enough of me.

It’s one of those moments that permanently adds chapters to your life. It’s a moment, stamped into your mind, your timeline, your memory. A moment that succeeds others, feeling heavier than most.

We hold each other, gazing out into the stars, wrapped together in a warm, plush, sherpa blanket as we lie naked with nothing between us.

“We need to be more careful,” she finally whispers against my chest, her fingers trailing down my abdomen as we listen to the sounds of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” by The Beatles, that somehow harmonizes with the waves beneath us.

“Yeah, people could make a hell of a lot of money if they recorded us out here. Our sex is fire.”

She smacks her hand against my bare stomach, making me groan.

“Not what I’m talking about.”

I chuckle, grabbing her jaw and turning her face up towards mine.

“I think we’re careful. I mean, I pulled out the one time,” I say, shrugging slightly.

“Only because you love the look of my neck painted with you.” She rolls her eyes at me with a little smirk on her face, mimicking my earlier statement in the heat of the moment.

I rest my head back against the pillow and sigh with a satisfied grin at the beautiful memory. “So true.”

She smacks me again, and I grab her wrist this time. Her eyes widen as I squeeze it, gaining that attention from her I require.

“You’re on the pill, and I’m definitely not sleeping with anyone else.”

She looks down at her wrist, biting her bottom lip, and I can literally feel her plagued mind.

“The Tarah situation is not what you thought it was. I shouldn’t have tried to lie. It made it seem worse than what the truth is, and the truth is I was literally using her for something stupid, just like you use Bran. I promise you that.”

Han’s eyes silently find mine again, and an anxiousness takes over her expression. I haven’t divulged the situation to her, but she also hasn’t divulged hers to me.

“I hate being tied down to that fucker,” she says, her eyes almost silently pleading for help.

“What do you mean?” I ask, feeling insanely protective of her. “How are you tied down to him?”

“You remember that day you were outside my apartment and Slate was there?” she asks, moving her hand so it aligns with mine, pressed against it, before her fingers slowly drag down the palm.

“Yes,” I answer cautiously, already feeling a strange form of jealousy while enjoying the sensation of her nails gently tracing the lines of my palm.

“Well, I was inquiring about a job at his tattoo shop.” Her eyelashes flutter up at me. “He had someone quit and needed a new office manager. Thought I would be a good fit for their team. Besides, he knows my situation.”

“What situation?”

I hate knowing anyone knows more about her than I do. It’s my right to know. I’m the one who owns her heart. Mine.

“I’m trying to disconnect myself from Bran and his family.”

“And how are you connected?” I ask immediately.

I probably sound like a psycho with all of my incessant questions, but I feel the need to know everything. I should know everything. I’m her man.

“I work on one of their charter boats, Kai.” She locks her fingers through mine as I remain silent. “Taking tourists out to dive. It’s what I do.”

Jesus, of course. That’s the family business. Of course, they would be connected in such a way. The thought disgusts me, even if it means her working at Slate’s tattoo shop. I don’t necessarily like that rock personified any more than Bran, but shit, at least he seems innocent. So far.

“Yeah, you should definitely work at the tattoo shop,” I respond immediately. “I don’t want you associated with that fucking tool at all anymore.”

“I know. I’m trying to find a way out.”

She chews on the inside of her cheek while watching me deal with my jealousy. My nostrils flare, and I seal my eyes shut and scratch the top of my head to rid myself of the anger at the thought of them together. That prick was inside of her at one point. His dick was in her. My girl. The idea, twists my stomach in disgusting knots.

“Kai, stop thinking about his dick inside of me.”

“What?! I wasn’t—”

“I can feel your hands tighten around me. I can hear your back teeth grinding together. I know how possessive you get.” She smiles, wrapping herself around me tighter, and I love that my jealousy doesn’t seem to bother her at all.

She just accepts it. Probably even likes it a little.

“It’s okay, it’s only you for me,” she says in a light hum, falling asleep.

My chest rises and falls as I exhale some frustration.

“I just need to find that last piece,” she mumbles to herself before yawning. “Then I can be done with him forever.”

I turn my head to face her, about to ask what in the hell she’s talking about, but her eyes have closed. Her palm rests against me as she lays peacefully next to me. I trace the curve of her cheekbone down to her jaw, drawing a line to her lips. Those lips that I continuously lose myself in. I pull the blanket up higher on her shoulder, tucking her in against me as her breaths slow and she slips into a deep sleep in the comfort of my arms.

And that last piece she’s referring to? She can guarantee that whatever it is, I’ll be fucking finding it for her.