Coming Home (Only Time Will Tell #1) (23 page)

Holy crap.

When I got on that airplane a few days ago, I never expected to end up here, with him, like this.

I woke up a few moments ago and since then, I haven’t taken my eyes off Kyle, who’s still passed out. I’m smiling, just gazing at him, looking like the old him, just a little bit older.

His hair is in a shambles, but I love it like that. He’s lying on his front, facing me with his arms tucked under his pillow. His mouth’s open slightly, and there’s a slight hint of stubble forming on his jaw… it takes a lot for me to not brush my fingertips over it.

Last night’s wine consumption is soon on my case, rapidly needing to use the bathroom. Carefully, I get up out of bed, not wanting to disturb him. I grab the first thing I come too – his button less shirt – and slip into the bathroom, deciding to freshen up while I’m at it.

I slip my arms into his shirt, after washing and brushing my teeth, stupidly smelling it as I wrap it round me. It’s crazy how I smile, just from the smell of him and looking at him – sometimes.

As I go and flush the toilet, I hear him shouting my name from the bedroom. After flushing it, I quickly dart out the room, skidding to a halt at the foot of the bed. I find him sitting bolt upright in bed, wide eyed and panicked looking. “What’s wrong?” I ask, looking round the room for a Hellhound that I assume has crawled in through the window by the sounds of his shout and reaction.

He collapses back into bed with a sigh before lifting his head to look at me briefly, only to lie back down, shaking his head. “I thought you’d gone.” He murmurs. “When I woke up, it felt like you’d done another runner.”

Crawling up the bed, I can’t help snickering at him. “No such luck, Mister. I’m still here.”

He grabs hold of me, dragging me back into bed with him, I can’t say I’m completely against the idea, I don’t need much dragging on this occasion. “Good.” He says, planting a kiss on my forehead as I snuggle up, burrowing my head between the pillow and his neck. “I thought I was going to have a heart attack, though, can you leave a note next time?”

Looking up at him confused, I ask the obvious question. “You want me to leave a note every time I use the bathroom? Really?”

“If you don’t mind.” He replies, giving me a megawatt smile.

I roll over, cuddling up to his arm that’s trapped beneath me. “I’ll think about it.”

He instantly wraps his other arm around me, pulling me as close as possible to him. Nuzzling into my neck, sprinkling kisses he whispers to me, making me shiver. “I could wake up like this every morning and never get bored.”

“Even if I kill you off?” I joke, squirming against him.

His hand finds the opening of his shirt, ducking underneath the ruined article, he strokes from my stomach to my hip, only to slightly dig his fingers into my skin. “Do that again C.J., and you’ll have bigger problems than a heart attack on your hands.”

His touch has me involuntarily wriggling against him, so his threat means nothing, but I’m aware of what his big problem is, it’s rubbing against my backside.

“Oh really,” purposely grinding up against him, a shit eating grin on my face, “do you want me to get my hands on that problem?”

I can feel him smile against my skin as his hand wanders down my leg, lifting it over his.  “Nah, I can think of better things to do.”

I feel him rubbing against me, seeking out entry, which doesn’t take long.

I expect him to be as ruthless as last night. I’m prepared to be rammed and taken to different heights, but he doesn’t. Instead, he moves slowly, but deeply inside me.

Kyle gruffly sighs against my ear before biting on my earlobe, part of me wishes I never told him about that spot because it’s a guaranteed knee weakener. I would never have imagined that this soft and gentle approach could have been so effective, but it is. I’m not saying it’s better, but it is, on a whole different level.

I start to move with him, rocking my hips as he begins to pick up his pace, just a little bit, and his hand finally releases my thigh, moving round to the front and slowly rubbing the sensitive spot.

Groaning at the feel of – everything, I tip my head back against his shoulder. “Oh. My. God. This feels so good, I don’t want you to stop.” I tell him breathlessly.

He lightly growls as I feel him shift behind me. “I know. I don’t want to either, you look, amazingly beautiful right now.” Kissing down my cheek to my mouth.

I tip my head to meet his lips, kissing him with all the stupid love I have inside of me.

He pulls away, looking down at me, a line forming between his brows, like he’s torn. “I was so scared when I was told you were leaving. Even though he told me you were coming back, I just pictured you getting here and deciding not to. That’s why I came, I wanted to make sure you were coming home.”

Through the whole speech, he never stopped moving his hips or fingers. They’ve been doing a damn good job at building up my orgasm, but his words seem to have fueled it like an F1 racing car. His words are replaying repeatedly in my head, his feelings laid out on the plate for a change. “Jesus, Kyle. Can you stop talking for a moment?”

He mutters something under his breath, but doesn’t say anything intelligible for the time being. I rock harder against him, and he matches it, thrusting, pounding into me, until I finally explode. My mouth drops open, but no sound actually comes out as my eyes squeeze shut, just enjoying the feeling. My body is twitching from it and I can feel myself clenching around him as he groans into the back of my head, his forehead resting against my crown as he explodes too.

Me making no noise at all is nothing to do with what I experienced, like I said before, this time around was on a completely different level… this level left me speechless.

We stay quiet and still for what feels like hours, even if it’s only a couple of minutes. I remove my leg from over his, shifting away from him so I can lay on my back, trying to regain my head… which has just splattered all over the headboard.

Looking at him, I find him staring at me with a tiny smile. “What’s got you smiling, need I ask?”

“No need to,” He says, swiping a strand of hair out of my face. “I meant what I said before, though, I was fucking petrified that you’d leave me again.”

Rolling to my side to face him, I tell him. “You have no worries about that, I just needed space.”

“You couldn’t just leave the state, you had to put a whole ocean between us?”

He looks so adorable with his little protruding lip. “I’m sorry, but yes. But, I’m okay now, as much as I can be.”

“Good.” He says planting a sloppy kiss on the tip of my nose. “Are you sure that I haven’t got to fight for your attention? I will if I have to, but it’d be easier if I didn’t have to.”

“I’m positive.” I smile. “Besides, it’s you that is known for loving and leaving women, how can I be sure that I’m not just one of them?”

He groans and rolls back onto the bed, raking his hand through his hair and my eyes involuntarily bug at the sight of his bulging bicep. “Why are you still thinking about that? Why are you adamant about thinking I’m a man whore?”

“Because you are. I’ve been told countless times how you treat women and you expect me to just be okay with it? I’ve seen pictures of you with different women, women who look nothing like me and you expect me to believe you still have half the feelings from before, for me, when I’m clearly not your type these days. Listen, I wasn’t pushing you away because I didn’t want you, but my life has changed. I wanted you to be a part of it, but I was scared. I didn’t want to ruin the old us, the kids we were, because believe it or not, I loved those days.”

He props himself back up on his elbow, resting his head against his fist.  “C.J., I’m sorry you think that. I don’t want you thinking that, either.” Rubbing his thumb down my cheek, making me smile. “Some of what you said was true, I didn’t care about them, their feelings never once crossed my mind and I’m sorry that that made you think badly of me, but, there is only one person I care about, and she’s here, right now. None of them even compared to you. And none of them ever really knew me, not like you. If I turned up at their apartment, sweaty and disgusting, they’d have kicked me out. They’re shallow and only want the pristine Kyle, who has loads of money to spoil them with. They wanted to tell people that they were dating Kyle Cooper.

“With you, I can be myself, I can turn up in clothes that I’d painted the apartment in and you’d be happy, I’d be happy. You know K.C.. You make me laugh and you piss me off unbelievably, which I’m okay with, it shows we both care. As for the type thing, I only have one, and it’s not redheads or blonds, it’s brunettes with big brown eyes and legs that hit the clouds in too short dresses. No other brunette would compare to you, so why try. At least with blonds and redheads I can’t get confused. I can keep you in my head and never once think that they’re you.”

It may sound stupid, but he has me in tears. He wipes my cheeks as I sniffle back the ones trying to escape. “I think I’ve got it.”

“Good. I would never, on this planet, toss you on a pile with those women. I have you back in my life and I never want to lose you again – ever. The past threw some shit at us and yet, I’m hoping, we can start over.”

“You think it’ll be that easy?” I sniffle.

“No. Which is good, life isn’t supposed to be easy, we just have to deal with the hand God gave us and try and come out smiling.”

I nod at him, scared I might start crying again.

He leans down, kisses me and wraps his arms around me, hugging me tightly to his chest. Our legs become entwined with his chin resting on my head.

That’s easy for him to say, but when that day comes, I’m not sure smiling will be easy. I’m going to be trusting him with my soul when I do and I hope that he can find it in him not to hate me. These last couple of days have heightened my need to tell him about Kody, but it’s also scared me to death. I want this, but I can’t help thinking that when all is said and done, he’s just going to turn his back on me again, for good this time.

Why does work always come and bite you on the ass.

It comes around far too quickly and lingers in your life like an horrendous smell.

I got here too early, the others still haven’t arrived and I’m bored stupid…no scratch that, I am stupid. Who willingly arrives before time? Seems it’s only me today.

I kind of wish that I was still in England, with Kyle. It was so simple on Sunday waking up with him and not really caring about anything.

I made him sit through some good old British television, watching reruns of my Mom’s favorite program, “Only Fools and Horses,” which made me laugh stupidly, even though I’ve seen them a million times. I did realize how annoying I must have been when watching it though, back then. I understood little slang over there and watching that was worse with the Cockney rhyming slang and I often interrupted asking what things meant—and that was just through the opening credits. Now it was my turn to do the explaining. Just like I had, Kyle asked, “How do you fit a pony in your pocket?” and like an expert I replied, “It’s a twenty pound note.” Which is a hell of a lot easier to do.

At three, we decided to drag our sorry asses out of bed, okay, he did. I relaxed and watched him, wrapped in his shirt still as he gathered everything and packed a little while longer, watching him collect clothing from around the room, and the odd button.

While he got ready to leave though, I decided to head to my room, doing the delayed walk of shame, but only to get quickly changed so that I could make one last visit to the grave.

Only this time, my heart didn’t hang do heavy. Of course it hurt over the fact that I was visiting Kody, but it felt lighter knowing that at some point soon, I’d be telling his Dad about him. The prospect still scared the living hell out of me, but I felt like we were both on the same page. We were one step closer to being
us
and that meant a lot.
 

When I got back to the hotel, I only had about half an hour to pack up everything and get to the waiting car. It was like I was on a spy mission, cautious in case I was spotted by Kyle.

I must have only just made it though because I had only just stuffed a couple of things into my suitcase before there was a knock at the door.

Funnily enough, he knew where my room was. Me and Peter were having words. The moment he walked through the door he cringed at the sight and he voiced his astonishment. “How many people got dressed in here? It looks like the Tasmanian devil had a field day.”

I walked over to the bathroom to get my toiletries. “Just me,” I replied nonchalantly, shrugging my shoulders. “It was warm and I was stressed, shit happens.”

As I looked through the door in the mirror I saw him shake his head in the mirror.
Oops.
 

The car was waiting by the time I’d finished packing, but we didn’t rush down to it—that was running back to reality and I wasn’t ready for that.

We arrived back in the USA around two in the morning. We headed straight for my place, having decided on the airplane that he’d be stopping at mine. I wasn’t ready to let him go yet. It was just like old times and that was something I needed, the one thing I was scared about losing.