Surviving Love (Surviving #2) (17 page)

Louise

York, England

“So I need to ask you something. But you can say no if you want to, it’s not a big deal. I just thought it would be fun and maybe it would cheer you up and we could have—”

“Johan, you’re rambling.” I chuckled. He rubbed his hand over his brow nervously.

“So we have this company function, it’s a pretty big deal. Partners from international firms come and it’s pretty formal, so I have to get a tux and shit. I can buy you a dress, I don’t mind footing the bill.”

“Johan!”

He was so adorable when he was nervous.

“Yeah, sorry. I’ve never asked anyone on a date before. It’s harder than I thought it would be,” he muttered almost to himself. My laughter died and my expression sobered.

“You’ve never been on a date?” I asked incredulously. When his gaze snapped to mine I offered an apologetic shrug.

“No.” He shook his head then laughed humourlessly. “Pretty lame isn’t it?” His cheeks pinked, and rather than wanting to run in the opposite direction I wanted to kiss the blush from his cheeks.

“I think it’s perfect. I would love to accompany you.”

“Really?”

“Yep, as long as you don’t mind being seen with a beached whale.” I laughed, but truthfully my stomach was growing at a rapid rate, or at least it felt that way. My jeans and I were not on speaking terms right now,  and don’t even get me started on my bra.

He came and sat beside me on the sofa, placing his hand on my stomach. It was something he liked to do regularly now that we were more than friends. We were definitely more tactile with one another, my favourite was sitting on the sofa at night watching TV and linking our pinkies. We kissed nothing passionate or life-altering but friendly little pecks on my cheek or forehead, nothing beyond that. I felt a little frustrated by it but he seemed scared to take it any further. Sometimes I wondered if I should just take the lead and grab a hold of him and plant a smacker right on his lips, but something deep within told me that would be the worst thing I could do.

“Lou?”

“Hmm?”

“You zoned out on me.” He tucked my hair behind my ear.

“Why won’t you kiss me?” I asked, then covered my mouth. Why was I cursed with the
lack
of keeping my gob shut?

“Erm...”

“Forget I said that, it’s stupid. I just...we don’t have to.”

He placed his finger against my lips to silence me.

“I want to. I’m desperate to kiss you Lou, it’s just...complicated. I don’t want to spoil you.”

“Is this about Ryan and what you told me?” I asked. When he flinched and pulled away slightly, I followed and pulled his hand back to my stomach. “You won’t spoil me, maybe for other men. But that’s a good thing.”

“I’m...Lou, you don’t
know
. There are things you don’t know.”

“Are you married?”

He frowned and shook his head.

“Are you secretly a woman?”

He snorted a laugh and shook his head.

“Are you a criminal mastermind trying to use me to take over the world?”

He laughed loudly. “No. Now you’re being ridiculous.”

“Will you break my heart?”

He swallowed hard and shook his head. “That’s the last thing I would ever want to do.”

“Then I see no problem. Your past is there for a reason, to make you the man you are today. But it is the past, gone, not forgotten but it isn’t the future. Don’t let it chase you around. Embrace what happened, it made you into this incredible man before me.” I traced his bottom lip with my finger. “So if I kiss you, you’re not going to push me away?”

“You can’t kiss me,” he whispered, and my heart hurt. I let out a defeated sigh and turned away from him. He placed his hand in mine. I heard him swallow and take a deep breath. “
I
should kiss
you
first. I need to take the lead with our first...second...okay, first
official
kiss.”

I laughed at his mumbling. “You’re adorable when you ramble.”

“Hmm.” He huffed in annoyance. “Okay, pucker up woman, here I come.”

I laughed loudly and threw my head back, covering my face with my hands.

He laughed beside me, pressing his forehead to my shoulder.

“This has to be the most surreal
second-first-official-kiss
ever!” I joked.

“But memorable right?” He cocked his head to one side.

“Touché.”

Johan’s smile slipped from his face. “You promise me, I won’t spoil you,” he whispered.

I didn't answer because I lost the use of speech when his large hand cupped my cheek, his thumb rubbed across my bottom lip, heat scorched my lips making them pucker in desperate need. Slowly he came toward me, his eyes intent on my mouth. His scent of spice and delicious male engulfed me, I melted into him and my eyes closed savouring the intensity as his mouth pressed gently against mine. Tentative at first, his lips rested gently against my mouth, a soft testing pressure before he pressed harder, asserting more delicious power. His hands slid into my hair, tilting my head to fit our mouths more perfectly. I couldn't help the moan slipping from my lips when his tongue slid along the seam of my mouth; I submitted to him willingly. He devoured me, pulling at me, tasting and nipping with his teeth. Johan was a starved man and it was amazingly perfect to be his.

His tongue dipped into my mouth teasing my own, lapping at me. I clung to him, gripping at his shirt, pulling him to me. Somehow we ended up with me laying flat on my back and him hovering above me. His muscled thigh pressed against the sensitive peek between my legs.

I moaned loudly when he pressed against my sensitised core. I threw my head back, dislodging our mouths. His mouth traced soft arousing kisses down my jaw to my neck, kissing and sucking. I was lost, cast out into a sea of lust and I loved every minute.

I pushed my fingers in his thick brown hair and tugged to bring his mouth back to mine.

“You’re perfect,” he whispered before plunging his tongue into my waiting mouth.

When he finally pulled away I laid on the sofa, a mess of heavy breathing and sexual arousal.

“Was that okay?” He asked, peppering kisses across my lips and jaw.

I garbled some kind of response making him chuckle.

Johan moved us so we were facing one another on the sofa. Our legs twisted together. His hands were moving across my body, touching my bump, my collar bone, my lips, my hair, he was marking me, mapping my skin with his wonderfully large hands.

“You’re incredible.”

“I know,” I quipped and laughed when he tickled my side. “Takes two to make it that amazing. You were there too, buddy.”

Quickly his attention focused on my face. His eyes turned an icy blue as he regarded me, he had the look of an injured puppy damaged by hurtful words.

“What is it?” I asked, stroking my fingers through his hair. He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against my chest.

“Ryan and Will used to call me that.” He snorted. “For some reason you keep reminding me of him.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“Honestly?” He paused. “I don’t know.”

“I hope he didn't kiss you that way, I can’t compete with another sexy Senior.” I smiled, but at his bleak expression I swallowed. “Do you want to tell me about him?” I didn't think he would, in fact I was certain he’d refuse and my silly questioning would end this moment between us, so I was surprised when he shifted to lie on his back and pulled me across his chest.

“He was my uncle. But I never called him that. I never thought of him in that sense, if I’m honest I thought of his as my brother. Will and Anesu are my adoptive parents, I was eight when they took me in. Will is their son, Ryan was my
real
family. ”

“Ah.”

He closed his eyes as if in pain, his body tense beneath me, his muscles a rigid pallet.

“I’ve never really spoke about this before, not to anyone.” He cleared his throat, never opening his beautiful eyes, remaining blind. It was as if he needed the distance, the security. And for now I would allow that.

“After my mom died I went to live with my grandparents. My dad’s parents.” He let out a ragged sigh and pulled at his hair. I rubbed his chest with my palm and waited.

“My grandpa was a sick, twisted motherfucker, and Ryan protected me.” He laughed but there was zero humour in it. “When I first went to stay with them I was terrified of Ryan because he used to beat on me. He put me in the hospital twice. Broke my arm and I had new bruises every day.”

I gasped loudly.

“Yeah, he was pretty mean. But then the tables turned and he started protecting me. It turned out the beatings were part of him
trying
to protect me.”

“How do you work that out?” I lifted my head to look at him.

“He wanted someone to take me away, so he thought if he beat me, child protection services would take me away for my safety.”

I frowned and he pressed his finger against the crease between my brows.

“He was doing the right thing, it’s not some misguided worship where I thought he could do no wrong. He truly terrified me, but then once he realised no one was coming to save me, he took on that role. But it didn't work. No one wanted to save me, so he became my friend. He hid me away, tried running away with me. He fought for me and got
himself
hurt worse than I ever had been, all in an attempt to keep me safe. He was nothing more than a kid himself, but he tried. He tried so fucking hard, Lou.”

“How did your mum die?”

“I watched my father beat her to death.”

“Jesus Christ, Johan!” I gasped and covered my mouth. “How old were you, not that age makes it any better, but I thought you meant you were a kid when you went to your grandparents.”

“I was four years old.”

I let out a loud whimper and buried my face in his neck. I wrapped my arms around his chest and tried to block out the images of a frightened little boy watching such a horror, and losing his mum.

“Lou.” His breath fanned across my hair as he spoke.

My hold on him tightened. “Give me a minute,” I pleaded.

“I have a seriously fucked up past, Lou, and now I bet you’re wishing you never let me kiss you. I warned you I would spoil you.” His resignation pained me.

I lifted my head and pressed my lips against his. He froze, clearly not expecting my reaction. I pulled away fractionally, leaving a minute amount of space between us. “I regret nothing, I’ve
never
experienced a kiss like that before. And I stand firm by what I said; your past hasn’t spoiled you. It has created a man I desperately need to know. A man I now admire for facing such a horrendous past and coming through it. I watched you with my sisters; you love with everything you have. I’ve witnessed it. A man who is spoiled would not do that. He would lock those feelings down. Is that what the nightmares are about?” I  pressed my mouth to his again, needing to feel him.

“No, the horror of watching my mom die wasn’t the worst shit life threw at me,”  he said against my mouth. I pecked his lips once more before settling into his side. I traced a pattern on his chest with my finger, needing the contact.

“They don’t happen every night like they did when you stayed with us at my parents house, but they happen pretty frequently.”

“I didn't know. I thought I hid them pretty good. It must have been on nights I fell into a deeper sleep than I normally allow.”

“I lay with you when it happens and then you settle and I go back to bed.”

He lifted his hand and covered his eyes.

“God, I am so sorry, I thought I had a handle on them. But after everything with Eve I just...it all came back. With the sleeping pills I get a bit...I lose focus and it goes to shit. They basically knock me out.”

“The pills I found?” I asked, a little unnerved by that statement.

“Dad suggested I see a psychiatrist when I was a kid but I had issues with being alone with people, or meeting people in general so I refused to go. After a particularly bad
episode
they called a doctor and she prescribed sleeping pills and some other pills to deal with anxiety. It’s rare for a kid my age to be doped on that shit but I was getting pretty manic at one stage. Mom works, or used to work in that field of mental health, so getting a doctor to prescribe something wasn’t too hard.”

“What caused it?”

“When I went to live with Will and Ane, things were pretty bad, my biological dad was in the penitentiary for killing my mom, I believe so was my grandpa but no one ever spoke of him. After staying with them for a few months and them deciding it was to be permanent, Mama-su and Dad wanted to send me to elementary school. They said I needed to attend school. I freaked out. Like a total psycho I freaked out, I think I scared mama-su. I’d not gone out of the big house in so long I never thought about school but I’d completely missed second grade, first grade I was homeschooled but...I never attended any kind of tutoring or school for second grade.”