Unconditional Love (28 page)

Oh shit.

I looked at Azurdee as her mouth dropped open. She frowned and said, “So are we ever going to go anywhere and not run into someone you’ve fucked?”

The tone in her voice caught me off guard and before I could say anything she began walking out of the water. I stood there and watched her get out and walk right past Lindsay and reach down for a towel.

“Hi! I’m Lindsay. You are?”

Azurdee wrapped the towel around her and turned and looked at me without saying a word.

“Um…can you hand me a towel so I can get out?”

Lindsay started laughing. “Please. It’s not like I haven’t seen it before.”

Fuck! Fuck! Son of a bitching fuck!

“Lindsay, Azurdee is my girlfriend.”

Lindsay spun around and slammed her hands to her mouth. “Oh God. I’m so sorry, it’s just…well, he’s never had a girlfriend and…I feel like a total ass now. I’m so very sorry.”

Azurdee picked up a towel and walked toward the water and threw it. She turned and began walking back up to the house. I took advantage of Lindsay walking after Azurdee as I got out of the water and ran up and collected my clothes and phone and then ran after her.

“Really, it was a few years ago and it meant nothing. Please just let me apologize,” Lindsay kept saying as Azurdee ran up the stairs and into the house.

I walked up to Lindsay and said, “Hey, um…well um…yeah. I’ll see you around.” She grabbed my arm and asked, “She wouldn’t be interested in a threesome, would she?”

My mouth dropped open and I said, “What the fuck? No. Neither she nor I would be interested in that.”

I quickly turned and made my way back into the house. I shut the sliding glass door and turned to see Azurdee sitting on the sofa. She was wrapped in the towel and had her knees pulled to her chest.

“I know you have a past and I accept that, but it’s just hard to share a moment like that and then have some stranger…”

Her voice cracked and I about fell to my knees. I closed my eyes and prayed to God to let me take away her pain.

I walked over to her and dropped to my knees. “I’m so sorry,
mi amor
. I wish I could shield you from everything, but I can’t because I do have a past.” I swallowed hard and decided to just be honest with her.

“I’ve been with a lot of women, and I know you know that already, but you have to believe me when I say none of it meant anything to me. You’re my life. You’re my everything and I would do anything right now to go back and change things…but I can’t.”

She let out a sob and looked at me. “I don’t want you to change anything, what happened before me was before me, but I can’t lie and say it doesn’t hurt my heart to think about all the…all the…”

I reached up and grabbed the back of her neck and brought her lips to mine. “You are all that matters to me. I forgot about every girl I’d ever been with the moment you gave yourself to me. I swear to you, Azurdee. You’re my everything. I love you and you are the only woman I’ve ever loved like this. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

Her eyes widened and she whispered, “What?”

I smiled and pushed her hair back and away from her face. “That’s why I brought you here.”

A confused look washed over her face. “I don’t understand. What are you saying, Lark?”

“Let’s take a hot shower and get some dinner and I’ll explain everything. Sound good?”

She seemed like she wanted to argue with me and I knew I had just dropped a bomb on her.

“I promise I’ll explain everything after dinner.”

She nodded and said, “Okay.” I took her hand in mine and led her to the master bedroom and then into the shower where we both took a long hot shower together.

I got out of the shower first and told her to take her time while I got dressed. I quickly dried off and got dressed. I made my way downstairs where I took the bottle out of my bag and set it down on the kitchen island.

I went and sat down in the living room and saw my jeans lying on the floor. I pulled out my phone and made one quick phone call. As I hung up I looked up and saw Azurdee coming down the stairs.

She was dressed in a navy blue strapless dress that hugged her body in all the right places but was free and flowing right around her knees. She had a white sweater on and her hair was pulled up with a few curls hanging down. My eyes moved down her perfect legs to see she was wearing a pair of black wedge shoes. My breath caught in my throat as I said, “Wow. You look beautiful.”

She stopped at the bottom of the stairs and spun around and said, “I wasn’t sure where we were going for dinner, so I dressed kind of in the middle.”

I walked up to her and reached out for her hands. I stood back and looked her body up and down and smiled.

“You hungry?” I asked.

She quickly nodded her head and said, “Starved. All that sex worked up my appetite.”

I laughed and said, “Oh, there is plenty more of that after dessert.”

“Well, we better bring home leftovers then,” she said with a wink as we made our way out to my truck.

I opened the door for her, shut it, and said a quick prayer that I didn’t fuck this evening up.

Lark and I walked along the beach after dinner and I could tell he had something on his mind. There was also the elephant in the room that neither one of us wanted to bring up again. I took a deep breath and just asked.

“When do you have to leave?”

He gripped my hand tighter and said, “We have to head back to Austin tomorrow.”

My heart sunk and I could feel the tears building in my eyes. I hated that I was so emotional around him. “I thought you were on leave?”

“I have to go back for…something.”

I nodded my head. I knew getting into this relationship with him meant that there was the big secret of his job. The fact that he told me he was still in the Marines, coupled with the lifestyle he led had me piecing things together. It was almost like he was a secret agent type person. Living a life that he wasn’t really living. I was a part of that pretend life and I wasn’t so sure how I felt about that.

“Will I ever get to meet your boss?” I asked.

Lark let out a chuckle and said, “Skip?” He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Maybe.”

I nodded my head and asked, “Is Jason or Paul going with you?”

Lark stopped and looked at me. “Why?”

I shook my head and said, “I don’t know…I’m just trying to make small talk about your job and since I only know bits and pieces of it…”

“Can we change the subject?” he asked as he looked out into the black sea of water.

“Of course we can.”

We walked a bit longer in silence when we stopped and Lark turned and looked at me. “My father talked to me on Christmas night about something.”

I smiled and nodded my head. I remembered when he asked to talk to both Lark and Tristan. After that conversation was when Tristan became really distant with Ryn and Lark’s mother smiled at me like she knew a secret.

I nodded my head and said, “I remember.”

He smiled and shook his head. “My father and mother both knew the moment they saw us together that I loved you. Me on the other hand, I was nothing but scared and unprepared for falling in love with you.”

He looked down and then back up at me. “I think I fell in love with you the moment I saw you. Something happened and I fought like hell for almost a year to push it away. I’d find myself just sitting there thinking about you. I wondered what you were doing. If you were happy, sad, lonely. I prayed like hell you weren’t dating anyone.”

I grinned as he smiled at me. “I’ve lived my life on the edge for so many years, Azurdee. Not caring if I died or not because I thought I didn’t have anything, or anyone, to live for. Then I met you and everything changed. It was like I was a blank page waiting for you to write our future together on it.”

I swallowed hard and wiped away the tear that was making its way down my cheek.

“You think about our future?” I asked.

He smiled and nodded his head. “Yes. Do you?”

I felt my cheeks heat up as I nodded my head. “Probably more than I should,” I said.

He took my hand in his and said, “Let’s go back to the house. I have to tell you about the journey.”

I looked at him confused. “What journey?”

He laughed and said, “That was my response, too.”

We walked into the house and Lark led me into the kitchen. Each time we walked into the beach house I couldn’t help but smile. It was decorated in a beach theme but was also a tad on the fancy side. I could easily see this house sitting on the shore of Nantucket. It was not decorated like Lark’s parents’ ranch house at all. The whites and light blues made it completely relaxing. I fell in love with it the moment we walked in.

Lark motioned for me to sit down on the stool at the kitchen island. I glanced down and saw a bottle with a cork in it sitting on the island.

Lark sat down across from me. “My father asked me what my intentions were with you.”

I swallowed hard. “I would think that would be my father asking that question.” Lark smiled and nodded his head. I knew he was nervous about meeting my parents. It looked like he was going to get out of meeting them again, depending on how long he would be out of town for.

“Do you want to know what my answer was?”

I got that weird feeling in my chest again where it feels like my heart is just dropping to the ground.
Did I want to know what he said? No! Yes! No! Yes!

I nodded my head and took a deep breath.

“I told him I wanted to marry you someday.”

I let out a gasp as Lark looked intently into my eyes.

“I want to see you walking toward me dressed in a beautiful white gown. I want a future with you, Azurdee. I want to wake up every morning and feel you in my arms. I want to fall asleep with you whispering that you love me. I want…”

He took a deep breath and gave me a smile. “I want to have kids with you. I keep dreaming of touching your stomach when it’s swollen with our child. I want to give you everything you want. I want to support you in your dreams, hold you when you hurt, make you laugh when you’re sad, and make love to you every day. I want to start our journey of love.”

I covered my mouth and began crying. Lark placed his hand on the side of my face as I dropped my hands from my mouth. “I’ve never had anyone say such amazing things to me before.”

He looked down and reached for the bottle. “My father told me that his dad had talked to him about something called the journey of love. My father told me that when I was ready to start my journey, I needed to talk to you about it. There is this tradition in my family that starts this journey.”

I nodded my head and said, “What is it?”

“My father brought my mother to the beach when he knew she was the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, when he knew he was ready to start his journey of love. They both were in separate rooms and wrote each other a letter about their hopes, dreams, doubts, and goals for their love. They put the letters in the bottle and they put it in the ocean. The idea is that each journey is different. It’s filled with calm seas and rough seas but together you can weather anything.”

He laughed and shook his head as if remembering something. “I was confused after I walked out of that room about the whole bottle thing, but it just all clicked. All of it made sense when I was telling you.”

He looked into my eyes and I realized I was holding my breath. His beautiful green eyes were filled with nothing but pure love.

“I want to share this journey with you and only you, Azurdee. I love you.”

I smiled and wiped the tears from my eyes. “I love you too. Fate has already stepped in…you’re who I’m meant to be with, Lark. I knew it the moment you first touched me.”

He stood up and walked around the island and grabbed me and pulled me up. He looked into my eyes and whispered, “You’re mine.”

I nodded my head and said, “Always.”

He picked me up and began walking toward the stairs. I looked back at the bottle and said, “I thought we were going to write our letters.”

As he took the stairs two at a time, still carrying me, he said, “After I make love to you.”