“I love you so much, Kendall. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, baby.”
Thrust.
“I’m sorry too for everything.”
Thrust.
“Please come back to me,” I beg.
Thrust.
“I never left.”
I feel white hot pleasure coiling tight at the base of my spine. I bring my hands from her breasts to her hips, needing to feel all of her around me. Needing to hold on to something before I’mlaunched into the stratosphere. The love I have for this woman is breaking me apart and putting me back together at the same time. One arm snakes around her torso, molding her to me, pressing her chest against mine while I push up into her, as deep as I possibly can. I’m determined to hit that angle that makes us both frantic and delirious with pleasure. And holy fuck, it’s a miracle when I do. I pump into her harder, the air filled with lust, the only sounds the wet slap of bodies, her breathy moans and my feral fucking growls. My knee would be screaming soon and I would pay for it later, but I don’t care.
“Kai, I’m so fucking close,” she cries, her legs locking tighter around me. Our pace turns brutal, her hips lifting and slamming back down on my cock.Again and again. She pulls on my hair while she digs her nails into my shoulder. My tongue moves against hers, her teeth snag on my bottom lip. Rough and greedy. Then I feel her walls shake around me, pulsing and squeezing until my eyes roll back in my head. She quivers with ecstasy. At the same time, my balls grow heavy and my release barrels through me. I feel it,herin my veins, my blood, my breath, my heart. In the shadowed depths of my anguished fucking soul. She’s everywhere. She’s everything. I’m a part of her and she’s a part of me and there is no distinction between us. I swear we break a hole through time and space while the universe folds in on itself. I come inside of her while she dissolves around me and we sink into the aftershocks of our orgasms together.
She melts in my arms like warm honey.
Home.
“Home, you feel like home to me, Ken. Youarehome to me. And I’m so sorry I let myself forget that,” I whisper, kissing her forehead.
“You’re home to me too, Kai.”
Chapter 92
Kendall
5 Months Later
“Comeon,Stella,”Iurge the sniffing dog to move along and find a place to pee on the busy sidewalk. She’s a beautiful German Shepherd mix, that Kai, Akio, and I picked out together at a local dog adoption event. After his career ending injury, Kai had thought a lot about things he wasn’t able to do while devoting his life to professional hockey. Having a dog was one of them and Akio and I were easily persuaded. Everyone needed to be on board since we are all living under one roof now. Akio and I moved in with him two months ago and it’s been a great decision for all of us.
Kai and Akio have plenty of bonding time. He spends fewer days at daycare, and I don’t have to stress about the costs of childcare anymore. I’ve since quit my job at the restaurant and reduced my hours at the law firm. On the days I’m not there, I’m freed up to continue working on my law school applications. I’m not sure I’ll get accepted anywhere and most of the places I applied to are part time and online but I’m excited either way. I’m finally able to start thinking about my education again and options forourfuture.
Kai has taken so many steps to work on himself and our relationship too. We’re still attending couples therapy as needed and Kai has weekly therapy sessions to help with the PTSD. He stopped drinking in September and has been sober ever since. He’s enrolled in self-defense classes and while Stella might not be an official emotional support animal, she certainly acts like one. She fits into our little family perfectly and is completely in tune with Kai’s needs. Slowly, things have started to get better and turn around for him and for us. He doesn’t wake up throughout the night as much with nightmares or cold sweats. He can leave the house without having a full-fledged panic attack. He’s had a lot of difficult conversations with his father over the past couple months and while their issues aren’t entirely resolved, they’ve definitely improved.
I’m jolted back into the present when Stella drags me to a nearby tree to do her business.It’s so fucking cold. This is probably the one aspect I hate about being a dog owner. Once she’s done, I hurry her back inside our warm apartment building. I open the front door and she bounds over to the couch while I hang up my thick winter coat and scarf.
Akio is with my moms for the day and Kai is at an interview for a coaching position. I spent the morning cleaning and going grocery shopping, so I have the entire day to myself. After I watch a few episodes ofParks and Recand make lunch, I throw in a load of laundry.
Two hours later, I’m putting folded clothes in the top drawer of Kai’s dresser when I spot a box. Not just any box, a small black velvet box. That looks tiny enough to hold a ring. I open it, my hands trembling, terrified of what I’ll find. Sure enough, there’s a stunning princess cut diamond on a silver and gold band. It’s exactly the kind of ring I would have picked out for myself.
What. The. Fuck.
Mindlessly, I move to the foot of the bed.
“Kai!” I shout. “Can you come in here for a sec?” I had heard him come through the front door only moments ago. He appears in the doorway a second later, glancing from the box in my hand to me.
“Kai, what is this?” I ask, even though I already know. Even though I’m well aware that the next few words out of his mouth would permanently alter my brain chemistry. He eats up the space between us, kneeling at my feet and placing his hands on either side of my hips.
“You know what it is. Why don’t you ask me why I have it?” he responds, his dark eyes scanning my face.
“Kai, I don’t want to play games right now or guess fucking riddles. What is this?” I demand. I don’t even realize I’m crying until I feel wetness on my cheeks and tears slide down my neck.
“I bought it two weeks after I got drafted. I was going to wait to propose and then when you disappeared, I thought, if I could find you, fix things…” he trails off quietly. I’m positive there is no air getting into or out of my lungs. His admission hits me like a Mack truck. Like a ten-foot wave with a nasty undercurrent ready to drag me under. But this awareness doesn’t drown me, this realization doesn’t destroy me. I’m brought to the brink of madness, the edge of hysteria but no further. The kind of insanity caused only by the inability to be in the right place at the right time with the right person. A man who has been waiting for me for far longer than I knew.
No, this realization gives me life.