“Here we are,” he repeated as he pressed his lips against mine. “And thank you,” he added as he brushed a kiss along my cheek and then nose.
“For what?”
“For telling me the truth and for giving me a chance.”
I started giggling, which earned me a cocked eyebrow from Owen. “I guess I should thank Vanessa for screwing up and being late to the altar. Otherwise, you may have never returned home.”
He rocked his hips against me, instantly silencing my laughter. “Yeah, I’ll make sure to send her a bouquet of dead flowers.”
“Yeah, you do that.” I gasped as his velvety cock glided across my mound.
“Are you sore?” he asked, his voice laced with concern.
“A little, but please don’t stop,” I begged. “I want you to make love to me, Owen.”
“We didn’t use anything in the shower. I’m clean. I get tested by the team, and I had a test done after the Vanessa fiasco.”
“I’m on the pill. I want to feel you bare again.”
Owen coated his cock in slick heat before guiding himself slowly inside my pussy. This time, his touches were tender, his pace slow. But as I hitched my leg higher on his hip, Owen’s stride grew crazed. I met him thrust for thrust. Until he spilled inside me and we fell into a heap of sweaty bodies.
“Fuck, I love you,” he mumbled next to my head as he yawned.
“I love you too,” I replied.
Owen planted a quick kiss on my forehead and rose from the bed to retrieve a washcloth to clean up between my legs.
“Get some sleep, beautiful.” He tucked my body up against his, and I drifted away, listening to the steady thumping of his heartbeat.
Tomorrow was going to be a new day with all new responsibilities and what ifs, but for right now, I was exactly where I wanted to be.
Chapter Twenty – Owen
Dad loomed over me with one of my new baseball bats. I’d begged him for one of the fancy aluminum ones all the other kids used at games, but he said I was only good enough for a wooden one. He’d prefer it if I used a stick.
Coach Rudicell saw I hadn’t come to practice with the type required by the school. I lied the first few times and told him I’d forgotten, but then, in my locker, I found a brand-new bat waiting for me. It had been my favorite colors too—blue and green.
Coach didn’t have to say anything. I knew it had come from him.
“My own fucking kid can’t even appreciate all the hard work I put in. You’ve gotta go and beg your coach for a new fancy bat? You suck his cock to get this, boy?”
“Dad, no. I didn’t do anything. I swear.” At fourteen, I was catching up to my dad in size, but he was still larger, especially in the darkened room where I cowered like a five-year-old against my headboard.
“Don’t lie to me, boy. I bet you told that old man that I refused to buy it for ya, huh? I bet you told him how horrible of a father I am. Well, you know what? I’m gonna show you how horrible I can really be.”
The first smack of the bat landed on my thigh. The next, my ribs. Then everything went black just as I heard my mother scream my name.
“Owen. Owen.” My name was a distant cry melded with an earthquake-force shake. “Owen, please. It’s Aspen. Please wake up.”
Aspen? My Aspen?
I gasped for air as I pulled myself from the despair and blackness of my dream. No amount of medicine prescribed by the team doctor could rid me of the memories that plagued me when I least expected it. But since being back in Ashfield and sharing a bed with Aspen these last couple of months, I’d been dream-free.
Until today. And I knew exactly why. I was headed back to California on the first flight out of Nashville.
“Sorry, cricket,” I groaned as I reached an arm around her stiff body.
“Are you okay? You scared me. I kept hearing you scream ‘no’ over and over again.” Her lithe body was shaking, and I hated that I caused any sort of fear in her. These were demons I needed to battle. She didn’t need to play a part.
“I’m fine. I promise. Just a dream I have every now and then. Go back to sleep, cricket. It’s the middle of the night.”
My little minx nodded and curled her body against mine. I waited as her breaths evened out before shutting my own eyes.
***
“Do you have everything?” Aspen asked for the tenth time as she loaded my bags into the back of her SUV that she thanked me for no less than four times a day. Sometimes, she used words. Other times, she used her mouth around my cock. I didn’t have a preference on whichever way she wanted to show her gratitude.
“I do. Thank you for letting my mom tag along.” I invited my mom to the airport to send me off, and she arrived with both excitement and sadness. It was in the way she hugged and the way she asked if I was going to be home for Thanksgiving.
Last week, we’d gone together to watch my childhood home be demolished. I thought the process would affect me more than it did. I found myself sad for the good parts of my childhood being lost, but Aspen reminded me that all those good memories were still here. The place didn’t hold them; I did.
My mom had a harder time watching the house crumble to the ground. I wrapped a soothing arm around her shoulders as she cried. We never talked about it, but I wondered if maybe some of those tears were happy one. She was finally ridding herself of that last lingering piece of my father. I’d never ask her though. Just like me, she had her own demons.
After the demolition, Aspen and I went on one final public date in town. We made sure to have Jenna and my friend Chris post it all over their socials when a group of us went to play paintball. An entire outdoor facility had been created since I graduated high school, and I was eager to play. So was Aspen. It was clear she had a lot of aggression to let out, because the woman was lethal with the paintball gun.
We hoped Vanessa got the final message when I posted on my not-frequently-used social media pages. It was a picture of Aspen and me sharing a kiss while covered in various colors of paint from the game, goggles pushed up to rest on top of our heads. I’d finally taken the leap and blocked her number, consequences be damned. So, if she was trying to reach out to me, she was going to have to go through my agent.
“You’re going to be late,” Beverly called out from the open window of the back seat.
