Torn (Devils Wolves Book 1) (32 page)

I drag myself back into the conversation, even though I only want to sit here and listen to his voice and feel the warmth of his hand on my leg and enjoy how being close to him makes my skin tingle.

"Tor, I feel the same way. I think our biggest hurdle is going to be my father. I'm worried about hurting him. I'm afraid it will ruin your relationship with him, and that will kill me to see you both hurt, because of me. And on top of all that, I don't want him to be disappointed in me, or feel betrayed in any way."

"All my thoughts exactly." He blows out a deep breath and I can tell he's worried about all the things I pointed out just as much as I am. "I wish this was easier," he says. "But it's not. It might not ever be."

"I know. Let's just give ourselves until my he's back from the tour, okay? We can't turn his whole world upside down when he's been working so hard."

"You're right. But it can't go on for months like that, Kenzi. We're not going to sneak around and lie to the people we love for months on end. I don't want you to be that type of person."

"Alright," I agree. "When he gets back, we'll talk to him."

H
e gently picks
up the kitten and lays her on the floor next to the dog, then stands and reaches for my hand to pull me up to my feet and directly into his arms.

"So...are we together now? A couple?" I ask nervously.

"I think we've always been together," he bends down and kisses my lips. "But yeah, we became a couple the moment I took you into my bedroom."

I want to jump up and down and freak out with happiness but I force myself to remain calm.

For about two seconds.

"So you're my boyfriend now?" I ask excitedly, bouncing on my toes.

An adorable grin spreads across his face. "That's how it works. I'm yours. You're mine."

I circle my arms around his waist and stare up at him as waves of happiness ripple through me. My brain is frozen, stuck on his words.

"Wow." I squeak.

"Wow?" he repeats.

"I'm so happy. This feels so right with you...I don't even have the words to describe it."

"Then don't talk...show me." Tor can pop his internal clutch and switch gears from nice and sweet to dark and sensual with lightning speed. My mind and body follow him into the fast lane, and I'm instantly quivering and wet.

I pull his head down to kiss him and reach for the hem of his shirt, pulling it up. We part just long enough for me to pull the shirt over his head and then our mouths crash together again. I wrap my arms around him and revel in the size of him and the feel of his hard muscles under my hands. I could touch him for hours and be completely content. Grabbing my hair, he gently pulls my head away from his lips and guides my face down to the center of his chest.

"I want to feel your lips on me." His whisper pierces the silence and my stomach does a triple flip-flop. I like when he tells me what to do and the rush it makes me feel. With my hands on his shoulders I move my lips across the plane of his chest, kissing and lightly licking him as I move from one pec to the other, trailing my tongue over his tattoos. His fingers tighten in my hair and he exhales.

"Tell me what you like." I ask softly, wondering how and where men like to be kissed?

His answer comes fast. "Everything. Everywhere. Touch me...kiss me...whatever you want to do to me, I'll love it. Trust me." I feel his lips press against the top of my head. "There is absolutely nothing on this earth you can do wrong with me. Just follow what your heart and body wants to do."

Easier said than done when you've never touched a boy before, let alone a grown man with a body that commands attention from the entire female race and has hard, hot confidence stamped all over it. I don't know where my courage came from on Friday when we slept together, but I'm trying to channel that inner gutsy girl now.

I let my feelings and desires come to the surface, pushing past any insecurities, and allow my lips and hands to explore his body while his hands slowly move over mine, caressing me in all the right places. When I reach to unzip his jeans, he grabs my hands and pulls me up.

"Let's wait on that," He kisses my lips. "I have a better idea for tonight."

"What's that?" I ask.

"Me licking you until you're delirious followed by some of that apple pie you baked, then I'm going to force myself to let you go home."

Before I can say anything, he picks me up and carries me to the bedroom, putting me down to stand at the foot of his bed. He slowly begins to undress me, starting with my shirt and bra, his eyes burning as he kneels down in front of me and pulls off my shoes and socks and then goes for the button of my jeans.

With his teeth.

I gasp and my hands fly to his shoulders to keep myself steady as he somehow unbuttons my pants with only his teeth and then tugs down the zipper. His hands grasp the waistband and work my jeans and panties down to my ankles where he waits for me to step out of them. When I do he slowly runs his hands up the backs of my legs to cup my ass and presses his face against my stomach. Sliding his hands down to the back of my thighs, he gently pulls them apart.

"Spread your legs for me, baby." Raw, raspy words that make my heart pound even harder and put me in a spellbound state. I almost faint when his mouth touches my most private parts and his tongue slides tantalizingly between my lips.

Holy shit.
I had no idea something could feel so freakin' amazing.

His large hands move back to squeeze my ass as he works his tongue slowly back and forth, in and out. My legs begin to tremble from the millions of little nerve endings in my body that he's got all electrified.

"Lie down." His voice sounds far away, on the outskirts of the tunnel of ecstasy I'm falling into.

I practically fall onto the bed, my limbs like wet noodles, and he pushes my legs further apart as he climbs between them, licking his lips, his eyes languidly traveling from the apex of my thighs, up to my face. He reaches out and touches his fingertip to my lips, and I instinctively kiss it before he glides it down over my chin, to my throat, between my breasts, and over my stomach, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake. With his eyes still locked on mine, he slides his finger further down to rub my clit in slow, teasing circles, before he grabs my hips and pulls me down to the edge of the bed in one fast, effortless yank. Kneeling, he guides my legs to rest on his shoulders and delves his mouth between my legs, making me cry out from the sudden incredible sensation of his wet tongue and mouth covering me.

My back arches up and I press my hips to him when he pushes a finger inside me, slowly fucking me with it while he flicks his tongue wildly over me one moment and then sucks me into his mouth the next, building me into a total frenzy of wanting more, more, more. I grip his comforter, and my thighs tighten shamelessly around his head as I lose myself against his mouth, letting him take me to a place of euphoria that I never could have imagined in my wildest fantasies.

As I lie panting on his bed in a daze of bliss, he comes up and stretches out next to me, pulling me so we're both on our sides facing each other. I lift my face to his and kiss his wet lips, and another small surge of wetness pools between my thighs when his tongue pushes deep into my mouth and I can taste myself all over him.

"I could lick you night," he says when we pull away.

"I don't think I could take anymore," I admit. "That was the most amazing feeling ever."

He lets out a laugh. "I guess the boys don't know what they're doing, huh?" He teases.

"I have no idea. All I know is that was just like, wow."

He grabs my chin and tilts my face back up to his. "Wait a sec...have you ever done that before?"

Heat rises to my cheeks. Did he really not know that I haven't done anything sexually? Other than just kissing and a little groping?

"Kenzi?" He urges.

"No. Nothing like that. I've only kissed a few boys and then Jason groped me a little...but we never went any further."

He immediately leans up and looks down at me, his face all serious. "Fuck, Kenzi. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Tell you what, exactly?" I stammer. "You knew I was a virgin."

He shoves his hand through his hair. "Yeah but I thought you did
some
stuff. I'd be going a lot slower with you if I had known that. "

"Tor, you just said earlier you didn't want to baby me."

"There's a difference between babying you and slowly easing you into new sexual experiences."

"I don't want you to go slow, I want you to do what you would do with any other woman you're with."

He shakes his head. "Kenzi, I can't do that. I want you to have good experiences for all your first times and I feel like I've totally bulldozed you. The way you responded to me made me think you've done some of this before."

Now I sit up. "You haven't bulldozed me. And I responded to you because it feels right and just seems to be coming naturally. I wanted you to be my first everything."

His lays his hand across my bare stomach. "I still would have been, I just would have moved a lot slower, been gentler, and not come on so strong. This is what I meant by coercing."

I shake my head vehemently. "You haven't pushed me or
coerced
me. I don't want you holding back. Like you said to me earlier, I want us both to just follow our feelings."

He sighs and softens his voice. "I do, too. I'm wicked fuckin' attracted to you, though. I've never felt like this before and I don't want to be an animal around you if you're not ready for it. That's not fair for you."

"I feel ready, Tor. You turn me on like crazy, too, and all I can think about is that I want more and more of you."

I feel humiliated by this conversation. I want him to see me as a woman and not like a kid or someone who has to be treated delicately. I can tell that he has a ton of pent up passion in him, and I don't want him to have to stop himself or force himself to slow down. Even though I know he would be doing it out of respect for me, it's not what I want.

I pull my legs up and hug my knees. The last thing I want is him deciding that I'm just too young for him after all, or feeling guilty or uncomfortable about having sex with me. That will never work.

His hand strokes my hair. "Kenzi, don't get upset."

"I don't want you to decide you need an older woman because I'm too much work."

He scoffs. "That's just fuckin' crazy talk. Loving you isn't work. I'm not that shallow and you know it. I don't want to hear you saying things like that."

"I don't want to feel inadequate. I've met your girlfriends, Tor. I've seen you with them-"

"Stop," He interrupts before I can say anymore. "Don't you dare compare yourself to them."

"It's hard not to. Sydni is gorgeous..."

"Kenzi, I can make a list of about a hundred things that make Sydni very
un
gorgeous. You're beautiful and sexy and I love who you are as a person. You're the whole package for me. Nobody else has ever come close."

I turn my head to peek at him over my shoulder. "Really?"

"Really."

Oh God.
Someday Sydni will know we're together. I can't even imagine what she'll say to me. Or to Tor. She'll lose her shit completely. My stomach plummets just thinking about the crazy she'll unleash on us.

"Tor...have you thought about how Sydni will react if and when she finds out about us?"

"I'll handle her." His tone is clipped, his current distaste for her clear.

He nuzzles his face into my neck. "Let's not worry. Today has been such a great day. I don't want it to end with you upset."

"Me, either."

"Then let's just be happy we're together and go woof down that apple pie you made."

We ended up eating the pie in bed, with a can of whipped cream, sharing a fork.

* * *

I
t's
possible I've lost my mind, but I don't care. I'm too happy to care. If I've gone insane, then that's okay. I'll own that shit. I'll wear it like a badge. I'll be Captain Crazy.

I'll do anything. I'll be anything. As long as it means I get to spend my life with her.

I want to throw myself on the Asher gauntlet. I want to get the poison out in the open and give the wound air to breathe. And hopefully heal.

I want to move forward. I'm already tired of hiding and walking on the thin ice of the situation, waiting for a huge fucking crack to form and suck us into the lake of deceit.

Every night for the past few weeks I've sat on the floor with Diogee and Kitten, and I've dumped out the change from the glass bottle to roll up in those little paper rolls. Most of these old glass jugs are five gallons, but this one is bigger, probably around eight gallons if I had to guess, and I wish my father or grandfather were still alive so I could ask them what it was originally used for.

The hours that it takes every night to count and roll the coins doesn't bother me. With every quarter I place in the paper roll, with every minute that ticks by, I reflect on the past. I think about the present. I hope for the future and what I can have. A wife. A family. A love that transcends time, age, titles, and social expectations, as Kenzi had so perfectly described what we have.

I don't add up a final total until I'm completely finished and have a fairly large pile of rolled up coins in front of me that Kitten decides is a mountain that she must climb.

Six thousand twenty-five dollars and one cent.

Yup. There was one lone penny in that entire jar and it was at the very bottom, so I put it back in, because I feel like it's good luck now.

When the time is right, God willing, I'm going to ask my best friend for his daughter's hand. Yeah, that sounds fuckin' crazy. I get it. But I want his blessing.
We
need his blessing. I'm going to make him see how much I love her, and how serious I am about committing to her one thousand percent. I have no idea when or how that's going to happen, but in the meantime I'm going to find the perfect ring so I can propose when the time is right.

* * *

I
t's
Friday night and while I wish I could take my girl out to a nice restaurant for dinner, we had a great night being us. She met me at my house after work, and then we drove around for about an hour hanging up two hundred lost dog posters she had printed earlier using the laser printer we purchased. Then we set up a new trap for an older lost dog that's been sighted a few times in a field a few miles away. On our way back home, we stopped at a drive through and ate cheeseburgers in the parking lot while listening to our favorite music.

By the time we get back to my place, it's still relatively early so we decide to start watching season one of Vikings. Just as we get comfortable on the couch all tangled up together, there's a knock on the door.

"Shit," I curse, as she moves away so I can get up. I swear it better not be Sydni here to try to resurrect things.

When I open my front door I'm surprised to see Asher standing there.

"Ash. Come on in." I try to act normal as I close the door behind him.

"I saw your Jeep in the driveway, I'm glad you're both here." He says to Kenzi, and I see the flash of fear in her eyes as she looks across the room at me.

Kenzi sits up. "Yeah, I helped Tor hang some flyers and we were just going to watch some TV before I went home."

"You want a beer? Iced tea?" I ask him, trying to act normal. He knows Kenzi hangs out here all the time, so it's not new or sketchy. It doesn't scream WE'RE HAVING AN AFFAIR.

I hope.

"Nah, I'm good, man." He takes a seat in the chair in front of the window and I go back to the couch but position myself at least two feet away from Kenzi. "I've been at the facility all day. She's been squeezing my hand." He flexes the fingers of his right hand as he talks.

"Daddy...the doctor said those are muscle spasms."

"Kenzi...let him finish." I say softly. Asher's excited tonight, and even more hopeful than he usually is, and I don't think we should push him down. Hope is all that keeps him going when it comes to Ember.

"I know," he says. "That's what they've said in the past, but it's a little different now. She seems to be responding to my voice. The doctors are discussing the possibility of some experimental drugs."

"Ash, that's great news. Do they think the drugs wil-"

"No," Kenzi pipes up. "You can't let mom be some kind of guinea pig."

Asher looks at Kenzi like she just slapped him. "Of course I would never allow that. But if they think it might bring her back, how can I not let them try? I can't live with myself unless I know I've done everything possible to help her."

"Dad, you have. There's nothing you can do. She's brainde-"

"Kenzi, stop." I say, shaking my head. "There have been cases where patients have woken up. I've read about them."

"Exactly," Asher says. "Yeah, it's fucking rare, but it does happen sometimes. It could happen with her. She's young, and healthy, and she has a lot to live for. She
wants
to live. I know she does."

Kenzi shakes her head. "I just don't want you to get hurt, Dad. You know I want mom back just as much as you do. But all this stuff scares me. Experimental drugs? I don't want anything bad to happen to either one of you. At least now...she's peaceful. She's sleeping." Her voice cracks with emotion and I reach across the couch and grab her hand without even thinking if it will raise a red flag.

Asher thinks nothing of it and that makes me feel like shit just as much as it gives me hope. I should probably let go of her hand, but I can't. Not when she's near tears and squeezing mine so tightly. And this -
this
- is what Asher is feeling. The love of his life squeezing his hand.

"I know...but if she woke up and could talk, and move again...I could bring her home. We could hire a live-in nurse while she recovers."

His hope is starting to climb to unrealistic levels and that's not fair to him or Kenzi.
Or Ember.
So, I try to gently step in. There was a time a few years when we did this dance several times a week and none of us can live like that again.

"Ash, she may not come back like that." I say quietly. I hate to kill his buzz in any way, but Ember suffered a severe brain injury. The chances of her ever being able to talk and make full sense are slim. "I think you need to really think about this long and hard and grill the shit out of the doctors about the experimental drugs and any case studies they have."

"I plan to. I'm just excited about
any
hope at this point. And I know she hears me. I can feel it. She knows I'm there."

"I'm sure she does." I agree, because I honestly do believe that wherever Ember's brain has gone, her heart knows that he's there with her.

I have an entirely new respect and understanding for the intense love that Asher feels for Ember now, because that's how I feel about Kenzi. I would do anything for her and I'd never be able to give up on her.

"
K
enzi
, why don't you come with me next week? I know it makes you uncomfortable, but maybe if she hears your voice too it will help."

I already know she'll say no, and he does, too. Kenzi can't handle seeing her mother like that and I don't blame her at all. It's not easy in any way to see someone you love hovering somewhere between life and death. After the accident, Kenzi would sit next to Ember's bed for hours and just cry and beg her to wake up. After having a few meltdowns that required the staff to give her sedatives, her grandmother and her aunt insisted she stop going.

"I can't." She says tearfully. "Please, Dad... "

Fuck.
I hate that I can't put my arms around her and comfort her like I should be doing if this situation weren't so screwed up. This is sheer torture.

"Tor, tell him please, I can't," she begs, and it's not unusual for her to put me in the middle. She's done it her entire life when she's scared or upset. It just feels way worse right now.

"Okay, let's all just calm down," I say. "You know how uncomfortable she feels there, Ash. Why don't you wait until after you talk to the doctors more, get some more info, and then we can decide if Kenzi should go. I'll go, too," I suggest. "Maybe hearing all of our voices together will help, maybe she'll remember the old times."

Asher nods. "That's a good idea. I'll definitely be getting more information and meeting with the specialists. Kenzi, you know I don't want to upset you. I would never make you do anything you don't want to do."

Kenzi stands and crosses the room to give him a big hug. "I know, Dad. I'm sorry. I love you and I just miss Mom so much."

"I do, too. That's why I want to do whatever I can."

I excuse myself and go into the bathroom to give them a few minutes alone. Once there, I stare at myself in the mirror and splash some cold water on my face. I want Ember to recover, and I know we all have to have hope and think positive, but I don't want to see Asher and Kenzi get their hopes up only to have them shot to hell all over again. And I could never voice this to them, but what if Ember did wake up but was absolutely nothing like herself? What if she can't speak, but instead moans and cries? What if she thrashes around and twists her body, instead of lying peacefully as she is now? They'll never be able to cope with seeing her that way.

I leave the hall bathroom and check my bedroom real quick. It feels weird having Asher in my house, even though he's been here more times than I can count. I'm worried something personal of Kenzi's could be laying around in a place it never should be in. Like her panties tangled up in my bed sheets. Not that Asher would be in my bedroom, but still.

When I join them I'm glad to see they're playing with the dog and the kitten and the mood is lighter and happier. Seeing them together in my living room playing with my pets only reminds me of how much I love them both and how I can't even consider losing either one of them. I wish I could pull Kenzi into my arms and snuggle on the couch with her and have Asher join us for a movie and just be a happy family. We've done it a hundred times and now suddenly it’s all taboo and wrong.

When Asher tells us he's going to head home, Kenzi tells him she's going to stay for a while to finish watching our show and he hugs us both goodbye before he leaves, oblivious.

Betrayed.

I
feel
sick. Kenzi
looks
sick.

Somewhere in hell Satan has just pulled out a bag of marshmallows and is roasting them in my honor.

Kenzi looks at me with guilt, chewing her bottom lip after she closes my front door behind her father. "I'm sorry, Tor."

"We're going to have to tell him, Kenzi."

"I know...after his mini tour though, please? He's worked so hard on all the new songs. It's not a long tour, a month, maybe? When he gets back from that we'll sit down with him together and tell him. Or I'll tell him alone, if that's better."

"No," I snap. "We do it together."

"Okay," She fingers the necklace around her neck nervously. "I can't even think about what he's saying about my mom. Do you really think she'll ever be better?"

Her green eyes plead at me, and I wish I could say yes. I want her to have both her parents back and have a normal, happy life. It's all I've ever tried to give her—some normalcy and security.

"I honestly don't know, Angel. Your mom's accident, the trauma to her head, and the brain activity afterwards was unusual. The body and the brain are a fuckin' mystery; no matter how much doctors and scientists study it, there are always things that stump them. And unfortunately, there are times that no matter what, they can't make someone better. Like your dad said, all anyone can do is try. But, miracles do happen."