AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Okay. Show me my surprise.” I grinned at him, enjoying the way his face relaxed when he smiled back at me. Emotions ran deep in Kaleb, and I was just beginning to understand them. The thought was thrilling.
The path was long and rocky. I tried my best to keep my breathing even, but there was no hiding the fact that Kaleb was in much better shape than I was. He probably could have scaled the entire mountain without breaking a sweat—something that I thought was fun to learn about him.
Each moment I spend with the rogues, the more I get to know them. Even though they may not be opening up to me every second of the day, I’m constantly learning things.
In the end, the hike was worth it. My jeans were muddy on the knees from where I’d fallen and slipped, but just as Kaleb said, he was right there with me to keep me from being hurt. We made it to the top of an outcropping and he took my hand, helping me step closer to the edge.
Just like with Jackie, my heart was pounding hard the closer I got to the edge of the rock. We looked down, right into a field of flowers that were in full bloom. We were so high up that the flowers looked like smudges of bright colors, but the sight still took my breath away.
“Kaleb, it’s incredible,” I began, but he cut me off.
“Listen, Rose, I need to tell you the truth. Every single day last year I wanted to stop it, to protect you, but I was scared, and I didn’t. I hate myself for that and I would do anything to go back in time and fix it all. I just…I can’t do that, and that kills me.”
I didn’t say anything, but I squeezed his hand tighter. Kaleb had opened up to me a lot over the summer in his poems and I didn’t want to do or say anything now that would make him clam back up.
“What we did to you last year was…” Sighing, he ran his hand through his hair and broke off a piece of dried wood from a limb as we walked by it. “…well, it was wrong, Rose. It was unforgivable, and the fact that you’ve somehow forgiven us and don’t hate us all for it tells me a lot more about who you are as a person than who we are. We were wrong, and yet here you are. It makes no sense.”
When he put it that way, it didn’t really make much sense, but I didn’t say that to him. I couldn’t, not without tearing him apart, so I just squeezed his hand again and waited for him to continue.
After a moment during which we both stared off at the flowers, Kaleb cleared his throat. “What do you think?”
He was so gentle. Kaleb, out of all of the rogues, was the one that I knew would bleed for me. He would be willing to sacrifice himself to keep me from getting hurt, and that alone was pretty amazing. Kaleb felt things deeper than any person I’d ever met before. The others would fight for me, but if something happened to me, Kaleb would never forgive himself.
He was incredible.
Protective.
Strong. Kind. Loving.
Kaleb filled a void for me that I didn’t know I had. He had more emotion in him than any man I’d ever met besides my dad and wasn’t afraid to show it, which was amazing to me. Out of all my rogues, he was the most passionate and the most compassionate.
I wanted to give myself to him, but he’d asked a question. He wanted to know what I thought, but I knew that he wasn’t only referring to the view.
Kaleb needed to know what I thought about him.
About us.
But he was the poet, not me. I wasn’t sure that I could give him the answer that he deserved, not when I knew that his heart and his soul felt things so much deeper than other people did, so I did the only thing that I knew would give him an idea of my feelings for him.
I kissed him.
Chapter 4
“Rose, I never want to let you go.” Kaleb finally pulled back from our kiss, but, just like he wanted, he didn’t let me go. Not only did he still have his strong arms around me, but his gaze was locked on me. For once, though, I didn’t shiver under it.
We’d connected. We were together, and we both knew that. “Do you think that things will be okay once we get back to Taylor Prep?” Even though I knew that he didn’t have the answer and couldn’t see into the future, I had to ask him. I had to know what he thought so that I could plan ahead for what was to come.
To my relief, he nodded. “We’re going to be okay, Rose—all of us. You, me, Jackie, Brett…we’re all going to be okay because we’re all on the same page now.” He leaned down and kissed me again, this time trailing his hand up my side. My body remembered what it was like to be with him at the beach and I wanted more, but now was not the time.
When he pulled back, there was a regretful look on his face. “I better be getting you back to Brett, Rose, or he’ll come looking for me. We may all be happy sharing you and being with you, but he’ll never forgive me if I make him miss his time with you.”
“Thank you.” My voice was soft, and there was a double meaning, but Kaleb smiled, knowing what I meant.
I was thanking him, not just for the kisses, although they were delicious, but for being him. For loving me. For standing by me and making sure that I was going to be safe.
“Thank you, Rose, for being you. Now, I bet you’re hungry, right?”
I hadn’t thought about it, but as soon as he mentioned it, my stomach rumbled. “Yeah, I guess so.”
