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“Kalum,” I moan, running my hands through the strands of his dark hair. “I love when you eat my pussy, and I love it when you’re inside me.”
He pulls away and raises his body over mine. “Me too, baby. I brought you here because what I have to say I need to tell you alone, and I can’t go another night without telling you.”
I’m nervous. My core throbs for him, but I know what he has to say is important because, in my heart, I know things are shifting. He is becoming the air I breathe, and slowly, he is becoming everything I need in my life, and I can’t picture it without him in it.
“I have never stopped loving you, Aura. I loved you since the first time I kissed you. I fell in love with you, but I was too scared to admit it. I needed to protect you because there was no way my parents would accept us, and I was right. I was broken the dayyou left. The letter you left me broke me. I never got the chance to tell you how much I love you.”
I snuggle into his chest, and he holds me. I close my eyes and remember the way he held me when I cried because of the death of my parents. He was the only one who held me and kissed me when I was mourning their death.
“Kalum…”
“I had a whole weekend planned for us, baby. The weekend of your eighteenth birthday, I wanted to tell you how I felt and hoped you’d accept my love. I wanted to make you mine in every sense. My heart has always been yours, Aura. I thought I could let you go, but deep in my heart, I never did. I had to watch you fall in love with my friend, marry a man who wasn’t me and give him the most beautiful son I have ever had the pleasure to meet. I loved you so much that I made a pact with a friend to love you when I couldn’t be there for you because there was nothing I could offer you. My parents threatened to disown me and to make sure to ruin you.”
Tears are streaming down my face because I thought he didn’t want me. I thought I imagined the connection between us. A connection I had never felt with someone. Except Lane. He made a pact with Lane. But why? I would have waited, but then I would have never had our son.
A sob bubbles up my throat.
“It’s okay, baby, don’t cry. Time just wasn’t ready for us. Things happen for a reason, and we both loved you. No matter who you ended up with, me or Lane, there was no wrong choice because we both were in love with you at the same time. He was ready to give you what I couldn’t, and I loved you enough to let you be happy and safe from anyone who would hurt you. It was all planned, Aura. I have letters, too, the same way he did, in case I passed. I always wanted you to know that I loved you, and he was okay with that, and so was I. What mattered the most wasyou. Now what matters the most is you and LJ. I didn’t tell you this because you were mourning your husband, and it was wrong to put this on you. But I want to be honest and tell you that I’m scared.”
I wipe my cheeks with the back of my hand and look into his eyes. “Scared of what?” I whisper.
What would he be scared of? He is brave for what he did and what he admitted. He could have moved on and forgotten about me. I thought him helping me was because he was doing right by a friend, but this is different.
“That after everything, you would always choose him over me. It is wrong, and I feel ashamed to say it, but you loved him just as much, if not more, and I can’t compete with that.”
“Shh.” I place a tender kiss on his lips. “If I had known how you felt, I would have never left. If I had never left, I wouldn’t have fallen in love with Lane, but you did what you felt was right, and there is no right answer. We meet people in our lives, and it’s their time with you. It was his, and I loved Lane. I don’t regret a minute of it because it gave me LJ, and he is everything to me. Lane was my second love. You were my first love, Kalum, but now, you are my last. I love you.” His nostrils flare, and he crushes his mouth to mine.
We make love for hours in the dark with only the moonlight filtering through the open doors from the balcony.
We make it home before LJ wakes up. Kalum sleeps with me alone for the first time, and I smile when the sun rises. But I know he is gone to work when I feel the empty side of the bed and smell the scent of his cologne.
I make my way to the kitchen and see an envelope with my name on it.
It is addressed to me, but I recognize the envelope. It looks like the one I received when Lane died.
I take it and walk outside with the blanket over my shoulders. I sit down under the cool breeze with the sun rising on the horizon.
What do you have to tell me?I ask Lane inside my head.
I open the letter and read the simple, curt message scrawled in Lane’s handwriting.
Aura,
If he told you, I am going to tell you the words you need to hear. You have my blessing. It was always about you.
We both love you,
Lane Turner.
I hold the letter tight in my palm and look out at the sea. The salty sea air blows my hair. “I love you, too,” I whisper in the wind. But there is a man I need to give my love to and the chance he deserves.
I walk inside the house.
“Mommy,” LJ says, running into my arms.
“Hey, sweetheart.”
“Where’s Kalum?” he asks with hopeful eyes.
