“It was my pleasure,” she chuckles, turning to face me and frame my face between her hands. “And it had been too long.”
“Not the blow job.” I meet her raised eyebrows head on. “Okay, yeah that, but before that. You bringing the kids on tour with me. Thank you for that.”
The striking lines of her face relax.
“Mrs. O’Malley was desperate for even a crumb from her husband now that he’s gone,” she says, looking into my eyes, showing me her love. “I have you. I have our kids. I have this life with you, and you’re right. There shouldn’t be a season when we miss each other. I’ll make it work.”
“We’ll make it work,” I correct gently, brushing the hair back from her face. “I don’t expect you to make all the sacrifices. I just expect us both to want it more than anything. To want each other more than everything else.”
I grimace at the demand of my words, at the mandate of my heart. I don’t know how to halfway want Bristol. How to halfway love her. I need to have everything and all the time. I have only one gear when it comes her.
All.
But that’s what I want to give her, too.
All.
She smiles up at me, face flushed, her hair a disorderly halo from my fingers and fists. In her eyes, I see it all. Our past and our future. I see us looking down from the top of the world, painfully young with reckless hearts. That was the start of us. Sometimes you don’t know you’re at the beginning when it’s happening. And even though Patrick had been sick for so long, the last time she saw him, Mrs. O’Malley had no idea that it was the end. That’s why we relish every moment. That’s why, even though I may seem selfish or chauvinistic or whatever someone looking in from the outside might call it, I will fight for every second I can get with this woman.
I believe in all the things cynics despise. First kisses on Ferris wheels. Soul mates and once-in-a lifetime loves. I believe in fifty years and forever. I’m sure Neruda has a poem, a line, that would fit this moment perfectly, but I can’t think of it. I can’t think beyond the woman in front of me, and the word “still” tattooed on her ring finger and mine. I only hear the vows poured in cement over my heart.
I said the words that day in a church on a snowcapped mountain, and I’ll say them every day for the rest of our lives.
Always.
Evermore.
Even after.
Still.
And today, I add another word. The one that encircles and seals everything else.
All.
About the Author
Kennedy Ryan is a Southern girl gone Southern California. A Top 40 Amazon Bestseller, Kennedy writes romance about remarkable women who thrive even in tough times, the love they find, and the men who cherish them. She is a wife and a mother to an extraordinary son. She has always leveraged her journalism background to write for charity and non-profit organizations, but enjoys writing to raise Autism awareness most. Kennedy's writings have appeared in Modern Mom Magazine, Chicken Soup for the Soul, USA Today and many others. The founder and executive director of a foundation serving Georgia families living with Autism, Kennedy has appeared on Headline News, Montel Williams, NPR and other media outlets as a voice for families living with autism.
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BLOCK SHOT: http://bit.ly/HOOPSJared
Short Story with Mal and Anne from The Stage Dive Series
Kylie Scott
Once upon a time, Mal decided to go play with Anne at the book shop.
Copyright ? 2018 by Kylie Scott All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Short Story with Mal and Anne from The Stage Dive Series
“I’ll be taking all of these, thank you, ma’am.”
The redheaded fox behind the counter sized up my stack of books, a pen tapping against her pretty pink lips. “That’s a lot of books.”
“I don’t like to do things by halves. Not my style.”
“Mm.”
“Read much yourself?” I asked, setting an elbow on the counter and leaning in. Just getting comfortable. Also, it gave me a great line of sight for checking out the curves beneath her staid black dress. Very nice. Then again, everything about her was.
With a cute little line between her brows, the babe looked at our surroundings. “I work in a bookstore.”
“Right. Sure.”
“There seems to be a theme going on here.” She inspected my selection. “The Kama Sutra. The Joy of Sex. Sex: How to do Everything. The Good Vibrations Guide to Sex. Guide to Getting It On. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Amazing Sex. Did you just empty out our sex section?”
I grinned. “Yeah.”
“In need of some help in certain areas, huh?”
“No!” I scowled. Why the nerve of her. “Absolutely not. I’ll have you know, Miss, that I am very much experienced in the carnal secrets and delights of the bedroom. And various other rooms of the house, as required.”
She delicately wrinkled her nose.
“I am,” I insisted.
“Whatever you say, Sir.”
“Why, I’ll have you know a number of young ladies have informed me I should pen a book on the subject. One even insisted that I owed it to the world to do so.”
She frowned at my collection. “So you’re surveying the existing literature to see what’s already out there?”
“Exactly!” I nodded, pleased that she’d seen straightaway what was going on. “Great minds think alike, and it’s possible some of my less outrageous inventions might already have been stumbled upon by some sex aficionado from an earlier age. Unlikely, but possible.”
She seemed to hiccup in response, as if clamping down on a cough.
I detected a hint of skepticism. “Indeed, the fact is…”
This time, her brows rose. Waiting.
“I’m too much for most women.” I puffed out my chest with pride. All of those hours spent sweating my ass off in the gym ought to be good for something. “It’s sad really. A burden of mine.”
“Are you talking about size?”
I nodded. It was the plain God’s honest truth.
“Ego, or…” She jerked her chin in the direction of my crotch.
“Are you calling me arrogant?”
“I don’t recall mentioning that word exactly.”
I tilted my head. “Perhaps you think I’m lying?”
“Perhaps I’m not thinking anything about you at all.”
“Impossible.” I scoffed, flinging back my long blonde hair. Such golden waves of awesomeness combined with rugged good looks. Oh, she could pretend otherwise, but I know she got off on it care of the dilation of her pupils. Women loved me. Some dudes too. When you were this hot, it just couldn’t be helped. “Who could ignore all of this goodness?”
She just blinked.
I countered by batting my eyelashes at her. Some say my eyes are my best feature. Cerulean blue. Like a pristine lagoon in the Pacific or something like that. I don’t know. It usually worked, but this chick was being difficult.
“Did you just bat your eyelashes at me?” she asked, curious.
“No.” I flexed a bicep. Thank fuck it’d been warm enough to wear a t-shirt. The cooler months in Portland made it hard to show off my wondrous body. And seriously, why go to all of the afore mentioned trouble (gym, sweating, pain, etcetera) if not to share it. Why, it’d just be selfish to keep this all to myself.
She squinted. “Why is your arm doing that? Do you have a tic? You know, they probably have medication for that. There’s a chemist down–”
“I don’t have a tic. I’m just very muscular.”