CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Havoc
“You wanna go?” I ask Leighton as we eye the Ferris wheel. It’s one of the few rides we’re still allowed to have at the Festival. The sun is starting to set and there’ll be a fireworks show once it gets dark enough. One of the perks of living in Small Town, USA. I can’t wait to see her hair under the colored lights. Today has been an affirmation of how happy she’s made me. This woman gets me, and I get her. Every day she makes my life better, in a big fucking way.
She grins up at me hard, so hard I see the barest hint of a dimple in her right cheek. “If you do. Just know I’m kinda scared of heights, but if you go, I’ll go.”
Her grin gets my stomach shaky. It’s not the first time it’s happened, but it’s the first time I’ve truly admitted it. I put my arm around her neck and pull her in, feeling like I’m the luckiest guy in the world when she loops her arms around my waist and slides up next to me in line. I lean in, kissing her forehead, taking my sunglasses off so I can see her better. Hooking them in my t-shirt, I use my other hand to tilt her chin up. Those eyes of hers are amazing in the waning light of the night. They sparkle, and she looks at me like I made her life, hung the moon, and gave her the very best gift ever. I can’t help it, I have to duck in and get a taste of those lips. When we break apart, I smile back at her. “You’ll be safe with me, Leigh. Never, ever gonna let anything happen to you.”
Here under the brilliant colors of a setting sun on a June night, I realize just how serious I am. Whoever tries to take her out of my arms will have a fight on their hands. Like I told her dad back in that fucking courtroom, I will rain down hell on anyone who messes with her. Tightening my arm around her, I hold her fiercely at my side. She’s exactly where she’s supposed to be, and I’ll be damned if I ever let her go.
“Two?” the person taking the tickets asks as we step up to our turn in line.
“Two,” I confirm, pulling the tickets out of my pocket and handing them over. “You ready?” I ask her when he opens our bucket.
“As I’ll ever be, I may have to hold on tight.” She sits as close to me as she can in the middle. “Told you I’m scared of heights.” She jumps when he closes the door and we move up slightly. The shriek in her voice makes me laugh. I can’t remember when the last time was I smiled so much.
“And I told you I’ll keep you safe. There’s no place in the world more peaceful than up here, in our own little haven,” I explain, turning the tone of my voice deep and low, hoping it lulls her into a sense of security.
“Ohhh you’re good,” she accuses, kissing me on the nose before she looks out in front of us.
“I have some practice,” I admit.
“Do tell, we have no place to be.” She indicates how we’ve stopped as they let people on and off the ride.
I tilt my head back, looking up at the stars that are starting to make their presence known. A part of me wishes we were down on the Gulf with the waves crashing so closely we could hear it. I can almost smell the salt of the ocean air and feel the heat rolling off the sand and blacktop. It hits me immediately that I want to take her there. I want to experience everything with her. “I was a confident, cocky, young guy.” I’m interrupted by a throaty laugh.
“You? Never, like, I don’t see it at all.” She rolls her eyes and turns her face away from me, hitting my cheek with her braid.
“I know, I hide it well.” I manage to keep a straight face as I talk to her for all of two seconds, letting the laugh escape. My fingers inch along the back of the bucket, before I grasp the end of her braid, playing with the hair there. “Anyway, my thing was getting girls I was interested in on here. They’d inevitably get scared at the top, and I’d have to calm them down.”
She’s quiet for a few minutes as we move up to almost the very top. Soon we’ll do a few loops, when it’s been completely refilled, but right now I’m enjoying spending time with my wife. “If I were scared right now, how would you calm me down?”
Her eyes are hooded when she turns her face to me. Almost as if she knows what action I’m going to take. I watch as her tongue sneaks out from between her lips and swipes against the dry skin. In its wake, the moisture allows the lights to mirror off the pink tint of her lip gloss. It’s all the invitation I need. I lean in whispering “I’d do a little something like this” before I go in for the kill.
This kiss we share is different from any of the others we’ve shared. There’s a spark of teenage love in the air as we make out on the Ferris wheel at the Founder’s Festival. Admittedly, I haven’t done this since I was a teenager. There’s not much difference, though; I still can’t move much, and I’m just as frustrated as I was back then. My fingers play with the braid that’s driven me crazy all day. Not being able to take control is a problem, so I use the only thing I do have control of, my mouth and hers.
I deepen the kiss, close to eating her up, here in front of the whole town, but I can’t seem to stop myself. My breathing is ragged when I pull back for a split second, before going back in, my tongue sweeping against hers, tasting the lemonade and strawberry sundae she had earlier. I’m drunk on the taste of Leighton. No one I know has ever enveloped my life the way she has – her smell, her taste – everything about her turns me on.
“Holden,” she whispers as she’s able to pull back, giving me little nips before I manage to disentangle my fingers from her braid and then use my palm on the back of her head to press our lips harder and closer together. “We’re in public,” she manages before I leave her breathless again.
“I’m the police, what are they gonna do? Arrest me?”
She giggles deep in her throat as I continue to own her mouth, loving the silky feel of her tongue against mine, the way she’s gripping my shorts with her fingers, the way she’s leaning into me. Fuck if I could get one leg on the bench seat, I’d have her laying over me. We’d really start rocking this bucket.
“Holden Thompson! Knock it off or I’ll turn the water hose on you again!” I hear the voice of one of my old teachers from high school. Mrs. Bennett, if I’m not mistaken. She taught history and always caught me at my worst.
Knowing she’s not lying, I finally end the kiss with Leighton, wiping the gloss off my mouth as I turn to her. We’ve stopped at the bottom and neither one of us noticed it. We were too far gone with each other. “No problem, Mrs. Bennett.” I pull the shorts I’m wearing discreetly at the crotch so I’m not giving everyone a show when I get up from here, and we exit our bucket.
Leighton holds my hand as we travel down the ramp, barely holding in a laugh. When we’re finally out of the earshot of everyone else, she lets loose. “She got you with a water hose once before?”
“Not one of my finer moments.” I grimace as I lean into her, hiding the front of my body from passersby. “I will tell you this though, baby girl. I sure as shit didn’t have a fucking hard-on like this with the girl she caught me with in high school.” I cup her cheek in my hand, forcing our foreheads together. “I don’t know what it is about you, but you affect me in ways I never imagined.”
“You affect me too,” she breathes against my nose. “I try not to let you. I’m scared one day you’ll decide it’s time for me to go and my heart will be broken, but I’m losing the battle.”
“Lose the battle with me, Leigh.”
“It’s crazy.” She shakes her head, and I can feel her anxiety ramping up.
“It’s not, but even if it is, Leigh…baby, be crazy.”
I can feel the way she’s fighting against this, the inner struggle she’s having. The Holden I’ve always been wants to make the decision for her, force her to see what we can have together, make her understand what she means to me. But this Holden, the one who cares for her, and wants what’s best for her, knows I have to let her make her own decision. If she in any way feels like I’ve forced her into something, she’ll rebel, and I’ll be no different than her dad. I refuse to be that man.
“I need time,” she whispers, her voice teary.
“I’m not goin’ anywhere,” I remind her. “Take all the time you need.” I give her another kiss. This one chaste, tame, taking down our arousal a few notches. “In the meantime, enjoy me worshipping your body, because that’s one thing I don’t plan on stopping.”
“Please don’t ever stop.”
And those words give me hope. Hope that she feels the same way about me that I do about her. My past won’t allow me to say the words without being sure, but I know deep in my heart – there is absolutely no one else for me, and there never will be.
Leighton
This man undoes me with every word he says, every way he touches me, and every look he sends my way. He’s perfect, but that’s my problem. I’ve been raised to believe that no one is perfect, and if they are, then they want something from you.
I’m trying really hard to change that way of thinking, but it’s hard, especially when you’ve been conditioned to think that way. If there’s anything I am, it’s conditioned to believe everything I’ve been taught since I was a kid. I’m trying very hard to change, but it’s a slow process. Slower than I even want to admit to myself.
Wanting to bring the fun times back around again, I grab his hand and start walking over to where people are setting up lawn chairs and blankets. “Let’s go watch the fireworks.”
“This is my favorite part of the night,” he admits, holding me close to his side.
There’s one thing about Holden, he always needs to be touching me. At first it was disconcerting, but now I love it. I feel like he’s mad at me if he’s not touching me. Amazing how the human body adapts to those types of conditions so quickly. “I’ve never been able to watch the fireworks,” I admit softly as we go join the group of MTF guys and their significant others.
“Why not?”
I clamp my mouth shut on reflex. I hadn’t meant to let those words slip past my lips, but now that I have, I have to let him know I trust him. Our eyes meet, and I hope he realizes how much it costs me to give him this bit of information. I hope it goes a long way in him believing I’m not playing him.
“You about to tell me some deep, dark secret, babe?”
He’s joking, but he doesn’t know how important what I’m about to tell him is. I’m betraying the only family I’ve ever known, and no matter how shitty they’ve been to me, they are my family.
“The Founder’s Festival always has everyone at it, including a shit ton of police to help with crowd enforcement. How do you think all that ’shine gets moved, Holden? When nobody’s watching.”
His face is pale in the darkness as it clicks with him what I’m saying. “Leigh, did you just tell me what I think you told me?”
I nod, swallowing roughly against the lump in my throat. Hurting family is hard, regardless of how it happens. He’s immediately grabbing his phone out of his pocket and I’m reaching around, picking up our stuff. “What are you doing?” he asks, as he holds the phone to his ear.
“Aren’t you going to go?”
His eyes flash with something I’ve never seen before. “After everybody’s seen me here with you today? I’d be signing your death warrant, sweetheart.”
Whoever’s on the other line picks up, and I listen to his deep voice in the darkness of the warm night. “Have Ace and Menace go check out,” he looks at me for verification.
“Old Chapel Hill Road.”
His eyebrows shoot up, because we both know that’s a location none of them knew about before this moment.
“Old Chapel Hill Road,” he relays to whomever he’s talking to. “Have them take some uniforms. If they see something, have them observe and take pictures. We don’t want an arrest; we want probable cause for a search warrant.”
He swipes his thumb over the phone, ending the call. Taking a deep breath as he looks at me, his nostrils flare before he gathers me in his arms and pulls me deep into his chest. “You’re safe with me.”
The tears escape before I can hold them back. “I know,” I whisper, although right now, I’m really not sure I am. They’ll come now. This will make them come for me.