“Kiwi”—Harry Styles
DRIVING HOME FROM WORK, I had the music blaring and the window rolled down. It was a rare sunny day for once and the temp was beautiful. As I did every time I drove my Jeep, I reveled in it. I freaking loved the thing, and it meant even more that Kayde had bought it and why he bought it. After remembering that long-ago day, I didn’t have to be a genius to figure out that was why he’d gotten a black one. Just thinking about it made me smile.
Kayde had a club thing today, and I had wanted to go, but he never invited me. It kind of hurt. Often, I wondered if he was ashamed of me. Or maybe he wasn’t really as sure of us as he claimed. Knowing that wasn’t true didn’t keep the doubts from creeping in.
After I got home, I walked next door to Aggie’s to grab Ty. Once again, I’d lucked out and found a great sitter close to home. That reminded me, I needed to call Em. I hadn’t talked to her in over a week. When I’d found out she’d made it, I’d cried my eyes out. Never had I been so damn thankful for another person.
After I’d fed and bathed Ty, I checked my phone. It was weird that Kayde wasn’t home yet. He said he wouldn’t be staying late, but maybe he changed his mind. Sending him a text to touch base, I finished getting my little man ready for bed.
By the time I sat down to read a book on the couch, he still hadn’t returned my message or called. Glancing out the window, I saw it was dark and my worry grew.
It got later and later. When my phone rang, I jumped at it, thinking it must be Kayde.
The number was the hospital though, and I wondered what was up that they were calling me this late. “Hello?”
“Sera? I know you basically just left, but do you think you could come in for a few hours?” It was our nursing supervisor, which was strange.
“I’m so sorry, but Kayde isn’t home yet, and Ty is in bed. What happened? I thought Kassi, Hunter, Pete, and Jenny all showed up?”
That’s when she knocked my breath from my lungs, and I felt like the floor nearly came out from under my feet. She said Kassi went home sick and they were waiting for Tabitha, another nurse, to come in but she wasn’t able to come in for a while. That wasn’t the part that had me tripping out though. It was the part where she said a biker had wrecked and they didn’t expect him to make it that had my world crashing around me.
“What’s his name?” Heart pounding, I prayed. Please don’t let it be Kayde.
Just as she said she wasn’t at liberty to say, which I knew, but I hoped she might give me something to go by, the door opened and the man who was my sun and moon walked through it looking like his world just imploded. Rushing to get her off the phone, I ran over to Kayde, throwing my arms around him.
“Oh my God! I’ve been so worried! You didn’t answer my text, then it got dark, then the hospital called to see if I could work, and they said there was a bad motorcycle wreck. I was so worried it was you!” His gray eyes were so full of pain. I searched his face for some sign of what was wrong. That was when I noticed the dried blood on his hands and the smear of it on the side of his neck. “Kayde?”
When his voice cracked as he spoke, my heart broke for him. “Baby, it was Erik… Hacker.”
Oh shit. Picturing the man who helped me and Kayde when I left Lawrence, I felt awful. They had been so close, but I knew things had been off with them lately because Hacker was being dumb about something. I’d been patient and understanding when he said he wanted to keep me separate from the club until shit was sorted out with my piece-of-shit ex. I was hurt, but I understood. Now I felt awful that I may never again see the man who had been such an integral part of Kayde’s life in the years we were apart—that he may never see him.
His usually luminous eyes were dull with pain. “They sent him to Sioux Falls via CareFlight. They said they didn’t know if he’d make it.” Helping him out of his jacket and leading him to the shower, I stayed silent, sensing he needed my quiet support at the moment. If they sent him to Sioux Falls, it was bad.
My heart shattered for him when I heard his anguished, angry yell come from the shower. It was some time before he exited the shower. I continued to sit on the edge of the bed as I waited for him to come out of there.
Without a word, he shuffled to the bed and fell back, staring at the ceiling. Curling up next to him, I laid my head on his chest and wrapped my arm around his abdomen. “I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do?” He just shook his head. “You said Hacker was in the Marine Corps with you, right? And the two of you are pretty close.”
“Yeah, we are. Even though things have been a little strained lately. In the Marine Corps, Hacker had been our techno-computer guru on the team. The man is a fucking genius, but he didn’t flaunt the shit. You know how the government and the media tried to make it sound like some suit behind a computer found info on this or that terrorist cell or individual? Yeah, well you could bet it was actually him in sandy, dirty camo on some hillside in Afghanistan or one of those godforsaken Middle Eastern sandbox countries that slipped into a security feed or one of the raghead’s computers and found them. We didn’t rely on intel from some suit in Washington. Erik was our security spook. He would be in and out of their system before they knew what the fuck hit them.” His chest lifted with a deep breath, and his arm wrapped around me.
“When he made the decision to leave, we all felt it. The team hurt for quite a while, and accepting his replacement was hard as fuck. He and I kept in contact after he left. After my last incident where I left the sand with a few extra holes in my body, I came here to visit him on my con-leave.” Slowly, his fingers threaded through the ends of my hair as he continued talking about his friend.
“He and I had a heart-to-heart, and I knew the time in my insane life as Force Recon had reached its expiration date. After my confession to him about how it had changed me—not necessarily for the better—he asked me to move back here, and well, the rest, as they say, is motherfuckin’ history.” We lay there in companionable silence for a few minutes.
His chest rumbled under my ear when he spoke again. “If you think you’ll be okay, I’m going to head up there. I may be there a while, but I’ll have Steph and Becca check on you.” I’d heard him mention these women before and knew they were with some of the guys from his club. It made my ears perk up that he was finally including me in something with his life here. The thing was, I didn’t know them.
“Babe, I’ll be fine. You don’t need to assign me babysitters. I’ve got Aggie and the girls at work. I’ll be fine. Promise.” His lack of fight and argument told me his mind was a mess. “When will you go?”
“In the morning. I need to try to get some sleep. Then I’ll head out early.”
“Okay. Come on, let’s just try to get some sleep for now.” Resting my chin on his pec, I looked at him with worry. “I love you, Kayde.”
He didn’t say anything until I had shut the lights off and we were spooned in the bed. “I love you so fucking much, Sera. Thank you for being here for me. I never want to lose you.” His hand slid my hair up and over the top of the pillow. Burying his face in the crook of my neck, he inhaled, and I reached up to hold his head close.
Neither of us spoke as he slid his hand up my side to cup my breast. His hard length pushed against me, and I rolled to my back. My legs fell open in invitation for him to nestle between them. The head of his cock nudged at my center until it was slicked enough in my wetness to slide in. Heaven was no mystery to me; it was found in his arms, with him deep inside me.
Again, he buried his face in my neck. Holding his weight off me, but keeping our bodies in contact head to toe, he thrust slowly but deeply inside me. Knowing he was using my body as his refuge in his pain, I didn’t say anything, just silently encouraged him with my body language. After everything this broken man had done for me, I would always be there for him. I’d be his escape, his anchor, whatever he needed.
As he pressed steadily into me, over and over, the friction of our bodies where we joined and his girth inside me had my climax swiftly building. As he gave a final rough shove in me, I felt everything in me break loose as we detonated together. My body arched up into his, and he curled even tighter around me, pressed deep and pulsing into me.
When I felt hot droplets run down the side of my neck, I held him tight as silent sobs wracked his body.
Waking suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. My entire body was surrounded. Kayde lay on top of me, arms alongside me with his hands framing my head, with my face tucked tight into his chest and his head over mine. My arms were pinned to my sides, so I couldn’t move them to shake him or push him off. “Kayde!” His name was muffled since I couldn’t draw a deep breath and my mouth was against his sternum. My body barely moved as I tried to arch up to jostle him. He was just too big.
“Kayde!” When I said his name again, he jerked awake, looking around disoriented. He pushed up off me, and I sucked in a gasping breath. Jesus! “What the heck? What was that?” Gray eyes looked at me, but without recognition. Then he just rolled over, mumbling something about “fucking IEDs.”
I was up the rest of the night after that, watching him sleep. Unknown demons gripped him off and on into the morning light. Each time he thrashed, I held his hand and spoke softly to him until he calmed and stilled. I’d been lucky that I hadn’t had but one nightmare since I started sleeping in Kayde’s bed.
After his fitful night, Kayde had woken up later than he had planned. I knew that bothered him because he wanted to get up there as soon as possible. He didn’t say anything about his nightmares, and I kept quiet. There would be time to talk about them another time.
Thankfully, I didn’t work that day, so I was able to help Kayde pack a bag and get on the road. I thought about offering to go with him, but I was still new to the hospital, and without knowing how long he may be there, I knew I couldn’t miss work.
Kayde had looked so damn tired, and his spirit seemed utterly crushed when he headed out, but he had held me tight to him for a least five minutes before he climbed in his Jeep and left with the promise that he would call me when he got there and FaceTime me tonight.
Ty woke up, and I busied myself with spending time with him, catching up on laundry, and checking my phone for missed calls, even though it hadn’t left my pocket and the ringer was turned up all the way. When Ty took his nap, I tried to catch up on some of the sleep I lost last night, but I kept waking up, worried I’d missed Kayde’s call.
When it finally rang, my shoulders dropped in disappointment that it wasn’t Kayde yet. It was Lydia, one of the nurses I worked with. She was sweet, but a hellacious gossip. When she proceeded to tell me that Kassi had been brought in this morning because she’d had a placental abruption followed by a premature delivery, I gasped. Then my heart broke for her and Hunter when she told me at first they thought she was losing her baby, but then she hemorrhaged and they had rushed her out to Sioux Falls in critical condition.
Both Kassi and Hunter worked with me in the ER, but they worked nights. They both seemed so sweet and they were like this fairy-tale couple. Both were incredibly gorgeous and great nurses, even though Kassi was a new nurse. Rumor had it—via Lydia—that the baby wasn’t Hunter’s, but I didn’t get involved in any of that. That was their business, not mine.
After Lydia had exhausted her supply of information, I felt I needed to call Kayde. Things like these past couple of days made you realize how short and precious life was. Just when I thought it would go to voice mail, he answered.
“Hey, beautiful. I just got to Sioux Falls.” His voice sounded so tired and subdued. “Sorry, I was on the phone with Snow. He got up here last night. Things don’t look great right now. I’m pulling into the parking lot of the hospital now though, so I’ll let you know when I know more.”
“Okay, I was just worried about you. I didn’t want to call and bother you in case you needed to get your head straight before you got there. I just needed to hear your voice.” Absently, I twisted a chunk of my hair as I massaged my temple. For a minute, I thought about asking him to check on Kassi while he was there, but he had enough to worry about with his friend.
“I miss you already, baby girl. Hopefully he pulls through and is back to his old self in no time. The dumbass wasn’t wearing his helmet though, and I guess he has some swelling they are worried about or something.”
Cursing in my head, I knew from experiences with past patients that it wasn’t a good thing. But I’d seen people come back from worse, so I prayed for his friend.
“Okay, well I’ll talk to you later. Just be careful, and when he wakes up give him a hug from me.”
“You got it, chica. Love you, baby. To the moon and back.” Melt my heart. Just stick it on a skewer and toast it like a marshmallow, because he was just so damn wonderful.
“I love you too. Be safe.”
With a promise to call me later, he hung up. I knew better than to ask what else could go wrong, because I knew there were lots of worse things than this, but damn.
Shaking my head, I couldn’t believe everything that had happened over the past twenty-four hours. It completely blew my plans out of the water, but it was early, so I had time to tell him. Worry had me chewing on my lip. Hopefully, he thought of this as a good thing.
Shuffling over to the couch, I plopped down next to Ty, where he sat looking at one of his train books. Once I sat down though, he scrambled over to my lap and handed me the book to read to him. Holding him close and thanking God for his health and safety, I kissed his unruly hair.
As I read, I wondered if he would be having a baby sister or a baby brother.