K e i r a
We are never more vulnerable than when we’re naked.
You would think that after weeks of estrangement, after all the lies and manipulations, the accusation and the silences, that the fierceness of my husband and my lovemaking following the dispelling of all our doubts, about Kona’s past, about the false claims lodged against him, about Cass’s artifice, would have brought me peace, brought me comfort. It did. But only briefly.
Drunk. That’s what we’d been in the minutes after forgiveness was given and taken. Drunk on each other, on the love we had, on the desperate, eager exchange of our bodies. We wanted and so, like always, we took.
Fifteen minutes. That’s all the time Kona needed to pull me through our bedroom, kissing me as he walked backward, drawing me so close I had to rest my feet on top of his just to reach his mouth.
Us together, touching, had felt like home. Always. That thick bottom lip, the wide delicious strength of his tongue, how he held me, took me, controlled every movement we made.
“Wrap yourself around me, baby.” He lifted me, fitting his hands under my bottom as he kissed me, held me tight. His voice bordered on frantic, desperate and I let him lead because that was what he liked best—controlling us, directing our lovemaking. Outside the bedroom, I was usually the one in control, the strong one, the one who ran a business and a career and a family. But in that room, alone with my husband, I didn’t need to be in control. I loved surrendering to him, I loved how it made him smile. I loved giving myself to him, completely.
Moments and minutes. They got tangled in the heat that filled our bedroom, in the quick race to feel and touch everything we’d denied each other for weeks—my needing distance, him giving me my space. Now it was like dancing; the same seductive steps we’d been perfecting since the first time he’d kissed me decades before.
Kona was strong and beautiful. That had not changed in the years we’d been together. I held his face between my hands, biting on his bottom lip, smiling at the flash of heat that darkened his eyes. They were black as pitch, those eyes, swimming with a fire I hadn’t seen in months, and I fit my fingers over that beautiful face—the sharp angles of his cheekbones, the small cleft in his chin. There were generations of warriors in those features; fierce Polynesian ancestors that lived and breathed on the surface of his skin and in the strength of his large body.
“Wildcat,” he started, kissing me so carefully I knew he held back that frantic urgency; I could feel it in his trembling fingers. “Baby, I need you. Now.”
I hadn’t, couldn’t say anything, but kept my hands gentle on his face as his arms wrapped tightly around my waist and he lowered us down onto the bed. He pulled my leg even higher around his waist as he hovered above me, and paused; the trembling of his hands had lessened even if the quickening of his pulse had not.
“Keira…”
But I silenced him with my thumb over his bottom lip. “Come take what’s yours.”
He groaned then, and the sound was something feral, something ancient. His need was so great that he couldn't even wait for us to disrobe, finding his way inside me, speeding toward completion, racing to release into me all the need and ache he’d been holding onto for so long.
“I can’t slow down,” he gasped as his thrusts became more frantic and his orgasm rose to erupt into my body. There was an apology somewhere in that confession but I didn't need to acknowledge it. I knew my husband—he’d make up for it. He always did.
And yes, once his breathing had steadied, and the pounding of his heart had returned to something like normal, Kona’s movements slowed and his pace shifted. Now, it was his mouth on my skin, his tongue and teeth dragging over my shoulder, across my breasts as he freed them from first my shirt, and then my confining bra. Slowly, he undressed me there, on the bed, and then he held my waist, arching my tired body as he fused his mouth against my stomach, his thick, warm tongue drawing wet lines and circles on my navel, down to my hips as I spread out before him like a meal.
And he was ravenous.
“I love you.” A promise, one he never spoke lightly, one that never failed to make my heart beat faster. It never went away—that feeling of excitement, the radiant energy that hearing those words from Kona gave me. “I love you, baby.” He continued to worship my skin, his hands smoothing over every inch of me, rubbing, brushing, grabbing as though he could not believe I was real, as though he needed to touch and touch again to see if I was more than merely hope and wish. “I love you so much.”
I loved him, too. More than I ever thought I could. More today, than I ever expected I would after all those years I spent alone, with Kona off living a life that I wasn’t part of. Back then, with our baby sleeping beside me, the baby Kona knew nothing of, my mind would race with fantasies of what could have been, and memories of our short time together. How fiercely I loved him, even then. Even then, I knew that I would never love anyone else, save for that baby by my side, more than I loved Kona.
It was almost too much, the way I loved him. Right then, at that moment, with Kona’s heavy weight over me driving me towards my own climax, right then I knew I’d go on loving him every day, and that my love for him would only grow more and more as time went on. The heart has no limits. Its capacity to love goes beyond all human comprehension. Hearts full of love never burst, they just keep taking.
Kona loved me and I knew that. I knew it as he was pounding so deep inside of me, and I knew it a few moments later, in the satisfied, slowing breaths that moved across my damp skin when he kissed me, when he rolled onto his back satiated by the pleasure I had given him, gratified by the pleasure he’d given me.
Ah, but we are never more vulnerable than we are naked, because then there is nowhere left to hide.
As I lay there, with Kona at my side, as my heart slowed and my breath returned to normal, a dark shadow fell over me. One that had been lurking, temporarily pushed aside by Kona’s caresses, his heat, his hunger, but now flowed over me as I lay there naked, exposed, vulnerable. My heart that had been full just a moment before was pierced with a sudden, sharp pain, and I curled to my side with the sudden awareness that I had almost destroyed us.
I honestly had thought that Cass Colson was going to be the artist who would help launch my new label. He was talented, handsome, charismatic. He was gritty and real, but he was also an opportunist who schemed and meddled his way into my life until he’d become a fixture in our home. Like an idiot, I didn't see how he’d manipulated everyone, how he’d lied to me. I’d almost let him convince me that Kona had betrayed me and because of the whispers Cass spoke when I was scared, when I was isolated, I didn’t believe my husband when he swore he’d never been unfaithful. I’d believed a grifter over the man who had done nothing but love me more than life itself.
So much could have gone wrong, because of me, because of my stupidity, my negligence, my gullibility. If not for Kona, I could have lost everything—my marriage, my family, my business. Everything.
Next to me on the bed, Kona shifted, exhausted, languidly relaxed after so long apart from me, from us. The musky scent of his body surrounded me; it was an earthy, masculine aroma I’d always loved. Now it brought a wave of guilt spilling straight into my chest, weighing me down until I could only close my eyes against the grip of it, until only nothingness could keep me from drowning.
The dark cloud wrapped itself around me, erasing that frantic celebration of our hot, naked bodies coming together. It filled my mind with doubts, worries, and chilled my heart. It whispered low, telling me that I was not worthy of the love Kona gave me. That I’d invited the devil into our home and he’d nearly burned it to the ground.
How could Kona forgive me? How could he forget? Now that the gleam of our reunion had dimmed, how would I ever make amends for what I’d let wedge between us? How could I be sure, fool that I was, that it would never happen again?
I tried to dispel the dark thoughts, to banish them as mere doubt, but they remained stubbornly hooked into my heart, as if a testament to my failing, to my worthlessness.