Mikayla

The next morning, she was so confused after the kiss with Nolan along with the mind-numbing orgasm she’d had while fantasizing about him. When she came face-to-face with him in the hallway, she’d slapped him. “You are confusing the fuck out of me, you arrogant son of a bitch.”

In her mind, she realized she’d really slapped him square in the face, and the pain, though it had to hurt, was nothing from the way he’d looked at her. Part of her wanted to inflict physical agony on to him as he’d done to her. But it was never that simple. Love was never that simple. In her mind, she’d been stripped of the choice to put distance between her and Blake, but then again, she’d never had the strength to choose that for herself.

Reaching for her wrists, he gently pulled her body into his. “You like it heated, you like it angry, and you like it rough. I’ll take you this way; hell, I’ll take you every way.” Dipping his head to her ear, he said, “It will only happen, princess, when you can accept you need me.” His face was now touching hers. “But you have to admit it to yourself, you stubborn, stubborn woman.” Cupping her chin, he kept his grip not gentle but not harsh. “And unlike him, I will never hurt you. You know this in your heart.” Leaning in to her ear again, he whispered, “You want my cock, but more, you want me ... all of me.” Releasing her, he sauntered to his room. Glancing over his shoulder, he winked, then slammed the door behind him.

At this moment, her gratitude and affection were so deep for Nolan, she needed his contact. Running to the door and opening it, she found Nolan standing there, as if he knew she’d come to him. In a split second, it was over. She surrendered her heart to him as her lips met his. Pulling back, just enough to see the beauty of his dark face and the demons that haunted him, it was her time to say, “Tell me to stop. Tell me you don’t want this.” He said nothing. Lifting her light body, he carried her to the bed, standing her just in front of it.

Nolan unbuttoned her shirt with care, pulling it back and taking a deep breath. His eyes remained on hers. When they roamed elsewhere, it was to take in all that was Mikayla Miller.

Reaching around her to unclasp her bra, he watched her full breasts spill out and didn’t think when he leaned down to take one, then the other in his mouth. At the onset of her moans, he pulled back to take off her yoga pants and underwear, letting her step out. Now, Mikayla was fully on display for Nolan, and she loved it. In the way his body roamed over her curves, she was desired and loved, and her heart continued to overflow for this man in front of her.

It was her turn to undress him at her leisure. No words were spoken, but it was as though their minds were translating all they needed to say to one another. Taking the shirt at the seam and pulling it over his head, she was privy to all the ink that covered the good doctor’s body, mostly on his back. Running her lips from his neck all the way down, she traced his tattoos, that led to his back. Taking her index finger, she outlined Evie’s name that was above the tribal tattoo she’d seen earlier. She couldn’t wait to explore all his markings but she stopped at his pants and pulled them down along with his boxers when his cock sprang to life, and she had to stifle a laugh. Pulling her up, where she was even with him, he wrapped his arms around her slim waist, caressing every naked part of her body.

Breaking the silence, he began, “I want you now. I want you forever. But if now is all I get; your body will be the temple I will always worship.” Taking her hand and guiding her to the bed, he laid her out, making sure she was comfortable. “Sweetness, you have to know this is more than sex.” Mikayla nodded. There was no denying what it really was in her eyes—love.

“I want it to be sweet and sexy and worth everything you are.” Again, she only nodded.

Crawling onto the bed where her legs were spread, he took in the lips of her pussy. “I want to see everything of you tonight.” In a second, his lips were kissing her all over, sucking on her clit when her hands found his light blond hair. Looking up and over her for a second, he smiled through the darkness of his eyes, and her heart grew a little more. She understood right then that she was damaged, and he had saved her. Nolan too was damaged, and she saved him too.

He thrust two fingers into her. Her body started to clench around them, and she began to quake. “Let yourself go, Mikayla.”

She was a young woman who’d kept too much to herself for years, and this man was offering to let her be herself for once in her life. It was easy to let go with him, and she did as her orgasm shook through her for what had to be minutes. When she opened her eyes, Nolan was watching her.

“How did it feel to finally let go, giving it all up, everything that ever hurt you?”

She couldn’t lie; it felt wonderful, but it could only be described in one way. “It felt like I’m home. You feel like home,” she said, and with that, Nolan pulled her close to him, as they both silently acknowledged how the other person changed their lives.

When her face reached his, her life changed in that second. All was erased—the abuse of Blake, the ignorance of her parents, the turned head of her sister. Even the love she had for Ethan or the friendship that was a lifeline between her and Jill was gone, and it was all replaced with Nolan.

His hands could not be contained as they roamed her entire body, and he placed his face to hers and said, “Tell me what you want. I need more from you.”

Lacing her fingers with his, she gave a simple reply. “There will be more than enough time for everything. I need you inside me; I need to be one with you now to make it real.” Cupping his face in her hands, she whispered, “To make us one.”

The moment didn’t call for a smirk or an “I knew you’d be mine one day,” but a critical juncture that would foreshadow their entire future. In the crucial turn of events, Nolan continued to shower kisses and little nips against her skin. Pulling back her thick blond hair, he zeroed in on her mouth. “This could be our forever.”

Nodding at him and accepting the truth in the choice she’d made, she pulled him onto her. Placing his cock at her entrance, she felt her eyes water, but not because it hurt. It was their birth as a couple, their own little Genesis. It was as if she could hear the words, “In the beginning.” This was it.

Placing her hands over her head, he kissed down her slender arms as he pushed inside her with one hard thrust. Her nerve endings were on overdrive, sensing every move. She was too responsive, and as if he was reading her mind, he picked up the pace while she could only scream his name. With the pain of her long nails in his back, his moans matched hers. Her pussy continued to seep around his cock, lubricating her naturally for deep access. Each thrust deeper inside her was followed by, “Harder, Nolan, I need you deeper. Deeper! I need to feel you all over.”

With his last push, she surrendered to her own orgasm while he erupted inside her. She tipped his head to look into her face, proclaiming, “I choose you, I choose you—always.” In pure exhaustion, he crawled over to her, placing her head on a pillow while she balled up into his side. When he looked over and saw her tears, worry etched around his eyes.

“Oh, shit, sweetness, did I hurt you?”

Looking up over her tears, she smiled weakly. “No, it was beautiful. You are beautiful.”

“Talk to me, sweetness,” he pleaded.

“I just said good-bye to my old life and hello to my new life with you. No matter how much I tried to fight it, you are in here,” she said, taking his hand and placing it on her chest over her heart.

The night brought a semblance of peace Mikayla had not known for years. In Nolan’s arms, she found her new life.

* * *

It had been a week since they surrendered to one another. They were on the couch tangled in each other's arms as he made love to her, and they were coming down from the high. “Speak to me, sweetness. I see something on your face, and you are retreating. Don’t do this.”

“Sometimes, I forget that we aren’t a normal couple. Even when you’re reading the morning paper as my legs are sprawled out on you, we are a mirage behind so many lies. That never means you are not my life, though.” She answered his question before he could ask it. “I trust you. But please stop locking the door at night and hiding the key.” They’d not spent a night apart, but now he locked them both in at nighttime. “Let me get to know the man who has claimed this whole time he is doing this for my welfare.”

He sat still for what seemed like an hour but was probably just five minutes. “Mikayla—”

He brought her close to him, and again, he kissed her with urgency as if she’d vanish within the next sixty seconds. He stood her up, led her to his bed where she followed voluntarily, and laid her there. Kneeling above her, he slowly undressed her as her heart beat a mile a minute.

“Say it, say what you want,” he said, breathless in her ear.

“I choose you, choose you; always.”

* * *

Libby

It was over three months; that was how long it had been since she’d seen her baby’s face. Yet she needed a break from everything that claimed her. The Canadian countryside was an image of beauty that words couldn’t describe. Libby let go on the ten-day trip as she bunked and related to a young woman in her early thirties whose three-year-old son was killed in a hit and run. She felt a connection with this young girl who was easily twenty years Libby’s junior.

She woke one morning to April crying in a chair in Libby’s line of sight. It took Libby by surprise, but she hurried out of bed to try to comfort her in some sort of way.

“April, honey, are you okay?”

She’d shared with Libby, though, that she’d always been a private person. The daughter of a proud senate leader, April was raised to suppress most emotions and to live on facts only. However, those ideas were unrealistic as she grieved for her son.

“Libby, I’m not good at this.”

Libby leaned over to comfort her and replied, “I know, honey. You don’t have to share anything. If you need to cry, just cry.”

April stared at the bulkhead of the train. “It’s just that today would be Deshawn’s sixth birthday.”

She could physically feel the hurt that April felt course through her own body. “Oh, honey, nothing I can say will take away the hurt. I’m so sorry.” She pulled her close to embrace her as April fought her at first. Then April’s body went limp, and she wailed into Libby’s shoulder. After five minutes, she pulled back and tried to calm herself.

“Libby, I’m sorry. You are wrestling with your own demons, and I don’t need to add to them.”

What Libby didn’t tell her was for five minutes, her own problems were not at the forefront of her thoughts. But she was caring for someone else, and for that, in April’s pain at that moment, it gave Libby some relief.

“It’s okay, dear. I’m fine. It’s what this group is for ... to be there for one another because we know the pain of loss.”

“The worst day in my life was losing Deshawn. Being a single mother, I know the likelihood of having another child is low. However, I have peace knowing Deshawn is at rest. Never knowing would be this endless pain, and I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”

“The loss of a child is not something I know, so you are in my heart too.” In Libby’s mind, there was always a little bit of hope somewhere in her heart that Mikayla was alive; maybe even happy.

All April could do in the awkward silence was laugh and say, “Well, shit, I’m horrible at this. What do you say we get dressed and find the rest of our tribe and get this day started with some coffee and food before we embark on the Canadian countryside?”

“That is a wonderful idea.” They were due in Alberta today, and it was their first excursion since boarding the train nearly two days ago. “Let’s see what kind of trouble we can all get into today. What do you say?”

* * *

Taylor

Moving forward, Taylor’s life returned to a slight normalcy. As she formed a close relationship with the free spirit Amy, whom she had met at the library, her positive outlook on life slowly returned.

Now that she’d at least entered the world of the living again, she looked forward to the future, a future which seemed so far off just four months ago. She had a plan, one that her parents actually supported.

Her parents encouraged her to live on campus, which scared her since Mikayla had lived in the dorms and was kidnapped. Her dad told her during the long discussion that, “You have to be careful. I’m not saying it was this girl’s fault she was kidnapped, but maybe, just maybe she let her guard down for someone she didn’t know very well.”

As much as she wanted to argue with her dad concerning this fact, this certainly could have been the truth. “Taylor, honey, we have to learn to live after something scares us like this.”

The idea of having freedom to come and go without the intrusion of her parents was one part she most looked forward to. “I’ll give the dorms a try, after the summer semester,” she said, almost with a little bit of excitement in her voice.