All the Pretty Poses (15 page)

“So this might be our last day together?” I
feel panic clawing at my chest. Reese is the one thing that I look
forward to every day, the one saving grace this life has for me.
Without him, the world is an ocean of despair intent on drowning
me. He’s like my life preserver, the one thing I can cling to that
doesn’t threaten to drag me under.

“No. Kennedy, I told you—”

“I know what you told me, but I’m just so
afraid…”

“Don’t be. He can’t
make
me do
anything I don’t want to do. And I told you that if I leave here,
I’m taking you with me.”

“But it’ll be three more years before I can
leave with you. Hank would never let me go before I’m
eighteen.”

“Then I’ll make him.”

We both know that as powerful as Reese’s
family name is, there is no way he could
make
Hank give me
up. Even Reese can’t save me from some things. But I don’t even
want to think about that right now. I give Reese my bravest smile
and nod, unwilling to waste one more minute on such an unpleasant
topic.

Suddenly, I feel frantic. I feel an urgency,
a soul-deep need to share everything I can with Reese
now,
before life swallows up the last bit of happiness that I have.

“Reese, there’s something I want to give you
today.”

“What’s that?” he asks, brushing my bangs out
of my eyes as he so often does.

I don’t answer him. I just look up into the
eyes that I’ve come to love so much and I pour out my heart.

He watches me for several long seconds,
waiting for me to answer. When I don’t, his smile slowly dies and
he reaches up to cup my face. I know the instant he realizes what I
mean. His eyes darken and take on a sort of…hungry look that makes
my stomach feel like liquid fire.

“Are you sure?” he whispers hesitantly, as
though he’s nearly afraid of what my answer might be.

“Yes.”

He bends his head, his lips brushing mine in
a kiss so tender it makes me want to cry. When he starts to pull
away, I rise up on my tiptoes and press my mouth harder onto his,
winding my arms around his neck and holding on tight.

Reese slips his tongue between my lips and I
lean into him, molding my young body to his bigger, firmer one. His
broad palms skate down my sides, leaving a chill in their wake.
Suddenly, I can’t get close enough. I can’t warm enough. I can’t
get enough of Reese.

With trembling, frenzied fingers, I reach for
the hem of his shirt and slide my hands underneath, reveling in the
hot smooth skin of his rock hard abdomen and muscular chest. Reese
moans and moves his hands around to my butt, pulling my hips into
his, thrilling me with the rigid bulge there.

“Make love to me, Reese,” I pant desperately,
urging him to pull his shirt over his head.

He leans back enough to do just that, tossing
it somewhere on the ground behind him before his lips return to
mine and he meets my passion with a blazing fire of his own.

In the quiet of the meadow, in the still of
one summer afternoon, Reese undresses me and lays me gently on a
bed of thick grass. He nuzzles my throat and kisses my chest. He
laves my nipples and squeezes my hips, worshiping every inch of me
until I’m nearly overwhelmed with the need to have his body
covering mine.

I’m on the verge of visceral chaos when Reese
leans back and digs a foil package out of his wallet before
stepping out of his shorts. He stands naked before me, all tan skin
and lean muscles. I watch his biceps shift and his abdomen twitch
as he tears open the packet with his teeth and unrolls it over his
enormous length.

As much as I want to squeeze my eyes shut
against the thought of that fitting inside me, I don’t. I don’t
want to miss one moment, one glance. I don’t want to miss the sight
of one expression as it flits over his face.

When Reese returns to me, covering my body
with his, he rests most of his weight on his forearms so that he
can stare down into my eyes. Time passes—a fraction of a second or
an eternity. It could easily be either one. Finally, he speaks.

“I’ve never met anyone like you. And whatever
happens, I’ll never forget this perfect day, this perfect
summer.”

I bury my face against his chest as Reese
eases into me. He strokes my hair and whispers soothing things into
my ear until the pain passes. I let him think I’m reacting to the
sharp sting of his body piercing mine, but I’m not. It’s
overshadowed by the agony I feel in my heart. Somewhere deep down,
I know I’ll never see Reese again. As much as he might want to save
me, he won’t. He can’t. He’s not strong enough. And I think he
knows it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE- Reese

Someone crying my name—literally crying—wakes
me from my sleep. It takes me only a split second to realize where
I am and who I’m with.

It’s Kennedy who is crying.

For me.

“Reese,” she wails again, her face contorted
and a single tear slipping from the corner of her eye to travel
down her smooth cheek.

“I’m here,” I tell her, drawing her into my
arms. The agony in her voice is like a kick to the gut.

She buries her face against my chest,
reminding me of that summer all those years ago. She did the same
thing in the moments when she gave me her virginity, shedding her
tears in absolute silence.

I cup the back of her head and hold her to
me, dragging my lips over her apple-scented hair until she calms
down. I know the instant she comes fully awake. She stiffens
against me.

After a few seconds, I feel Kennedy’s hand
come to the center of my chest and push. I release her, leaning
back until I can peer down into her face.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“I’m fine,” she answers casually. “Why?”

“You were crying and you said my name a
couple of times.”

I see color bloom in her cheeks, a nice
change from how peaked she was when I brought her here earlier.

“Oh. Sorry.”

“What were you dreaming about?” Kennedy
lowers her eyes and I know by her hesitation that she’s going to
tell me a lie. “Tell me the truth. Please.”

She glances back up at me, her eyebrows
drawing together. “Why? Why does it matter?”

That’s an excellent question. But I have no
answer. I don’t know why it matters; I only know that it does. “I
need to know.”

Her guard, usually so ready and so solid,
isn’t in place as firmly as it has been. I can see a softness in
her eyes that isn’t often there. Maybe it’s because she’s still
waking up. Maybe it’s because she’s been sick. Maybe it’s because I
took care of her. Or maybe it’s none of that. Whatever the reason,
her guard is down and I plan to take full advantage of it.

I raise my hand to brush the hair away from
her cheek, just like I used to brush her bangs back all those
summers ago. I see the recognition in her eyes.

“I was dreaming about that day in the
woods.”

“Then why were you crying?”

“Because I knew I’d never see you again.”

“I never meant to hurt you, Kennedy. I was
just a stupid kid.”

She nods and tries to smile. “I know. I had
just hoped you’d be more.” She sighs and I can tell she’s preparing
to move, but I’m not ready for this to be over yet.

“I thought about you for years after I left.”
She watches me intently, making no comment. “In a way, I wished
you’d given your virginity to someone else. Someone who deserved
it.”

Her laugh is soft yet tinged with bitterness.
“I wanted you to have it. It was the one thing of
mine
that
I had left, the one thing I could give away. Before he took that,
too.”

I have an immediate reaction to what it
sounds
like she might’ve meant by that. The blood leaves my
face and my jaw gets tight. But surely she couldn’t be saying...
“What do you mean?”

Kennedy’s face is open and sad, not guarded
and tough like it has been since the moment I saw her again. “After
Hillary died, Hank started…visiting me. At night. In my room. He’s
why I would run and hide in the woods.”

The bottom drops out of my stomach. “Are you
saying that he…he…”

I feel like the world is perched, perfectly
still, on a pinhead, waiting for her to answer me. I pray to God
that I’m hearing that wrong, but something tells me I’m not.

“That’s the one part of my innocence that he
was afraid to touch. There would be proof. But that was the only
part.”

I’m filled with a mixture of rage and disgust
for what Kennedy’s father had done to her. It churns in my gut and
burns through my veins. But I also feel an overwhelming sense of
guilt. Kennedy needed a decent person in her life, not another
shitty man who would ultimately hurt her in another way.

She looks down at my shirt, fiddling with one
of the buttons as she laughs, a hollow, heartbreaking sound. “Yeah,
I used to think that you could save me from him. From life. From
sadness and pain. But then I realized that no one could. That no
one
would.
There was no Superman waiting to rescue me. I
realized that if I was going to survive, I’d have to rescue myself.
I couldn’t wait around for anyone else to do it.”

I release Kennedy and roll off the bed to my
feet. I drag my fingers through my hair, feeling like I might burst
into furious flames at any moment.

I pace the floor, at loose ends, not knowing
what to do with my fists or my anger, not knowing how to deal with
this new information. I’m so caught up in my own head, so deafened
by the sound of my rapid pulse in my ears that I barely hear her
quiet words when she speaks.

“I know. It’s disgusting. I couldn’t even go
to his funeral, I felt so dirty.”

“Disgusting? It’s…it’s…” Words escape me.
Then a thought occurs to me and I whirl to face her. “Why didn’t
you tell me?”

Kennedy is sitting up in bed, her hair wild
around her head, her eyes wide and tortured. “I didn’t want you to
feel differently about me. I was afraid of what you’d think.”

Her words are like a battle axe to the chest.
“What kind of a monster did you think I was?”

Her smile is small, but it is belied by the
shimmer of tears in her big green eyes. “I didn’t think you were a
monster. I loved you. I didn’t want you to know. It was as simple
as that.”

“But Kennedy, you’d been abused! If I’d
known, I would’ve taken better care. I would’ve been gentler. I
would’ve…”

“You
were
gentle. You
did
take
care. There was nothing I would’ve wanted you to do differently.
You were wonderful. It was everything I wanted it to be
until...”

In my head, I finish her thought. “Right up
until I disappeared.”

I see the hurt before she drops her eyes to
watch her hands where they’re toying with the hem of her shirt. She
doesn’t have to confirm it. I know I’m right. And I honestly don’t
think I’d feel more like a monster if I’d killed somebody. I might
as well have killed Kennedy. By leaving her, I sentenced her to a
childhood where she was at the mercy of another kind of monster.
And, without me, she had nowhere to run, no one to help her. She
trusted me when she couldn’t trust anyone else, gave me the only
thing she had to give, and I shit all over it.

My throat feels tight as I try to explain,
knowing that nothing I say will ever change what happened, ever
make a bit of difference. But I’m desperate to make her see… “My
father came to get me that night. He’d pulled some strings and
gotten me into Oxford for the fall semester. Said I was the oldest,
the one who had to carry on the family name, the one who had to
provide security for my brothers. He said it was my last chance to
make my mother proud. He knew that if nothing else he’d said would
make me go, that would. He knew she hated me. Maybe he even knew
why. But I know he knew I’d do anything to finally get just one
little bit of love from her. Just the tiniest bit of approval.” I
turn to face Kennedy, sitting like a damaged angel in a bed of
pain. “Not that any of that matters now. It doesn’t change the fact
that I was weak. I never wanted to grow up to be like my father and
he knew it. But that manipulative bastard outsmarted me and I grew
up just like him anyway.”

“You’re not like your father, Reese.”

“How can you say that?” I ask in angry
disbelief. “After the way I treated you, how can you say that? Look
what I’ve become.”

“You always treated me well, Reese. Like just
a girl. A girl worth spending time with. But if
you
feel
that way, if
you’re
unhappy with what you’ve become then
change it. You’re the only one who can.”

I feel fingers of hopelessness wrapping my
soul in their icy grip. “I am what I am, Kennedy. Like it or not,
this is it. This is who I turned out to be.”

“Then be happy with that. Regret will eat you
alive if you let it. The only choice we have is to do the best we
can and move on.”

“Is that what you did? You moved on? Learned
to hate me?”

The thought of her hating me is appalling,
but I know it’s a very real possibility, just like I know that I
can’t change the past.

“I don’t hate you, Reese.”

“You should.”

“No, I shouldn’t. You’re right. We were both
just stupid kids. I expected you to be my hero, but that wasn’t
fair. I shouldn’t have put that on you. I needed to learn to be my
own hero, because in the end, people can only hurt you if you let
them.”

“So now you keep everyone at arm’s length so
they can’t get close enough to hurt you.”

“Don’t judge, Reese. You do the same
thing.”

I don’t answer her. Maybe she has a
point.

The need to heal her, to make up for all the
pain I caused her, to give her happiness in place of all the
heartache wells in my chest like a hot spring. Maybe it’s man’s
instinct to protect the weaker sex. Maybe it’s the residue of the
love I had for a girl a long time ago. Maybe it’s something more.
Who the hell knows? But it’s there.