My Beloved: A Thin Love Novella (2 page)

Now Kona was pulling on her hips, urging Kiera to move faster and she took his invitation, feeling the swell of aching pleasure as it tingled through her whole body, down her legs to her feet, from her hips, straight from her core and she came around him, loving how hard he held her, how his grip was fierce, eager as he followed her in his own climax, and then spent, pulled her down to him.

Cheek against his chest, Keira smiled, ready to purr when he rubbed her back, kissed her forehead. Kona’s long sigh moved against her bangs and he rested his hand on the center of her back. “Never. Leaving. Again.”

“Uh huh.” She rolled off him, stretching against the soft cotton sheets as Kona ran his fingers along her stomach. “That’s just post-coital talk, Hale. You’ll leave again when they want you commentating on another game.”

“Nope. I made a decision.” One quick jerk of his hand and Kona swung Keira back on top of him, pressure tight on her back so she could not move away. “I’ve decided that Ransom can stay with Leann and you and I will live here, right in this bed for the rest of our lives.”

He frowned when she rested her chin against his chest, trying not to laugh. “Leann would kill Ransom inside of a week and you and I would starve.”

“We’ll live off love.”

Keira rolled her eyes, swatted his hand away when he tried keeping her still. “You eat way too much for that to fill you up.”

“You’re the one that fills me up, Wildcat.” There was a slow tingle of pleasure that ran down her spine as Kona pulled her up his body so that their mouths were inches apart. “I get full on you every day, baby.”

Keira couldn’t laugh at him then. She couldn’t take that smile off his face or resist the slow slide of his lips against hers.

Can you die from too much contentment? Keira knew better than to ask that. The universe had a way of fracturing anything she might want for herself. Even all those years ago, after she left New Orleans with Ransom swelling her belly, after she first walked away from the only life she had known, from Kona, and set about trying to figure out motherhood on her own, Keira spent most days waiting for the other shoe to drop. She’d watch Ransom as a baby sleep for hours, just to make sure his tiny, infant chest continued to rise and fall. Every gurgle scared her, every sigh had her convinced she couldn’t take her eyes from him even for a moment.

When you are so used to bad being intrinsic to your life, then you expect the shoe dropping. Sometimes, you count the seconds before it does. Even when it doesn’t.

“Stop thinking,” Kona said. He always did that—guessed when she was worrying about things that may never come. Keira closed her eyes as he rubbed his thumb between her eyebrows. “You have this tiny little line that dents right here when you start that bullshit worrying.”

“You saying I look old, Kona Hale?”

“No. Not
too
old… ow!” She rolled off him and darted into the bathroom before he could retaliate from her projectile pillow aimed right at his head. “You’re beautiful and you know it.” His voice was muffled behind the bathroom door as Keira tidied herself up, trying to keep the smile off her face. Most days lately, she found that impossible to do.

“Again, post-coital compliments, jackass.” She shook out her hair, splashed cold water over her face and neck before she returned to the bedroom. “You know, I don’t think…” but Keira was talking to herself, or at least the empty room. “Where’d you go?” she shouted toward the open door.

The rich scent of coffee came into the room and Keira’s mouth watered. She gave in to a fleeting thought that Kona would bring her a cup as she rubbed her hands over her naked arms. The late November chill had already set into the house, the sharp bite of wind kicking off the lake cooling the air before the temperatures dropped.

She wrapped the down cover over her shoulders, then pushed it back to fetch Kona’s white button up off the floor. It fell to her thighs as she pulled it onto her shoulders and Keira bounced against the mattress, buttoning the shirt before she noticed something square pinching against her butt. Reaching back, she gripped the corner, pulled a hardback copy of Toni Morrison’s novel
Beloved
from underneath the duvet.

Kona tended to read non-fiction or horror novels—he was currently obsessed with Joe Hill and
Kealan Patrick Burke—
but he hadn’t been there the night before to read in bed before sleep, and hadn’t even bothered with his luggage before he was on her, so a book being on the bed made no sense.

Until Keira opened it.

It took three full seconds for her brain to make sense of what she saw when she pulled back the cover. She expected to see her worn, dog-eared copy of the novel with its fraying pages from the number of times she’d read that book. But that wasn’t what caught her eye. That wasn’t what had the air stilling in Keira’s lungs.

“Oh God.”

The pages had been glued together and a small square, just big enough for a ring box, had been cut into the center. The book was opened to page 164 and the highlighted text of Morrison’s words lined the top of the square.

Love is or it ain’t. Thin love ain’t love at all.

Keira hated that her eyes burned, that the small gesture, those words, could cripple her so easily. The words were theirs, a brief quote that defined what Keira and Kona needed from each other. They were the vows of two kids who had no idea what real love was. But those lines had stuck, they said everything about who Keira and Kona were to each other, who they’d always be.

Kona slipped up behind her, his arms around her waist before Keira could lift her fingers to the velvet box in the center of the page. Blinking, she couldn’t quite believe what she was looking at. That black box meant so much, it meant forever, yet even now that part of her that waited for the other shoe to drop wouldn’t let go of the expectation of disappointment. She tried to clear it from her mind. She tried to hope for the question she knew Kona wanted to ask, but that negative, niggling voice remained loud, persistent. It told her not to expect anything.

“I’m sixteen years late,” Kona said, moving the hair off her shoulder. He smelled mildly of sweat with the slightest hint of coffee on his breath. Keira wouldn’t have cared if he smelled of moth balls. He pulled her tight against him, sliding his hands under hers to take the box away from the book, lifting its velvet lid. “I wanted to do this a long time ago, baby. Every day since the second I realized I loved you.”

A quick jerk of her head, a glance over her shoulder and Keira’s vision was blurred by the burning moisture in her eyes. She couldn’t speak, didn’t know what she was supposed to say. She didn’t know if she’d be capable of much more than a nod of her head.

When Keira only continued to blink at Kona, silent, eyes rounding, he took the ring from the box and gently pushed it onto her finger. Her eyes followed the movement, but she was still left dumb, too shocked to make any coherent thoughts organize enough to form speech.

“Be my always, Keira?” What he said was simple. It was sweet. It was Kona saying little and meaning so much with four insignificant words. Separately they were nothing. Together, they held everything that they could ever hope to be.

She’d never heard him speak so gently. She’d never seen Kona sit so still, but his voice was small, so unlike the huge man he was. His expression was guarded, anxious and it took her several moments before she realized he expected an answer. Still she could not move, waiting for it all to vanish.

Then, Kona blew a breath past his lips and his grip around her waist tightened. “Baby, you gotta say something before my heart beats out of my chest. I’m holding my breath here.”

Keira’s throat felt raw and sore, she cleared it and finally glanced down at the ring, a beautiful square cut diamond on a simple platinum band that sparkled against the lamp light.

At last she managed to speak. “I only have one question.” She brought her gaze back to Kona, spotted the way his eyebrows moved up, as though he wasn’t sure what she’d say. She narrowed her eyes at him. “Is this my signed copy?”

Keira watched Kona’s eyes moving across her face, at first confused, but then he must have realized what she was saying and his mouth relaxed as a smile inched against his lips and he released his held breath. “Do you think I’m crazy? I like my balls right where they are.” When she arched one eyebrow at him, he laughed, moving her around to face him. “Second hand bookstore in Atlanta. I know better than to mess with your books.”

No one had ever loved her like Kona. He had shown an introverted eighteen year old what passion was, how it could fill you up, make you soar. He had given her laughter and love and as much of himself as he could, when he couldn’t give her his all. He had given her Ransom. She knew she could spend a lifetime looking into those dark eyes, kissing those soft lips and it would never be enough.

“Well?” he said nudging her with his hand. “What do you say? You wanna marry me, Wildcat?”

“Yeah.” She erased the doubt, the dread from her mind. It didn’t belong there anymore. “Okay.”

Keira had learned several things about Kona Hale, the man. He’d matured, changed and though he reminded her every day of the twenty year old she’d fallen in love with all those years ago, now he was more confident, more driven. Back then, Kona hadn’t known what he wanted and even when he did, he always had a problem finding and keeping it. Now, when Kona wanted something, whatever it was, he didn’t wait for it. The difference between Claiborne-Prosper University, twenty year old Kona and the one using her shoulder as a pillow on the plane they were on, was that Man-Kona went out and got whatever the hell he wanted. At that moment, he wanted her. Well, he wanted her standing in front of an altar saying “I do”.

“I like Riley-Hale.” Ransom’s voice was low as he leaned against the armrest on the plane, head inclined toward Keira.

Kona was snoring softly, slouched against her, his phone forgotten in his lap as they flew toward Hawaii. When he’d asked her to marry him two days before, Keira had thought that surely, they would have months to plan. She didn’t want anything overwhelming, just Kona standing in front of her with a minister blessing their marriage and a hurried family dinner so they could get on with the honeymoon. But Kona, as he’d said repeatedly over the past forty-eight hours, had waited “sixteen years to marry the woman of my dreams. We’re doing this big and we’re doing it now.”

Kona the man got what he wanted so Keira didn’t fuss when he stayed on his phone for two hours straight making plans with his family back in Hawaii. He wanted Ransom to meet everyone, all those people who Kona had been telling tales about for months. And he wanted to show off his son. So Keira let him plan whatever he wanted. She let him make phone calls and direct his aunties and cousins on venues and photographers. Keira didn’t care about any of that—he was all she wanted.

“Riley-Hale?” she asked Ransom.

“Yeah. It’s just that, I like our name. It’s who we’ve always been.” He glanced at Kona when he let out a particularly loud snore. Ransom chuckled, head shaking as he moved his gaze back to her. “But now Dad’s a part of us. Now we’re Hales too.”

Keira hadn’t considered what this marriage would mean for her son. She knew Ransom loved Kona. She knew the feeling was mutual and tentative plans of splitting time between New Orleans and Nashville had been made; that was, until Kona postponed the coaching position at CPU to offer commentary for the NFL. It kept him active in the league and, though there was nothing really to be done about it, it kept their names on the news and the media interested in their lives. The press loved their “second chance love story” and seemed unable to let go of the story of the man who’d abandoned his football career to devote his energies to his son.

“It’s temporary, Wildcat. Just until the end of the season.” That promise Kona made a month before and already Keira didn’t like how often he was gone, how consumed he was becoming with the attention he received.

She also didn’t like how Ransom had given up his life back home in Tennessee and Kona seemed totally unaware of the sacrifice. She suspected that beautiful little redhead her son spent most of his free time with eased the sting of uprooting himself from Nashville. But as she watched her son stare out the window, his eyes focused and wandering over the expansive sea beneath them, she realized that her son’s concern was real, that he wanted them all together and happy. His needn’t be the only sacrifice. “So you don’t think we should just take Kona’s name?”

Ransom shrugged, leaning against his seat. “I think that I’m just as much you as I am him, Mom. Besides, isn’t that what a marriage is? Two people becoming one?”

“Yes.” A smile threatened against her lips but she held it back, not wanting Ransom to see how ridiculously proud she was that he understood things better than some men twice his age. That pride usually only embarrassed him.

“So Riley-Hale is who we’ll be.” It wasn’t a question. Ransom shrugged his shoulders again, leaning his head back against the seat as though the matter was settled.

Her son was so like his father and sometimes when they were together those similarities were almost eerie. But in moments like this one, when Ransom’s opinions were logical, far too sensible for a kid of sixteen, Keira found he reminded her of her father, of the man that had raised her to mimic his ideals.