What Lies Beneath (Count on Me Series #7) (11 page)

“Which is?” she asks, her words breathless, filled with a need that while I’ve gotten used to hearing, still manages to take my breath away every single time it happens.

One almost as potent as mine for her.

Almost.

“Getting you out of these wet clothes.”

Shifting over to her side, my hands lower to the button on her jeans, popping it out and pausing whatever it was she planned to say next, filling the space instead with the sound of her light gasp before she shimmies her legs and moans.

What she knows will be my undoing.

Lowering the zipper, I lift her up off the bed and begin the slow process of sliding her jeans, which feel as though they’re permanently attached to her body, down. Slipping them around her ankles until one slight kick from her feet has them landing on the floor with a heavy thump.

A sound she obviously seems to find amusing as she begins to laugh softly before I move back up and silence her with another kiss.

A kiss that before it can deepen, Belle is the one pulling back from. Lifting up off the bed just enough, she lets me know with just a look why she pulled away as her arm lifts into the air and she’s attempting to take her shirt off. Making sure that as she pulls it off that it makes it way to the floor, before wrapping her arms around my neck pulling me down to the bed with her and kissing me again.

This time, her tongue quickly probing my lips, tasting them before making its way inside and tangling itself up in my ready and willing one. The vibration of her moan mixing with the rawness of mine as we hungrily taste each other, and as my hands begin to slide down her body, feel each other.

Dampness from the rain drenching through her clothes making her body slick to the touch, but warmer than I expect, only serving to make me hungry for more.

Pulling away and nibbling softly when she groans from the separation, I begin kissing down her neck. Pausing when I get to her shoulder and am able to bear witness to the droplets of water that despite being covered, still managed to pool there and are now making her skin glisten.

This is even better than I imagined.

Laying here with me, exposed but for the bra and panties I still have yet to remove, she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Her skin literally glowing from the effect of the rain and the kiss we just shared.

I’m seeing Belle for the first time.

Bare and exposed. Beautiful and willing. Soft, needy and all mine for the taking.

Pressing my lips to a droplet of water before it has a chance to cascade down her shoulder and be lost forever, I taste it before continuing down. Succumbing to the feel of her as my touch, my embrace, and the kisses I rain down on her cause her to arch into me. 

Her next words, short, breathless, filled with want and need, but still uniquely Belle.

“You’re being a little unfair, don’t you think?”

“Hmmm? How so?” I murmur before snagging her lip with my teeth and pulling her into yet another passionate kiss. “I think this is very fair. I can lay you back and kiss away every drop of rain from your body.”

Shifting upward, she takes me off guard as she pushes into me, laying me out flat on my back as she takes control of the moment and straddles me, the only giveaway of what’s to come present in the flame of desire I now see blazing in her eyes.

A fire that’s only for me.

“It’s not fair because I can’t do the same to you. I can’t feel the warmth of your skin against mine or the wetness from you mixing with mine.” She smiles down before her hands lower to my own pants and she rubs ever so softly over my own arousal. My aching and now almost painful need to have her.

“I think it’s only fair we even the odds.”

Oh God.

She can even whatever she wants. Hell, with the way she’s brushing her hand harder over my erection now, she can take the lead. Win this game of ours. Hell, she already has won.

Belle always wins.

Grabbing a hold of my hand, she pulls me up and steadying myself on the mattress, I attempt to contain myself when her fingers brush against my stomach as she lifts the water logged shirt up and over my head. Where it lands, where it even goes once it’s peeled from me, I don’t know because my attention, it focuses downward as just like I’d done, she makes quick work of the buttons keeping me contained.

Freeing me of the restraints, but halting her before she can continue the same movement with my boxers, my hand finds her cheek, cupping it tightly and I bring her lips crashing down to mine again. The rope that up until now had been restraining me in the way I needed it to snapping, until all we are is a mash of lips touching, bodies rubbing and hands feeling.

Her moans matching the veracity of my own until the room is drenched in the sounds of them. My name falling softly from her mouth when I break away for air and hers catching and releasing roughly when after needling my skin with her hands, she again slips down and begins removing the layer that stands between us.

Answering her need with my own, I begin rubbing my fingers on the outline of her panties, over her warmth and what I just know is her readiness for what is about to happen next. What I’m rewarded with when after she arches, the hot breath of her moan in my ear pushing me forward, I slip my fingers inside, teasing her.

“Kayden…” My name like a reverent prayer as it falls hungrily from her lips.

“You. Are. So. Beautiful.” I tell her between kisses, as I hook my fingers into her panties and begin to slide them down. Continuing to move one finger and then two from my other hand inside her, struggling to remain in control when she writhes against me the deeper I let myself go.

My lips on a path of their own as they find every drop of wetness that glistens and makes her skin shine, from her lips, to her shoulder, down her chest and over her stomach, and all the way up her arms until my teeth are again grazing the tight skin of her neck.

My fingers slipping from inside when her body stills and her soft needy voice pleads with me for more.

“Now, Kay.”

“Now what, baby?” I ask, needing to hear the words that will match the intoxicating look I’m now seeing in her eyes.

“I need you…now. Make love to me, please.”

Unhooking her bra and shedding the remainder of our clothes, bringing down the last remaining barrier that stands between the two of us coming together, that’s exactly what I do.

I love her. 

Chapter Twelve

“Mom?” I call out, rubbing my eyes and moving across the hall.

Through the crack in the doorway, where she left it ajar, I can see her moving frantically back and forth between the dresser and the bed. Bundles of clothes in her hand. So much of it that pieces of it are falling to the floor, but her frantic movements and attention to the task blinding her to it.

Slapping my hand on the door with another quick jab at my eyes, clearing the sleep from them, I push it back and step in. The low squeal of the hinges pulling her from what she’s doing and focusing her attention on the intrusion.

Whatever she’s expecting to see causing her entire body to freeze in place and jump back, her hand flying to her chest and clutching until she finally takes a breath when she sees it’s me.

“What’s going on?”

Taking in what I couldn’t see before, I catch sight of the suitcase first and the colorful assortment of clothes practically pouring out of it. Looking over to the dresser, I see that’s she made it through four of the six and has the fifth one already open and ready to clean out.

“Are we going somewhere?”

Stepping toward me, her movements slow, each step deliberately placed on certain parts of the carpeted floor, she pulls me straight into the warmest and tightest embrace.

“Yeah, Kay-Kay, we are.”

The tremble in her voice should alert me to the fact that wherever we’re going isn’t going to be a good thing, but my need for her smile wins out.

I can’t help it. I smile. Get excited. We’re finally going to get away from here.

“Should I go pack too?”

“Yes, baby. Make sure your brother is up and get him to put a bag together too. We don’t have much time.”

Her final words are all the motivation I need as I pull away and speed back out across the hall. Diving onto the bed, I shake Dean awake, flinching the second his body moves, knowing what’s coming when reality sets in and he figures out it’s me jumping all over him.

Backing up and heading to the closet, I pull the duffel my mom bought me a couple of months ago down off the top shelf just in time to hear Dean growling from across the room.

“What the fuck?”

“Mom said get your ass up and pack a bag. We’re leaving.” I tell him as I shoot around to the dresser and begin pulling clothes out the same way I’d seen her do, shoving them all in the bag. Not stopping, even when he curses the same question at me again until I’ve gotten everything I think I need and the bag is zipped shut.

“Come on, Dean. Mom said we don’t have a lot of time.”

His eyes cloud over before his lips drop downward into a scowl. Having been on the receiving end of that look more than once over the last few months, I know it’s not good. I want to question if this is about the way I woke him up or something else, but before I have the chance to, he’s barrelling past me, his shoulder shoving hard into mine as he stalks out of the room and across the hall.

Voices raise and just as I’m about to head over and make them stop, I hear a crash and Dean is back in our room, following my earlier movements and yanking a bag down angrily before proceeding to fill it. Cursing under his breath and complaining the entire time.

“What the fuck are you smiling at?” he yells when he pulls the zipper across the bag and looks up, catching me staring.

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit. You think this is a good thing don’t you?”

Of course I do, and deep down I know he does too. He told me so. One night when he wasn’t being a total ass, he told me how he feels about Mom and Dad fighting. He also said he didn’t think it would ever end. Even with him out of the house, it seemed he was always going to end up coming back here and laying into the woman he calls his wife. The supposed love of his life.

Is love really supposed to be this violent?

I have half a mind to ask Dean about it now, but with the look of death he’s giving me, I somehow doubt he’d give me the answer I’m after. Besides, I’ve seen the way real love works.

All I have to do is go to Belle’s house and it’s there. It fills the place.

Pretty sure love oozes off the walls there.

I want to go there.

Realizing that Belle Reagan is who I consider my happy place has another stupid grin forming on my face and it doesn’t take long after Dean catches it for him to be across the room and hovering over me, his fist shoving into my stomach, wiping it away completely.

Go ahead. Take the smile off my face all you want. You won’t take it out of my head. I’ll never let you do that.

It’s a silent threat, but one I repeat over and over until my mom interrupts us, taking in our positions before telling us to knock it off because we have to go.

Slinging the bag over my shoulders and feeling the weight dragging me down almost instantly, I move as quickly as I can, following her out. A grumbling under his breath Dean right behind me. The heat of his breath practically searing a hole into my skin from its warmth.

It’s only when we get outside and she starts making a break for it across the street, after a quick warning hush that I realize what’s going on. What she’s doing.

Running as fast as my small as shit legs can go, I catch up to her, grabbing her elbow with my hands and getting her to slow down.

“I thought we were leaving?”

“We are. I just have to make a quick stop here first.” She tells me before making quick work of the grass that leads to Belle’s front door. With Dean pulling up the rear, we make it up to the front step and instead of ringing the doorbell or knocking like we have every other time, she twists the door handle and steps straight in. Ushering us in quickly and peeking her head out the door and looking around once we’re in before turning back to us and shutting it.

Hearing the click of shoes on the stairs, I turn toward the sound, but it’s not the person now rushing them that I take in when I do. It’s her.

At the top of the stairs, she sits quietly. Eyes widened and focused straight on me before flicking over to my brother and back again. 

Taking a step, ready to climb the stairs to her, especially after what I thought about earlier, Grace’s hand landing on my shoulder halts me.

“Not right now, Kayden.”

Why the hell not? She’s my best friend. I wanna go upstairs and be with her.

Feeling her eyes on me, I look to Belle again and that’s when I see it. Her eyes are filled with water. Tears. The front of her nightgown stained and her lip is pouting. Maybe even quivering. 

It makes sense now.

She’s had one of her bad days. She’s extra scared today and when she gets like that, Grace says I need to give her time. The problem is, I don’t want to give her time.

She needs me, same as I need her.

Parting my lips, I mouth silently to her and that’s when I see it.

The exact reason Belle is my happy place.

Her lip pulls in and quirks up in the tiniest smile at my words, making what I just thought true.

We need each other.

I don’t know what’s going on with my mom right now, why there’s such a rush to leave or why we had to stuff our duffel bags with clothes, but right here in this moment, I don’t give a shit.