I looked out to the field of lavender. I liked this spot because when the breeze kicked up, you could smell all those purple flowers—sweet and herbal at the same time. Calming. I sat on a huge fallen branch that had been there since I was a kid and regarded the wood for the campfire I'd laid out on the ground in front of me. I'd light it once the sky became dark and heat up the stew. I'd sleep under the stars in my makeshift sleeping bag in this spot for the very last time. I wouldn't come back here again. Something moved inside me that felt surprisingly like grief, an ache in my guts. I didn't exactly understand it—this place had been so full of pain for me because each time I came, I felt the absence of my family. But at the same time, there had been joy here, too, that I was only now remembering. How did I make sense of that? I couldn't stand these conflicting feelings. I wanted to feel hatred for Dennville, Kentucky—nothing more.
Tenleigh. This was because of Tenleigh. She was here and suddenly, there was beauty. Suddenly Dennville was her—the girl who had helped me move through some of the darkness, into the light. I groaned and then sat staring at the grassy ground for several minutes, debating what to do.
How had my life become suddenly so complicated? And so clear?
Tenleigh. Half agony, half hope.
My love for her was everything . . . and all at once.
I caught movement off to my left and lifted my head, startling slightly, and she was there, walking through the field of purple lavender toward me just like a dream. My heart flipped and I stood, everything inside me buzzing with sudden joy. Shit.
She reached me and offered a tentative smile, her hands clasped in front of her. She had her hair loosely braided and falling over one shoulder and she was wearing a white sweater that fell off her shoulder, her creamy skin exposed. And I knew I'd never see a more beautiful vision than Tenleigh Falyn standing in a field of lavender.
She stood taller, seeming to gather some courage. When her eyes met mine, she said, "I've been thinking about it since yesterday, and I hoped you might be okay with some company. And I didn't figure you'd turn me away today of all days." Her smile was filled with innocent hope and it made my stomach clench.
I smiled back at her. "You wanted to go camping with me for your birthday?"
She pulled her bottom lip in between her teeth and nodded. "More than anything."
I suddenly felt full of some form of happiness I'd never experienced before. Maybe it was the sudden appearance of the very person I'd been missing. Maybe it was the loneliness I'd just been feeling floating away as soon as Tenleigh appeared in my line of sight. Maybe it was just gratefulness, and God knew I'd had very little to be grateful for in the course of my life. I offered her a bigger smile and said, "This could be dangerous. What if sleeping outside turns me into a caveman and I try to drag you by your hair into my sleeping bag?" I lifted one side of my mouth to let her know I was teasing. We hadn't been lighthearted in what seemed like such a long time, and it felt so good.
"The ones who lived thousands of years ago?" she asked, amusement in her eyes as she teased me back. She tilted her head, her expression growing serious. "I wouldn't resist," she whispered, biting her full bottom lip.
I felt my eyes widen and my chest fill with tenderness. "Tenleigh," I breathed. Her lips were so beautiful. I wanted them on my skin. Everywhere. She didn't break eye contact with me. I stepped closer to her and her scent washed over me, distant wildflowers on a summer breeze. Suddenly, I felt like this was the most natural thing in the whole world. Standing outside under the shade of a giant oak tree, the endless sky stretching out around us, not a building in sight, I couldn't remember why I'd ever resisted her. I couldn't for the life of me think why we wouldn't act on the feelings that were swirling through the air around us, feelings only God himself could have invented. It was like there was some kind of magic in the breeze that reduced the world down to just the two of us, standing there. I closed my eyes and inhaled, growing dizzy with the feeling of need coursing through my system, and let my instincts take over. I leaned in and she tilted her head back, lifting her lips to mine, parting them to permit me access. I groaned and pressed my lips to hers, any fleeting thoughts of why this shouldn't happen lost in the mingled sound of our moans and the wet sound of our tongues dancing.
I ran my hands down the sides of her body, moving slowly over her feminine curves, marveling at how differently she was made from me, how perfectly we fit together. "I want to feel your skin, Tenleigh," I choked out as I broke away from her lips and gazed down into her eyes—eyes filled with lust . . . and love.
The sun was just setting, twilight moving quickly across the mountains.
Tenleigh glanced quickly at the makeshift bed I'd set up on the ground under the far-reaching branches of the tree. She took my hand and led me to stand beside it.
"Tenleigh, I—" She reached up and put two fingers on my lips to stop my words. I went silent. Truthfully, I didn't know what I'd been about to say anyway. Another warning about how this wouldn't change anything? Another reminder I was still leaving? Surely she'd heard those words from me enough anyway—she probably didn't want to hear them in this moment. And I didn't really want to say them anyway. I was starting to wonder if I even meant them. I was starting to wonder a lot of things.
We kissed and kissed and kissed. We kissed for what seemed a lifetime. Tenleigh was the only girl I had ever kissed like that. Always before, I had quickly tried to move things to the next level. But with her, I let myself melt into the pleasure of her mouth, my body heating slowly. I memorized the feel of her soft body pressing into mine, the sweet taste of her lips, her tongue, her breath.
After a while she pulled back, her cheeks flushed and her lips wet and red, dark hair falling loose from her braid to frame her face. Sometimes her beauty was almost shocking. As I looked at her, it was as if the vision sunk through my skin, into my blood, my soul. My body pulsed with need.
"I'm going to try to be gentle," I said. Her eyes flared, but she only nodded. Visions were assaulting my brain—visions I'd pushed away before, but now I let swirl inside my mind—pictures of Tenleigh's head thrown back in passion, her legs wrapped around my hips as I drove into her.
I let myself imagine it. I let myself anticipate it, because it was about to happen.
Slowly, we stripped off our clothes as the other watched. Up until that point, I'd never experienced anything more erotic than watching Tenleigh bare herself to me, knowing that very soon I was going to be inside her. When she was completely nude, I let my eyes do a slow perusal of her body, although I'd seen her naked before. But that had always been in the dim walls of my room. This, this was under the setting sun, the golden light shining on her skin, the cool air pebbling her rose-colored nipples.
"You're stunning," I whispered.
Her own eyes ran over me, and my erection pulsed when her eyes landed on it. She raised her eyes to mine and said, "You're stunning, too. And I don't want you to be gentle with me. I want to feel you. I want all you have to give me."
I let out a groan and moved in close to her, my cock aching, my blood boiling under my skin.
I laid her down on the ground, feeling the first twinge of regret. She was beautiful and desirable. She deserved to be laid down on something better than old musty blankets under a tree. "Kyland," she whispered, taking my face in her hands and looking into my eyes as if she knew what I was thinking. "This is the best birthday of my life."
I smoothed her hair back. "Mine, too."
She arched her back as my mouth found her nipple. She moaned and pressed her body up into mine, her skin warm, her body soft. Her responsiveness, her wonder, her sweet innocence, was something I had no experience with and it changed me inside in some essential way I couldn't focus on figuring out right then. I simply absorbed it, enjoyed it.
Before long, we were both moaning and writhing and I was so turned on, I was praying I'd last long enough to make the experience at least somewhat noteworthy for her.
I reache
d down between her legs and felt her slippery liquid, running it up to her clit and circling gently. She gasped out and pressed herself up into my hand. I lowered my head back to her breast and suckled gently. She moaned out my name and after a minute, I felt her pulse and shudder under my hand.
I looked into her lust-fogged eyes and took myself in my hand and gently used my erection to open her. In response she parted her legs. Oh Tenleigh, you're so perfect. I grunted, trying to go as slowly as I could while my body was screaming at me to plunge inside her and rut like an animal. I wanted her so badly.
Tenleigh's hands came to my shoulders and she closed her eyes as I moved more deeply inside, her warmth surrounding the head of me and making me lose another portion of the control I was trying to hold to so tightly.
"Open your eyes, Ten," I gritted out. "Look at me." Look at me what? When I claim you? When I make you mine? Yes, my heart screamed. But I shut it down. No. We were each other's for tonight. But this didn't change anything. It couldn't.
Her eyes opened, gazing into mine as I plunged inside her in one smooth thrust. Her face flinched in pain and I felt my own flesh tear through hers, but she didn't cry out. And it was done. I had been so resistant to taking Tenleigh's virginity, but now I wasn't sorry. Whatever else happened, this part of her would always be mine. It would never belong to another man. Never. I watched her face closely as I began to move inside her, the bliss swirling through my balls, my abdomen, but she didn't flinch again. She ran her hands down my back, over my ass as I stroked inside of her, slowly at first and then with more desperation. She felt so good, so good. "I'm gonna come," I breathed out, taking one last blissful thrust into her as I erupted in pleasure, collapsing, and moaning my orgasm into her neck. I rolled slightly to the side so I wouldn't crush her. We lay like that for several minutes, Tenleigh running her nails up and down my back and me getting control of my breathing. When I rolled off her and looked down to see her virgin's blood on my half-hard cock, pride blasted through me. I tried my best to tamp it down, but the effort was in vain.
I fell back on the blankets in awe.
"That was amazing," I breathed. "God, Tenleigh, that was so amazing."
She smiled sweetly at me and nodded. "Yes." She sighed. "Yes, it was."
We didn't sleep much that night. She was a drug and I couldn't get enough of her. I wanted to live forever planted deep inside her. She must have been sore, but she never said anything. That night was made of damp skin and cries of pleasure that echoed through the hills. And I knew for the rest of my life, wherever I was, whoever I was with, when I thought of Tenleigh, I'd think of warmth and lavender and the wide open sky.
Sometime later when a luminous crescent moon hung suspended above us, I finally untangled myself from her and built a fire. We sat on the fallen tree trunk wrapped in quilts and I fed her burgoo heated over the open flame. An owl hooted incessantly in the background and Tenleigh's laughter rang out over the meadow as I told her story after story of some of the trouble Silas and I had gotten into as kids—stories that up until then, no one knew except my brother and me. And somehow it felt like I had brought another piece of him back to life.
We danced briefly under the starlight, Tenleigh laughing as I dipped her. "I'd take you to the prom if I could," I said softly, regretfully, bringing her back up so her body pressed against mine. "I'd do so many things if I could."
"I know," she answered, cupping my cheek in her palm and kissing my lips sweetly.
So many things were swirling through my mind, emotions I was unfamiliar with, feelings I couldn't organize. But as the embers died and the first rays of daylight rose over the mountains, I looked next to me at a sleeping Tenleigh, her beauty soft and vulnerable under the early morning sky and I knew what I had to do. I knew it was wrong, and I knew it would shatter me to do it. And I knew despite all that, I would do it anyway.
Someday, when I'm living my dreams, I'm going to think of all the things that broke my heart and I'm going to be thankful for them.
I knew I had to. Because I had been wrong.
Everything had changed. In one night, nothing was the same.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Tenleigh
We took our finals a week later. I looked for Kyland after school, but couldn't find him. I wasn't overly anxious about it. I didn't really want to talk about how he'd done. Not that I didn't already know—I was sure he had aced them. He hadn't seemed concerned in the least and when we'd studied, even though he'd been distracted, he'd answered every question I'd asked him from his study guides with unflinching certainty.
No, the real reason I didn't want to discuss finals was because it was another topic that reminded me how soon he'd be leaving. In any case, I had to get home and drop off my stuff so I could get going to Al's where I had a shift. Al had said he'd have more shifts available now that summer was almost here. The clientele picked up in the warmer months when he opened the outdoor patio and he had lost a couple girls to the new bar that had opened in Evansly. So that was great news. I had insider information I'd be staying in Dennville and so it was good I was going to have a regular income, at least for the summer. After that, I'd figure something out. I'd come up with my life plan B. Disappointment filled my chest, but I dismissed it. I'd done this. I'd made the choice and I'd followed through with it. There was no going back now.
As I walked up the main road through Dennville, lost in my own thoughts, I looked to my left and saw Shelly talking to Kyland in the doorway of an abandoned building. She was standing in his space and looking up at him just like she owned him. Jealousy overtook me and I jolted. He leaned his hip on the doorframe as she said something I couldn't hear. I stepped backward so that I was being hidden by a thick, wooden telephone pole and peeked out at them.
Great. Now I was a stalker.
What was I doing? I bit my lip and debated whether to walk over and join them. Why did I feel like I would be interrupting? We'd only been together the one beautiful night in the lavender field, but it had to mean something. I swooned very temporarily as I recalled our night, but then the jealousy made itself known again and I glanced back over at Shelly and Kyland. Why did some part of me feel like I would be interfering in whatever they had going on between them if I approached? Like I was the interloper? I recalled the kiss I had witnessed between them, the groping in the theater all those months ago, and suddenly I felt like I'd be sick to my stomach. When I looked back again, they were gone. I blinked and spied them walking up ahead, Shelly pulling him along by the hand as he followed her.
My heart dropped. I didn't know how to feel. Was he mine? Did I have any right to claim him in some public way? He had asserted again and again that he was leaving and he could make me no promises. How could I talk to him about it now, demand things, when I had been the one to tell him it was okay with me if he slept with me and still left? But then he'd told me he loved me. Confusion overwhelmed me. If love wasn't a sort of claiming in itself, then what was it? Could he love me, be intimate with me, but still feel free to be with other girls? I couldn't stop the pain that seemed to be flowing through my veins. I felt hot, yet empty—my skin prickly. No, he wouldn't. That wasn't Kyland. If I knew anything of him, I knew he was honorable. Didn't I?
I walked home slowly when I should have been hurrying. We'd spent what I thought had been such a beautiful night together, one that had changed me. I had given him all of me—my body and my heart. And suddenly, only a week later, I felt doubtful and insecure again.
"I hate love," I muttered.
I rushed into our trailer and threw my school stuff on the couch. Marlo came out of the bathroom, buttoning up her white shirt.
"Hey." She smiled. "How'd finals go?"
I didn't look at her as I grabbed my work clothes out of the closet. "Oh, um, fine I think," I lied. "I'm just glad they're over." I turned to her and gave her a big smile, one I hoped was distracting.
She narrowed her eyes at me, but nodded her head slowly. "Okay, good. Well, are
you ready? If we leave now, we won't be late."
"Yeah, just give me two minutes," I said, rushing into the bathroom.
Five minutes later we were walking back down the road toward town.
There was a big basketball game on television today and the place would be packed, so we were both eager to get there. The extra customers would bring in extra money, and now that we'd both be working a shift, we'd bring in double. At least this day offered some sort of silver lining. I didn't get a lot of tips, but if the customers got drunk enough, a few of them would confuse me with a waitress and I'd make a little bit of cash, too. My usual MO was to stay out of the way as much as possible, especially when it came to the drunk executives who worked at the mine company headquarters in Evansly, but not today. Today I'd stay right in the way. I scowled down at my moving feet. They might look classy in their suits and gold jewelry, but down deep, they were just entitled scums who acted as if us backwoods women were damn lucky to get their attention at all. Of course, plenty of the girls around here thought just that and acted accordingly. I'd heard a particularly loud executive yell drunkenly to his group of out-of-town co-workers, "Take your pick, gentlemen, they come cheap," and then guffaw loudly. Problem was, food and heat didn't and sometimes you did what you had to do. And sometimes, you got it in your fool head that one of them wanted to save you from the miserable life you were living.
By six o'clock that night the shift was in full swing, the bar packed with boisterous men, cheering and yelling at the large flat screen on the wall.