Love, Again, part two

Catch up on part one!

Keith got into his truck and drove the streets he’d grown up on. As a child he and Ted had spent their time outside, shooting baskets in the driveway, playing hockey in the street, and throwing the football at the local park. Their lives had consisted of sports, sports, and more sports until high school when women came into the picture. Keith was always more popular than Ted, but they both had their fair share of women.

Spring break their junior year of college they went to Florida to party with other friends. The first day Keith spotted her, the conservative woman with the one piece bathing suit that did nothing to hide curves that made his mouth water. Ted had his own conquests, having accepted his short, skinny body and learned to use it to his advantage, and never saw Keith’s dream woman.

Keith tried to catch her attention but nothing he did ever seemed to matter. Then their last night in town he saw her out. She’d been drinking, something he knew from watching her all week she didn’t do. He rescued her from a overly friendly guy on the dance floor and offered to take her back to her hotel room.

She hung on him like curtains on a rod and tried to kiss him. He knew it was because of the alcohol and refused, but she was persistent. Halfway back to her hotel she ground herself against him and begged him to make her feel good, saying she’d find someone else if he wasn’t willing.

Keith tried to be good, but he was afraid of what she would do so he led her back to his hotel room. As soon as the door closed behind them she was on top of him, kissing him, rubbing against him, letting her hands wander over him. He resisted as long as he could, but something inside him snapped when he imagined her leaving his room to find another man to touch.

He kissed her back with an urgency he’d never felt before, or since. His lips blazed over her skin, tasting the sunscreen she’d religiously applied and the softness of her skin. She pulled her clothes off to reveal the curvy figure he’d been dreaming about all week and he didn’t have a prayer of holding back. He had to have her. And he did.

He tasted every inch of her skin, and when he plunged into her tight body he knew he’d found perfection. Her moans were the sweetest sounds he’d ever heard and when she came with him he knew he’d never be the same. He had to have her forever, or as long as she’d let him. She owned him, and he wanted nothing more than to own her as well.

But the next morning Keith woke up alone. The sheets next to him were cool and all her stuff was gone. He knew her name, but nothing else about her.

It was two years before he saw her again, and when the picture of his childhood best friend’s new girlfriend came across his email Keith couldn’t breathe. He spent two days drinking before he committed to letting her go, never telling either of them that they knew each other. That was why he skipped the wedding and never visited. If she remembered him it would crush Ted that he’d kept the secret. If she didn’t, it would crush Keith.

After Ted died, Keith couldn’t stay away. He grieved for his friend and wanted to let Andrea know she wasn’t alone. When he saw her again all the memories of their one night together flooded him, even though it’d been eight years. It took him four years to be able to face her again, to come back and have enough composure to talk to her.

At least, he thought so. Seeing her again, especially at Ted’s grave, knocked him harder than he’d expected. He wanted to take her up on the offer to stay, but he knew it would test every ounce of his decency to be under the same roof as her. Still, he had to see her again.

He pulled down the street he grew up on, noting how much the neighborhood had changed. His parents had long since retired and moved to warmer climates, but Keith stopped in front of their old house anyway.

Lost in his memories he didn’t notice her approaching from across the street. When Andrea knocked on his window he was startled. She held her hands up in a surrender type of pose and his mind flashed back to the way she looked beneath him, her hands in the same position, but pressed against his chest, her body welcoming him in.

Keith blew out a deep breath then rolled the window down. “Yeah?” he asked gruffly.

“I saw you sitting out here. I’ve got plenty of food left if you’d like to come in for dinner. Or a drink.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Okay. I just didn’t want to be alone,” she half-whispered the sentence as she turned away.

Immediately feeling like an asshole he called, “Wait.” She paused in the middle of the road, not turning back to him, but not leaving either. “I’ll come in.”

“Okay,” she said softly, still not looking at him.

Keith got out of his truck and followed her across the street. Inside the house he’d spent too much time in as a kid, he stomped behind her to the kitchen he knew as well as his own mother’s. Ted’s parents treated Keith like their own child like his parents did to Ted. It helped that their mothers were close friends as well.

“I had lasagna if you’d like some, but I can make you something else instead.”

“It’s fine,” he grumbled, forcing his eyes from her perfectly rounded ass and legs that he remembered wrapped around his hips.

Andrea worked through the kitchen mesmerizing Keith with her movements. When she slid a plate overloaded with lasagna in front of him he couldn’t deny the intoxicating scent of the food, or of the woman.

As he dug into the food, hungrier than he’d realized after driving all day, Andrea watched him. There was something about him that was more familiar than it ought to be. The only thing she knew for sure was that he disliked her, although she had no idea why.

“Is it okay?” she asked, his opinion mattering to her more than she wanted it to. There was something comforting about cooking for someone besides herself, and she wanted Keith to be happy.

He answered by way of a grunt and a nod, and she dove in.

“Why do you hate me?”

He choked on the bite he’d just shoveled into his mouth. After a minute of coughing, followed by more gulps of water than any normal person could handle, he turned his crystal blue eyes on her. She saw the naked desire in his gaze and her breath caught in her throat.

“I don’t hate you,” he growled, his eyes never leaving hers.

She knew he wasn’t lying.

The post Love, Again, part two appeared first on Mary E Thompson.