Between Never and Forever

by Shain Rose

Music was our journey, leading us down a path of thorns and obstacles to the darkest parts of our emotions. Standing there, letting him see me breathing heavily on that stage, was the most vulnerable I’d felt in years. He had to see the love I held for him in the past, the pain I felt in how we ended, how broken I was when he walked away. Did he feel it? Was he moved too?

“I lost you just like you lost me. Don’t you see that? Your pain isn’t isolated or singular. I’ve been broken since the moment you left.” “Do you think I wanted to leave?” His voice cut through the air, his eyes blazing with agony. “Jesus, I didn’t know how to cope with losing you again, so I walked away that time. And you were leaving, Kee. Don’t fucking tell me you weren’t. You were going back to your career whether you begged me to stay or not.”

“I don’t know what’s real and what’s not with you, Kee. You’re larger than life, and then you’re still…” “Me?” I grabbed at the end of his sentence, wanting him to understand. “I’m just me.” Wiping one of his hands over his face, I saw how he tried to wipe away his emotions too. “But I don’t know you anymore. You’re hiding too much.”

“You won’t be there?” I didn’t know why my voice sounded desperate. It wasn’t like he’d ever attended just to see me. There was no reason for him to do so now either I supposed. “Keelani Hale, you’re a star. You don’t need me in the crowd. You have your fans, your career, everything you wanted.” With that, he spun on his heel, walked up the aisle, and shoved through the doors. They slammed shut behind him, closing me off from what I thought our relationship could become. I stared at those closed doors for much too long and whispered out later, “Everything I wanted was you.”

My control was slipping. I’d left my meeting to see her sing. Her text that she was proving herself that day had taunted me into it. I couldn’t resist her even though she was the one thing I should be resisting.

How could I shake a love that was a part of me, my trauma, my damn soul? She’d woven herself in, and I wasn’t getting her out. Of course I’d loved her back then, but I fell in love with her now, too, with her heart breaking for me on that stage. And I wasn’t even sure it was real.

Escaping her and putting distance between us was the only way this would work. That and me disconnecting emotionally. I left her on that stage, running from the feelings that had gotten me in trouble before. Emotions blurred logic. Love made you weak. Love made you do stupid shit. It’s how I’d almost lost her once. How we’d lost friends. How I hadn’t seen the signs before we got in the car that night.

Protect what’s most important.” He leaned in. “And I don’t mean that girl.” He left me reeling. That girl…like she was only that and not my girl. My fiancée. The woman who broke my heart but still had the pieces in her grasp. Control of emotions slipped faster and faster, gaining momentum down a slope that wasn’t stoppable. I wouldn’t allow it. I wouldn’t fall off the cliff again.

I stood there, emotionally vulnerable in front of everyone. I glanced one last time at the side stage as I told the crowd I was giving them something a bit new but something old and dear to my heart. And that’s when I saw him. The lights were on me, but my soul gravitated to where he stood with Dimitri. They were both watching me. Each had their arms crossed, looking so much like one another. Yet, Dexton Hardy stole my heart with his sad smile. His eyes were locked on mine as he mouthed, You can do anything. And I felt, right then and there, that I could. As the fans clapped for me, as a girl cried out she loved me, that I’d saved her, I knew I could. No one had ever told me I could do anything on the stage, but suddenly I wanted to.

I’d avoided her for days trying to work out if I could figure out where she belonged. Next to me. Or away from me. With me or without me. Real or fake. My wife or my heartbreak. It only took one second of seeing her in danger, of her heart rate picking up to decide it all for me.

He shouldn’t visit me anymore. Not while we’re together.” “Not ever,” I corrected her and nodded as she looked at me in fear. “You can say it, Kee. I got you. You know that, right? Even when you think I don’t, I’ll always have you. Forever.”

“If you’re concerned about the resort, you can rest assured, the security here is—” “It’s not about the fucking resort.” The words flew out before I could stop them. Jesus, it wasn’t about anything but her. I’d avoided her for days trying to figure it out and classify what I was feeling so I could handle it correctly, but there was no way to do so other than to say it was love. I still fucking loved this girl, and I wasn’t going to let her go. I knew that now. I had to come to terms with it too because my brother would have killed me otherwise.

Kee was strong. She was strong because she had to be, and I knew that was why she didn’t want to let me in. We’d broken each other down too many times. I was the same way with her.

“It’s about you showing them who you really are without holding back. You were fucking magical tonight, heartbreaker. People cried for you.” “People cried for us, because every song is about you.” My emotions were all mixed up, and I didn’t know which would win—the love I had for her or the heartbreak I was scared to endure from her again.

tonight marks the night people will start to keep their distance from you.” I vowed it, etched it in my brain, and could see it as my only goal now. “I’m going to make sure of it, Kee.”

“I wanted to get over you,” I threw back. “Wanted or want?” “I’m not sure.” Fuck if I knew what I wanted anymore. “I want closure one way or another.”

“I’m going to watch your every fucking move, Kee, and I’m not going to feel guilty at all. I’m here to protect you. Fake fiancée or not, you’re mine and everything that’s mine stays safe, heartbreaker. Even if I can’t decide whether watching you will break me or put me back together.”

“That’s borderline obsessive, Dex.” “I didn’t claim to be sane, Kee.” I took a deep breath and leaned against the doorframe to try to quell the need running through me now. I wanted to bottle her up or wrap her in bubble wrap and lock her in a damn room so no one could hurt her after this. “I guess I’m not exactly sane, either, because I want you watching me. Just you. Only you.”

Your ring is big for other reasons.” “Like what?” He stared at me in the cocktail dress I still hadn’t taken off from the concert. The dark-purple sequins flowed around my hips and tapered off as the mermaid shape of it flared out. It was my favorite one that Pink had found for me because it stretched over every curve of my body but I could still move fluidly if needed. A low rumble came from Dex’s chest as his eyes drank me in. “To show you’re mine even if you are the star that you are. You’re mine first, and I want a blinding display of that everywhere you go.”

“The only reason I need to take you on a date is so I can make up for the years I haven’t.” “Wooing me all of a sudden, Dex?” I couldn’t help but antagonize him now that I had him there. “Or I’m showing you what you’ve missed.” His mouth skimmed along my neck, and his teeth grazed my skin. “I’ve missed you too. I’ve been warring with myself over how to stop what I’m feeling, but I’m finding I can’t. I can’t have another man touch you. I can’t have his lips on you. I can’t even think about it.

“You’re going on that stage to sing to me tonight.” His hand fell to the strap of my dress. “In this dress.” “Why?” I whispered, and then I couldn’t stop myself from licking my lips as his hand came up to my jaw and his finger rubbed against my bottom lip. The tip of my tongue brushed against his thumb, and I saw how his jaw worked up and down. “Because I saw you changing up there on that stage tonight. I saw you changing into who you want to be, Kee. But I want the whole transformation. I want the woman from the girl. I want your whole fucking heart given to me on that stage tonight.”

“Everything I do with you can’t be compared to others, Kee. You realize that, right? Even in your jealousy, you must know that you affect me like no woman can. I’m fucking addicted to even the sound you make when I touch you.”

He used my full name—what I now thought of as a stage name—and I wondered in that moment if I was a prop to him too. Did he want the entertainment of me just for tonight?

There was an intimacy to having him sit in that chair with me on the stage, even if it was in an empty theater. I felt the weight of who we were as I sang the song and the weight of who we would become. Together. We were bound together whether we wanted to be or not. Forever.

“Fucking sing. Show me you can handle it, Kee. I want to see you be what you want. Not a sweet girl but the damn firework you always were to me.” He wanted me completely vulnerable, completely me, completely unhinged.

Everything faded away in that theater except him between my legs. Everything I knew or thought I knew transcended into something more. It all surrounded him. My pain, my pleasure, my love, my every emotion flew through me as I cried out the words until I couldn’t anymore.

My body started to relax, but my heart didn’t. I wasn’t singing anymore, but a new song, an ode to him, now flowed through my veins. My breathing synchronized with his, a rapid rhythm that tied me to his presence, tied me to who I was with him, who we wanted to be.

“You think it’s only been about me wondering if you’re ready? What about me? You think I can so easily control what I feel for you?” “Haven’t you always?” He leaned close and licked my ear. “You want me to fuck you with that ball inside you on this stage, Kee? See how much I control what I feel then? And maybe we’ll see what you can really take too.”

My adrenaline didn’t know which way to go as I begged him, “Just do it all to me, Dex. I want it all. I want it, please.” “Show me you’re ready, heartbreaker. I’ll fuck that pretty pussy if you show me how much you want it.”

Kee was ready to do anything on this stage for me, and I wanted her to do everything. Years of missing her, my jealousy at her singing for other men, her shaking her hips for the world instead of me. Years of not having her had me wanting to fulfill all my twisted fantasies right then and there.

“I love the sound of your wet cunt, baby. It sounds like your pussy is begging for me. Will you beg too?” She didn’t even wait a second to respond, her dark eyes heavy with hunger. “Please. Fuck me if you’re going to. I need you.”

“Jesus Christ—” “No. Kee Hale, the girl who broke your heart but also the one who’s going to put it back together.”

She eyed me with more confidence now. She had to know here on this stage that she owned every part of it, even me.

“You’ll sing to them all knowing I did this to you up here on this stage. Will you think about this, Kee, when you sing to all of them?” She turned slowly, and I saw how her silky hair fell smoothly over her shoulder. “I always think of you.” Her eyes held all the truth I needed to see in order to believe she meant it, that she wanted all of me and wanted me to hold nothing back. “I can’t stop thinking of you even when I try.”

“I want you to take me past all my limits, Dex.” I was lost to her now. She was the center of attention on that stage, in that theater, in my world. “You realize, if I do, you’ll think of me, Kee, even as you’re singing to everyone. You’ll think of me everywhere. I won’t let you forget. I’ll ruin you for everyone else.”

The sound of her throughout the theater was my weakness. She was my weakness, but at least for now she was mine. All that could be heard was her gasps as she writhed against my cock now. She begged me to fuck her over and over, and I knew I was going to. I also knew I shouldn’t.

“No one, not even a god, can fuck you like me, heartbreaker. I own this ass and this pussy. I’m going to take them over and over again until you learn. Until you’re ruined. Until all you want is me.” “I know, I know,” she whimpered as her breaths panted out to the rhythm our hips set. “It’s all I want now.”

“You’re. Mine. My future wife. Fucking mine. You might perform for the world, Kee, but they’ll only ever get a sliver of a version of you. I’m going to take all of you from now on.”

She kissed me softly and wrapped her arms around me, a wordless embrace that spoke volumes of what was to come. The echoes of her song still bounced around my head, her gasps and pleadings, too, amid the silence of that empty theater. The sound of them spoke loudly to me while I was in her arms.

“I’m happy I’ll be with you for now Dex,” she whispered against my ear. I knew then I was bonded to her forever in the purest and most obsessive way. I could feel how I gravitated toward her, how everything I shouldn’t be doing with her still felt completely right. Through trauma, through hell and back, through warring with my own emotions and coming out bloody and bruised, I knew there was no way I would ever let her go again. I just had to convince her of that. It wouldn’t be only for now, like she said. It would be forever.

“I fucked you on the stage you’re going to perform on tonight. I lost complete control of my emotions there. You’re mine now and you know what that means?” “What?” “I will fucking destroy every single person who came between us in those contracts, you understand?”

“Every single person, Kee. So, tell me the day I get to start. It’s going to happen one way or another. But I’ll let you decide when.” He walked away from me, left me with the perfect breakfast and every worst thought flying through my head. He’d destroy everyone, and that included me too.

“You probably won’t want to have sex with me at all after,” I whispered out. “Not possible. Even when I thought I hated you, I still wanted to be with you.” “Why?” “Because you don’t forget a love like ours and move on. You just survive without it, right?” So easily he said it, like we had nothing to be ashamed of. He didn’t, but I did. “Right.”

“What books are you reading?” I glanced away, not sure how to describe them. “You know what books. Romance books and—” “Why read them when you have me?” he asked as he unbuttoned his pants and stepped out of them. He stood naked in front of me, and I drank in how perfect the man was. His skin was tan, his toned muscles so large the veins danced over them as he walked forward to lean over me as I bit my lip. “I’m romantic enough for you.”

he took a handful of the lilacs and sprinkled them over my chest and stomach. “I’ve been waiting for this for years.” “You have not.” I laughed sadly. “I hurt you and you moved on with your ex and other women. Rightfully so.”

He stared at me for a second before he took my hand and dragged it over his ribs. It took me a second to see what he was doing, letting my fingers feather over his tattoo there. It was lilacs and a key, but on the key, etched in the side of it was Kee.

“You were always a part of me, even when I didn’t want you to be.” “But you… We… You left and moved on.” “I left, but I didn’t move on. I got you tattooed on me because you were already permanently with me. Might as well have had the tattoo of your memory there too.” He said it simply, but it impacted me catastrophically. He’d been broken without me too. I wrote songs because I couldn’t forget him. He tattooed me on himself because he couldn’t forget me. It solidified something in my heart right then: our love was real, even if we’d tried to avoid it, even if we were kids, even if it was surrounded by trauma and wreckage. Our love was there and it survived. Love always somehow survived.

“I read a lot of books, Dex.” “Then you know what to do next.” He murmured, “Sit that pretty pussy on my face, heartbreaker. Let me taste how much you want me to lick you.”

“You taste like mine, Kee. Like you were always mine and like you’ll be mine forever.” I couldn’t even comprehend what he was saying. I writhed against him and said okay over and over. I think I fell asleep to it. Fell asleep with him bringing me to orgasm over and over.

I love being here with you. It’s like we’re young again. I feel—” “Alive?” “Free,” she said, and then she pulled me close and kissed me hard. And fuck, I kissed her back just as hard for the whole world to see. I knew there would be pictures of us everywhere tomorrow, but I didn’t care. She was mine anyway, wearing my ring, my shirt, so my fucking lips were on hers.