That's a Promise (21 page)

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Authors: Victoria Klahr

Tags: #Romance, #new adult, #Adult contemporary, #Contemporary Romance

BOOK: That's a Promise
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“I will make things better. No matter what, I won’t give up on her and me,” I hear Blake say roughly. My Dad just nods his head, and they continue watching the movie. I walk in as they start discussing the cars in the film.

“Okay, Dad. I am about to make some dinners that you can heat up while I am gone. I had thought that we could watch some movies when I was done, but it looks like y’all have started without me,” I say, putting a hand on my hip in mock annoyance. He pulls my arm until I am at his level, and messes my hair.

“You’re too good to me, baby girl. We’ll be here when you’re finished. But don’t worry about making too many dinners. I can cook for myself.”

“Oh yeah? I only recall Daddy making the food around here. He specifically demanded that you not cook in that kitchen.” He chuckles softly at the memory, and my heart swells seeing
him with a little bit of life.

 

Chapter 18

 

“Remember that one time I tried to make you that red velvet cake, because it’s your favorite?” Blake asks, startling me from the doorway as I layer a lasagna.

Cooking together had been one of our favorite things to do when we moved into my apartment. His favorite look for me was just-fucked hair and only wearing one of his t-shirts while baking something delicious. He enjoyed the view and the food, and I enjoyed the rewards. I chuckle at the memory, and smile at him.

“Yes! You were awful! When I walked into that kitchen that night, I swear I thought something had exploded in there.” It was such a mess, but I fell in love with him all over again once he turned around and I saw a confused look on his handsome face.

*             *             *

“I just don’t get it,” he said to me. I tried my hardest to hide my smile.

“I should have bought the damn cake mix box at the store,” he grumbled, and turned back around to his cake batter. I looked around the kitchen and noticed that it was cocoa and flour that was clinging to every surface. I walked up to him and wrapped my arms around him. I placed my cheek against his back, and smiled knowing he couldn’t see it. I stick my finger into the mixing bowl that he had in front of him and brought it back to my mouth.

“That’s not too bad, baby,” I said trying to console him, but still trying to hold in a laugh. “It just needs some more sugar to balance out the extra salt.” I felt him grab some sugar, and gradually add it to the bowl. I tasted it again, and it tasted much better. He turned around to face me, and smirked. I kept my arms wrapped around him and looked up at him, completely overwhelmed with the love I felt for him.

“You think I don’t feel you laughing against me, love?” he said with an evil glint in his eyes. I shook my head and tried to get out of his arms, but his hold on me was too strong, He reached behind him, and scooped some of the batter into his hand.

I knew it was about to get messy, so I tried to wiggle free, but he just laughed a fake maniacal laugh and held me to him. He took the batter, and dripped it in the cleavage of my dress, then swiped some on my nose. Thus began our war of cake batter. Needless to say, the kitchen got even messier after that.

He had let me go, and we both went to war with the batter. He separated it into two bowls, and we made a game out of who could get who messier. I tried to hide in the cabinet because I was small enough to fit in there, but he opened it up and threw the contents of his bowl at me. He won, I was trapped.

I surrendered, and raised my arms as he lifted my dress over my head. When we were naked and covered in the sugary goodness, he stalked up to me and licked from my belly button up to my neck.

“Never thought you could taste any better,” he said into my neck. He lifted me up on the counter, and licked the batter clean from my thighs, and into the folds in between them. He licked me clean, and by the time he was done, I was panting with excitement. It didn’t take long for me to cry out in pure pleasure when he unleashed his tongue on me.

Once I calmed down from my orgasm, I hopped off the counter, and pushed him against it, so I could take him in my mouth. He tasted so good, but he didn’t let me stay down there long. Blake picked me up, and set me back down on the counter before pushing his big hard cock inside of me. I arched my back, and my head fell back as he pounded into me.

It was sticky. It was sweet. It was hard and shameless passion. He tugged on the hair that fell down my back, and it was the trigger that made my insides clench around him and come. He came inside of me with a moan of my name, and we stayed like that for a minute before we did anything else. It was amazing. Perfect. Blissful. He licked the batter against my ear and laughed.

“Josie and red velvet cake… mmmmm… my new favorite.”

*             *             *

I laugh as I remember the fun we had in that mess. I bump my hip against his.

“You were so frustrated when I walked in! It was so freaking cute!”

“That was the hardest thing I ever had to make,” he says acting exasperated.

“It wasn’t that bad. It was a good thing you didn’t put the red food coloring in yet, because I found batter all over for days!  It would have stained my beautiful kitchen,” I say raising my eyebrows at him.

“Yeah, but it was a lot of fun. It always turns me on to watch you in the kitchen. I was just trying to make your favorite cake, and I fucked it up,” he says shaking his head.

“I thought it was sweet. And incredibly sexy,” I say with a smirk.

“I am only buying boxed cake from now on, though” he declares. My heart beats a little harder at the thought of him planning cake making in the future with me. I can’t stop the butterflies that form in my stomach.

By the time night falls, we have watched four of the movies in the Fast & Furious series, and are thoroughly worn out from sitting on our butts the whole day. We ordered pizza earlier, and sat on the floor in front of the coffee table, our favorite spot to eat. Blake gave me the crusts to his pizza, knowing it’s my favorite part of the pizza. It wasn’t that he just gave me the crusts, it’s that he did it without even thinking, that made it obvious that we are still good together.

I’m still unsure about how we are going to proceed with the rest of the night. I’m about to leave, and I have no idea if I should invite him over, or ask him to give me a little more time before I let him into the place we once considered our home.

I walk up to Blake, who is leaning his ever so sexy body against the railing on the stairs. He smiles at me, and I can’t catch my breath for a moment. It’s amazing how a small smile can comfort me and turn me on in the same moment. He holds out his arm for me to walk into his embrace.

“Every time I see you, I feel like I lose all sense of what is going on in the world. You take my breath away, Josie,” he says as he leans in and smells my hair. I just laugh and shove his shoulder.

“Whatever, Blake,” I say rolling my eyes. He grabs the hand I used to shove him, and pulls me until I am against him.

“Don’t you dare think that I’m lying, Josie,” he says. I can see his eyes become more determined and darker as he tries to convince me. “I have not been the same since I met you. Since the first day I saw you, when those books fell from your hands and I saw how pissed you were at that guy, I just knew you were going to change my world. And you have. I feel like I am the luckiest guy in the fucking world to even get a smile from you. And to have you touch me? I feel like I can’t breathe. It’s not a joke to me, so don’t downplay what I feel.”

“You make me feel the same way, Blake,” I say quietly after he is finishes his rant. It saddens and thrills me to know he thinks about me that way. I’m sad thinking about how he feels for me, knowing that I did something he would hate me for. He puts his hand under my chin, and lifts my face so that I can see the sadness in his eyes clearly.

“I will never forget the way you looked at me that day a year ago. I will never forget the disgust and anger in your eyes. It killed a piece of my soul to know I disappointed, angered, and revolted you in a matter of minutes. I will live every day of my life trying to get that image out of my head. So, to hear you say that I could make you feel something other than those things, is the best thing next to hearing you tell me you loved me for the first time.”

Not giving me an opportunity to tell him that I do still love him, he kisses me. His tongue slips into my mouth, and my breathing gets shallow. He angles my head so he has better access to my mouth, and I open up for more. I trace my tongue against his and then across his bottom lip before pulling it between my teeth. He moans into my mouth, and I press myself harder against him, wanting more.

I want him to know exactly what he does to me, so I put so much emotion into this kiss. We tell each other with our mouths how much that day devastated us. I rub my hands over his hard body, and can feel his chest heaving with need, like mine. I push my hips into the part of his jeans where his hard cock is making an appearance, and kiss him even harder. I feel so hot, and I want to rip off both of our clothes so we can be together again.

He starts to slow down his movements against my mouth and my hips, by placing gentle kisses against my lips. His eyes stay closed as he runs his hands through my hair and traces his hand down my back. He leans his head against mine, and takes a deep breath before he finally speaks. I have a sinking feeling he is about to deny my need of satisfaction for my throbbing sweet spot.

“Jo, I want you so bad. Words cannot even describe how bad I want to be inside of you and make you completely mine again. But-,”

And there it is people,
I think.

“I think that we should just hold off for a little bit,” he continues.

I pull back from him. I am hurt, but I don’t really want him to know that I am hurt. We were just teasing each other this morning about making each other beg, and the fact that he isn’t even trying to sleep with me really hurts my ego.

Maybe I don’t have the same appeal as I used to,
I think to myself.

“Hey,” Blake says, pulling me out of my sink into darkness. “I want more than anything to show you exactly what you do to me, because being able to kiss you like that is driving me fucking wild. It’s just, I want to make sure we’re okay before we jump into that again,” he says. I know what he is thinking. I know that if we jump into bed together, then we can forget all about our real issues without resolving them. But I don’t want to talk about it yet.

“I get it, Blake. We’ll talk about it all soon,” I say and give him a chaste kiss before hearing my dad call for me upstairs.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Jo,” Blake says giving me one last kiss before walking towards the door.

“When?” I ask.

“You’ll know, love. Sweet dreams.” He gives me his most charming smile, crooked tooth and all, and walks out the door. I stand in the same spot for a moment trying to think of what he might have planned for tomorrow. I can’t think of anything, so I walk upstairs to my Dad’s room.

He’s sitting on his bed with an old box in his lap. It is mahogany and square, with some beautiful detail engraved into the wood. I swallow a knot that’s forming in my throat from the obvious sadness that has filled the air. Dad has his head hung, and his shoulders slouched. I walk closer to the bed, and see tears streaming down his face when he looks at me.

“I have something I need to tell you, Jose. It’s extremely important, and I need you to keep an open mind as I tell you. Do you understand?” I can feel my chest constricting in fear of what he needs to tell me.

“Yes,” I say hesitantly. He nods, and pats the bed telling me to sit down. Once I’m situated, he takes a deep breath.

“Your Daddy and I were very much in love, Josie. Please do not forget that. He was such a good man, and I will love him every second until I die. He supported my dreams of owning my own business, and he was always there to hold me and comfort me. He always said I was the ‘man’ in the relationship, but I always knew that he was the better man. The way he loved me every day of our lives together shows exactly how good of a man he was. He was always much better at showing me, than I was.

“When I first met him, when his friend had referred him to the shop I was working at, I was captivated by his eyes. They were so gorgeous, not just your typical brown eyes… It was the little things like an accidental touch when I was trying to show him exactly what was wrong with his car, and the glances we would secretly give each other when no one else was looking. It took me a hell of a lot longer to fix his car than it should have, because I wanted him to keep coming back and talk to me.” I smile at his admission, and he smiles back at me. He takes my hand in his, and continues his story.

“I knew he was different. What I felt was different. I had always struggled with my sexuality because my parents never thought it was right. But, when I held his hand for the first time behind that shop, I just knew in my soul that regardless of what anyone thought, he was the one for me. After a couple years of dating, your biological mother agreed to give us a child. We were so happy to be given such a precious gift, and we cherished you as soon as your mother had you. When she gave us full rights, we felt complete. We were happy. I was learning everything I had to in order to start my business, and your Daddy loved being home and taking care of you.

“He loved you so much. You were an angel to him. He always knew you would turn out to be an amazing woman, and you have. You are so strong, and I am so grateful that you had him as your Daddy, because you get all your good traits from him,” he says, and I roll my eyes.

“You contributed to my childhood too, Dad. You are both great parents.”

“He was better. So much better… every year, on the anniversary of our commitment ceremony, your father and I wrote a letter to each other. Every year we wrote down all of our feelings, thoughts, and ideas. We told each other how much we loved each other, but we never read them. We put it away in this box so that if something ever happened to one of us, we would know exactly how the other felt. Nothing would be left unsaid, because we would always have those words. I never thought I would be the one to read his letters,” his voice cracks at the end of his sentence and a sob escapes his mouth. Tears are streaming down both our faces. It’s beautiful, thoughtful, romantic, and so heartbreakingly devastating. It takes him a couple minutes before he calms down enough to speak again.

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