Breathe (19 page)

“I hate motorcycles. My stepdad took me riding a few times when I was younger and I hated it. But with you? I think I could learn to love it.”

I grinned and pulled her against me, kissing her on the nose. “Glad to hear it cause I didn’t want that ride to end either. We should take it out again soon.” I led her to the elevator, using my room card to get in. As the doors closed I stepped behind her and pulled her back against me, wrapping my arms around her waist and nestling my face into her neck.

“Remember the last time we were in an elevator.”

“Oh, was that you? I could have sworn it was somebody else.”

I gave her ass a swift smack at her cheekiness but she just laughed, turning in my arms so she could look up at me with her sparkling amber eyes.

“Oh, right that was you. See now it’s all coming back. You starved me that night.”

I grinned, pulling her closer and leaning down to kiss her softly on the lips. “It was all for a good cause though.” I stopped her wiseass comment with another kiss, thrusting my tongue between her lips, dueling with hers as we rode up to my floor. I pulled away when the doors opened and pulled her down the hall to my room, opening the door and pulling her in behind me.

I backed her up against the door and kissed her again. I ran my hands down the side of her waist, bunching up the fabric and pulling it up, searching for bare flesh. She kicked off her high heels and pulled me closer into her.

Suddenly Star Wars Darth Vader march sounded from her purse.

I pulled back and started laughing. “Seriously? Who gets that ring tone?”

She rolled her eyes and pulled her phone out. “My step mom. I ignored her call earlier and she is going to be pissed. Mind if I take care of this real quick?”

“Of course not, take your time I will order us some drinks. I am all out of liquor or any other kind of drinks.” She laughed, then reached into her phone, and walked out onto the balcony to answer it and I walked to the phone by the bed to call room service.

(Kathryn)

“Hello?”

“Why did you not answer your phone the last time I called?”

I sighed, yep she was mad. “I was at the benefit dinner for the Golden Heart Foundation.”

“When are you going to give that up? That is complete nonsense and you know it. The military has services that everyone can use, why do you have to have a separate foundation for it?”             

“The military is great but there are some that don’t want to go through those providers and if you are a widow they don’t continue service to you. If I had the Golden Heart Foundation I wouldn’t have…”

“Nonsense. You should have come home to your family, we would have taken care of you.”

I sighed silently. Crystal never wanted to hear about what happened after Sean left.

“Crystal what did you want?”

And she was off. I stood there silently on the balcony outside Daniel’s hotel room listening to her going on and on and on, making small noises when needed but just let her have her say, not listening to anything she was saying. I had heard it all before. I was a terrible daughter, my poor dad was on his last legs and he needed his daughter to stop being the selfish, self-centered, woman that she had become despite her every effort to raise me correctly, I hadn’t called in weeks, and they hadn’t seen the kids in over six months, yada, yada, yada. It was like she was on a continuous loop.

I heard the door behind me open and knew that Daniel had stepped out behind me but I continued pacing back and forth across the balcony trying to get my stepmom off the phone so Daniel and I could continue what we were doing.

(Daniel)

“Look I realize that you think we shouldn’t be gallivanting all over the country and we should be taking time to come home more often or rather back to Colorado… What? No Colorado isn’t home… I don’t know.” I walked out on the balcony watching as Kathryn walked up and down barefooted trying to have a conversation with her stepmother. “I know, I realize that… Look Lily is filming right now and Tyler just started a new job maybe in a few months….Crystal I am sure my father has a few months.”

I watched as her hands went to her temple and she rested her elbows on the railing. She had already worked all the pins out of her hair while she walked back and forth. I could hear her stepmother yelling but couldn’t hear half the words. I stepped closer and handed Kathryn a glass of water. She smiled weakly at me. I was close enough now to hear what the other woman was saying.

“You are and always have been so selfish, so self-centered. If it doesn’t occur in your little world it doesn’t matter. You haven’t seen us in six months and we very rarely hear from you unless I call. Maybe you should step out of your perfect little bubble and stop being such a self-serving manipulative...” I didn’t wait to hear what she was going to say. I snatched the phone out of Kathryn’s hand.

“Hello Crystal is it?”

“Yes who is this? I was talking to my daughter.”

“Oh well this is your daughter’s friend and as her friend I am taking over this conversation.”

“What do you mean taking over this conversation? You can’t do that.”

“Well it seems as if I did. Now, Kathryn may be many things but selfish, self-centered, self-serving or manipulative is not anywhere close to a description I would use.”

“You clearly do not know her. She…” I cut her off again, leaving her sputtering. Kathryn was trying to grab the phone but I was over a foot taller than her so it was very easy to play keep away. She was extremely adorable as she hopped around trying to get the phone from me. Finally she stepped back, arms crossed across her chest and stomped her feet. I grinned and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“No you clearly do not know your daughter, or rather your step daughter, let’s be honest. She visits you all every six months or so, you never visit her or the children. You only call to yell at her when there is some imagined wrong that she has done otherwise you do not even acknowledge that her or the kids exist. Even when her husband was killed and she was going through hell you couldn’t take the time out of your schedule to come help her.”

“We have helped her out with plenty of her life crisis, so we weren’t there for that one. We were there for everything else.”

I exploded at this point, all my patience gone. “Listen here lady! You are her family. You are supposed to be there for every life crisis and you are supposed thank god you can be. You don’t keep count of favors owed or dollars spent on family. She was falling apart and you didn’t bother to even pick up a goddamn phone. Then you wonder why Colorado isn’t home? Maybe because the people there don’t treat her like anything but trash. She is done with you, do not call this phone again woman or so help me god I will find you and I will break you.” By the time I hung up the phone my Irish brogue was so thick Kathryn was having a hard time keeping up. When I was done telling off her stepmother I turned to her. She was staring at me in wide-eyed shock, her mouth hanging open.

“Why did you do that?”             

“Nobody speaks to my girl that way.” I watched as Kathryn’s hands went to her mouth, her eyes started shining and I grew terrified. “Kathryn?”

She shook her head and turned away, looking over the city, her hands going down to her sides, clenching and unclenching as she gained control again.

“Nobody has ever done that for me before.” She whispered so softly if I hadn’t been standing right behind her I wouldn’t have heard it.

“Nobody, ever?” She shook her head. “Has she always talked to you like that?” She sighed, wrapping her arms around herself the way she does when she didn’t like the topic, as if she was warding off blows or keeping her stomach from falling out.

“There are moments when she can be kind. When I was younger with my sisters she used to take us and do things with us all the time, the pool, arts and crafts and such. As we got older things started to change. I don’t know what it was, I can’t pinpoint exactly when it started happening. But I could never do anything right, I tried but it was always the wrong thing. She believed lies, disbelieved truths. She made me feel like I was nothing, like I was worthless, a complete waste of her time, and a burden on the family. There were times in high school when it was so bad that I wanted to end it somehow. There were train tracks behind our house, I would imagine running out there one night and just ending the pain. I never did because I thought once I left that house I would find someone who would love me, who would think I was worth something.” I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her back against my chest, trying to offer as much comfort as I could. She had stopped talking so I thought that was it, but I was wrong.

“When Sean left for the Army I was still pregnant with Tyler. We decided it would be better if I went to stay with Crystal and my dad until he was done with basic and technical training and got everything set up for us. Crystal was wonderful until Tyler was born, about a week after that something changed again. I don’t know what it was; again I can’t pinpoint the moment. I was expected to do a ton of chores while Tyler slept, learning to care for my own house is what she said, instead of resting when he rested like the doctor told me to. Tyler’s delivery wasn’t easy so recovery wasn’t either. I did laundry one day and shrank one of my sister’s shirts. I don’t buy shirts I can’t throw in the dryer, so I never even thought to check. That day they made me feel like I was the scum of the earth. I was never to touch laundry again. The next day I did something else instead of laundry. I was yelled at because I didn’t do laundry. Basically I couldn’t do anything right. Then she started telling me that I was a horrible mother that I needed to sign over rights to my son to her and my dad and they would raise him because clearly I had no clue what I was doing. And she kept track of every penny that she spent on us, laundry soap, gas, food, etc. And I had to pay her back in a lump sum. All this time my father saw what she was doing and let her do it, I held on as long as I could and then joined Sean. I wanted so badly for my father to still be in my children’s lives so I have put up with her all these years…”

(Kathryn)

“But nobody has ever told her off for you? Not even Sean?” I shook my head. Too many emotions where bubbling up inside me right then. Anger that he might have destroyed the tenuous string I had with my father, anger that I had such a ragged connection with my father, horror that I told him all that, pain from reliving it all, and an overwhelming sense of thankfulness that somebody finally stood up to her and told her off.

“Sean called her a bitch once in the background. That cost me. My grandparents would insult her when she wasn’t around and my momma would always defend me, but again that was when she wasn’t around but no, I don’t think anyone has ever taken that phone or walked up to her face and told her to leave me alone.” I turned in his arms and looked up at the strong gorgeous man in front of me. He was so solid, so beautiful and he had just told off the woman who had been torturing me since I was seven years old. I closed my eyes and leaned my head against his chest. “I seriously hope this doesn’t ruin the last shred of connection I have with my father.”

Daniel picked me up, carried me back into the bedroom and sat down with me on his lap on the bed. He grabbed my chin and turned my face to his.

“If that man knew how his wife was treating you all these years and did nothing about it, he doesn’t deserve you anymore than she does. Only those people who can see the strong, smart, talented, beautiful woman that I see, that your children see, deserve to have a relationship with you. And if he calls I will tell him that.” Daniel nods at the end to add emphasis to his statement and he is just adorable. His curly hair had been ruffled by the wind and his hands, his blue eyes looked down at me, full of concern and an emotion I am not ready to admit to myself yet. I cuddle up against his chest, breathing in the minty, manliness that is Daniel, letting him comfort me like no one else had ever done before, worried about what that meant. He leaned over and laid me on the bed next to him, laying down on his side, his hand holding his head up as he gazed down at me. His other hand came up and gently stroked the side of my face as he gazed into my eyes.

“You are a gorgeous, intelligent, sweet woman Kathryn. You shouldn’t let anyone make you think you aren’t.”

I smiled up at him weakly. “Habits of a lifetime are hard to stop Daniel.” He leaned down and brushed his lips softly against mine.

“Well, I guess I better help you with that then.” I grinned up at him as he captured my lips in a deeper kiss, pulling me close into his body. He growled, tightening his arms even more. “God, I have missed you.”

He leaned back again to look at my face. I reached up and ran my fingers through his soft hair.

“I missed you too. Between cussing you out of course.”

“You should have called me grá. You wouldn’t have had to go through any of this alone.” I sighed and looked away from him. He grabbed my chin and gently brought my eyes back to his.

“I know. Again, habits of a lifetime are hard to break Daniel. I have always been someone who handles things herself, even when I had Sean. I was a military wife, the one who had to hold everything down, alone.”

“Well I am here now damn it, and you will share your life with me. Joy, tears, anger.” I gasped and stared up into his eyes, searching for the meaning behind those words, not sure I was ready for something that big. Before I could wrap my mind around it, before I could respond he had crushed his mouth against mine again, pushing all thoughts out of my mind but the feel of his hands pulling my dress up over my head, the feel of him removing my bra and cupping my breasts in his hands.

I arched up against him, closing my eyes as the feelings rocketed through me straight to my core, making me clench my thighs tighter together. My clit throbbed as he moved his lips down my check, across my collarbone and to my nipples. He sucked one tightly in his mouth, running his tongue in circles around it, then biting down gently but just enough to make me moan and grab the back of his head to pull him closer. He raised his head and smirked down at me.

“Did you miss that too woman?”

All I could do was nod and groan loudly as he sucked the other one in his mouth. He ran his hand down my stomach and into my panties. He rubbed one finger along my slit growling when he felt how wet I already was for him. “Grá you are going to kill me.”

“But what a way to go right?”

(Daniel)

I looked up into her sparkling eyes and lifted up to kiss her again. I thrust my tongue in her mouth just as I thrust two of my fingers into her pussy. She arched against me and moaned into my mouth. I pulled back and grinned down at her as she lay panting beneath me. I kissed my way back down her collarbone to her erect nipples begging for another touch that I was only happy to give to them. She arched her hips up against my hand that was still thrusting in and out and she was holding my head close to her. I licked my way down her stomach, dipping my tongue into her navel and grinning when the muscles contracted and she arched against me again.

I looked up at her. She had her head flung back, her teeth biting down on her bottom lip as she let the sensations I was giving her take over.

“Look at me, I need to see you.” She opened her amber eyes and they locked on mine. Hers were dark with desire, and glazed with pleasure. I held her gaze as I sank between her thighs, pushing them aside as I settled in. “Now keep your feet flat on the sheets.” She nodded as I dipped to take my taste of her. She sighed my name, her hand flinging up to grab the sheets on either side of her head.