It's All Relative (53 page)

Tears pricked Jessie’s eyes at the memory of waking up and finding him gone. She didn’t ever want to feel that way again. “We caved. We…slept together…”

Her cheeks burned with embarrassment after admitting that to her friends, and the tears she’d been fighting fell down her cheeks. Kai brushed them away, his eyes sad as well. Harmony laid a hand on Jessie’s arm and Jessie turned to look at her. Harmony’s eyes were surprisingly moist as she watched her friend’s pain.

Feeling encouraged, Jessie expanded on her torment. “We both felt like we’d done something so wrong…so horrible. But we loved each other so much, we knew it would happen again if Kai stayed in Denver…” Her voice trailed off, and she couldn’t finish. She was so grateful that that future wasn’t happening.

Resting his head on her hair as he pulled her in for a hug, Kai finished the part she couldn’t. “I made plans to head back to Hawaii, to distance us with space, since nothing else was working. I found out who I really was today, when I met with my…biological father, when I turned in my notice.” His voice thickened with emotion. “I couldn’t deal with the truth. I came here, to see Jessie. She helped me through it, and when we realized…”

Her eyes teary, her face wistful, April clasped her hands together. “When you realized that you
could
be together, because you weren’t really cousins, you finally got to express the love that’s been building between you.”

The entire room quieted as everybody stared at April. Finally, Harmony laughed and slung an arm around her shoulders. “God, you really
are
a closet romantic.” Jessie felt her residual sadness roll off of her as she laughed along with Kai. April sighed and shrugged.

Wiping her cheeks dry, Jessie looked between her roommates. “So…are you guys going to be okay with this? With Kai and I dating?” She felt like crossing her fingers. If her friends understood, if they accepted the two of them, then maybe she could get her family to accept them, too.

Harmony sighed and looked over at April. April shrugged and glanced back at Jessie. “I got drunk at a party once and French kissed my cousin. It happens.”

A muffled chortle escaped from Harmony, and all eyes turned to her. Her cheeks turned rosy as she shrugged. “I lusted after this guy at a family reunion once, thinking he was a friend of my second cousin. We were halfway through ‘show and tell’ when I finally figured out that he was an
actual
cousin.”

A light laughter filled the room as Harmony shrugged again. “Obviously our experiences weren’t as severe as yours, but…” she sighed and stepped forward to give Jessie a hug, “I guess I get it. You didn’t know. You tried to stop once you did.” Pulling back, she looked between Kai and Jessie. “But love is a hard thing to shut off.”

Harmony’s grin turned mischievous as she patted Kai’s shoulder. “I’m really glad you aren’t actually related though, because listening to the two of you having sex would have seriously grossed me out.” She grinned. “Sorry. I can only be so understanding.”

Jessie flushed as April laughed. “God, Harmony, we wouldn’t have…” With a sigh, she let that one go.

After a few more questions about what had really been going on for the past couple of months, April and Harmony finally let Jessie and Kai go back to her bedroom. Jessie felt light and airy as she closed the door and leaned against it. Her roommates knowing and accepting, had been more cathartic than she’d thought it would be. Releasing all the pent up lies she’d been telling had lifted a mammoth weight from her shoulders. She finally felt like she could breathe again.

Smiling, Kai sat on the edge of her bed. “Do you feel better?”

With a grin as wide as her heart, she nodded. “Yeah, so much better. You?”

He nodded in turn. “Yeah…it feels good to let April know the real reason why I couldn’t be with her.” He leaned back on his hands, opening his chest in a delightful way. “She just wasn’t you.” The edge of his lip curved up in a sexy half-smile.

Jessie gave him her sexiest smile in return. She felt so relieved that the truth was finally out, that she wanted another round of their earlier bliss; she even felt her body begin to tingle at just the idea of Kai being inside her again. Jessie was immensely grateful that her friends had come to terms with the idea of them having sex under their mutual roof; she had a feeling there would be a
lot
of sex in her near future.

His crooked grin stayed on his face as he looked her over. “And what are you thinking about?” he asked softly.

She pushed away from the door. “I was just thinking that you should get dressed.”

Not expecting those words from her, Kai frowned. Smiling even wider, Jessie walked over to him, swaying her hips in the way she knew turned him on. Sliding her hands up her ribs, she hooked his shirts on her fingers and pulled them up her body. By the time she was directly in front of him, she was only wearing her favorite pair of black lace underwear. “I believe these are yours,” she whispered, as she tossed his shirts onto his shoulder.

Straightening on the bed, Kai’s eyes immediately locked onto her breasts, conveniently positioned directly in front of his face. One of his hands reached out and gently cupped her backside, under the seductive fabric. The other slid up her back, pulling her toward him. Jessie’s eyes traveled the length of his body before settling on the bulge in his slacks. It was achingly apparent that he was ready to reconnect with her, too.

As the forgotten shirts slipped off his shoulder, Kai’s lips closed over a nipple. His tongue flicked the peak, and Jessie closed her eyes and let a groan escape her. It only felt completely right between them now.
He
felt right, and after everything they’d been through, she wasn’t bothered in the slightest if everyone within earshot knew it.

K
ai smiled as he trailed his fingers down Jessie’s bare back. She trembled, smiling into her pillow as she lay on her stomach next to him. Already having spent all day in her bed, Kai felt like he could spend an eternity here and be completely happy.

Sitting up on an elbow, his recently spent body perfectly relaxed, he shook his head as he drew a circle into her pale skin. “Is it wrong…?”

He let that trail off, and Jessie opened her eyes to peek up at him. “Is what wrong?” Her voice was lazy, relaxed. Her last orgasm had been a good one, for both of them.

He smiled wider. “That I actually feel a little happy about Nate Harper not being my real father now.” Sighing, he shook his head. “I wouldn’t have been able to do what we just did with a clear conscience if he was.” Kai laughed as he replayed the multiple things he’d done to her that were very…un-cousinly.

Laughing with him, Jessie flipped over onto her back. She did nothing to hide her wonderful breasts from him and grinning, Kai leaned down to suck on one. She trailed her fingers through his hair as she exhaled a slow breath. “Yeah…me too. I liked a few of those things.”

Cocking an eyebrow, he peeked up at her. “A few?” Her moans had suggested otherwise.

She laughed deep in her throat, then pulled his head up to her lips. “Okay, maybe everything. God bless you for knowing exactly what to do with that tongue.” As if to emphasize her point, she flicked her tongue into his mouth. Kai closed his eyes, remembering the taste of her. He couldn’t quite recall anything that had ever tasted better.

Sighing, he pulled away from her. Her chocolate brown eyes flicked over his face, concerned. As happy as Kai was, he knew there were still hard conversations they had to have. They should talk to their grandmother. Well, Jessie’s grandmother. He should probably have another talk with his boss…his real father; he’d sort of dashed out of there the second after he’d laid eyes on the irrefutable proof. And Kai definitely needed to talk with his parents, a conversation he wasn’t looking forward to. Jessie should talk with her parents too, if they were going to continue with this relationship. And he wanted to. He was almost looking forward to getting all of the hard conversations with family members out of the way, because at the end of them, if all went well, he would still have Jessie. It would be just the two of them, alone in a bed together, loving each other physically and emotionally.

Running a finger through her hair, watching a long strand wrap around his finger, he smiled and shrugged. “I know Nate Harper isn’t really my father.” Kai paused; those words still felt weird to him. Swallowing roughly, he continued, “But regardless, I love him.” He tore his eyes from her dark hair to find her studying him with a small smile on her lips. He smiled. “He loved me as a son, even when he knew I wasn’t his. That’s pretty incredible if you think about it.”

Jessie nodded, running a few fingers down his cheek. “Uncle Nate is a good man.”

Kai could easily see the resemblance to the man who had raised him in the woman beside him. There was comfort in that fact now. “Yeah, he is.” He shook his head. “I’m not really sure what Mason is like, and maybe he’s a good man too, but I think I got pretty lucky with the father who raised me.”

Kai felt a peaceful calm flowing over him as he said it. True, he didn’t like what his parents had done, what they’d kept hidden from him, how they’d lied, how they’d chosen to tell him the truth. But he had to respect all of the support, wisdom, and unconditional love that he’d been given by the man he’d known as father.

Jessie let out a happy sigh. “And he did a really good job raising you. You’re a good man, Kai. You’re a great man,” she whispered.

Pride and love filled him at her words. He wanted to be a good man for her. He wanted to be everything for her. He knew that every day he would strive to be the man that she saw when she looked at him. “You amaze me…how you see me.”

She shrugged. “I only see what’s really there.”

He shook his head, a little dazed, and she pulled him down for a long kiss that left him breathless. After a moment, she pulled away; she was a little breathless too. “What are you going to say to your parents when you talk to them again?” she asked.

Kai looked away. “I don’t know. I’m not really sure what to say. I mean, I love them, but I still have questions over things that they did. I’m still not happy that they lied to me. I’m not happy that my mom had an affair.” He paused, thinking about his parent’s relationship. “How could she betray her husband like that?”

Jessie sat up in bed, still not covering herself. Trying not to be too distracted over that fact, Kai sat up with her. “Maybe your mom found herself in love with someone she wasn’t supposed to be in love with.” Her eyes darted down his body. “Maybe she tried to do the right thing, when she got in too deep.” She peeked back up at his face. “She couldn’t have known you weren’t Uncle Nate’s, not in the beginning.” Kai frowned and she quickly added, “I’m not excusing what she did, I’m just saying…she got herself in a bad situation, and she made a hard choice to stay with her husband, to raise you as a family.”

Kai nodded and looked down. He understood being in a hard situation. He also understood falling in love with someone he wasn’t supposed to fall in love with. And the awful fact was, if his mother hadn’t done what she’d done, he wouldn’t be able to be with the woman
he
loved right now. In a weird way, his own romantic happiness was born from his mother’s infidelity. He supposed he couldn’t really condemn her for that. Too much.

Shaking his head, he looked up at Jessie. “Why didn’t they just tell me when Dad found out? They got divorced when I was thirteen. Why keep up the pretense for so long?”

Jessie lovingly stroked his hand resting on her knee. She shrugged. “That’s exactly why, Kai. You were thirteen. Your parents were going through a divorce. Uncle Nate obviously loves you…he didn’t want to break you.”

Kai sighed and laced their fingers together. “Why now then? Why after all this time…”

Jessie leaned into him, so her breast was touching his arm. Even though their conversation had turned serious, Kai smiled at the contact. She sighed and kissed the edge of his tattoo. “I don’t know. Maybe they finally felt you were old enough? Maybe it’s been eating away at them all this time, and they just needed you to know the truth.”

Kai nodded at her guess. He knew she didn’t have any firm answers, but he liked having someone to share his concerns with. “Why send me here? Why couldn’t they tell me themselves?”

Jessie gave him a wry smile, like she knew he was aware that she didn’t know anything for sure, and it amused her that he still asked. She answered though. “They had to be terrified. You and your parents are close, right?”

He nodded and looked down. “Yeah. I mean, I talk to my mom nearly every day, and my dad, before I left we were tight.” Kai sighed forlornly, returning his gaze to the comfort of her body. “I wish one of them had told me. Or both of them, together.”

She shrugged. It made her chest move in an intriguing way that made Kai smile again. “I don’t know what their real reasons were, but if it were me, I’d be terrified of losing you.” He looked up at her face and she bit her lip as she searched his eyes. “Maybe they thought it would be better if it didn’t come directly from them?”