The Moment We Began (A Fairhope New Adult Romance) (27 page)

I have always wondered what it would feel like to
be that to the man I love. To know that he loved me so much, I was
the only one he could see. To know he didn’t want anyone else.

Mason makes the song his own. It’s slower,
more deliberate. Each word is a direct line to my soul. And his
voice. Oh god, his voice is perfection. Smooth and effortless. Strong
and true. And it makes it even more special because I know he’s
singing for me.

To me alone.

And for the first time in all the years I’ve
loved him, I know he loves me too.

When the song is over, the crowd is silent for
several beats. No one moves, including me. The emotion Mason put into
that song was raw and beautiful.

I’ve never seen him so vulnerable.

I’ve never loved him so much.

The applause that comes next startles me. I can’t
clap. It isn’t enough for what he’s just done. All I can
do is watch him. Wait for him.

He stands and searches for me through the crowd.
He lifts his hand against the lights, then jumps down off the stage
and heads straight for me.

The crowd on the dance-floor parts as he walks
through even though the band is starting back up and the dancing has
returned to normal.

My feet move on their own. I’m pulled toward
him like a magnet and no one around us matters or exists.

I follow the railing around to where it opens and
he meets me there.

We connect through our eyes, our souls, our
hearts. And when he touches me, an electricity passes between us.

I fall into his arms and his mouth descends on
mine.

And this first kiss of true love is different from
any other we’ve shared. It’s not all fire and lust and
urgency. There’s only strength and trust and total, glorious
surrender.

When we part, the connection is still there. It
binds us to each other.

He takes my hand and leads me onto the dance
floor.

“I don’t know how to dance like this,”
I say.

“I’ll lead you.”

He pulls me into his arms and guides me around the
circle. I’m awkward at first, my feet unsure. But he’s
surprisingly good at this.

On the slow dances, he holds me close. We barely
speak, but I don’t need him to say a word. I just need him to
never let me go.

We dance several dances, but then he slowly pulls
me off to the side and kisses me again. He puts his cheek to mine and
whispers, “There’s something I want you to know,”
he says. “The reason I chose that song was because I wanted you
to understand. You’re every woman to me. All this time we’ve
been together, there’s been no one else, Penny. Only you.”

I touch his hand. “I know,” I say. “I
trust you.”

He smiles and shakes his head. “No, I’m
not talking about this trip,” he says. “I’m talking
about all the time since that first night on the boat a year ago. The
night we first got drunk and made love. You have no idea how hard I’d
been trying to resist you. How long I wanted you before that night.”

I stop, pulling away to study his face in the dim
lights of the bar. “What? What are you saying?”

I hear him, but he’s not making any sense.

“I’m saying there’s been no one
else. Not since that night,” he says. “There’s only
been you.”

Tears well up in my eyes. “But I saw you
with those other girls,” I say. “I watched you flirt and
tease and date and touch them. I saw you.”

“I never brought a single one of those girls
into my bed. I swear it.”

I breathe in, still not believing this could be
true. “Then why would you let me think you had?” I ask.
“Why would you torture me like that?”

He leans down and presses his forehead to mine.
“I’m so sorry,” he says. His voice is so soft, I
can barely hear him over the music. “I never meant for any of
this to happen between us. I wanted to keep my distance from you,
because I knew that if I let myself love you—if I admitted that
to myself or to you—it would change my whole world. I thought
that if I allowed myself to love you, I would lose you. The way I
lost Rachel.”

Tears fall silently down my cheeks. I don’t
know what to say. I don’t know how this can be true.

“I tried to keep that first night from
happening, but after it did, I couldn’t stay away from you,”
he says. “It was all I could do to make you think I didn’t
care for you. I pushed you away so that you would hate me, but you
never gave up on me. Then, after your accident, I knew I had to get
away from you. I was so scared that I was the cause of everything bad
in your life, and I couldn’t face that.”

He pulls me close so that my head is resting
against his chest and his arms are tight around me.

“But when you showed up that morning with
your tiny little bag and that look of hope in your eyes, I knew I was
a goner,” he says. “I knew I couldn’t resist you
anymore. And all I could do was hope that once we got away from
Fairhope, I wouldn’t be such poison to you.”

“You’ve never been poison to me,”
I say, looking up into his eyes. “All those stupid things I
did? I did them because I was crazy at the thought of losing you
forever. If I had known you felt the same way about me, everything
would have been different.”

“I realize that now,” he says. “It
just took me a long time to understand that I’d rather have you
now and lose you than to never know what it feels like to be in your
arms.”

I lift up on my toes and kiss him, my lips soft
against his. “You aren’t going to lose me,” I say.

He stiffens and looks away. “I hope not,
Penny,” he says. “But there’s something you need to
know. Something I haven’t been able to tell you about. It could
change everything between us.”

I place my hand on his lips. “Not tonight,”
I say. “Tonight, let’s just be together. Let’s just
let these walls down and love each other. Tomorrow, we can share any
secrets we have left.”

I think about the baby and how I’m not quite
ready to tell him. I’ll tell him tomorrow.

He nods. “Okay,” he says. “Let’s
go back to the room. I want to make love to you so bad I can’t
stand here one more minute.”

We walk hand-in-hand off the dance floor and out
the front door. The ride from the bar to the hotel lasts an eternity.
I ride snuggled close to him, my head resting on his shoulder, his
free hand entwined with mine.

There’s a buzz between us. It’s
nothing anyone could see by looking at us. It’s just something
new that vibrates there between us. Something like hope.

In the parking lot, he lifts me into his arms and
carries me through the lobby and down the hall to our room. When
we’re inside, he lowers my feet to the floor.

I lift up to kiss him, but he puts a finger to my
lips, stopping me. He slips his hands around my face and stares into
my eyes.

“I love you, Penny,” he says, his eyes
shining. “I know it took me a long time to get here, and I know
I’ve hurt you in the past. I’m sure I don’t deserve
you, but I promise I’m going to love you with all that I am for
the rest of my life.”

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted
to hear those words from you,” I say. I lift my hands to his
and hold them tight in my own. “I love you, too, Mason. I’ve
always loved you.”

I lift up on my toes, pulling him down into my
kiss.

He takes his time, exploring my mouth with his.
There’s no sense of urgency, but the passion is still there. It
smolders between us like hot coals.

He undresses me one small piece at a time, letting
his fingers trail a thousand paths across my skin. I shiver and moan
under his touch as he explores me. When I’m naked beside him, I
start to reach for the buttons on his shirt, but he moves my hand
back to my side, a sly smile on his lips.

He bends down, tracing the same paths of his
fingers, but this time with his lips. He moves with such tenderness,
it takes my breath away. He kisses my neck, then travels down my
chest to the peaks of my breast. He teases them with his tongue and I
lift up, wanting more.

Below, his hands run like rivers down the valley
between my legs. He slips his fingers inside of me. I moan and beg as
he teases and kisses and moves above me, igniting a need so raw and
deep that I ache for him.

His mouth weaves a trail of wet kisses downward
and he places himself between my thighs, spreading me open. He lifts
me up and my breath hitches in my chest as his mouth descends on me,
his tongue teasing each fold and peak. I move against his mouth, my
hands clutching the sheets as he brings me higher, then pulls away,
and then goes back for more.

I bury one hand in his hair as he closes his mouth
over me, dragging me to the edge of desire. I cry out as pleasure
floods through me. My body bucks and trembles against him. He pulls
away and kisses the inside of my thigh, his fingertips dragging
across the skin on my legs. I lay there, breathless, my chest rising
and falling and my heart pounding against my ribs.

When my breath has slowed and my body has melted
into a pool of tingling warmth, he rises up and takes off his shirt.
I come up on my knees and help him, one button at a time. He
surrenders the job to me and I push the shirt from his shoulders and
toss it to the floor. I lift his white undershirt up and over his
head, then run my hands down along each ridge of his abs.

I slide my fingers around the edge of his
waistband and look up into his eyes, wanting him to see just how much
I want him. His lips are parted and I can feel his heart beating in
time with my own.

I unbutton his jeans and push them down, then lay
him back so I can pull them from his body. I crawl on top of him,
leaving his boxers on so I can tease him the way he teased me. I
straddle him, my heat centered above the length of him. He tries to
lift his head and touch me, but a smile plays at my lips as I push
his back flat against the bed.

I lower more of my weight onto him and he makes a
low sounds deep in his throat and throws his head back against the
pillow. I take my time, running my fingertips along every inch of his
arms and neck and chest. I use the lightest, feather-soft touch I can
and his body trembles beneath me.

When my hands reach the waist of his boxers, his
eyes fly open and he grabs my hips, lifting himself up so I can feel
his hard length grinding against me.

I lick my lips and move to the side, slowly
pulling that final barrier away from him so that we are fully naked
together.

I run my hand up and down his legs, across his
waist, making a circle around him. His breath is coming faster now
and I know I’ve teased him long enough.

I watch his face as I finally close my hand around
him, moving up and down slowly.

He closes his eyes and lets his mouth open as he
draws in each tortured breath. His hips move against the bed as I
caress him and his body shakes as I lower my mouth onto him.

There’s a great release of his breath as I
take him in, inch-by-inch. I taste him with my tongue, teasing the
tip and moving my hand up and down, applying more and more pressure.

He moans and reaches his hand toward my back,
running his palm against my spine, then tensing with need.

Before I can do more, he lifts up, taking control.
There’s fire in his eyes. Passion.

He moves on top of me and my legs part and lift
around him. He hovers just at the opening, his hand on my face and in
my hair. His eyes never leave mine.

“I love you,” he says.

“I love you, too,” I whisper.

Mason enters me, then. A slow, controlled movement
at first as our bodies are joined together. I slide my arms around
his neck and lift my hips to meet him. His rhythm grows faster. He
moves deeper inside of me, filling me, completing me. We make love,
and tonight I feel more than just our bodies connected. I feel his
heart.

I feel his love.

The passion between us grows to a beautifully
tense moment, then he releases into me.

I wrap my legs around him, holding him there as he
shudders with one final thrust, never wanting this connection to
falter.

Never wanting this moment to end.

In the morning, we wake up and make love again.

I am so used to seeing him open for only brief
moments of time before he shuts himself off to me again. But this
morning, he’s still here and he’s still in love with me.
It wasn’t a dream, and for the first time since we left
Fairhope, I know he won’t be walking away from me at the end of
this.

As I lay here, I daydream about what it would be
like to get our own place together. Or maybe even move away from
Fairhope. We could build a house near Little Lake and raise our child
there by the sea in Alabama.

I’m on the verge of falling asleep again, my
body entwined happily with his, when someone knocks on the door of
our room.

I lift up, yawning. “Did you order room
service?”

Mason sits up slowly, his face tense and his jaw
clenched. “No,” he says. “Maybe they have the wrong
room.”

When they knock again, Mason gets out of bed and
quickly pulls his jeans on. There’s fear written across his
face, but what does he have to be afraid of? My parents? Even if
they’ve come looking for me, there’s nothing they can do
to us now. We don’t need their money and we’re free to
make our own choices.

But I see his hand tremble as he reaches for the
doorknob.

The second the door cracks open, Bernard Hunter,
my father’s bodyguard, pushes through.

I gasp and pull the sheets up to cover my naked
body.

“Get the hell out,” Mason yells,
pushing Bernard backward. “You have no right to charge in here
like this. Have some fucking decency.”

Bernard rears back and punches Mason so hard, his
head jerks to the side. I scream and draw up on my knees.