Transcending Nirvana (Dark Evoke #3) (26 page)

He tried to make tactful glances up at the house along my right, but I could feel the nervousness radiating from the man beside me in waves. Regardless of how he attempted to disguise it, it was there, those butterflies and a sense of dread which comes in parallel with meeting the family of the special person in your life.

The keys of the truck were taking the brunt end of his wariness with how he was toiling them between his fingers in his lap. It was when I gave a sideways glance and caught him sucking up a steady breath, with ocean blue eyes fixated on the house, that I finally cracked.

“What’s so funny?” he asked all innocent and worrisome.

“The innocent act doesn’t work, Walker,” I shook my head. “Come on, I want you to meet my family.” When I sensed that he wasn’t budging, I rolled my eyes and reached out to touch his forearm, my chin resting on his shoulder. “You did ravage their daughter at the end of their driveway, the least you could do is introduce yourself.”

When he peered down at me, and his wide-eyes were met by my persuasive ones, his mouth twitched. “Ravaged? I seem to remember it was
you
jumping on
me,
darlin’.”

“You know what I mean. I want my family to meet you. It’s not a huge request; you’re going to need to meet them at some point.”

I felt a gust of cool air passing through the door when he released it on a concurring groan. “Now it is then.” Dropping from the truck, he slammed the door behind him, and then made his way to open my door. As I took his hand and he closed my door, he quizzed, “Just wondering, your dad doesn’t own a shotgun or anything does he?”

“Even if he did,”–– at the end of the pathway, I looked up at him––“would it matter?”

The night’s breeze against on my face was eradicated for just a moment, by the back of his warm knuckles gliding down my cheek. Halting at my chin, he coaxed my head back, his lips hovering just above mine. “Not in the slightest.”

“Well then,” I turned to face the house, and taking a step onto the property, I yanked lightly on Walker’s hand, a silent instruction to follow me. “We have nothing to worry about then.”

The moment we stepped over the threshold, I could hear small gasps and welcomes as everyone, apart from Laurie, dropped what they were doing and pushed themselves from their seats to surround us.

“Hey, there you are,” the voice came from the loveseat. “I thought you’d both drove off into the sunset and forgot all about me.”

Walker must have flashed a look at her because her mouth shut just as quickly as it had opened, with an over exaggerated eye roll.

“Everyone, I’d like you to meet, Walker,” I leaned further into his side so his arm was in the center of my chest. “Walker, meet my little sister, Brittany, my parents, Judy and Marcus, and Clark, my future brother-in-law.”

“Walker,” my mom gushed, flipping her blond hair back over her shoulders with a timid smile. “It’s lovely to meet you.”

“I wish we could say we’ve heard a lot about you, Walker,” my dad piped up with a hardened, protective glint in his eye, his hand held out, “but short of what Laurie has told us, I can’t.”

“Mr. Jenson,” Walker nodded, shaking Dad’s hand with a firm grip. There must be something about how men assess each other with a handshake, because the moment my dad looked down at their hands, he smiled and nodded his head, almost as though giving his approval.

Brittany didn’t bother with pleasantries. She simply brushed me aside and wrapped her arms around his neck, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you for giving me my sister back,” she whispered quiet enough for only me to hear, before pulling away.

“I apologize for my timing. Kady told me about your engagement,” he replied, while Brittany returned to Clark’s side, and her fiancé offered Walker his hand. “Congratulations,” he finished. One thing was certain: Clark was tiny in comparison to Walker. It was almost cute.

“So where are you from, Walker?” Mom asked as we all trailed behind her into the kitchen where she popped another bottle of champagne.

“Boston, but originally from Ireland, Dun Laoghaire to be precise,” he answered while she poured the pink liquid into flutes.

“That’s a long way, how come you decided to move to Boston?”

I cleared my throat and offered an inconspicuous shake of my head to kill the topic, but Mom being Mom didn’t catch on. Luckily my dad did. “Oh, Judy, stop bombarding the boy with questions.” From one of the kitchen drawers, he retrieved and held up three Cuban cigars, grinning from ear-to-ear. “Three reasons for a Cuban: Engagement, marriage and a birth.”

“Actually,”––Walker dug into his pocket, recovering a packet of Marlboro’s, while Dad slid one of the patio doors open––“I’m good with one of these.” Planting a chaste kiss on my lips, he muttered, “I’ll be back,” before stepping outside with the men of the family, leaving me wearing my heart on my sleeve in the kitchen, awaiting his return.

Walker

When you go through life being judged, you tend to expect it before you dip your toe in the water. That’s why I never judge, I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end. So for those precious moments that we were sitting in the truck, everything was running through my head about how Kady’s parents would and could judge me. The book by the cover, so to speak.

Laurie and I had spoken to Brittany earlier that day, so that softened the blow of the unknown, somewhat.

I walked up that path and stood in their house expecting the disgusted, good for nothing stares as they evaluated me over my non-designer clothing, or the fact that I drove a truck and not a BMW. It was when the man of the house took my hand and smiled with that knowing nod that I realized what I had done.

The chance that they may judge me had me judging them. And I felt guilty as sin for doing so.

We were standing on the patio overlooking the lawn, lighting our cigars and cigarettes. It kind of reminded me of my childhood home. It wasn’t as lavish as what I was looking at, but it had a patch of green and an old ratty shed at the end of it.

“Do you have a date in mind?” I asked Clark, a billow of smoke leaving his mouth.

He rocked on his heels, his hand hanging loosely in his suit pants. “No,” he shook his head.

“You won’t have a say in it anyway,” Marcus muttered, looking up at the sky, following the large silver cloud floating in the air. “Women have been planning this day since they were children. That, and Brittany is an echo of her mother. I didn’t have a say in our wedding either. Judy did it all; all I had to do was show up.”

I couldn’t imagine that for a second. “I hope Kady would let me get involved in the planning. That’s the best part of it right? That build up, the countdown for when you finally get to keep the woman of your dreams, knowing that the day is for both of you, and you both had a say in everything that made it special.” I was smiling, looking into the distance masked by darkness and all I could think of was that day––a day I hoped Kady would come to dream of with me. When I turned to the men beside me, they were stock-still. “Sorry for me rambling on there.”

“No apology needed,” Marcus smiled, patting my shoulder before filling his mouth with the cigar.

A few moments later, Brittany called Clark asking him for help. He conceded like a love sick puppy which made Marcus smile. “See, they’re demanding creatures, especially Brittany.”

“And I wouldn’t change her for the world,” he muttered back, dropping the cigar into an ashtray before slipping inside, leaving me and Marcus to that awkward silence.

Sighing, together with brief smiles, that deafening silence was soon broken.

“I feel so guilty.” The old man stared in the distance with a pensive expression on his face. “I should have made her stay home and not move to Boston. I should have fought to stay in her life. I should have been there for her when she needed me.”

“I beat myself up every day over the same things.”

“How…” he sniffled, his resolve slipping, and a guilt-ridden father stood in his place. “How bad was it for her…?”

Fuck…That was a question I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t imagine how, as a father, knowing the extent of what your daughter had been through, knowing you weren’t there to protect her, would make him feel, but I was sure it would destroy him. And he was destroyed enough already over the small knowledge that he had.

“You know how smart DeLaney is. It took a while before anyone knew. But you have a strong daughter.”

“How can someone be strong but be in a relationship like that though, Walker? It’s a contradiction.”

“Forgive how this is going to sound, but I think they’re strong because they put up with it. It’s when they come to accept how they’ve been living, that they’re at the strongest. But they only have the determination to leave, when they actually embrace that strength.” I smiled tightlipped, then took a step closer to the man on the verge of crumbling. “He isolated her, he didn’t want anyone around her to make her strong enough to see him for what he was and is, but she wasn’t totally alone. When we knew what was happening, everyone was around her, no matter how few there were, and we did everything to get her away from him. And now she’s free.”

“She loves you,” he told me, changing the topic but it sounded more of a question.

“And I love her.”

“If you ever harm her, Walker, I swear to God I won’t make the same mistake again.”

I reached out and grasped his shoulder warmly. “I’d sooner kill myself before I ever harmed a hair on her head. That I can assure you.”

Kady

The light was beaming through my window to the right when I stretched out my body and rolled onto my side. I smiled as that moment of fog between slumber and reality lifted and the thought of the night before played in my mind.

He actually came for me. He drove from Boston to D.C., for me. Twenty-four hours ago I was a wreck, stumbling through day for day, hour for hour, fighting the compelling urge to take the emotional pain away for just a few moments with the aid of physical pain. But I didn’t cave. I kept fighting to stay strong.

As I stretched my limbs out once more, my hand grazing the cold, sage painted wall behind my headboard, I smiled and sunk my teeth into my lip. Walker and Laurie were more than happy to spend the night at the local motel, but considering there were an extra two spare bedrooms, Mom insisted they spent the night.

“Marcus, they drove all this way, it’s too late to go pogoing around for motels,” she said, swinging her sixth glass of champagne around in her hand.

“Pogoing?” Walker and I mouthed in unison, stifling a laugh.

“Okay, fine, you may stay…in the spare rooms.”

“Dad,” I whined.

“When you are both married then you may share a room under my roof.”

“What about me and Clark?” Brittany gasped. “We are
betrothed
after all,” she declared with an over exaggerated, English air, flashing her newly acquired diamond on her ring finger just to remind us.

“
Betrothed
is not the same as married.”

Rising on my tiptoes, I leaned into Walker’s ear. “Welcome to the Jenson’s,” I whispered, Brittany and Dad’s debate was drowned out in the background once he turned his head and caught my lips with his own.

“Fine, we shall stay in a hotel. Come on, Clark.” Brittany stormed to the front door, Clark trailing on her heel.

“No sex without safe sex,” Mom called behind them.

“
WHAT
?! No sex before marriage!” Dad roared, overriding his wife’s alcohol induced statement, before the front door was slammed shut.

Hours passed before I was lying in bed listening to the sounds of the house, the swelling of pipes, the pressure of windows as the wind struck them, and for the life of me I couldn’t sleep. The thought of what Walker had done to me in the truck that evening enhanced the throb striking between my legs, and with him being in the next room, and it being totally forbidden, I just couldn’t ignore temptation any longer.

When I was certain everyone was sleeping, I slipped from the bed and crept the small distance to his room. Carefully twisting the doorknob, I pushed the door open and stepped inside. “Kady?” he whispered, that sleepy, sexy tone that sleepy Walker had in the mornings was absent.

“Shush…” I sounded, twisting the lock behind me and making my way to the bed. He was already shifting to the opposite side, making room for me to slip in-between the covers. “I can’t stop thinking about earlier,” I whispered, climbing inside.

“What part?”

“All of it.” I drew tiny stirring circles on the warm flesh of his chest as his arm wrapped around my waist, my leg hooked over his hip. “The thought of you…”

“Of me…?”

“In the truck…” There was something about tiptoeing around this conversation, seeing who would crack first, that was so heady.

“Ah, you mean when I made you…”

I gave in. “Come, Walker…when you made me come…
hard
…”

“Fuck, I love it when you talk dirty, darlin’,” he whisper-growled and our lips clashed together. Tongues explored one another’s mouths, while the stubble around his lips scraped at my flesh.

We rolled over so he was on top of me. When he reared up to kneel between my legs, I shimmied up to be seated. I was studying him as he studied me, his thumb caressing my lower lip with a hungry, needy look in his eyes, before he took my lips again.

When he pulled away, he asked, “What do you want from me, Kady?”

“I want you to lay back.”

He did as instructed. “Now what?”

I was slipping down the length of his body, placing kisses over every inch of flesh and he didn’t even halt me. “Enjoy,” I answered simply, pulling down the boxers which were shielding my goal as he settled his head onto folded arms.

For the first time I tasted him. Actually, for the first time in over three years, I actually had a man in my mouth.

He groaned and his hips rose from the mattress when I licked up his length, before swirling my tongue around the tip. Adjusting myself to the sensation of warm, hard and smooth flesh in my mouth and on my tongue, I worked my way down, making sure my hand remained at the base. He moaned and gasped, the air hitting his teeth as the moonlight streamed into the room, revealing his toned, tensing abs when he rolled his hips.

When I peeled my mouth away from him, I straddled his hips and sunk down onto it. He shifted and held me like a man loving his woman as I raised and dropped back down, the tips of our noses almost touching.

“I missed you so much,” he breathed when we found our rhythm.

“I missed you, too.”

We must have been more sexually frustrated than what we thought because before either of us realized, we found our release together after only a few more strokes.

Hooking sweat-infused locks behind my ear he looked at me intently. “What if I just assumed, back in the truck, that you had asked me to marry you?” he panted.

I rolled my lips over my teeth and sniffled as my hands ran down the slippery and leather-like flesh of his pecs, whispering in a broken voice, “What would you have said?”

Neither one of us needed an answer. The all-consuming kiss, the kiss which I felt down in my very soul, was the answer.

I groaned as the replay of those events caught up to the present, to where I laid alone in an empty Queen-sized bed with the birds chirping their song through the window. For the first time since being back in Maryland, I rose from the bed and hit the shower with a smile.

Within fifteen minutes I was aside the chaise-lounge at the foot of the bed with a towel wrapped around my body, the other working through my wet, clumpy tresses, when a small knock sounded my door. Pausing my drying, I made my way to answer. The powder blue shirt was the first thing I saw before being met with even bluer eyes, thin lips and a rather impressive head of gray hair…for his age.

“Morning, Dad.”

“Morning, chickpea,”––his hands dove into his black pockets––“I…just wanted to…umm…make sure you were up,” he stumbled over his words while frantically scanning the background of my room from over my shoulder. I giggled to myself at the textbook, concerned father in front of me. He could have just asked…

A decadent shudder paved up my spine, while a throb struck under my towel as the word “Mornin’,” came from the hallway. Regardless of how he tried to disguise it, hearing the voice made my dad start slightly and that made my smile even broader.
See, we can be trusted
…The Devil on my shoulder held her stomach and rolled with laughter.

Pulling the door further open, I stepped out only to have Dad’s arm softly guide me back into the room. Nevertheless, I briefly caught sight of Walker hanging his head and flashing those timid eyes on us as he rocked on his heels. From my position, I craned my head around the doorway, making sure my inappropriately-clad body was concealed before Dad nudged me back inside. Again.

“Morning, Walker. I trust you slept well?”

“That I did. I haven’t slept in a bed that quiet in quite some time…” he answered, prompting knowing, private smiles to break free from us both.

“Good to hear. Well, your mother has breakfast waiting for us, so go and get some clothing on, chickpea, and we’ll meet you downstairs.” Approaching my man in the hallway, Dad grasped Walker’s shoulder and turned him around, guiding him away while muttering, “It’s okay. She’s not going to shimmy down the shaft…”

As I closed the door behind me, shaking my head, I giggled to myself. Boston had completely corrupted me and my mind…

I was adjusting the draping neckline of my cream turtleneck as I stepped into the open area of the kitchen and dining room; beige limestone everywhere I looked, even the dining suite was beige.

“Good Morning, sweetheart.”

“Mornin’,” I responded while she dished out an assortment of food onto plates, before setting them on the table.

“So what has everyone got in mind for today?” Dad’s asked just as the front door slammed shut, and the buoyant voice of my little sister traveled through the rooms.

“The future Mrs. Garrett is back in one piece,” she said with flair.

“Clark, you better not have defiled my daughter…” Dad threatened, eyes turning hard.

Defiled Brittany Jenson? She had been defiled since she was barely seventeen. Giggling inwardly, I kept my mouth shut while Clark lifted his arms in defense. “I wouldn’t dream of it, Marcus.” My sister’s fiancé took a seat at the table, while she took a seat on his lap. “No, your daughter kept me up most of the night with wedding demands.”

“Mark off your calendars people, we decided on…the 18
th
of December next year…” Brittany squealed. “A Christmas wedding, my dream wedding––” she turned her attention to her fiancé and caressed his cheek, “my dream man.”

Once the usual congratulatory wishes were made, I was chewing a piece of pancake when Mom said from the end of the table, “Kady, we’ve been thinking. Now that you and Walker have reconciled, you’re not going to want to stay here, although you’re both more than welcome to.” She reached out and grasped Dad hand. “We were wondering if you’d like to go apartment hunting today…the both of you. You’re already back home, you have your family around you, why not stay?”

When silence suffused the room, I simply looked at Walker. It wasn’t only me I had to think of, Carriag was back in Boston, what if Walker didn’t want to move away? His family was sparse enough as it was…

“What do you think, Walker?” Mom asked knowing full well I was unable to give an answer. In that moment, I felt angry that my parents had just put him on the metaphorical spot.

Walker and I mirrored my parents, with his hand placed atop of mine. He offered a reassuring squeeze. “Wherever Kady goes, I go…” he smiled before jolting and quickly released my hand. From his jeans pocket, he tore out his cellphone. Looking at the screen with a frown he muttered, “I’m sorry, I have to take this,” before lifting from his seat and making his way into the backyard.

Wasted moments were cast aside in silence. Only the simple sounds of silverware and chewing filled the abyss before Laurie’s voice pierced the air like a knife. “So Brittany, have you got any ideas on a cake?” When my sister shook her head, Laurie continued, “I’m sure we can come up with something, there’s no cake too fancy at Ent-icing, right, Kady?”

“
OMG
, you guys would do that for us?” Before we even answered, Brittany was racing around the table, kissing us on the cheeks. “You guys are…OMG. Clark, are you hearing this?”

“Consider that your wedding gift from us,” I muttered, being squeezed within an inch of my life, when Walker made his way back into the house. As soon as he walked towards us, I knew something was wrong. The look in his eye and the crease across his brow as he lowered himself into his seat, was evidence that something was eating him up inside. I reached for his hand. “Hey, is everything okay?”

“’Aye…umm…” his left thumb pad came up to his mouth, scouring down the center of his upper lip, deep in thought. “I need to talk to you,” he whispered.

Nodding, I took his hand and excused us both from the table for a few moments, then headed upstairs to my bedroom.

“What’s wrong, Walker?” I badgered him for the third time, sitting with my right ankle pressed under my left knee on the bed. When he didn’t say anything, I hunkered down into his voided vision. “You’re scaring me, is everything okay?”

He took my hands in his. “That was Liv on the phone…”

“Liv?” I spat. “Why is she calling you? I don’t care if there was a reason why she did what she did, but she can stay the fu––”

“It’s Liam…”

All I heard was Liv and Liam, and even through the degree of hate I held for them both after what they had done to me, I couldn’t help but ask, “Is she okay?”

“She went to the house,” he frowned. “She provoked him…” Instantly, my hand lifted to my mouth and my stomach flipped, my eyes burned.
Please God, let her be alright…
“She recorded everything…”

“What do you mean? I don’t understand.”

He shifted on the bed. “She mentioned the beatings, the fact he was pouring pills down your throat, everything…he didn’t deny it, which is as good as a confession.”

It was like I was blindfolded and my world was spinning at a thousand miles an hour. I couldn’t make sense of anything other than the fist in my stomach. “I’m so lost,” I scowled. “Has he hurt her?”

“He’s been arrested.”

That second, I felt my stomach lift to my throat and free fall back into my gut and all I wanted to do was to cry. Not because he was arrested, but in sheer relief simply because I knew in that moment, where he was.