The First Night Read online

  Gannon stood at the doorway of the bar and watched her drive away, everything he’d wanted for the last nine years. He wondered for the thousandth time why he hadn’t been able to bring himself to call her. He shook his head. It didn’t matter now. She’d said it. Two minutes ago, she’d said I don’t need this.

  “It’s pretty obvious,” a woman’s voice said from behind him. Gannon turned around. Sharon. She reached past him and flicked the butt of a cigarette out of the open door.

  “What’s obvious?” Gannon stepped outside and propped against the wall. Sharon followed.

  “How you feel about her. I saw the way you looked at her on Friday when she walked up to the bar. At first I thought it was pure lust. I’ve heard the wild college stories about you from my brother.”

  Gannon opened his mouth to defend himself, but Sharon held up a hand to stop him. He clamped his jaw shut and stared at a flickering streetlight that was threatening to go out. He wanted nothing more in that moment than to escape up the stairs to his apartment and close himself in, hoping everything about Kayla would fade away.

  Sharon lit another cigarette and continued, “When I figured out what happened between the two of you, it was set in my head you would toss her aside like you have all the others, but when I saw how you two were in the hallway…when you kissed…the look…it wasn’t just in your eyes. Both of your entire bodies were eaten up with raw passion. That right there.” She poked on his chest. “It’s something you shouldn’t let go.”

  He gazed down the road in the direction Kayla had gone. “She doesn’t want it.”

  Sharon poked his chest again. “And you are a complete moron.”

  Chapter 6

  In her sweatpants and tank top, Kayla rocked back on her knees and sighed at the scattered metal pieces across the floor. The night before, after a long day at work, the most she could manage was dragging the home-gym boxes from the garage to the spare bedroom. On Saturday morning, this was the last thing she wanted to do, but she’d made a promise to her morning coffee to have it assembled and be working out on it by noon. She had three hours left and was staring failure in the eye.

  She also realized the lone bookshelf in the room would have to go in order to make room for the completed project, and she could’ve kicked her own ass for not moving it before unloading all the parts to the gym. She looked around the small room, hoping for a way not to have to rearrange the area, but it had to be done. “Gah!”

  She reached up, grabbing the straggles of hair that had fallen from her messy bun, retied it, and got busy clearing the shelves, placing the literature in one of the equipment boxes…fiction, non-fiction, high school yearbooks…her senior yearbook. She smiled. It had been so long since she’d opened the cover, probably the summer since she’d graduated. She picked up the book and held it to her chest as she went to the kitchen for more coffee. She filled her cup, cleared a small stack of books from the table, and set her senior memories down, allowing the pages to fall open at random.

  Not believing what she was seeing, Kayla blinked hard at the photograph in front of her. On the “Who’s Who” page, directly above the word shyest sat a teenage boy and girl. Her stomach jerked and twisted, and her grip on the coffee cup was making her hand cramp. The longer she stared at the picture, the more faded the girl became.

  She found herself not breathing and sucked in air, at the same time, reading the name under the caption. Luke G. Knight…Gannon…his teenage self stared back at her from the page. She sipped her coffee and glanced at the clock. Thirty-six hours. It had been approximately thirty-six hours since she allowed her thoughts to settle on him and there he was, a sixteen-year-old kid ruining every bit of the progress she thought she’d made.

  That boy, the one who cooked her pancakes every morning in home economics class…his eyes…his smile…the one she had looked for in the halls every day during her senior year. The one guy she kept in the back of her mind, sometimes bringing him to the forefront and asking herself ‘what if?’ He was Gannon? No.

  She flipped to the autograph pages in the back, remembering she’d asked him to sign it. Had she read his words afterward? She wasn’t sure, she couldn’t recall as she scanned the scribbled mementos from her classmates. At the bottom right corner of the very last page, she found the message, her breath halting deep in her chest as she read it aloud. “Kayla, I will never forget you. Luke.” Simple, yet complicated. She sighed and read the words again. The innocent statement that somehow seemed more like a promise hammered over and over in her mind.

  Slamming the book closed, she propped her elbows on the table and let her head fall into her hands, splaying her fingers across her forehead and to the edge of her hairline. How could she not have known? It was as obvious as the golden beams of sun shining through her windows. She could see it now. Gannon and Luke, the sweet boy from the picture, were the same. But did it make a difference? No!

  Okay, maybe. But it didn’t matter. She’d let him please her again and then she’d stormed out of his bar, ignoring him as he yelled out for her to stop. Kayla shook her head and dropped her hands to land on the book cover.

  Her front yard, she needed to see the white and lilac flowers he’d planted. She wanted to see the grass he’d cut and the hedges he’d trimmed. She should have thanked him. Instead she threatened to not pay him. She scooped up the book, tucked it under her arm, and went to the living room window, but it wasn’t her yard that caught her attention. A huge basket of red tulips sat in the center of her front porch. She stared at it for a minute, knowing it wasn’t there the night before. Beyond the flowers, something else that wasn’t there the night before—Gannon.

  A step back—she needed to take a step back. She needed time to process and weigh the options between what she wanted and what she needed. She knew opening the door would bring on something she was trying to avoid…complications. But in the past week, not being with him was bringing on another type of obstacle. One she was afraid she couldn’t beat. She knew that now.

  Kayla watched through the window as Gannon’s shoulders slumped, his hands jammed deep in to the front pockets of his jeans, and he moved toward his truck. He’s leaving. He’s leaving! He won’t be back. Her heart wrenched. No! Kayla tossed the book on the sofa, ran to the front door, and jerked it open. “Luke!”

  He turned at the sound of his old name. For several seconds, they both stood there facing each other, neither one certain what to say.

  “Thank you,” she said, stepping out of the doorway and on to the front porch, “for the flowers.”

  “You called me Luke.”

  Kayla nodded slowly. “Will you come in?”

  “I didn’t plan on you seeing me.”

  “But I did.”

  “I think it’s better if I leave.”

  “Better for who?”

  “You,” he answered, bringing his hand to his forehead to shade his eyes from the morning sun. “You were right before. You don’t need this.”

  “Will you come inside?” she asked again, clasping her hands to her chest, her best effort to keep her heart from bursting out. “Please?”

  A few long seconds ticked by as he considered her request. He was refusing her, and she felt her eyes begging for him not to.

  He stepped toward her, and relief rushed through her. She walked through the door. Gannon followed, closing the door behind him. Kayla sat on the couch next to the yearbook and watched as he took a seat in the reading chair across from her. She picked up the book, resting it in her lap. “Why didn’t you tell me who you were?”

  “Because.” He pointed to the book and snarled his face with disgust. “That person in there, the one you remember, he’s not me.”

  “But it is you. I mean, you look different, and I have to admit I’m embarrassed I didn’t realize who you were. I knew you were familiar from the first time I saw you at Night. But as soon as I saw your picture in here,” she said, tapping the book, “everything about you came rushing back to me.�
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  He furrowed his brow. “I don’t understand.”

  Her expression went serious and she gripped the book tighter. “How every day when we passed in the hall the only thing you ever said to me was ‘Hey, Kayla’ and how just the sound of your voice always made my day better. How I started taking a different route to class just so I could see your face.” She dropped her head, wiping a tear from her eye before it had a chance to fall. “I’m sorry. I feel like a complete idiot for not recognizing you.”

  “You shouldn’t. I changed everything about me to escape that person.”

  “Not your eyes. I loved the way they looked at me, as if I were the most important person in your world.” She met his gaze and realized he’d been looking at her just as she’d described since they’d reacquainted at Night and she had been too obsessed with not wanting someone else in her life to notice.

  He rubbed his face a few times then propped his elbows on his knees, letting his hands dangle between his legs. He sat silent, not looking at her, but keeping his stare on the window.

  Kayla went to him and combed her fingers across the top of his head. “One week ago, I thought there was no time in my life for someone else. And then I found you. Suddenly everything I thought I wanted was incomparable to what I realized I needed.” She took his hand and moved her head so that her eyes could lock with his. “Come with me.”

  She led him through the living room, down the hall, and to her bedroom. Kayla turned to face him and took both of his hands with hers, linking their fingers.

  “I don’t want to pretend anymore. I can’t keep telling myself there’s nothing between us.” She went up on her toes and brushed her lips across his neck. “I want you, Luke Gannon Knight. Thinking back, I’ve wanted you for a long time.” Kayla drew her head back and caught his gaze. “I guess it’s something I didn’t know until now.”

  Gannon released his fingers from hers and cupped the sides of her head, tilting her mouth to meet his. As he did, her lips parted and his tongue slid across hers.

  “Are you sure?” he asked, speaking low, straining the words.

  Kayla nodded. Her arms twisted around his neck, sealing them together. Keeping his mouth fastened to hers, he ran his hands slowly down her back and gripped her waist. In one fluid movement, he lifted her and Kayla’s legs latched around him. Her hands ran through his hair and he stepped toward the bed, resting a knee on it. He sat Kayla down close to the center, hovering over her.

  He hooked his fingers around the band of her pants and pulled them down her legs and off her ankles, dropping them on the floor. His eyes glimmered when he saw that she wasn’t wearing panties. She moaned low as the tips of Gannon’s fingers, trembling, traced up one of her legs and around her hip to the hem of her shirt then across the bare skin of her belly.

  Without speaking, she raised her arms and smiled. He followed the silent instruction, and kissing her, he slipped the shirt over her head. Kayla gave a quick laugh and pulled his off as well, running her fingers across his toned stomach, up to his chest, and over his shoulders. She pulled him closer, pressing her breasts against his skin and hitching a leg over his hip.

  His breath steadily growing ragged, he moved his lips from hers, trailing down her neck and across her chest. His mouth found a breast and he licked and nipped it, then moved to the other as his hand explored her skin, making its way to the heat between her legs, causing her clit to swell and throb. Gannon’s fingers teased at her pussy, gently brushing against her opening, just enough to send quivers through her body, making her center thump and beg for him to enter her.

  “I want you,” she gasped, her hips migrating toward his. Hooking her thumbs through the belt loops on his jeans and tugging him in so that his weight fell between her legs, she wrapped them around him. “I need you inside me.”

  Holding his upper body above hers, hands pressed into the sheets on either side of her shoulders, he smiled and cinched his mouth to hers, grinding his hips and growling low under his breath. He moved from her, and standing at the edge of the bed, his jeans fell to the floor, exposing his hard prick. At the same time, Kayla reached across to the bedside table and grabbed a condom from the drawer. She moved toward him, tearing open the package, reaching him as his hand cupped her dripping center. Both of them on their knees, she released a low moan at the feel of his touch and shakily sheathed him.

  Gannon leaned back, pressing his hands in the mattress as Kayla climbed on, reaching between them and directing his member to her opening. Slowly she slid down, both of them groaning as his cock filled her.

  “You’re so fucking beautiful,” Gannon murmured. He sat up and grabbed her ass, guiding her hips as he thrust into her over and over and over.

  Kayla, straddling him, tossed her head back, her sight growing cloudy and her breath catching in her throat as explosions of release jolted through her body. She cried out, her voice filled with bliss, and when she felt Gannon pulse inside her, discharging, growling her name through his teeth, everything under her skin trembled with maddening ecstasy.

  Both of them breathless, she fell into him, wrapping her arms around him, feeling his rapid heartbeat next to hers. “This,” he whispered, his breath hoarse in her ear, “is how it should be.”

  Kayla moved her head back and met his dark eyes, never again wanting to know what one day without him in it would feel like. Her hands held either side of his head, thumbs gently caressing his cheekbones.

  “You said you wanted me for a long time, but you didn’t know… Well, I’ve known all along what I wanted,” he said and kissed the tip of her nose. “I just had to work through some things first. I came back searching for you.”

  “I’m glad you did,” Kayla whispered. She kissed him, pulling him to her by his shoulders, shuddering at the feel of their bare skin touching. “I just want you to know, before we go any further, that I will need pancakes every day.”

  About Sidda Lee Tate

  Sidda Lee Tate has spent most of her life creating stories. Writing is one of her great loves, with romance and eroticism being her specialties.

  Whether her words make readers cry or laugh or just downright hot, she is proud to take people on a journey with her characters. Sidda lives in a small town in Arkansas with her husband and son.

  Sidda’s Website:

  www.siddaleetate.blogspot.com

  Reader eMail:

  [email protected]

  About The Night Series

  Book 1: The First Night

  Now Available

  Book 2: Hijacked

  Coming Soon

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6