Chapter 208: Chapter 208
Kyra POV
Kyra loves the park. Sometimes on the weekends when Ash and Elara want to get some alone time, I grab one of the dogs from my mom’s shelter and I take them both to the park to get some air and exercise.
The autumn air is crisp as we walk through the park, and Kyra and the dog are both enjoying kicking up the leaves and hearing them crunch under their feet. A pretty girl around my age with short blonde hair is walking towards us with a small dog along the path that winds around the lake. As we approach each other, her dog starts to get all excited and runs to us, dragging the girl with her on a long leash.
Laughing, I kneel down to pet the tan wiggling dog.
"I'm sorry," she says breathlessly. "She gets excited to see people and other dogs."
"That's okay, at least she's friendly."
"Your dog is much calmer. I think mine might need to go back to puppy class."
"He's not mine. He's a rescue from the shelter, and he's about ten years old. I volunteer there so I take one out every weekend to get some exercise."
She smiles at me. "That's really sweet of you to do. I just moved nearby, so I'll be here a lot on the weekends, too. Maybe I'll see you again sometime."
Kyra giggles as the little dog moves to her next and starts licking her face.
"She's adorable," the blonde girl says. "Is she yours?"
Standing, I take Kyra's hand. "Yeah, she is."
\---
Kyra
I've lost five pounds since Friday. Today is Monday. I don't weigh myself often, but Friday morning the digital scale in my bathroom was beeping, so I weighed myself just to make sure it was working after I put new batteries in it. And this morning I stepped on it again because I haven't been able to eat and was just curious. I wasn't expecting to see five pounds gone.
Ever since Tor and I slept together, I've been frazzled. Almost manic. My stomach feels like I'm stuck in an elevator that keeps going up and down randomly throughout the day and night. My heart suddenly palpitates and a wave of dizziness follows. Yesterday I sat at my desk to work on a request I received from a local poet who wants all her poems written in calligraphy to be framed for her office, and all I could do was draw pretty, ornate hearts of various sizes. And Tor's name.
Thankfully, the poet isn't in a rush. And thankfully, I have a lot of paper and ink, since I wasted a lot with my daydream-induced swoony scribbling.
Sleeping is now reduced to two hour increments, where I wake with a jolt several times throughout the night, covered in sweat, heart racing, my sex quivering and damp, and I'll reach for my cell phone and re-read all the text messages he's sent me recently.
I am hopelessly in love with Toren Grace.
Now that we've stepped over the line, I'm consumed with thinking about him, and us, and the past, and the present, and the future, and everything. So much everything. My emotions go from being excited and happy to nervous and scared with almost no in-between.
He said we should think, and that's all I've been doing. Thinking, thinking, and even more thinking. And worrying. What if he decides that this can't happen? That we can't happen? What if he decides it's too much stress? Or that I'm just too young? What if he can't face my father with the truth? What if my father has a major meltdown?
I realized this morning that I've worried so much about what his decision will be, and the mental torment that he's going through, that I haven't really thought much about myself. This isn't just about Tor dating a younger woman, and him dealing with the possible wrath of his best friend. This is also about me dating a much older man, and causing anguish to my father and to my family.
Can I endure that?
With Tor's love and support... yes. I believe I can.
Blue reusable grocery bags are all over Toren's kitchen, and Kitten has taken up residency in an empty one that has fallen onto the floor. I may have bought too much food. I'm not sure why I feel like baking a yummy apple pie and broiling up a filet mignon for him, but I do. I'm on a mission. Perhaps sex and love changes what you want to give a person. Or at least put in their mouths.
In more ways than one.
I didn't get to see Tor over the weekend because he had to work on Saturday and I promised his mother I'd help at the shelter bathing a few of the dogs. Yesterday he went riding with my father, which is something they do almost every Sunday when my dad is home. I stayed upstairs in my room even though I knew Tor was outside in our garage because I didn't think I could see him without throwing my arms around him or making some kind of lust filled face at him that my father might notice. I watched them ride off together from the window seat in my bedroom, and seeing his long hair flying in the wind behind him and the tautness of the muscles in his arms as he gripped the handlebars brought back the delicious memories of those same arms enveloping me in his bed.
The dog and the kitten follow me around the house as I straighten things up, start his laundry, and run the vacuum over all the carpeted rooms, which will have tufts of white fur scattered about again in less than an hour. All the while my mind bounces like a ping pong ball with questions. Does he want to see me again? Does he regret sleeping with me now that he's had a few days to think about it? Was I painfully awkward and inexperienced?
Just as I'm about to start on the apple pie, my cell phone beeps.
Tor: How's my Angel?
That plunging elevator feeling overwhelms me once again just reading those three little words, typed by him. To me. And that one tiny word in the middle makes my heart soar like a wild bird.
My.
I'm his.
Me: Missing you xo
Tor: Are you at my house?
Me: Yes.
Tor: I'm on my way there. Taking my lunch break to come kiss you.
Me: OMG Really?! :-)