Harmony took a step back, her nose wrinkled. “Really? Because I think it’s exactly what I thought.”
April twisted her head between the two. “What are we thinking?” Her dark eyes flicked down to Jessie’s obviously male clothing. “Hey, you get lucky today, Jessie?” Then her slanted eyes locked onto the name of the center where Kai worked, embroidered in the polo. “Hey, isn’t that where…?” Her voice trailed off as her focus was directed to a location over Jessie’s shoulder.
Jessie wanted to close her eyes and disappear, but instead she twisted to look. Kai was walking down the hall, dressed only in his slacks, since Jessie had stupidly put on his shirts. Given the fact that he’d just left Jessie’s bedroom, given the fact that Jessie was wearing the other half of his outfit, and given the fact that most of Jessie’s clothes were strewn about the living room and hallway, April should have been immediately clued into the situation.
Oddly enough though, the first thing April commented on as Kai stepped up to Jessie’s side was his now visible tattoo. Smiling crookedly, she bit her lip. “Oh, nice tat, island boy.”
Harmony grunted and lightly smacked her shoulder. “April, god, concentrate.”
Jessie sighed and reached down to lace her hand together with Kai’s. That seemed to finally put together the pieces for April. She pointed at their hands, their semi-dressed bodies, Jessie’s shirt piled on the floor by the end table, and then Jessie’s bedroom. She made a shocked, disgusted sort of noise and then her mouth dropped as wide open as Harmony’s had. “Holy shit! Were you two fucking?”
Jessie smacked her across the arm. “No! God, April.” Even though technically April’s question was right, what they’d done couldn’t possibly be classified as crudely or simply as how April had put it…at least, not in Jessie’s head anyway. Fucking just implied a lack of…feeling. And between her and Kai, that was never lacking.
April rubbed her arm and glared between the two girls that kept hitting her. “Well then, why does it look like you were, and why are you two…doing that.” She waggled her finger at their laced together hands.
Jessie sighed as Harmony raised an eyebrow at her. Jessie was about to say something when Kai spoke before her. “We’re in love.”
April scoffed. “Well, duh, you’re family. Of course you love each other.”
Kai shook his head but Harmony beat him to it. “That’s not what he said, April.” She shook her head, her face incredulous.
April opened her mouth as she twisted to Harmony, but then she shifted back to Jessie. “You’re…in love.” April gasped, her eyes softening as they shifted to Kai. “She’s the girl in your past? The one you couldn’t get over? The one you couldn’t be with?”
Kai nodded, dropping his eyes to Jessie. She smiled up at him sadly, giving his hand a squeeze. Harmony snorted and turned to walk away. “Whatever, you’re in love, fabulous, but if you’re into some freaky incest thing, I don’t need to hear the details.”
Jessie dropped Kai’s hand to grab Harmony’s arm while April continued to stare at Kai, her eyes speculative. “Wait, Harmony, it’s not…we’re not family.”
Harmony paused and both girls shifted their eyes to Jessie. Harmony scrunched her auburn brows together. “What? You said he was your cousin?”
Jessie bit her lip, looking back at Kai, his half dressed body distractingly alluring, even in the middle of…this. “We thought he was. He just…”
She let her voice trail off and Kai sighed, filling in the blanks. “Turns out my mom wasn’t entirely faithful to my dad.” His eyes shifted to Harmony’s. “The man I thought was my father my whole life…Jessie’s uncle,” his eyes flicked down to Jessie’s, then back up to Harmony’s, “…was never my father. That man lives here, in Denver.” His lips twisted in displeasure. “I’ve been working for him this whole time, and didn’t even know it.”
Harmony’s jaw dropped again as she looked between Jessie and Kai. Jessie was torn between giving Kai a supportive hug and keeping a grip on Harmony, so she wouldn’t just take off on her. “You’re not related?” Harmony asked slowly.
She twisted back to Jessie enough that Jessie finally felt like she wasn’t going to bolt, and she dropped Harmony’s arm. Smiling, Jessie shook her head and stepped back to Kai, each slipping an arm around the other’s waists. “No, we’re not, okay?”
Harmony twisted her lips at their affection, still seeming to be having a little trouble absorbing it, but was silent. April shook her head and stepped forward. “He’s Ricardo…isn’t he?” she said quietly.
Jessie closed her eyes and dropped her head. She had really been hoping that none of them would piece together that this wasn’t the first time she and Kai had had sex. Sure, technically this whole time they hadn’t been related, but she and Kai hadn’t known that…and they’d done things anyway. A little surprised that April had pieced that together before Harmony, Jessie lifted her eyes to her beautiful friend. “Yeah, he is.”
Harmony gasped as Kai leaned down to whisper to Jessie, “Why is she calling me Ricardo?”
Ignoring him, Jessie concentrated on her shocked friends. Well, Harmony seemed shocked, April still just seemed contemplative. Jessie wondered what else the woman was putting together. Harmony pointed at Kai. “He was your one night stand? I thought you said you just found out you weren’t related?”
Jessie heard Kai mutter, “Oh,” and was about to answer Harmony, but surprisingly, it was April who spoke up first.
Twisting to Harmony, she said, “They didn’t know.” Harmony shook her head, and April glanced back at Jessie. “I’m right, aren’t I? You’d never met before. You probably hadn’t even seen a picture of each other in a bazillion years.” April sighed and shook her head. “And we got you really, really drunk.”
Jessie sighed and nodded, a little relieved that she didn’t have to say it. She shrugged and glanced up at Kai. “I didn’t even know he was in town yet. He didn’t recognize my nickname. A million things went wrong, and we didn’t catch on to who we were…until later.”
Harmony stepped back towards the group. “Wow. That had to have been a shock. To find out you’d just slept with your cousin?” Her face scrunched and she crossed her arms over her chest, but Jessie thought she looked a little less disgusted.
Kai sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “You have no idea.” He shook his head and smiled down at Jessie.
Jessie squeezed his waist and twisted back to her friends. “Once we found out, we obviously tried to stay away.” She shook her head. “But we’d never met before. He didn’t feel like family to me, and I didn’t to him. We were just…hopelessly attracted.” Jessie flushed and looked away. She felt Kai chuckle and squeeze her hip.
April tapped her finger against her lip, thinking. “Is that why you went out with me?” She pointed to Jessie as she spoke to Kai. “So you wouldn’t have feelings for her?”
Kai exhaled in a rush and nodded, his eyes deeply regretful. “Yes. I’m so sorry, April. It was really…stupid on my part, to involve you like that.” He looked back to Jessie, his eyes momentarily sad. “I was just hoping that being with you…would stop me from falling in love with her.” He smiled softly as Jessie’s thumb stroked his back. Glancing back at April, he shrugged. “It didn’t, I fell anyway.”
Harmony took another step closer, shaking her head. “That’s why you left…at the lodge. There was no emergency…was there?”
Kai looked down while Jessie looked away. No, no emergency, just feelings they couldn’t contain. “No,” Kai whispered. “No emergency…but I still had to leave.”
Jessie looked back at him as he looked up at her. The tears were pricking her eyes at just the memory of waking to find him gone. She didn’t ever want to feel that horror again. She swallowed the lump in her throat. “We caved. We…slept together…”
Her cheeks flushed at saying it to her friends, but the tears that she’d been fighting fell down her cheek. Kai brushed them away, his own eyes sad. Harmony lai
d her hand on Jessie’s arm and Jessie twisted to look at her. Harmony’s eyes were surprisingly moist as she watched her friend’s pain.
“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 he stayed…” Jessie’s voice trailed off and she couldn’t finish.
Kai’s other arm came around to fully embrace her and she clutched at him, so grateful that that future wasn’t the one that was happening. Resting his head on her hair, 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…I found out who I really was today, when I met with my…biological father, when I turned in my notice.”
He squeezed Jessie tight, his voice husky. “I couldn’t deal with the truth. I came here, to her. She helped me and…”
Jessie heard April sniff and looked up from Kai’s chest. With long tear tracks down her cheek, April clasped her hands together. “Then you realized that you could be together, because you weren’t really cousins, and 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. “God, you really are a closet romantic.”
Jessie felt her earlier sadness slide off her as she laughed along with Kai. April sighed and shook her head, shrugging her shoulders. Jessie wiped her cheeks dry then looked between her roommates. “So…are you guys going to be okay with this?” She bit her lip, hoping they understood. If she could get their acceptance, maybe she could get her families’ too.
Harmony sighed and looked at April. April shrugged and glanced back at Jessie. “I got drunk at a party once and French kissed my cousin. It happens.”
Harmony laughed and all eyes turned to her. She flushed, then 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 were nothing as severe as yours, but…” she sighed and stepped up 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 smiled widely as she patted Kai’s shoulder. “I’m really glad that you are not actually related though, because listening to the two of you having sex would have seriously grossed me out if you were.” She grinned. “Sorry.”
Jessie flushed as April laughed. “God, Harmony, we wouldn’t have…” She sighed and just 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 smiled widely as she closed the door and leaned into it. Her roommates knowing, and eventually accepting, had been more cathartic than she’d thought it would be. The releasing of all the pent up lies she’d been telling was like a weight being lifted from her shoulders. She felt like she could finally breathe again.
Sighing, Kai sat on the edge of her bed. “Do you feel better?”
She opened her eyes and looked down at him. “Yeah, so much better. You?”
He smiled and nodded. “Yeah…it feels good to let April know why I really 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 suggestively.
Jessie bit her lip and smiled suggestively too. She felt such a relief in the truth finally getting out, that she wanted to feel another round of their earlier bliss; she could even feel her body start to tingle at just the idea of him being inside of her again. Jessie was immensely grateful that her friends had come to terms with the idea of them having sex under their mutual roof; Jessie had a feeling there would be a lot of sex in her and Kai’s future.
His crooked grin stayed on his face as he looked over hers. “What are you thinking about?” he asked softly.
She flushed and pushed away from the door. “I was just thinking that you should get dressed.”
He scrunched his brow, apparently not expecting those words from her. Smiling even wider, Jessie walked over to him, swaying her hips in the way that she knew turned him on. Sliding her fingers up her ribs, she took the fabric of his layered shirts with her. By the time she was directly in front of him, the shirts were free of her body. Tossing them onto his shoulder, she stood in front of him, dressed only in her favorite black lace underwear. “I believe those are yours,” she whispered huskily.
He sat up straight, his amazing eyes widening as they locked onto the breasts conveniently positioned directly in front of his face. One of his hands came out to gently cup her backside, slipping under the seductive fabric. The other slinked around her waist and up her back, pulling her towards him. Jessie’s eyes traveled the length of his body, 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, his lips closed over a nipple. As his tongue flicked the peak, Jessie closed her eyes and let a groan escape her. It only felt completely right between them now. He only felt completely right, and after everything they’d been through, she wasn’t bothered in the slightest to let everyone within earshot know it.
****************
Kai 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 she opened her eyes to peek up at him. “What?” 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 now, that Nathan Harper isn’t my real father.” Sighing, he shook his head. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to do…what we just did…with a clear conscience.” Kai shook his head and chuckled, letting his mind replay back to the multiple things he’d done to her that were very…un-cousinly.
Jessie laughed softly, flipping over onto her back. She did nothing to hide her wonderful breasts from him and he grinned, leaning down to suck on one. She trailed her fingers through his hair, exhaling contently. “Yeah…me too. I liked a few of those things.”
Cocking an eyebrow, he peeked up at her. “A few?” A couple of her moans replayed in his head, semi-hardening him back up.
She laughed deep in her throat, pulling 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 over the roof of 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 back from her. Her chocolate brown eyes flicked over his face. He knew they still had conversations coming up that would be hard. They should talk to their grandmother, well, Jessie’s grandmother. He should probably say something else to his boss…his real father; he’d sort of just dashed out of there after he’d learned the irrefutable proof. And Kai should definitely talk with his parents, a conversation that he wasn’t looking forward to having. Jessie should even talk with her parents, if they were going to continue with this. And that’s what Kai wanted. He almost looked forward to getting past the hard conversations with family members, because at the end of them, if all went well, it would just be him and Jessie, alone in a bed together, loving each other physically and emotionally.
Running a finger through her hair, a long strand wrapping around his finger, he smiled and shrugged. “I know Nathan Harper isn’t really my father.” Kai paused, thos
e words still feeling a little weird to him. Swallowing roughly, he continued, “But regardless, I love him.” He tore his eyes from her dark hair to find her watching him, 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 tilted his head, seeing the resemblance to the man that had raised him in the woman beside him. “Yeah, 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 calm peace flow 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 sighed happily, running her fingers back through his hair. “And he did a really good job…raising you. You’re a good man, Kai. You’re a great man,” she whispered.