Page 40 of Abigail's King
Chapter Eighteen
Kye
It was dark when I walked back into the house. I’d looked up to the bedrooms as I walked back up the beach, but it was the figure I saw sitting in the hot tub that immediately caught my attention. Abigail. I gulped in a breath as I saw her sitting there. She was truly breathtaking. My time alone hadn’t dampened my feelings. If anything, it had only heightened them.
I was completely lost to her. I couldn’t think straight and I lost all sense of reality when she was around. I was sure she was my light, because without her, I could feel the darkness surrounding me again. I had to leave the beach, because I was suffocating. That quick glimpse of her as I walked into the house was enough to loosen the cloak of darkness that was engulfing me. It wasn’t enough, though. It was still there, looming around me.
I knew why it had come back. The guilt I was feeling was weighing me down. I should never have kissed her on the beach. I should never have let her think there was a chance for us, for me to find love. Then as soon as I got home, I abandoned her. I could imagine how she was feeling, though, because I was feeling it myself. I’d always lived alone, but for the first time in my life, I actually felt alone. I needed a drink. Mateus was here, so I knew nothing would happen to Abigail.
I walked into my study and straight over to the drinks cabinet. I didn’t bother with a glass, just opened the bottle of bourbon and swigged it down. The heat closed my already-constricted throat, and as I gasped for a breath, the tears started to fall. My heart felt as though it was breaking in two and I couldn’t breathe. My legs barely managed to get me to the seat in front of the piano before I collapsed down onto it.
I placed my head down on top of the keys. I had never felt this lost before, never felt this much pain. I couldn’t explain what was happening to me, except I was being pulled deeper into the darkness, the depression, and the desperation that I had fought for most of my life. The tears were already pouring down my face. I was completely losing all sense of reality, my heart was beating a mile a minute, and if I wasn’t careful, I knew that I wouldn’t make it through the night. It had been years since I had felt this way. Years since I’d had those thoughts. I mean really had those thoughts. The ones when life didn’t seem to be worth living. The times I had sat there with my gun in my hand, finger on the trigger, daring myself to pull it. I’d always found a reason not to do it, but the longer I felt this way, the less reason there was to carry on.
I lifted my head and placed my fingers on the keys of the piano. There was no warmth inside me, only pain and despair. I managed to start playing. It was the song I always turned to in my darkest moments. One that most people would see as a love song, but I only saw it as a way to express my despair. As I started to play the opening bars of the song, I felt the need to sing. It had been the first time I had sung since I had left here eighteen years ago. The words of the song meant so much to me and reflected exactly how I was feeling. They expressed exactly what I was going through, that until I had found Abigail I was lost, and I hadn’t seen how far down I was until now.
As I sang, I felt her presence. She wasn’t close but I could feel the darkness slowly creeping away as her light started to surround me. I struggled to continue as the tears were falling down my face. The pain was still there, but the depression and despair I was feeling, started to ebb away. The light was getting brighter the longer I sat here. She must have been behind me. I didn’t dare look, though. I couldn’t look. I didn’t want her to see me like this. I couldn’t let her see how vulnerable and broken I was. Especially as I knew in this state, I would completely submit to her. I couldn’t let her in. I wouldn’t be hurt again. It didn’t matter how much I loved her; she could never know.
But I was fucking telling her that right now through the song. My mind was racing around in circles and none of my thoughts were making any sense to me. I played the bars to start the next section of the song when I felt the warmth through my body as she placed her hand on my shoulder.
I was about to break down completely when she started to sing and sat down next to me. I looked over at her as she sang with the voice of an angel. As the tears rolled down my face, I could see she was crying too. She was trying to share my pain with me, trying to take away the darkness I was feeling and bring me back into the light. When she placed her head on my shoulder, I couldn’t keep the wall up any longer. It was completely destroyed there and then as we sang together, declaring our feelings towards each other in song.
The further through the song we got, the more I felt at peace, and my despair almost completely disappeared. It proved that Abigail was indeed my light. She was the one to bring me back from the brink of hell. As I played the final bars of the song, she lifted her head and gazed over at me.
Playing the final note, I rested my hand on the keys. I was too afraid to move. I didn’t dare look over at her again. I was too afraid that this was just a dream and soon the nightmares and darkness would suddenly descend to take over my life forever. Then I felt her hand take mine as she pulled it up to her lips and kissed my knuckles as she had in Porta Moniz. I finally dared to turn my head round to hers and found her sitting there with a small smile, but tears still running down her face. I went to wrap my arms around her to comfort her, but she stopped me with a hand on my chest.
“Please don’t shut me out anymore, Kye. Please let me in. Let me take away your pain. Tell me exactly what’s wrong and what you need me to do.”
She paused for a second before she continued.
“I love you, Kye. I have since I saw you at Sienna’s wedding.”
My heart stopped beating for a second. How could she love me? I wasn’t capable of being loved. No woman had ever loved me before. Why her?
I sat there in silence, unable to speak. What did I say? What could I say?
“Kye, please say something. Tell me I’m not alone here. Please talk to me.”
I took a deep breath. I didn’t know how to say the words to her. They were just three words, but as soon as I said them, I thought the earth would open up below me and that would be the end of my happiness.
“I don’t know how to say them, Bonita. I’m scared to say them.”
“Say what?”
I took a deep breath and said the words I had never said to another woman, except my family or a friend.
“I love you, Bonita.”
As soon as the words left my lips, I felt an energy pulse through my body. I couldn’t explain it, but suddenly I felt alive. I felt as though I had a reason to carry on. The darkness that had been there not long ago – maybe in the background, but still there – had completely vanished. My heart was beating fast in my chest, as though it was trying to get out of my body, like it wanted to be free to love.
I finally felt complete, like the piece of the puzzle that had been missing all my life was now found and put into place. Abigail wasn’t only my light, but the puzzle piece. We both sat there in silence looking at each other. Abigail looked radiant sitting there with a smile on her face, her eyes sparkled with love and lust. I looked down at her lips again. I had tasted them once, but I was desperate to taste them again.
Just as I was thinking of kissing her again, she leaned towards me and pressed her lips against mine, running her tongue across mine. I didn’t need to think about the consequences this time. I wanted this woman, and I was going to show her just how much. Placing my arms around her, I pulled her towards me and started to kiss her with as much passion as possible. Our tongues dueled for dominance, and her hand immediately rested behind my head and held me in place.
We broke apart when breathing became a necessity. Both of us took deep breaths to regulate our hearts, which were beating in unison. I had never felt so alive as I did at that moment. I pulled Abigail’s legs over and across my lap, and placing my arms underneath them, I got up off the stool with her in my arms. Abigail’s arms immediately went around my neck to hold on, but there was no way I was going to drop her. I would never let her fall.
“What are you doing?”
I allowed a smirk to come onto my face as I leaned in and whispered into her ear. “You remember I said I only bite in the bedroom?”
