Beautiful Broken Promises

Broken - 3

Kimberly Lauren

To my mom who is my best friend for life.

Okay, this is where you stop reading, mom.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

– Robert Frost

- PROLOGUE -

We make promises to the people we love because we want them to feel our loyalty, or maybe it’s a way to hold ourselves responsible. We want them to know how much they mean to us and even if it seems impossible, we make these sometimes preposterous vows because maybe... just maybe... we actually believe it’s possible to keep them.

Regardless of my promise that I would always love you no matter what or my absolute need to make it known I would always protect you, I made those promises with no intention of breaking them. I could never fathom a time in my life that I wouldn’t love you. The moment I first laid eyes on you, my soul knew you and smiled as if he had been waiting for you all this time.

And God, had I been waiting. You were the most beautiful person I had ever laid eyes on. In that moment, I knew without a shadow of a doubt I would lay my life down for yours and you would always come first. I couldn’t see any other possibility. How could life go on if there were no you?

You made me the luckiest man in the world… that is, until you were ripped from my hands so brutally. Those promises I had sworn by were taken from me, and I was never even able to tell you I’m sorry. I never meant for it to be this way. I never wanted to break my promises. They forced me to.

And sadly, life does go on without you. It’s as if I’m drowning and every time I’m about to finally fade into the blackness, I’m pulled back up to the shore so I can be reminded of all the happy smiling faces around me, only to be submerged into oblivion again. Sometimes I think it would be easier to just let myself go. Let the depression win out. But then I think of you and your beautiful face. How I hope so damn much that you are out there, just waiting for me to find you. Waiting for me to right those promises again.

So, I don’t give up and I won’t let them win. I will find you and I will make sure that you know you’re my everything…



- ONE -


LANE -

Our heavy breaths were loud in the quiet of the sleeping house. Her fingers continued to tug and pull at my shirt until she had it fully removed from my waistband. As soon as it was allowed, she frantically slipped buttons from their holes and, in her frenzy, shoved the shirt from my shoulders, letting it flutter leisurely to the stairs. All I could feel were wild, desperate hands and our hot mouths colliding.

My liquor-filled brain didn’t function quite as fast as hers did, but I managed to pin her to the wall with one of my legs on a higher stair, stopping her from moving any closer to the top. From what I could tell through my double vision, she was pretty. Long, blonde hair. Nice rack. Tight skirt that was about to be on the floor. Shit, that worked for me.

I returned to the arduous task of unbuttoning her shirt. My fumbling fingers weren’t cooperating though so her blouse ended up being a ripped mess, causing buttons to fly every which way. My mouth had instant access to her bare chest. No bra. But let’s be honest, that was one of the reasons she was here right now. Everyone in that bar knew she hadn’t been wearing much under her barely-there clothes.

“Ethan...” she gasped, as my lips touched her breasts. I suppressed the chuckle as best as I could, because I had forgotten she thought that was my name. Ethan and I were being jackasses and decided to trade for the hell of it. Shit, maybe some girl was calling out my name at Ethan’s place tonight.

When my fingers slid up the inside of her thigh, she moaned forcefully. My hand instantly clamped down over her lips to stop the loud noise erupting from between them.

“Shh...we need to get to my room before you wake everyone up.”

“Who else is here?” she asked, panting breathlessly. I ignored her question and pulled her up the rest of the stairs. Her hands continued to paw and bat at me as we staggered down the hall. She walked backward, clinging to my burning skin until I finally found the right door.

She strutted around topless inside the room while checking out her surroundings and running her fingertips across the edge of the bedspread.

“Huh... it’s kind of small. I thought with a house this size...”

“It’s a guest room,” I replied. I stalked toward her and attempted to remove my shoes and unbutton my pants in the same beat.

“Do you always take girls to your guest room? Show me your master, gorgeous,” she tried to whisper seductively.

Towering over her, I placed my hands on her hips and moved her back onto the bed. My fingers grazed across her flat stomach and I found the clasp that held her scrap of a skirt together. The fabric released, drifted down her fake-tanned legs, and she kicked it aside.

“I want to...” My hand was over her mouth before she could even finish that maddening request.

“You’re talking way too damn much, baby girl.” I flipped on my back and scooted until I met the headboard. With my pants unbuttoned, I extended my hands out on each side of me in a welcoming gesture. “This is where you get me. Your call.”

She smirked and turned fully toward me. Her fingers pulled each of my socks off and she tossed them to the floor. She grabbed the hem of my pants and worked them down my legs. Those quickly joined the socks on the hardwood. Her eyes were immediately fixated between my legs and I knew what her decision would be. With a grin, I put my hands behind my head and rested against the headboard, watching as she crawled up my body.

“You’re just going to lay back and let me do all the work?” she asked with a perfectly arched eyebrow.

“Sweetheart, you’re the one that went home with a guy who drank half the bar.” I could feel my lids beginning to droop, the alcohol swimming wildly through my veins. She shrugged her shoulder casually and bent forward.

Her hot mouth began to go to town and it felt fucking great. In my experience, only the girls who wore see-through clothes or skirts that barely covered their asses could do that kind of work with their mouths.

When I felt more than a hot mouth wrap around my dick, my eyes shot open and I looked up to find her smiling face above me. In a panic, I sat up ramrod straight and thankfully saw she had put a condom on for me. Close call.

What the hell just happened? Two seconds ago she was sucking me off and now she was riding me?

“You were enjoying that,” she whispered into my ear.

“Yeah...” Although I was pretty sure I had just fallen asleep. Hey, point for me that I kept it up while I took a little nap. At least she didn’t catch me.

“You feel so good,” she called out excitedly. I didn’t like the sound of her voice anymore. It was too loud…too nasally. Had it been like that at the bar? Surely Ethan would have told me if it was. Then again, he was probably more concerned with whether she was about to have a wardrobe malfunction—we all were. “Ethan!”

My hands grabbed a hold of her ass and I flipped her over onto her stomach, entering back in from behind. Much better.

As I pumped into her, I started questioning why guys felt the need to have sex all the time. It felt good, that was obvious. It was fun and it shook up an otherwise boring day. But in that moment, I wondered why I bothered with this girl. It would feel good and then she would go home. Thank God. There wouldn't be any lingering feelings for her, and no need to do it again. There would just be... nothing.

Shit, I needed to tell Ethan no more whiskey. It made me a fucking sap.

I heard her cry out into the pillow and I assumed she had reached her release, so I let myself finish as well. With one last shuddering pulse, I fell to the side and closed my eyes while catching my breath.

The feeling that always came after every time I finished began to creep up on me. I didn’t know why I always seemed to forget how it felt—the feeling that I shouldn’t have been with yet another random chick. The sex definitely hadn't been worth it, but when I saw a pretty face and whiskey joined the party, I couldn’t seem to talk myself out of it.

My phone startled me with a resounding ring. With a foggy brain, I tried to decipher what the hell was going on. The blonde chick was lightly snoring next to me. Seriously, whiskey was not allowed on my bar menu anymore—it fucked with my head. I thought that I needed something harder tonight, something to help the memories fade, but all it had done was make my brain muddled and confused. The beep of my phone reminded me that I had a message awaiting my attention.

“Hey, wake up,” I tried to whisper nicely. She stirred and swatted away my hand that was trying to gently rouse her. “Sugar, it’s time to go.”

“Stop, I’m trying to sleep, Ethan,” her voice grumbled.

I pulled the covers off of her naked body and tapped her ass. “Nope, it’s time to move it along. I have things to do.”

She glared up at me from her pillow and slowly pushed up onto her elbow. “You have things to do at...” She grabbed her phone off the nightstand and checked the illuminated screen. “At three-thirty in the morning? No...wake me when it’s at least eight.”