Between Never and Forever: Dex and Keelani’s Fake Engagement Story (Hardy Billionaires)
Between Never and Forever: Part 1 – Chapter 3

THREE YEARS LATER

The way my name rumbled out of his chest caused shivers to erupt everywhere over my body, even after the years I’d avoided seeing him.

“Keelani?” I heard a sigh. “I know you’re up there.”

I tried to slow my heartbeat as I pursed my lips together. The sun was setting over my backyard, and Dimitri and I had been up on the roof all day, catching up, sharing nonsense and memories.

“I didn’t know he was going to be here. I swear,” Dimitri said, but his smile gave him away.

“You’re an ass,” I whisper-yelled. “You tell him all about my family drama too?”

Dimitri and his family knew about my mom’s early onset Alzheimer’s, but Dimitri had told me no one discussed my family situation with Dex.

“Babe, none of my family would tell Dex that. We know things between you two are hard enough. You should talk to him though.”

I scoffed. He didn’t understand that I’d tried over and over. Too many times to count.

“Keelani!” Dex bellowed from below.

I growled at his voice, at him using my whole name like I was a child he had to chastise. I glared at Dimitri one more time before I stood up. I wasn’t going to cower. “Can I help you?”

“What the hell are you doing up there? Get your ass off the roof right now.” His tone was harsh, lacking any kindness toward me.

I frowned at him. This was how he greeted me after three years of silence? “I’m fine.”

“I’m sure you are. I don’t really care one way or the other, except knowing my parents, they’ll be pissed if I let you stay up there and something happens. So, climb off the roof or so help me God, I’ll come up there and drag you down.” The words rumbled out vicious and condescending.

It’s true that our parents were still friends. I knew from what my father told me that Dex’s parents came around as much as my dad would let them, helping with bringing in the mail or asking if my mom wanted to walk their farmland some days.

Little things like that were big things for us. It was the best way to help when a family was experiencing the early onset of a degenerative brain disease. Not that Dex knew any of that.

“Whatever.” I rearranged my bikini top with my back to Dex and sat down on the shingles so I was out of his sight. I glared at Dimitri. “You gonna tell him you’re up here with me?” I whispered down to where he lay on the shingles.

“No way in hell,” Dimitri whispered back. “He’ll be pissed I was up here ogling your ass.”

“You’d better not be ogling my ass, you dick.” I’d give Dimitri hell only because I knew he was a shameless flirt, but I also knew he only had platonic feelings for me.

“Is my brother up there with you?” Dex bellowed.

I tried to ignore the flutter in my stomach, the way my heart jumped immediately. It could have been a hundred years since I’d last seen him, and I would still react that way to anything regarding Dex.

Dimitri was already crawling away when he turned his puppy dog eyes on me. “Stall so I can climb to the other side and get down. I’m going to be late for my date if he catches me.”

I glared at him, saying nothing.

He furiously whispered, “You know as well as I do there’s going to be hell to pay if he replaces out I’m up here with you. He’s the most jealous of us all.”

“He’s not jealous anymore. We’ve been done for years, and he never answers me.” I’d tried to apologize to Dex more than once for how I’d left. I’d gone to therapy, tried to work through the trauma of the car accident, how the label handled it, everything. Still, no response from Dex until this very moment.

I bit my lip and rolled my eyes before turning around and standing to catch Dex’s gaze. My heart beat fast as I stared at him. The years had been good to him. His chest was wider, his gaze stronger, his hate for me probably strongest. I wouldn’t let him see me cower though. “Don’t be ridiculous. This is where I get the best tan.”

“Kee.” He breathed my name as his eyes raked up and down my body, and immediately my pussy clenched and my nipples hardened. Damn him. He was still sex on a stick.

He rubbed his chin before glancing around, probably trying to figure out how I’d scaled it. “How long have you been up here?”

“Long enough.” I pointed to the corner of the house with the gutter drain and said, “Want to help me down?”

Dex hesitated now. Our connection had been broken years ago, and now we stood in our parents’ yards like kids again. “Why are you here?”

“At my parents’? Where I come to visit them?”

“You don’t come to visit often. Dimitri didn’t say—”

I popped a hip. “Why would he say anything to you about me being home?”

“Because he knew I’d be home, and that fucker probably wanted us to talk.”

I chewed on my cheek and glanced behind me. My lovely best friend was gone. Missing in action. “Maybe.” I shrugged and walked to the corner gutter. “Not much to talk about. You helping me down or not?”

He didn’t move forward. He actually stepped back like I was poison ivy or something.

So I scoffed and went to the gutter myself to swing my body over and loop my hand in the metal.

I was only half into my swing before his large, calloused hands found my bare waist. “Jesus. You want a broken leg? Is this how you take care of yourself without me around?”

His voice was deep, full of grit, and it sent shivers down my spine in a way it shouldn’t. I forgot how intense the electric shock was between us, how the air shifted, how the world seemed to stop. It was my turn to step back right into the corner of the house away from his proximity. He smelled like cedar and spice. It was just another damn thing I missed that I couldn’t get over.

“I’m fine,” I ground out and tried to brush his hands away from my hips. His fingers dug into my skin, sizzling and burning an imprint. “I take care of myself just fine, Dex.”

He narrowed the mossy-green eyes I was obsessed with and said through clenched teeth, “You come home just to tell me that?”

I hadn’t. I’d come home to check on my parents, to make sure my mother’s health wasn’t declining rapidly, that my father wasn’t panicking and spiraling out of control. He’d spent another chunk of our savings just weeks before, and I needed to right the ship. Otherwise, he was correct. I didn’t come home much. It was too painful, too full of memories and regrets.

Like the one standing right in front of me.

“Maybe I did come home just to tell you that,” I shot off immediately. He was irking the crap out of me, acting like I should listen to him, like he wanted to take care of me when he couldn’t even respond to my reaching out. “Or maybe my coming home had nothing to do with you at all because I barely even think of you.”

His eyes widened at my statement, and I saw the hurt flash in them before it morphed to anger.

“You really think I believe that?”

No. How could I when I thought of him weekly, daily, hourly? But I wouldn’t admit that.

He took two deep breaths as he looked down at my lips and his hands shook on me like he was trying to hold himself back. Then he whispered, “Fuck it,” before he slammed his mouth hard into mine, his full lips moving with the purpose of dominating mine.

There was no passion in that kiss, only pure hate and the intent to show me he had the upper hand. His tongue expertly slid across mine, his hands dancing over all the spots he knew I liked. He squeezed my ass, bringing me close to him, and I whimpered at the feel of him against me.

Years we’d been apart, but instantly, my body remembered him. Every part of me wanted him. I submitted immediately because he was the only one who’d ever made me feel that way.

His other hand threaded through my hair, and he dug his fingers into the strands of it, loosening the bun I always wore now. Once he had enough around his fingers to grip, he pulled my head back to gain more access, to tower over me as he tasted what he didn’t even want.

I whimpered at that thought. He didn’t even want me anymore. I felt it in how he kissed me with no appreciation or love.

Yet, I clutched at his shirt, trying to hold on to the moment as long as possible. He was still a comfort I couldn’t deny myself, a home to me after all this time. He was the person I felt safest with even though I knew I shouldn’t.

When he stepped back, he did it abruptly, and I stumbled forward before catching myself. He didn’t even try to help me. “Feels like you think of me a lot, Kee.”

“Dex.” I needed to control the shake in my voice, manage how he was making me feel. I hadn’t felt like this with anyone else. The only feeling that came close was when I walked on stage. Nerves and excitement and adrenaline all at once. Love was a scary thing.

Still, I had to be mature about what was happening. Therapy had taught me that. “I want to talk to you about what happened when I left. What I said about Ethan was untrue and if—”

“You sent texts after you left and called me. You left me voicemails. I know you want to talk.”

He twisted the dagger in me by saying it out loud. That meant he’d consistently ignored me, that he didn’t care enough to respond.

“So, can we talk?” I needed this, and he did too. How was I supposed to get over the love I left behind when I’d never wanted to leave him behind in the first place? I needed to tell him that at least.

But he stared at me with a look of anger, and then he blinked and it was gone. All the pain, all the emotion, all the passion we had between us was gone. He’d turned it all off. “Fine. Let’s go to the garden then.”

“The garden?” I squeaked out. I hadn’t been back there in years, not since the last time I’d gone with him.

He lifted a brow. “You have a problem with the garden, Kee?”

“It’s just, we used to—”

“You scared of a few memories?” He looked me up and down like my love for him had been some childish thing.

I wanted to scream at him for that and remind him that once upon a time, he’d loved me too. Instead, I pushed past him to make my way down the hill of our backyards and then onto the wood-chipped path that led into a little forest. Our family had acres of land back there, but my father had found an open spot where he’d planted lilacs for my mother and me. She never walked along the path anymore, but Dex and I used to always come down here.

When we were young, I could run out into the backyard, across our field, through some woods and into the line of lilac bushes my father had planted so long ago. Mom had set up a little gate that I’d unlock with a gold key and then leave open. If Dex saw it, he’d make his way down into the woods and replace me. We’d spent hours there.

It’d been our spot where Dex brought a blanket to lay on and I’d play guitar for him. I’d sing songs, and he’d listen like he gave a damn. He’d bring a phone too, and we’d watch movies under the stars, make out for hours, and then he’d send me home even when I tried my best to take it further.

Now, we weaved along the path in silence, like we were supposed to wait until we got to our old spot to talk, but when we did, the lilacs weren’t in bloom. Most of them had been overtaken by other plants, abandoned and not kept up. I think my mouth fell open at how badly my parents had let the spot get. “They must have forgotten …” I choked on the word, and Dex’s eyes narrowed. I hadn’t told him about my mom. It wasn’t his place anymore to know. “They must have forgotten about this place,” I whispered out.

There was only a small patch of grass left, flowers threaded through weeds and buckthorn. A remnant of how it used to smell lingered in the air. Before, when they were in full bloom, the smell was sweet, floral, and bright. They smelled of spring and sun and joy.

“Your parents have better things to do than keep up a little garden that means nothing, Keelani.”

He was right, for reasons he didn’t even know. And as the clouds rolled in, the lingering smell of them turned painful, agonizing. It filled me with sadness as he stared at me and our space with complete apathy.

“Dex, this garden meant something to me,” I admitted. “It meant something to us.”

His green eyes scanned the area. “A high school crush is barely something to fret over.”

Flippantly, he dismissed all we’d had. “Is that all it was to you?”

“What more could it be? You left and moved on. So did I.”

Why did I want him to not mean it? Why did I need him to hurt like I did? Because I still loved him. I still dreamed of this spot. I still held on to the taste of his lips, the feel of his hands, the way his heart beat with mine.

“I didn’t move on,” I uttered, my voice cracking under the weight of my emotion. “I called you and—”

He stepped close to me and put his hand on my cheek as one tear fell from my eye. His thumb immediately brushed it away, like he was taking care of me even while the words he said were cold. “I didn’t answer, Kee, because I didn’t care.”

“So you don’t care at all, then?”

He sighed like he was dealing with a child, then he tilted my head up so his lips were aligned with mine. “Do you feel something when I kiss you, Kee? Tell me. Do you get butterflies?”

This time he kissed me softly, so softly. My eyes fluttered closed to take in how featherlight his touch could be, how he could treat me like I was precious.

“I feel everything,” I confessed because I at least could honor our relationship even if he wouldn’t. I opened my eyes to search his. “I want you still, Dex.”

Emotion of some sort was there now as he glared at me, irises deep green like a forest in the midst of a dark storm. “You’re stunning, Keelani. Does the world know how beautiful you look after you’ve been kissed by me? How your eyes light up? How a blush paints your cheeks? Would they know what’s under this bikini?” His finger dipped into the waist of my bottoms, and he dragged it along the edge before his hand disappeared underneath. I gasped as he swept his fingers over my clit to play with me, to test how aroused I was.

His mouth went to my ear. “Soaking already. Such a fucking good all-American girl. You built that brand so well, Keelani.” He sneered the name. “Do you think they know you still get wet for me like this?”

His finger slid into my pussy, and I didn’t stop him. Instead, I pulled him close. I wanted his masterful mouth even if it was venomous now, and he gave it to me. I pulled him down to the ground and stared up at him, the trees above us, their leaves as green as Dex’s eyes. I’d like to think I saw hunger in them now, and when I lifted my knees on either side of his hips and rolled them into his hand, that jaw flex wasn’t fake. He wanted me too.

“It doesn’t matter what everyone knows right now. All that matters is we both know we still want each other.” I rubbed my hand down his chest to his belt buckle and then his length. I whimpered at the sheer size of him, hard, thick, solid through his jeans.

“You like how I feel against your hand, Kee?” he asked, his head bent forward, his breathing coming faster now. Mine was too. I couldn’t stop what was about to happen because I wanted him there in that grass, alone in our garden among the lilacs and memories we once had. Maybe I was lonely, maybe I was still torn apart from what had happened before, or maybe I simply still loved him.

No one forgets a regret as big as losing your first love. No one survives it without scars and pain. I wanted to heal us in that moment, and I wanted him to want that too. “You know I like how you feel, Dex. I always have. Please. I need you. Show me you need me too.”

He chuckled in my ear as I bucked against his fingers. He slid another one in, and I gasped as he curled them at just the right angle. Up and down. Up and down. Soft at first, then harder and harder. “Are you sure I still want you?”

“Yes,” I hissed, frustrated that he wouldn’t admit it. He was fighting this, and we’d both been stubborn for years. I didn’t want to be anymore. “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.”

“Maybe I just want to fuck you once and for all, Kee. Ever think of that? Most men in the nation want to now, but you’re so close with Ethan Phillipe.” He sneered the name.

“He’s good for the brand. You know that. If you read my texts and listened to my voicemails…” I took a deep breath and tried to move past the hurt of him ignoring them all. “You didn’t respond, Dex,” I whispered.

“I didn’t respond because it was you who left,” he said. “You chose to have me only like this. You’re the heartbreaker here, Kee, not me.”

“No. I did what I had to do. You know that nothing between Ethan and me is—” I cried out as he pinched my clit, then I shuddered under him as he moved his fingers faster.

“This pussy is still so tight. It’s begging for me and only me to fill it up, fuck you into oblivion, and make this good girl be bad. No one else can do that like me, you know that don’t you?”

His words pushed me closer toward the brink even though I hated us talking about it. And then he pulled away from my face so he could sit between my legs, his face not close to mine anymore. He was putting distance between us, yet he kept his hand between my legs and stared down at how he played with me.

“Spread your legs.” His tone was much more commanding now, deeper, authoritative.

“Dex, someone could—”

“Want me to stop?” His hand froze, and I bit my lip to keep from screaming out my disapproval. Instead, my body immediately obeyed, legs spreading wide. “That’s it. Now, should I call you good or bad for that? You shouldn’t be here when you have Ethan Phillipe waiting for you, right?”

I hated that I wanted him to call me both, and when I didn’t answer, he smiled like he knew exactly why. “I don’t care what you call me, Dex. Just… I need this.”

He rolled a thumb over my clit. “Untie your bikini top and touch those tits for me. Let me see how much you want it. Work yourself up.”

Maybe this was where I rebelled, where I did what I wanted instead of listening to the record label for once. I’d moved away from Dex. I’d let Trinity control my every step in the limelight. They’d arranged an alliance with Ethan, dictated my fashion style, filled my calendar so fully I’d go for months on end without a single day off—so here at home, with the guy I still loved, I wanted one more moment.

I pulled the string slowly as I held his gaze, and the triangles fell to either side.

“Fuck.” He dragged out the word. “You still look divine. Why do you have to be so flawless, huh?”

His words were laced with pain, threaded in regret and turmoil. I knew I’d feel those same emotions later, but I couldn’t stop from listening to him. He watched me and I watched him. But my eyes drifted shut as he told me to pinch my nipples. The sensation of the wind over my nearly naked body, the birds chirping in the distance, the smell of those lingering lilacs, and Dex. Dex here with me after I hadn’t had a chance to be with him in so long.

“Look at me when you come, Keelani,” he commanded, and when my eyes shot open, his were on fire with hunger.

I whimpered for him to go faster. “I need it. I need all this. Just one more time with you, Dex.”

He went slower instead. “Just one more time, huh?” He shook his head as his eyes darkened to something sinister in them. “Tell me why you need it, Kee. Ethan not taking care of you the way he should?”

My gut twisted at his words. We were suddenly back to that. Talking to him wasn’t working. We weren’t solving anything, yet I’d missed him so much I couldn’t stop trying to convince him. I needed him any way I could get him. But I’d lost him.

And I didn’t know if I’d ever get him back. Maybe the Dex I knew was gone forever and this man was left in his wake.