Page 17 of Promises We Meant to Keep (Love in Massachusetts #1)

seventeen

Kamryn loved that warm feeling of a good sleep and waking up surrounded by it was exactly what she’d needed. But whatever pesky alarm was going off seriously needed to stop. Groaning, she shifted and buried her face deeper into the back of Elia’s hair and neck.

“Is that yours or mine?” Kamryn mumbled, still refusing to open her eyes. She didn’t want to know that it was morning, or that it was time to get up yet. She wanted to stay snuggled against Elia’s back, curled around and spooning her for as long as humanly possible that day.

“Mine,” Elia answered, though she didn’t seem very happy about it either.

“Where is it? Turn it off,” Kamryn whined again, pulling Elia tighter against her front. She would stay there as long as she could. Alarms be damned.

“Probably the living room.” Elia seemed more awake now than Kamryn was ready for. Couldn’t they stay here even longer? “I should get up and shut it off.”

“But it’s so warm here,” Kamryn answered.

“And comfortable,” Elia replied, and this time Kamryn could hear the smile in her voice. Elia wiggled around, turning awkwardly in the bed so that she faced Kamryn and trailed fingers across Kamryn’s cheeks and then her arm before she pressed their mouths together. “We do have to get up and go to work, though.”

Kamryn groaned again. She really didn’t want to do that. She wanted to stay in this warm bed, she wanted to stay pressed up against Elia, she wanted to repeat exactly what they’d done last night. Elia kissed her again.

“You have a school to run, and I have classes to teach.” Elia pressed her lips in a line down Kamryn’s neck, her tongue dipping out to tease at the hollow of Kamryn’s collar bone.

This was what she wanted.

Kamryn shook her head and burrowed in deeper. “Not yet.”

Elia chuckled lightly, wrapping a hand around Kamryn’s back and then against her ass. “Work is a necessary evil.”

“We can call in sick.”

“I think that would be suspicious.” Elia massaged Kamryn’s ass, and Kamryn could already feel her body waking up well before her brain. She wanted more of what they’d shared.

“Next time we do this, we do it on a weekend when neither of us has to work in the morning.” Kamryn pouted but smiled when Elia swooped in to kiss her again.

“We’re doing this again?” Elia asked.

“If you want to, yes. I would very much like to not let this be the only time.” Kamryn found Elia’s nipple under the covers and gave her a quick pinch.

Elia squeaked in response and shifted instantly. “Ugh, that alarm is annoying me.”

“Me too, but I’m doing a decent job at ignoring it.”

“I’m not.” Elia pulled Kamryn in for a deep kiss, their lips melding together, their tongues tangling. Kamryn melted into it. Screw morning breath, screw the sleep-addled brain, and screw needing to get up for the morning. This was exactly what she needed and wanted this morning. Elia in her arms, tousled, warm, and so willing to touch. Elia broke the kiss and pulled away. “Time to get up.”

Kamryn groaned again. “What time is it, even?”

“Five.”

“Jesus, you’re a masochist.”

Elia laughed lightly as she slid out of the bed. “Now you know why I don’t like staying awake until three in the morning doing whisk time.”

Kamryn watched with rapt attention as Elia found a towel and wrapped it around her middle, covering up her glorious body.

“I’m going to shut that off and start coffee. We’ll both need some.”

“Buckets full,” Kamryn commented, rubbing her hands over her face. “Do I at least get to shower with you before you make me leave?”

Elia paused, her movements jerky and stiff. “Make you leave?”

Kamryn nodded, squinting to see Elia in the doorway as she was just about to walk out. “Yeah, because… well, I don’t really know why. I’m not very good at one-night stands.”

“This is a one-night stand?” Elia was far too awake for this conversation while Kamryn was far too asleep for it. She couldn’t keep up with what Elia was implying. “I think most one-night stands involve strangers.”

“Friends with benefits?” Kamryn tried again, but that one also didn’t sit right with her.

“Right, you figure out what we are to each other while I go turn off that alarm and start the coffee.” Elia walked away without another word.

Kamryn winced. Had she messed this up already?

She stayed in the bed, trying to convince herself that she wasn’t a complete idiot for everything that had happened, that she hadn’t ruined a good thing. The conversation from the night before kept replaying in her mind, not just her and Elia screaming at each other, but the intensity of the ethics meeting that had blown her out of the water and made her show up here to begin with.

She really needed to figure out a better way to explain that to Elia, so Elia didn’t think she was ready to fly off the handle at the smallest upset.

“Are you coming?” Elia’s voice reached her ears from the doorway.

Kamryn finally looked up. Elia was naked as the day she was born, and she was giving Kamryn a very pointed look.

“We both could probably clean up after last night,” Elia added.

“Uh… yeah.” Kamryn scrambled to get out of the bed, her muscles lagging and stiff. She definitely wasn’t as spry as she used to be. She hadn’t worked out in ages, and she was paying the consequences for that now.

Kamryn met Elia at the door, and they walked across the hall to an upstairs bathroom. This one looked far more lived in than the one downstairs. Elia’s things were all over the countertop and in the shower. This was what had been missing before, and Kamryn hadn’t even put two and two together until now.

Elia turned on the water and stepped under the spray instantly. Kamryn bit her lip. She really needed that cup of coffee to wake her brain up. Finally giving in, she followed Elia into the shower and stood awkwardly in the part with no spray. Her nipples instantly hardened in the cold as Elia dipped her head under the water.

But she wouldn’t give this up for anything.

Elia was so relaxed. For the first time since they’d met, and Kamryn could see that now, Elia wasn’t hiding anything from her. On impulse, Kamryn stepped in, wrapping a hand around Elia’s back and pulling her in close. Their lips touched. The hot spray mingled with the warmth of their skin, their tongues sliding together as Kamryn and Elia both deepened the kiss.

Pulling away slightly, Kamryn pressed her forehead to Elia’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry about last night.”

Elia ran her hands up and down Kamryn’s back. “What happened yesterday?”

“I should ask you that same thing.” Kamryn couldn’t stop the smile from reaching her lips. The Elia from last night was the opposite of the Elia the other week in the hotel room, when she’d said no to a kiss. Last night had been…wild. Kamryn dragged in a slow, deep breath, steadying herself for what she knew needed to come. She had to explain, but she still wasn’t sure how much to say. She didn’t want to hurt Elia in the process.

Stepping away, Kamryn gathered herself. They really needed to talk and not be naked in the shower together for this. But time was short before they’d both have to go into the office, and Kamryn still had to go back to her apartment and change for the day. She ground her molars lightly.

“I’m still in the process of forming a new ethics team. It’s one of the tasks that the board gave me when they hired me. Apparently, Miller was never interested in having an ethics team.”

Elia visibly stiffened. Her eyes widened and were set on Kamryn’s face, her lips slightly parted for a brief second before she snagged her shampoo and turned her back to Kamryn. She was upset by something that Kamryn had said, which was exactly what Kamryn had wanted to avoid.

“Miller was very good at parent-student relations. He wasn’t very good at some of the finer points of administration and dealing with the board.”

Kamryn hummed, the cold settling into her body now more than before. Her skin raised up with goosebumps, but she couldn’t drag her gaze away from Elia’s back.

“An ethics team is a good thing to have,” Elia added.

“I wish you would be on it,” Kamryn mumbled. “Then at least I’d have one ally in this fight.”

Elia looked over her shoulder and shook her head. “You know I won’t do that.”

“I know,” Kamryn answered sadly. “Doesn’t mean I don’t wish it was possible.”

“And after last night, I think that’s one more reason why you should think it’d be a very bad idea for me to be on the team, especially with you in charge of it.” Elia ran her fingers through her hair, massaging the shampoo into the long strands.

Kamryn watched with rapt attention. Elia hadn’t meant anything by that comment, had she? She hadn’t just jumped Kamryn’s bones to avoid being on that particular team? No, that would be too calculated and manipulative. Kamryn couldn’t believe that Elia had that in her.

She refused to believe it.

“Yeah, anyway, the only people on this team right now are me, Susy, and Heather from the board. No one else has agreed to be on it. But instead of working to round out the team as a whole with differing opinions, Susy and Heather have kind of just taken on the work and are pushing it through.” Kamryn paused, pressing her lips together hard. “At least what they think the work should be.”

“You don’t think they’re doing the right thing?” Elia asked before dipping her head under the water to rinse out the shampoo. The suds traveled over her shoulders, down her breasts, and continued to move across her skin and down her body until it reached the shower floor and disappeared into the drain.

It was damn hard not to step forward and start touching. Kamryn wanted nothing more than to wrap herself back up in Elia’s arms like she had the night before. It would be so much easier than this conversation.

“Why don’t they like you?”

“I’m not very likable,” Elia answered as she snagged the conditioner bottle.

Kamryn pursed her lips again and shook her head. She was freezing in the corner, but she wasn’t going to ask to step under the water. Not until she had this out in the open between them. “This is more than a simple dislike, Elia. They’re out to get you fired.”

Elia wrinkled her nose and nodded. “They both have been for years now. The problem is that they can’t find anything I’ve done wrong that is worth a termination.”

“Why do they want you out of here so bad?” Kamryn wanted to reach out and touch Elia’s hand, hold her again, have that physical connection so they could have more of an emotional one at the same time.

Elia shook her head, gave Kamryn a warning look, and then stepped back under the spray to rinse out the conditioner. This was definitely something that Elia still didn’t want to talk about, but something must have happened that she hadn’t disclosed yet for Susy and Heather to be harping on her specifically so much.

“I can’t protect you from what I don’t know.” Kamryn was pretty sure she’d said that the night before in the heat of everything, but she couldn’t quite remember. Either way, she wanted it to be said again, out loud and when she meant it the most.

“What’d you say?” Elia asked, coming back out from the water.

Kamryn could have face-palmed herself right then. Of course Elia hadn’t heard her. “I can’t protect you from what I don’t know.”

Elia softened immediately, and they were back to that same look that Elia had given her the night before. “I know you can’t. And even then, you can’t protect me from everything anyway. It’s not in your best interest to do that.”

“How is it not? I’m the Head of School. It’s in my interest to protect all members of the staff and faculty.”

“Not always,” Elia replied, taking Kamryn by the shoulders and shifting them awkwardly around each other so that Kamryn was now under the water. “Sometimes hard decisions have to be made.”

“I know that.” Kamryn wrinkled her nose. “But you’re not someone who is doing anything inappropriate with anyone.”

“And what would you call last night?” Elia’s tone was still light, teasing almost, but there was an undercurrent of sincerity that Kamryn didn’t like.

“Consensual,” Kamryn replied. “Besides, it’ll fall more on me than you.”

“You were my student. You think that there won’t be questions about impropriety then?”

Is that what all of this was about? Kamryn dipped her head fully under the water to get it wet and then stepped out to look Elia dead in the eye. “Nothing happened twenty years ago.”

“I know that, and you know that. But rumors can and will ruin lives.” Elia said nothing else as she stepped out of the shower and snagged a towel and wrapped it around her middle. “I’ll start some coffee and breakfast while you finish up.”

Before she knew it, Kamryn was alone in the shower. The cold hadn’t left her body, despite the hot water covering her skin. Something in the way Elia seemed to have just given up didn’t settle right with her.

Finishing her shower quickly, Kamryn wrapped herself in a towel and followed the sounds of Elia’s movements back into her bedroom. “I was upset last night because I couldn’t stop them from trying to take you down.”

“You won’t be able to.” Elia looked up as she pulled a white oxford shirt on and started doing the buttons. “And it’s not your responsibility to, either. But I do appreciate the sentiment.”

“Is that…” How was Kamryn going to ask this without sounding pathetic? She’d just have to come right out and say it. “Is that what last night was about?”

Elia paused, her movements stilling. “Kam…”

“I need to know if this was just a thank you, or a whim or…I don’t know, something.” Kamryn’s nerves were at the edge, and she just needed someone to tell her that everything was going to be all right. “Because you told me no the other week, and then last night… that was definitely not a no.”

“It was a yes,” Elia agreed, walking right up to Kamryn and cupping her cheeks. “Last night was a yes, absolutely.” Elia pressed their mouths together quickly. “And if you were to ask again today, it would also be a yes.”

Kamryn sighed, relief flooding through her. She hadn’t realized just how much she’d needed to hear those words, to have confirmation that what happened wasn’t just a fluke but was something so much more—to both of them.

Elia kissed her again, this time lingering in the contact. “Last night showed me that I can trust you.”

Kamryn melted, and all the tensions that had risen since she’d woken up vanished. “Elia.”

“I will trust you,” Elia whispered. This time when their lips touched, Elia became Kamryn’s entire world. Her scent, her touch, her taste, the intake of her breaths and the exhalations on sweet, satisfied sighs. “I promise I’ll trust you.”