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7. Haven

Author: LINDA KAGE
last update Last Updated: 2024-10-29 19:42:56
Seven words. That’s all it took to bring Wick Webster to his knees. Hook, line, and sinker. I could tell from the poleaxed expression on his face that I had him right where I wanted him.

I honestly hadn’t meant to admit such a mortifying feeling aloud. I mean, how embarrassing to blurt out such a private thought like that, even though I felt it to be true with every fiber of my being. I did feel instinctively safe standing there, looking at him. The entire aura around him screamed protector. Besides, I knew Topher would never bother me again with a detractor like his nemesis around.

But now that I had said it, it ended up exposing his weakness, not mine. The boy really must have a compulsion to keep people safe. And I’d just unknowingly stumbled my way into saying the magic words to get whatever I wanted from him.

Silence filled the front room of his apartment as he stared at me as if I’d just punched all the air from his diaphragm.

Then I went in for the kill and softly added, “Ho
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  • The Revenge Plan   8. Haven

    Grateful that my old roommate and Topher were both nowhere around when Dad and I arrived at Dandridge Hall, we packed my belongings into his and Mom’s van, then into my car, for over an hour until I had all my college possessions completely cleared from Annabeth’s apartment, only to return to my new place and realize the sheets wouldn’t fit the ones I’d had for the single-sized bed I’d used in my dorm apartment.Wick offered to lend me a second set he had on hand, but stubborn, I-want-to-be-independent me resisted. Thankfully, the nearest twenty-four-hour mart was only a few blocks away, so after I shooed my parents out the door and on their way home to keep them from being on the road any later than necessary, I ran out and found myself some queen-sized sheets, trying to look at things on the bright side: I was getting a bigger bed!When I returned, Wick walked me down to the building’s basement to show me where the laundry room was kept so I wouldn’t have to sleep in itchy, new she

  • The Revenge Plan   9. Haven

    The moment I stepped outside, it seemed extra dark and spooky without Wick with me. I held my breath as I approached the steps that led down to the basement, thinking this would be an ideal place for a stalker to hang out while waiting for his next victim to pass by.Great. That vision calmed me down so much.I peeked into the lightened stairwell and blew out a breath when I only found a cat at the bottom, drinking from its bowl. So I clambered down the steps, which scared the shit out of poor Mr. Whiskers, and he darted back into the basement through his swinging cat door.By the time I reached the door myself and pulled it open, the cat was long gone. But I felt a little better, stepping inside the basement and knowing the animal was in there with me. Somewhere. Sometimes, just having another soul around—whether they interacted with you or not—made all the difference in the world.As luck would have it, the spin cycle on my sheets was just slowing to an end when I entered the lau

  • The Revenge Plan   10. Wick

    My schedule was all out of whack.Instead of waking up at five for my daily run, I woke up at five, pressed into my couch with a warm weight on top of me, a ton of someone else’s hair scattered in my face, and quite possibly the worst case of morning wood I had ever experienced in my life.My body reacted before my brain did, and I arched up my hips, seeking that heavy warmth, needing to press my ache against it. Turning my face in toward the hair, I found the nook of a feminine neck, and I wrapped my arms around her until I had a handful of ass and could grind her down on me as I rose up, connecting us just where I needed friction.A groan rumbled from my throat. Rocket blasts of pleasure sparked behind my eyelids. I breathed in her heavenly scent and began to kiss the warm stretch of flesh along her neck when it struck me what was actually happening and who was sleeping on top of me.“Holy shit!” I jumped so hard, I knocked her off me.She toppled, spilling over the side of the

  • The Revenge Plan   11. Haven

    I missed my first two classes of the day. But I made it to the third.The world looked different now. As soon as I stepped on campus and glanced around me, I saw strangers in a strange land, walking past, looking as if they had purpose. As if they had worth. I kept expecting them to glance at me peculiarly and ask what I was doing there. It all seemed so new and foreign all of a sudden.Hiking my book bag more securely onto my back, I lowered my gaze and started toward the Family and Consumer Science building. As an Early Childhood Education major, I spent half my school day at the university’s preschool lab, where I fulfilled my practicum experience. Next semester, I’d move up to student teaching and actually get to assist in some of the teaching instead of what I did now, which was basically take kids to the bathroom, help pass out snacks, set up activities, and clean messes.But that took place in the afternoon. So as I hurried toward my Early Literacy and Language Development cl

  • The Revenge Plan   12. Henry

    Issue 3 of “Hopeless Henry”By Alice BennetTaken from the University Gazette“Free drinks for Henry! All night long,” Rush shouted, slinging an arm over my shoulders and fisting his other hand into the air victoriously as a crowd of fellow band players cheered us on.My face heated in bashful delight as I glanced at everyone who’d showed up at the bar to celebrate because of me. Then I glanced down at the fake ID Rush had set me up with. He’d planned for everything.As soon as the director had announced me as the new trumpet section leader, set to take Baxter’s spot, Rush had been a flurry of excitement, making sure tonight was epic.“We’re going to get you so damn drunk and happy,” he told me, shaking my shoulder enthusiastically. “You’ll be hitting on every woman in this place before the night’s over.”“Oh, ho!” I cried, laughing and trying yet failing to picture such an outcome. “I’d like to see that.”“You will, buddy. That’s a promise. Because, check it out, the first rou

  • The Revenge Plan   13. Wick

    Cannon had been right on the money.Shit wasn’t okay.And I didn’t have a damn thing under control.Nicholl was hell-bent on finding Haven, and he wasn’t going to stop looking until he figured out where she was, starting his search with me.He and his goons caught me right before practice.After the night I’d had, I still wasn’t firing on all my cylinders and was running late. Almost everyone else had already cleared out of the locker room and were out on the field warming up by the time I rushed in to put on my gear.So I was alone by the time I tugged on my shoulder pads and plunked myself down on a bench to lace up my shoes. I’d just stood up and was turning toward the exit when the first two assholes grabbed me from behind, locking on to my arms and yanking me back until my spine slammed into a closed locker. The shoulder pads absorbed most of the impact, but still…“Ouch. What the hell?” I struggled to yank myself free. “Let go.”Another two appeared next to the first pair

  • The Revenge Plan   14. Haven

    Okay, so I might’ve relentlessly paced the floor by the door, waiting for Wick to get home that night because the glare Topher had sent me across campus had haunted me all day.When he hadn’t charged after me to talk it out, it made me think… I don’t know. But it felt as if things were worse because he’d let me go, so now… Now I wondered what had happened between him and Wick at practice.I finally sat in a chair in the living room with an open textbook on my lap, pretending to study, but I ended up just staring at the front door and biting my fingernails the entire time until it finally opened at a quarter until seven.As Wick stepped inside, a huge sports duffle slung over his shoulder and his head bowed as if he were deep in thought, I popped to my feet, instantly nervous. Instantly expectant.“Hey, um, hi,” I rushed out the greeting and offered him a tense smile as he looked up in surprise, then paused to eye me warily. I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. “You look like you

  • The Revenge Plan   15. Haven

    So, early Friday morning, Wick had me meet him at the student health center for my checkup. It felt wrong that I had to even do this; I’d always taken safe sex seriously. Why had I been stupid enough to think the only boyfriend I’d ever had would feel the same way? Now, here I was, paying for my own naïve gullibility.The wind seemed to think it personally needed to slap me across the face for my idiocy too. It whipped my hair out of place, obstructing my view and clogging my mouth so I was still scrambling to hand-brush it back into place and hold on to my backpack that I had hooked over one shoulder as I pushed through the front door.Disheveled mess that I was, however, I was apparently at least a quiet one. No one heard me enter.One woman sat out in the waiting area, flipping through a magazine. A receptionist sat behind a tall counter. And Wick Webster stood leaning against the same counter at the far end where he chatted with a young nurse who bustled around on the other side

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  • The Revenge Plan   About the Author

    Linda writes romance fiction from YA to adult, contemporary to fantasy. Most Kage stories lean more toward the lighter, sillier side with a couple meaningful moments thrown in. Focuses more on entertainment value and emotional impact.Published since 2010. Went through a 2-year writing correspondence class in children’s literature from The Institute of Children’s Literature. Then graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, English with an emphasis in creative fiction writing from Pittsburg State University.Now she lives with her hubby, two daughters, cat Holly, and nine cuckoo clocks in southeast Kansas, USA. Farm girl. Parents were dairy farmers. Was youngest of eight. Big family. Day job as a cataloging library assistant.Harry Potter House Gryffindor, Patronus White Stallion, character match Hagrid. Supernatural Team Dean. Game of Thrones Team Jon Snow and Tyrion Lannister. The Walking Dead Team Daryl. Outlander Team Jamie Fraser. Teen Wolf Team Stiles. Avenger Team Thor...or Hulk (can’t

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  • The Revenge Plan   50. Epilogue

    I woke in the middle of the night to a hand nudging my shoulder and Haven’s voice in my ear.“Wick. Honey, get up. The baby’s coming.”My eyes sprang open wide. “What?”She was already flipping on the nightlight and sliding out of bed to bustle around the room, opening drawers to pull out underwear and clothes. When she flopped a suitcase onto the mattress by my feet and began to stuff it with both our things, I sat up watching her from blurry, blinking eyes.“If we leave now,” she said, unsettling Bingley, who’d been curled up asleep in her pillowed bed on the floor as Haven tugged a jacket out from under the cat, “I think we can make it to the hospital by four.”“Hospital? Four?” I glanced toward the nightstand where the clock told me it was barely two in the morning.“Yeah. I definitely don’t want to be on the road when the baby arrives.”Finally awake enough to think a bit clearer, I shook my head. “But what baby?”Pausing abruptly to send me a harassed glance, Haven cried,

  • The Revenge Plan   49. Haven

    “Hey, look,” Wick announced proudly as he appeared in the opening of the hallway that led into the front room where I was kicked back on the couch, browsing through Netflix and searching for something new to watch. “I was finally able to pop the centers out without breaking the outer chocolate rings.”He held up two Reese’s cups to his eyes so he could peer at me through the holes where the peanut butter centers usually went.“Hey, yay! Good job.” I began to clap, only to narrow my eyes when he moved close enough for me to see the cups better as he sat on the couch next to me. “Wait. You cut them out with a knife, didn’t you?”He laughed, dropping the Reese’s from his eyes and confessed, “Yeah. But it was the only way I could do it without breaking the outer ring.”“God, you’re adorable,” I answered, shaking my head and grabbing the front of his shirt so I could pull him in for a kiss.He met my mouth eagerly, tasting like chocolate and peanut butter, which had me humming in delig

  • The Revenge Plan   48. Henry

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  • The Revenge Plan   47. Haven

    “HayHay,” Wick whispered, his voice broken and full of pain and misery. He started to stand, but I held up a hand.“No, don’t get up. I think… I think I’ll just come down there with you.” And I sank to my knees right where I’d been standing in the doorway. Bingley wiggled in my arms. I let her down, and once she hit the floor, she bounded over to Wick, who picked her up and cuddled her gratefully.Gripping the tops of my thighs, I rocked back and forth and I watched the kitten comfort the man.“So,” I started, swallowing hard before glancing around the room and settling my gaze back on him. “You liked me three years ago? When we were freshmen?”“I…” Pain slashed across his features before he gulped and nodded. “I shared a class with you. The first time I saw you across the room, I thought you were pretty. So I told some of my friends on the team about it.”From the expression on his face, I knew he was downplaying it. Big-time.“Why?” I croaked, wiping wetness from my cheeks. “Wh

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