The Co-op

Chapter Twenty-Seven

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

L A RYNN

I whip around and start marching away before he can respond, my palms itching to hit something, my throat pulling tight.

He’s hot on my heels and I try to think of something to make him go away.

“I’m not broken,” is what I say instead, my traitorous voice breaking.

I head toward a building on the opposite end of the campground, closest to the turnout that heads out onto a collection of alcoves above the beach. I don’t recall what that building is, but I’m determined to keep my focus on it. And the bastard just keeps following me, so I try again to fling something else his way. “If you need a project so badly why don’t you work on yourself, huh? Figure your own shit out.” He doesn’t react, just continues to keep pace.

I finally get to the building—the camp laundry room, I see now—and wrench open the door. It must’ve swelled from the damp air because it gets partially stuck, and when I fling it back I stumble off the concrete step before I haul myself through it. I rear on him from the doorway and look him dead in the eyes.

“I don’t want you.” I try to shut the door and he blocks it, crowds into my space as I back away. His eyes are black, his curls wilder here, where the air is thicker with mist and salt.

He shakes his head and clenches his jaw. “You’re a lot of things, LaRynn, but you’re not usually such a liar. ” And God I hate that he’s right. I hate that even now, after he turned me away again, all I want is to sink my teeth around his Adam’s apple and bite him just so I can taste him.

“You tell me to go and I’ll go, right back out that door. But you want to know what I really think?” he asks, his voice hoarse.

“Not really.”

“I think I hurt you last night even though I didn’t mean to, and I’m sorry. I also think you meant to hurt me back with that bullshit this morning, and it worked.” He takes another step. “I think I want you against my better judgment and I think you hate how much you want me.”

My ass hits one of the machines and I brace my palms against it as he stalks closer.

“I think you’re dying for me to kiss you right now,” he says quietly, dark eyes dipping to my mouth. “To touch you. To wind you up higher and tighter until everything snaps.”

This drumming thing in me hardens into determination. “I think it’s you who’s aching for that,” I say back. I will not be the one to close the distance this time. “Dying to feel me again.” A bead of sweat cools a path between my breasts.

“How about I start and we’ll see who’s begging by the end?”

“We both know it’ll be you and you’re going to love it because you’re such”—I drag my finger down his heaving chest—“a good boy.” I snap the waistband of his shorts against his skin.

“You can’t take how much you want me to touch you, can you?” His breathing is erratic, his chest rising in an uneven rhythm. I can see his pulse in his throat. “All you have to do is ask nicely, LaRynn.”

“We both know just how much I can take.”

That’s what finally does it. The praise wrapped up in a dare. And it’s like a cord is snapped, the way his expression unravels. I’m not sure whose hands are where but his shorts slip to his ankles at the same time the strap of my tank top is yanked down and our mouths gasp, open against each other.

“Rynn,” he rasps, forehead pressing into mine, body rocking forward. My breath hitches when I feel him, hard against my stomach.

“Just—” Just don’t talk, I want to say. Just put your hands and your mouth on me and chase this with me. Please. I’ll let him be right this time. I’ll beg.

He pins one of my legs up and presses himself to my center. I go molten at the feel of him, a high sob wrenching out of me, his cock hard and deliciously thick. I want him so bad my teeth ache with it.

“These fucking shorts,” he says, not even looking at them. “You feel what you do to me? You wear these to make me miserable, don’t you?”

They’re not the denim ones I know he loves. They’re the tiny athletic shorts he looks at like he hates. “Yes,” I admit.

“You want my hand?” he grits. I want him to kiss me, dammit. I want his mouth and I want his hands. I want him to fuck me against this washing machine and put me on all fours on the hard tile. I want him to press and lick and squeeze and smack and rut against me. I want him in my mouth, so thick he’d stretch me wide and leave my jaw sore. I want him as wild and messy as I feel.

“Please,” is all I say. A shaky curse slips out of him and he lifts me, propping me up higher against the machine so my legs spread wider. He slides his hand down the front of my shorts, his expression agonized when I can’t hold back another sound.

“You’re so wet.” He slides two big fingers around my clit and pinches it.

“For you,” I say, half moan. A pained fuck leaves him before he finally kisses me, a groan working its way up my throat when he starts working me in tight, slick circles, my heart beating so fast it hurts.

“Excuse me!” A shrill voice pierces our bubble, and both our heads whip that way. The swift movement tilts our balance and our cheeks graze, his rough against my smooth. I want to curl back against it like a cat.

“Mrs. Gold,” Deacon says, forcing a breathy laugh. His shorts remain on the ground, body still angled toward me in an attempt to hide his— acute —condition.

“This is a campground, Deacon. There are families, ” she sputters.

“We’re sorry, ma’am,” I say, giving her my sweetest grin, whatever that may be. “We just got carried away. We’re, uh—” I look back up at him briefly before I turn to her. “We’re newlyweds.” His hand is still in my pants when I say this and his fingers tighten and slip against me again like a reward. I bite down hard on the inside of my cheek.

The change is so instantaneous it’s comical. Her scowl relaxes into a knowing smile. “Oh, well …” She sighs merrily. “I suppose I remember those days. And it’s about time someone snapped this one up.” She gestures toward Deacon with her basket. “I’m Cheryl Gold. I’m sure Deacon’s told you all about us. We come here every year for the Fourth.”

A sound warbles out of me before I manage to come up with, “Yeah.” He discreetly slides his hand from my shorts.

“When did you get married?” Cheryl asks casually, so very unable to read the room.

“Married?!” comes a voice from behind Mrs. Gold, and Deacon’s head falls to my shoulder on a groan while I start shaking in helpless laughter.

“Deacon?!” the new voice says again and oh God, I recognize it. The laughter dies.

His head snaps back up. “MOM?!”

“LaRynn?!” cries Macy Leeds.

“H-hi, Mrs. Leeds,” I murmur, putting a palm up in a stupid wave while her son still has a half-mast boner pressed against me.

“ Oooh, I bet you’ll have grandbabies in no time!” Mrs. Gold prattles on, shoulders bouncing in glee.

“You came back early?!” Deacon asks, and heaven above, he is still in his fucking underwear.

“Apparently not early enough if I missed you two getting engaged,” Macy replies, looking between us in shock. “Let alone married. ” My gaze falls to my feet.

“Can we just have a moment?” Deacon asks the women. “Mom, we’ll come meet you at your place?”

Macy only nods, sparing me a shaky half smile before she turns and walks away.

“I hope we’ll get to see you at the barbecue, Lauren—she did say Lauren, didn’t she? I’d love to hear all about your whirlwind romance,” Mrs. Gold coos.

“She’ll be there, Mrs. Gold. Thank you,” Deacon replies with a curt nod.

“Oh! Right. Ok. Buh-bye now,” she says, finally stepping back out of the laundry room.

The moment the door clicks shut he yanks up his shorts and paces a few steps.

He’s pale, running a palm over his mouth nervously. “I can’t have my mom know that this isn’t—” His eyes dart up to mine. “I don’t want her to think that I don’t take marriage seriously. That it’s less than serious. I don’t want her to think it doesn’t mean anything to me.”

“Deacon, just explain why we are. Tell her about the trust and tell her what happened just now, your mom will understand.”

“LaRynn. Please, ” he says urgently, his voice strained and breaking.

“ Why ?” I ask, taking in the tense lines of him .

“I don’t want her to think I’d do this out of some obligation, alright? That it wouldn’t be for… love,” he says, hands clutching his hips. “I know she wouldn’t admit it, but she’d think I put some lesser value on marriage and she’d think it was her fault, that I didn’t see it as something you do exclusively when you love someone.” His throat works, and my heart feels like it’s being wrung out in my chest. It’s a painful reminder of the time I got so caught up in him that I fell in love with him before, unrequited, and how he still doesn’t love me now. “Please,” he says again.

Our eyes search one another, his as dark and difficult to decipher as always. But there was something so desperate and bleak in the way he said “please” that I can’t bring myself to say no.

“Okay,” I whisper.

His eyes shut in relief. “Thank you.” And he wraps me in a hug so abruptly that my chin glides against the crook of his neck, the tip of my nose behind it.

I fit perfectly here, my face pressed into the place where his collarbone meets his throat. That campfire-smoke-and-soap scent of him makes me want to rest, and it hits me that this is the first time we’ve hugged since I came back. It might be the first time we’ve ever just hugged, I realize. We’ve been wrapped and bound so tightly there was no endpoint to us, but I don’t know that I’ve ever just been held by him this way, with his arm banded across my spine and his other palm cradling the back of my head. I bring my still-trembling hands up the broad muscles on the backs of his ribs, press them into his shoulder blades.

We peel apart shakily and awkwardly move around each other and out the door. He’s far twitchier than even myself, despite the whiplash of the last fifteen minutes.

And as we walk in the direction of his mom’s, the meanest part of my brain sees him wiping his palms on his jeans and raking his fingers through his hair and realizes that it would be easy to tip him over a barrel now. Could get back at him for how stupid he left me feeling last night. For some reason this has him so anxious that I bet I could garner whatever promises I wanted at this moment.

Stop leaving your socks in the living room.

Close the goddamn cereal box before you put it away.

If I have to see another half-drunk glass of water on your nightstand even though it shouldn’t concern me, I think I will have an aneurysm, so stop that.

Stop leaving your tools strewn about.

But then I recall how I’ve constantly aggravated him right back. How I’m just as responsible for this state of irritated need with how much I’ve engaged in taunting him, too. And on top of the flirting games, how… God, this thought fills me with embarrassment and worry for myself… how sometimes it makes me truly laugh when I leave my hair on the shower wall or when I light every candle throughout the house, thinking about how he’ll shake his head or mutter indignantly under his breath. And how laughing at that has also felt fun.

Maybe I really am just rotten inside, wrong or backward in that way. Because I’ve also laughed while shaking my head when I’ve come across those things that he does that annoy me so thoroughly. When I’ve found his stupid socks again or collected his water glasses because I couldn’t stand even walking past them another time.

Maybe as crazy as he makes me, it still feels good to share something with someone… most of the time. Stale cereal is a shit way to start a day, though.

Even if I am wrong or backward and have too many mean and angry parts inside, I can’t seem to summon them into action while I watch him panic.

“Would you like to hold my hand?” I ask, my tone thick with feigned annoyance. “If you want this to look real for her, I mean,” I add gently.

His face softens, unsure. “I think that would be good, yeah?” he says.

I lift my brows and a hand his way.