The Co-op

Chapter Thirty-Nine

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

L A RYNN

His stomping picks up ahead of me, almost too fast for me to keep up, shoulders strung tight, the veins in his arms standing at attention. Despite the wind picking up and the sweat cooling on his skin, he doesn’t replace his shirt, and neither do I, afraid to miss him running away from me. I can feel something simmering beneath his skin, rolling out in waves. I’m worried he’s upset about the house, that he’s already starting to resent me for it before I’ve even officially said we could sell.

When we make it home in record time and climb the steps inside, my heart and anxiety gather speed. And when we finally make it through the doorway in our home, he slams his palms into his hair, gripping it at the roots before he rakes his fingers through it, until it’s standing on end in every direction—as wild as the look in his bloodshot eyes.

I can’t catch my breath, his panic ratcheting up my own.

“What is it?” I ask him, voice raw.

He falls to a seat on the couch and says, “Fuck it. I—I can’t do it anymore, LaRynn. I’m begging you, alright? Please, please stop.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop flirting with him, please. Stop it.” It’s a quiet, pained request—his face buried in his banged-up hands.

I attempt to slow my heart, inhale deeply. Rub at something sore in my chest. I want to sob and laugh and hold him close. This sweet, oblivious man thought that was flirting? “Tell me why,” I beg, my voice cracking, desperate to cut right to the bottom of this.

He looks back up at me and shakes his head angrily. “Because it fucking hurts. It makes me feel like I’m in pain, like I’m being choked by my own goddamn fury. Please, LaRynn. Fuck my pride, I want you to stop because I want you for me, and even if I can’t have that I just—need to be able to make it through the rest of this without wanting to put my head through the floor, alright?! I’m flat-out begging you, please don’t—not in front of me anymore. I’m sorry, I didn’t sleep and I just can’t pretend. I’ll calm down. I’m sorry.” He blows out a trembling breath. “No, fuck it again, I can’t,” he says, a little hysterical. He brings his head back up and our gazes clash, his dark eyes so clear in this moment that their brown is liquid bronze.

“I want you for me,” he says again. “I want your smiles for me , the ones that I’ve worked so goddamn hard for and that come so much easier for everyone else. I want it to be easy like that for you to smile and laugh with me, not with Oscar and not just with the people at the café. I want you to get everything you want, but I want it to be with me, too, and I don’t care if that sounds selfish anymore. I want this house, but I want it to mean something more. I want you to stay with me and I want you to never fucking leave. I want your bobby pins everywhere and your hair in the shower and I want to hear you snore.” He blinks. A rabid, dark laugh tearing out of him before his palm grates across his jaw. He looks away at the floor. “ Jesus, I’m so sorry, I can’t believe I’m acting like this. I know I should just be happy to be your friend, and I am, okay? I get that we weren’t good to each other before and this is off the table, but I can’t do it anymore, I’m sorry I don’t think I can stand it, I—”

“Show me,” I say shakily, heart swelling so fast I think I might break. “Show me where it hurts.”

His head snaps up to mine and I step to him, between his parted knees.

He studies me for one more echoing beat before he exhales, lets his forehead fall against my lower stomach with a groan. His shoulders drop with something like relief. “Show me,” I repeat, my fingers knitting in his curls.

He tips his head back as he snakes up a hand to grasp at my hip, places the other against his chest. “Here,” he croaks.

I look at his splayed fingers against his heart, two that are bandaged, and all my jumbled, sharp feelings turn fluid and rush through me. At the reality of this man who works so hard and feels so much harder. “Here?” I ask, laying my hand over his. I can feel his pulse through both of our palms. He nods.

I gently push him back into the couch before I climb onto his lap, straddling his hips with my thighs, and I have never felt more at home. I slide our hands aside and dip my chin, kissing the spot on his warm chest. A breath huffs out of him, warm against the shell of my ear. “Better?” I ask. His throat bounces, one side of his mouth ticking up, but he shakes his head in denial.

So, I confess. “I sometimes hid my smiles because I was afraid of everything else you’d see. I thought this was off the table because of how I treated you before, and that I had to be happy to be your friend, too.” His grip on me tightens. “I thought I had to be okay with just being your friend. But I want you too, Deacon. I want everything. It never stopped for me.” I don’t care if it sounds pathetic anymore.

And I smile now as I trace my hand along his jaw. Allow a small laugh to escape at his concentrated, enamored expression. His beautiful face. He barely grins back, not full-out, but his eyes widen just slightly, like he’s amazed or afraid to miss whatever this is. He places a hand on either side of my neck, thumbs meeting in the middle to trace a line up to my lips. I breathe him in and my nipples press through my swimsuit into his bare chest, cool air swirling in the space between us on each exhale and making me desperate to press in more.

“I want it all, LaRynn. You’re a fine friend and everything, but I can’t take having less than all of it with you,” he says, and I feel every word thump under my skin.

I nod solemnly. “Nothing less.”

His thumbs drop to the base of my throat, fingers knitting themselves around the back. And every other thought is silenced when he tugs me by that grip to close the distance between us, his lips meeting mine.

Deacon’s always kissed like it’s the finale. Like the kiss is what we’ve been climbing and torquing ourselves toward all this time. Like he’d be content to only do this tonight, tomorrow, forever.

It’s like slipping into a bath—warm and wet and makes every muscle in my body feel languid and pliant. Even when we come apart for air we don’t allow more than centimeters between us. When I pull back he lightly bites. He holds me by my neck like he’s freeing my head for the moment, like he’s got me, and God, I want all of this; this and more. Everything. His tongue and teeth and lips. I want to fuse with him in every possible way, bring him into me so much we feel like one person.

I start to chase friction with my hips and he’s up in an instant, carrying us to the bedroom.

“Deacon.” I want him to have my words. Another one of the things he treats like gifts from me. “Deacon, I’m in this. Us.”

“I’m trying to be in something LaRynn, believe me.”

“Don’t,” I say with a small laugh, our noses brushing. I know his excitement because I feel the same, like I want to be everywhere all at once, but he knows what I mean. Don’t try to lighten this for my benefit. I don’t need it. “I mean it. I’m in this and I want to know that we both are. That you feel like I do.”

He sobers and nods once, mapping my face. “I think I’ve been in this since I saw you kicking one of the planter boxes out front,” he says with a quick pant, hot against my mouth. “In one way or another, I never really stopped.”

And then he brings my mouth back down, and my legs wrap and squeeze around his hips. A grunt of approval rasps out of him, and frantic need rips through me. Our hands fist in each other’s hair, just shy of pain.

When we make it into the room, he lays me down with heartbreaking gentleness—onto the bed he built, among the pillows I picked for their colors because I think they reminded me of us. Tans, blues, blacks. Sand, ocean, leather. Night skies and back seats. Maybe I picked the green tile for the redwoods and the buildings around Santa Sea. Because he and this place are part of me again.

He slides onto his knees between my legs, big and beautiful with his unruly hair and wicked grin and thrumming pulse—ridiculous, beautiful man.

“Untie me,” I say, and his lips press together like he’s trying to contain his excitement. I follow his palm from my ankle, up my shin, up my thigh. Our gazes clash when he teases a thumb inside my swimsuit bottom and I hiss through my teeth, heat licking through me like a whip.

“Untie me,” I say again, and this time he doesn’t stop the smile.

“Back to taking charge, I see.”

“Do you? Bet if you untie me you could see more,” I say with a bright smile.

His hand smooths the rest of its path up my stomach to the bow between my breasts. He gives it a precise tug and it slides apart, grazing my nipples with frustrating lightness. We both let out a groan.

“Put your mouth on me,” I say, my voice so husky it should make me self-conscious. I could not care less.

“I’ve got plans to. Have plans for your mouth, too.”

“Yes.”

He licks a line from my belly button to my nipple, circling me with his tongue and plucking me with his teeth before he switches to the other side. I need more. There’s a buzz under my skin that pulses every time he does that but settles every time he breaks free. And then he plants sucking kisses that bring it roaring back.

“Are we doing this? Is this happening?” he suddenly asks.

When I look down at his face against my chest he’s wearing that crooked grin, mouth open with his teeth still resting against my nipple. And there’s something so lewd about him smiling at me that way with me still in his mouth, that the moment begs for some levity.

“We could look at more tile samples for the kitchen, if you want? Go over the budget?” I say.

“Fuck the budget,” he growls.

A shocked and lusty gasp breaks free from me, and he cuts it off with a kiss.

“God, I’m so in this with you, LaRynn,” he says against my jaw, fingertips tracing their way down my face.

I slip my hands inside the top of his shorts and push meaningfully.

He laughs, shoving them down and kicking them off, a pillow flying off the bed with them. He rolls back to kneel beside my hip, pulls one of my knees into his lap to part me wider. “Can I?” he asks.

“Please,” I whisper.

His eyes close only briefly before they’re back on me everywhere: On his hand as he pulls the delicate string on my bikini bottoms and slides them away. On my face when his fingertips find me, watching me while he moves them against me, groaning against my neck when we hear the wet sound of it.

“Keep going,” I say, even though it’s what he’s already doing; I’m lost to chasing down that sensation, a wave I’m desperate to ride until it crests over me. Up, down, circle. And then he’s pinning my knee to the bed and folding himself across it, replacing his fingers with his mouth, their motions with his tongue. Says my name in a languid murmur against my clit. The wave takes me over and back around and I cry out, my fingers knitting themselves in his hair.

“Please,” I pant as I float down, even as my blood rushes in my ears. “I want you.”

He reaches up past me to the nightstand and yanks open a drawer. I hear the thing come right off the hinges and laugh into his neck. He grunts when I bite him there, too. He brings the condom back from his rifling, tears the wrapper in his teeth on his way back. I take it from him, watch him watch my hand as I roll it down the hot, hard length of him. He drags his body back over me, bracing on one trembling arm.

“Jesus, you’re beautiful, LaRynn,” he says, his thumb sliding along my collarbone. “I know I don’t tell you enough but I think it enough. To the point of distraction.”

“So are you,” I tell him before I tug him back to my lips by his hair. “To the point of fucking agony.”

And at the first nudge into me I start to babble and shake. “I missed you,” I admit with a moan. Emotion twists in my throat. I hope he knows what I mean. That even though I’ve lived with him for months, I’ve missed him even when he’s been close. That I missed him so fucking much after I left the last time. He pushes in farther and I lose my breath.

“I missed you, too,” he replies hoarsely, pausing to kiss the corners of my face.

“Fuck I almost forgot how you felt,” I say, breathless before he’s even halfway in. “I thought I was crazy to miss you. Told myself I was ridiculous. Tried to pretend it was less than it was.” A breathy whine when he retreats.

“I did too, love,” he says. “ God, I thought about you.” He slides in again, not quite all the way. “Thought about that mouth and your glare. Thought about your laugh… Thought about this.” He slides home and I let out a tight sigh at the complete and total fullness, the rightness.

I capture his bottom lip in my teeth and drag out a bite. “ Fuck . You ruined me for anyone else,” I tell him, voice tight because not only has it been a long time for me, but also because it’s him. “The ones after you made me feel bad for directing them, but I never knew anything different.”

He goes utterly still, lashes pressed against his cheeks, nostrils flaring. And I realize that I’ve just alluded to being with other people with him buried deep inside me. “Shit, I’m—”

“Shh, shh, shh,” he shushes me. “Just—just give me a second here.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, voice hitching, eyes filling.

His lids crack open and he tips down to kiss me, like he can’t help himself. “No, no, beautiful girl. Sweet, silly woman.” Thumbs my cheekbone in reverence. “Telling me I ruined you for anyone else is making me have—a moment —and I just need you to be still for a second, please.” He smiles self-deprecatingly and my teeth sink into my lip to stifle a laugh. I clench around him and his eyes roll back on a groan.

“Evil witch.” He recovers with a smile and a sharp thrust of his hips that scoots me up the bed.

And with each push he builds more of that exquisite ache. He’s as steady as a metronome against me, agonizingly tender. His mouth on mine, my teeth grazing his warm shoulders, his lips down my chest. Every time we get close he stops, pauses to taste whatever spot he tells me he also missed. My nipples, the crooks of my arms, my kneecaps and back down my thighs, until I’m clawing him up my body again.

The steadiness of it makes me desperate. My hands rake and squeeze against everything they touch. His ass, the sheets, my own breasts.

He levers up and drags me by my thighs until I hang just off the bed, nibbling the inside of my ankle before he bends my knees up and pushes himself back in. The change in position pulls a cry of bliss from me, the feel of him almost too much like this, a perfect pinch that makes me gasp with every thrust. His name peals up from my throat when heat tightens behind my ribs again. And then he swipes his thumb against me and takes me apart once more, piece by piece, so deep and full that I could never forget he was here, as if I ever did.

He clasps his hands around my waist and drags them down, thumbs hooking into my hips while he pumps and grinds my body against his, working me over, using me for what he needs after that, uninhibited. He locks his eyes with mine, whispers my name roughly against the inside of my knee when he finally lets go. He’s so gorgeous when he comes, I can’t seem to look my fill, his powerful body pulling taut all over, hips still canting when he’s done, like he doesn’t want it to be. I kiss the vein in his forehead when he finally collapses onto shaking arms above me, relishing the salty taste it leaves on my lips.

“Rynn,” he breathes again into my damp skin, his jaw grating against mine. I cross my heels around his lower back, utterly wrung out and feverish, the sights and sounds of him still replaying through my brain. I want to hold him here, to keep him this way.

We stay as long as we can before we’re forced to deal with the human aspect of things. He scoops me up in a bridal carry as soon as I reemerge from the bathroom, surprising a laugh out of me. And then he lays me back down, studies me like I’m something both old and cherished, new and exciting. Sun shines through the windows and doors, illuminating a half-framed wall covered in swatches of white paint behind him. His eyes glaze and warm and I feel lush and indulgent under them. No part of me wants to hide under a sheet or turn away. I only want him to see how he makes me feel, only want to make him feel even half of what I do.

I worry for a moment that I might be in too deep all over again, but… it really feels too good to make myself care or be scared anymore.

He settles beside me, tracks a finger down my cheek.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he says.

I answer without preamble, “That I’m happy.” A tear springs loose and slides away. “That I’m happy here with you, in our half-torn-apart house. That I think—I think I’d be content to serve coffee every day and watch the waves and never do anything extraordinary and still feel like I have the best life.”

He inhales sharply before a smile blooms. “Ask me what I’m thinking, too,” he says.

“What are you thinking?”

“That I love you,” he says. “That I’d give you that house if I could. That one on West Cliff.” More tears bubble up from my eyes, because his words make my chest throb. He’s so good. Good at so much, so much more than I gave him credit for back then. It makes me burn, thinking about it—I should know how that feels, to be put in a box and for assumptions to be built around me. But instead of closing himself off and turning into an angry, imposing fortress, he just gives more of himself to people. It makes me want to tuck him away and snarl at anything that tries to come for him.

He weaves a lock of my hair through the fingers on his tattooed hand. When his eyes meet mine again, they’re damp, but he’s smiling. “Instead I’ve got a double-wide on a campground and a half-done half of a duplex to offer. But the view is pretty great.”

“Don’t forget about the planter boxes,” I say with a wet chuckle.

“Oh, right, how could I? The planter boxes are fucking pristine.”

We devolve into laugh-crying until enough of our bare skin collides to turn everything hungry again, our hands needy and hurried all over.

This time, when I sink down onto him, I curl my fingers into his hair, look into his eyes, and say, “I love you, too.”

“Took—ah.” His breath hisses when I piston myself on him, when I bend my back and grind my hips to take him impossibly deep. “Took you long enough to say it back,” he grits out.

“Shit baby, you’re telling me,” I rasp.

“Fuck, I love that way too much,” he gasps.

I just barely pick up speed. Smile and kiss the taut lines of his face. “How much, baby?”

“Rynn,” he warns, his head falling back against the headboard with a helpless sound.

I start losing control just as quick, though. “We’re never gonna finish this, are we?” I mean it in reference to the house and the fact that I’m never going to be able to focus again, because this is all I’m going to want to do now that I get to touch him this way.

But his hands come around my waist and grip me tight to hold me still so he can kiss me. And then he looks me square in the eye when he says, “Not if I can help it.”