39. Hailey

THIRTY-NINE

No matter how hard I tried to keep it contained, the giggle erupted from my throat.

Not a chance of stopping it.

"You did not," I accused, looking at Cody who was slung back in the chair where we were all gathered around the table that rested on one side of the kitchen. Dakota had just told me about the time he'd put blue dye in her body wash.

"Don't look at me that way, darlin'. You can be sure she deserved it. Payback, baby."

He sent an evil gleam that was nothing but a tease at Dakota who sat across from us, snuggled up to Ryder who was chuckling under his breath.

"I absolutely did not," Dakota defended. "I walked around looking like an Oompa Loompa for a week."

"Oh, pretty sure you did deserve it," Ryder rumbled, giving her a little jostle. "You were the one who stole our clothes where we'd left them on the bank of the river. We had to ride our bikes back through town, completely buck."

"Okay, but why were the two of you skinny dipping together?" I asked through my laughter.

Annoyance took to Dakota's face. "Because Saley Thompson and Kendra Stevens were there with them."

"Jealous." Ryder mussed up her hair.

She sent him a flirty grin. "Of course, I was jealous."

"So, this was all about Ryder and didn't have a thing to do with me?" Cody stretched those tattooed arms out in that playful arrogance he loved to wear.

"I thought everything was about you?" Kayla razzed as she took a sip from her coffee.

"Well, most things are about me since I make quite the impression, but in this case, it seems I was unjustly targeted."

I laughed at the ping-pong match of ribbing that had been played around the table during breakfast, though I nestled deeper into the comfort of the atmosphere.

No hostilities or hate.

No fear or dread.

Just love and support, the way it was supposed to be. The anxiety I'd been feeling all of last night and this morning had nearly evaporated as I'd sank into the mood of this place.

As if Cody felt my thoughts, he slung his arm over the back of my chair and curled a hand around my opposite shoulder to bring me closer. The man slanted me the softest grin.

Another promise that I belonged.

And I felt like it—like I belonged. Like I could slide right into this peace and become a part of it. As if there wasn't a threat lingering outside these doors.

With Cody, it was so easy to pretend like everything was just fine.

I had to remember to be careful. I had no idea how this was going to pan out. How it was going to end. If I'd remain standing.

Guilt tried to climb up through the questions, that sticky sensation that refused to let me go even though I kept trying with all of me to cut those bindings free. Praying that Brooke would forgive me. That she would understand.

That she wouldn't look at me with the same betrayal as she'd looked at me with that night.

Cody tugged me tighter, likely feeling the way my nerves ticked my muscles into tension as I warred with the tumult of my thoughts.

"All of you were nothing but trouble, always out wreaking havoc on this town." Cody's mother pointed between Cody and Ryder, then Dakota and Kayla. "Each in your own way. I had my hands full with all of you."

There was no anger behind it.

Warmth spread in my chest. Cody's mother, Patricia, or Pat like everyone called her, had welcomed me in a way I should have expected with the way Cody had talked about her.

His praise and adoration for her unending.

Still, I felt unsettled by it, by how close they all were. A tight-knit web of safety and protection, and I knew I was dragging disorder into the middle of it.

Pulling her son into something that he shouldn't have to face.

But he remained solid at my side. Impenetrable. Refusing to leave.

"Who me?" Cody grinned. "Never caused a lick of trouble in my life."

"And someone is straight delusional," Dakota said, tilting me a wayward smile, like we were thick as thieves.

The oldest of friends.

"I have what's called self-esteem, Dakota."

"You mean a big, fat ego?" she tossed back.

"Cocky Cowboy." I nudged him, playing too, and he pulled me even closer and went to tickling my side.

"Oh yeah? Say it now?"

I was cackling, flailing all over the place, this feeling spreading through me unlike I'd ever felt before.

Joy.

Joy.

Joy.

His smile went soft as he slowed, just the same as everyone else's at the table as they watched us.

I tried to smooth out the disorder, to tame the redness on my face and the feeling that was bursting from my soul.

I wasn't sure I could.

Not when Cody placed a big hand on the top of my thigh and grunted, "Might be cocky, but I'm your cowboy."

God.

What was he doing to me?

I chewed at the inside of my lip as I caught his mother peeking over at us, and the same thing was blazing from her, too.

Joy.

"Can we go outside and play now?" Maddie came bouncing in from the living room where she was playing with Dakota's son, Kayden.

The adorable little boy was right behind her, flapping his arms in the air. "I wanna swing, my Daddy Rye-Rye!"

Ryder didn't hesitate, he stood. "Then let's go, little man."

My foundation cracked nearly all the way through when Cody stood, too. "Come on, Button, let's go outside."

Cody swept my giggling girl into his arms, peppering kisses all over her face as he carried her out into the heat of the summer day.

I just watched, unable to look away from the hope that radiated back, mine banging into his and the man emitting it right back.

A hand suddenly was on my wrist where I had it rested on the table. I looked to my right to Cody's mother who sat between me and Dakota. She brushed her thumb over the back of my hand and whispered, "I'm so glad you're here."

Emotion clutched, and I could barely force out, "I am, too."

"Wait a minute," Maddie said, a sweet demand of excitement. "You got my favorite and your favorite?"

Maddie squealed it as Cody cut a big piece of pumpkin pie where he stood at the island of my kitchen later that evening.

He shook up the can of whipped cream and squirted a giant mound on top, swirling it up into a perfect peak.

He'd swung into the grocery store on our way back from his mother's house earlier this afternoon. It was amazing that after everything that had been happening that we had found solace in the day, but it'd been there, this serenity that had lulled.

Respite.

"That's right, Button, I got both our favorites," Cody said, glancing down at her where she stood peering up at him.

She threaded her fingers together and lifted them up under her chin, her mouth stretched so wide that she showed off all her tiny, gapped teeth, ringlets bouncing around her cherub face. "You remembered all the really important things about me, my Mr. Cody?"

Devotion flooded the room, and I could feel his spirit swim.

He tapped at her nose. "How could I forget when you and your mom are my most important things?"

Her giggle was light, not quite grasping the magnitude of what he was saying, and she scrunched her shoulders up to her ears. "I like being that."

"I like you being that, too," he told her.

My spirit thrashed, and my grandmother leaned in and whispered from where she sat on a stool beside me, "Yeah, I bet you like being that, too."

I did.

So much.

And I was so afraid of accepting it then losing it.

"Get on up there," he told Maddie, gesturing to the stool on my opposite side.

Maddie climbed up, and she sat on her knees as Cody set the pumpkin pie in front of her.

He shifted to look at my grandmother. "What about you, Lolly? Do you have a favorite?"

"I wouldn't mind a piece of that pumpkin pie."

"On it."

He prepared hers the same way as he'd prepared Maddie's and set it in front of her.

"What about mine?" I asked, playing coy.

Cody set his big palms on the countertop and leaned my direction, that smirk that slayed me through firmly planted on his face, voice a coarse glide of arrogance and greed. "You get yours later, Shortcake."

Redness splashed my cheeks and heat blistered across my flesh.

Anticipation had me shifting on my seat.

Lolly chuckled as she dug into the mountain of pumpkin pie and whipped cream on her plate, her grayed eyes gleaming as she looked between the two of us. "Yeah, I sure do like the way that reputation looks on you."

She lifted her fork and prodded it in Cody's direction. "You be sure to keep it on her."

Cody grinned. "I plan to."

"Your mom was right…you're nothing but trouble," I told Cody where I stood leaned against the island while he finished the dishes from our dinner and the dessert Lolly and Maddie had eaten, finally getting him alone after we'd tucked Maddie into bed and Lolly had retreated to her room. "I can't believe you said that in front of my grandmother."

He sent me a smirk from over his shoulder as he placed the last dish into the dishwasher. "You can't believe it, huh?"

"Okay, I can because like I said, you are nothing but trouble."

"You don't seem to mind all that much." Suggestion wound into his teasing tone, though those golden eyes raked me from head to toe, devouring me where he stood.

I clung to the counter behind me. "I guess I don't."

Turning around, he grabbed a towel and dried off his hands, never looking away from me as he tossed it to the counter and he rumbled, "Good because I'm ready for my favorite thing."

"What's that?" It quivered out of me.

"You."

He came for me, the ground trembling with each big step. His expression vacillated between that easy arrogance and the hunger that rippled through his muscles.

He diverted course and ducked into the refrigerator to pull out the big bowl of strawberry shortcake he'd already prepared, tucked the can of whipped cream under his arm, then grabbed a spoon.

I started to move around to the stools before his command hit me from behind. "Think what I have planned for you needs to take place behind closed doors in your room, darlin'."

A needy shiver rolled down my spine. He hadn't even touched me, but I already was shaking.

The ground kept rolling as he followed me into my room, and chills lifted on my nape as he walked right behind me, his breaths brushing across the bare skin of my shoulders and my exposed neck since I was wearing a sundress, and my hair was in a braid that I'd twisted into a halo on top of my head.

He dipped in and pressed his lips to the sensitive juncture where my neck met my shoulder. "Close that door and lock it."

"You're awful bossy tonight." I went for flirty. A tease when I was positively vibrating with need.

One look from this man and I was already coming undone.

"You might call it bossy, but the only thing on my agenda tonight is making you feel good. Cherished the way you are. Can't help it if I'm going to derive a whole ton of pleasure from it for myself."

I could feel his smile against my skin, and I shifted to shut and lock the door as he walked the rest of the way into the room. He set the bowl and whipped cream on the nightstand before he turned around to look at me through the muted light of the room.

A shockwave slammed me.

Energy bounding and inciting, dense as the tension curled through the space, climbing the walls and crawling the floor and twining up through the center of me to tie me in knots.

The power of this man standing there, rippling strength and volatility.

Radiating that sweetness, too, that goodness that gushed out of him like a river. The man so different than I'd conformed myself into believing.

When I'd stowed him away as a bad memory.

He wavered for a moment, his intensity blazing in the room. "Can't tell you what it meant to have you at my mother's house today, Hailey. That's a sacred place to me. Never thought I'd want to bring someone there. Make them a part of it. And that's exactly where I want you to be."

"And I was afraid of going there because I was worried I might want to stay."

"That's what I want, Hailey. I want you there. With me. Not sure I can imagine my life without you in it anymore."

The truth of what we'd become tremored around us. A threat that both of us were precariously perched on the edge. This heart so close to no longer belonging to me.

"Come here, Shortcake…let me show you just what you mean. Going to make you feel so good tonight…and just like I promised Lolly, I don't plan to ever stop."

There was no hesitation.

I moved.

Drawn to him in an inexplicable way. The way I'd always been. No control over the lure that pulled and persuaded.

He stretched out a long arm and dragged the chair from the small desk that sat against the wall between the room and the bathroom, and he turned it out to face me.

"Sit."

I complied, no reserves, no restraint.

That didn't mean I wasn't shaking like an old washing machine that had been set off-kilter.

Balance lost.

Cody dropped to his knees in front of me.

Need cracked.

A thunderbolt of energy that whipped through the room.

He grabbed the bowl of strawberry shortcake, that slyness riding back to his face as he drove the spoon in deep then came out with a heaping mound. "Open."

Flavor burst on my tongue as he pushed it deep into the well of my mouth.

The tart of the fresh strawberries and the sweet of the cream and the texture of the shortcake all mixed with the impact of the man.

The whole of it made me moan.

Cody growled as he withdrew the spoon and placed it into the bowl.

"What that sound does to me, Hailey. Your voice has become my song."

His eyes traced my jaw, my cheeks, my brow. "What this face does to me. This face that has become my landscape."

A hand clamped down on my waist. "And what this body does to me. This body that's my playground. My sanctuary. My haven."

He set the bowl on the floor, and he dug his fingers into the dessert, forgoing the spoon.

I trembled when he lifted it and pressed two big fingers into my mouth.

"Suck," he told me.

I did. Gladly.

"Good girl," he murmured.

He reached around me and slid the zipper down the back of my dress.

Chills flew as he nudged it down, and I shifted so he could drag it under my bottom, and he knelt as he fully twisted it free of my ankles.

Leaving me bare except for the tiny slip of satin that covered my aching center.

"So fucking stunning, darlin', stealing my breath the way you do."

My nipples hardened.

Diamond peaks.

He went in for another scoop of the dessert, smearing the whipped cream over my left breast before he sucked the pebbled tip into his hot mouth.

Pleasure zipped through me, lighting up between my thighs.

I whimpered and wiggled on the chair.

"So good," he said. "So sweet. You're the treat, Hailey Wagner."

Then he leaned up high on his knees, fingers deft as he plucked out the pins in my hair, carefully, watching me the whole time as he untwisted the halo and unwound the braid until the long locks of my hair drifted down around my shoulders.

"Look at you. An angel I could never deserve. I'm on my knees for you. I'm going to need you to spread yours."

Whimpering, I complied, hands clinging to the edges of the chair like I might float away, my stomach twisted as I watched him dig around for a whole strawberry in the bowl.

One side of his delicious mouth tweaked up as he dragged the tip of it over the scrap of my underwear.

My hips arched from the chair. "Please."

"My sweet, eager girl. I'm going to give it to you, darlin'. Don't you worry."

"You're teasing me."

He chuckled a low sound that tumbled through me like greed. "It's going to be worth it."

Cody hooked his fingers in the band of my underwear, and I drove my heels into the ground and lifted from the chair so he could get them free.

Shivers raced as he slowly dragged them down my legs, his gaze eating me up as he did.

My knees quaked as I sat there fully naked.

"Spread them wide," he ordered, and I obeyed. A short gasp ripped up my throat when he repeated the motion with the strawberry, though this time he was dragging it through my center.

Then he lifted it to his mouth and sank his teeth into the red-fleshed fruit, chewing slow as he watched me through the dancing shadows of my room. "Yeah, my girl is the sweetest treat."

I mewled a desirous sound, the man spinning me into disorder, no foundation left.

No fortitude or rationale or the thought of what waited for us outside these walls as he was pushing to standing and peeling off his tee as he went.

Need grappled through my insides as I gaped at the magnitude of the man. At that packed, bare chest with the designs rippling over muscle, his stomach flexing and bowing with strength as he stood right in front of me.

It was me who was reaching for the buttons, tearing through them like a fiend, because I wasn't sure I could take the playing for a second more. "I need you," tumbled from my lips.

"You got me, Hailey." There was something about the way he said it as he swiped his thumb over my lip, gathering a bit of the whipped cream that remained there and sucking it into his mouth.

A roll of thunder curled through me, rocking through the place that I'd tried to keep protected.

Gaze fierce, he shoved down his jeans and underwear.

His cock popped free, enormous and hard and pointing for me. I leaned forward and licked the tip.

Cody grunted. "Vixen."

"I want to be everything for you." It was out before I could stop it.

"You already are, darlin'," he said as he shucked the rest of the way out of his jeans.

The man bold and bare.

That fortress that promised to stand for me.

He grabbed the can of whipped cream and pushed it to my mouth. "Open."

He sprayed it inside before he bent down and stroked his tongue between my lips.

A buzz lit in my body. Bliss streaking.

His touch and his sweetness and his command.

He ate me up, licking deep into my mouth, moaning as he did. "Strawberries and cream."

My nails raked his chest. "I need you, Cody."

"You've got me," he murmured back, then he took me by the hand and pulled me to standing, though he shifted me around to face the chair. He took me by the outside of my right thigh and propped my foot on the chair, then he smoothed his palm over my bottom and squeezed.

Desire rolled through me on a violent wave, and I pushed back into his hold.

"Needy girl," he murmured at the back of my head before he thrust two fingers into my body. "Is this pussy ready for me?"

"Yes," I rasped.

He drove them in and out before he eased back and took both my butt cheeks in both hands. "How about this ass? Is it mine, too?"

"Yes."

I was half mad with lust.

Needing him anywhere.

Everywhere.

Cody was suddenly on his knees behind me, lashing his tongue from my clit to my ass, swirling and lapping as he ate me up again.

He started swirling the tips of his fingers around my clit as he licked at my backside.

I jarred forward, consumed with the sudden sensation.

Flickers of that bliss lit inside me, flames that lapped, threatening to burst into a forest fire. I held onto the back of the chair as he continued his perfect assault.

"Cody." His name was a petition.

Everything I wanted.

Everything I needed.

Him.

Him.

"I want to feel my cock in that tight ass, Hailey. Want to take it. Claim it. Make it mine. You okay with that?"

My hair whipped around me as I was struck with a frenzy of greed, my nod erratic as I pushed back. "Please."

Cody stood, and I whimpered at the loss. He took the step back to the nightstand and pulled open the drawer, taking out a condom and the bottle of lube he'd tucked in there at the beginning of the week.

I was beginning to understand why it was strawberry flavored.

I watched him from over my shoulder where I was basically bent in two, clinging to the back of the chair with my hips tipped back in a plea.

He groaned. "Never seen a prettier sight. That ass in the air and that face peering back at me. So damned perfect, Hailey. Every curve. Every angle. I'm going to memorize every inch of you."

He flipped the cap to the lube and squeezed it down the cleft of my ass before he was licking me again, working me into a frenzy.

I gasped when he stood, covered himself, then pressed the head of his cock to my hole, trembling and trembling as I waited for him to take the place that I'd refused to ever let Pruitt touch.

Cody had touched me there a bunch of times this week, with that lube, pushing his fingers inside as his cock had been fitted in my pussy, each time driving me out of my mind.

But this was different, and I saw it too, the way Cody's jaw was held rigid, those eyes aflame and his care pulsing out as he smoothed a big hand down my spine.

"You tell me if it's too much, Hailey. Do you understand?"

My nod was rabid.

He gripped me by the hips. And it probably was a little too much, the man enormous, the pressure and sting of him as he slowly nudged himself inside making me writhe and gasp and choke.

"Are you good?"

"Yes. Please." It was chaos dripping from my tongue. "Cody, please."

I couldn't stop the tumble of need.

He grunted in restraint as he took me and took me until he was fully seated, until I was rasping and my thighs were trembling and a bead of sweat was gliding down my back.

"Fuck me, darlin'. You don't have a clue what it feels like taking you like this. How good this ass feels fisting my cock. So tight you're going to knock me the fuck out."

I couldn't process all the sensations, the way it felt like I was dying a little, in the most perfect, mind-bending way. This dark, decadent bliss that curled around me in drugging waves, the way it felt like too much and too little, like I was never going to be the same.

I tightened my hold on the chair while I looked back at the man from over my shoulder.

At his rugged features that had gone severe.

His jaw fierce and his lips plump.

Every inch of him vibrating with possession.

And that's what I wanted.

I wanted to be his.

So I told him, "Fuck me, Cody, and don't you dare be gentle with me."