45. Cody

FORTY-FIVE

There was no amount of pain that would keep me from her right then. No agony that would stop me from touching her because the true agony would be not getting to spend this life with her.

I'd thought I was going to lose that today. Thought my past had finally caught up to me, and my time had ended. I'd thought I wasn't going to get to ever kiss her again. Touch her again.

Hold her until morning the way she liked me to do. The way she'd curl up in my arms and whisper her need for me in her sleep.

I'd thought she'd never get to hear it—that she'd never know just how goddamned much I loved her. How this heart now beat for her. And I'd almost never gotten to hear her say it back.

Confess those words that had washed through me like a cleansing.

Purifying all the wrongs I'd ever committed.

I love you.

I love you.

"I don't want to hurt you." Concern weaved through her brow, but I could taste the way her need filled the air. Her fingers digging into my shirt. Heat licking in a slow dance between us.

"The only thing that could hurt me right now is not getting to have you, though you might have to be the one who's doing all the work." I let the tease play into the words.

Let them wind as seduction.

Hailey nibbled on her upper lip like she was envisioning all the ways she could make that happen.

"All the work, huh?"

"Yup."

"Hmm…"

I brushed my thumb over her lip before I leaned in for a kiss, taking her mouth slow, relishing in this woman.

The words rolled up my throat, soft and adoring. "You are the meaning of this life."

She inhaled them, taking them on as her own, and she breathed hers back into me. "You are the hope that I'd been missing. The light when my faith had gone dark."

Our kisses were slow.

Our mouths moving in time.

In sync.

Treasuring each other.

Her touch was soft and careful.

Mine was reverent, palms gliding down her back and riding up her sides.

Holding her face.

Her neck.

Carefully, she peeled up my shirt, and I edged back to help her, trying not to wince which was fucking impossible since every inch of me throbbed like a bitch.

None of that mattered.

The only thing that mattered was her.

"You are a piece of me I was terrified to admit existed," she whispered as I leaned down and she peeled the fabric over my head.

Eyes the color of that river swept over me in the shadows that played across her room.

She reached out and gently brushed her fingertips down the center of my chest. "The first time I saw you all those years ago…from all the way across that field…I wanted you. Wanted something I'd never wanted before."

She kept skimming those fingertips over my flesh.

Soft.

Adoring.

Healing.

"I thought it was physical. That thing called attraction. But maybe it was all of you, Cody Cooper. Maybe my spirit already recognized you. Because in all those years, I could never forget you."

"There was always something that ached at the back of my mind every time I thought of you," I told her.

She peeked up at me. "You thought of me?"

"How could I not think of you?" I asked it as I started to work through the buttons of her blouse, and a wisp of a sigh fluttered between her lips when I pushed the material back.

She wound out of it and let it drop to the floor just as I was taking her enormous tits in my hands.

I brushed my thumbs over the peaks of her nipples.

Whimpering, she pushed harder into my touch. "Cody."

"I know it, darlin'. I feel it, too. You and me were supposed to be."

I knew she felt some guilt over it. Could feel the minute flinch that my words brought. Her confession still rolling through the air and kicking me in the guts.

I was having a difficult time imagining that Brooke might have done what Hailey implied. That she'd purposefully taken her life. That it wasn't some tragic accident.

Brooke had told me she got who we were to each other. That she agreed there wasn't anything real between us. That it'd been just as we'd established at the beginning—a fling and nothing more.

Apparently, she'd led Hailey to believe something else.

I needed Hailey to know there would never be anyone standing in the middle of us.

"You are the first person who has ever really made me feel anything, Hailey. The first person who made my heart beat faster. The first person who's ever kept me up at night."

"And you are the first person who has really stood for me. You are the one who makes me feel safe. Cherished. Loved," she whispered back.

"Because that's exactly what you are. Cherished and loved. I love you so fucking much, baby. Never thought it would happen. And you…you changed everything I knew." I reached around and unclasped her bra as I said it, and I dragged the silken straps down her arms.

A hiss slipped from between my teeth. "So fucking stunning. This face and this body and this heart. You turned me inside out, Hailey."

"It's you who changed everything, Cody. I think it was you that brought us here. I think you were calling us home."

"That's right, darlin'. You were the one I was waiting on all along."

I tugged at the button of her jeans. "And no matter what, I'm going to be right here. With you. We're going to take this bastard down."

Fear flashed through her features, the dread that hovered around us in the periphery, waiting to consume. It didn't have any place with us tonight, so I swooped down and captured her mouth, refocusing her attention on the things that were right.

Tender hands roved my body, and she carefully unbuttoned my jeans as I kissed her with all the passion bottled inside.

What had built for years, shored up for this time.

For her.

Hailey shifted me to sitting on the bed, and she climbed down in front of me. She worked the laces of my boots.

"Have to admit I like the sight of you on your knees for me." I tried my best to make it come out a tease, but it was hard holding onto that right then. Not with the way the energy thrashed and lapped.

Tugging one boot off, she quirked me a soft grin. "I've been on my knees for you since I was eighteen."

"Don't worry, honey, you've got me the same. On my knees. Motherfucking smitten."

Redness lit on those cheeks, and I traced the spot while she unlaced my other boot. Once she got it free, she angled up so she could peel down my jeans.

She took my underwear with them as she went.

I lifted up to help her drag them off my legs.

A static charge zipped through the room.

Me sitting there bare and so goddamn hard I couldn't see.

"You're so beautiful," she murmured, which was fucking ridiculous because I was all scars and roughened skin and years of working out in the sun, and she was pure, unblemished beauty kneeling in front of me.

"Only thing I care about is being right in your eyes, Hailey."

"You already are, Cody. You are the only thing I can see."

She wrapped a hand around my dick, fisting me as she gave a hard stroke.

Pleasure prowled my spine. "Fuck me, baby, just that sweet hand could send me over the edge."

Who knew such an innocent smile could also come off as wicked, and those plush, full lips twisted in seduction as she kept stroking me. "Good because I'm already halfway there just looking at you."

"Well, half is not going to do, now is it? How about you strip the rest of the way out of those jeans?"

"You want me to strip for you, huh?" She played right along.

"Yeah, do it real nice."

Hailey pushed up to standing, backing two steps away, bare from the waist up.

A river of that warm blonde hair cascaded around her, teasing tendrils I couldn't wait to fist.

Tits pert and peaked and perfect.

She leaned over to pull off her boots and the thick socks she wore with them, and she wiggled her toes as she stood there staring across at me, unsure of what she was supposed to do next.

"Don't be shy, darlin'. You're mine, remember?"

She swayed those hips back and forth, slowly rocking her head from side to side, her hand riding up her abdomen and over her breasts until she was winding a hand up in her hair.

"Hell yes, just like that," I grunted.

The button was already undone on her jeans, and she slowly turned around in a lust-inducing dance. She hooked her thumbs in the waistband and barely wiggled them down, giving me a tease of just the cleft of that glorious ass.

I growled. "Temptress, aren't you?"

"Never, I'm only doing what my man asked me to do."

She peeked at me from over her shoulder when she said it, the razzing written all over her face while desire dripped from every inch of her body.

"You really are my match. Signed and sealed." Need barreled out with the statement, and she slipped those jeans lower, exposing the lace of her panties.

"That's right. We're a perfect fit."

Fuck me.

She was teasing.

Playing.

Tantalizing.

Maybe because she wanted to ignore what was looming around us, too. What we were going to have to face.

But not tonight.

Tonight was for us.

"Then get that hot ass over here so I can show you just how perfect a fit we are. I want that pussy on my dick."

Heat sparked at my words, and she shimmied the rest of the way out of her jeans before she turned to saunter over, peeling those undies down as she came.

She wound them off her ankles at the last second before she was standing right in front of me.

Bare.

So fucking stunning my heart tripped.

I pushed my fingers between her thighs. "Already dripping for me."

At the contact, Hailey whimpered, then she lightly pushed at my shoulders. "Lean against the headboard."

My brows rose at her command. "I see who's in charge tonight."

She shrugged a delicate shoulder. "You told me I was going to be the one doing all the work."

"I like the sound of that, but I'm going to like the feel of it even better," I told her.

Flames licked in the room as I crawled backward up the bed, readjusting the pillows so I could fully lean upright on the headboard.

Hailey stood at the side.

A vision.

A goddess.

My sweet Shortcake who'd turned all vixen.

Blonde hair falling all around her as she crawled onto the bed.

I grunted when she came to straddle me.

She hesitated. "Am I hurting you?"

My fingers clamped down on one of her lush hips. "Only pain I'm feeling right now is the need to get inside you."

Hailey braced herself with one hand on the headboard before she lifted up and aligned my dick at her center.

A flash of hesitation brimmed in her gaze as she hovered there, my dick bare, and my throat nearly closed off as she slowly sank down onto me.

Taking me skin to skin.

Claiming me in her own way.

Because we both knew from here on out it was only going to be the two of us.

No barriers left.

Her walls throbbed as I filled her to the brink of breaking.

Her thighs shook as she fully seated herself.

So hot and tight that I nearly blacked out at the feel of her.

"Perfect fuckin' fit, you and me. The way this pussy hugs my cock. You were made for me, darlin'. Carved for me. It for me. And I was created for you."

A shaky breath left her as she adjusted to me again, both hands coming to my shoulders, eyes brimming with the love that could no longer be contained. "There was a part of me that always knew it. I felt you like a piece that had gone missing."

I brushed back a lock of soft, silky hair. "No more missing, Hailey. It's just you and me. Now ride me, darlin'. And don't you worry about being gentle."

Hailey lifted up and sank back down.

Friction blazed.

Spreading like wildfire through my veins.

She did it again, a little harder that time.

A little faster as she began to ride me.

"You feel so good," she whimpered, her nose brushing mine, her breaths shallow as she rocked.

"You are paradise."

My heaven.

My escape from the chains.

She started taking me harder, whispers and moans slipping from her mouth as she spun her perfect pleasure.

Knitting me in ecstasy.

She leaned in closer, the words barely a breath. "And you are my home."

"That's what I want to be, darlin'. Your home. Your safe place. Your everything."

"You are, Cody. You are."

Devotion pummeled me like a fist to the head.

The truth that this was it.

"Need it harder, baby. Don't be shy. Wreck me."

I already was.

Done for.

Destroyed.

Greed filled her gaze, and I nearly died at the loss of friction when she slowed then stopped, but then I was dying all over again when she languidly shifted around.

This time in the best way possible.

The woman giving me a view of that round, sumptuous ass as she straddled me facing away.

A greedy groan tumbled around like rocks in my chest. "You really are trying to wreck me."

"You asked for it." She sent me a saucy grin, though it was affection in those eyes, and I knew I was the luckiest bastard alive when she sank back down.

Her cunt fisted me in its tight, wet grip, and she gasped out at the change in position.

I had to grit my teeth not to burst apart at the blinding bliss that streaked through my body.

Intensity shivered around us, tiny lightning bolts in the room, that energy whipping and whirring, this connection unlike anything I'd ever shared with another.

I wrapped an arm around her front and fisted the other up in the fall of her hair, and I pressed my lips to the back of her neck. "I love you, Hailey. You got me. All my days. All my tomorrows. Every night and every morning."

"Every second," she murmured.

I could feel the charge in the air. The sense that everything was going to combust.

Crackles lit on our flesh. Pinpricks that sparked and flamed and whipped.

I ran my fingertips across her back, following the chills that blazed a path across her skin.

Puffs of need left her on wisps, and she started moving again, taking me in slow, measured strokes, my hand bound in her hair and her back brushing my chest as she rocked.

And it felt like we'd become one entity.

One body.

One mind.

One existence.

Our souls meshing.

Our worlds colliding and crashing.

In the aftermath, we'd become something brand new.

I let my hand wander down her belly so I could get to her engorged, needy clit.

The woman wound in desire, need escaping her lips with every roll of her hips.

Heat flared the second I touched her, and I swirled my fingers around that sweet nub.

Hailey began to gasp and writhe, the two of us rising, our spirits lifting, this pleasure gathering the strength of a thousand suns.

I pushed my mouth up to her ear. "Let go," I grunted.

Hailey sank back into my hold and she whispered, "I already did. I'm yours. My heart is in your hands."

I felt her orgasm hit. Spasms lit her up. A full-body glow as she whimpered and writhed.

Her cunt throbbed around my dick as she sucked me even deeper, and that ball of bliss that had wound inside me snapped.

She squeezed me as I came, and I poured and poured into her, this rapture going on and on.

Forever.

Because that's what this was.

Forever.

We both were panting as we hovered high.

Lifted above this reality to a place that was all our own.

I pulled her closer, and I wrapped both arms around her as I pressed my lips to the cap of her shoulder. "I can't wait to spend my life loving you."

She barely shifted to look back at me, that gaze spearing me through. "Good. Because I give every single one of my days to you."