by Nicole Dykes
I shake my head nervously. “No.”
He moans in approval as his tongue flicks over my clit. He slides two fingers into my pussy, and then one finger breaches my ass. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s uncomfortable as he stretches me. I feel full and on edge, my entire body alert, craving a release. Nearly frantic for it. His tongue is working my clit so well that I barely notice as he pushes inside where no one has ever been. “Coop.”
He pauses. “Too much?”
I don’t want him to stop and shake my head. “I want to come.”
His mouth moves back to my clit as his fingers fill me everywhere. The fingers inside my pussy hit my g-spot, and I lose it, my entire body vibrating. The words coming out of my mouth are nonsensical as I dig into the skin of his shoulder and come harder than I ever have before.
He laps at my clit and doesn’t stop moving his fingers until I regain enough control to push him back and plead for him to stop, the sensation almost too much.
He grins that cocky, confident smile as he stands and takes my hand, leading me out of the bathroom and back to the couch, both of us wet and naked. When we reach the couch, he sits, and I climb onto his lap.
I know he probably likes more control in the bedroom, but his arm limits his movement a little, and I just want him inside me while my body still hums with pleasure.
I sink down onto his lap, letting him inside my body and kiss his lips as his free hand grips my ass and helps me ride him.
Right now, I don’t think about anything else. I just kiss him and get lost in our chaotic rhythm.
It’s just me and Coop.
Everly rides my dick, and I grip her ass with my one good hand, wishing like hell my arm was healed so I could have both.
The woman drives me insane, and I’m already close to coming thanks to an hour of foreplay.
Her lips find mine as I feel her pussy squeeze around me, signaling she’s close to coming again. I take her mouth with mine and relish in the moan from her I swallow with the kiss. My chest aches with guilt, but not the usual.
No, right now my mind is stuck on the fact that I know something she doesn’t about Liam. I know he cheated on her, and I haven’t told her. Everything is fucked in my head, and I don’t know where the hell my loyalty should lie.
My best friend is dead, but does that mean that I no longer have any loyalty to him?
Everly is perfect and currently riding my dick, but didn’t she hate me only weeks ago? Or at least seem to?
The lines are blurred, and everything is so fucked up. But I feel like I’m betraying her every second I don’t tell her the truth about Liam.
“Hey.” She pulls back, and her pretty eyes meet mine as our movements pause. “Where did you go?”
I stare at her, at her pouty lips swollen from our kiss and those stormy eyes full of concern. I bring my hand up to sweep her hair to the side. “I’m here.”
She’s studying me, always good at picking up on bullshit. “Are you sure? It felt like you were somewhere else, and I’m really fucking close to a great orgasm.”
She’s smiling now and biting on that pouty lip. “I’m here.” I bring her face closer and kiss her with everything I have. As her lips move with mine and she sucks on my tongue and then my bottom lip, I know I need to tell her the truth.
I owe it to her to be honest.
We start our movements again, her pussy swallowing my cock as I thrust up into her, chasing the release while we attack each other’s mouths. Soon, her head falls forward. Her forehead is pressed against mine as her fingernails dig into the flesh of my shoulders and she falls over the edge, bringing me with her.
I come inside her, and when she comes down from her own orgasm, she smiles and presses her lips against mine. “Not a bad present.”
I smile, but my mind is still racing, stuck in the past. About what Liam told me. About him cheating on her. She climbs off my lap, grabbing one of my t-shirts she likes to wear to bed and carries a lamp toward the bathroom, probably to clean up. I tug my briefs up but leave my pants off.
She comes back, wearing my t-shirt, and we lay down on the couch. She’s tucked to my side as we watch the fire. “Was Liam your first?”
Her eyes flick up to mine, and she looks slightly horrified. Why, I’m not sure. We don’t really hold back with our questions. We both just say what we’re thinking most of the time. “Um . . .” She cocks her head to the side, still looking at me like I’m crazy for asking. “No. I had a boyfriend in high school. He was my first.”
I nod, kind of grateful because if Liam was her first love, I think the information I have will be worse somehow. I smooth my hand over her soft black hair. “What happened with him?”
She turns in my arms so she can look at me. “Why are you asking?”
I shrug, trying to seem nonchalant, but I know she sees through me. “Boredom.”
She laughs at that and settles on her back. “Gee, thanks. Can’t we just enjoy the post-sex euphoria?”
“I’m just curious.”
She sighs softly but doesn’t sound too sad. “He was a year older than me. We started dating my sophomore year, and he was great. But then he went to college, and I was still in high school.” I tense because I have a feeling I know where this is going. “We thought we could make it work, but, of course, we couldn’t. He cheated on me at some party during his first semester.”
Well. Fuck.
“Asshole.”
She laughs again and turns, her hands on my chest as she looks up at me. “We were young. It was foolish to think we could make it through that temptation.”
I swallow, bile rising in my throat because if I tell her about Liam . . . I know she won’t handle it nearly as well as some jackass cheating on her in high school. If she chalked that up to temptation when she wasn’t around, how could Liam’s cheating be explained?
He had everything. He had her in his bed anytime he wanted. She was an attentive and good girlfriend to him.
My hand unconsciously clenches into a fist, thinking about it. How the hell could he do that to her?
“You weren’t mad?”
I can tell she’s thinking it over by the look on her face, but then she shakes her head slowly. “Not really. I mean . . . I was pissed at first, but I was glad he told me about it the next day instead of just constantly cheating.” Double fuck. “But my mom was really, really pissed off.”
“I think any mom would be.”
She shakes her head again, a dark look washing over her pretty face. “No. She was mad at me.”
“What the fuck?”
“Yeah. See, his parents and my parents were best friends. All four surgeons. They hoped we’d get married and produce some sort of super surgeon spawn.”
“That’s fucked up.”
She doesn’t argue. “It is. But they didn’t see it that way. When I told my mom we broke up, she was livid. Told me how it was nothing. That men can’t help it.”
I hold her closer to me, my stomach revolting. “That’s so fucked up. And total bullshit.”
She nods, her finger tracing over one of my tattoos. “I agreed, but my dad has had so many affairs over the years, it’s probably what she believes. And she’s nowhere near innocent.”
“Wow.”
She smiles, and it’s bright, her face glowing from her orgasm and the firelight in the room. “Yeah. I come from all kinds of fucked up, but I won’t be like that. I think you should marry your friend. It should be a partnership with total honesty.”
Again, my gut recoils at her words, and I feel sick with guilt. “You and Liam . . . Were you guys going to get married, you think?”
She looks thoughtful, her fingertips brushing over the slight trail of hair below my belly button. “I don’t know. We didn’t really talk about it.”
“You were dating for three years.”
“Yeah, I know, but when we talked about the future, it was mostly just about his career. That was pretty much it. He wanted to become a doct
or.”
I knew he was focused on his career, but I thought his focus was on her too. Everything seems distorted now. I don’t know what to believe.
“And what did you want?”
Her eyes meet mine as her palm flattens over my abs, and then she smiles, shaking her head. “No. I’m not telling you that.”
“Telling me what?”
“What I want to be when I grow up. I know you’ll give me shit.”
Now she has me intrigued. “Tell me.”
I can see on her face that she wants to. Badly. She gnaws on her bottom lip nervously and then tucks her hair behind her ear. “If I wanted to see my parents growing up, I pretty much had to go to the hospital to do it. All my siblings, they went to visit them and decided they wanted to be doctors or surgeons, but not me. That was the absolute last thing I wanted.”
Explains why she isn’t pre-med.
“But I did volunteer there.” She looks away shyly. “It sounds so stupid.”
“It won’t. Just tell me.” I want to know everything about her.
“Well, I would bring in gifts from the giftshop to patients. And I loved seeing their faces light up when I would bring in a bouquet of flowers.” My eyebrow quirks in question, uncertain where she’s going with this but desperately wanting her to go on. “It just . . . even if things were bleak, it was like it flipped a switch in them when they saw the flowers. It gave them hope. Let them know that someone cared about them.”
She looks away, and I know she’s embarrassed. “Look at me.”
She does, and I watch her delicate throat as she swallows and then clears her throat. “I want to bring that kind of joy. I want to brighten the world which . . .” Her eyes roll. “I know that doesn’t sound like me.”
“You bring me joy.” I smile, trying to make it into a joke, but it’s not really. She always made me smile, even when she hated me.
“I want to be a florist. Have my own shop.” She brings one finger up to point it at me. “Do not say anything.”
I laugh, even though her elbow is now lodged in my stomach. “I think that’s awesome. Why not?”
“My parents would kill me. They already threw a fit when I chose to be a business major.”
“That will come in handy when you have your own store.”
She shakes her head and then lays her cheek on my chest. “They won’t allow it.”
“Fuck them, you’re an adult.”
“I’ll be a broke adult without their money.”
“I’ll fund it. Doctors are rich motherfuckers.”
She chuckles, and I love that sound. I wonder if she can hear how fast her laughter makes my heart beat. “They are but not for a while. You still have what . . . five more years of school?”
I smile. “My dad’s a rich motherfucker already. I’ll talk him into it.”
I can feel her smiling against my bare skin. “It’s just a stupid idea. One I’ve never told anyone else.”
“Not even Liam?”
“No. He didn’t understand the whole business thing. No way he would understand flowers.”
I try not to enjoy the fact that I know this about her and he never did. It makes me an asshole, but I smile anyway. “My mom had a bakery.”
She looks up at me with surprise. “She did?”
I nod my head, offering her information no one else knows either. “Yeah. That’s how my parents met. She had this small bakery off the interstate. He went there one morning for breakfast on a whim. He was pissed because his coffee was cold and demanded to talk to the owner. My mom was the owner and the one working.” I think about my dad, drunk off his ass on the anniversary of her death and telling me this story. “He was this ruthless, cutthroat finance guy in a suit, and she was this tiny woman in a sundress, completely unafraid of him.”
She smiles and brushes her fingers over the hair over my cheek. “Sounds like an epic love story.”
I snort, unable to think of my dad loving anyone but himself. “He asked her for a date. She declined but warmed up his coffee.” I smile at that. “He said he couldn’t get her out of his head. He wasn’t used to hearing anyone tell him ‘no.’ So, he came back every day for three months and finally she relented.”
“Sounds like he loved her.”
“Maybe.”
“Coop . . .”
I try to swallow away the pain morphing into a lump in my throat. “I can’t imagine him being in love. She died of a heart condition. Undiagnosed. No one knew she was sick until it was too late.”
Her eyes move to my tattoo, the one with the human heart, and her fingers trace over it as she connects the dots. “I’m sorry.”
“I was young. Really young.”
“What happened to her bakery?”
I look away from her toward the fire, all the memories too fucking much. “He sold it. He sold everything—the bakery, and then when my grandparents died, he sold their land too. It was like he wanted no memory of any of them.”
“Coop . . .” Her hand moves to my face, directing my sight back to her. “Sometimes memories are too painful.”
“I prefer to think he’s a selfish bastard. I wanted my grandparent’s land. I wanted my mom’s bakery. He could have kept it running.”
“Maybe it was too much.”
Her lips press softly to mine, and I hold her to me, pissed at my father and also at my mother for dying. At Liam for lying and cheating on the one woman I’d kill to have. At me for not telling her the truth.
“We all do what we have to so we can survive the pain of loss. You’ve had so much loss.”
I kiss her softly. “So have you.” I pull back enough to look into her eyes. “Brightening people’s lives is a hell of a lot better than trying to make sure they’re just as dark as you. You should open your own flower shop.”
I know she thinks she’s dark and Aria was light, but in my mind, her way is better than always being bright and shiny. She doesn’t feel that way on the inside, yet she wants to be. She wants others to be happy even when she isn’t feeling that way.
She opens her mouth to say something but must decide against it as her hand rests over my thundering heart. “Your goal of treating people’s hearts so that some other little boy may not have to suffer the loss of their mother is a beautiful thing too. You’re not him.”
It’s all too much, and instead of talking any more, I take her mouth again.
And she gives it to me willingly, taking away my pain.
Because that’s what Everly does. She takes away the pain.
“It’s snowing a-fucking-gain.” I look over at Cooper after staring out the window and seeing the white stuff coming down with a vengeance. I’m so fucking tired of the snow.
Cooper barely looks up from the magazine we found last week. It was on the floor in one of the closets. It’s some cooking magazine we’ve both memorized front to back by now. He’s been strange since Christmas a few days ago.
Maybe we opened up too much.
I don’t know what it is, but he’s definitely been off. I walk to him and pull my shirt off as I go. “Coop . . .”
He looks up now, his eyes locked on my lacy bra. “What?”
I unhook the bra and let it drop to the floor before straddling his lap. “If I have to get naked for you to pay attention to me, I guess I can do that.”
He tosses the magazine next to him, and I move in to kiss his neck, still unable to get enough of him. “Ev . . .”
His voice sounds strangled, like it’s hard for him to say my name. This sends a fearful chill through me as I stop kissing his neck and look into his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“I need to tell you something.”
I’m afraid. I have no idea what’s going on in his mind, but one look in his eyes tells me it’s not good. “What’s wrong?”
I watch his Adam’s apple bob in his throat as he looks away. The sun is starting to go down, but there’s still light from outside and the fire. It’s enough for me to see him very
clearly. And he looks worried.
“You’re scaring me. What’s wrong?”
His hand reaches up, stroking my cheek gently. “You’ll hate me.”
What the hell could he have possibly done all the way out here? “I won’t. What happened? Did you eat the last package of beef jerky?”
He doesn’t smile. His face doesn’t change from the sad, nervous look that’s terrifying me. “It’s about Liam.”
I freeze and stare at him. “What about him?”
His gaze lowers to my bare chest and then back up to my face. “Maybe you should get dressed.”
“Just tell me.”
Liam’s dead. He has been for almost a month now. I don’t understand what’s happening, but my mind is racing. “Get dressed, Ev.”
I climb off his lap and grab my shirt, tugging it on and skipping the bra. “What? What about Liam?”
I’m standing, but he remains seated, looking so worried and shattered that he almost doesn’t look like himself as he gazes up at me through remorseful eyes. “He told me something.”
“What?” I take a seat next to him. “When?”
“Before we left.”
“What did he tell you?” What the hell is going on?
“He, uh . . .” He stops, and my heart races along with my mind. “Ev.”
“What, Cooper?”
He swallows again and then takes a deep breath. “He cheated on you.”
I stand up, my legs feeling weak, but I manage to remain standing as I stare down at Coop, studying his face. Looking for the joke in them, but it isn’t there. “What are you talking about? No, he didn’t.”
“He did.” He stands but keeps a couple of feet between us. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything before. I just . . .” He grazes his hand through his hair, gripping the ends tightly. “I didn’t . . .” He’s at a loss for words, and my body goes numb, thinking back over that last month with Liam.
“No. There’s no way he’d do that to me.”
