Finding Serenity

by Eden Butler

  Seeming to realize Declan won’t let her off the hook, Layla deflates and she rests against the back of the chair, looking at Mollie. Across the table, Mollie sees Vaughn’s wide eyes, the grin that dimples his cheek as though he’s enjoying the entertainment. “Fine. So, that asshole doused me as I’m trying to work on my tan, at my house, mind you, which is just a violation of general prank decorum.” Declan’s snorts and Layla glares at him. “So, I thought, fire with fire, and went to his apartment. Which, by the way,” here she closes her eyes and shudder works over her shoulders, “single grossest place I’ve ever stepped my Jimmy’s onto in my life. Smells like weed and those Neanderthals seem incapable of picking up their dirty underwear or used condom wrappers.”

  “Not everyone can have a maid, love.” There is a niggling tone in Declan’s voice and over Layla’s loud “whatever,” Mollie hears Declan making excuses to Autumn for his friends’ disgusting apartment.

  “Newsflash, Irish, we don’t have a maid. We have a cook and that’s only because my mom is a surgeon and is too damn busy to cook anything, so shut it.”

  Declan laughs, raises his hands in surrender.

  “So, how’d you get into his apartment?” Mollie asks.

  “Pffft, easy. A couple of Kappa Sigs picked the lock. Andrew Shipley is the president and he owes me since I got Walter to tear up the ticket he wrote them for public indecency.” At Mollie’s frown and slight head tilt, Layla explains. “Streaking at the Founder’s Day luncheon. Idiots.”

  Vaughn leans in, captivated. “Does she always talk this much?”

  Mollie nods, distracted, and her attention quickly returns to her best friend.

  “So I got him good. Waited until I knew he’d be at practice, thank you, Dad, and snuck in. That pothead he lives with was totally crashed out on the sofa and so I slip into Donovan’s room with a can of fluorescent green oil based paint.” Mollie shakes her head, eyes closed, knowing that the oil based paint would be impossible to get out. Layla catches Mollie’s frown and her smile becomes obnoxious, as though she’s proud at the devious levels of her prank. “I’m waiting outside his window when he gets home, all stinky and disgusting from practice.” She wrinkles her nose, but then, when the next chapter in the story pops into her mind, the blonde’s smile grows wicked. “Then I hear it… the whine of his door, the simultaneous flick of the light and thunk of the paint can knocking against his head. I got everything on my phone, of course.”

  “Tell her how you managed to sprain his ankle.” Declan isn’t smiling and his waves off Autumn’s elbow to his ribs.

  “That wasn’t intentional,” Layla tells Declan.

  The Irishman leans forward, gaze shifting between Mollie and Vaughn who are clearly the only people at the table unfamiliar with the levels of Layla’s prank. “This crazy bird buttered the bloody floor in his bathroom. With real bleeding butter so my poor mate is screaming his head off, paint all over, and he runs into the bathroom to clean himself up a bit and slides all the way across the floor, lands on his arse. He’s out of commission for the first two matches of the season.” Declan shakes his head. “Best you mind yourself, Layla. He’ll have far too much time on his hands to think of devious revenge.”

  “Please. I’m Prank Queen. He’ll never get that paint out of his apartment.”

  “You could have really hurt him, Layla,” Sayo says, leaning her elbows on the table.

  “It wasn’t that much butter and Donovan is a big boy and quick on his feet.” Layla catches how Declan shakes his head, how Autumn stops him from saying anything with a touch on his arm. Vaughn mumbles to Mollie, they both laugh and Mollie tries to keep her humor in check, but Layla spots her smirk and she pushes her plate aside, frowning at Vaughn. “What?”

  Vaughn looks around the table watching everyone’s expression. “So I take it none of you have nutted up and told her what’s really going on, right?”

  “What’s going on?” Layla asks, as she brings her gaze to around the table, to her friends and their shifting attention. No one will look at her directly.

  Finally, Vaughn exhales, moving his elbow onto the table surface. “Layla, you could end all this misery very easily.”

  “How?”

  He picks up his glass and takes a sip, offers her a slight shrug. “Fuck him.”

  Layla’s face is ashen and her mouth drops open, despite the hysterical laughter around her.

  When she protests, the laughter only gets louder. “That’s just… how, ew no. He’s disgusting.”

  “And yet, last month at Sayo’s barbeque,” Mollie offers, “you couldn’t keep your eyes off of him when he jumped in the pool.”

  “I have a boyfriend.” Mollie thinks her best friend’s protest is a little too loud, her chin uplifted a bit too high.

  “Who you didn’t even call to tell you’d be out of town,” Sayo says.

  Mollie’s stomach aches with the humor taking over her body and when Layla stands from the table and throws her napkin in Vaughn’s face, she has to lean on the table to catch her breath.

  “You know what, fuck you all. I’m going to bed.”

  Mollie makes to follow Layla, but Sayo brushes her off. “I’ll get her, hon. We’re in the north cabin. You shouldn’t have to walk all that way.” And Sayo and Layla disappear from the dining room before the laughter has completely settled.

  Autumn stands with two plates in her hand and her shoulders still shaking. Mollie loves seeing her like this, loves even more how Declan follows her, how they move together so easily. Autumn nods to several dishes and Declan grabs them before they both disappear into the kitchen. When Mollie stands as well, grabbing her plate and Layla’s, Vaughn moves to her side and takes them out of her hand. “Why don’t you go catch a shower? I’ll help them clean.”

  “Vaughn, I bumped my head. I’m fine.”

  “I’m aware, but you are my guest here.” Two cups and a few napkins are added to Vaughn’s stack before Mollie can stop him. “Let me try to make up for getting us in a wreck.” Mollie doesn’t like how easy Vaughn takes blame. She begins to argue, to reassure him that she doesn’t blame him for anything, but Vaughn gives her a little shove on her ass, directing her toward the bedroom. “Go on. I’ll come check on you in a little while.”

  The bathroom is a mammoth; more slate covering the walk-in shower and a wide double vanity with copper sinks. Mollie strips quickly, setting the shower to hot before she is completely naked. Above the vanity is a wall-sized mirror set in a black metal frame and when Mollie looks at herself, steam billowing already in the room, she notices how the dark circles under her eyes have vanished, how the faint lines at the corners of her lids are now gone. Layla had told her she slept in and out for two days and it seems to Mollie that long sleep has served her well. Her body aches, muscles tight and she hopes the shower will alleviate some of the lingering soreness from the crash.

  Her thick hair, now clean and de-matted thanks to her best friend’s expert combing before dinner, feels soft between her fingers as she twists it up, working an elastic to secure the bun on the top of her head. When she enters the shower, Mollie releases a low moan, loving the hard, hot spray against her skin and the how it massages away the knots she’s accumulated in her shoulders.

  The soap on the built-in shelf is white, barely more than a sliver and when Mollie grabs it and inhales, it smells like Vaughn, his musky, masculine scent that always leaves her mouth watering. He was in here this morning, his large body naked, his massive back touching the same warm stones. The thought has Mollie trembling, despite the heat of the water. He kissed her this morning though when she first saw him after she woke, she’d been certain that he was keeping to his “no touch, I made a promise” policy. But then, he saw her sitting on that massive bed, hair fanning out in all directions, and the at-a-arm’s-length Marine did not make an appearance. He climbed onto the bed, held her, and pulled her onto his lap, cradling her head under his chin. Mollie loved the sensation of being so close to him, l
istening to the slow rhythm of his heartbeat as she rested against his chest.

  “I’m so glad you’re okay,” he’d told her, arms tightening when she rubbed her cheek up his chest. “I was so scared, seeing you like that…”

  Mollie knew Vaughn had seen horrors, had experienced his own nightmares made real when he returned to the States and so she did not want him thinking of her battered and broken in that car. She’d distracted him by pulling his shirt to the side and examining his wound.

  “Layla said it was a graze?”

  “It’s fine. I’ve had worse.” He’d been trying for strength, to diminish his own injuries and focus on Mollie. The self-sacrificing behavior is the one thing about him that Mollie respected and hated equally.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re okay too.”

  And then, Vaughn ran from the promises he made, skating from the things he thought were right and sensible and kissed Mollie. He hadn’t demanded, had been very gentle, but Mollie had missed the texture of his lips, the way they were both rough and smooth at the same time. She’d missed his hands holding her head as his mouth worked over her and so, she’d tugged on his collar, poured into that kiss everything she couldn’t admit to him. With the swipe of her tongue she said “I’m sorry” and “I need you” and “You can’t push me away.” He responded, became as worked up by that small gesture as she had and when they fell back onto the bed, when Vaughn’s hands left her neck and tugged onto her hip, Mollie thought she’d die from relief.

  “Shit.” Vaughn had pulled back, fingers tugging on her shirt as though he was trying to restrain himself. “Your friends are out there and I’m supposed to be manning the grill.”

  “Ribs?” Until he mentioned food, Mollie didn’t realize how hungry she was.

  “Naturally.” He’d sat them up, holding her close to him. “Can we pick this back up after dinner?”

  “We better.”

  They hadn’t talked about what happened before the wreck or Vaughn’s instant jealousy over Ryan’s invitation, but Mollie figures that isn’t important. Not now. Not when she knows what to expect tonight. Smiling, she replaces Vaughn’s soap on the shelf and reaches for the body wash with the delicate flower on the label before she lathers up.

  The heat and steam from the bathroom escapes through the door when Mollie opens it and the shift in temperature has her a bit light headed. Her legs wobble and she reaches for the desk next to the door, then smiles when a pair of wide arms circle her waist.

  “Woah. I’ve got you.”

  She pats Vaughn once and he releases her, follows her to the bed. “Maybe a little too much wine.” Mollie’s shoulders are a bunched mess and when she stretches them, wincing at the sharp ache through the top of her back, Vaughn points to the floor, before he sits behind her. “You don’t have to do that.” But she is already lowering to the floor with Vaughn’s thick legs on either side of her.

  “I know I don’t, but please. I am the king of ‘Oh God’ massages.”

  She looks up, smiling at him. “Confident are we—shit,” she continues when Vaughn begins rubbing away her knots. “I concede. God, you are the king.” Her head lolls forward, and Mollie can’t help the release a soft, low moan. Vaughn’s hands are a miracle, just strong enough that the touch flirts toward pain, soothing enough that the knots in her muscles vanish under his thumbs.

  “Like that?”

  “I like everything you do to me, Semper Fi.” She smiles at his laugh and his attentions on her shoulders double.

  “Take your hair down.”

  Mollie releases the bun, shifts her fingers through her hair and places the elastic band on the bedside table as Vaughn massages her scalp. “Shit, this is heaven.” The flowers in the vase are still bright and fragrant and Mollie stares at them, taking in the delicate petals and soft texture on the surface. “That was you?” she asks Vaughn, nodding toward the vase.

  His fingers on her scalp continue working. “You were dreaming. You were telling your dad to pick the white ones.”

  Mollie thinks she should be embarrassed that she was talking in her sleep, but if those small murmurs about something she loved in childhood fetched magnolias, then she didn’t really care about being embarrassed. “They’re my favorite.”

  “I’ll have to remember that.” Vaughn pats her shoulder, effectively ending the massage and he places a soft kiss on the top of her head before he gets up to help her off the floor.

  Mollie wants to kiss him, to hold him tight but she hesitates, not sure if Vaughn meant what he said earlier about picking things up after dinner. Instead, she climbs onto the large mattress with him watching her, waiting for an invitation, she supposes. “Where are you sleeping?”

  He sits on her bed, scoots toward her until she is forced to lean back with him climbing over her. “Wherever you want me.”

  “What about your promises?”

  “Fuck my promises.” And then, Vaughn doesn’t need an invitation. He is kissing her, touching her, moving between her legs until Mollie can feel him hard against her, until she is panting and pulling his shirt over his head.

  She lifts her hips as Vaughn slides her shorts down her legs. He touches her, prepares her, but she is ready, wet and warm, without barely a few strokes. “Me dinging my noggin changed your mind?”

  It was meant as a joke, something benign to distract her from how hot the room has become, from how desperate this man makes her. But then Vaughn stops, inches away from filling her and he looks down, expression hard, serious. “Yes.”

  “Oh.” Mollie takes his kiss, the feel of his lips over her bruised eyes, across the gash on her forehead, loves the way his tongue and his dick slip right into her at the same time. He is so full, so thick that her legs move apart, her hips sinking into the mattress to take all of him.

  Vaughn is over her, moving inside her, but his arms are firm, straight, as his hips work and the stare he levels at her, makes it impossible to focus on little else save the low cast of his eyes and the soften features on his face. But she feels him in her, loves the way he pushes in deep and the slow, methodical pump of his hips. “I thought I’d failed you,” he whispers, stilling to rest against her. His next kiss is deep, wet and takes Mollie’s breath away. “I thought I couldn’t protect you.”

  “This wasn’t your fault. None of this.” Those low lit eyes come right to hers when she cups his face between her hands. “And you’re protecting me now. Better yet, you’re protecting the people I love most in the world. You don’t know how much that means to me.”

  Another pump of his hips and Vaughn shudders, moans when Mollie clenches around him. “I think I’m in trouble.”

  “Why?”

  He stills, leaning up on one elbow. “Because I almost knocked that detective out when he offered to take you for a drink.” She laughs. “It’s not funny. I’ve never been like this over a woman.” Vaughn buries his face between her breast and groans, frustrated before he looks back up at her. “I’m a little out of my element here so if I act like a prick, you gotta tell me.”

  “I think I can handle that.”

  And then he tests the limits of what she can handle, picking up speed, clamping down on her hips, moving her leg up for better traction.

  “Do me a favor, Semper Fi?”

  Breathing hard, Vaughn groans again, slowing his movements. “Mollie, you are naked and wrapped around me. I think if you asked me to run through Cavanagh in nothing but my boots and dog tags, I’d break my neck to do it for you.”

  “Not necessary, but thanks.” She hesitates, hopes that her voice is strong enough, expresses her fear without scaring him. “Just don’t get jumpy. Don’t try to do the right thing and push me away again. I… I don’t know if I could handle watching you walk away again.”

  “You won’t have to.” Vaughn’s body is slick against hers, his thick thighs heavy as he moves deeper, but Mollie feels the full weight of him inside her and the slow, lingering kiss he gives her. “I’m here. You just don’t g
et it. Seeing you hurt, seeing your blood and not knowing if you’d…” He shakes his head, blinking quick. “It brought back a lot of things, things I’ll tell you about one day, when I can.” He moves the hair off her face. “I couldn’t handle seeing that again, knowing that I couldn’t stop you from being hurt. It would kill me.”

  She wants to tell him that she understands, that she’s seen enough violence herself for a lifetime—it’s something sad they have in common. But the moment is not right and Mollie doesn’t want to do anything now but reassure him. “Then let’s makes sure it doesn’t happen again.”

  Vaughn smiles, and it is a genuine expression full of hope, of confidence that makes Mollie’s heart swell. “Ooh Rah.” And then he finishes the business at hand.

  The fire on Dunlap Street diverts traffic for four blocks and has pulled every conceivable police cruiser off the roads. The street, in fact, has very little in the way of traffic. As Vaughn drives through Cavanagh, Mollie at his side with her hand resting on his thigh, his gaze fishes around the empty streets, the sidewalks, with only a few stragglers heading in the direction of the blaze.

  “It’s weird, no one being out.” Mollie rolls down the passenger side window, sticking her head out toward Dunlap as they pass. “It’s the old cathedral.” She moves back into the car, pulling her hair out of her face. “Damn. I loved that church.” Again she looks behind them as they head away from the fire. “Oldest one in town.”

  Vaughn lays his hand on her knees, gives it a squeeze. “Sorry, sugar.”

  “I just don’t get how something like that happens in Cavanagh. Everyone is almost anal about keeping things safe and clean. Hell, we’ve got a street beautification group that never has anything to do because townsfolk are always picking up after themselves.”

  “Probably faulty wiring.” Again Vaughn squeezes Mollie’s knee. “You said it was an old building.”

  “Yeah, but the city put in new wiring and a sprinkler system five years ago.” She looks at Vaughn, her eyebrows knitted together. “We keep after our places here, Vaughn. It’s important to everyone.”