Underside of Courage (Beautifully Disturbed Series Book 2)

by Sarah Zolton Arthur

  He doesn’t look at me, but I hear him. Holy fuck, I hear him. “I want to hold your hand.”

  An overabundance of happiness washes all over me, brought on by those six little words.

  I should check myself into a psyche ward and volunteer for electroshock therapy. I should. Because I’m crazy for even entertaining the idea of taking him back. Collin has made promises before. Big promises. He’s gone and done the big apology before. Fool me once. We both know the rest of the saying. If he’s being straight with me about wanting me back, we’re in it. Not for a time, but forever.

  “I want it all or not at all. Not accepting any less. Not with you.”

  “You’ll get it all, Kip. I won’t flake out.”

  “Kayna means well, but you don’t know what I went through.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Chick flick marathon.”

  “I’m sorry…”

  “Umbrella drinks.”

  “I’m so, so sorry…”

  “Pints and pints of Chunky Monkey, man. Chunky fucking Monkey. Do you understand?” I don’t know how he does it, but seeing him bite his bottom lip, biting back a laugh, is enough to get me on the same page as him. Collin can’t hold it in any longer and snorts unexpectedly.

  Yes. It’s official. I’m abso-fucking-lutely crazy.

  I can accept that.

  Once again for Collin, I’ll happily play the fool if there’s a chance he truly means what he says. If there’s a chance I can continue to hold him.

  We lay, sitting up with our backs against the headboard. My arms squeezing him even tighter, my hand holding his head to me to keep us from losing contact, laughing like the fools we apparently are.

  Using the hem of his T-shirt, Collin wipes away watery laughing eyes, sobering up immediately. “You don’t trust me. I haven’t given you a reason to trust me. Kip Daniels, I won’t let you down again. And I’m going to prove it to you. First things first, give me your phone.”

  What?

  Although the request seems odd, I reach inside my pocket to pull out my phone and hand it over to him. I peek, well I attempt to peek, trying to see whose number he clicks from my contacts. Col keeps the phone tipped away so I can’t see. It’s not until he changes the call over to speaker phone, we hear the dialing and then my mother’s voice fills the room that I know.

  “Kip?” she calls through the receiver.

  “Hey mom.”

  “Everything good?”

  “Hope so,” I tell her, and tug Col back closer to me again.

  “If not now, it will be,” Collin tells her. “I love your son, Mrs. Daniels.”

  She sucks in a sharp breath. Way to just go for it.

  “Collin,” she says softly, sweetly. “It’s Rena or Mom.” My mother has tears in her voice. “No, wait,” she amends, clearing her throat. “You call me Mom or Ma. I’ll accept nothing less.”

  “Okay then… Mom, I love your son. When he trusts me enough, I want him to move in with me.” Words said for my benefit more than for my mom’s. “Not moving in with me and Ben, but a place of our own. Both our names on the lease. We aren’t wrong.”

  “No sweetheart, you aren’t. You never were.”

  “Well Mrs.—er—Mom, you’re my first step. I couldn’t admit it to you before, so now I am.”

  “Thank you for calling. Thank you.” Her tears come through the line even thicker now. My mom and her crying. But shit, I get her. Collin just called my mother to tell her that he loves me. I mean, how huge is that? He kissed me in public and told my mom he loves me, so he has to be serious. He has to be. Col has never since I’ve known him ever been so down with public displays or pronouncements. “Kip?”

  “Yeah Mom,” I respond.

  “I’ll um… call you later?”

  “Looking forward to it. Love you.”

  “Love you too, baby boy. Oh, and Collin, you might not believe me, but I started loving you when you visited, when you brought my boy home. Even when you broke up, that didn’t change. Just so you know.” Without another word she hangs up on us.

  Collin says nothing.

  I say nothing. What I do do, is push the phone back inside my pocket and then bring my arms back around him, to hold onto my man. Yep. He’s most definitely my man again. And I will most definitely never let him go again.

  For a while it’s easy to forget the world continues to spin outside his bedroom. For a while it’s easy to forget we have problems bigger than our love life. His head on my chest. His hand resting on my abs. His bent knee resting on my thigh. I close my eyes, breathing in the scent of him. So familiar. Peaceful.

  Until his phone vibrates.

  We both feel it. He pulls the phone from his pocket, there’s a text from Errol.

  Any luck? The text asks.

  Collin laughs. “How should I answer that one?” He asks out loud, but I’m not sure he’s actually asking me.

  “Maybe we should wait to tell them…until we’ve found Elle.”

  “I don’t want to wait to tell anyone ever again. Kip, you’re mine. I love you. And if you hadn’t forgiven me now, I mean you have forgiven me? We are together?”

  I don’t even answer with words, bringing my hands up to tip his face so he’s looking at me, I bring my lips to his. More than just a touch, the kiss needs to communicate everything. When his lips part, I slide the tip of my tongue inside to touch the tip of his. His hand moves from lying flat on my abs to gripping my shirt. We don’t take the kiss any further, it’s a kiss to communicate not to start anything. It seems we’re both on the same page, just needing to feel that our healing has begun.

  “I love you Col. You must know I never stopped.”

  “I know.” He raises his hand to slowly swipe his thumb over my bottom lip. A very intimate move. “If you hadn’t forgiven me, I would’ve come at you. Again and again, until I wore you down. I’m done denying you. I don’t know how to explain it, that moment it clicked. But Jesus Kip, it clicked.”

  “You don’t have to explain it, baby.” I can’t help squeeze him a bit tighter when his eyes glint with so much happiness. He loves that endearment, his endearment. “I’m just glad you got there.”

  “We need to go now, though. We still need to look for Elle.”

  He’s right. We need to get up from his warm bed, and I need to release him from our even warmer connection. But I don’t. I keep ahold of him, he keeps ahold of me, arms locked lovingly around each other. We manage to scoot down the bed resting both our heads on the same pillow. Not sleeping. Thinking. Holding. Feeling I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.

  We might have stayed locked together the entire night if not for the texts which begin to blow up both mine and Collin’s phones. Texts from Bri. Another text from Errol.

  The happy mojo we’ve kept going thus far begins to slip away. Not completely. I’m still holding Collin in my arms. We’re still going out to look for Elle together, but we have to still go out to look for Elle together. For the first time since I found out Elle disappeared, I feel like I’m about to crash. With no sleep all night and the emotional wringer Col and I have been pulled through because of our missing friend and our reconciliation, I need to catch a few zees or I don’t know how much help I’ll be when we go out searching again.

  I look over to Collin when I hear some heavy breathing. He beat me to it, laying sound asleep. Well, that decision’s made.

  Unfortunately we slept longer than I’d intended us to sleep. Having gotten back to Collin’s apartment around eleven this morning, snuggling together on the bed, feeling more comfortable than I’ve been in a month, who could blame me?

  After a couple of late lunch, early dinner bowls of Lucky Charms, we picked up the search for Elle around three in the afternoon. And we haven’t stopped since, except for the occasional ice tea or bathroom break. So now we’re rounding the bottom of the nine, that is, nine o’clock at night. It’s been a long, frustrating night by the time we enter the lobby of the Portho
le Motel.

  “You boys need a room?” The old man behind the check in desk asks us. The fourth dodgy, pay by the week, pay by the hour, cash money motel we’ve checked out in our sector of the city tonight.

  “No we’re—”

  “It’s fine. Get lots of you boys in here. Let me guess, check in under Seymour Butts?” The old man actually asks.

  Col shakes his head slowly.

  “BJ Richards?” The man pushes. “He comes in here more than any other. Never looks the same either. Chameleon, that one. Don’t like it, all the sneaking around.” His words start to raise my hackles. Good thing he continues before I lash out. “Shouldn’t have to hide who you are. I might be old, don’t mean I can’t see when somethin’s wrong.”

  “We’re not—” Collin starts again.

  That’s as far as he gets when the old man finishes, “Ah well, I make a lot of money off you boys, keeps the place goin.’ She may not look like much, but the sheets are clean.”

  “Sir.” I’ve lost patience now. “We’re not here for a room. We want sex, we have a bed at home.”

  That gets his attention.

  “We’re actually looking for someone who might have already checked in. A woman. About yay tall.” I lift my hand to neck height. “Blonde. Curvy. She might look a little out of it.”

  “Sorry son, I’ve been here all day, haven’t checked in any woman that description. She meetin’ a fella? Women only check in by the hour anymore, you know what I mean.” He winks a knowing wink. The kind of wink which says he’s seen a lot over his years.

  Well, crap. Another bust.

  We’re running out of motels on our end. While I thank the man for his time, Collin shoots off a quick dead end text to Errol.

  Once we hit the last motel on our list, a motel that’s once again a bust which means we’ve exhausted all our leads, Col and I decide to head back to the apartment to regroup, wait for Benton to get home and see what we can pull together for tomorrow.

  Collin lets us in the apartment. We’d swung by Jade Palace to get a couple orders of orange chicken before coming back. Priorities. A man has to eat. He holds the door open for me, shutting and locking it as I kick off my shoes.

  I see Col staring at me. He’s staring where he seems to see me, yet he’s somewhere in his head as well. “What?” I ask him.

  He shakes his head, almost like he’s clearing it. “You remember that night after Henry Ford?”

  “Yeah…” Although it ended on a high note, we took a roundabout way to get there.

  “We’ve only just gotten back together. So if you’re uncomfortable, I understand.”

  “Uncomfortable with what? Try to complete a thought here.”

  “Can we do that? I mean, remember beers and orange chicken… in bed… watching a movie?”

  Maybe I’m continuing on a fool’s errand, but as before, I can accept that. Orange chicken and beer in bed? Bring it on.

  “You get the beers. I’ll get the plates,” is my only response. Though by his look of sheer relief and joy, it’s most definitely the right response.

  While Col fishes the beers from the fridge, I pull the plates out of the cupboard and pile heaping mounds of white rice and orange chicken, setting the plates each on a tray. He hands over my opened bottle then we walk back to his bedroom.

  “How do you want to play it?” I ask.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Henry Ford night, we disrobed down to our boxers and got comfy under the covers. We want to go that route or stay strictly above the blanket for now?”

  He pins me with the look.

  I laugh. How stupid of me. Of course he’d want to recreate that night down to our underwear. He’s the one who brought it up.

  “Fine,” I draw the word out, rolling my eyes, as if undressing for him hassles me in some way.

  Not.

  I keep his tray steady as he climbs in to the bed after having discarded his T-shirt and jeans, then he does the same for me. Watching closely, I might add, as I lift the fabric up over my head. Even closer as I unbuckle my belt, unzip my jeans, slowly teasing for his benefit, and let them drop to the floor. It sucks we have to wait for Benton to get home because the heat level in here just shot up by twenty degrees. Consequences be damned, I am so ending the night naked with my man.

  Chapter 30

  Collin

  Kip picks up the remote, pressing the On Demand button and scrolls through the list of titles, asking my opinion, unlike the night of Henry Ford. We decide on a movie about a kid who wakes up inside these unescapable cement walls, outside they’re surrounded by dangerous mazes, starring the kid from that Mtv show.

  We drink beer and eat our orange chicken, and slowly I find we’ve moved closer to each other, a scoot here to adjust, a slide there to readjust, until our thighs touch under the comforter. When I’ve finished and he’s clearly finished, Kip takes both our trays back out to the kitchen. I hear some clinking coming from out that way, then he returns with two open bottles of beer. Handing them off to me, he slides back in under the blanket close enough to touch me on purpose.

  I hand him off his drink to which he takes a small pull before leaning over to set the bottle on his bedside table. Righting himself, Kip wraps his arm around my back, tugging me closer at the waist. We fall back naturally into our positions, meaning my head rests on his chest, his chin rests on the crown of my head. And we spend the next hour watching the movie. Until I decide we’ve seen enough of the movie and place a kiss tenderly above his heart.

  When his hold around me tightens, I kiss him again, trailing each one up a path to the dip at his throat, then to his Adam’s apple, his chin, jaw and finally, finally those beautiful, beautiful lips.

  “I know we’ve only just gotten back together today,” I tell him breathily. “But I want you so badly. So, so badly Kip. Tell me if it’s too soon for you.”

  “You gonna break my heart again?”

  “I can’t see the future, but I can promise you where I’m at now… never again.”

  “Then have me, baby.”

  We go at each other slowly. Apart for a month, tonight has to be real for him. Special. At times it’s hard to keep the slow because damn if he doesn’t smell good, feel good, taste good.

  My lips find every inch of his body, having been starved from the man for so long. And when I take him deep in my mouth, the look of pure ecstasy he gives makes me question how I could have ever been such an asshole to deny him, to deny myself, any of the moments we missed out on during the past month due to my supreme stupidity.

  And I work him over. With everything I have in me, I work him over using my lips, tongue, cheeks and hands until his breath comes at me in pants.

  Until he pushes me away breathing out, “not yet.” Heavily. Very heavily, and he takes his turn taking me in his mouth.

  Oh lord. Kip positions himself between my knees. One of his long fingers he uses to caress the sensitive skin below my balls. The other hand he uses to stroke my length, moving in tandem with his mouth. Then Kip sucks me in deep. So deep his cheeks hollow out. When that happens, I just about lose my mind.

  He’s killing me.

  Though, if you have to go, death by blow job isn’t such a bad way to do it.

  We go back and forth several rounds this way, intermittently pausing for long, languid kisses. I thought I could keep this going all night, but then we reach one kiss too many and I need him, need him.

  “Now,” I manage to tear my lips away from his long enough to whisper.

  Kip stills. He runs the tip of his nose along mine, pecks my lips one more time, then reaches for the lube and foil packet he set on the pillow next to my head. He readies me and himself and then… magic.

  The man feels so good.

  Okay. Wow. Shit. How I’ve missed this, missed him.

  I know I’ve thought it before but no one feels as right as Kip. He’s a gentle lover, giving his heart while taking my body. How could I have ever considere
d this wrong? Us wrong? How could anyone consider us wrong? How can loving someone be wrong?

  Answer: It’s not. We’re not.

  And for the first time in my life, I honestly believe it.

  “I love you,” I whisper as he glides inside me. “I… love… you.” My whisper becomes a whispered pant as I work my cock while he works the other part of me.

  I try to focus on him above me but can’t keep my eyes open, my heart pounding in my chest, electricity sparking at the base of my spine. I feel it coming.

  Starbursts flash through the blackness behind my closed eyes, and I cry out his name, “Kip!” coming all over my stomach.

  After a few more minutes his release comes too. Not caring about the mess on me, he pulls out, collapsing his weight on me to place a deep, wet yet loving kiss on my lips.

  “I’m gonna go take care of things,” he says. “Then we’d better get at least partially dressed for when Benton gets home.”

  “As selfish as it makes me, all I want is to sleep naked next to you. Tonight of all nights, you know?”

  “I know. We’ll have plenty of time for that, baby. We can’t really take care of him while walking around with bare asses and our dicks swaying.”

  Kip pushes up from me and rolls out of bed. I watch him the whole way into the bathroom thanking the universe once again that it pushed us together in the first place, and that despite my issues and the way I sent him away, he was willing to give me, to give us, another shot. I’m determined for our shot to strike dead center.

  While my man cleans up in the other room, I hear my phone ding with a text. Before he gets back, I lean down to snatch my jeans from the floor where they’d fallen to retrieve my phone. The text is from Errol. Benton’s passed out drunk on our sofa. We’ll bring him back tomorrow.

  Relief.

  Guilt.

  As much as he needs me tonight, I can’t help but be glad we don’t have to deal with him tonight, too. He’s always taken care of me. And I’ve taken care of him. It’s how brothers do.