Fowl Play (Tuft Swallow)

49. Brian

CHAPTER 49

Lily’s words sink in, and it starts to make sense why Kodi’s pulling away from me. She’s always been the one everyone counted on.

From her coach, to her team, to her boss… Kodi thrives on being capable. On being the best: the star player, the knowledgeable captain, the perfect office manager. But when it comes to leaning on others, or when she just can’t do something, it kills her.

“She’s gonna get drenched,” she sniffs, watching her friend jog off towards the parking lot.

“We are too, when we go back.” Another peal of thunder rumbles in the distance, and the wind picks up. Kodi’s bare shoulders shiver, and I take in her form again.

She’s so beautiful.

Today, she’s in an adorable little sundress that shows off her freckled, golden skin. I’ve got a great view of the hint of cleavage that peeks beneath her neckline as I wrap my arms around her from behind and dip my chin to lean against her shoulder. Her lean legs stretch out in front of her, a black brace cutting off the long curve of thigh into calf, and I swallow the lump that rises in my throat as my gaze tracks back up her feminine form.

The mental image of that dress soaking wet, transparent and plastered to her waist and hips, is enough to make me want to carry her back to the car right now.

But instead, I wrap my arms around her from behind, encouraging her to lean her weight back into me. She’s still shaking with sobs, and all I want to do is take all that weight and pressure from her. Like Lily, I want her to need me. To lean on me.

Well, maybe not quite like Lily…

I don’t know what today’s paper said about me, but I can make an educated guess. Zeke made it obvious enough with his comments yesterday that he and I had dated; of course the town gossips would jump on that.

But surprisingly, I find that I don’t care. None of my friends did. Nick, Caleb, and all of the other teammates let that information totally wash over them, as if it didn’t even matter.

Because it doesn’t, I realize. They’ve met the real me. We work together, train together. No friend is going to hold something like that over my head. Just like they don’t treat me any different because I’m bi.

Even Mr. Woodcock didn’t treat me poorly at golf this morning, which is surprising, considering he’s one of the Tit Peepers. The only people who did were the ones who would have been jerks anyway, like Coach.

It’s weird how I hadn’t even realized how much that meant to me until this moment, how it didn’t sink in until I saw how much the article affected Kodi. And then her words from yesterday ring in my head.

“I want to believe that this town is full of kind, understanding people. But the truth is, everybody’s down for some schadenfreude. And for some reason, I’m always the one that everybody loves to see suffer.”

“Why do you care so much what they think?” I mutter into her skin. She freezes.

“Huh?”

“Lily doesn’t care about whether or not you win the championship. Callie, Nick, me—none of us care about that. Why does it matter what anyone else thinks?”

She shrinks even smaller within my hold, and I squeeze her tighter. She’s not going to escape from me this time; I won’t let her.

“You don’t understand. In this town?—”

“You’ve got plenty of people who appreciate you for exactly how you are,” I finish for her. “Whether or not you win some silly championship. You’ve got patients who trust you to get them in and out of their appointments. You have friends who show up to girls’ night every Monday because they want to hang out with you. You’ve got a boyfriend who thinks you’re the strongest woman–” my tongue gets thick in my mouth, and I clear my throat. “It’s just…I can’t believe how strong you are, baby girl.” Her fingers grip my forearms and squeeze. “Why does anyone else matter?”

I feel her mouth open, but no sound comes out. She stays like that for a moment, as the sky darkens and rain begins to pound in earnest against the roof of our little shelter. When she does finally speak, I almost can’t hear her over the roar of the storm.

“I don’t know.” She turns in my hold, catching my gaze with hers, brown eyes glistening with leftover tears. “You really think I’m strong?”

I adjust our position until we’re facing each other, and she’s in my lap with her legs wrapped around my waist. “I think you’re extraordinary.”

Her brow furrows.

“And strong,” I add. Just to make sure there isn’t any confusion about that. “And you know what else?”

“What?”

Her blotchy cheeks radiate heat as I bend my forehead to rest against hers. I let my hands wander the smooth skin of her upper back, walking my fingers down the back laces of her dress until they can cup the glorious curve of her ass in my lap. “I think I’m falling for you.”

“Now?” She hiccups.

“Mm-hmm.”

“But this is like, my lowest moment!” She tries to pull out of my embrace, but I squeeze her tighter. She struggles for about half a second before she goes limp, then finally rests her arms on my shoulders and sinks into my hold. “I’m pathetic and weak and can’t even stand up against your ex for you.”

“None of that is even the littlest bit true.”

“It is,” she argues.

I slap her ass cheek, and she grunts in surprise. “Will you stop lying about the woman I lo-like already?”

We both instantly tense. Fuck.

I tried to save it, but the hardness of her body proves she heard me almost say it. The L-word.

You did it again, Brian.

Just call me Mr. Overcommits. It’s one thing to say I’m falling for someone–that’s sweet and innocent, that’s the thing it’s okay to say after only dating a couple months.

We haven’t even been really dating for most of that.

“Do you really feel that way about me?”

I sigh. Here it comes. She’s going to push me away, like everyone always does whenever they realize I’m a crazy person that falls way too hard, way too fast. I grip her tighter, trying to hold on for just a few more seconds until she breaks away, staring at me.

I didn’t even get to be a real partner to her.

And now it’s going to be all over.

“Yes, Kodi. I can’t help it. I love you. I’m sorry.”

She tilts her head until her lips graze across the sensitive skin where my neck meets my shoulder. I hold back a shiver. “Why are you sorry?”

“Cause now you know the truth. You’re not the weak one here, Kodi, I am. I always fall in love too fast, and it scares everyone away.”

An agonizing moment stretches between us as I try to soak up the last bit of heat from her body while she’s letting me. She’s going to pull away any second. In three, two, one…

“I’m not scared.”

Lightning flashes bright enough to illuminate the whole forest around us, and the clap of thunder that follows explodes so loudly we jolt apart, staring into each other’s eyes. The wind blows a stream of cold rain into the shelter, spraying us with its fury. Goosebumps erupt over both of our exposed flesh, and I watch the hair on her arms rise as she reaches towards me.

“I’ve never loved someone before,” she admits. “Is it–does it actually feel like butterflies in your stomach whenever you see the person? Or when they hold you, is it like—like you could just melt into their arms and the world wouldn’t matter?”

All the air leaves my lungs. “Y-yeah, sometimes.”

“And when their fingers brush against your skin…” she lifts my wrist and returns it to the back of her waist, where the strings criss-cross over the hint of bare spine just above the skirt of her dress. My nails graze the exposed sin, and she shudders in a way that has nothing to do with the wind. “Does it make your stomach, and your insides, pull almost?”

The familiar tug she’s describing throbs below my belt, and I nod. “Technically, that can just be lust, I suppose…” Now I’m just word vomiting nervously, as her fingers start to play across my ribcage the way mine are tickling at her back.

She shakes her head. “It’s different. I know what horny is. I don’t feel that here.” She splays her hand across my lower stomach, so fucking close to my growing erection I feel heat spread through me like wildfire. “Or here,” she adds, pushing her other hand onto my sternum until I fall backwards, dragging her with me until she’s straddling me on the picnic table.

“I have condoms now,” I blurt out like an idiot.

“You know I’m on the pill.”

“I know, but you’d said you weren’t ready, and I was waiting for you to broach the topic, and?—”

“I’m ready now.”

“What’s that?” My voice comes out half-strangled, as my dick is now pushing so hard against my zipper I feel like I’m about to explode. Kodi Gander is sitting on my torso, her injured leg stretched above me to the side of my head, her arms rubbing up and down my chest like she’s kneading dough. I can feel her ass teasing at the head of my straining cock.

Her eyes sparkle, all traces of tears gone. “I want you. All of you. I’m ready now.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “Baby girl, I don’t want you to do this just so I don’t feel bad about saying I lo–”

Her lips crash into mine, and she’s pushing my mouth open with her tongue. Claiming me, devouring my mouth in a way I’ve never felt before. Oof—and there’s the lust. The tugging in my khakis becomes almost unbearable as she sweeps the inside of my mouth, tangling me in her hungry kiss like a woman starved.

Another gust of wind coats us in a sheen of rain, and she redoubles her efforts, pressing her entire body against mine and grinding down onto my lap like no virgin I’ve ever been with before. Even with one leg injured, she swivels her hips like a pro, and I break away from her lips on a groan.

“I’m not doing this because I pity you,” she pants. “I don’t pity you. I would never do that to you.”

We’re both breathing heavy. “Then why–”

“I want to know what it feels like to have the man I love inside me.”